Sunday, May 18, 2014

UK: Guardian article excuses Palestinian antisemitism

The recent ADL Global 100 survey, found that Muslim countries are the most antisemitic.  The MENA region (Middle East and North Africa) had an average score of 74%.  The next "most antisemitic" region was Eastern Europe, with a paltry 34%.  Of those, Palestinians got the highest score - 93%.

Instead of wondering why that is, the Guardian published an article trying to explain it away (Anti-Semitism should not be waved around like a propaganda tool).  The article was written by Marilyn Kleinberg Neimark, a long time activist in the Palestine/Israel peace movement, and Donna Nevel, an anti-Islamophobia activist.

The article accuses the ADL of intentionally coming up with questions to make the Palestinians look bad.
The most striking example of a leading question undergirds the ADL's claim that the highest percentage of anti-Semitism is among Palestinians who live in the occupied territories. The ADL asked a group of people for whom the movement of goods, money and labor is controlled by Israel, "Do Jews have too much power in the business world?". Were they really to be expected to answer anything but "yes"?
The answer to this rhetorical question is of course: Yes!

The Palestinians and their supporters constantly compare their situation to the Jews during the Third Reich.  So let's go with the flow.  If you'd have asked a Jew in Germany in 1938 if Germans had too much power in the business world, would you expect them to answer "yes"?  Of course not.  The fact that Jews were oppressed did not mean that they believed Germans had some sort of demonic world control.  The Palestinians, however, are happy to believe that.

Even if that sort of excuses that answer, 93% of Palestinians believed in 5 more of these statements:
- Jews are more loyal to Israel than to [this country/the countries they live in].   -> (n/a because Palestine is Jew-free)
- Jews have too much power in international financial markets.
- Jews don’t care about what happens to anyone but their own kind.
- Jews have too much control over global affairs.
- People hate Jews because of the way Jews behave.
- Jews think they are better than other people.
- Jews have too much control over the United States government.
- Jews have too much control over the global media.
- Jews still talk too much about what happened to them in the Holocaust.
- Jews are responsible for most of the world’s wars.

Which of those can Kleinberg Neimark & Nevel explain away?  I hope the ADL should publish the results among Palestinians for each of those statements.

In fact, the conclusion I got to from these statistics is diametrically opposite those of  Kleinberg Neimark & Nevel.  Anti-Zionists constantly claim that "criticism of Israel" is not antisemitism.  One can understand that the Palestinians are anti-Israel.  It's OK that they're anti-Zionist.  But that doesn't mean they're anti-semitic, does it?

The ADL poll shows that anti-Zionism leads to anti-Semitism.

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