178. FREE PALESTINE - On Anti-Semitism
In case it needs saying - I am Jewish. Obviously the whole ‘Anarchist Atheist…’ thing makes it clear that I don’t believe in God. So I’m not a religiously observant Jew. I am like, so many of us, a secular, or atheist, Jew. But my lack of time spent in the synagogue and total lack of belief in any of the key tenets of the faith would not have stopped Hitler from killing me. Before she was a McKee, my mother was a Lippman. My mother, and her mother, and her mother’s mother - all Jewish. According to Judaism, that’s enough to make your offspring Jewish too. That’s enough to make a Nazi, or any modern day anti-Semite, decide I am worthy of their contempt and hostility, even death.
Because anti-Semites, like all racists, are stupid.
But there are other kinds of stupidity, and philosophy can make us very attuned to it. We deal, as philosophers, in nuance and distinction. Trying to iron out sloppiness in thinking and untangle inconsistency until things make sense. For me, as a Jew, appalled by the actions of Israel in Gaza since last October, but also long appalled at the displacement of Palestinians and taking of Palestinian land to form the ever-expanding state of Israel, and as a philosopher, obsessed with fine distinctions, discussion about anti-Semitisim in recent years has been one of those sources of stupidity for me. Particularly the conflation of being pro-Palestinian freedom with being anti-Semitic.
On the one hand it is encouraging to see greater awareness of anti-Semitism as a form of discrimination in a country - the UK - that has largely ignored it for so long. David Baddiel’s recent book, Jews Don’t Count, highlighted this issue perfectly. How anti-Semitism and the stereotyping of Jews seemed to be the last safe-haven for racism in a world quick to react against all other forms of racism and hate-speech. Historically Jews have been the targets of discrimination and hatred, and we continue to be. Every time I publicly declare my Jewishness, I feel the weight of that anti-Semitism, because I feel the shift in the air when I do it. The worry I feel that this exposes me to attack or abuse that doesn’t happen when I declare my atheism, my anarchism, my Irish citizenship, my American citizenship…or any other element of who I am to the world. It is the one part of my personal identity (and the part so easily hidden behind my Irish name and non-observant, atheist lifestyle) that makes me feel vulnerable to the hatred of others in this way. Anti-Semitism is real and it is scary. It was real growing up as a kid in the 80s, where swastikas were regularly scratched into school-desks and the National Front’s logo was graffitied onto lampposts near my house, and it continues to be real today, where just the most cursory glance at a Twitter/X feed shows you the horror of what some people think it is OK to say.
But this week I have read several news sites reporting the massive rise in anti-Semitic attacks across the UK since October 7th. And when I read into the detail of the pieces, beyond the shocking headlines, I saw that many of these recorded instances of anti-semitism included people simply saying ‘free Palestine’.
Saying ‘free Palestine’ is not anti-Semitic, although it is most certainly a critique of the Israeli occupation of that land. To call it anti-Semitic perhaps comes from a good place, but it is to over-correct. However, it is an understandable over-correction as the conflation of the political state of Israel and its actions with Judaism and the Jewish people is one which has been intentionally courted by Israel itself, and groups who support Israel and claim to fight anti-semitism, since its creation. A conflation which has been baked into the very definition of anti-Semitism promoted by some influential groups. Because, frankly, it is a very useful way of deflecting criticism of the political actions of the state of Israel, by calling such criticism of it ‘racist’.
Political states can, and must, be criticised without conflation with the individuals who make up those states, or their collective or individual personal or religious beliefs.
Consider the statement: ‘free Ukraine’. A distinctly anti-Russian government statement, but not necessarily a statement that is racist towards Russian people (although it might make many Russians, sympathetic to the invasion, unhappy). Russian people as a whole are not responsible for the actions of their government and we can wish for Ukraine to be free without wishing ill on the people of Russia, or feeling that the invasion of Ukraine is somehow an innate element of Russian ethnicity. At the same time, within Russia, the invasion of Ukraine has been - purposefully- wrapped up in stories of Russian identity and patriotic nationalism. Putin’s whole claim is that he has not invaded Ukraine at all, simply taken back a stolen part of Russia to make it Russian again. He therefore spins a tale of Russian pride throughout his invasion narrative to intentionally to try and propagate to his people that the invasion is righteous and should be supported. In the case of Russia, however, we can see this for the cynical propaganda ploy that it is, and even understand that many Russians will have been swayed by such stories without holding it against them. We can criticise the actions of the Russian government and military without that criticism descending into a hatred of Russian people or a desire to eliminate Russia from the face of the earth.
For many of us seeking a free Palestine the same is true of our criticisms of the Israeli government and military. But the desire to see a ‘free Palestine’ has been twisted into something offensive by the Israeli occupiers of Palestinian territory themselves. And has been done so on purpose. They are not stealing land, they would argue, they are either taking back land that is rightfully theirs, or just doing what is needed to secure their rightful land from threats to its existence from enemies who want to destroy them. A standard story from any state engaged in controversial colonial geo-political struggle (consider the repressive role of UK police in Northern Ireland supposedly ‘securing’ the region from the Republic) and one we should know by now to treat with a pinch of salt and critical scrutiny. Because this is what states do: claim righteousness for all their deplorable acts. Yet the actions of Israel seem to lack the scrutiny usually given to the claims of political actors precisely because a continuing conflation has been nurtured by that state between its political existence and its religious identity.
The conflation is not real. It is not necessary. The idea of a Jewish promised land is a lovely biblical myth, but many Jews - not just those, like me, atheists, who reject all biblical myths, but also many of those who actually believe in the divine origins of scripture - have accepted that such a myth need not come at the cost of displacing other peoples already living on the so-called land we are alleged to have been ‘promised’. After the holocaust, the creation of the state of Israel as a place where persecuted Jews could feel safe was a nice idea. It even felt necessary. But it was not the only way of keeping Jewish people safe. Actually eradicating anti-Semitism in every country where Jews lived could also have achieved that job. Dismantling the lies and conspiracy theories which led to Nazism and other historic persecutions in the first place would have been a more long-lasting solution. Recognising the humanity of the Jewish people and the role so many had played globally in their harassment and discrimination might have led to a shift in prejudice and recognition of complicity that required lasting global change. Sequestering us to our own country, in an area which it was already known would be hostile to the idea, was more a way of other countries to, yet again, be able to wash their hands of the task without having to change their own racist ways. But the false conflation between the Israeli political project and the Jewish faith has been nurtured as a useful tool for the Israeli government, much the same way the US nurtured patriotism after the 9/11 attacks to justify illegitimate invasions around the globe under the rhetoric of ‘you’re either with us, or you’re against us.’ When people criticise the actions of Israel, as a political state, they are accused of anti-Semitism and criticism of the Jewish people. To deny Israel its right to defend itself has become, in public discourse, to deny Judaism its right to protect itself from anti-Semitism.
The conflation, though false, is politically useful to Israel, because it provides immunity from serious criticism about its actions. And further evidence that the conflation of Israel and Judaism is not real is that these benefits to the political state of Israel have not benefitted all Jewish people. In fact, they have directly led to the growing rise in anti-Semitism we have been seeing long before the October 7th attack from Hamas or Israeli response (lest we forget Donald Trump’s first term as President and the rise of the truly anti-Semitic alt-right that accompanied it, for example). The repeated falsehood that Israel = Jews has grown to the point where the conflation has become real in the minds of many who criticise the Israeli state for its political actions. Repeated often enough in Israeli defences of its actions, some critics cannot, and do not, separate the religious origins of Israel from its political aspirations anymore. When they say ‘Israeli’, they really do mean ‘Jew’. Because that is what they have been told to be true by the Israeli state itself. Feeding into the glut of ancient conspiracy theories plaguing the internet, the legitimately questionable actions of the Israeli state, when seen through this lens, add further fuel to an already racist fire. Even those who don’t fully buy in to anti-Semitic myths and actually hate Jewish people, given this repeated conflation, might end up waving Palestinian flags indiscriminately outside synagogues or spray painting ‘free Palestine’ on the walls of a Jewish school because they have been repeatedly told by the Israeli government that the actions of their political project represent the identity of the Jewish people as a whole. That what Israel does is what Judaism does. Because they believe the conflation and do not understand the true target of their legitimate anger, they think they are directing their protests at the right people. They act not with hatred, but with an intentionally cultivated stupidity.
For most of us who want a free Palestine, when we say ‘free Palestine’ we are not anti-Semites. We do not hate Jewish people. Some of us are Jews ourselves. We simply mean that Palestine must be freed from Israeli occupation. That colonialism is unjust. Just as it was unjust everywhere else. That Palestinians and Israeli settlers need to find a way of coming together and finding a solution that allows all people to live free and peaceably in the region. There is nothing anti-Semitic about it, even if it might be anti-Israel. Because Israel and Jewish people are not one and the same thing.
That we have reached a point in our political dialogue where it is becoming harder and harder to distinguish between those simply seeking peace in the Middle East and those for whom the phrase ‘free Palestine’ really is code for something vile and anti-Semitic, it is, perhaps, something the Israeli government have cause to look in the mirror about. By intentionally muddying the waters so they can avoid legitimate critique over the years, they have, with their strategic desire to tie Jewish identity inherently with the political project of Israel, actually made the world less safe for Jews, rather than protecting them from anti-Semitism.
As a Jew, I want to live in a world without anti-Semitism. I also want to live in a world with a free Palestine. These two ideas are not mutually exclusive, or in tension with each other. And we need to ask questions of motivation from those repeatedly peddling the myth that they are.
Author: DaN McKee (he/him)
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