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The Forum > Article Comments > BDS campaign questions academics' courage > Comments

BDS campaign questions academics' courage : Comments

By Stuart Rees, published 21/1/2013

In the face of continuous human rights abuses affecting Palestinians, the time comes for citizens to find other ways to address these issues. The BDS movement provides one of the hopeful 'other ways'.

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Yuyutsu, the Law of Return is not racist, since Jews come from all races, as you will see for yourself if you visit Israel: Ethiopian and other Africans, Berber, Arab, Aryan, Slav, Turkomongolian, Indian (e.g., the Jews of Cochin and some of the Mumbai community, and the B'nai Menashe from NE India), Chinese and Japanese Jews, and others, although there is still strong mainstream continuity from Biblical times. Many Jews coming to Israel are converts. Religion is the key factor determining Jewish affiliation and the existence of the Jewish people as such down through the ages, since it was their acceptance of the Torah at Mt. Sinai that first created and defined them as a people. But in our secular age, even secular Jews are threatened by racists who define Jews, wrongly, as a race, and therefore personal identification with the Jewish people by a secular Jew is sufficient to gain the protection of the State of Israel and residency under the Law of Return. To provide refuge to persecuted Jews, who in our very generation were abandoned to genocide by all the world including the West, is one of the chief reasons the State of Israel exists; it is not however the only reason. It also exists to provide Jews with a majority culture for the first time in 2,000 years, in which Judaism itself and Jewish culture more generally can be sympathetically renewed on its own terms, and this can really only be accomplished in the Land of Israel itself, the Jewish homeland. It therefore brings two millenia of Jewish exile to a partial end, a momentous thing in the whole sweep of Jewish history. On Zionism, its history and teachings, see Walter Laqueur, A History of Zionism, and Arthur Hertzberg, ed., The Zionist Idea: A Historical Analysis and Reader -- this is an anthology of texts.
Posted by Everett, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 6:38:57 PM
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Dear Everett,

I think that you missed the main thrust of my words to Julian, the tone of my voice:
it was not "Oh Jews/Zionists are terrible racists, tut-tut", but rather "so you say Jews/Zionists are racist - fine, what's the big deal about it?".

Now you are claiming that Zionism is not technically racist, but rather national, or better still, religious, which makes the same behaviour kosher that would otherwise be contemptible if it came under the definition of "racist"?

You may be right about the intricate differences between "racist" and "national", Judaism being probably somewhere in between, but should national-identity be any more kosher than racism?

Next you turn do define Judaism in terms of religion. While I tend to agree with your defining Judaism as a nation (rather than race), I cannot agree on the attribution of religion to Judaism.

Judaism was never a religion because its true object was never to serve God, but to serve the nation of Israel. The whole "Torah" (instructions) were faked, probably by Ezra, in order to promote his personal and national agenda, then forced on the people of Israel as their "history - or else". The invention of the Jewish god, complete with the narrative of Abraham/Isaac/Jacob and Sinai, was merely one convenient tactic, along with a set of "commandments" designed specifically to keep the Jews together as a nation. The nation always came before God, permitting the Jewish leaders (priests, then Rabbis) to override those commandments whenever it was beneficial for the nation to do so. This is hypocrisy, this is sacrilegious of the name of God, this is not a religion!

Actually you just stated yourself that what really matters is "PERSONAL IDENTIFICATION WITH THE JEWISH PEOPLE", so please leave religion aside: according to your own statement, a person who keeps the Sabbath, eats kosher, circumcise, etc. but does not identify with the Jewish people (a Karaaite or Samaritan for example) is not eligible for refuge in Israel.

Whether Zionism is good or bad is a very complex issue, but please keep religious claims out of this discussion.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 8:46:17 PM
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Yes Arjay as you stated ‘so to criticise Israeli policy is being antisemitic and racist’ is quite a correct assumption. One definition of antisemitism is * when Israel is singled out for criticism from other counties in the region, it is antisemitism* You sight Noam Chomsky ,Norman Finkelstein s examples of Jewish people who agree with you. You have to understand these two are Jewish in name only and have traded in their religion many years ago for the ideas of the Far Left. They trade on their Jewishness.

The mere fact you use the word Jew or Jews is in itself antisemitic. Rarely will you find Jewish people referring to themselves, or indeed speaking of Jews or Jew
Search Google for the word and you come up with this
Offensive Search Results
We're disturbed about these results as well.
http://www.google.com/explanation.html

I found this tit-bit whilst perusing the comments. Good one!
http://www.freeman.org/m_online/oct03/plaut1.htm

When approached by a student who attacked Zionism, Dr. Martin Luther King responded: “When people criticize Zionists, they mean Jews. You're talking anti-Semitism.”

I am quite astounded by your lack of knowledge of a few people. Those you are calling Palestinians, do not have any land. What don’t you understand about the fact they have always refused to talk peace and borders. The nearest they came was in 2007 or 2008, when Abbas agreed with Olmert and then never finalised it. The problem is that they want all or nothing.

Even the fact you think that Gaza is under siege is way off the mark. I can give you countless URLs to Gazan sites for 5 star hotels, spas, resorts, night clubs, huge houses, riding schools and more , much more. There are also 9 universities

This fact has been widely reported this past week.

Hamas Tries to Limit Israeli Imports into Gaza
Hamas bans certain types of Israeli goods into Gaza. Israel nevertheless continues supplying goods.
http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/164324#.UP-3IWdPC6h
Posted by SF, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 8:57:07 PM
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Yuyutsu, your characterisation of Judaism really lifts the veil on your mental world. It is so far off base, so extremely false and hateful, not just slightly so, that it is evident that you know next to nothing about Judaism, a truly sublime religion that has such beauty and powerful insights that both Christianity and Islam have wanted to claim its treasures solely for themselves, adapted of course in Christianity's case to Graeco-Roman cultures and religions and in Islam's case to pagan Arabian culture. It is simply impossible to explain the profound impact of Judaism in world religions on the basis of the ideas you have. But beyond that, your comments show that you are filled with ill will to Jews as such. You have obviously gotten what little you know on the subject of Jews and Judaism from rabid antisemites, including those who push a Protocols of the Elders of Zion line. For shame.
Posted by Everett, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 9:05:47 PM
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Dear Everett,

<<your comments show that you are filled with ill will to Jews as such.>>

I have no ill will to Jews as such (in fact some of my best friends are Jews), only sadness and pity as I do for anyone who fell in a bad cult.
Posted by Yuyutsu, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 9:49:07 PM
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Sorry re delay. Crashed my quota.

BSDetector: The only points of argument with you were (1): Your claim there was no distinction between family connection with a country and ancestry was shown to be some BS you failed to detect; (2) Your claim that Greece’s immigration law made it an ethnocracy similar to Israel falls down in several ways: Greece doesn’t recognise claims that being born to a Greek, even if traced back a few generations, makes you a genetic heir to the ancient Greeks; Greece doesn’t occupy a land cleared by ethnic cleansing; Greece is not in incessant war with a population it displaced; Greece is not a menace to world peace.

My objection to Greek nationality law it is that it is none the less racist and that it hands to the corrupt brasshats men who were Greek or born to Greeks, and who are NOT Greek. DFTA warns Australian travellers of this.

Yuyutsu: An evil is not mitigated one whit by scouring the world for other evils. Ethnocentrism a.k.a. racism is an evil if injustice is an evil. Racism nominates people who have superior and inferior entitlement on the grounds of an accident of birth over which the individual has no possibility of influence. That is injustice. Stalin managed to kill many Ukrainians but had no power to reduce the evil of Nazism.

But congratulations - your comment on religion (with which I concur) has brought out of the woodwork another post seeking to trump an argument with stupid insults about “antisemitism”:
See Everett, Wednesday, 23 January 2013 9:05:47 PM.
Posted by EmperorJulian, Thursday, 24 January 2013 1:30:23 PM
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