Bob Fine addresses UCU on anti-semitism
This is quite simply spot-on: read it!
“Today we hear another yet more troubling refrain. It is that Holocaust memory has become exclusive: that it’s all about Jewish suffering; that it ignores the non-Jewish people who were also murdered by the Nazis; that Jews have become obsessed by their own suffering at the expense of others; that no longer is any universal meaning drawn from collective memory. It is said that today we suffer from a surfeit of Holocaust museums, films, histories and stories as if this were the only injustice we need to remember. It is said that it is inconsistent to make Holocaust-denial illegal but not genocide denial more generally. It is said that the Holocaust is now used instrumentally to protect Israel from criticism and justify the crimes Israel commits. At the extreme it is said that what Israel does to Palestinians is ‘like’ the Holocaust or that the victims of the Holocaust have now become the victimisers of the Palestinians…
“…Today the danger is that ‘antizionism’ may provide a point of unification around which sections of the far right, the anti-imperialist left, radical Islam and even the liberal establishment might coalesce.”
Read the rest of Fine’s presentation, here…
H/t: Richard Gold, ‘Engage‘.
Shiraz Socialist 
Lobby Ludd said,
February 1, 2010 at 9:33 pm
I have not read Robert Fine’s article. However, I can take exception to the claim:
“…Today the danger is that ‘antizionism’ may provide a point of unification around which sections of the far right, the anti-imperialist left, radical Islam and even the liberal establishment might coalesce.”
‘Coalesce’? How the fuck do you do that? Could there be some kind of ‘coalesced’ political body formed around ‘antizionism’? Be serious.
Rebecca Lesses said,
February 1, 2010 at 11:08 pm
Why not, Lobby? There was a coalesced political body formed around antisemitism of various antisemitic parties including the Nazis. Why shouldn’t there be a political body focused on antizionism? I can think of lots of groups now who coalesce around this ideology – BRICUP, the BDS movement large, Code Pink, Hezbollah, Hamas, the official political line of Iran – and in fact these groups coalesce with each other, as shown by the recent antics in Egypt perpetrated by the Viva Palestina and Gaza Freedom Marches, whose only concrete result was the death of one Egyptian policeman.
Rebecca Lesses said,
February 1, 2010 at 11:08 pm
And if you haven’t read his article, why are you commenting on it? Is it so hard to read the whole thing?
Jim Denham said,
February 1, 2010 at 11:50 pm
Lobby: first (as Rebecca suggests) at least take the trouble to read his statement before commenting.
Then, to address the question you yourself have asked: “‘Coalesce’? How the fuck do you do that? “…
…read the ‘Guardian’ (S. Milne) or the ‘New Statesman’ (J.Pilger) for an answer to your question.
I know from my own experience in the trade union movement, that a “left-wing” form of anti-semitism is presently rife. It’s probabl the last “accepable” form of racism, and usually dresse up as “anti-Zionism” (“don’t you know that opposition to Zionism is not the same thing as anti-semitism?” and other such dishonest banality).
I will quite willingly give you names and details of “left wing” anti-semites I’ve encountered in the trade union movement in Birmingham. One Bill Goulding, for starters.
Andrew Coates said,
February 3, 2010 at 10:15 am
Bob Fine is an old comrade from the Leamington Spa Anti-Racist Anti-Fascist Committee (LARFC) in the late ‘seventies’. This was a real combat organisation, and enjoyed some success in fighting a real fascist base in the area.
When he speaks I take him seriously.
Lobby Ludd said,
February 3, 2010 at 6:23 pm
I am not discounting the views of Bob Fine, merely objecting to the idea that such a broad range of politics, including the far right and the ‘anti-imperialist left’ (is there any other kind of left?) could ‘coalesce’ around ‘anti-Zionism’.
“Opposition to Zionism is not the same thing as anti-semitism” is not a banality, Jim, unfortunately it is something that has to be repeated ad nauseam in the face of those who wish to paint opposition to the actions of the Israeli state as anti-Semitic.
maxdunbar said,
February 4, 2010 at 6:48 am
But some opposition to Israel is anti-semitic – in certain cases, it’s not a smear, but a statement of fact
Jim Denham said,
February 4, 2010 at 10:30 pm
“Opposition to Zionism is not the same thing as anti-semitism” is not a banality, Jim, unfortunately it is something that has to be repeated ad nauseam in the face of those who wish to paint opposition to the actions of the Israeli state as anti-Semitic”: I think you misunderstand me, Lobby.
I am, of couse aware that there are some (OK: many) people who consider themselves “anti Zionist” who are not, personally, anti-semitic, in the sense that :
A/ They don’t, personally hate Jews;
b/ They accept (however reluctantly and with whatever reservations), that Jews have a right to a Jewish homeland (ie: Israel, behind 1967 borders).
People who accept the above, however much they hate the present Israeli government or the attack on Gaza, or the trestment of Palestinians in the occupied territories, are most certainly *not* anti semites…
…But those who question Israel’s right to even exist …even behind pre-1967 borders *are* anti semites in the strict, political sense.
The point about “Zionism”, Lobby (and why the use of the term cannot answer the important questions), is that since 1948 all it means is support for the right of the Israeli nation to exist. Something that all decent people – left, right and centre, agree with. And quite rightly so.