Via Norm on dust, I got introduced to Lenin and to his thoughts on Sharon's latest pronouncements about the advisability of jews in France moving to Israel.
The proper response to racism is not to encourage its victims to flee, much less flee to a country whose history, politics and expansionism makes it a more dangerous place for those who are seeking refuge. It is to join them in solidarity, to fight beside them, fight for their right to live here unmolested. Israel's politics are for this reason, doubly reprehensible: in its foundation, it is a racists' solution to the problem of Jewish oppression in Europe; in sharing the racists' purview, it has not found it difficult to oppress others and to legitimise such behaviour with the kind of discourse that once stigmatised them.
I know Norm wouldn't agree with this, but I still think it has some force. I know that Israel is a Jewish State. I know that it is unlikely that Zionists will not be Jews, but I still hold to the view that to be anti-Zionist is not the same as being anti-semitic, even though many anti-semites hide behind that same argument. Equally however, politicians like Sharon are too quick to demonise those who criticise their policies as anti-semites.
And despite what many would argue it is just as possible for Jews to be racist as anyone else.
One recalls Ehud Barak's famously learned discourse on how, after all, those Arabs don't have the Judeo-Christian guilt complex that would prevent them from lying.
