Joel Schalit

Left Anti-Semitism: Excerpt

Attributed to progressives sympathetic to Islamist criticisms of Israel and Zionism, this genre of anti-Semitism is the least understood form of prejudice against Jewry. Viewed as opportunist in its support of Islamic and right-wing Arab views of Jews and Zionism, as a means of disguising racism as anti-colonialism, left-wing anti-Semites are treated almost as though they are false progressives, who don the multicultural mantle of the left in order to be openly prejudiced.

Jews are incited against not because they profess an inferior culture or religion, but because the object of their faith is a state that discriminates against non-Jews, specifically, Muslims. Because their concept of the state is so integral to their religious identity, Jews are viewed as being inherently biased against non-Jews. Whether they are Diaspora or Israeli Jews, the foundational importance of the Zionist state, as an exclusively Jewish state, is supposed to be similarly viewed by progressives and by Islamists as an iconographic instance of the core politics of Jewish identity.

In short, Judaism is a synonym for racism because behind it hides Israel. Progressives aren’t supposed to like Judaism, first, because Israel stands for the indivisibility of religion and state, and second, in the form of the Israeli state, for the official practice of discrimination against Palestinians on the basis of their ethnicity. Though Judaism is found to be deeply problematic, both historically and theologically, the notion of returning to the promised land that Zionism prescribes is less important than how it is understood to function as a cultural cover for the West’s theft of Arab lands.

- From an article I’m currently working on

Desert Sessions

It was a hard decision to make, but I had to do so. For the last twelve months, I desisted from doing any freelance work in order to reserve all of my energies for Israel vs Utopia.

Now that the book is in my editors’ hands, today, my first article since last March was published by Zeek. And, on Tuesday, I conducted my first formal interview since I spoke to Jimmy Carter in December 2006.

Look forward to reading a conversation about Middle Eastern news media with Link TV‘s Jamal Dajani in Zeek next month. To call it informative would be an understatement.

We Are All Losers

Morning reading for my book research, February 2007. The Class War Federation statement on the War in Lebanon was definitely the most colorful of these four selections.

You may not agree with them, but the document’s wholesale criticisms of all of the parties involved display a refreshing disenchantment with the positioning on the war that we’ve grown accustomed to.

I can’t seem to locate the original statement. However, I’ve linked through to the copy that was circulated on the LBO list when it was first published during the summer of ’06.

Two Way Mirror

The Middle East reflects America back, wishing it were somewhere else. The quintessential site of sixties utopianism, Woodstock, printed on the wall of an abandoned Syrian army barracks in the Golan Heights. On the border, June 2007.

The Day Before Annapolis

Two blocks away, an Israeli-American couple sat down to a late lunch in a local cafe. Ten minutes later, a young woman and her middle aged mother took the table next to them, and in Hebrew, began discussing the differences between San Francisco and Tel Aviv real estate prices.

Walking back to our car afterwards, we talked about how much more familiar this city is starting to feel. The prevalence of pita and hummus on restaurant menus, how often we run into Israelis. And, the increase in signs like this, which we caught as we got into our Toyota.

Lend Us Your Ear

On Friday morning, at 10 AM Pacific time, together with National Public Radio Iraq correspondent Deborah Amos, and Anna Badheken of The Boston Globe, I’ll be a guest on Your Call, hosted by San Francisco NPR affiliate KALW, 91.7 FM.

Covering everything from Middle Eastern media coverage of the recently released National Intelligence Estimate to Iraqi refugees, the Russian elections and Mitt Romney’s bid to capture the Republican Presidential nomination, it should be an interesting conversation.

If you’re outside the US and want to listen to the show, click here to subscribe to the podcast.

Always On Our Minds

If the National Intelligence Estimate published on Monday is true, and Iran is not actively pursuing a nuclear weapons program, it poses a potential problem for the Bush administration’s relationship with American Jewry. Given how the US President said last August that Iran is aggressively expanding its military capabilities in order to trigger a nuclear ‘holocaust’ - using such explicit language – how might we reconsider Bush’s willingness to employ such  loaded terminology when no such preparations are actually taking place? In light of this revelation, should Jews reproach the head of state for employing terms that unnecessarily stoked our deepest-held fears?

Invoking the specter of the Nazi genocide for political purposes is nothing new. In the Jewish community, nearly sixty three years after the Second World War, the legacy of the Holocaust continues to exercise enormous influence over how we think and talk about politics. From the slightest turn of phrase to the ways in which we understand our relationship with the Christian and Islamic worlds, the Shoah (‘catastrophe’), as we call it in Hebrew, is almost always a point of reference. Though there are numerous problems with the manner in which we grapple with this patrimony, there’s something even more problematic when its memory is ideologically leveraged by non-Jews.

If Israel were not locked in a long distance conflict with Iran, it would be easier to overlook the inflammatory nature of the American leader’s language. The problem is that Israel is in a heightened state of tension with the Islamic republic precisely because of American policies in the region. Frequently treated by its enemies as though it were an extension of the United States, witness Iraq’s repeated missile attacks on Israel during Operation Desert Storm as but one example. Factor in Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad’s repeated denials of the Holocaust, and his threats to ‘wipe Israel off the map’ and Jews have every reason to take the US President’s warnings with the utmost seriousness.

That is why it is incumbent that Israel’s self-declared friends express their care for the country a little more wisely. To stand in solidarity with Israel, in opposition to demagogues who threaten its dissolution is one thing. But to take at face value the words of a crazed paper tiger, and repeat them as though they were the genuine item is another. Instead of assessing their empty threat responsibly, by repeating them as though the threat was indeed real, the former Governor of Texas ended up reinforcing the feelings of fear many Jews already felt instilled in them by the Iranian leader’s racist rhetoric.

Culture(s) of Domesticity

Behind the propaganda, four Thanksgiving pies cool down in our fridge. Notice the childhood picture of Jennifer on the left, followed by Skylar Nicolini Bertsch, Angus Young, and George Washington.

Sandwiched in between a commemorative 1977 peace process-themed Bezeq phone card (anchored by Jimmy Carter), Moshe Dayan, Elvis Presley, and an unidentified Bedouin all play supporting roles below.

Dig on the Jamaican currency hovering above the US dollar. That’s fifty Jamaican dollars, mind you. An identical bank note bought us one of the best dinners ever, on our honeymoon, in June ’06.

Inside the Former Fortress

The acoustics in Akko‘s old city are something else. Next time I go home to Israel, I’m going to make a recording of a British friend with a thick cockney accent reciting T.S. Eliot poems, in Hebrew, inside.

Changing Channels

Speaking of Al Jazeera English, if you get the chance, check out  Roger Cohen‘s excellent op-ed on the Qatari broadcaster in today’s New York Times.

Discussing the difficulties that the service has had trying to find national distribution from America’s cable and satellite providers, the Times‘ International-Writer-at-Large extols the network’s virtues, noting, in reference to the same polarized context invoked in Friday‘s posting, that Al Jazeera is carried (by Yes) in Israel, where it replaced the BBC last winter.

Incidentally (and much discussed as of late) Al Jazeera English was also slated to replace CNN on Israel’s largest cable service, Hot, but was outbid at the last minute by Fox News.