Surprise of all surprises, there are left wing groups in existence today who are pro-Israel. J-Street is a not for profit advocacy group in the US who campaign for a peaceful two-state solution on the Israel-Palestine conflict, supports refined petroleum sanctions on Iran to curb their achieving nuclear weaponry, encourages border negotiation of Jerusalem, and views illegal Israeli settlements as a constant obstacle to peace.
It’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, recently said on the subject of the blockade: “There wouldn’t have been a flotilla if Gazan children had enough food, had schools and clean water to drink.”
Through the frivolity with which certain neoconservatives and Zionists like to throw around the term anti-Semite (where anti-Zionist, pro-Palestinian or pro-two state solution, all different concepts, might have sufficed) the sensible, anti-fascist, left (often, rightly, exemplified in distinction to the socialist workers/Respect party, as mentioned here and here) have to be careful when criticising Israel so as not to be tarred with such a rancorous brush.
Earl Raab, founding director of the Nathan Perlmutter Institute for Jewish Advocacy at Brandeis University, was so very far from the point when he mentioned that prejudice against Israel is often a bridge to anti-Semitism, though became closer when he distinguished this from antisemitism as such.
Tariq Ali, historian and political activist, once mentioned that: “the supposed new ‘anti-Semitism’ [in Europe today, is a] “cynical ploy on the part of the Israeli Government to seal off the Zionist state from any criticism of its regular and consistent brutality against the Palestinians…. Criticism of Israel can not and should not be equated with anti-semitism.”
I recognise leftist appeals to anti-Semitism, or trace elements of Islamist appeasement in the ranks of so-called left wing movements, preferring victim idolatry to reasoned political standpoint, but I’m still tempted by what Ali recognises that a certain few Israel supporters often obfuscate, with their liberal use of the paranoia sword, what is criticism of the crimes committed by the state of Israel and what crosses the line into anti-Semitic strokes. But to be sure, many people now find it difficult to tell one from the other, and it is a thorn in the side of the left.
The centre-right have an easy time of it though. Just look at our current Foreign Secretary William Hague. He recently condemned what he called Israel’s “unacceptable” blockade around the time of the flotilla deaths, causing little stir, and not much more than the word “astonishing” and “wobble” as criticism, from former speccie editor Matthew d’Ancona.
In 2003 Hague described America’s foreign policy as “bleeding away,”and in 2006 Hague opined that: “In some instances, such as attacks on the Lebanese army or on parts of the civil infrastructure, Israeli actions have been disproportionate, and our Foreign Office should not be afraid to say so”.
He is supported by a Prime Minister who chose September 11 of 2006 to announce reservations of the UK-US special relationship, not to mention the untrustworthy characters inside the European Conservatives and Reformists that he defends.
I don’t think Hague is an anti-Semite, but nor do I think a lot of leftists who are branded this are, either. I wonder why Hague is getting let off for his critical eye on Israel and American foreign policy while the left get cuts and bruises for it. Have the dubious voices who wrongly liken left-wing criticism directed at Israel being anti-Semitic won their little battle?