When being anti-Israel betrays itself as antiSemitism‏

Nishma Board Member Paul Appleby wrote the following to the CBC (Canadian Broadcasting Corporation) in response to their reporting on Israel. I have bolded certain lines I found of specific significance.

Rabbi Ben Hecht

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Guest Blogger: Paul Appleby

Definition of anti-Semitism: 

1. Hostility toward or prejudice against Jews.

2. Discrimination against Jews.

3. An attitude or policy of hatred toward Jews.

Replace the word Jews with Israel and that's when criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism.

When people are quick to blame the Jews and Israel, with no need for more facts, that's anti-Semitism.

This happens mostly when people don't look at events in their full context, current and/or historical. When people don't know all the facts, but consistently and wilfully accuse one side in a dispute.

Specifically when that one side is Israel, and the dispute is the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, criticism of Israel is anti-Semitism.

And even when the truth becomes known, it is ignored in favour of the now exposed lie. Such was the case with regards to the French TV channel fabricated video of the death of a Palestinian boy; and the case of the fabricated massacre in Jenin. That's anti-Semitism.

Hatred of Israel is the modern extension of classic anti-semitism.

"It's the fault of the Jews", has become "it's the fault of Israel", the Jewish state, homeland of the Jewish people, the Jewish nation. 

Classic: Jews control the banks and the media.

Modern: The Israeli lobby controls American foreign policy.

Classic: The Jews are the cause all the problems in the world.

Modern: Israel is the cause of all the problems in the Middle East, and by extension the reason for Islamic extremism and terrorism everywhere.

Classic: The Jews killed God and should suffer.

Modern: Israel is a cancer.

Classic: Jews are evil.

Modern: Israel's response to Palestinian "militants" (read terrorists) is not at all proportional.

Classic: Jews are weak, and went to the slaughter like sheep during the Holocaust.

Modern: Israel is a militaristic, power hungry, colonialist state.

Classic: Jews used the blood of Christian children to make Passover matzah.

Modern: Israel and the settlers in the West Bank are committing genocide against the Palestinians.

Classic: Jews have no right to live in this place or that place. and it was right to expel them. "No Jews Allowed".

Modern: Jews have no right to live in the West Bank or in East Jerusalem. In fact they should return to Poland or the U.S. or where ever they came from.

Add the following falsehoods in this light:

- The Palestinians are suffering through no fault of their own, but solely because of Israel's occupation and the settlements.

- When oil prices spike, it's because of Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.

There are so many more parallels.

Finally, being Jewish, or a Jewish-Israeli, or the child of Holocaust survivors, doesn't make anyone any less anti-Semitic, if their views, their words and their actions say otherwise.

After all, can't a Jew also be anti-Semitic? Why not? There are self-hating Jews. There anti-Israel Jewish-Israelis. There are anti-American Americans.

It is baseless and hypocritical for someone to say "I'm Jewish! How can I be an anti-Semite?

Criticize Israel all you like. But just be sure of your emotions, your motives, and the facts.