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From The Spectator-
22.11.2018 - By Brendan O'Neill
Brendan O’Neill on
the singling out of Israel for Leftist opprobrium
This well-argued
Spectator piece by Brendan O’Neill is behind a paywall, but I’ve put some
excerpts from it below. His argument,
with which I happen to agree, is that the singling out of Israel among all
states for special opprobrium by the Left reflects anti-Semitism constantly
disguised with the euphemism “anti-Zionism.” As you’ll see in the excerpts
below, O’Neill answers some Leftist arguments for why Israel deserves to be
singled out, and, at the end, he argues that the hysterical anti-Israel
sentiment of the Left may be responsible for the rise in anti-Semitism in the
West.
Airbnb has taken the
extraordinary decision to stop advertising homes for rent in Jewish settlements
in the West Bank. It is extraordinary because Airbnb still advertises places to
stay in Tibet, a place many Tibetans consider to be unjustly dominated by
China. And in Crimea, recently annexed by Russia. And in Northern Cyprus, a Turkish-ruled
statelet since the mid-1970s, which only Turkey recognises as a legitimate
state, and to which Turkey has sent huge numbers of settlers in recent decades.
Why are Turkish settlers less offensive to the Western conscience than Jewish
ones? Why is it OK to rent a holiday apartment in Turkish-settled Northern
Cyprus but not in Israeli-settled parts of the West Bank? Anyone?
What’s more, you can
still get Airbnb places in countries which in recent years have executed far
worse acts of war and militarism than Israel has.
. . . It is only
Israeli-claimed territory that is singled out. It is only Jewish settlements
that are punished. It is only apartments being offered for rent by Jewish
people who believe in the idea of Greater Israel that are delisted. Only those
people. But we shouldn’t be surprised. It is always only those people. Israel
is always singled out. It is treated by right-on Westerners as being more
wicked, more toxic, more evil and more destructive than any other state on
Earth. That is why they boycott it, rage about it and take to the streets about
it in a way they never do about Turkey, Saudi Arabia or anywhere else. They
hate Israel more than any other place. The question is: why?
Their attempts to
answer this question of why are spectacularly unconvincing. ‘Our governments
support Israel, so we have a special responsibility to kick up a fuss about
this’, they say. Our governments support the Turks and Saudis too. ‘The Israeli
conflict is an old and bloody one and deserves our attention’, they insist. The
Turk-Kurd conflict is old and bloody too. ‘Palestinians are asking us to take
these kinds of actions against Israel’, they protest. The Kurds would also like
some solidarity, only you can’t hear them over the din of your obsessive, myopic
loathing of Israel above every other state. Their attempts to explain why — why
they loathe Israel so much — only makes the whole thing more mysterious.
And then they wonder
why some people think there is a whiff of anti-Semitism to this peculiarly passionate
contempt for Israel and for every piece of fruit, piece of art and piece of
academic literature it produces. They wonder why some people think the line
between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is an increasingly thin one and that
perhaps the special hatred for Israel might have echoes of the older special
hatred for Those People.
‘It is not
anti-Semitic to criticise Israel!’, they say. And they are absolutely right.
Every single nation and government should be up for debate, ridicule, protest.
But we aren’t talking about straightforward criticism of Israel here. We are
talking about the singling out of Israel above all nations for a ceaseless and
intense programme of boycotting, protesting and hysterical accusations,
primarily that Israel is ‘genocidal’, ‘apartheid’, ‘racist’. Show me the
gathering of 100,000 people in London who said those things about Saudi Arabia
and then I’ll buy the idea that Israel is just being criticised as all other
states are criticised.
It is becoming so
clear: hating Israel is now second nature in certain Western political circles
and this is unquestionably stoking up prejudice. If you treat the Jewish State
as nastier and more insane than any other state, then please do not feign
surprise when anti-Jewish sentiment increases.
. . . It looks
increasingly ridiculous to deny that respectable Westerners’ singling out of
the Jewish State for special punishment is stoking racist Westerners’ singling
out of the Jewish people for special hatred.
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