THE HAZARD OF DUKE
Recently, an academic, posted to her union’s (UCU) discussion list a link to an article from David Duke’s web-site. David Duke is former Imperial Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and possibly the most infamous white-supremacist in the English speaking world. The administrators of the UCU list have correctly suspended her.
She has claimed that she did not know, and presumably therefore that she could not reasonably have been expected to know, that this was a far-right hate-site.
So here is the link, see for yourself (warning this links to a Nazi web-site, you may find the content offensive)
The top item on the right hand menu is the link to a video by David Duke. This shows a film of Duke holding a book called “Jewish Supremacism”, he mentions by name Jewish American politicians as being responsible for the Iraq war, and claims that the America was manipulated by a “Zionist fifth column” into waging a war in Israel’s behalf. He invites you to buy his book that explains his belief that Jewish Supremacists have huge influence on world events.
If you skipped the video, you could check out the links on the right hand side, with titles such as:
“Jewish Supremacism by David Duke – a worldwide best seller”, follow the link and you will read a boldly racist text, that mixes together mediaeval religious anti-Judaism, with the Protocols of Zion, and modern anti-Semitism. Here is a taster:
“Organized Jewry can be clearly shown to have had world-wide strategic objectives since the beginning of the last century. For instance, an early 20th Century goal of Russian and World Jewry was the overthrow of what they considered to be the anti-Semitic, Czarist government of Imperial Russia. Jewish communities around the world supported the establishment of a proto-Jewish Communist regime in Russia. They provided most the leadership and financing 22 for the “Russian Revolution,” a revolution that was actually more Jewish than Russian. Its chief financier was the New York Jewish Capitalist, Jacob Schiff. 23
One of the many startling documents I cite comes from the National Archives of the United States. It reveals that in the first government of Communist Russia there were only 13 ethnic Russians and more than 300 Jews out of a total of 384 Commissars. 24 Let that startling fact sink in: there were only 13 ethnic Russians in the first Bolshevik government of the “Russian Revolution.” The chief correspondent of the London Times in Russia at the time described it as nothing short of an “alien invasion” and takeover of Russia by Jews. 25 The same was said by our American ambassador to Russia, David Francis, 26 and by American intelligence officers in Russia. Even Winston Churchill described the Russian Revolution as a takeover by Bolshevik Jews that had “…seized the Russian people by the hair of their heads and become the masters of this enormous empire.” 27 This is just a small preview of the many startling documents you will find in this book.
The successful overthrow of a major national Government (and murder of its ruling family) as part of a world Jewish agenda shows that even in the early days of the 20th century they had considerable world-wide economic, political and media power. In the years since, their power has grown exponentially. Most people are still completely unaware of the paramount role of Jewry in the origins of Bolshevism in Russia and the spreading of Communism throughout the world.”
There is a helpful picture with the caption “No War for Israel”, with a number of Israeli politicians in a montage with a number of American politicians – all of whom are Jewish.
Even if you don’t follow any of these links to look at the articles, you could glance at just the titles of the articles on the front page, all by David Duke:
Black Population Welfare Bomb Ticks
Is Russia the key to White Survival?
The Hypocrisy of Jewish Supremacism
Facts About Black Crime in America
The Costs of Immigration
Innate Intellectual & Psychological Differences
Race and Crime
Race Information Library
Racial Differences
So it is immediately obvious to anyone who visits it with a remotely critical outlook that this is a far right, anti-Semitic and racist web-site.
What is more, the article itself that she shared does itself lean towards anti-Semitism. Let us see what the author, Joe Quinn, says:
Yet the Israeli government does a very good job of convincing the whole world that it is the victim in the conflict. How can this be? Israeli control of the press? Could that ubiquitous “conspiracy theory” actually be closer to a conspiracy fact? I don’t really care, all I want is for someone to explain to me how, in a situation where there is massive evidence that 1.4 million completely isolated Palestinian civilians in the Gaza strip are being systematically murdered and starved by the state of Israel with its shiny 21st century military and all the tax dollars and support America can muster, yet somehow the entire world believes that those 1.4 million dispossessed are “evil terrorists” and “only have themselves to blame”. Somebody, please tell me how it comes to pass, if not by control of the mainstream press, and very significant control at that.
… I am also waiting on someone to explain to me what mechanism exists to ensure that these details are systematically denied to the international community, and how Israel is promoted in the mainstream press as the ‘victim’.
The author is not content to see the pro-Israeli bias of the mainstream media as being a general case of political bias in pursuit of US government policy. He argues that there is a specific mechanism – that may be an international Jewish conspiracy – that systematically ensures a pro-Israeli bias.
Personally, despite the fact that this article does contain a persuasive argument about Israeli oppression of the Palestinian, and several useful facts and arguments, I wouldn’t touch it with a barge-pole, because it recycles Jewish conspiracy arguments.
The fact that such Jewish conspiracty theory is alluded to in the article is presumably why it found approval from David Duke, and why he reproduced it in the first place. This illustrates perfectly how the far-right anti-Semites are seeking to exploit and piggy-back on the Palectinian solidarity movement to try to rehabilitate their vile creed.
What is remarkable is why so few left activists are prepared to challenge this, rather than making excuses for it.
It is incumbent upon the left and the Palestinian solidarity movement to both be aware of the conscious effort of far-right Anti-Semites to infiltrate the movement , and also to vigorously oppose and exclude these anti-Semites. Association with the likes of David Duke is extremely damaging for the Palestinian movement.
By linking to this article, that gave credence to anti-Semitic myths of Jewish conspiracy, and that was hosted by a notorious and obvious neo-Nazi she was at least exhibiting an indifference to anti-Semitism. We have already seen such tolerance of Anti-Semitism in the debates over IndyMedia’s moderation policy, and socialists providing a platform for the anti-Semitic Gilad Atzmon.
In the specific case of the campaign within the UCU for an academic boycott of Israel ( a campaign I broadly sympathise with, although I am not sure it is currently tactically well-judged) then linking to David Duke’s site has allowed Zionist opponents of the boycott easy ammunition for falsely slurring the pro-Palestinian campaign as anti-Semitic.
Being politically naïve is not a shooting offence, and blindness to anti-Semitism is not the same as anti-Semitism. But her supporters are making the issue worse.
To claim that linking to David Duke’s site is an understandable mistake that anyone could make is simply not true. You need to be wilfully blind to not only anti-Semitism but also racism to not detect that this is a far-right hate site. The racism and anti-Semitism is not even coded. (This is nothing to do with the woman who posted the link to Duke’s site coming from Eastern Europe – I can assure you that Anti-Semitism is a live issue there, so any politically aware person from Mitteleuropa would have come across the arguments.)
To claim that contents of the article itself are unproblematic rather ignores the fact that it clearly gives credence to theories of a Jewish conspiracy.
So what of the involvement of the pro-Zionist web-site Harry’s Place?
Firstly, someone on the UCU discussion list is leaking e-mails to HP. There are those who complain that HP publishing these is a breech of confidentially. Welcome to the Internet! Get over it. There is no such thing as a closed discussion list on the internet, and there is no such thing as confidentiality on the internet. This is the new landscape with regards to confidentiality, and you just have to live with it.
Harry’s Place systematically seeks to identify Palestinian solidarity with anti-Semitism, which is part of a political project to discredit anti-Zionism. This has been a stock in trade of supporters of Israel for decades, but HP does so in a particularly unpleasant way.
Again, that simply is part of the political landscape, and the political response to it should be to not give them ammunition, which means that the left needs to police the boundary itself between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism.
But the left also has to be careful that we don’t just assume that any genuine concerns about Anti-Semitism, or more specifically toleration of Anti-Semitism, is just the boy crying wolf. Nor should we assume that people (whether they are Zionist or not) challenging anti-Semitism are motivated by bad-faith. In many parts of the world Anti-Semitism is a real and present danger, and it is slowly rehabilitating itself in Britain as well.
As left-wing political opponents of Israel it is incumbent upon us to challenge anti-Semitism when it surfaces in the Palestinian solidarity movement (and of course everywhere else), not only because it is intrinsically wrong in its own right, but also because it plays into the hands of the Zionists. That also means that we should guard against the idea that anti-Semitism is somehow the lesser evil that we can tolerate in our campaign against Zionism.
Incidently, the following comment from Linda Grant on Harry’s Place sums up the issue well:
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 3:22 pm
Well done Andy. Spot on and cogently argued.
The special pleading going on that folk couldn’t be expected to recognise David Duke’s site as a far-right hate one is a disgrace. It does the Palestinian Solidarity movement a grave dis-service by allowing Zionists to continue to accuse it of harbouring anti-semites or, at best, be uncaring of our association with them and their ideas.
If David Duke isn’t the most famous racist in the world then he’s one of them and hair-splitting doesn’t make his site any less racist. Would it be okay for me to quote neo-nazis in the Ukraine approvingly just because I personally hadn’t heard of them before? It’s a ludicrous argument. There’s naivety but there’s also the uncaring attitude expressed by many Leninists that my enemy’s enemy is my friend. Oh no they aren’t!
Comment by Bill Scott — 28 August, 2008 @ 3:30 pm
“David Duke is former Imperial Grand Wizard of the Ku Klux Klan, and possibly the most infamous white-supremacist in the English speaking world.”
Except that, in Europe, people are probably more likely to have heard of Pim Fortuyn, Jorg Haider, Nick Griffin et al. This attempt to suggest that this poor woman is at fault herself for not knowing who Duke is and for not observing “internet ettiquette” just goes a long way to indicating how much of an internet nerd you are! So much so that you defend racist filth like Harry’s Place over a trade union activist whose only crime is that she spends a little more of her life in the real world than yourself.
Comment by Reality Check — 28 August, 2008 @ 3:40 pm
“reality Check”
I could point out that I was aware of David Duke before the internet was even invented.
But the question here is awareness of anti-Semitism, and taking some basic precautions not to promote anti-Semites, that is nothing to do with the internet, and is about political judgement.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 3:54 pm
But nobody is suggesting that its ‘ok’. She made a mistake she shouldn’t have, was pulled up on it by UCU activists on the same list, and apologised. But aside from, along with HP, trying to keep this story alive (for reasons I really can’t fathom) Andy has also attacked UCU members who don’t like people breaking union rules and posting up whole threads from an activists union discussion list, telling them to ‘get used to it’. I genuinely think, as I stated at the beginning, that he is not thinking through what he is doing. Bloggers hubris is an illness we all suffer from time to time, but Andy, nows the time to pull yourself up. You are a prominant trade union activists yourself and at some level you must see that what you are doing is wrong. I had thought that Phil BC was just being a bit silly, but despite many political disagreements with Andy, I’d always understood that he was a serious labour movement person. Its genuinely disorientating to me the way you are behaving over this. Aside from this this endless speculation about a lecturer in an FE college and what their motivations may or may not have been, purely on the basis of a right wing blog story, is surely irresponsible. Neither of us know this woman, neither of us know what she was thinking when she cut and pasted this story, and neither of us know what her situation at work is. As someone who holds a position in the trade union movement I would sincerely appeal to you to think again.
Comment by johng — 28 August, 2008 @ 3:55 pm
I don’t think anyone here, least of Andy, is unaware of Harry’s Place’s pro-zionist agenda when it comes to discussing Israel/Palestine/zionism/antisemitism. But sometimes in their eagerness to find traces of antisemitism under every stone of the anti-imperialist left they lift, in order to shore up pro-Zionist arguments, HP get it right. In those instances it is better that we acknowledge real mistakes/own goals and do something about them.
Even if the person involved was unaware of David Duke, which is questionable, there were enough extremely dubious formulations used to indicate this was not a straightforward, progressive, anti-Zionist argument.
And good to see Linda Grant stating more nuanced positions viz a viz anti-zionism than she has tended to on HP and Engage on previous occasions.
Comment by David Rosenberg — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:05 pm
It’s hard to avoid thinking that you came up with the title first, and then wrote a piece to go with it.
Like johng, I’m appalled that a labour movement activist should attack the principle of union confidentiality. Welcome to the Internet. Get over it could equally be used to excuse racism, sexism, homophobia or any of the other evils that pollute the bandwidth. The UCU’s activist list states as a condition of membership that discussions are confidential, and the Harry’s Place mole(s) deliberately flout(s)their union’s rules. They do this not to promote free speech in the abstract, but so that they can harass and try to victimise union activists.
The labour movement has a word for people who spy on their fellow workers. Why on earth would you defend their actions?
Comment by chjh — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:10 pm
John
I haven’t “attacked” people for complaining that the confidentiallity of the list has been broken.
I am saying that breaches of confidentiality on e-lists is inevitable, and we all need to behave accordingly. That is part of the new confidentiality landscape. It is my professional opinion that the correct response is not to complain about the breach of confidentiality, but to train people in the knowledge that confidentiality cannot be assumed. That is the advice i would give to any trade union activist - don’t say anything on the internet or in an e-mail that you wouldn’t want to see public.
As it happens, the unfortunate woman has escalated the situation through her own bad judgement, and the poor advice she seems to have been given by others on the UCU list.
The big issue at stake is should we take anti-Semitism seriously or not. You will note that several people have argued that the article itself was unproblematic - whereas in fact it recycled Jewish conspiracy theories. And this case falls into a general pattern, for example links to Gilad Atzmon, the Jew-baiting from Mary Rizzi, toleration of holocaust deniers on Indymedia, and Counterpunch, etc.
What this reveals is that within the palestinian solidarity movement there is what we might call at the very least a blindness to anti-Semitism, and we need to address that.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
#7 “It’s hard to avoid thinking that you came up with the title first, and then wrote a piece to go with it.”
No - I struggled for a title after the piece was writtten, and then this came to me.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:12 pm
David Rosenberg
Those have always been my positions. I do not believe that anti-Zionism is de facto anti-semitic. It depends entirely on motivation and the level of good will one brings to bear on one’s hopes for both communities an the willingness to do the extremely hard work of hammering out some form of plausible arrangement. Work which I don’t see being done. Clearly the Charedii are motivated by Messianic objections. But those who believe that the fate of the Jews as a minority in a putative post-Zionist state is of no interest or significance, in my view are anti-semitic.
Comment by Linda Grant — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:15 pm
I haven’t “attacked” people for complaining that the confidentiallity of the list has been broken.
I am saying that breaches of confidentiality on e-lists is inevitable
Of course, as somebody who likes to leak confidential documents online, and someone who is happy for tonyc to post up the names of active socialists on here, I would expect nothing more than this kind of weasely excuse.
Comment by Jill St Custard — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
Incidently, the claim that someone from Central or Eastern Europe cannot be expected to know of David Duke is a bit odd.
Duke is barred from access to Britain, but not most european countries, and he is personally politically active in Eastern Europe.
He has a PhD from Kiev University, and his books have been translated into Slavic languages, and are big sellers in Eastern Europe.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
Very well said. I especially like the penultimate paragraph. I would add, though, that there is a history of Left-antisemitism also worth being aware of. Antisemitism doesn’t only enter the debate through far-right activists attaching themselves.
Comment by Matt — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:16 pm
The big issue at stake is should we take anti-Semitism seriously or not.
No it isn’t. That was never what this was about. This is about the ability of the pro-imperialist gutter press (which when all is said and done, is what harrys place is) to defame and libel activists who may have made a silly comment in a closed discussion. And about those so-called socialists, like Andy, who defend this.
Comment by Jill St Custard — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:19 pm
Some of this is valid, but we had also better be aware that the boy does cry wolf, and often does so with a vengeance. And its not an innocent prank either - those crying wolf are a variant species of wolf themselves.
There is also a legitimate debate to be had over the role of the Israel lobby in the United States in influencing US foriegn policy. Indeed there is such a debate, including within bourgeois circles about that, with a section of ruling class academics even arguing that the real ‘national interests’ of both the United States and Israel have been harmed by the influence of the Israel lobby.
Incidentally, the Israel lobby is not uniformly Jewish, but includes a significant Christian-Zionist component that really is anti-semitic. It also proudly announces its own existence and influence, and is no secret ‘conspiracy’, despite Duke’s crap reprinted above.
Duke’s attempt to exploit this and extrapolate it back through time is crap to validate the ‘Protocols’ is utter garbage. The Israel lobby in the US is a post-WWII phenomenon caused by the success of the Zionist project in creating Israel. It is based on state-to-state realpolitik and a developing process of social interpenetration between ruling classes in Israel and the US. Prior to that, the Jews were in most parts of the world an oppressed people, albeit one with a nationalist movement that aimed to change that by colonial conquest of someone else’s land. They succeeded, and tranformed the Jews from an oppressed people into (at least in Israel) an oppressor people, with a lesser tranformation into the mainstream in the US. Which is a major change from the situation pre-WWII.
Some elements of the nativist, old far right are trying to exploit this, but we had better understand also that the Zionist far right, those who favour all methods up to and including genocidal ones against Palestinians are in no sense morally superior to Duke. It is in no-sense ‘anti-semitic’ to equate genocidal acts by Zionists with those of the Nazis, even if they have not at this point equalled them in extent. In intent, there is little difference in a great many cases.
To say that it is ‘anti-semitic’ to make such equations is to say that the suffering and deaths of Palestinian victims of Zionism matter less than those of Jewish victims of anti-semitism. It is to say that one form of racism is uniquely evil, and other forms of racism are less egregious. In my view this argument is itself racist.
Nor is it remotely correct to attack Jewish dissidents like Gilad Atzmon, who does not collaborate politically with anyone on the far right, in this way. And at the same time excuse the likes of David T, who is involved in a joint project with Muslim hating fascists, who post under psuedonymns on his blog with his blessing.
I have never heard Gilad Atzmon advocate deporting Arab journalists (or for that matter Jewish ones, which might be more logical from the point of view of this accusation!), just to give one example, but I have seen material by Toube of this type - which would not be out of place on the BNP website.
So why the sonourous warnings about Atzmon - who has at worst a jaundiced view of his own culture and origins but basically channels that into support of those oppressed by his own people - combined with such incredible softness on the likes of Toube who cavorts with people who would like to see all Palestinians either driven out of Palestine completely, or dead?
Toube is not at odds with the culture of his people, is he? He glories in the worst aspects of it, while mocking its progressive elements. He hates the progressive Jew Trotsky and all he stood for, but loves the Jewish reactionary Sharon.
Yes, this Jenna woman was extremely stupid and her actions were reprehensble objectively. Whether they were so subjectively remains to be seen. Yes, we should oppose the pulling of HP on this occasion. But why this solicitousness and softness on HP politically? The way this discussion has panned out, it seems that Andy is even implicitly attacking Tony Greenstein for being soft on anti-semitism. Which is a bit ironic, to say the least.
Comment by ID — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:24 pm
chjh -
I have just watched a Police spokesman attack Tariq Ghaffur. Ghaffur has accused the police of institutonal racism against muslims in general, and discrimination against himself in particular.
The police spokesman says that Tariq Ghaffur has no business airing this ‘private issue’ in public. The spokesman is wrong.
Imagine at your local Union branch, someone handed out National Front literature blaming black immigration for low public sector pay. Imagine you complained to the Branch secretary who couldn’t see a problem. And the Union centrally similarly let it pass.
Then imagine the person came back the next week and handed out the same literature again. Perhaps you challenge them and they claim that the central point - about pay- is sound, and they didn’t notice the racist stuff or the NF logo in the corner. The branch secretary agrees that the leaflet itself makes some excellent points, but in the future the NF logo in the corner should be covered up.
What would you do? Is your understanding of Union confidentiality so absolute that even the value of anti-racism isn’t good enough to overrule it? Would you quietly resign, or would you make a bit of a noise?
Comment by unseen — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:27 pm
Andy,
If anyone said that the article was unproblematic they were wrong. If someone said it could be possible for someone who was’nt an anti-semite but was unfamiliar with the far right to make this mistake then thats a different matter. You note that the escalation was unfortunate, and hold her responsible for this. I don’t understand why you would then choose to escalate the matter further for this ‘unfortunate woman’ as you put it, and can’t really work out the order of priorities in your concerns (ie complaining about a blog vs. the UCU discussion list). If you want to have a discussion about what you percieve to the be the Palestinian Solidarity Movements ‘failure to take anti-semitism seriously’ fair enough. Perhaps we need to that discussion. Just don’t continue to hang it on this woman whom you know nothing at all about aside from what you read on HP. Thats my point. And also you should be careful about implying that UCU members on that list don’t take anti-semitism seriously (I’m not saying you did just saying that what you are saying might be interpreted that way). They spotted this immediately. They didn’t need the help of Harry’s Place to do this. As far as I can tell HP are intent on shutting down that discussion list (this is not an allegation, its simply how it looks to me) along with the Palestinian solidarity campaign within the union. Also, if it helps, the UCU is not run by the SWP even if HP thinks it is.
Comment by johng — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
Dave Rosenberg “And good to see Linda Grant stating more nuanced positions viz a viz anti-zionism than she has tended to on HP and Engage on previous occasions”
Can you give examples of these less nuanced positions on CIF / ENgage posted by Linda ?
Comment by Bennett — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:31 pm
What a great website from: NFL Power Rankings
Comment by nfl power rankings — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:34 pm
Nor is it remotely correct to attack Jewish dissidents like Gilad Atzmon, who does not collaborate politically with anyone on the far right, in this way.
Firstly, Gilad Atzmon is not Jewish. He regards himself as an ex-Jew and seems closest to the religious views of some of the fuzzier ends of Christianity like Quakerism:
Secondly, Atzmon has copious associations with the neo-Nazi Jöran Jermas, who calls himself “Israel Shamir”, and holocaust-denier Paul Eisen. Given Shamir and Eisen’s views, both on the evils of the Left as a whole and on Jewish conspiracy, I think they can reasonably be described as far-right.
Comment by unseen — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:41 pm
#17
JOhn.
Firstly, I haven’t mentioned the SWP at all, this seems to be Christian H’s obsession not mine.
You say: “If anyone said that the article was unproblematic they were wrong. ”
But one of the persons in the UCU most associated with the boycott campiagn wrote on the UCU list (knowing the confidentiality of that list to be compromised, and therefore that their e-mail was likely to be published by HP):
Sue wrote: “Jenna did not post a racist article nor even a link to one. She posted a link to a perfectly reasonable article which, unbeknown to her, was on a website run by a racist on which racist material appeared which she had not seen.”
Now actually, it is not true that the racist material was unseen, becasue if you look at the Joe Quinn article on Duke’s web-page there are the titles of clearly racist articles right in front of your eyes.
But is the argument that there is an Jewish conspiracy to control the media, as Sue puts it “entirely reasonable”.
Doesn’t this damage the boycott campaign?
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:46 pm
Oy, you calling me a racist?…
Comment by unseen — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:48 pm
As someone who is on the UCU activists list, I have the following comments:
There has been a lengthy discussion on the UCU activists list about Israel, the oppression of the Palestinians and anti-Semitism.
Some of the defenders of Israeli human rights abuse of the Palestinians have been crude and engaged in distorting their opponents positions. After this protracted debate they have generally lost the argument on the list and in the union.
Most of the UCU members posting have been supporting some kind of campaign of opposition to the Israeli military occupation and oppression of the Palestinians. These posters have generally been patient, nuanced and well informed. These posters have included Jewish academics who have lived in Israel, alongside many others with long records of opposition to anti-Semitism, racism and fascism. Most of these people posting on this issue can also be identified a solid trades union activists who have histories of building the union, supporting workmates in trouble and resisting the neo-liberal agenda in education. Nevertheless, the supporters of Israeli state policy have been keen to slander all these members as ‘anti-semites’.
I have noticed Delich’s postings before, and often been embarrassed by their insensitivity and crudity. I also noticed that she rarely if at all posted on any other issue. I remember wishing she would stop ‘letting the side down’ and leave it to other supporters of the Palestinian cause in UCU to advance our arguments. The final straw was when she linked to the website of the neo-nazi David Duke! FFS!
Now, I doubt if she is some sort of fascist infiltrator, who knows? She says she is not a racist or anti-semite, and is sorry. Perhaps she is just a fool, or naive, or ignorant. Perhaps she is someone new to trade union and left wing politics. Most of the other posters are all experienced lefty hacks with decades of experience. Who knows what her motive were?
But one thing is clear - she is not representative of the majority of left wing anti-racists who form the backbone of UK Palestinian solidarity work. But now supporters of Israeli state and military policy against the Palestinians can have a mini-field day. they will try and use this as proof that the only possible reason we can have for supporting human rights for the Palestinian people is anti-semitism and neo-fascism! But we all know this is not true. The same left wing activists who form the backbone of the anti-fascist and anti-racist movements also form the backbone of the anti-war and anti-imperialist movements. I have literally spent one week building protests against Neo-nazi holocaust deniers, and the next week building protests in support of Palestinian human rights. And I have seen the same faces and organisations on both protests. I doubt if Delich has been on either. Any random idiot can post on the UCU e-list or on this blogs comments box for that matter.
Barry Kade
Comment by Barry Kade — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:50 pm
Thanks for that Barry, useful input.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:56 pm
Sorry, but Atzmon is Jewish by ethnic origin. So is Eisen, and apparently also Shamir. Its unfortunately the case that much in this world is defined by ethnic origin, and its not possible to renounce that however much you may desire to do so. Atzmon can no more renounce his ethnic origin than anyone else can.
This phenomenon, of some Jews themselves becoming susceptible to Judeophobic attitudes - (not that I am accusing Atzmon himself of that - though some in same ex-Israeli milieu such as Eisen etc. are), is a product of what I said above.
Viz: “we had also better be aware that the boy does cry wolf, and often does so with a vengeance. And its not an innocent prank either - those crying wolf are a variant species of wolf themselves.”
Meaning that many who falsely accuse pro-Palestinian campaigners of anti-semitism are themselves genocidal racists and morally no better than David Duke. That does tend to create some confusion, to put it very mildly.
Comment by ID — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:57 pm
“I am saying that breaches of confidentiality on e-lists is inevitable, and we all need to behave accordingly. That is part of the new confidentiality landscape. It is my professional opinion that the correct response is not to complain about the breach of confidentiality, but to train people in the knowledge that confidentiality cannot be assumed.”
Your professional opinion? oh, thank you. How much for that? I’ve been on a list that was infiltrated and published as well–nasty stuff. I never thought that a socialist would make the argument that trade unionists should ‘get over it’ in terms of expecting confidentiality in collectively discussing union politics. don’t you think the priority, as socialists outside of a list to which we are not (nor should be) privy, should be to trust that trade unionists are adult enough to take care of this themselves without justifying surveillance–which is what your posts here have been doing.
Comment by hollowentry — 28 August, 2008 @ 4:58 pm
#26
It just so happens that security engineering is my professional expertise.
confideniality will be breached - that is a fact of life. That is the reality that needs to be managed. Making confidentiality a condition of list membershi is useful only in settng an expectatin, and providing a pretext for removing people, but you cannot rely upon it being observed.
Welcome to the 21st century.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
I think the left has to be pretty vigilant about this stuff. A few weeks ago I removed a lawyer from Texas from the Marxism mailing list for writing Zionists and Jews interchangeably. And about 2 years ago I unsubbed somebody for going on about Jewish control of the media. And about 5 years ago I removed another subscriber for posting a link to a website that was just as bad as David Duke’s. I have a feeling that the academic in question was just being sloppy, a trait that you would think is inconsistent with scholarly endeavors. I suppose she must be tenured. That breeds laziness and stupidity, I am afraid.
Comment by Louis Proyect — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:08 pm
By the way - on the question of whether these articles contribute to Delich’s predicament.
In neither this article, nor in Phil’s earlier article did we use Delich’s name.
This means that if you google her name, these articles won’t show up (for technical reasons to do with google, using her name in the commenst simply doesn’t have the same internet footprint)
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:23 pm
Louis she is a teacher in a college of higher education. as i stated before much of this emphasis on what academics should or should not do is associated with a wing of the union which is unhappy about rubbing shoulders with such lowly creatures. socialists should be aware of this (working on a college campus as you do I’m sure you can imagine the disquiet this causes amongst the more highly esteemed).
on the question of the need for awareness…yes I think we should be. And as far as one can tell activists on the UCU list were aware. The individual concerned was pulled up on this stuff as soon as she posted it. There was no need for those who publish articles asserting that dictatorship and war (as well as dishonesty of course) is built into the very structure of the Arabic language, to intervene, in order to point this out to Palestine Solidarity Activists.
Andy has now raised the matter of another post by a prominant Palestine Solidarity activist which I won’t comment on because frankly, I’m increasingly uncomfortable having discussions about individual activists on an internal union mailing list on the basis of information supplied by those who campaign against left wing Palestine solidarity activists in my union.
Its a really curious business but I don’t see any point in continuing in this vein.
One understands why Andy thinks we should just get used to it though.
Comment by johng — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:26 pm
Oh but I’m pleased about Andy’s clarification about google.
Comment by johng — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:28 pm
You might want to point this out to Richard, as the Tomb article has a fairly high profile in ggogle, and I am not sure it actually helps her.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
In fact JohnG Google does this to prevent spam/black hat seo
So links put in blogger comments will not impact on your PageRank
Comment by Googler — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
“I never thought that a socialist would make the argument that trade unionists should ‘get over it’ in terms of expecting confidentiality in collectively discussing union politics”
Doesn’t everyone on the left operate as if every conversation is recorded by the state and every email and letter is likely to be infiltrated and leaked somewhere?
Or is that only the actual serious trade unionists, as opposed to those who merely play at it while at university or working in a job where they would never expose their real politics, or going straight from college into a full time SWP organiser job?
Comment by lame excuse — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:41 pm
At risk of appearing ’snobbish’, I’m not sure if it correct to describe Delich as an ‘academic’ as in original story - she actually works for an FE community college, not a university (Big distinction is this snobbish world). Not sure if she even actually teaches there, or is part of administrative / clerical staff. Our union, the UCU organises all grades, not just academics - it is not the old AUT.
Oh, and Louis’s point #28 - none of us have ‘tenure’ here in UK universities any more - Thatcher scrapped that!
In UK universities we do have a distinction between ‘academic staff’ who are on full time, permanent contracts and are usually called ‘Lecturer’, ‘Senior Lecturer’ and ‘Professor’ - and the rest of us!!!. On the next rung down the ‘pecking order’ are a mass of fixed term contract research staff like me - who usually have PhD’s and work on projects.
I think poor old Jenna Delich is far lower down the capitalist hierachy even than this.
So dont imagine some experienced professor made this terrible gaffe - or even some experienced lefty hack - imagine instead a low paid immigrant who has apparently fled from ethnic cleansing in Eastern Europe, according to some reports.
Still, she should know better - even teenage activists I know would not make that mistake.
Comment by Barry Kade — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:42 pm
Barry Kades point is important. I’m beginning to dislike this idea that UCU members just play at trade unionism. Are the people commenting here actually socialists of some description or are they invaders from Harry’s Place? Given some of the derogatory remarks about UCU members here I think its as well to make a distinction.
Comment by johng — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:47 pm
There is difference between saying that confidentiality and privacy are difficult in the 21st century and the internet, and condoning what HP has done. We don’t just do things because we can do them. I have to say if HP is the future of blogging, watch out - see it escalate and get very nasty.
Comment by James — 28 August, 2008 @ 5:50 pm
Those people like johng who support closing down blogs for highlighting people getting their material from Nazi sites are very short sighted and hypocritical.
You can never again accuse people of Islamophobia because it might ruin their careers, even if they are linking to the BNP site.
Clearly you haven’t given this much thought.
Comment by Ed D — 28 August, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
James #37
Yeah, well the thing to grasp here is that HP are political opponents who support Zionism.
And there will be several UCU members who also support Zionism.
So expecting that the UCU discussion list can host a confidential discussion about how to oppose Zionism, when Zionist members of the union are fully entitled to be part of that forum is a triffle niave. And to huff and puff about trade union confidentiality rather misses the point.
It is simply a question of fact that the confidentiality of the UCU list is breached, and as long as they only electively quote thay are probably in the clear with copyright issues as well.
Now, given that some of the contents of the UCU list (”confidential” or not) are already in the public domain via HP, then that is the political terrain that we have to navigate across.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 6:08 pm
PS. You can always tell when johng is in trouble when he starts unilaterially decaring who is a real socialist and who is not.
Comment by Ed D — 28 August, 2008 @ 6:09 pm
In the end Andy, sorry to say this, but the UCUs internal proceedures are none of your chuffing business. And they’re certainly not HPs business. Just saying like.
Comment by johng — 28 August, 2008 @ 6:34 pm
You don’t have to defend every line lenny puts out, John. You are allowed to think for yourself sometimes.
Comment by Ed D — 28 August, 2008 @ 6:53 pm
I think this is fine as far as it goes, but would object to the description of Harry’s Place as a “pro-Zionist” website. Given that the standard we’re operating under here is one in which the UCU mailing list is to be held responsible for material contributed to it by posters, I don’t see how that standard can hold that Harry’s Place isn’t responsible for its comments section. In which case it’s the height of euphemism to describe it merely as “pro-Zionist”; it regularly publishes material calling for the repatriation of British Muslims. I’m surprised that this obvious fact isn’t given more prominence. While Andy is clearly right about the need to be alert to the danger of nutters and obsessives, and on the general point of using ISP terms-of-service complaints as a poor man’s alternative to the gagging order, I would be a lot happier if it was also made clear that Harry’s Place does not come to justice here with anything approaching clean hands.
Comment by dsquared — 28 August, 2008 @ 6:58 pm
I’m all for the anti-zionist movement making clear over and over again how and why it distinguishes itself from any form of racism. In order to do this, it has to defend its position on Israel making clear why it feels this doesn’t fall into the category of racism as understood by the a-z movement. As far as I know this has been done over and over again by the people I know in the movement.
What is peculiar is having lectures from zionists about this. Zionists, who clearly have no sympathy whatsoever with the antizionist position (obviously not, by definition) seem to be constantly demanding that the a-z movement cleans up its act, as if somehow this would or could or should make the a-z movement legitimate. After all, if we were to run the same requirements over zionism (ie that it should purge itself of people who might be racist, might sometimes slip into racist terminology etc etc) then, blimey, it’d fail every time, wouldn’t it? After all, it’s zionists who run a racist immigration system into Israel, who are strangling Gaza, who are dispossessing Palestinians at this very moment on the West Bank (and that’s ignoring every other dispossession historically!),who have produced racist descriptions of Palestinians, of Sephardi Jews and who of course are hand in hand with the US govt whose policies in Iraq and Afghanistan have involved massacres, tortures and economic arm-twisting of the most extreme kind. It is as I say, very peculiar being called to account over words that may well be racist (and no apologies for these) by people who ally with forces and states whose actions (never mind the words) have resulted in misery, despair, mass injuries and deaths. Yes, I’m all for the a-z movement to keep its nose clean, but we’re entitled to ask, “who’s asking?” Who are YOUR buddies?
Comment by MichaelRosen — 28 August, 2008 @ 7:09 pm
Yes Michael #44
But why are you making that point?
We consistently and strongly oppose Zionism here.
As I write above:
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 8:07 pm
Dsquared #43:
“Given that the standard we’re operating under here is one in which the UCU mailing list is to be held responsible for material contributed to it by posters, I don’t see how that standard can hold that Harry’s Place isn’t responsible for its comments section”
How ludicrous. No-one here has ever argued that the UCU is responsible for the comments of its discussion list.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 8:09 pm
er Andy. Thats the entire POINT OF HP’s intervention. For christs sake.
Comment by johng — 28 August, 2008 @ 8:11 pm
Its also what allowed you to conclude (inaccurately in my view) that this incident reflected a wider problem.
Comment by johng — 28 August, 2008 @ 8:12 pm
“What is peculiar is having lectures from zionists about this. Zionists, who clearly have no sympathy whatsoever with the antizionist position (obviously not, by definition) seem to be constantly demanding that the a-z movement cleans up its act, as if somehow this would or could or should make the a-z movement legitimate.” (Rosen)
I think it is because if you clean up your act in time, you will probably not get beaten by antisemites in your own movement, Michael. As a fellow Jew, I wouldn’t like it, as much as I think your political views are ridiculous.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 28 August, 2008 @ 8:13 pm
Dsquared can’t seem to make up his mind whether he wants HP to delete comments or not. If posts are deleted, he accuses us of censorship. If they’re not, he accuses us of tolerating unsavoury views.
He also seems to struggle with the difference between a blog (a small, informal group of people expressing their opinions and inviting public discussion), and an official, moderated union discussion list.
Comment by HP Editor — 28 August, 2008 @ 8:15 pm
“I’m all for the anti-zionist movement making clear over and over again how and why it distinguishes itself from any form of racism. ”
To begin, then, it must in fact not be a form of racism, and it must not communicate using garbled bits of Protocols with the word “Jew” scratched out and the word “Zionist” penciled in instead.
Comment by goodwin sands — 28 August, 2008 @ 8:23 pm
Hiya goodwin sands,
I haven’t seen you around for a wee while.
Personally speaking,
I couldn’t care less what happens to anti-democratic racist toilet bowls such as Harry’s Place bog.
Just as long as honest decent people know what these racist sewers represent - an attack on the rights of others to have their say, such as Muslim folks.
Harry’s Toilet is an attack on democracy, not an example of it and it certainly is not a champion of freedom of expression, unless its freedom to abuse the targets of their racism. It’s the nemisis of open, free, democratic debate and opinion.
Racist toilet bowls like HP take advantage and exploit what they see as weaknesses in liberal democracy.
Racism isn’t an example of democracy, its an example of censorship.
That’s me done.
all the best SU!
Comment by joe90 — 28 August, 2008 @ 8:54 pm
#46: surely you have, at least implicitly? Isn’t the (sensible) point of this post that Palestine Solidarity campaigns have a responsibility to make sure that they don’t get linked with, taken advantage of by, or otherwise associated with anti-semites?
On a related note, presumably you’re not going to allow the comment above mine to continue to appear on your website?
[INDEED I DIDN’T - AN ANTI-SEMITIC COMMENT FROM “JOCK MCTROUSERS” WAS JUST DELETED BY ME - ANDY]
Comment by dsquared — 28 August, 2008 @ 9:12 pm
“Oh, and I hope no-one is going to claim that judaism is not an inherently racist culture.”
Racist racists everywhere and not a drop to drink.
Was there ever more tedious and absurd political debates in the world than the I/P and Anti-semite/Islamphobe ones ?
#52 is a classic !!! Even a johng would laugh.
I’m going to copy it for posterity, in case Andy deletes it.
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 28 August, 2008 @ 9:14 pm
dsquared - that post (unless a joke or a satirical troll or Mossad (!?)) sums up this whole debate.
I hope Andy doesn’t delete it.
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 28 August, 2008 @ 9:19 pm
Oh that’s right, this is the site with ‘Jock,’ innit, the one who never met a Holocaust denier he couldn’t defend. Why doesnt it surprise me to see him plumping for David Duke who’s ‘racist’ and ‘infantile’ but — begad! — ‘right about a lot of things’.
Comment by goodwin sands — 28 August, 2008 @ 9:24 pm
Is “Jock McTrousers” well known then ?
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 28 August, 2008 @ 9:29 pm
#47
Yes HP argues that the link to David Duke somehow reflects badly on the whole of the UCU and on all opponents of Israel.
I disagree with them.
What I think it shows is that some and only some people in the palestinian solidarity movement are too soft on anti-Semitism.
However, the response of trying to close down HP by approaching their ISP, given the popularity and pugnacity of the HP blog was bound to fail.
Quite why JD went down that route I have no idea, but it has made her sitation much much worse and linked her with david Duke in na very hugh profile way.
this was entirely predictable, and her advisoers might care to reflect on their own role in blowing this up to her disadvantage.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 9:38 pm
Andy, what a peculiar point for you to make ie why are you (michael) making this point here?
I’m making the point because, as johng kindly says, this is at the core of what’s going on here. Supposedly, it’s only antizionism that has a problem with racists in its midst. I don’t think so. What’s more, the people making the accusation are sometimes heavily implicated in various forms of racism and racist connections as I’ve outlined above. I come from the sixties when we discovered that a bod can’t claim moral superiority while he’s eg running slave plantations (see Edward Said etc).
Comment by MichaelRosen — 28 August, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
Post deleted - fancy that! OK, Newman, explain to us why it’s ok to link to Harry’s Place, but not to David Duke.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 28 August, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
What always amazes me about these disputes is, the same people who are incredibly sensitive about racism in any other walk of life, and often use the “Islamophobia” card to smear people who want to address the very real problem of Islamism, are so insensitive when it comes to anti semitism and can’t see how hypocritical they are being.
And vica verser.
Racism is the great political football of our times.
Comment by Ed D — 28 August, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
So - it appears real nasty anti-semites post here. And Andy deletes them. OK
On HP David T never deletes anyone from his threads. I have seen extreme anti-semites AND Islamophobes there but most times BOTH are not deleted (sometimes both are, on other threads). If dsquared and ID have proof that only one side is removed show us some evidence. I read the site every day and have contributed to it and would be happy to look into it for them.
Personally I don’t think any comments should be censored on blogs unless they are personally criminally libellous (and that doesn’t include calling people “racists” or whatever IMO).
Comment by MoreMediaNonsense — 28 August, 2008 @ 10:15 pm
Michael #59
“Supposedly, it’s only antizionism that has a problem with racists in its midst”
Who supposes that?
Certainly anyone with any acquaintance at all of Zionist politics would recognise that it embraces some fluffy liberal types who support Israel in general, but are very opposed to its particular policies, who oppose the West bank settlements and want a peaceful and equitable settlement with the palestinians. But Zionism also embraces some fanatical racial-supremacists, out and out fascists and dangerous murderers. Even the Israeli government bans the most extreme Zionist organisation - Kahane!
If you listen to Jerusalam Betar fans, whenever an Arab player touches the ball they chant “Baruch Goldstein loves you all”
So there is a massive problem of racism among Zionists, quite apart from the inherent colonialism of the Zionist problem.
But you know all this, I know all this, so why raise it?
What we are discussing is the sadly true phenomenon of there is a growing indifference towards anti-Semitism in the progressive movement. perhaps I could quote this letter from Michael Rosen in Socialist Workeri:
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 10:39 pm
Going back to unseen’s challenge at #16 - you don’t know much about British unions, do you? You simply would not get away with that in a union branch - even if the branch secretary did not see a problem, the union centrally would. Most unions have explicit anti-fascist policy; most unions are affiliated to either UAF or Searchlight or both; and a number of unions will expel people simply for being BNP or NF members. In my union (leaving aside that I’m the branch secretary) that person’s feet wouldn’t touch the ground. UCU has strong anti-racist policies - why have the ‘complainants’ never tried to used those procedures?
And either you don’t know the facts of the dispute, or you’re wilfully ignoring them. JD posted one link, apologised for it, and was then removed from the list. No repeat behaviour, no attempt to justify it, no attempt by the union to cover it up.
And the police comparison is simply insulting. I was making a specific point about union democracy - a crucial part of union democracy is being able to discuss with other members without the employer knowing about the discussion.
Comment by chjh — 28 August, 2008 @ 10:44 pm
chjh:
“And the police comparison is simply insulting. I was making a specific point about union democracy - a crucial part of union democracy is being able to discuss with other members without the employer knowing about the discussion.”
Tip - don’t use an e-list for that discussion. While your point is entitely true in principle, it is not possible to have a confidential discussion on an e-list.
To use an example of the problem. Royal Mail - for example - are currently victimising a woman from Clevedon sorting office who posted anonymous comments on the “Royal Mial chat” site during the recent dispute.
Basically, the internet is not confidential, e-mails will be leaked, and people can trace back and cheeck who you are much easier than you think.
As there seems to be some confusion over this, my position is that the UCU have done nothing wrong, and the moderators of the UCU discussion list have done nothing wrong.
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 10:54 pm
” Antisemitism imagines the removal or elimination of a group of people from the world system…” Michael Rosen.
Whereas anti-racism and affirmative action imagines looking at areas where races etc are over or under represented and redressing the balance, by already existing legal procedures, for instance by asking if, where a group is hugely over-represented, if that group is engaged in illegal discriminatory practices.
The argument, that to notice that ‘a certain group’ is hugely over-represented is to call for their extermination, is familiar zionist propaganda fare.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 28 August, 2008 @ 10:55 pm
What does ‘over-represented’ mean, Jock? And where does it apply in your world-picture? The word ‘over’ is interesting here, too. Who decides if a certain kind of representation is ‘over’ representation? Are black people over-represented in athletics in your estimation? Are white people over-represented in swimming and cycling? Are the countries round the edges of the old Soviet Union over-represented in weight-lifting? I’ve just heard a programme about knife crime that laid out the stats at the beginning of the programme claiming that 50% of knife crime was done by young black men, 25% by young white men and 25% by young Asian men. The programme then focused almost entirely on the ‘problem’ of young black men. To me that was a form of ‘over-representation’ in itself. But perhaps you’re not referring to this sort of thing. What is it on your mind that brings you to this site? Tell all.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 28 August, 2008 @ 11:08 pm
He means there are too many Jews in the children’s books market.
Comment by Ed D — 28 August, 2008 @ 11:13 pm
Roald Dahlberg, Enid Blystein, J.K.Rowlich, Philip Pullmein, Quentin Bloch, Julia Donaldschein - blimey you’re right…
Comment by MichaelRosen — 28 August, 2008 @ 11:23 pm
This is ever so slightly off-topic, but if someone has any information to add to the bits of gossip that I have picked up today, I would be obliged.
The rumour is going around that HP and Jenna Delich were basically working a fast one to raise their profiles. Now, I took that as a joke when I first heard it, but then I got an e-mail from a mate that I trust that basically said the same thing. I made a jocular comment at my own blog and people are arriving to agree with the theory.
As I say, it’s just something that I’ve picked up, but I would like to follow this through, so if anyone has heard anything maybe they could get in touch?
Comment by Exile — 28 August, 2008 @ 11:34 pm
Definitions of racism, Jock, don’t have to comply with whatever procedures anti-racist affirmative action might think up. You seem to think that the apparent contradiction between my statement and what affirmative action gets up to, is a killer blow to my contention that anti-semitism is the kind of racism that imagines the removal or elimination of Jews. This makes it different from other racisms that quite often imagine the subjugation of the target group, their supposed inferiority making them suitable for slavery, hard labour, menial tasks etc etc.
Let’s cut to the chase, eh, Jock? I think you think (tell me if I’m wrong) that the world would be a better place if Jews were removed from whatever positions in society you think they shouldn’t occupy. Quite how this would happen, would be fascinating to know. Likewise, perhaps you can explain how society would be better if it involved removing one social/religious/ethnic group, the Jews, but leaving the power structures intact. And here’s an observation: even if we allow for all the post-colonial pressures on Mugabe, I think the evidence there of replacing white capitalism with black capitalism does absolutely nothing for social justice, or just socialism. This is a matter of enormous sadness to me, who believed that Mugabe (linking to SA anti-colonialists) would be one of the great sites of hope in the world. It’s only through a root and branch struggle for the old slogan liberty, equality and fraternity (in all spheres of life including, of course, the economy) that we might arrive at justice, and not through targeting one group on the specious grounds that it’s over-represented.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 28 August, 2008 @ 11:37 pm
One look through this thread and Michael and Andy are clearly anti racists.And have guts.
Some others may have to rethink.
Comment by tim — 28 August, 2008 @ 11:43 pm
Exile.
#70.
This seems to have started as a jocularity by one commenter on the Tory blog of Iain Dale, on the basis that he had never heard of either Harry’s Place of JD before, so perhaps they were in it together.
Conspiracy theorists have taken this as plausible, but it falls apart at the most cursory examination, why would JD conspire to be linked forever in the public domain with Nazi david Duke, possible damaging her future employment prospects in order to promote a web-site whose polictcs she presumably abhors?
Comment by Andy Newman — 28 August, 2008 @ 11:51 pm
“Some of the defenders of Israeli human rights abuse of the Palestinians have been crude and engaged in distorting their opponents positions”
What is meant by this turn of phrase of course, is those that dare mention antisemitism attaching itself to discussions of Israel (hence the reference to “distortion”).
“These posters have generally been patient, nuanced and well informed. These posters have included Jewish academics who have lived in Israel, ”
It was one of these Jewish academics that claimed Jews who support Israel are detached from their humanity.
It has been more than one of these “patient, nuanced and well-informed” posters, who made claims exactly like those in Quinn’s article.
Hence his, Delich as the “one bad a (and not that bad an apple anyway argument argument.
The truth is, of course, that Barry Kade’s comments are symptomatic of the problem being discussed here, and anything but its critic.
Comment by 701 — 28 August, 2008 @ 11:59 pm
I’ve known about Duke for years - not from the net but from anti-fascist books on the racist movements here in England. It could be that an innocent mistake was made - we cannot know for sure. I checked the Duke site - not a pleasurable experience - and on the one hand it doesn’t immediately scream Judeophobia but if you spend a few seconds reading what’s on the page it’s clear what hate this guy is peddling.
Comment by Charlie Marks — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:14 am
I just think its extraordinary that HP, or any other website, think they have right to police the traffic, sift through the mail, and then publish the mail - including people names and email addresses - of a union’s email list. Yes, what Delich was wrong, but it was not criminal, and she does not deserve to be publicly abused, her picture and personal details published, her life, her past and nationality speculated upon or abused.
This opens up serious issues about how people actually conduct debate, privacy, safety, and rights. Andy Newman’s response is wholly inadequate. Simply saying “Welcome to the Internet! Get over it” is simply blase. Breaches of confidentiality are serious and wrong. Not only that but this sort of case sets a precedent. People setting themselves up to be judge, jury and to mete out justice, using throngs of people on the internet, is something that needs thinking about. You might want to consider where it may lead.
It’s interesting to note that originally HP made out Delich to be a reasonably important activist involved in the union and the boycott campaign (I don’t agree with a boycott of Israel at all by the way). Then David Hirsh stated that she was a minor player both in the union and the boycott campaign. After days of this stuff, he said he felt sorry for her and that people should stop the attacks.
So we have lots of misleading impressions and innuendo. It’s remarkable that anyone should think this is an appropriate way to conduct themselves. One must be very shortsighted not to consider the serious issues involved in all this - and where they may lead in the future. Certainly I have a less cavalier attitude towards privacy than some here, that is for sure. You should really consider the implications of all this.
Comment by James — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:25 am
If I may, I’d like to chuck in something about how racisms are understood or misunderstood. There is a literature about how each targeted group receives a racism that is particular to itself. At a naive level (I meet it of course amongst kids in schools) racisms are often understood as being horrible to someone else who you’re also identifying by calling them by their ‘race’ name eg ‘black’ ‘paki’ ‘chinky’ etc. The hugely complicated matter of how the image of each targeted group is constructed by the dominant culture through language and culture might pass by many people of all kinds, even the targeted group. (I cite an example re knife crime in a previous post.) For many people, (well-meaning acquaintances of mine) anti-semitism is mostly, as they understand it, a matter of being horrible to Jews in speech or deed. However, because Jews are constructed as powerful, then to use the standard tropes against Jews (eg they own all the shops round here, they run the recording business,etc )is not seen by many as antisemitic. The hard thing to get the handle on here is that the ‘noticing’ that Jews have played a huge role in Hollywood, isn’t really of itself anti-semitic. It can’t be: open the standard ‘didn’t we do well’ Jewish Chronicle type article or book and see for yourself. The official organs of Jewish media do it all the time.
The problem lies in the construction of the Jew as running EVERYTHING. This includes to my mind the notion that Israel runs US policy. I suggest that one of the main reasons why JD and perhaps many others don’t get why or how this is antisemitic is partly because the claim that Jews run everything doesn’t always appear to be that different from the claim that Jews run showbiz (ie a part of the EVERYTHING) and partly because making the error of saying ‘the Jews run everything’ doesn’t seem to many people as bad as the kind of racism that says blacks are stupid.
My own line on this is that the danger in the various forms of ‘the Jews run everything’ racism is not that that it is socially discriminatory to Jews (in the way, for example, that race supremacy clearly slaughters, imprisons, starves, exploits and holds back many targeted groups (usually of pigmented skin) from birth to death); rather, that anti-Jewish racism suggests that the problems of inequality can be solved through some kind of elimination and not through the collective overcoming of inequality. And it’s on that basis that I utterly oppose this kind of antisemitism. However, I concede that it’s very easy to be unaware of it, very easy to slot it into an account of the world dominated by a massively powerful military-industrial-financial complex. It’s also dead easy to berate the world and his brother everytime someone appears to have bought that line.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:27 am
“These posters have generally been patient, nuanced and well informed. These posters have included Jewish academics who have lived in Israel.”
Andy,
Considering that many, if not the majority, of posters Kade is referring to are precisely those who you note are,
“claim[ing]that contents of the article itself are unproblematic rather ignores the fact that it clearly gives credence to theories of a Jewish conspiracy”,
I find both Kade’s reference to “patience and nuanced, etc.” as well as your own comment, “Thanks for that Barry, useful input” somewhat surprising.
Again to repeat, Kade is making the claim that those who raise antisemitism on the UCU activist list are really nothing but “defenders of Israeli human rights abuses.”
I wouldn’t say “naunce” is the word that springs to mind here.
Comment by 701 — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:32 am
Michael,
Interesting comments. And, of course you are right about there being nothing intrisically hostile about the claims of Jews and Hollywood.
However, when the JC says (or many other people (Jews and non-Jews) look at all the Jews running Hollywood, they do not claim, or even intend to claim that they do so for their own [i.e “Jewish”]interests. Yet, within antisemitic narrative in the context you also mention), the “Jews run Hollywood” is always accompanied with the impication not only that “they” do so in “their” interests, but also, against “our” interests.
In other words, it seems to me that the “Jews run Hollywood” stands alone as an antisemitic trope which many or may not fit in with the Jews run EVERYTHING claim that, if I understand you correctly, you see as marking the essence of antisemitism.
Comment by 701 — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:47 am
to continue my thread of thought…and to complicate matters, zionism in practice today and now is in part race supremacy in action, from the whole history of the treatment of Palestinians right the way up to the staggering idea that it’s OK for zionists to have a nuclear bomb but clearly ‘we’ can’t let Iranians have one too. So if, following the zionist narrative that says, ‘being a zionist is an essential part of being a Jew, attack a Jew’s zionism and you’re being antisemitic’, I can see that again it’s easy to see zionist race supremacy in Israel (which I think as real) as part of the Jews-run-everything narrative (which I think is fantasy and is itself constructed out of such tropes as ‘the jews run all the shops round here’). I think it’s wrong and antisemitic for the reasons I’ve said and I will oppose it and argue against it but in the context of my understanding of zionism and its effect on Palestinians.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:47 am
701, well, yes and no. The claim ‘Jews look after their own’ is double-edged. On the one hand, it’s antisemitic side does, as you say, include the implication, ‘and in so doing, Jews prevent us from looking after our own’. However, I’ve met the claim that Jews look after their own in eg Hollywood, or hairdressing (!) as an example of why Jews are so good/clever etc and ‘we’ should learn from them. I’ll stick with my formulation that it’s only when the many forms of ‘the jews run everything’ is articulated that full-on antisemitism is at work. However, yes, as I’m saying, that notion rests on many articulations of ‘the Jews run Hollywood’ (etc), which may or may not be antisemitic in content and it’s why when some people might read ‘the Jews run everything’ type stuff, their alarm bells don’t ring. That’s not a justification, it’s an explanation.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:55 am
What a shame you continued your train of thought……..”race-supremacy”. Israel as one big David Duke………….my, that’s sharp.
Comment by 701 — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:55 am
Well, of course, I didn’t think I’d take everyone with me on that one. Perhaps you’ve got another way of describing Zionist rule over Palestinians over the last sixty years. You’ll be aware of course that the term ‘race supremacy’ (-ism, -ist etc) does not concede that ‘race’ exists, does not concede that the person being supremacist is indeed supreme or that the targeted group is indeed inferior. If a state announces that it is a ‘Jewish state’ but a large percentage of its citizens aren’t Jewish, what other description do you have, if that isn’t a form of supremacism. If that state encloses an area and disposses the non-jews in that area, or runs a military ring around an area where non-Jews live, what is that if not supremacy. If that state runs an immigration policy based on the notion that Jews are prioritised over all other groups including those who originally lived in the state (or their descendants) that what is that if it isn’t a form of supremacism? (and yes, other states do it, or have done it, this isn’t making an exception of Israel). If you’ve got other terms for what’s going on in Gaza and the West Bank, I’m up for hearing them. I don’t think the phrase race supremacism is a total explanation or a ’sufficient’ one, I think it’s a partial and ‘necessary’ one though.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:11 am
And David Duke isn’t the only supremacist you could have cited (presumably in order to make my explanation look grotesque). You could have included, say, Churchill or Botha.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:15 am
What Michael says about antisemitism with regard Hollywood reminds me that certain actors had to change their names - bowing to antisemitism in the wider public (and in Hollywood itself, no doubt). Even as recently as the 90s some stars ditched their surnames. Quite shocking.
I suppose here it might be worth mentioning a similarity with the concept of a “gay mafia” said to exist in entertainment industries and the fact that the gay press big up lgbt achievements. No one has claimed that there’s a pink plot to control the world, to my knowledge.
Comment by Charlie Marks — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:20 am
” I think you think (tell me if I’m wrong) that the world would be a better place if Jews were removed from whatever positions in society you think they shouldn’t occupy…perhaps you can explain how society would be better if it involved removing one social/religious/ethnic group, the Jews, but leaving the power structures intact”
Let’s do a little experiment and adjust that slightly:
” … that the world would be a better place if equal opportunities legislation was enforced… how society would be better if it involved addressing disproportionate representations of certain ethnic groups and under-representation of other…”
That is the policy of all-self styled left groups, and of nearly every British council, and is law in many aspects. You DON’T support that, do you? You think children’s authors are an exception.
Where did I say I supported the REMOVAL (neat little holocaust allusion) of ONE ethnic group?
But, since you asked, if the power of the jews in the US was diminished, it would certainly improve the lives of the Palestinians, and greatly reduce the threat of an assault, possibly a nuclear one, on Iran, don’t you think? Or do you imagine that it was the Christian fundamentalists who dreamed up the current mess?
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:32 am
Name-changing was complicated. Part of all racisms is that the racism is internalised by the oppressed and concessions are made to the oppressor if it will further the chances of not being discriminated (or thought to further them so to do.) A circular argument went on between Jewish producers and jewish stars that said, ‘look, it’s not me that cares you’ve got a jewish name, it’s the public out there. I can’t give you the part of cowboy if your name is Romanofsky (or whatever), I can’t have you kissing the beautiful blonde if your name is Schwab.’ At that stage, many Jews in America were seen as socially and/or racially inferior, so this kind of antisemitism (the one re names) didn’t fit into the Jews-run-everything process. It was more: adapt-to-white-norms-or-fuck-off.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:33 am
Oh, and I notice that Newman the Human hasn’t answered my little jibe about why it’s ok for him to link to the anti-muslim race-hate site Harry’s Place, but not ok to link to the anti-jew (and anti most other things) David Duke site.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:38 am
I mean I take it that Human doesn’t endorse everything on HP by linking to it, and I would assume that this is also the case for that woman, the fuss is about, re Duke’s site. So what IS the fuss about? Are you saying that there can be items of merit found on an anti-muslim hate site, but not on an anti-jew hate site? If so, please give us a hint of the philosophical foundations on which you construct such a position.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:44 am
OK, Jock. Let’s leave the equal ops legislation stuff to one side because you’re asking me to concede agreement with govt legislation whilst at the same time concede that it is a viable analogy. Nice sleight of hand. I don’t think equal ops means anything very much unless it’s in control of those who it affects. At present that isn’t the case, but is a largely cosmetic juggernaut involving form-filling and petty intimidation. Is it relevant or analogous to what we’re talking about here? I don’t think so.
Diminishing the power of the Jews in the US would improve the lives of the Palestinians? What an absurd proposition. Firstly, I don’t believe Jews run everything. Secondly, I don’t think that US policy in the Middle East is driven by what Jews want. It’s driven by what US capitalism wants and ‘US capitalism’ and ‘Jews’ are not synonymous terms. Thirdly, I have no idea what process you have of ‘diminishing the power of Jews’. Do detail the form-filling, the bureaucracy, the methods of testing of Jewishness, testing of levels of power, testing of Jewish powerfulness, the creation of tiers of testers, supervisors and inspectors (who presumably couldn’t be jewish, so another set of testing would have to be conducted to make sure of that etc etc that you have in mind. Fourthly, I know full well that there is a school of thought that says that the trouble with most UK antizionism is that it lectures the Palestinians on what they need. Perhaps that’s a school of thought you attend. Perhaps not. But if so, how odd that you know best what will serve the interests of Palestinians -, namely, some kind of campaign against Jews in the US in order to divest ‘the jews’ of power? Really? And even if such a process happened, why precisely would the new less-Jewish ruling class treat the Palestinians (or for that matter, the Iraqis and the Afghans) any better? What’s been the record of the W.A.S.P. oil firms in the middle east over the last hundred years?
But thanks for laying out the blueprint, Jock. Just put a bit more flesh on the proposal please.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:48 am
Andy Newman @ 73
Yeah, I was the recipient of the comment and I treated it as the humorous aside that it was. Then I went over to my own blog and saw that comments were trickling in along the same theme. Checking my e-mail I found a note from a friend in the UK which speculated along similar lines. Now if it was just that bloke at Dale’s blog that would be one thing, but it seems to be something that is being talked about rather more seriously.
I’ll blog about this later, but right now it’s 8.00pm and I need to eat! If anybody does have any information, just get in touch, OK? Discretion is my middle name and I won’t grass you up…
Comment by Exile — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:02 am
When WASPS can produce screenwriters as adept the Coen brothers, the bleating about Jews running Hollywood will start to resonate. I’m really not interested in multi-million blockbuster productions of “My Family”.
Comment by Brownie — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:04 am
Exile, I wouldn’t go down that track for long, if I were you. I think JD was advised to make a complaint to HPs server and a complaint was made, whereupon the server in the form of the customer services manager did what you need to do to make the site unavailable online. Engels noted the bourgeoisification of the left and the workingclass in Britain and this is a fine example of it. When in doubt the middle class left in this country goes legalistic and proprietorial ie appeal to either lawyers and/or owners and proprietors. It’s using the class enemy to wage our ideological struggles. It’s pathetic, it never works, we get egg on our faces and the class enemy just restores the status quo ie HP restored within ours.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:09 am
Brownie, perhaps you should refer to the excellent Jewish literature on what Jews have done and do in Hollywood before turning this into complaints about anyone (who?) ‘bleating’.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:12 am
And are you seriously saying that WASPs can’t write good film scripts?! Even if it is in a jokey way?
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:14 am
Michael Rosen: I find your views very strange.
#44 So, the anti-zionist movement needs to show “how and why it distinguishes itself from any form of racism”. And apparently it should do so by “making clear why it feels [its position] doesn’t fall into the category of racism as understood by the a-z movement”. Does this not strike you as trifle circular? The a-z movement deflects any suspicion of antisemitism in its words and actions merely by explaining that the a-z movement doesn’t consider them to be antisemitic!
You need a better grasp of the concept of institutional racism, which, as David Hirsch and others have shown “over and over again” at Engage, is responsible for the UCU’s indifference to its Jewish members’ concerns about (what we perceive as) a climate of hostility and exclusion. It is not enough for the person or organisation to state (or believe) that she/he/it is not racist. You also need to consider the point of view of the person on the receiving end.
Continuing, you feel that the a-z movement should not be subjected to “lectures from zionists” on racism/antisemitism. This is because zionists are (by definition) racist. Anyone accusing a-zs of being racist must be a zionist (i.e. necessarily a racist), who can therefore be disbelieved (or at least ignored).
Now, it could hardly be more true that some zionists have horrible racist views (and incite and perform horrible racist actions) against Palestinians. It is equally true that some “anti-zionist” activists (in my experience, a small but non-negligible minority) are actuated by virulent antisemitism and are attracted to your movement primarily as a “respectable” outlet for their racism. And that they are welcomed into the movement with open arms by people who would be horrified at the suggestion that they encourage (or are tainted by) antisemitism. Racism on both sides here – and both zionists and anti-zionists have great difficulty in reconciling this fact with their respective world-views.
#67, 71 Now you have an example in front of your eyes of an unequivocally antisemitic anti-zionist, and you (quite naturally) react with indignation (civilly and rationally expressed, muted, but imperfectly suppressed). It is apparent that you suspect his non-racist bona fides. You fear that his views might “fall into the category of racism as understood by the a-z movement”. Thing is, though, Jock McT may well feel that he belongs in your a-z tribe – any and all derogatory/demonising statements about Israel/Israelis/zionists/Jews etc. are acceptable because he’s an anti-zionist and therefore (by definition) not antisemitic.
#80 You, Michael Rosen, can state that zionism is “race supremacy”, and that (presumably all) zionists believe “it’s OK for zionists to have a nuclear bomb but clearly ‘we’ can’t let Iranians have one too”. You must know that this kind of thing is meat and drink to the Jock McTs (not to mention the David Dukes and Joe Quinns) of this world (and, they claim, your movement).
Would you be so kind as to explain to Jock McT and me in words of one syllable (like, we’re both a little bit stupid) why your “anti-zionist” utterances, which undoubtedly give aid and comfort to antisemites of all stripes (I accept that’s not your intention), are acceptable as furthering the Palestinian cause, whilst his are beyond the pale. (I’d appreciate something more subtle than “I’m Jewish” or “he’s a Holocaust denier”).
Comment by CJW — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:23 am
And are you seriously saying that WASPs can’t write good film scripts?! Even if it is in a jokey way?
Gee, Michael, what do you reckon?
The alternative to my being serious, “even in a jokey way”, is that I was just flat-out joking. Did you consider that possibility.
Comment by Brownie — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:23 am
CJW - Your logic is syllopsistic of the sort that argues: Jock McT is anti-semitic. Jock McT is also anti-zionist, therefore anti-zionist is the same as anti-semitism. That’s as foolish as arguing: Some Christian fundamentalists are zionist. Christian Fundamentalists are anti-semitic. Zionism is anti-semitic.
Michael’s argument is very clearly and obviously not anti-semitic and doesn’t give succour to such sentiments. It is not based in any way upon an ethnic evaluation about the “natural” or “cultural” character of Jews. Jews can hold any number of political beliefs across the spectrum. Even stating, in this framework, that Jews play a disproportionately large role in Hollywood isn’t strictly speaking an ethnic evaluation - it’s a recognition of the historic position of Jews in predominantly Christian society, ie. it can be understood through recourse to historic interactions involving not just Jews but (in large part) the dominant group, ie. Christians, who imposed certain restrictions and caste forms upon Jews inside Christian society.
As for Israel, it is understood to be the product not of Jews as an ethnic group per se but of one section which saw the foundation of Israel as the only reasonable response to anti-semitism in Europe. There were other responses, from socialism to immigration to the US, to assimilationism. None require recourse to ethnicity in the form that Jock McT argues (in a very reductionist, inaccurate and ahistorical, frankly racist, way). So, to say that the consequence of the zionist response is an ethnic supremacist state is not to say anything about the inherent characteristics of Jews - since most Jews don’t live in Israel and most don’t fully support Israel’s policies, including denying Palestinians a state. It is to say that a POLITICAL response to a historical oppression led a section of that oppressed population into a situation where another group would have to be subordinated and politically and demographically marginalized if not eliminated in order for the political goals of zionism to be realized.
do you see the difference?
Comment by redbedhead — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:37 am
It’s also worth noting that Israel is possible not simply because of that section of Jews who were followers of Zionism - but also, just as importantly, the dominant classes of the major Christian powers, in particular the United States & Britain.
This is true from the denial of immigration rights to Jews fleeing anti-Semitism in Europe, which forced many Jews to settle in historic Palestine, to the current policies of, primarily, the US, which uses Israel as a Sparta to help maintain US hegemony in the strategically key Middle East.
Comment by redbedhead — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:41 am
“Jews and Hollywood”
From my side of the political arena, I mean, Zionism, I think that the last Zionist flick Hollywood filmed was Exodus.
So much for control!
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 6:54 am
“Basically, the internet is not confidential, e-mails will be leaked, and people can trace back and cheeck who you are much easier than you think.”
True - Remember how a private meeting during the Respect split was recorded by an SWP member, and a “transcript” sent out by email. As a result, Galloway refused to meet SWP members, which was then sent out in a further email as proof of what scum he was.
(The SWP know that emails can be traced, which is why the fake “hate mail” they went on about during the split was never given to the police and details were never published, only the text of the email itself)
Comment by on the other hand — 29 August, 2008 @ 8:44 am
“Jews and Hollywood”, not “zionists and Hollywood”, Fabian. And i don’t think I used the word ‘control’, did I? So you seem to be suggesting that I’m saying ‘zionists control Hollywood’. I didn’t say that, you did, in order to knock it (or me) down.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 8:55 am
Continuing, you feel that the a-z movement should not be subjected to “lectures from zionists” on racism/antisemitism. This is because zionists are (by definition) racist.
Without presuming to speak for Michael, I don’t think this is his view. There are some people who believe that Zionism is by definition racist because it’s nationalism of an ethnically defined state, but that wasn’t the point Michael was making (personally I think it’s also wrong, but that’s not really relevant here).
Surely the point Michael was making is that while there are quite a few racists in anti-Zionist politics, pro-Zionist politics has at least one really big ally which is guilty of racism and it’s called “The Government of Israel”, and recognitions of this fact on the Zionist side are rarer than rocking hose manure.
Now you can see how it would be possible to have a Zionist politics that wasn’t racist - you would believe in the legitimacy of Israel as a Jewish state, but that the actually existing government and institutions of the country called “The State of Israel” were corrupt and racist and not worthy of support. As far as I can tell this is what someone like Seth Freedman (who strikes me as a really honourable guy, and I’m not sure I don’t agree with him) actually believes. But he’s hardly typical of pro-Israel politics, is he? In the case of anti-Zionist politics, there is a fringe of racists and nuts who Andy correctly notes the movement probably doesn’t work hard enough at eliminating. In the case of the “pro-Israel” movement, the racists and nuts are the core of the whole thing, and it’s the non-racists who are the fringe.
(note on terminology - I’m all over the place with “anti-Zionist”, “pro-Israel” and the like here, aren’t I?)
Comment by dsquared — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:01 am
dsquared: “Surely the point Michael was making is that while there are quite a few racists in anti-Zionist politics, pro-Zionist politics has at least one really big ally which is guilty of racism and it’s called “The Government of Israel”, ”
you can’t really be advancing this as an argument -making zionists responsible for Israel while letting anti-zionists not be responsible for say Iran, or formerly the USSR.
In any case it’s possible to not be an anti-zionist and not be a zionist and still support the palestinian struggle.
“there is a fringe of racists and nuts who Andy correctly notes the movement probably doesn’t work hard enough at eliminating.” the problem is, that in recent years the anti-zionist movement has been actively recruiting some of these people and damning anyone who argues as an islamophobe.
Comment by martin ohr — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:16 am
A discussion about the future of the left sparks seven comments, three people contribute to a debate about the economic recession and only two visitors to this site are interested in the advance of the south American left. Yet two separate threads on this subject attract 161 and 104 comments respectively.
Who says the left is self-obsessed?
Comment by Karl Stewart — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:32 am
I thought the most significant thing about Engage asking that the heat be taken off the woman who posted a link to David Duke’s site (it looks pretty certain that this was unwitting) was the argument that she was not in fact, the problem. That the problem was the boycott campaign and those who supported it, and that the reason why her life was going to be damaged for a long time to come, was not because she posted a link to David Duke’s site but because she became involved with the boycott campaign in UCU. I think this is entirely true. And I think it reflects the problematic politics of those who constitute the core of the anti-boycott campaign that it is true.
Let me be clear that I think there might be many legitimate reasons for opposing the boycott campaign. There are issues connected to a certain ideal of what academic values ought to be. This is certainly a legitimate area for discussion. There are issues connected to how effective such measures could actually be, and whether it might make things worse. This is certainly a legitimate area for discussion. There are issues connected to the fact that for many Jews, Israel is central to their identity, and such a boycott and discussion of a boycott, would be and are painful for them. This is certainly a legitimate area for discussion.
What I think politically has to be opposed is the idea either that people who single out Israel for criticism and possible sanction are for that reason anti-semites, and the related idea that anyone who supports a boycott is the moral equivilant of a Nazi and deserves to be treated as such. What I also think is unfortunate is that this woman has had her life damaged in order to make a wider point not about the kind of anti-semitism represented by David Dukes post, but to make the wider allegation that people like, for instance, Mike Rosen, are anti-semites whose politics are indistinguishable from the BNP.
This is not a rational discourse at all and because it is not a rational discourse its led to the kind of conduct which, as James points out above, is extremely ominious and diminishes us all. I still can’t get over the fact that this argument started with a declaration of solidarity for this behaviour from SUN. Its the very last thing I would have expected from this site.
Comment by johng — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:48 am
“Therumour is going around that HP and Jenna Delich were basically working a fast one to raise their profiles. Now, I took that as a joke when I first heard it, but then I got an e-mail from a mate that I trust that basically said the same thing. I made a jocular comment at my own blog and people are arriving to agree with the theory.”
Yes, it’s true. After the HP domain name was taken down, Jock McTrousers says he saw David T, Jenna, and a bunch of Mossad agents dancing on the roof of the daily.co.uk offices.
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:59 am
Hey, Michael, I wasn’t arguing with you. I was giving my two cents regarding Zionism and Hollywood. Sheshhh
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 10:04 am
see also the article Anti-Semitism Goes to School. Hate on California, Oregon Campuses by Sonia Scherr on the webpage of the SPLC
Comment by Entdinglichung — 29 August, 2008 @ 10:11 am
Johng #106
The main reason that JD’s reputation has been damaged is becasue she was advised by supporters of the boycott campiagn to complain the HP’s Internet Service provider.
The original post on HP (which has now been modified to remove both he picture, and the claim that she is a “fan” of David Duke”) would have been a five minute wonder, and would not have materially affected her google profile - if she had left it at that. Yes I agree that HP shouldn’t have run the original article, but hey, HP are political supporters of Israel, if you give your political opponents ammunition they are going to use it against you. Why are people so naive as to think that an open e-list that Zionists can join is a good place to have a confidential discussion about how to oppose Zionism? Get real, people. Sdaly in life, people get punished for naivity.
But the issue blew up because it seems someone saw this as an opportunity to make an example of HP. It seesm to me that whoever advised Delich simply exploited her as cannon fodder, reckless to the almost inevitable consequences to her repuation, perhaps because she was just an expendible little person, who could be used and spat out for the greater good of the cause.
Her reputation was damaged becasue she sought to take HP offline by complaining to the ISP, which is what caused the whole issue to explode. It was a very high risk strategy with almost no chance of success, and inevitable a lot of opprobrium would fall on JD, and a link between her and David Duke would become widespread and indelible on the internet.
But becuase someone saw this as an opportunity to attack a Zionist web-site, the consequences to jenna Delich personally were simply not taken into account.
Some trade unionists! Some comrades!
There are two issues.
i) the solidarity with HP was solely over the question of them being taken off line after a vexatious complaint to their ISP/DNS. Simply we totally disapprove of this.
ii) It clearly is the case that there is a blindness to anti-Semitism from some in the boycott campaign, and the wider left - for example inviting the anti-Semitic Gilad Atzmon to socialist events.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 10:22 am
also going back - to chjh at 64:
I know plenty about British Unions, thanks. You obviously don’t, as expelling someone for being a BNP member would be unlawful under 1990s anti-Union laws.
Your reaction to the thought experiment is fascinating; you can’t do it because “it would never happen”. But the question I asked wasn’t whether a Union would take action, it’s how someone should react if a Union doesn’t take action. And Trade Unions are not uniquely immune from institutional or outright racism: Where are the black general-secretaries?
And either you don’t know the facts of the dispute, or you’re wilfully ignoring them. JD posted one link, apologised for it, and was then removed from the list. No repeat behaviour, no attempt to justify it, no attempt by the union to cover it up.
No, you don’t know the facts of the dispute:
JD had already been the subject of two complaints via the union procedures for alleged antisemitism. Barry Kade at #22 notes that she had sailed pretty close to the wind before. These had been dismissed. The deputy-GS, in suspending her list membership, notes he is doing so “having reviewed this and previous conduct”.
All other complaints on other issues relating to anti-semitism have been dismissed. Some were summarily dismissed with. This is unusual behaviour for a Union in alleged racism cases.
It is not clear whether or not UCU would have acted without a public furore. Maybe they would have, but certainly the BRICUP faction in the Union believes that UCU should not have taken action to suspend JD, and that they wouldn’t have done so without the public attention.
Comment by unseen — 29 August, 2008 @ 10:26 am
Since I have been quoted here by Andy Newman, I’d like to cite what I believe to be the best piece written on anti-semitism and anti-Zionism. It’s by Gary Younge who profoundly understands the nature of racism, both conceptually, and in terms of personal experience. He wrote it after the publication of the infamous New Statesman cover in 2002.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2002/feb/25/race.uk
The British left has a strong record of fighting anti-semitism, but there can be little doubt that today anti-semitism does find a specific expression among the left. Believing that wealth disqualifies Jews from being among the oppressed, leftwingers fail to take anti-semitism as seriously as other forms of discrimination. Based on the stereotype of “the wealthy Jew”, such a view is not just insulting but ignores the nature and history of anti-semitism and the considerable pockets of poverty within the Jewish community. Moreover, Jews on the left complain of feeling themselves under suspicion for their private attachment to Israel, and their presumed support for all that it does.
Such presumptions and prejudices are morally wrong. And because they are wrong in principle they remain a liability in politics. In the same way that the racism and historical amnesia of the right weaken its arguments against Robert Mugabe and Zimbabwe, every example of anti-semitism devalues whatever opinions are given about Israel’s role in the Middle East. It does not invalidate the arguments - Mugabe is a despot and Israel’s occupation an outrage - but the question mark hanging over the motivation of the proponent inevitably taints the pronouncement.
Comment by Linda Grant — 29 August, 2008 @ 10:31 am
Andy I think your wrong to believe that this issue blew up simply because a complaint was made to an IP server or that this was ever going to be a five minute wonder. I think you are also wrong to make the allegation that the complaint was made because it was a good opportunity to have a go at a “Zionist site” as you put it (why on earth are you making allegations for which you have no evidence at all, it appears with the goal of making out that UCU activists are dishonest, disengenuous or ‘bad comrades’). Those campaigning against the Boycott believe that supporters of the boycott are the moral equivilant of Nazies and that toleration of their arguments reflect institutional racism inside the UCU (at least this is my interpretation of what they have recently put up on the subject). They therefore feel that all such discussions should be made public and that anyone who supports this campaign ought to be exposed and publicly villified. That is what this is all about. It has nothing whatsoever to do with a glorious campaign to defend the freedoms of blogdom. I still can’t understand why you can’t see this, or why, you continue to villify activists who are being subjected to this. It is, as I’ve already said, completely incomprehensible to me and the last thing I would have expected from this site. And no I’m not being disengenuous despite being a UCU member (which incidently has many lowpaid lowstatus staff and members in it).
Comment by johng — 29 August, 2008 @ 10:37 am
JOhn
Step back from the politics, and look at the issue in terms of managing the situation of how to preserve JD’s reputation.
We have to take it as a given that HP exist, that they have the hostile political views that you correctly ascribe to them, that they have access to the UCU list, and they will use that information.
That is our vulnerability landscape.
How should we mitigate the risk.
Well firtsly UCU activists should really recognise that their discussion list is not de facto a confidential forum
In this case someone - for whatever reason - posted a link to a coded but clearly anti-Semitic article from a nazi web-page.
We can take it as a given that the Zionists would exploit that. As you recognise this is part of a long running campaign from them seeking to link anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. So that campaign will continue wheter or not they have ammunition, but when they have ammunition they will surely use it.
So how do we manage that situation.
We are faced with two issues. i) How do we defend the palestinian solidarity movement from association with anti-Semitism; and ii) how do we minimise the damage to reputation of the individual concerned.
There are impoernat tactical considerations, but you seem to think that discussing tactics of how to best deal with the enemey is the same as agreeing with the enememy.
Now a further element comes into the mix. HP alng with all other internet publishers are vulnerable to a totally indefencible weakness in british law, that their ISP may pull the plug on them if there is a vexatious complaint of libel.
(As an aside, Jenna Delich has no case and couldn’t successfully sue HP for libel. So any complaint to her ISP was clearly vexatious.)
What was the entirely predictable and inevitable consequence of complaining to the ISP? The issue blew up, gained much more publicity, and spread around the internet like wildfire. becasue JD had walked into an area where thousands of bloggers and other internet publishers are very concerned about - our vulnerability to vexations libel complaints to their ISP.
This was completely predictable for anyone who gave a moments thought to what would be likely to happen. It was inevitable that this would raise JD’s profile and her linkage with David Duke to a much higher profile.
I find it incomprehensible that people like you defend a compltely undemocratic process of seeking to silence opponents though vexatious complaints to an unaccountable private instituion, that is subject to no legal process or control. There is an important issue of opposing this, and we were correct to express solidarty with HP over ebeing taken compleely off line, by someone vexatiously exploiting a reactionary legal avenue.
As this was so inevitable it is hard to beleive that those who advised JD were acting in her best interests - more plausible they had a red mist in front of their eyes about HP, and simply didn’t care about the personal consequences to JD. I find it hard to beleive that JD made a fully infomed decision when taking on HP via the ISP, and those who egged her on were not putting their personal reputations into the firing line.
So on the question of the individual damage to JD, the way her supporters have conducted themselves has ensured maximum damage, because they didn’t take into account the inevitable consequences of their action, due to the entirely predictable and foreseeable way it would play out.
But also, the article JD quoted was quite definately anti-Semitic. And the mistake of quoting from a david Duke web-site does evidence at least a lack of sensitivity to racism and anti-Semitism.
So the repsonse by some in the boycott campaign of saying, i) this was a mistake anyone of us coould have made,; ii) the articlel was not anti-Semitic, was politically disastrous as it just gives the Zionists yet more ammunition.
Politics is not only a serious business, but it is also a contested process, and you need to take into account the motives, capabilities and likely actions of the opponents.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:00 am
Let me add a personal impression. I think that all this crap about “she was confused, she was advised by someone, she was prodded by, she doesn’t know, she is naive, poor woman, etc” is writen because she was a she, and the machistas in the left cannot hold the thought that a woman, by herself, is a nazi sympathizer, and may lie about this (oh, they murdered my people, oh! oh! I don’t know who David Duke is, oh!) when discovered. She doesn’t need no prodding, and she hasn’t apologized by supporting nazi articles. She is only sorry she was caught.
If Jenna Delich were a man, I don’t think there would be much understanding for her racism, and for her attempts to shut off the argument (oh! if you mention me again, I will sue, I will sue!)
You assume that she is stupid, because she is a woman.
Well she is not stupid, only racist and antisemitic. And has many “understanding” people in the UCU.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:04 am
“I find it hard to beleive that JD made a fully infomed decision when taking on HP via the ISP, and those who egged her on were not putting their personal reputations into the firing line.”
Another example of what I said above… “people egged her”, she didn’t make a “fully informed decision”…
Seriously, you only need to finish the thought and add that women cannot be in politics…
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:08 am
#115
Fabian.
No - given that HP have published correspondence from the UCU list, we know for a fact that she was advised by other people to contact HP’s ISP/DNS, and the idea did not originate from her.
With regard to whether she was confused and naive, or whether she is a conscious anti-Semite - I don’t know, You don’t know.
In the absence of any other evidence, and as she is in fact a marginal figure, let us give her the benefit of the doubt.
This is the convention that theis debate is adopted (there never was an actual snail in the bottle of gnger beer, it is just that both Donaghue and Stevenson agreed on that set of facts to argue the law over)
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:09 am
And BTW, this goes also to people at Harry,’s Place.
To much understanding for her naivité.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:10 am
Fabian, it is simply a fact that her complaint to HP’s ISP/DNS was initiated by somone else:
http://modernityblog.wordpress.com/2008/08/23/mr-cushman-sue-me-too-part-2/
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:14 am
Andy, she made the decision. Why is she a “poor naive woman”?
Do you also jump into the river when advised to do so?
I am not giving her the benefit of the doubt. She is a nazi.
You know that. This was not the first time she posted antisemitic material on the list.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:16 am
So, you are saying that JD did not contact the ISP. That this guy Mike Cushman did it?
Otherwise, I don’t understand your point.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:17 am
Fabian,
I don’t know whether or not this was the first time she posted soomething questionable to the list. I don’t have access to the list.
All I know is that she posted an anti-semitic article (albeit coded) from a Nazi web-page. That is in itself proof of naivity - as linking to David Duke was bound to get a negative reaction on the UCU list.
Some people might refernce a Nazi site becasue they are Nazis, other people may do so because they are naive. I have no evidence either way, and will default to assuming the more innocent explanation because the burden of proof lies on those seeking to establish the more sinister case.
Mike Cushman prompted her, or other on her behalf,to complain to HP’s ISP. This was reckless to the inevitable response which was to exagerate the damage to her reputation.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:27 am
“Some people might refernce a Nazi site becasue they are Nazis, other people may do so because they are naive. I have no evidence either way, and will default to assuming the more innocent explanation because the burden of proof lies on those seeking to establish the more sinister case.”
Andy, I think that a similar case can be made that every racist is naive, because they believe in the primacy of something that doesn’t exist, or that supposedly has effects beyond the color of the hair and eyes. And that if they knew the truth, they would be just like you and me. If only David Duke weren’t naive!
But we don’t make those concessions regarding racists, and I don’t think we should start now.
Again, AFAIK she still thinks that in the article she linked, “the facts speak for themselves”. So she is still a nazi. And she will be still a nazi until the day she repudiates her antisemitism and racism.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:48 am
“All I know is that she posted an anti-semitic article (albeit coded) from a Nazi web-page. That is in itself proof of naivity - as linking to David Duke was bound to get a negative reaction on the UCU list.”
Not as negative as we would suppose. A Jew, Mike Cushman, and many others supported her!
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:51 am
“Mike Cushman prompted her, or other on her behalf,to complain to HP’s ISP. This was reckless to the inevitable response which was to exagerate the damage to her reputation.”
I am sorry. What reputation?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:56 am
I am not giving her the benefit of the doubt. She is a nazi.
This is the libellous crap you’re hosting Andy. It’s also the agenda of HP and engage. Do yourslef a favour and think about that for a second.
Comment by Jill St Custard — 29 August, 2008 @ 11:57 am
“jill St Custard”
how bizarre.
Fabian says that harry’s Place are too soft on JD, and you say that by so doing he is following the agenda of HP.
Engage has said that people should back off from criticising JD - yet you say Fabian is following the agenda of Engage by continuing to critice her.
Is it libellous? Given that Fabian’s views are being disputed, and are simply name calling, is there real damage to reputation for JD? Or is this just the usual fare of blog discussion?
I might especially ask, that given these remaks are in the comments, and will be treated as very low priority in a goggle search, what impact has this on her reputation - especially compared to the high profile given to her linking to david Duke as an inevitable consequence of her contacting HP’s ISP.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:14 pm
No, Custard. HP has no “agenda”. And the guys that run HP are giving her the benefit of the doubt. They are, like many people here, arguing that she is naive or stupid. I don’t agree with them. So even if HP had an “agenda” it wouldn’t be mine.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:16 pm
Not grotesque. SImply wrong. As I was saying, one can interpret Jewish presence and acts in the world rationally and irrationally. Jews and Hollywood can be understood rationally - there are Jews in Hollywood, and irrationally, Jews run Hollywood for their own interests. Jews/Zionists are in the Lib Dem party becuse of political choices, Jews and Zionists are in the Lib Dem party for their own interests. Zionism is a legitimate political aim of national-self-determination; Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians is a political wrong with a political answer, or Zionism is racist from its inception and in its practice in toto and antiracists must wipe Israel off the fact of the map. But, of course, for Rosen, no equivocality attaches to Zionism and Israel, It is and has always been racist in itself.
And, of course, Israel runs by Jews, but it runs it for Israeli interests; and these, like any other country, change and shift over time, because they are rational political matters.
However, myth often makes things easier to “understand”, it avoids realising that the real world does not fit into the neat Manicheaism same here thinks it does.
Comment by 701 — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
Is it libellous?
Of course it’s libellous, he labelled her a nazi.
The agenda of Fabian, HP and engage is to label anti-zionists as anti-semites and nazis, in order to discredit anti-zionism. For some inexplicable reason you line up and defend this, happy for them to perpertuate that lie in your comments box.
Comment by Jill St Custard — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:18 pm
Jill
There is a difference between name calling and libel.
Is there damage to reputation?
If I started deleting every comment here where people were rude about someone else, there would be no comments at all!
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:25 pm
I think this is libellous… antisemitic or simply stupid
“It is in no-sense ‘anti-semitic’ to equate genocidal acts by Zionists with those of the Nazis, even if they have not at this point equalled them in extent. In intent, there is little difference in a great many cases.” (ID)
Sorry, forget what I said above. I looked through the window and saw my neighbor building a gas chamber.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:34 pm
Well, he is removing the dry grass. But I know his real intention.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:37 pm
Oh, and one final thing. Israel doesn’t even run Israel for “Zionist” interests. Of course, if you want to flip over Marx’s flipping over of Hegel and say ideas determine the world, that’s fine, but, again, wrong. Israel and Palestine are political matters. The more you repeat the line that Zionism is racism, that Israel is “race-supremacy” the more you turn history into superstition.
None of this should be understood as saying that, as with all 204 odd states in the world, there are not aspects of Israeli politics, and especially in the Occupied Territories, that are racist. But, of course, that is only the reality, so, not that relevant for you.
Comment by 701 — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:42 pm
Andy, post 127 you say..
“Given that Fabian’s views are being disputed, and are simply name calling”, you then suggest it’s merely blog discussion.
However, your ‘comments policy’ clearly states…
“Comments will also be deleted that are offensive and insulting about individuals.”
Come on Andy, you cannot have it both ways, why have comments policy?
Exactly what game are you playing here? HP have named you as giving outstanding solidarity to their ’cause’ whilst then going on to make the usual associations about RESPECT, racism and anti-semitism. Politically speaking, who’s side are you on?
The fact is that one minute HP are saying they will give no ground on this issue, the next minute they are changing the headline ‘David Duke FAN’ to ‘David Duke LINK’. See the difference? See how they saw fit to give ground? Why change ‘fan’ to ‘link’ after saying you will give no ground?
But for people like Fabian this is not good enough. HP are sell outs. Fabian will use your site to throw terms around like Nazi. Even HP feel obliged to make concessions over choice of words, without doubt Nazi is ‘offensive and insulting’ and in contravention of your comments policy.
Please have such comments removed.
Comment by stuart — 29 August, 2008 @ 12:51 pm
#110 Andy Newman: “The main reason that JD’s reputation has been damaged is because she was advised by supporters of the boycott campaign to complain to HP’s Internet Service provider.”
No, you idiot, the main reason JD’s reputation was damaged was because she was falsely accused, in the headline to a post on a widely read blog, of being a “David Duke fan” i.e. someone who shared the ideology of a far-right racist.
If someone accused you of being a sympathiser of the racist far right, Newman, you wouldn’t airily dimiss it as “a five minute wonder”. But when this sort of witch-hunt is launched against someone else, you treat it as a lot of fuss about nothing.
In fact this appears to represent a shift of position on your part. Because your original response was that the accusation did matter. Indeed, you sided with the witch-hunters and poured scorn on Delich’s explanation that she didn’t know who David Duke was.
You wrote: “How could anyone vaguely interested in politics not have heard of David Duke? Let alone an academic! It also seems that what HP said, while a little caustic and mischevious in tone, was essentially fair comment, and the facts do not seem to be in dispute.”
Indeed, only yesterday evening, you were still claiming, in defence of HP, that “what they reported about Delich was largely factually correct”.
You now write: “The original post on HP … has now been modified to remove both the picture, and the claim that she is a ‘fan’ of David Duke”.
Precisely so. In other words HP have implicitly accepted that they slandered JD by accusing her of being an admirer of a far-right racist.
Your behaviour throughout all this has been utterly shameful, Newman. No wonder the scumbag David Toube has expressed “huge thanks to all the bloggers who stood by us - there really are too many to mention but particularly pleasing was the support from Andy Newman of Socialist Unity”.
Comment by Anon — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:03 pm
HP changed it from “fan” to “link” after I asked them to. I pointed out this would permanently connect JD with being a “fan” of david Duke via google searches, and they should withdraw it as it was an indefensible claim and might affect her future employment and they agreed.
I am not “playing a game”, I am being completely consistent in what I argue.
The comment policy exists to let people know that we can delete them. mainy to prevent trolling and flame wars.
But I simply don’t think that the opinion of “fabian from Israel” is particularly significant one way or another.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:09 pm
Oh, Andy, “what side are you on” (!) It has come to this pretty fast. No wonder for people who think that MI5 is bugging their air conditioners to listen to their refrigerators.
I make no comment on whether she is a “David Duke fan”. Maybe she finds Duke’s writing boring or too humorous for her tastes. But I stand, until she repudiates the article of Joe Quinn -which she has praised- by my assertion that she is a nazi.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:10 pm
stuart: I don’t think “HP are sell outs”. I just disagree with them in this. I even found comments there by Wardytron and Venichka amazingly stupid.
You are the kind of people who think in terms of “selling out”, not me.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:14 pm
Maybe Andy Newman should sue Harry’s Place. They set a trap and he walked right into it. Andy’s personal reputation has been damaged more than anyone else’s in all this.
Comment by vladilichlenin — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:22 pm
Just to nail Fabian’s repetition of a lie at #120: Harry’s Place supporters published a selection of JD’s previous comments here http://jennadelich.blogspot.com/…rst- threat.html (scroll down to see the quotes). There are formulations there that I wouldn’t use, but anti-semitism, let alone pro-Nazi views? Not present.
Comment by chjh — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
#136 “HP changed it from ‘fan’ to ‘link’ after I asked them to. I pointed out this would permanently connect JD with being a ‘fan’ of David Duke via google searches, and they should withdraw it as it was an indefensible claim and might affect her future employment … I am being completely consistent in what I argue.”
Really? So how is the argument that JD’s future employment could be affected by the “David Duke fan” slur consistent with your argument that “The main reason that JD’s reputation has been damaged is because she was advised by supporters of the boycott campiagn to complain the HP’s Internet Service Provider”?
Does complaining to an ISP pose a greater threat to JD’s employment prospects than being accused of holding far-right racist political views?
And if you now accept that HP’s assertion that JD shared the political ideology of David Duke was an “indefensible claim”, how is that admission consistent with your argument that “what HP said, while a little caustic and mischievious in tone, was essentially fair comment, and the facts do not seem to be in dispute”?
Comment by Anon — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:36 pm
Sorry, that link should read
http://jennadelich.blogspot.com/2008/08/first-threat.html
Comment by chjh — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:38 pm
No wonder the scumbag David Toube has expressed “huge thanks to all the bloggers who stood by us - there really are too many to mention but particularly pleasing was the support from Andy Newman of Socialist Unity”.
You are aware that Toube’s calling you a scab in that comment, aren’t you, Andy?
Comment by Jill St Custard — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
“There are formulations there that I wouldn’t use”
Which ones?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:39 pm
Calling someone a Nazi in the comments is OK?
Good job he didn’t call her a Nazi nutter - then he’d have been in real trouble.
Comment by AC — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:45 pm
And, incidentally, the amended version of the witch-hunting post at Harry’s Place still includes Toube’s disgraceful statement that it is “reasonable to infer that Jenna Delich reads and takes her information on world events from neo Nazis”.
Perhaps Andy might try and use his new-found influence with Harry’s Place to get that false accusation withdrawn as well.
Or does Andy imagine that it’s somehow less damaging to JD’s employment prospects for her to be accused of “reading and taking her information on world events from neo-Nazis” than it is for her to be accused of being a “fan” of a neo-Nazi?
Comment by Anon — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:56 pm
Jock: “Let’s do a little experiment and adjust that slightly:
” … that the world would be a better place if equal opportunities legislation was enforced… how society would be better if it involved addressing disproportionate representations of certain ethnic groups and under-representation of other…”
That is the policy of all-self styled left groups”
No, this is classic white supremacy. You present ethnicized groups as all in competition in a zero-sum game, to be benevolently managed by a deracialized (whitewashed) arbiter of how uppity or well off or disproportionate groups are. This might not be too far from some mediatized debates about diversity, but it is not leftist. This is racial supremacism (badly) hiding itself.
“But, since you asked, if the power of the jews in the US was diminished, it would certainly improve the lives of the Palestinians”
idiot.
Comment by hollowentry — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
Jill St Custard - no if fact he wasn’t he was thaksing Andy for…………Oh God it doesn’t matter does it
I think that this simply shows the chasm that lies between the pseudo leninists and the rest of us
If you cannot see what JD did as being wrong then Jill you should give up poliytics and start tending a herb garden
Comment by Googler — 29 August, 2008 @ 1:57 pm
I see you’ve changed the subject. No-one here is claiming that Jenna Delich wasn’t wrong to post a link to a nazi site - she’s not either, she has apologised. The issue is the move by a section of civil society that shamelessly promotes racism and imperialism, to vilify, intimidate and attempt to witch-hunt anti-zionists by smearing them as anti-semites or nazis. And Andy Newman’s defence of them and opportunistic alliance with them, which now goes back a couple of months. Toube is delighted that Andy is scabbing on ant-zionists, hence his comment.
Comment by Jill St Custard — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
“I see you’ve changed the subject. No-one here is claiming that Jenna Delich wasn’t wrong to post a link to a nazi site - she’s not either, she has apologised”
She agrees with the contents of the article which are antisemitic. I don’t see any apology worthy of consideration.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:35 pm
#100 - “From my side of the political arena, I mean, Zionism, I think that the last Zionist flick Hollywood filmed was Exodus.”
What about ‘You Don’t Mess with the Zohan’?
Comment by Reality Check — 29 August, 2008 @ 2:51 pm
Bloody hell, is this Socialist Unity or is this Harry’s Place? SU is rapidly morphing into that Zionist Neo-con felch hole.
Comment by Tin foil hat wearer — 29 August, 2008 @ 3:05 pm
RC: I didn’t see the Zohan. Maybe.
What is Zionist about it?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 3:07 pm
Ahh yes, the loyalty test.
Which side am I on?
Well I am a socialist who opposes Zionism, I am sympathetic to pan-Arabism, and I support the palestinians struggle.
AND … I oppose anti-Semitism and the attempts by neo-Nazis to inveigle their way towards respectability by dressing the anti-Semitism up as anti-Zionism.
I am suprised to learn that opposing anti-Semitism makes me a scab.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 3:45 pm
I see also andy that you say that certain ‘left groups’ are ‘blind’ to antisemitism giving the example of inviting Gilad Atzmon. I suggest you unpack that a little. ‘Blind’ (despite being an unfortunate metaphor) suggests that the SWP didn’t notice, or couldn’t see or understand what Atzmon was saying. I suggest that this was never the case. As I understood it, they understood very well what he was saying and chose to engage with him in private about it whilst still inviting him first to speak and then only to play his sax. I disagreed with that approach and said so, and got into discussions with individual members about that. At no stage was this ‘blindness’. As far as I understand it, I think there is now a new situation vis a vis Gilad and the SWP. I’m not party to that as I’m not a member. Again, no ‘blindness’. Perhaps be a little careful how you throw around your epithets?
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:03 pm
Andy Newam’s comments rest on two arguments both of which are outstandingly right.
The first is that the problem for socialists is not that there is a widespread culture of anti-semitism on the left (a charge by some on Harry’s Place which is justifiably called a *smear*), but there is a degree of tolerance for it in some quarters. Having made this argument myself I would tie it to a desire to ‘understand’ Islamism, a raft of reactionary movements led by the pious Muslim bourgeoisie united in their support for god’s law, as they see it in the Qu’ran and the rest of their sacred literature. There a deep-seated vein of anti-Jewish ideology in most of these movements - and anti-Communist, anti-Freemason, anti-’Crusader’ ideas, to cite the Muslim Brotherhood’s original list of enemies. A further, originally Western form of anti-semitism, is, as we all known, connected to general conspiracy theories ranging from those about 9/11 and other ‘truth’ campaigns. If anyone thinks that this kind of theorising is totally marginal..well in my experience there’s plenty of marginals about who buy into it.
Secondly, he is arguing for a rational and principled anti-Zionist stand. I think very few can doubt his sincerity on this, since Andy has regularly posted material that the Israeli government would chew their lips over. Some people on Harry’s Place seem to dismiss that this can exist, and there’s many here who seem to confirm their opinion. I note that Harry’s Place not so long ago gave a guest post to David Rosenberg of the Jewish Socialists Group - who is a very anti-Zionist, to say the least. I myself am often profoundly irritated by some of the posts on Harry’s Place, particularly on Israel. But it does have a commitment to many positions I recognise as within the left spectrum (support for Southall Black Sisters, gay rights, anti-racism and many others). It also a keen sense of humour, something its critics seem to loose pretty quickly.
Comment by Andrew Coates — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:09 pm
#156
Well Michael, it is a subtle distinction that you are making.
I am not sure that recognising that someone is an anti-semite and choosing to publicly associate yourselves with him anyway is any better than not realising he is an anti-Semite. I would argue it is rather worse.
Anyone who has read what Atzmon has to say, and the manner of his saying it, would realise that he is not going to be shaken from his anti-Semitic views by some private chats. It seems that he has bought into a number of pre-modern Christian aspects of Judea-phobia (the Mel Gibson flavour of Jew-hating), and mixed them up with various aspects of holocaust scepticism and modern anti-Semitism into an irrational and partially religiously informed cocktail.
I don’t see how a quiet chat with some leading SWP members would shift that beleif system.
I appreciate your advice about use of the term “blindness” , I will avoid that in future.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:11 pm
No, still not a fair representation. it wasn’t simply a matter of ‘private chats’. Anyone who attended meetings where he spoke, will testify that it was ‘public argument’ not ‘private chat’. Now you may disagree with this as an approach (as I did) but at least represent it for what it was. You do no one any favours, least of all yourself, by exaggerating and distorting for effect. People might even suspect your motives…
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:22 pm
Just something on David Duke: I remember him from my period as an activist in the West Midlands anti-racist anti-fascist movement in the late 1970s. Didn’t he come over here and get kicked out (can’t recall the details, just him being the KK). As for people in the rest of Europe not knowing about him and the KKK…You must be joking! His KKK link alone has made him well-known internationally. Indeed anything about the KKK gets wide European coverage in the left-of-centre press.
Comment by Andrew Coates — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
The problem is, every time someone is praised by e.g. David T, Tim Robinson, or even Andrew Coates (who admittedly is not quite in their league), it is a bit like the kiss of death. I would be acutely embarassed to be praised by the first two and more than a little worried if I was praised by even Andrew. Why? Because the first two are nasty warmongering right-wing racists who hang around with fash, while Andrew is an odd hybrid who shares much of their Islamophobia but fails (thankfully) to draw their pro-war conclusions.
Of course, it would be just as embarassing to be praised by ‘Jock McTrousers’, but having had the experience of being agent-baited by him in previous exchanges, and at the same time at odds with the first lot for years, I can’t help thinking I’m doing something right over these questions.
If you start being praised by those who run a nasty, pro-war, often viciously racist operation like HP, isn’t that worrying? Doesn’t that make you think you might have gone a bit awry somewhere? Just a thought.
Comment by ID — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:29 pm
Michael
I am not distorting anything. I wasn’t at these meetings where Atzmon attended, and he may well have been castigated within those fora.
But the public message has been that the SWP have lined up with Atzmon, and have never publically acknowleged his anti-Semitism.
I still think it is a subtle distinction to make. They advertised and promoted Atzmon as an importan anti-Zionist figure and ally. I have never once seen a public criticism of Atzmon from the SWP for his anti-Semitic views.
Now you tell me, and I am sure that you are right, that within the context of a relatively small meeting, there were criticisms of Atzmon made. That may be so, but the only people who would have heard those criticisms were the people there.
For the rest of the world, it seems the SWP has no public criticism of Atzmon’s politics.
It is for example noticeable that the SWP have never commented on Atzmon’s political trajectory, closer and closer towards holocaust scepticism.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:30 pm
#160
Duke was invited to Britain by the National Front. He was banned by the home secretary (Merlyn Rees??) but entered illegally, and did an underground public speekaing tour.
Scandallously BBC Nationwide programme (remember, just after the six o’clock news) interviewed Duke live while he was in the country, and Sue lawley ended the interview by asking him whether he had a message for the British people, and he replied with something along the lines of “do what ever you can to keep britain white”
Surprisingly Sue Lawley kept her job, and her reputation didn’t seem to have been damaged by it. There was of course no blogosphere in those days to take up issues like that.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:36 pm
“I don’t see how a quiet chat with some leading SWP members would shift that beleif system.”
You doubt the power of Obi-Wan Rees?
*waves hand* “This is not the anti-Semite you are looking for.”
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:38 pm
ID #161
Don’t read too much into it. I still get a lot of stick at HP, for example:
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/05/16/western-leftists-and-third-world-sadists/
or
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/05/15/africa%e2%80%99s-che-guevara/
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:47 pm
“Because the first two are nasty warmongering right-wing racists who hang around with fash, while Andrew is an odd hybrid who shares much of their Islamophobia but fails (thankfully) to draw their pro-war conclusions.”
Ian, is the real reason you get all bug-eyed and frothy-mouthed when the topics of HP and Islamophobia come up is because you’re still annoyed about this reminder of your own attitudes?
http://www.hurryupharry.org/2008/06/12/back-in-tha-day-donovan-v-pitt/
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 29 August, 2008 @ 4:52 pm
andy: “I have never once seen a public criticism of Atzmon from the SWP for his anti-Semitic views.”
But we _have_ seen a public defense from the SWP claiming that Atzmon is _not_ an anti-Semite: ‘The SWP does not believe that Gilad Atzmon is a Holocaust denier or racist.’
http://www.swp.org.uk/gilad.php
That claim has not been publicly repudiated. Any reasonable reader would conclude that the SWP officially still can’t see Atzmons anti-Semitism or finds it unworthy of the trouble of correcting their earlier statement. The SWP refusing to acknowledge a very public mistake - this is not shocking and new, is it.
And my thanks to Andy for seeing straight to the heart of the problem: ‘I am suprised to learn that opposing anti-Semitism makes me a scab.’ In some eyes it indeed does but it says rather more about them than you. Just remember how difficult it was to get that wretched drone from Indymedia UK to finally admit that calling Auschwitz ‘discredited’ was not a mark of academic excellence, so convinced was he that any cry of ‘anti-semitism’ is always and definitionally merely a zionist lie. I honestly believe he believes he was doing the Palestinians a great favor.
To argue that a little anti-semitism must be tolerated as a lesser evil in order to help the Palestinians is to have lost the plot.
Comment by goodwin sands — 29 August, 2008 @ 5:00 pm
A bit silly really. All that shows that I am not remotely soft on outright reaction when it takes an Islamic form. 9/11 was a outrageous provocation, which however the Palestinians and Iraqis were innocent of, HP Sauce and its ilk notwithstanding.
By the way, Dustin seems to have gone a bit quiet in his praise for Harry’s Place as a bastion of free speech and progress. Perhaps because that notion has taken rather a battering in the course of this debate.
Comment by ID — 29 August, 2008 @ 5:03 pm
I’m not privy to exactly why the SWP said what it said re GA, nor for that matter why it didn’t say other things. However, I did read an excellent analysis and attack on the Mearsheimer and Walt thesis, which incidentally those who like to bash the SWP for being ’soft on antisemitism’ and the like, didn’t notice or chose not to notice. It did occur to me then that perhaps the SWP’s line in general is, better to go after the big fish, rather than the little ones.
M and W are read all over the world, appear on TV and radio and have succeeded in being heard in liberal, left and right circles. GA is a brilliant sax player who puts articles up on his website and is occasionally asked to talk at meetings. I know that I for one took this very seriously. I think I can deduce that the SWP took it less seriously than me, (I don’t mean that they thought it was funny), I thought that their assessment of GA was wrong and said so, but in the meantime, their attack on M and W does in a way go beyond GA. Organ grinder(s) and monkey comes to mind. We should bear in mind that many people take what M and W say as ‘fact’ and what GA says as opinion,and that many people think you can’t argue with ‘the facts’ but you can with an opinion. i notice that the jazz crits of GA are rather like that. They seem to take what he says between solos as just something he believes, not an important piece of information that he’s passing on.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 5:36 pm
“A bit silly really. All that shows that I am not remotely soft on outright reaction when it takes an Islamic form. 9/11 was a outrageous provocation, which however the Palestinians and Iraqis were innocent of, HP Sauce and its ilk notwithstanding.”
So how exactly do your opinions different from Andrew Coates in that regard? You’re happy enough to smear him as Islamophobic, but I doubt that Bob Pitt could stick a fag paper between your attitudes.
On the topic of Pitt, it’s funny that the same people shrieking about a single HP article have nothing to say about islamophobia-watch.com, perhaps the biggest smear campaign in British blogging. I suppose you’re just lucky that Pitt only started the site in 2005, or your name would be memorialized as an Islamophobe there too.
Oh, and are you still banging on about the HP freedom-of-speech thing? The blog that is so intolerant of other opinions that it, er, gives David Rosenberg and others it disagrees with guest posts.
Comment by Dustin the Turkey — 29 August, 2008 @ 5:37 pm
comment 167
Just remember how difficult it was to get that wretched drone from Indymedia UK to finally admit that calling Auschwitz ‘discredited’ was not a mark of academic excellence, so convinced was he that any cry of ‘anti-semitism’ is always and definitionally merely a zionist lie.
- goodwin sands,
who was it on IM-UK who refered to Auschwitz as ‘discredited’?
I missed that particular nugget of wisdom from the atzmonic antisemitic dead-head worshippers and ego-massagers.
Comment by joe90 — 29 August, 2008 @ 5:45 pm
would be acutely embarassed to be praised by the first two and more than a little worried if I was praised by even Andrew. Why? Because the first two are nasty warmongering right-wing racists who hang around with fash, while Andrew is an odd hybrid who shares much of their Islamophobia but fails (thankfully) to draw their pro-war conclusions
There’s no evidence that David T has ever supported any war, by the way, and the fact that he defended David Irving from being imprisoned for his views doesn’t make his “fash”. It actually backs up his free speech case.
Comment by Ed D — 29 August, 2008 @ 6:18 pm
Jenna Delich links to David Duke’s website and Andy rightly condemns it.
However when his mate and occasional contributor to Socialist Unity John Wight links to a holocaust denial site and uses the language of far right traditional antisemites Andy denies Wight is an antisemite.
Andy , it’s good that you condemen Delich but you are in denial over Wight. You say this has been discussed before but that doesn’t make your defense of Wight the antisemite correct.
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=1627
Hope you won’t delete this Andy.
Comment by Bennett — 29 August, 2008 @ 7:24 pm
To all those who call HP etc. “racist filth” or whatever:
we social democrats are well used to taking abuse from totalitarian-lovers who fancy themselves “progressives” on the hard/extreme left. whether it’s being labeled racist, filth or neocons, it’s all slander, but keep on dishing it out. fact is, and you know it, that there’s nothing racist about most of the comments on HP, and those that are racist generally come from you and yours. So come on, call me a reactionary neocon or whatever label you want. My grandpa was a Bundist and he heard it all from those nice Stalinists who put him in and my then 16-year-old father in a soviet gulag in siberia.
It’s really unbelievable how right orwell was when he said that some ideas are so stupid that only an intellectual could believe them. of course he meant hard leftie intellectual.
Comment by vildechaye — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:05 pm
Bennet
The differnce is that joHn Wight accepted that he was wrong, after a bit of discussion, and I know he isn’t an anti-Semite. His repsonse to the criticism was genuine and he was open to the argument that there is a danger of the left becommng desensitsed to anti-semitism pretending to be anti-zionism. Becasue he is not an anti-semite he was prepared to learn from the experience and be genuinely contrite.
Delich still has not repudiated the content of the Quinn article, and her response has been highly belligerant - as if she doesn’t think anti-semitism is a problem.
Comment by Andy Newman — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:20 pm
Just so we’re clear, Andy, what kind of ‘problem’ is modern or even ‘new’ antisemitism, in your view? How does it rate in your league table of problems? And if any HP folk would like to chip in here, I’d be interested to hear where it stands in their league tables. Is it a major ‘world’ problem say, or is it a ‘desperately worrying problem’ say, or how would you characterise it? And while we’re on it, what exactly is ‘new’ antisemitism?
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:33 pm
There goes Michael Rosen being pithy and patronising again to make his ‘points’.
Comment by Rick10 — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:41 pm
Andy. I think you’re being too charitable to Wight. I don’t think he accepts there is a problem. And SPSC has a problem with people like Napier.
There’s too many mistakes Andy , too many slips. There’s something wrong when there are so many examples (inclduing ones that you have written about in the past).
Andy , even if we disagree on this, i still think it’s worrying the number of people trying to excuse what Delich did.
I’d have never thought that the far left would stoop so low and cross the line between antizionism and antisemitism in the way that they have. Now you might disagree with me but i can tell you that it’s because i’m disappointed and shocked , not because i’m trying to smear those who criticise Israel as antisemites.
Comment by Bennett — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:46 pm
What a load of tosh this all is.
A better set of questions would be:
- how many people in the UK live below the poverty line
- the average income in the UK
- how many people in the USA have had their homes repossessed in the last 12 months
- how easy is it to get medical care in India
- how far do you have to walk to get clean water in Africa
- how much does the USA spend on arms
- who gives a f*ck about the arguements set out in the previous 176 posts?
- why the left in Britain hasn’t got a f*cking clue?
Comment by RC — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:47 pm
There goes Rick 10 being snidey in the hope that a question isn’t answered.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:47 pm
…………………………………aaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaghhhhh!!!!!!!!!!!!
Comment by RC — 29 August, 2008 @ 9:55 pm
“And if any HP folk would like to chip in here, I’d be interested to hear where it stands in their league tables. Is it a major ‘world’ problem say, or is it a ‘desperately worrying problem’ say, or how would you characterise it? And while we’re on it, what exactly is ‘new’ antisemitism?”
It was difficult for me to understand your question, Michael. But if I can give, again, a personal impression, I think that having migrated from a country in which the genocide of the Indians has comenced 500 years ago, and has not ended to this day (and the stories of adult Indians weighing less than 30 kilos, arriving dead to a northern hospital are common) but over which there is no interest in the left to “smash it” (Argentina), or to implement a “one state solution” with Bolivia, which has an Indian president, to a country in which there was never any genocide of who most people consider -right or wrong- “natives” (and the Palestinians are there, all of them, inside the P. Mandate and on neighboring countries to prove me right), but over which there is a relentless demonization, including signs of “smash Israel”, I think that that is a phenomenon of new antisemitism. You know, because, when I look out the window, I see Jews, lets say in a 99%.
So, either I am crazy, or there is something that attracts nutters to give loud opinions they reserve for themselves in the case of other countries.
I am not an ignorant British college boy who has just discovered Trotsky. I have lived in the Third World. I am a citizen of a country that exists because 500 years ago, some Spaniards decided to colonize it and fuck the Indians.
And the far left? Thrilled by Tango!
Somehow I don’t see any of you thrilled by rikudim.
Best,
Fabián
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 29 August, 2008 @ 10:23 pm
Cut the shit! For the third time, why is it ok for Andy Newman to link to the anti-muslim race-hate site Harry’s Place, but not for whatshername to link to the anti-jew David Duke site? Especially considering that Harry’s Place supports a real and ongoing genocide in Palestine and Iraq, and an imminent one in Iran.
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 30 August, 2008 @ 12:12 am
redbedhead: Your response #98 doesn’t suggest a very honest reading of my comment.
“CJW - Your logic is syllopsistic of the sort that argues: Jock McT is anti-semitic. Jock McT is also anti-zionist, therefore anti-zionist is the same as anti-semitism. That’s as foolish as arguing: Some Christian fundamentalists are zionist. Christian Fundamentalists are anti-semitic. Zionism is anti-semitic.”
It would indeed be a foolish argument, but fortunately it bears no relation to anything I said. I was questioning precisely that type of reasoning by Michael Rosen and others – I suppose it’s a kind of false syllogism:
Premise 1: Engage/Harry’s Place/zionists/baby-eating bogeymen (beb) are dishonest; their true motive in any discussion is to censor or smear anti-zionist arguments/actions/activists (aza).
(Alternative Premise 1: All beb are racists.)
Premise 2: beb (claim to) interpret all aza as antisemitic hostility (ash).
Conclusion: Therefore no aza can ever be ash.
It should not be too difficult to see that both the premises and the deduction are flawed (in particular, “therefore ash is good” would be no less invalid as a deduction). And yet, we are still hearing this tired old argument from the SWP, their representatives and pals in the UCU leadership, and supporters of the unfortunate JD on the activists’ list.
“So, to say that the consequence of the zionist response is an ethnic supremacist state is not to say anything about the inherent characteristics of Jews - since most Jews don’t live in Israel and most don’t fully support Israel’s policies, including denying Palestinians a state. It is to say that a POLITICAL response to a historical oppression led a section of that oppressed population into a situation where another group would have to be subordinated and politically and demographically marginalized if not eliminated in order for the political goals of zionism to be realized.
do you see the difference?”
Thing is, do you see that whether or not I see the difference is beside the point? (and we can discuss the politics some other time). I’m talking about how you (redbedhead), Michael Rosen and others in the a-z movement can get your points across without encouraging either the crude nazi-style antisemitic stereotyping indulged in by Jock McT, David Duke, Joe Quinn etc., or (a more subtle problem) some “left anti-zionists” who make excuses for this kind of stereotyping without necessarily swallowing it (which seems to be worrying Andy Newman).
Or, if you think the risk of encouragement is unavoidable, at least minimising it. It is very plain that, for some of you, this is simply not an issue. Antisemitism is trivial compared to anti-black racism/islamophobia/zionist aggression etc. and can therefore be ignored - or alternatively (for those with a weaker stomach), left/anti-zionist antisemitism plain doesn’t exist (prevented, apparently, by the laws of the universe).
If you wish to make the (perfectly valid) point that the Jewish people could not achieve their national aspirations (pre- or post-WW2, or now), without prolonged, violent and morally-degrading oppression of another people with their own legitimate aspirations, then you will not find that anyone at Engage will take exception to this claim (most of us will want to argue that it’s not the whole story). No need whatever for provocative phraseology such as “race supremacy in action”, “zionist race supremacy in Israel”, which most people of either good- or ill-will would interpret as an unpleasant mental trait attached to individual “zionists”.
dsquared #103: You wish to believe that anti-zionists are basically the good guys (though including “a fringe of racists and nuts”), and zionists are the bad guys because they have “at least one really big ally which is guilty of racism and it’s called ‘The Government of Israel’”. There are several fundamental problems with this analysis, but the one that smacks me in the eye is this: it excludes the large majority of the population anywhere in the world, even Israel. (My Israeli relatives are deeply divided in their political views, but I can guarantee they don’t spend many seconds per day asking themselves whether or not they’re “zionists”.) In fact, almost no-one on this planet has ever asked her/himself “am I a zionist or an anti-zionist?”.
Let’s take me as an example of a British Jewish socialist excluded from your scheme:
I’m not a “zionist”.
I’m not “anti-zionist”.
I’m not “anti Palestinian”.
I’m not “anti-Israel”.
Dunno whether you’d want to describe me as “pro-Israel” or “pro-Palestinian”, but it would certainly have to be both or neither (I’d prefer both).
I don’t exist in your absurd dichotomy, do I?
I’ve been a bit long-winded (again), so I’ll summarise my points:
1. If someone believes (or claims) that an action or utterance by you (or an organisation or movement that you’re associated with) constitutes (implicit or explicit) racism then you need to consider their point of view. You can’t refute racism simply by declaring yourself to be non-racist (some of my best friends …).
2. Racism cannot be negated or excused by making a counter-accusation in some other direction.
3. There is a very serious problem of institutional antisemitism (precisely in the normally-understood sense of institutional racism) in the UCU. It manifests itself particularly with respect to the leadership’s complacency on the issue.
4. It is possible to be an anti-zionist activist, and non-racist. Many of you are. However, this does not mean that all strands or manifestations of anti-zionism are necessarily non-racist. Anti-zionism is most certainly not (of itself) antisemitism, but some anti-zionist arguments/actions/activists are antisemitic.
5. It is possible to make any political point under the sun without resorting to either inflammatory language or Jehovah’s Witness-style script regurgitation.
Comment by CJW — 30 August, 2008 @ 12:16 am
(off stage sound effects- horrible gurgling sounds) ” I - would - rather - boil - my - own - head - rather - than - read - this - shite”
Comment by RC — 30 August, 2008 @ 12:29 am
RC’s right. That’s enough now. US arms industry, he says. Yes. Or what about the fact that the UK arms industry sells weaponry to both Georgia and Russia? I’m going to start selling bombs. It’s a win-win job.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 30 August, 2008 @ 12:51 am
Michael, I’m glad you’re still here - both virtually and physically - it seems like yesterday I was selling Socialist Worker with Dave Widgery at Old Street underground station. You were (or where?) there in the background; but relevant and influential.
Why can’t we have the left that we need? It’s heartfelt. You - me - a thousand hundred others - hopefully - we have some relationship with the class - are maybe even part of it - the voices I hear are so powerful, yet so weak; so eloquent and angry; and yet not heard.
Don’t start selling bombs.
Comment by RC — 30 August, 2008 @ 1:07 am
RC, thanks for the hand of friendship. Dear Widge, I miss him. Don’t sell bombs? But I had just applied to the British govt arms procurement agency for a licence to go to Moscow tomorrow and then it was on to Georgia with what was left. OK I won’t then.
re ‘the left we need’. Not sure I know how to answer that other than to say, that we rarely fight on our own terms or on our own playing field. We are constantly in a position of having to argue or act on territory marked out by some kind of cock-up or worse and, yes, the issues that you listed (and which are so important) sometimes fade from view because there isn’t a process or campaign that can be joined. Or if there is, it’s an NGO’s field eg clean water for Africa, say no to the arms trade, medical aid for the ‘x’. Step one centimetre out of the box marked ‘charity’ and into some kind of political campaign and the charity commission will come down on you like a ton of vicars. Look what happens when Oxfam or Christian Aid dare suggest that neo-colonialism ‘appears’ to be operating in this or that situation on the ground.
The left in this country is usually too weak to pick an issue and fight it. It mostly has to build around a reaction to an injustice or in support of an act of resistance already taking place. And yes, time and time again, a lot of energy gets taken up with something a bit bizarre and kind of fuzzy at the edges (eg this JD affair) or minutely sectarian (eg who said what in Bow ward on the afternoon of the nth of devember, two thousand and nose.) There’s a chicken egg issue here, you can’t create campaigns on territory that might seem like the key issues unless you’re big enough and disciplined enough, but then you can’t be big and disciplined enough unless you campaign on key issues. Hmmmm
Comment by MichaelRosen — 30 August, 2008 @ 1:53 am
This sort of nonsense squabble is the sort of reason I fly apart and keep away from most of the left.
A woman who doesn’t speak English as her first language makes an error and get pilloried as a “David Duke fan”, then some whining kicks off about “Free Speech” from an outfit operating within the capitalist system that I’ve never seen criticise it.
To bad. If Harry’s Place doesn’t like it being rented out webspace then it should challenge the webspace rent system. The intersect between capitalism and the web, basically. Will they ever do that? No, of course not. They’re too busy painting anti-zionists as jew-haters.
As it is they’ve got a new provider and I suppose they’re satisfied. I guess that that displays competition within capitalism between companies works just fine. Unless HP disagree then that’s cool, they’re happy with it.
Whatever. Just as long as they shut the fuck up with their weaseling.
Comment by Mystery Dyke Squadron (Bombing Division) — 30 August, 2008 @ 4:49 am
#183 jock mctrousers
If you really believe there is any equivalence between Harry’s Place and David Duke’s web site, you’ve got major cognitive issues. nuff said.
Comment by vildechaye — 30 August, 2008 @ 6:07 am
Well done Andy, a thoiughtfull and balanced article. A scary comments roll though, and one that clearly illustrates the minefield that socialists step into when they start to look a little closer into those with whom they ally and associate with in the anti-imperialist/ anti zionist movements. whilst it is true that anti zionism is not necessarily anti-semitic, it is true that anti semites are present and tolerated within the anti zionist movement. Any trawl of the virtual carcrash that makes up the palestinian pages of Indymedia shows that jd is lees the exception and more the rule.
Comment by darren redstar — 30 August, 2008 @ 6:44 am
So, I won’t get an answer from #141 chjh
“There are formulations there that I wouldn’t use, but anti-semitism, let alone pro-Nazi views? Not present.” Which formulations?
or
why Reality Check thinks that “Don’t mess with the Zohan” is a Zionist movie.
or why do I see signs in the far-left against Israel that never committed any genocide but not against Argentina that it is finishing the colonial genocide as we speak. Why do people here consider me a settler because I live in Israel, but not when I was living in Argentina (and my grandfather was bron in the Baron Hirsch colonies, on the same land in which a decade or so earlier, aboriginals roamed free). I just don’t understand it. Is Israel evil in a sense that Argentina is not? So why so much noise about the former?
Thanks.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 30 August, 2008 @ 8:05 am
Fabian, Israel claims to the be expression of jewish self-determination. Argentina, despite its disgusting colonial history is a secular state and therefore the possibility of the native population eventually re-finding a place in it is not precluded. The idea of a religion having a national expression is profoundly reactionary and anti-democratic not to mention contradictory notion: squeezing God into a geographically pre-determined space is absurd in its own right which is why Israel will never be at peace as currently constituted. It will remain restless even if the last Palestinian is gone as religion cannot be contained. Secularism doesn’t imply within itself the logic of exclusion and expansion per se.
Zionism is an expressly colonial ideology based on chauvinism and theft of land and property and ugly oppression and exclusion which is why we oppose it as we oppose all chauvinistic and imperialist ideologies and movements don’t you agree? Presumably you oppose the mal-treatement of the indigenous population of Argentina or are you merely justifying today’s swinishness by yesterdays swinishness.
I am opposed to what Russia is doing in Georgia that doesn’t mean I hate Russians for I certainly don’t. I am convinced that it will be Russians who eventually call a halt to the imperial ambitions of the oligarchs just as it will be jews, in alliance with Palestinians, who eventually put a stop to Zionist brutality and ideology but it is our job in this country to oppose any support for wars of conquest and colonialism and imperialism if we ever want to see socialism.
Comment by David Ellis — 30 August, 2008 @ 9:50 am
I don’t think the difference between Argentina and Israel has to do with whether religions are taken to have national expressions or not (which I don’t really think is inherently disgusting or pleasent). Its that in Argentina those who are oppressed by racism are citizens with formally equal rights. In the occupied territories Palestinians cannot become citizens of the state that controls their lives. Thats the central difference.
Comment by johng — 30 August, 2008 @ 9:55 am
So, Fabian, you don’t need to bother about us and what we think and say. Don’t waste your energy exposing our hypocrisies and double standards. Why not get straight to the point: take up the struggle alongside BOTH the indigenous peoples of Argentina AND the Palestinians.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 30 August, 2008 @ 10:26 am
“So how exactly do your opinions different from Andrew Coates in that regard?”
A bit thick aren’t you? Questions like relgious freedom (in France, for instance), the right of Muslim girls in conservative dress to attend school. And the right of Muslim peoples to resist outright colonial conquest and to expect solidarity when they do so. Little things like that.
Still, what does ‘Dustin’ know? He can’t even admit the fact that his friend Brett Lock supports the murder of unarmed Palestinan women - a link was provided. Silence. Wonder why? Brett Lock used to post on a variety of lists, but no more, and ‘Dustin the Turkey’ is keen to remain anonymous. Wonder why…?
Comment by ID — 30 August, 2008 @ 11:02 am
David Ellis: “Fabian, Israel claims to the be expression of jewish self-determination. Argentina, despite its disgusting colonial history is a secular state and therefore the possibility of the native population eventually re-finding a place in it is not precluded.”
I don’t think you know much about Argentina. I wouldn’t call it a secular state. For example, in Argentina’s Preamble to the Constitution (and yes, still in the 1994 Constitution) it says:
“Nos, los representantes del pueblo de la Nación Argentina, reunidos en Congreso General Constituyente por voluntad y elección de las provincias que la componen, en cumplimiento de pactos preexistentes, con el objeto de constituir la unión nacional, afianzar la justicia, consolidar la paz interior, proveer a la defensa común, promover el bienestar general, y asegurar los beneficios de la libertad para nosotros, para nuestra posteridad y para todos los hombres del mundo que quieran habitar en el suelo argentino; invocando la protección de Dios, fuente de toda razón y justicia: ordenamos, decretamos y establecemos esta Constitución para la Nación Argentina.”
(invoking God’s protection, source of every reason and justice)
Compare that to the neutral “Tzur of Israel” that is mentioned in the Israel Declaration of Independence, called Tzur (Rock) to satisfy secular Zionist parties like MAPAI and MAPAM and the Communists.
Or, that Article 2 of Argentina’s Constitution says: “Artículo 2.- El Gobierno federal sostiene el culto católico apostólico romano. ”
The Federal Government supports the Catholic Apostolic Roman Cult (religion).”
That means that in Argentina, Catholic priests receive their salaries from the state, paid by people like me, who has nothing to do with the Christian religion. Compare that to the case of Israel, were Jewish Rabbis, Christian Priests, and Muslim Imams receive their salary from the State.
http://www.legislatura.gov.ar/1legisla/constra.htm
The fact that Argentina was always a Christian country, and it was even more before, didn’t stop my ancestors of serving in the army, paying their taxes, saluting the flag, striking for better conditions, starting businesses, or sending their kids to the University. The fact that Argentina is a Christian state, didn’t make me want to blow up in the downtown.
“The idea of a religion having a national expression is profoundly reactionary and anti-democratic”
But most of the Jews don’t consider that they are only a religion. They consider that they are a people. A suficient number behave like a people, not a religion. And that is enough for Israel to exist.
“Its that in Argentina those who are oppressed by racism are citizens with formally equal rights. In the occupied territories Palestinians cannot become citizens of the state that controls their lives. Thats the central difference.”
johng: we are in agreement at last. I thnk that Palestinians should have their own state, in their own territory, as soon as they accept that we can have ours too. Finally you stop pushing the line of the destruction of Israel. Good for you!
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 30 August, 2008 @ 11:21 am
BTW, this: “David Ellis: “Fabian, Israel claims to the be expression of jewish self-determination. Argentina, despite its disgusting colonial history is a secular state and therefore the possibility of the native population eventually re-finding a place in it is not precluded.””
Still doesn’t explain why don’t you do something NOW about Argentina, but all your bile is reserved for Israel.
Where are adults weighing 30 kilos, in Israel or Argentina?
Do you think that a native weighing 30 kilos will eventually refind his place in the country? I very much think that he sadly doesn’t have a place at all and he is forgotten by people like you. You are too busy painting anti-Israel signs to notice them.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 30 August, 2008 @ 11:26 am
Finally, the place of the indians in Argentina will always be that of a minority. A tiny minority. The “Argentinidad” (a concept close to that of “Israeliness”) is different to their self-perception. Say what you want about Argentina’s secular state (which is false, as I have shown you) it is not their concept of community. They HAVE to live with it, they HAVE to find a place within it because, what alternative do they have?
What if they started blowing up, demanding to push the Argentinians with European roots to the sea? They would be as justified in this as the Palestinian Arabs are (which is zero). And still, the PLO hasn’t rejected his 1968 Charter in which they call for every Jew who came after Zionism not to be granted citizenship. Maybe deported, who knows.
Israeli Arabs can find their place as a minority in Israel. That is how it is. If they want to have further national expression as Arabs, they will have to do so in the West Bank and Gaza, not in Israel.
Best,
Fabian
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 30 August, 2008 @ 11:33 am
Uno más y no jodemos más. (One more and I won’t bother anymore).
Even though Argentina is a Christian country, I am proud of being an Argentinian. Among other things, because after the dark years of the Dictatorship, there was a succesful initiative by the people to judge and imprison its former de facto rulers.
The same way, I feel that Israeli Arabs should be proud of Israel, because after the dark years of Nazism, Israel gave a new chance of life and survival to the Jews.
Every person should be proud of both countries. No matter if they are Jews, Indians, Arabs, Christian, Muslim or Armenian.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 30 August, 2008 @ 11:45 am
“Still, what does ‘Dustin’ know? He can’t even admit the fact that his friend Brett Lock supports the murder of unarmed Palestinan women - a link was provided. Silence. Wonder why? Brett Lock used to post on a variety of lists, but no more
Because it became tedious arguing with idiots like you who can’t seem to open their mouths without lying. Life’s too short, and it became apparent that the wider world doesn’t give a rat’s arse what you think. You’re a deeply unpleasant person who is too dumb to understand that your own unpleasantness is precisely the reason your politics fail to gain any significant social traction, despite your evident delusions of grandeur.
Comment by Brett Lock — 30 August, 2008 @ 12:54 pm
Fabian - as you won’t let it lie, I’ll reply. I’m an SWP member, a Trotskyist. There are formulations I wouldn’t use is TrotSpeak for She’s not a Trot. We are from different political tradition, and i wouldn’t write the way she does. But I don’t see anything she has said in that selection of posts quoted by her detractors earlier posts which is either openly anti-semitic or ‘dog-whistle’ anti-semitism.
Comment by chjh — 30 August, 2008 @ 2:04 pm
“Fabian - as you won’t let it lie, I’ll reply. I’m an SWP member, a Trotskyist. There are formulations I wouldn’t use is TrotSpeak for She’s not a Trot. We are from different political tradition, and i wouldn’t write the way she does.” (chjh)
Is she a relatively apolitical liberal?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 30 August, 2008 @ 2:30 pm
chjh, what do you infer from her lack of explicit repudiation of the contents of the article to which she linked and praised? I mean, it has been what, four or five days since the beginning of the situation? By know she could have, I don’t know, consult an expert on antisemitism, read a book, or something. What does this say about her, and can you put her previous interventions in context with this other fact to reach a conclusion?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 30 August, 2008 @ 2:41 pm
well she’s been banned from the list Fabien. And I don’t very much she’ll be participating in such discussions anymore. Would you? So who knows.
Comment by johng — 30 August, 2008 @ 3:58 pm
I mean where exactly is she supposed to publish her repudiation? she’s just a private individual who works in a college.
Comment by johng — 30 August, 2008 @ 5:21 pm
“she’s just a private individual who works in a college”
And posts obviously anti-Semitic things from an obviously anti-Semitic website run by an obviously anti-Semitic Klansman - to the roaring indifference of the ‘anti-racist’ anti-Zionists. As such, she’s a gift to Zionists everywhere, making their case that at least some of the hysterical anti-Israel hysteria the UCU is consumed with is anti-Semitic in origin.
Comment by goodwin sands — 30 August, 2008 @ 5:48 pm
@171: To answer a question I missed, you can get some sense of the lengths one of the Indymedia UK drones went to defend a Holocaust denier here.
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1706 - and look for ‘ftp.’ The best he can come up with as a response is that ‘he wouldn’t have chosen the word discredited’ - but since none of us are psychic we can not know whether the person saying as much is or isn’t an anti-Semite. You could use exactly the same argument to exonerate the author of - whoops nearly Godwinned.
But to really get a sense of it, how dogged Indymedia UK is in defense of anti-Semites, follow a link from another one of Tony’s article to see this:
http://docs.indymedia.org/view/Local/UkModerationAtzmon
There, Tony G and others score point after point only to be dismissed en masse as ‘trolling’ by - coincidence, of course, how could it be other - the same ‘ftp’ who defends the Holocaust denier.
What an awful embarrassment that ‘ftp’ is.
It’s Delich in miniature. Mental midgitry. Is there anyone remaining who believes Indymedia UK has any credibility left concerning anti-Semitism? No no no - that man calling Auschwitz discredited is an anti-Zionist, not a raving racist. So saith Indymedia. With Mary Racizzo in accord.
Comment by goodwin sands — 30 August, 2008 @ 6:12 pm
“I mean where exactly is she supposed to publish her repudiation? she’s just a private individual who works in a college.”
I would send a private email to Sally Hunt with the intention that she publishes it in the UCU list. See, it is not so difficult. She is not living in a desert island and ran out of bottles.
Do I have to think everything for you, johng?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 30 August, 2008 @ 6:29 pm
BTW, my name is Fabian, johng, not Fabien. I don’t know why you keep calling me by another name.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 30 August, 2008 @ 6:31 pm
comment 207 answering my query at comment 171.
Top man goodwin sands.
Much appreciated.
all the best!
Comment by joe90 — 30 August, 2008 @ 6:35 pm
Fabian - what I infer from Sincere apologies once again though for picking the wrong website, but
it’s the article that I found interesting as it gives some amazing facts is that she is not a racist or anti-semite. Given that her political opponents have chosen to put a selection of her writings on public display, would you like to point to where in those writings she uses either explicitly anti-semitic or ‘dog-whistle’ anti-semitic arguments?
Comment by chjh — 30 August, 2008 @ 6:43 pm
No Godwin no roaring indifference. She posted one link and people picked up on it immediately. any further discussion was then shut down.Thats actually what happened. And no, I don’t think that merits national circulars. She owed an explanation to other people on the list. Not to you, me and the lamp-post.
Comment by johng — 30 August, 2008 @ 6:47 pm
@213: ‘No Godwin no roaring indifference.’
Waddup made reference to ‘previous conduct’ in his post declaring her ban. That ‘previous conduct’ turned out to be repeated examples of what we could well call Delichinquency, the refoisting of hoary Protocols-isms with the barest of touch-up paint as “anti-Zionism.” Which many roundly defended in Quinn’s articles and which - had the revolting article by Quinn appeared anywhere else than Duke’s site - would not have caused a single eye to bat.
And I am Goodwin not Godwin.
If there is a Goodwin’s Law, it would be that ‘those who do not know the history of anti-Semitic discourse are doomed to repeat it’. Though perhaps that should be Delich’s law.
Comment by goodwin sands — 30 August, 2008 @ 7:31 pm
I have’nt seen these previous instances. a socialist i know, under the moniker chjh has apparently, (I am disturbed that anyone I know is more intrepid then me going through the rubbish bins of the internet), and keeps asking what were the examples of this dog whistle language in them (without reading back from this latter incident). Previous incidents so far as I’m aware were complaints from Engage. I want to make it clear that I don’t doubt their sincerity, but their definition of anti-semitism (which includes anyone who thinks an academic boycott is not anti-semitic so far as I can work out) is not one I share. Is there a link to things that she has actually said?
Comment by johng — 30 August, 2008 @ 8:34 pm
JohnG
“but their definition of anti-semitism (which includes anyone who thinks an academic boycott is not anti-semitic so far as I can work out)”
Please tell us how you work it out John ?
The complaints were from individual UCU members and they warned about Delich and were proved right.
So again John tell us how you work it out , and please back it up with proof for what you say as you have a bad habit of making sweeping generalisations.
Comment by Bennett — 30 August, 2008 @ 10:17 pm
” Top man goodwin sands.
Much appreciated.
all the best!
Comment by joe90 ”
HO HO HO
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 30 August, 2008 @ 10:22 pm
Youll pardon any disparities of spelling grammar and other formal niceties under the nocturnal/inebriatory circs but my, my isn’t that jovial HO HO HO written in exactly the same majuscule that the very unfortunate soul airing his desperation for attention under the nym “Jock McTrousers” previously used to declare here
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1690
“it is correct to say that THERE IS NO EVIDENCE for the holocaust”
?
In short, mates of mine, isn’t it a pleasure to see, through the efforts of the inestimable “McTrousers” that swastika-laden garden slugs clutching toothpicks can be enticed through the proper conditioning to type out anti-Semitic rot on sites such as this? Next thing you know he’ll be driving a tourist bus or playing chess before SkyTV cameras while onlookers applaud the clever though admittedly slimebound fellow.
Now pass the salt.
Comment by goodwin sands — 31 August, 2008 @ 2:53 am
`Israeli Arabs can find their place as a minority in Israel.’
This is the problem isn’t it Fabian. Look at the States for example. The way sections of the priveleged white population obsessively monitor the growth of the Latino and black populations as a threat to their position. The problem for them is it is a secular democracy which is why some of them turn to a peculiar form of white Christian Zionism - it has an exterminationist logic. It is the form that fascism will take in America or at least one of the forms.
What a pity you endorse the exterminationist policies of Christian colonialism in Argentina and that you will only tolerate Arabs if they remain a compliant minority happy to be less than full citizens.
Comment by David Ellis — 31 August, 2008 @ 7:05 am
I think David Ellis that you read too much in what I have written.
I don’t think it is a problem, David. It is just the way it is.
Israel has a sizeable Arab minority, which is not disenfranchized, nor persecuted, nor exterminated nor expelled, nothing.
Arab countries HAD a Jewish minority until after some pogroms, and Nuremberg-like laws, they expelled it almost completely. More than half of these Jews came to live in a country in which these kinds of antisemitic ethnic cleansings wouldn’t be possible anymore. The Arab states, moreover, are dictatorships.
Therefore, I just don’t understand, why you, as a person supposedly concerned by the plight of minorities, focus on Israel and not on the Arab states.
Maybe what you are suggesting is that if Israel did finally behave like in your wet dreams, and expelled the Arab population, you would finally let it be? Just like you do with Argentina or the Arab countries? David, you cannot cheat here. You, and johng has said this explicitly regarding himself, consider Arabs as anti-imperialist allies. johng is even a pan-Arabist sympathizer!
The signs you paint are against Israel. I haven’t see a sign against an Arab country or against any Latin American country.
Well, maybe we will, David. Maybe, just because you show that ethnic cleansing matters you less than the difference in interest point in mortgages for those who serve or not in Tzahal, we will perpetrate an ethnic cleansing and we will be at last friends with the far left.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 31 August, 2008 @ 9:04 am
BTW, all my ancestors found a place as a minority in Argentina. As I told you, noone thought that you couldn’t salute the Argentinian flag just because its colors (light blue and white) where copied from the cloak of the Madonna.
Where were you with your signs “smash Argentina” then?
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 31 August, 2008 @ 9:08 am
johng - see #143 (actually I first provided the link on the Tomb, but I can’t be arsed to find the reference there). And no great search was required - one of them boasted of having posted her stuff, so I took a look. The point is that this isn’t necessarily everything that she said - it’s what HP supporters chose to quote in evidence against her. From which it’s obvious that their definition of ‘anti-semitism’ is ‘anti-Zionism’.
Comment by chjh — 31 August, 2008 @ 2:12 pm
Bennet I work this out on the basis of what is actually said on Engage. After a rather painful exchange I’m now convinced that this is actually believed by this section of the campaign against the boycott. I didn’t believe it before because it seemed so counter-intuitive, not for any other reason. But its been made clear on Engage that support for the boycott is regarded as evidence of anti-semitism. Generally if people don’t recognise racism when they see it this is regarded as in some sense evidence that they are implicitly racist. I don’t recognise the boycott campaign as racist. Its not an argument I can support, and therefore not a definition of anti-semitism or anti-racism I can support. But as stated, I now recognise that its genuinely believed.
Comment by johng — 31 August, 2008 @ 5:02 pm
Linda Grant is in no position to criticise others for their references. Here she proposes the fascist Jabotinsky’s Iron Wall solution to the “Palestinian Problem”.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2001/jun/04/comment.israelandthepalestinians
Grant supported what came to pass…
‘Sharon can choose to escalate this conflict into a regional war. Or he could evacuate every settler who does not choose to shoot it out unprotected by the IDF. He could then build an “iron wall” along the 1967 borders to keep the bombers out.
Behind it, Palestinians would undergo immense suffering, particularly in Gaza, but they would be forced into making an historic choice.’
Grant fails to recognise that such collective punishment is a war crime and that she bears responsibility for propagandising in favour of it.
Comment by resistor — 31 August, 2008 @ 6:40 pm
Well, Johng, the belief that being pro-boycott is racist is going to be a lot less counter-intuitive if pro-boycotters get their info via white supremacist sites from Jewish conspiracy theorists. It’s evidence for that belief, I would have thought.
Comment by KB Player — 31 August, 2008 @ 7:31 pm
JohnG. I asked you for examples to back up what you say. Yet your reply is simply without anything to substantiate your claim. I thought you were a Marxist ? I thought Marxists were scientific in their beliefs.
You seem to work on hunches , on feelings which aren’t rational.
Time and time again John you are asked to provide examples for your accusations. Time and time again you don’t.
Comment by Bennett — 31 August, 2008 @ 9:44 pm
JohnG “Bennet I work this out on the basis of what is actually said on Engage.”
Such as ?
Comment by Bennett — 31 August, 2008 @ 9:45 pm
Palestine group charged after disrupting concert by Israelis
The protesters, members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Movement, made their voices heard at the Queens Hall
By Sue Gyford
PROTESTERS were dragged from the Queens Hall and charged with breach of the peace after disrupting a performance by an Israeli string quartet.
The protesters, members of the Scottish Palestine Solidarity Movement, shouted slogans from the audience during yesterday morning’s recital.
Four were arrested and charged, and were later released from St Leonards police station pending a court appearance.
The protesters claimed the musicians of the Jerusalem Quartet are affiliated to the Israeli Army and said they wanted to raise awareness of the plight of Palestinians.
University lecturer Mick Napier, 61, was one of those who shouted from the audience.
He said: “All of us bar one have been to Palestine and seen with our own eyes terrible crimes there. We felt that many of the audience were ill-informed and don’t really know what happens but we were absolutely gratified by the significant number of the audience who indicated their support.”
He described the protest: “I kicked off after five minutes and other people started in 15-minute intervals. We shouted ‘These men are Israeli Army musicians’ and ‘End the siege of Gaza’ and one woman shouted ‘End Israeli war crimes’.”
Around 35 protesters also picketed the performance from the pavement outside, waving a banner and handing leaflets to concert-goers as they arrived at the venue.
The Quartet released a statement after the incident, saying: “This was quite a difficult concert for us. It was sometimes hard to focus on the music.
“What kept us going was the support of the audience who were there simply to enjoy music making.”
Members of the protest group had appealed to the Edinburgh International Festival to cancel the performance. A festival spokeswoman said: “Festival 08 has the theme of Artists Without Borders and we are pleased to present work and artists from many areas of the world, including from both Jewish and Arabic cultures, from the Jerusalem Quartet to the Palestinian National Theatre, to the Bazi Theatre Company from Iran and many others.
“This festival was founded in the belief that bringing artists and audiences together was an important way to promote cultural understanding between people. This remains a guiding principle.”
Queens Hall chief executive, Adrian Harris, said the venue had supported the Festival’s decision to put on the concert. He added: “Obviously, we absolutely recognise the right of the protesters to protest in a lawful way, which they were doing outside the building today. It was just unfortunate that some of their members chose to protest inside the hall and disrupt the performance for a thousand concert-goers.”
Asked about the quartet’s connections to the Israeli army, he added: “My understanding is that is not the case. My understanding is that all Israeli citizens do national service and I believe these guys have done national service.
“I think to say they’re affiliated to the Israeli Army is stretching a point.”
He added that the musicians had worked with a renowned project set up to build bridges between Israel and Palestine: “It is worth noting that I believe three out of the four members of the quartet play in Daniel Barenboim’s West-Eastern Divan orchestra, which is made up of Israeli and Palestinian musicians.”
A police spokesman confirmed four people had been arrested and had been released.
Comment by Anonymous — 31 August, 2008 @ 9:53 pm
““Jock McTrousers” previously used to declare here
http://www.socialistunity.com/?p=1690
“it is correct to say that THERE IS NO EVIDENCE for the holocaust” ” Goodwin Sands
Here’s the quote:
” At the moment it is illegal in many countries, and effectively so in the US and UK, to evaluate, assess, criticise the ‘evidence’ for the holocaust; evidence, by definition, is something that can be evaluated, assessed, criticised, so it is correct to say that THERE IS NO EVIDENCE for the holocaust. It would be reasonable to assume that an awful lot of jews died under the nazi regime, but there is no reason to believe anything further. “
Comment by Jock McTrousers — 31 August, 2008 @ 10:47 pm
I don’t see any difference. You are still a Holocaust Denier.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 1 September, 2008 @ 5:52 am
Yes, but he imagines that he can muddy the waters sufficiently to either beat the charge or - better still - use the confusion as an opportunity to enlighten us about the grand Jewish conspiracy. Hope springs eternal in the anti-Semitic breast, though not as much as stupidity does.
Jock: ‘yapty zapty rumty tumty THERE IS NO EVIDENCE walla malla hafty gafty, and yes, that entire sentence really was a completely vacuous attempt to try to appear at least marginally coherent whilst trying to disguise my utter anti-Semitism. And have I mentioned that I crawled from a bog somewhere and devour sheep and other small animals? I blame the Jews.
Nazi McPunk fuck off.
Comment by goodwin sands — 1 September, 2008 @ 6:32 am
Its clearly outlined in the post on Jenna Dilech asking that she be left alone Bennet. The statement is made that the main problem is people campaigning for the boycott, not individuals linking to David Duke. I don’t see how you can accuse me of making things up.
Comment by johng — 1 September, 2008 @ 10:37 am
Fabian from Israel does his level best to abstract the crimes of his government by equating the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians with indigenous Indians of Argentina. In this, of course, he attempts to supplant the crimes of Zionism with an ahistorical analysis of European colinialism which began in the 15th century. Hasn’t it occured to him that perhaps the motivation of those committed to anti-zionism today is precisely in order to resist history being repeated with regard to the indigenous people of Palestine?
In truth, Fabian attempts to justify his own complicity in the crime that was the Nakba and 60 years of terror, torture, and theft thereafter, a crime against humanity from which Fabian has benefited by virtue of his being able to reside as part of the settler colonial population, by muddying the waters. That he and others of his stripe are on the wrong side of history is crystal clear.
Comment by Anonymous — 1 September, 2008 @ 10:54 am
“Fabian from Israel does his level best to abstract the crimes of his government by equating the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians with indigenous Indians of Argentina. In this, of course, he attempts to supplant the crimes of Zionism with an ahistorical analysis of European colinialism which began in the 15th century.”
I am sorry, ahistorical analysis?
Argentinian indians are dying TODAY of starvation.
I don’t see any Palestinian dying of starvation.
Of course, for some, that is to “muddy” the waters.
You couldn’t make it up.
Who is actually complicit in crimes? I would say that those who refuse to see the evidence.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 1 September, 2008 @ 3:35 pm
Fabian
Six million children under the age of 5 die of starvation and preventable disease in sub Saharan Africa each year as a result of the same economic system which lies at the root of the West’s, and especially the United States’, support of Israel in the Middle East. The plight of the indigenous people of Argentina, Bolivia, all across Latin America, has seen their culture and history reduced to the status of a theme park amusement. We cannot allow the same fate to befall the Palestinians. Perhaps this may come as a shock, but to many of us the Middle East is the front line against imperialism, which makes the Palestinian struggle all the more critical to all interested in the supplanting of capitalism by socialism. It not mere moral outrage which makes support for the Palestinians so important, it is also and more importantly material necessity.
That said, it is interesting to hear your concern for the indigenous people of Argentina whilst materially benefiting from Israel’s dispossesion of millions of people who live almost on your door step. What have you done to challenge your own govt lately? Are you active in support of the Palestinians, a people who’ve been sytematically pauperized, expropriated, tortured, and dispossessed by those who view them as untermensch. Palestians may not be starving to death, but they are dying in Gaza for lack of basic medicines, assassination, bombing raids, and gunshot wounds. Is this acceptable to you? Or would you prefer that they lay down and just starve?
Would this make you sleep easier at night?
Comment by Anonymous — 1 September, 2008 @ 7:30 pm
Some time earlier, Fabian, I asked you if campaign on behalf of both oppressed minorities, the Latin American ‘Indians’ and the Palestinians. We hear how well informed and caring you are about the indigenous peoples of your own country but you seem to be saying it in order to prove your non-racist credentials…therefore, how can I, Fabian, be racist towards Palestinians. This has been the cry of the ‘left’ zionist for over half a century. This is part of the problem. Jews whose credentials or belief systems may well be on the side of the oppressed in one part of the world, seem to arrive in Israel to settle and dispense with the first principles of their support for the oppressed.
Comment by MichaelRosen — 1 September, 2008 @ 9:43 pm
Anonymous: your first paragraph just doesn’t make sense. A lot of bla bla to justify the fact that you carry banners advocating the destruction of a country which doesn’t provoke starvation, but not of a country which does. That you think that somehow the first is worse than the second you have not explained satisfactorily, at least to me.
Regarding your second paragraph: “That said, it is interesting to hear your concern for the indigenous people of Argentina whilst materially benefiting from Israel’s dispossesion of millions of people who live almost on your door step.” it is simply nonsense. It could also apply to my former country, Argentina. For the sake of the argument, in both I lived in land belonging first to the “natives” (just for the sake of the argument, since I consider that Jews are also natives to the M.E. but of course no single European can claim that he was a native to the American continent, unless we position ourselves in the last glaciation period). By paying the rent to my appartment in Buenos Aires or Rishon LeTzion, I could be said by people like you, that I am somehow materially benefiting from my country’s disposession of millions of people who live almost on your door step” (or lived, since Argentina comitted genocide). But 1. you accuse Israel that did not comitt genocide as somehow worse than Argentina that did, and 2. I can’t see how I am benefitting materially from the Palestinians more than you. I work, pay my rent, pay my taxes, buy my food, buy my stuff. How am I benefitting materially from the Palestinians? Just because I live here? But millions of Europeans live in the American continent. So they are, according to your logic, benefitting materially from the Indians…? That is not a marxist analysis. The category you are using is not class, it is ethnicity. Think again whether you have your analysis right, ok?
Michael: “Some time earlier, Fabian, I asked you if campaign on behalf of both oppressed minorities, the Latin American ‘Indians’ and the Palestinians. We hear how well informed and caring you are about the indigenous peoples of your own country but you seem to be saying it in order to prove your non-racist credentials…”
No, Michael, I did not do it because of that. I did to signal how hypocritical of you, and of the far left in general to claim that Israel is uniquely evil when, as I showed you, I lived in a country “more evil” according to your own terms, and you don’t bat an eyelid.
Where are your signs “smash Argentina”?
Best,
Fabian
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 2 September, 2008 @ 6:10 am
Nobody said you were uniquely evil Fabian. Just evil. A serial colonist in fact.
Comment by Eva Peron — 2 September, 2008 @ 6:45 am
It is nice to hear again non-disguised antisemitism in this site, Evita.
You may call me the Wandering Jew if you want.
Comment by Fabian from Israel — 2 September, 2008 @ 7:38 am