The Tactic of Calling People Anti-Semitic [View all]

[Galraedia]

A reply to Mitchell Cohen's Anti-Semitism and the Left that Doesn't Learn, and to Michael Pugliese, who sent a link to Cohen's article to various list-serves

Michael and Mitchell--The tactic of calling people "anti-semitic" who oppose Israel's actions is getting quite tired.

Is it your contention that we in the left should look the other way as Palestinians are oppressed, tortured and murdered, with the help of US tax dollars and US diplomatic cover? Are Palestinians not people? Don't they deserve equal rights? How is it acceptable that Palestinians cannot return to their native land, but have been living in refugee camps for nearly 60 years? Why do their lives not count?

Are we supposed to look the other way while Israel brutalizes the Lebanese, and leaves millions of cluster bombs on their land, left to kill and maim Lebanese children?

Let's just consider the facts on the ground, which lead people to oppose Israel, instead of trying to deconstruct the supposed reason for people objecting to Israel, and ascribing racist motivation for their opposition.

1. The State of Israel was built on land that had been populated by Palestinians as well as a small minority of Jews. This land was given to Zionists by Britain and the UN. No on asked the Palestinians what they thought of sharing their land, or what they would think of being ethnic cleansed and murdered in the process of building the new ethnic state. Of course there would be resistance by the indigenous people, and the response to the resistance would involve the usual methods of oppression, with the greater the response to the resistance, the more accumulated grievances, and the more persistant the resistance would become.

Read more: http://www.newdemocracyworld.org/old/War/Amy.htm