It has become fashionable for celebrities to condemn Israel, encourage boycotts, and represent the Palestinian myth as true despite its lack of historical foundation. But because these views are based on revisionist history and classical stereotypes attributed to the Jewish State, the bold repetition of outrageous lies regarding Israel – and they are outrageous – bespeaks ill-intent or malice.
While some may jump on the bandwagon out of ignorance, even the ignorant have an intellectual obligation to reevaluate their core premise when faced with hard facts that undercut their position. If they simply ignore facts that present inconvenient truths, their ignorance becomes willful and, thereby, no less profligate than intentional malice. And so it is with the Israel-bashing chorus in the artistic community, whose message – when stripped of all pretense – has much in common with that of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan, who recently called Zionism a crime against humanity.
The only difference is that Erdogan is an Islamist whose views are dictated by a religious doctrine that considers the Jews a dhimmi people who were subjugated through jihad and who, therefore, lost the right to national ascendancy in their homeland. It is ironic that progressive artists who condemn Israel claim to be promoting human rights, and yet take the same position as Islamists who preach doctrinal hatred and persecute those they consider infidels.
But then again, progressivism at its most extreme has a long tradition of excusing totalitarian excess, as long as that excess springs from the political left or from anointed groups deemed to be reacting against foreign or colonial intrusion.
The greater mystery is why so many secular and liberal Jews defend or support anti-Zionists and refuse to denounce their anti-Semitism. Since the days of the ghetto, paralyzing caution and timidity have dictated the apologetic way some segments of Jewish society have responded to hostility and aggression.
The more extremist elements, however, are not simply making excuses for the excesses of their political compatriots. Rather, many of the secular and assimilated – particularly those on the left – actively promote and support progressive extremists whose disdain for Israel is rooted in hatred of Jews and Judaism.
Apologists who stubbornly cling to the fiction that anti-Zionism is not a form of bigotry need to examine the motivations of social and political activists who reject Israel’s legitimacy. Those who deny Jewish history, promote a revisionist Palestinian narrative, or falsely accuse Israel of crimes that actually occur in Arab-Muslim society are not acting with purity of impulse.
At its core, anti-Zionism rejects the Jews’ fundamental right to self-determination, devalues their national identity, and presumes that they should be treated differently from all other peoples. Despite apologetic attempts to characterize progressive Israel-chiding in neutral political terms, an appropriate word already exists to describe the act of delegitimizing the Jewish State – and that word is “anti-Semitism.
