The Mudcat Café TM
Thread #160410   Message #3812168
Posted By: McGrath of Harlow
01-Oct-16 - 08:53 AM
Thread Name: BS: Labour party discussion
Subject: RE: BS: Labour party discussion
The piece about the Israeli minister of justice very clearly showed her seeking to identify significant criticism of Israel as essentially antisemitic.

The fact that there were at one time European leaders who were antisemitic was presented as provng that when different European leaders today criticise Israel, this had to be seen as antisemitic.

She identified protests against killings of noncombatants by the IDC as "blood libels" as if there could be no grounds for objecting to such bloodshed unless it was motivated by fantatical prejudice against all Jews.

Antisemitism is something quite different from criticism of the actions of the state of Israel, or even from a refusal to accept the legitimacy of that state as established on the basis of massive ethnic cleansing. I would suggest that identifying such criticism as antisemitic, and identifying Jews everywhere with Israel risks causing critics to accept this identification. And it seems to me that identifying Jews as such with the Israeli regime and State is in fact antisemitic.