Revolver
24th July 2014, 23:16
Earlier this week (http://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/French-prime-minister-Behind-hatred-of-Israel-lies-hatred-of-Jews-363607), the "socialist" French Prime Minister Manuel Valls justified his ban on protests against the Israeli attacks on the Gaza Strip yesterday, alluding to his claim earlier in the year (http://www.haaretz.com/jewish-world/jewish-world-news/1.581034)that anti-Zionism is a new form of anti-Semitism. The scare quotes are warranted, given Valls' position on any number of issues. But I think that this is an excellent chance to explore the running dispute over what Zionism is, and what anti-Zionism is.
As the Jerusalem Post reported:
Quote:
Referring to a protest against Operation Protective Edge that took place on Saturday in Paris despite its prohibition, Valls said that “the unacceptable excess yesterday in Paris justifies all the more the decision to forbid [such demonstrations],” adding that, “ France will not allow provocative minds to feed... conflict between communities.”
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve also attended the ceremony, where he expressed his wish “that public space and freedom will not be taken hostage to feed the hatred.”
Before turning to the issue of (anti) Zionism, it is interesting to note that this comes at a time when The National Front remains engaged with nominal Jewish outreach (http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/85828/send-the-marine) under the guidance of Marie Le Pen; the criticism Le Pen's spokesman offered of Valls was not in reference to curbing protest rights or conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, but in his refusal to highlight the actions of the French resistance (http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/180104/french-prime-minister-denounces-anti-zionism-as-anti-semitism):
Quote:
It didn’t take long for the National Front (http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/85828/send-the-marine) to take advantage of those contradictions and perversely denounce Valls’s speech for “hatred of France.” “What does it mean to say that France was an accomplice of the Germans?” said Marine Le Pen’s chief advisor, Florian Fillipot. “France was in London,” he added referring to De Gaulle, “and there was an occupied country, not an accomplice. Of course there was a collaboration of sorts, but there were also heroic acts of resistance, and this is something nobody says anymore.”
Coming from a party that loathed De Gaulle and praised Pétain for decades, and pretends to be today “the best shield for the french Jews against Muslim hatred,” as Marine Le Pen recently said, Fillipot’s reply sounds like a joke—but it is not. Rather, it is a sign of the confusion of the times in France.
All of the above links are from pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian sources. Over at the Centre for Research on Globalization, Diana Johnstone notes that this debate reflects, at least in part, the mutual relationship (http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-israel-needs-anti-semitism/5392756?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-israel-needs-anti-semitism) between anti-Semitism and more extreme manifestations of Jewish nationalism (or Zionism, as it is often called). And she also references a recent article by Sam Knight at Mondoweiss, which demonstrated the way in which anti-Semitic violence is encouraged (http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/synagogue-attributed-semitism.html) by Jewish Defense League factions in Paris.
It is impossible to imagine the French Prime Minister suggesting that opposing to ethnic nationalism is a form of racism, of course, but in effect his speech either provides safe harbor for this confusion or at least carves out an exception for Jewish nationalism.
Where does this confusion come from? There was a time, not so long ago, when I used to avoid the use of the term "Zionist" because it seemed odd to have a special designation or term for Jewish nationalism as opposed to other forms. The term is also used very loosely in some circles, so it can be conflated with Jews. But borrowing a relatively non-controversial definition from the Jewish Virtual Library, there are some important consistencies across those forms: "Its general definition means the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel." Where it gets tricky, of course, is the qualifier “national” and, more importantly, the emphasis on “Jewish sovereignty.” As a practical matter and as evidenced by the historical record, this means Jewish supremacy within both Israel proper and Greater Israel beyond the Green Line. Before 1966, Palestinian Arabs in “Israel proper” lived under martial law, and Israeli policy is clearly aimed at curbing any “demographic threat” that Israeli Palestinians pose to Jewish demographic supremacy. You see this in the Negev development projects, as well as in nascent proposals to abandon the pretext of any democratic order behind the Green Line if it runs up against this principle of “Jewish sovereignty.”
Is the French prime minister claiming that opposing ethnic nationalism is equivalent to anti-Semitism? I would assume not, although I don’t doubt he is disturbed by the resurgence of anti-Semitic rhetoric and slogans at anti-Israel protests. I would guess, however, that the animosity expressed at the French protests in particular has deeper roots in the French debates over immigration and the position of France’s urban Arab population. In theory, France embraces a form of “civic nationalism” that does not require prospective citizens to trace their bloodlines to Charlemagne, but in practice there is deep hostility to the Arab population.
Israel is not about civic nationalism, however; it is about ethnic nationalism and maintenance of Jewish political dominance. True, it is an ethnoreligious group as opposed to a "purely" national group (in practice that is a pretty hazy distinction in any event). But this matters very little, because the overriding principle is maintenance of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. The early Zionists were even flexible on the necessity of relocating to Israel, and considered a number of viable alternatives for resettlement. Ultimately, however, they settled on Israel, which required considerable ethnic cleansing to achieve a precarious Jewish dominance.
Even if I do not like "anti-Zionism" as a term, it is far more dangerous to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. In practice this is the narrative of ethnic nationalists, who insist that Israel is just asking for what every other ethnic or religious group gets. This is the sentiment expressed by Valls, although it is clearly a disingenuous and cynical political weapon, one that threatens to diminish the actual threat of anti-Semitism or even to mask anti-Arab racism. The National Front is better at playing this dangerous game than the social democrats, and the Left should never be tempted to make the mistake that Valls just did.
As the Jerusalem Post reported:
Quote:
Referring to a protest against Operation Protective Edge that took place on Saturday in Paris despite its prohibition, Valls said that “the unacceptable excess yesterday in Paris justifies all the more the decision to forbid [such demonstrations],” adding that, “ France will not allow provocative minds to feed... conflict between communities.”
French Interior Minister Bernard Cazeneuve also attended the ceremony, where he expressed his wish “that public space and freedom will not be taken hostage to feed the hatred.”
Before turning to the issue of (anti) Zionism, it is interesting to note that this comes at a time when The National Front remains engaged with nominal Jewish outreach (http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/85828/send-the-marine) under the guidance of Marie Le Pen; the criticism Le Pen's spokesman offered of Valls was not in reference to curbing protest rights or conflating anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism, but in his refusal to highlight the actions of the French resistance (http://www.tabletmag.com/scroll/180104/french-prime-minister-denounces-anti-zionism-as-anti-semitism):
Quote:
It didn’t take long for the National Front (http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/85828/send-the-marine) to take advantage of those contradictions and perversely denounce Valls’s speech for “hatred of France.” “What does it mean to say that France was an accomplice of the Germans?” said Marine Le Pen’s chief advisor, Florian Fillipot. “France was in London,” he added referring to De Gaulle, “and there was an occupied country, not an accomplice. Of course there was a collaboration of sorts, but there were also heroic acts of resistance, and this is something nobody says anymore.”
Coming from a party that loathed De Gaulle and praised Pétain for decades, and pretends to be today “the best shield for the french Jews against Muslim hatred,” as Marine Le Pen recently said, Fillipot’s reply sounds like a joke—but it is not. Rather, it is a sign of the confusion of the times in France.
All of the above links are from pro-Israel and anti-Palestinian sources. Over at the Centre for Research on Globalization, Diana Johnstone notes that this debate reflects, at least in part, the mutual relationship (http://www.globalresearch.ca/why-israel-needs-anti-semitism/5392756?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=why-israel-needs-anti-semitism) between anti-Semitism and more extreme manifestations of Jewish nationalism (or Zionism, as it is often called). And she also references a recent article by Sam Knight at Mondoweiss, which demonstrated the way in which anti-Semitic violence is encouraged (http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/synagogue-attributed-semitism.html) by Jewish Defense League factions in Paris.
It is impossible to imagine the French Prime Minister suggesting that opposing to ethnic nationalism is a form of racism, of course, but in effect his speech either provides safe harbor for this confusion or at least carves out an exception for Jewish nationalism.
Where does this confusion come from? There was a time, not so long ago, when I used to avoid the use of the term "Zionist" because it seemed odd to have a special designation or term for Jewish nationalism as opposed to other forms. The term is also used very loosely in some circles, so it can be conflated with Jews. But borrowing a relatively non-controversial definition from the Jewish Virtual Library, there are some important consistencies across those forms: "Its general definition means the national movement for the return of the Jewish people to their homeland and the resumption of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel." Where it gets tricky, of course, is the qualifier “national” and, more importantly, the emphasis on “Jewish sovereignty.” As a practical matter and as evidenced by the historical record, this means Jewish supremacy within both Israel proper and Greater Israel beyond the Green Line. Before 1966, Palestinian Arabs in “Israel proper” lived under martial law, and Israeli policy is clearly aimed at curbing any “demographic threat” that Israeli Palestinians pose to Jewish demographic supremacy. You see this in the Negev development projects, as well as in nascent proposals to abandon the pretext of any democratic order behind the Green Line if it runs up against this principle of “Jewish sovereignty.”
Is the French prime minister claiming that opposing ethnic nationalism is equivalent to anti-Semitism? I would assume not, although I don’t doubt he is disturbed by the resurgence of anti-Semitic rhetoric and slogans at anti-Israel protests. I would guess, however, that the animosity expressed at the French protests in particular has deeper roots in the French debates over immigration and the position of France’s urban Arab population. In theory, France embraces a form of “civic nationalism” that does not require prospective citizens to trace their bloodlines to Charlemagne, but in practice there is deep hostility to the Arab population.
Israel is not about civic nationalism, however; it is about ethnic nationalism and maintenance of Jewish political dominance. True, it is an ethnoreligious group as opposed to a "purely" national group (in practice that is a pretty hazy distinction in any event). But this matters very little, because the overriding principle is maintenance of Jewish sovereignty in the Land of Israel. The early Zionists were even flexible on the necessity of relocating to Israel, and considered a number of viable alternatives for resettlement. Ultimately, however, they settled on Israel, which required considerable ethnic cleansing to achieve a precarious Jewish dominance.
Even if I do not like "anti-Zionism" as a term, it is far more dangerous to conflate anti-Zionism with anti-Semitism. In practice this is the narrative of ethnic nationalists, who insist that Israel is just asking for what every other ethnic or religious group gets. This is the sentiment expressed by Valls, although it is clearly a disingenuous and cynical political weapon, one that threatens to diminish the actual threat of anti-Semitism or even to mask anti-Arab racism. The National Front is better at playing this dangerous game than the social democrats, and the Left should never be tempted to make the mistake that Valls just did.