Thursday, August 14, 2003

This is perhaps a good time to give my interpretation of the term "antisemitism". You'll notice I don't use a hyphen, like most major news organizations. Sometimes you will hear pro-Palestinian folks argue that Arabs cannot be antisemitic because they too are Semites. This specious argument has two major flaws. The first is that, for better or worse, antisemitism, like many words, is a word of dubious origin. It was used by an anti-Jewish German writer in the 19th century to describe his hatred of the "Jewish" culture which he felt was encroaching on German culture. Antisemitism has been used to describe hatred of Jews since then. It actually describes a little more than that; whereas the term anti-Jewish might be used to a particular law or policy, antisemitism suggests something more systemic, and might be used to describe a person's overall political and social outlook or a country's overall policy. Its use has absolutely nothing to do with Arabs or other peoples of the Middle East. The proof in the pudding is the second argument: Have you ever heard an Arab (or a Jew for that matter) describe himself or herself as Semite? No. Antisemites who are Semites seem to remember that they are Semitic only when accused of antisemitism. Hypenating the term "antisemitism" is, in my opinion, compounds which feeds this big lie, and thus I believe that antisemitism should be written as one word, a word which stands on its own.

posted by Michael Brenner @ 10:36 AM 0 comments

Here is a letter I just discovered from the Independent that was published on August 1, 2003. The letter was written in response to another Johann Hari column, in which he claimed that the Palestinian narrative did not get a hearing in America, news to anyone who has been on a college campus recently or reads the newspaper on a regular basis. It is a common misconception that the United States is a biased party when it comes to the politics of the Middle East. Naturally anyone who is pro-Palestinian is going to find the United States biased. But I believe it is the Europeans, who have largely accepted the Palestinian narrative, and now give short shrift to the Israeli narrative, who are the biased ones.

Letter - Middle East myths.
By Michael Brenner.

Sir: Johann Hari submits that the Palestinian narrative is entirely unheard in America. This is simply untrue. It is a popular tale told at elite universities like Edward Said's Columbia and promoted by ubiquitous pro-Palestinian writers like James Zogby, Ali Abunimah, William Dalrymple and many others on the pages of major American newspapers. It seems that Mr Hari's real protest is that the Palestinian narrative has not been accepted wholesale in America as it has been by many, if not most, Europeans. It is for this reason that America remains the major arbiter in peace negotiations; rather than displaying a bias where Europe is even-handed, it is in fact even-handed where Europe is biased.

MICHAEL BRENNER

New York.

posted by Michael Brenner @ 9:49 AM 0 comments

Wednesday, August 13, 2003

A new letter in the Independent, August 13, 2003. This letter was written in response to two pieces printed in the Independent, one a courageous column by Johann Hari condemning the reintroduction of antisemitic discourse into British dialogue and the other an offensive review Los Angeles's Museum of Tolerance by the Independent's Los Angeles correspondent, Andrew Gumbel, which seemed to be almost a textbook example of what Hari was talking about, the kind of pernicious little piece which would not have been written a few years ago. Hari is an unabashed pro-Palestinian writer, but he seems to be one of those true activists who can favor a cause without losing his mind in the process, unlike a certain Robert Fisk, the Independent's rabid Middle East "correspondent".

Letter - Exile nation.
By MICHAEL BRENNER.

Sir: Kudos to Johann Hari for having the courage to condemn the antisemitism seeping into British dialogue on the Middle East (Opinion, 9 August). It is unfortunate, then, that just one day before, your paper published Andrew Gumbel's review of the renowned Museum of Tolerance in Los Angeles. Gumbel says more about his own political proclivities than about the Museum, which he casts as a "pro-Zionist, religious Jewish" plot to drum up support for Israel. He even slams the failure of the Museum to include narratives about Palestinian rights and Jewish collaboration with Nazis. How would their inclusion, which obscures the crime of Jewish annihilation as the culmination millennia of baseless European antisemitism, and even gives comfort to those bigots who take perverse pleasure in blaming the victims, help people to be more tolerant of others?

To paraphrase Hari, would a review like this have been acceptable a few years ago?

MICHAEL BRENNER

New York.

posted by Michael Brenner @ 12:48 AM 0 comments