BECAUSE JEWS

WHY THE OBSESSION WITH PALESTINE WHILE WE IGNORE EXPONENTIALLY WORSE CRISES ELSEWHERE?

Stop with the childish naivete.

There is a weird misconception that the current war between Israel and Hamas is the most serious conflagration in the world. If you follow the news, you would think that this conflict — not just the current war but the 76-year-long efforts to dislodge Israel from the Middle East — is practically the only international conflict happening.

You wouldn’t know that the Syrian civil war has killed between 10 and 20 times as many people as the current horrible conflict in Gaza. Or the monstrous death tolls in recent years in the Sudanese civil war, the South Sudan civil war, the Rohingya crisis in Myanmar, or conflicts in Yemen, Tigray, the Central African Republic, Mali, and Somalia, and the Boko Haram insurgency in Nigeria — the list tragically goes on and on — many of which have resulted in exponentially more deaths than the conflict between Israel and Hamas. There is precious little concern about the fact that a million Muslim Uighurs in China are being held in concentration camps, forced into slave labour, forcibly sterilized, and required to renounce Islam.

The one conflict that does compete with the Gaza war for attention is the Russian war on Ukraine. Why? Because we kind of understand that one. We know who the good guys are and the bad guys are. (You’d think this wouldn’t be rocket science when it comes to communist China, too, but since the activists involved tend to be sympathetic to totalitarians of the left … yawn.)

That’s the same reason the Israel-Hamas conflict captures the world’s imagination. We think we know who the bad guys are.

Jews.

If it is not clear to you that the prime variable here is Jews, you really don’t have a right to engage in this discussion.

This is not to say that everyone who calls themselves “pro-Palestinian” is a bigot. It’s not quite that simple. What it does mean is that, when we’re dealing with a conflict involving a group of people who have been subjected to history’s longest and most inventive, transmuting bigotry, people of goodwill have an added burden to ensure that our interventions are not based on, and are not reinforcing, those ancient prejudices.

On this front, the world has failed disastrously.

Let’s put an important caveat right here. The baying hounds of anti-Zionism and the assorted anti-Israel cranks may be antisemites. But they might not be. The problem is, the nuance of antisemitism means that, unlike many other forms of bigotry, antisemitism can often manifest in stealth forms. It’s not as clear as “I hate Jews, so I hate Israel.” (In fact, there is a weird dichotomy among many far-right extremists, especially in Europe, who may hate Jews but they love Israel. It’s weird and I’ll maybe address that some other time. The point now is that this is not as simple as it looks.)

But here is how antisemitism clearly impacts on anti-Zionism.

If you are reading this, you are probably a product of Western civilization. If your heritage is European or Christian, you probably carry in your DNA a complex of ideas and assumptions about Jews that you may not even know you hold.

These (mostly or totally) unconscious biases can lead to confirmation bias. So when you hear that Israel “steals” Palestinian land, exhibits wealth amid Palestinian poverty, cares only about their own, carelessly kills children or a raft of other allegations, you tend to believe them because your ancestors passed down to you ideas of Jewish acquisitiveness, greed, clannishness, infanticide and a bunch of other stuff you are right at this minute defensively denying you hold.

The necessary caveat: As I said in my last post, none of this is to suggest the current war is not a grievous, heart-wrenching tragedy. It’s horrible. Not a doubt.

But why do millions march in the streets worldwide about dead Palestinians while remaining absolutely silent about exponentially more dead in countless places worldwide?

There is simply no explanation.

Well, that’s not true. There is an explanation.

Jews.

But let’s leave that aside for a moment. Regardless of the motivation, this is undeniable: Too many children are dying.

Dead kids are about as horrible as anything the world can conjure. So it is going out on a bit of a moral limb to make the following points.

Children are not dying because of Israel. Every child — and every other person who has been killed or injured in this conflict — has been a casualty of the war started on October 7 by Hamas.

OK, you say, but, enough! Israel has killed enough.

Fine, I say. Then tell Hamas to surrender. The war would end today if they did.

If you are blaming Israel for this war, instead of Hamas, if you are calling for a ceasefire instead of Hamas’s surrender, you don’t care about dead Palestinians, peace or justice. You care about Israel losing and the terrorists winning.

But back to confirmation biases.

The United Nations special rapporteur for the area, for example, accused Israel of “bloodletting.” A quick Google search for “Gaza” and “bloodletting” came up with 1.2 million results.

Let’s just note here, in case you didn’t know, that the accusation that Jews defile and consume non-Jewish blood is one of the oldest and most deadly antisemitic tropes.

Blood is spilled in every war. When the war involves Jews, though, suddenly one of the parties — and not the party that started the war, mind you — is accused of “bloodletting.” What a coincidence.

UNICEF has declared Israel’s defensive engagement a “war on children.” Here again, this resonates only because the soil of the Western imagination has been tilled for centuries with fables of Jews murdering children. Kids die in every war. Yes, as I said, it’s horrible. But there is nothing exceptional about this war — except that it involves Jews. And our civilization for centuries has singled out Jews as child-killers.

OK, fine, you say. That may be true. But this time they are actually killing babies and letting blood.

No. When we fall back on ancient, tired libels to accuse Israelis of what our ancestors accused Jews of doing but we justify it because this time it’s actually true, we betray everything we claim to believe about racism.

The issue that this is a blatant example of antisemitism is secondary here. (Not irrelevant — not by a longshot — but secondary to my point.)

When we subconsciously believe that Jews get off on spilling non-Jewish blood and killing kids, then we hear groups like the UN and Amnesty International tell us that Israel is killing kids and spilling blood, our conscious, critical mind switches off and our atavistic, subconscious kicks in.

And if we are motivated to march by the millions against Israel because we falsely (if unconsciously) believe they thrill at dead goyim and love watching blood seep out of non-Jewish bodies, what else are we uncritically accepting about this conflict?

At the very least, a little consciousness of our biases is called for. And maybe take a moment to understand how ancient prejudices get conveyed in ways we don’t even know we have received. Because many or most of the people throwing around language against Israel today apparently have no idea the ancient templates into which their choice of words fall.

Or, if they do, we have an even bigger problem.

A personal note …

I started this Substack because I thought my perspective as a progressive, gay, non-Jewish, Zionist Canadian offered something different to the dialogue about antisemitism, anti-Zionism, Palestinians and peace. It actually never crossed my mind that people might give me money for it. When people started generously subscribing and donating, I threw myself into this project more, partly because I am a writer by trade and I am still building my RSPs for some distant retirement. Based on online advice (!) I started making my Saturday posts for “Paid Subscribers Only.” But, I modestly acknowledge, each one is too delicious to paywall. So I am going to assume that, if you like my stuff and want more of it, you’ll give if you can. If not, please share. (Please share regardless!) No more paywalls. But there may be other incentives I could offer. Not sure what. Got any ideas? Do folks want to get together for online discussions or see me compile some of these posts as a book? Let me know. Meanwhile, enjoy! (If that is the right word for these sometimes dark musings.)