On Facebook discussing the latest JK Rowling “clarification” of her views on Israel (which Varda has written about here) someone asked the perennial question, when is criticism of Israel the same as Jew hatred. This was my first response:
Are these people complaining vociferously about any other place in the world, or just the one place that is Jewish? Are they paying for adverts about China? The ongoing occupation of Cyprus by Turkey (they shipped in more settlers recently) or a multitude of other real injustices.
If the answer is, no, “we just focus on the Jews and their country”, then, absent any other good reason, they are Jew haters.
To which my interlocutor replied.
If you are anti-Israel, how are you anti -Jew? I’m anti-imperialist, does that make me anti-Jewish? I genuinely want an answer. Because I am stuck, so to speak.
Israel is the epitome of anti-imperialism. Jews returned to and usurped control from the string of colonial invaders that had displaced and scattered so many of us since the Imperial Roman conquest.
You’re anti-Imperialist? You should be wildly supporting the only successful return of an indigenous people to their land and the tremendous success they’ve made of it after millennia of decay and ruin by successive waves of imperial conquests.
The fact that Jews did this without the usual genocide that often accompanies the retaking of land should be applauded. Add to that, when the Arabs that also flooded in remain peaceful here, they’re afforded far more opportunities, rights and privileges than any of their brothers in neighbouring despotic nations, Israel should be widely praised.
If you have believed an alternative set of lies, put forth by those who would steal our identity as well as our land, you need to think hard about your views toward Jews.
