generalspeaking

Other Jewish Voices

There are, of course, organized groups of representative Jewish communities, who express themselves in a unified manner, wholly invested in living amongst non-Jews within their communities, yet supportive too of the well-being of the State of Israel. Which is to say, Jews living as proud citizens of countries other than the national home of Jewish identity, feeling at home where they live as an integral part of the larger social and national group wherever they reside. And at the same time feeling an obligation to support the State of Israel.

It is somewhat more than an obligation; it is an emotional need to know that there is a place in the world where Jews are in the majority, a country meant to represent the wider interests of worldwide Jewry, a homeland, a place where Jews are free to be themselves. Where Jews are assured of equal treatment and advantages, while attempting to offer that same set of values to non-Jews living among them. But where Jews are never denied jobs or education, or accommodation because they are Jews. And where Jews are assured that a movement will never arise to limit their freedoms.

Oddly enough, pride in place and heritage, and the reality of success in every indice of human development has not resulted in universal respect and tolerance toward Jews, nor toward Israel. For whatever faults can be found - in a world so long accustomed to finding fault in Jews and by extension the national homeland of Jews - they are resurrected and recycled; no slurs too fancifully outrageous to resurface, time and again. But something relatively new has been added to the tradition of anti-Semitic blame-and-shame.

Supporters from among the diaspora itself, Jews who, having become so addicted to a liberal-social ideal that they feel compelled to cast their lot with those who bring aspersions to their apprehension of what Judaism and Jewry represent. Jews are held to a standard of political and social behaviour and response to situations imperilling their very existence not demanded of any other ethnic or religious group. And Jews themselves feel compelled to live up to those expectations.

From among Jewish voices critical of their storied forbears, both ancient and current, irrespective of the horrors visited by a Jew-detesting world (or perhaps because of them) are raised excessively absurd slanders. Accusations that should test the legitimate credence that any intelligent beings might place on their absurd dimensions, but because it is a Jew's voice levelling conspiracy theories against those detested Jews, support is there in full and enthusiastic measure.

Case in point: the founder of a group, Independent Jewish Voices, incidentally a professor of social work at Carleton University, an outspoken and unabashed critic of Israel, found nothing untoward in the singling out of Israel as a human-rights abuser, by the world's worst human-rights-abusing countries at Durban II. She castigated the Government of Canada for boycotting the event, taking pains to stress her group's strong support for the Durban process.

This woman also is a staunch conspiracy theorist, one who claims that the September 11, 2001 attacks on the United States resulted from an American/Israeli conspiracy to "seize control of Eurasia, and thereby the entire world." For, she painstakingly explained in a chapter she contributed to The Hidden History of 9-11, "The 'war on terror' is a concept modelled on Israel's assaults on Palestinians to provide a cover for campaigns of territorial conquest."

She goes quite a bit further, to explain to the uninitiated, that Middle East terror attacks owe much to Israel's long-range plans for conquest: "I think there's lots of evidence that suicide bombings and violence coming from Palestinians are often planned, and directly provoked, by the Israeli government." (Jewish Independent, April 2008) "And when they react, the Israeli government uses that as an excuse to massively overreact. Obviously, Israel is the instigating power."

The Palestinian Authority, represented by 'moderate' Fatah, at their conference a month earlier, issued their mission statement: "The armed revolution of the Arabic Palestinian nation is a decisive factor in the fight for the liberation and the liquidation of the Zionist entity and the liberation of the Zionist presence. This struggle will not end until after the liquidation of the Zionist entity and the liberation of Palestine." Obviously, they were helpfully prompted in this statement by the State of Israel.

Similarly, socialist-minded Jews like Naomi Klein and Judy Rebick, lead protests against the 'apartheid' State of Israel, seeking to convince trade unions and academics to boycott Israel in every conceivable way, for the 'atrocities' they visit upon the Arab Palestinians. For Israel has no right as a state to attempt to protect her citizens from suicide and terror attacks; no right to erect a boundary wall of protection against those same attacks. No right to invade Gaza in an ill-advised attempt to put a halt to rocket attacks on their citizens.

They have chosen to bypass the Jewish legacy of pain and resolve, suffering and tribulations resulting in the triumph of hope, against formidable odds. In their satisfaction with their chosen path they condemn Israel's struggle to exist against the tide of resurgent anti-Semitism buoyed by the flood of those like themselves choosing to align themselves with the purported "new Jews" identified in the suffering of the Palestinians.

Labels: Anti-Semitism, Canada, Israel, Political Realities

posted by Pieface @ Tuesday, September 22, 2009