It is not anti-Semitic to say: Not in my name
On a morgue slab in Shejaiya in the Gaza Strip a few days ago lay two anonymous children, a boy and a girl. Their bodies could not be identified because their parents, according to Sharif Abdel Kouddous, a journalist for the Nation magazine, were already dead. Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza has claimed hundreds of Palestinian lives and has created 81,000 refugees. I should support it, according to many Zionist opinionators, because I am half Jewish. They tell me that those children had to die so that my future children can be safe. In the end, they say, it’s about blood.
Does it matter what Jews, and people from Jewish backgrounds, say about Gaza? It does when children are being murdered in our names, and in the names of family members for whom we have recently said Kaddish. Jews are better placed than anyone else to articulate a powerful call for ceasefire that does not fall back on the sort of lazy anti-Semitism that seems to the Israeli military to prove its point.
People of Jewish descent have every reason to be hyper-vigilant about anti-Semitic language and it is stupid to pretend that there’s none of it in the global movement for Palestinian freedom. It’s stupid to pretend that nobody ever conflates Jews with Zionists, or labels the Jewish people bloodthirsty and barbarous. And it hurts like hell to hear hoary old words of hate trickling through a movement that is about justice, about freedom, about protecting some of the world’s most persecuted people. It hurts just as much, however, to hear right-wing Israelis tell Jews around the world that the violence is for us, for our ancestors, for our children.
It is not anti-Semitic to suggest that Israel doesn’t get a free pass to kill whoever it likes in order to feel “safe”. It is not anti-Semitic to point out that if what Israel needs to feel “safe” is to pen the Palestinian people in an open prison under military occupation, the state’s definition of safety might warrant some unpacking. And it is not anti-Semitic to say that this so-called war is one in which only one side actually has an army…. [continue reading]
— by Laurie Penny writing for New Statesman
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It is not anti-Semitic to say: Not in my name
On a morgue slab in Shejaiya in the Gaza Strip a few days ago lay two anonymous children, a boy and a girl. Their bodies could not be identified because their parents, according to Sharif Abdel Kouddous, a journalist for the Nation magazine, were already dead. Israel’s continuing assault on Gaza has claimed hundreds of Palestinian lives and has created 81,000 refugees. I should support it, according to many Zionist opinionators, because I am half Jewish. They tell me that those children had to die so that my future children can be safe. In the end, they say, it’s about blood.
Does it matter what Jews, and people from Jewish backgrounds, say about Gaza? It does when children are being murdered in our names, and in the names of family members for whom we have recently said Kaddish. Jews are better placed than anyone else to articulate a powerful call for ceasefire that does not fall back on the sort of lazy anti-Semitism that seems to the Israeli military to prove its point.
People of Jewish descent have every reason to be hyper-vigilant about anti-Semitic language and it is stupid to pretend that there’s none of it in the global movement for Palestinian freedom. It’s stupid to pretend that nobody ever conflates Jews with Zionists, or labels the Jewish people bloodthirsty and barbarous. And it hurts like hell to hear hoary old words of hate trickling through a movement that is about justice, about freedom, about protecting some of the world’s most persecuted people. It hurts just as much, however, to hear right-wing Israelis tell Jews around the world that the violence is for us, for our ancestors, for our children.
It is not anti-Semitic to suggest that Israel doesn’t get a free pass to kill whoever it likes in order to feel “safe”. It is not anti-Semitic to point out that if what Israel needs to feel “safe” is to pen the Palestinian people in an open prison under military occupation, the state’s definition of safety might warrant some unpacking. And it is not anti-Semitic to say that this so-called war is one in which only one side actually has an army…. [continue reading]
— by Laurie Penny writing for New Statesman
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Subscribe to get the latest posts sent to your email.
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