I judge Jewish people’s character based on whether or not they oppose the genocidal apartheid state of Israel. This is also how I judge the character of people who are not Jewish.
Ever since the UK Green party’s “Zionism is racism” motion we’ve been seeing this narrative circulating that Jews are somehow exempt from the basic human duty to oppose genocide and apartheid, just because support for Israel happens to be common among the Jewish community.
The British political/media class has been frenetically attacking the Greens’ objectively correct position as antisemitic, putting out statement after statement proclaiming that it is wrong to ask Jews to oppose a nakedly racist and destructive political ideology.
The Campaign Against Antisemitism, quoted in the Financial Times, accuses the Greens of imposing an “extremist purity test” on Jews.
The Movement for Progressive Judaism, quoted in The Guardian, asserts that “Jewish self-determination is a right. Declaring it racist is an attack on Jews. The Green party has chosen to brand Jews who hold this belief as racists and make their equal participation in the party conditional on renouncing it.”
“The Green party’s anti-Zionism motion is yet another attempt to tell Jews how we should think,” reads the headline of a Guardian article by Jonathan Freedland.
“British Jews should not have to disclaim a belief in Jewish self-determination and the existence of Israel in order to be accepted by a British political party,” said shadow home secretary Chris Philp in a quote published by the BBC.
“Asking Jews to pass a purity test and renounce self-determination according to a perverse interpretation arbitrarily applied, isn’t just an extreme position, it’s a racist one,” adds Baroness Luciana Berger.
I am absolutely fascinated by this notion that Jews are some kind of magical faerie elf creature to whom the normal standards of human decency simply do not apply. If you happen to belong to this one particular religion, then it somehow becomes an abusive “purity test” to expect that you should oppose a fundamentally racist state premised on endless apartheid and ethnic cleansing.
It doesn’t work that way. We are all morally obligated to oppose genocide and apartheid no matter what our religion happens to be. You have a moral responsibility to reject racist political ideologies. If you don’t, then you are a racist. There are no special exceptions.
It is true that the majority of Jews support Israel. The argument that majority support makes it a valid position is a fallacy called argumentum ad populum; a position being popular among a given group says nothing about how correct it is. All manner of horrors were once supported by the majority of the public. At one time it was widely believed that it was perfectly legitimate to own a human being if their ancestors happened to be from Africa, but with greater moral clarity we all now recognize that that was wrong.
Zionism is no different; it’s a political ideology whose material manifestations have never at any time failed to include racist policies and ethnic cleansing. If you believe Jews have a right to return after being absent from the land for millennia but don’t believe Palestinians have a right of return after decades in exile, then you are obviously a racist. If you support an ideology which dropped a brand-new ethnostate on top of a pre-existing ethnic group who suddenly became subjected to ethnic cleansing and apartheid, then you are of course a racist. Your religion of choice does not magically exempt you from this.
Everyone should be asked to pass the “purity test” of renouncing a genocidal apartheid state. Jews are no exception to this self-evident moral reality.
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Feature image by Jaber Jehad Badwan — Jaber Jehad Badwan, CC BY-SA 4.0, https://commons.wikimedia.org/w/index.php?curid=160402418
