Are Jews Antisemitic?
The Parallels between Holocaust Deniers and Al Nakba Deniers
By Daniel C. MaguireAre Jews antisemitic? The answer to that question is “not all Jews.” Possibly not most Jews. But many Jews are antisemitic since they are prejudiced against Palestinian Arab Semites in the same way that many people throughout history have been prejudiced against Jews.
As applied to Jews, antisemitism “defames them as an inferior group and denies their being part of the nation” in which they reside. Antisemitism against Jews is manifested in many ways, “ranging from individual expressions of hatred and discrimination against individual Jews to organized violent attacks by mobs or even state police or military attacks on entire Jewish communities.” Jews suffered apartheid before that word was coined in South Africa. They suffered ethnic cleansing, relegated into separate ghettoes. They suffered the loss of their civil and religious rights. They even suffered the denial of their suffering when Holocaust deniers said the Nazi extermination program against Jews and other groups never happened. So antisemitism against Jews is deadly serious, leading to crimes against humanity.
Take that above definition of antisemitism, and antisemitism against Arabs matches it in every detail. Anti-Arab Antisemitism “defames [Arabs] as an inferior group and denies their being part of the nation” in which they reside. (E.g. Israel) Anti Arab “antisemitism may be manifested in many ways, ranging from individual expression of hatred and discrimination against individual [Arabs] to organized violent attacks by mobs or even state police or military attacks on entire [Arab] communities.” (Settler attacks on Palestinians or military attacks as in Gaza 2009, and 2006)
Al Nakba (the catastrophe) in 1948
was the antisemitic expulsion of up to 700,000 Arabs from their homes to make
way for the Jewish state in a classical example of ethnic cleansing. 531 of
their villages and towns were destroyed and renamed. The ousted Palestinians
were confined in ghettoes in what Archbishop Tutu and Nelson Mandela saw as
a clear example of apartheid, about which these gentlemen know a lot. Many Jews
in Israel and elsewhere are al Nakba deniers.
Al Nakba deniers are as criminal and crass as Holocaust deniers. Under the euphemism
of “settlements” al Nakba and the attack on the human, civil, and
property rights of Arabs continues apace. Organized violent attacks on the Arabs
living in Gaza and the West Bank and in East Jerusalem treat Arabs as “an
inferior group’ who can be despoiled, disenfranchised, deprived of basic
nutritional needs and human rights and freedoms. There are “organized violent
attacks by the “settlers” and “military attacks on entire Arab
communities” by the Israeli army, the fourth most powerful army in the
world and the sixth most powerful nuclear power in the world.
Many Jews denounce this antisemitic barbarity. Many more do not. Many support
the Israeli illegal occupation financially, work to suppress the memory of al
Nakba, and through lobbies such as AIPAC pressure American politicians to support
Israeli occupation of Palestinian land. Those Jews are antisemitic al Nakba
Deniers.. And it is not antisemitic to point that out as an appeal to their
consciences.
This kind of Jewish antisemitism betrays Judaism and its prophetic tradition
and gives Hitler a posthumous ignoble victory. Hitler could kill Jews: he could
not kill Judaism. Only a blind “Israel right or wrong” loyalty to
Israeli expansionism beyond its 1967 borders, to its slow genocide committed
against Palestinians, can undercut the noble five thousand year moral tradition
that prophetic Israel gave to the world. It is not antisemitic to say that Rabbi
Abraham Heschel’s prediction 60 years ago that Israel could be come “in
exile from Judaism,” and to say that is what has happened.. It is not antisemitic
to call current Israeli treatment of Palestinians antisemitic and a crime against
humanity.
Daniel C. Maguire is a Professor of Moral Theological Ethics at Marquette University, a Catholic, Jesuit Institution and President of the Religious Consultation on Population, Reproductive Health and Ethics. He can be reached at maguired@juno.com or 414-961-0139.