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April 30, 2004
Latent anti-Semitism reawakens
The violence and threats against Jews in Canada are not surprising
to those who have been paying attention.
PAT JOHNSON SPECIAL TO THE JEWISH BULLETIN
In recent months, the most violent and threatening attacks on Jewish
Canadians, perhaps since the Second World War, have focused our
minds on the presence of anti-Semitism in this country. Religious
and political leaders from the prime minister on down have condemned
the acts and the presence of anti-Semitism in any form. Yet, the
surprise with which some Canadians apparently met the rise in anti-Semitic
incidents betrays a lack of attention over the past several years.
There is a direct correlation between anti-Semitic acts in Canada
and the inflammatory language used against Israel by Canadian activists.
The position of Israel in the world and the position of Jews in
the world is inextricable, though we may find that fact uncomfortable
or awkward. As rhetoric-laden attacks on Israel have skyrocketed,
it was only a matter of time before people who are predisposed to
violence used this language as a cover for their actions. This is
not to say that the vast majority of people who criticize Israel
intend a violent outcome or even bear any ill will toward Jews.
But their failure to recognize the impact of their words begs some
culpability. Just because violence is not one's intent, doesn't
mean it's not the outcome. Citizens of a free society have a responsibility
to consider not only our words but their unintended consequences.
This is where "good" Canadians have failed in dealing
with anti-Semitism.
"Now we're starting to have what's going on in Europe happening
here," said Richard Menkis, an associate professor at the University
of British Columbia who has written extensively about Canadian anti-Semitism.
The language used against Israel cannot help but have an impact
on the general population's perception of Jews, he argues, providing
succor to people who are predisposed to anti-Semitism. "Once
you start using the kind of language, you start bringing in all
sorts of fellow travellers."
The violence that has emerged in recent months should not surprise
people who have attended or witnessed street demonstrations, anti-globalization
marches or anti-Israel events where the star of David has been equated
with swastikas, where pictures of Ariel Sharon have been drawn over
with fangs and horns or where Holocaust imagery has been usurped
and used against Israel.
What is most threatening, perhaps, to Canadian social cohesion is
the refusal of Israel's critics to desist from using such imagery,
despite being repeatedly begged by Jewish community leaders to do
so. The Jewish community has asked Canadians of goodwill to avoid
using references to the Holocaust and equating Israel with the Third
Reich. Still, Holocaust imagery remains enormously popular among
critics of Israel. Hardly a conversation takes place on the issue
of the Middle East, it seems, without the word coming up. For many
Jewish Canadians, this imagery is central to feelings of isolation
and discrimination. To Jews, the use of Nazi imagery is the single
most offensive aspect of mainstream Canadian discourse, yet many
critics of Israel insist it is perfectly valid. As such, it represents
a tectonic schism in public "debate" over Israel and the
Palestinians.
This theft of the Jewish experience is most surprising in an epoch
where we actually take seriously and deem as "cultural appropriation"
the idea that fiction writers should not speak through the voices
of a culture not their own. Still, some Canadians gleefully appropriate
the worst experience of another culture, and use it against that
culture itself. The manner and speed with which the ownership of
the Holocaust changes hands in this conversation indicates a breathtaking
lack of sensitivity to Jewish historical memory.
Most galling is the use of Nazi imagery by those who clearly do
not understand its meaning. Anyone who compares Israeli treatment
of Palestinians to the Nazi treatment of Jews has a desperate obligation
to reacquaint themselves with the facts of history. The comparison
is not only massively inappropriate, it is also simply wrong in
its assumptions of intent and extent.
But the use of such imagery is strategically flawless. If critics
can convince the world that Israel is perpetrating a Holocaust,
or that Israelis are Nazis, or that Sharon is Hitler, or that the
Magen David is the swastika, it will be easier to rally good people
to the cause of attacking Israel (and the Jews with whom Israel
is inextricably associated), not merely with intellectual barbs,
but with irrational, ascending and possibly violent militancy.
Is it really that serious? Language is not to be underestimated.
Jews have learned to understand the practical applications of genocide
and how it begins with ideas and rhetoric. Demonizing a group like
the Jews by applying the near-universally repugnant imagery of Nazism
is a step toward dehumanizing the Jews as a people, making the next
step of physical or verbal attack easier to justify. Some Jews say
the use of Nazi imagery is inherently anti-Semitic, which is often
met with the bickering over whether accusing someone of "anti-Semitism"
isn't just as despicable as the use of Holocaust imagery.
The logic, such as it is, of those who carry signs depicting Israelis
as Nazis is based on the supposition that their use of the word
"holocaust" proves they understand its significance –
as in, Why would I call Occupied Palestine a holocaust if I didn't
think the Holocaust was a really bad thing? This is a self-defeating
argument, in that it demonstrates precisely that the speaker does
not appreciate the Holocaust's significance.
For a time, the knowledge of the Holocaust provided a sort of shelter
for Jews worldwide. A consensus developed after the Second World
War that anti-Semitism was a force beyond explanation or control.
This consensus assured a period when anti-Semitism was condemned
by decent people whenever it appeared. This vigilance has been replaced,
in some quarters, with obfuscations suggesting anti-Semitism is
a logical result of Israeli policy.
At the Yom Hashoah commemoration in Vancouver recently, Robbie Waisman,
president of the Vancouver Holocaust Education Society and himself
a child survivor, noted the disappearance of the Holocaust as a
bulwark against anti-Semitism.
"It seems the Holocaust produced tolerance for about six decades,"
he said. "It's very frightening. You have to ask yourself what
happened. Why? Is it because of the Middle East situation? Or is
it just an excuse that people were waiting for? For 60 years, I
thought it was dormant, but it's reawakened."
Though the response of Canadians to incidents like the United Talmud
Torah school bombing in Montreal seemed heartfelt, the response
by some groups has become a bit rote. For years, critics of Israel
have insisted they will be among the first to stand with the Jewish
community were anti-Semitism to become a serious problem. Yet, when
Jewish Canadians have declared, for much of the last three years,
that the time has come to stand together, the response by many Canadians
has been, effectively, "No it's not. We'll decide when things
have gone too far."
Canadian critics of Israel have consistently denied accusations
of anti-Semitism, but then turn around and use language against
Israel that sounds, smells and feels to Jews just like the language
of the 1930s.
Perhaps the most difficult problem in addressing anti-Semitism is
that we don't even have a universally accepted definition for what
it is. When one person uses the term "anti-Semitic," they
may refer simply to a tasteless cartoon. To the ears of another,
an accusation of anti-Semitism is akin to placing blame for genocide.
Though prejudice and violence are related, they are not synonymous.
Further, to be accused of being anti-Semitic has taken on extreme
connotations when one considers recent history. It could naturally
be perceived as being equivalent to Hitler, in which case defensiveness
is a natural response. But too quick a self-defence mechanism can
prevent us from opportunities for self-awareness.
By their very definition, most prejudices are so innate we don't
recognize them. Could it be that some Canadians are prejudiced against
Jews and just don't know it? Could we innocently develop ideas through
a complex web of predispositions and cognition? Of course. That
is how we develop almost all our ideas.
The reflexive denial of anti-Semitism by many Canadians is itself
alarming. Progressive-thinking people who would never dare suggest
that the achievements of feminism have eliminated chauvinism and
misogyny seem quick to downplay or outright deny the existence of
anti-Semitism. Any suggestion that anti-Semitism plays a role in
criticism of Israel is met with accusations of Jewish victimology.
(The best defence is still an offence.)
Yet, it's difficult to avoid the suspicion that the seemingly pent-up
blind fury with which so many Canadian critics rage against Israel
might be due to something more than a strict, even-handed consideration
of Middle East affairs. Could some old prejudices we don't even
acknowledge be playing a part in Canadians' perceptions of Israel?
Could the image of the striving Jew, always trying to make good,
always on the make, a step ahead of everyone else, cleverly conniving
their way into the rightful domain of others, clannishly defending
their own kind with no consideration for others, still have some
resonance today, as it did for 2,000 years? If the answer is no,
then could we at least imagine how such a misperception might occur
to an elderly Jewish person who does remember when ideas like that
were in vogue? Can we understand that people whose life experience
has taught them to be ever-sensitive to the mildest shifts of tolerance
might hear it differently?
Example: The accusation that Israel has created an atmosphere in
the Arab world, especially among Palestinians, that breeds suicide
bombings and other homicidal attacks on Israeli civilians, rests
on the same intellectual assumption that underpins 2,000 years of
anti-Semitism: The Jews bring it on themselves. They're too pushy,
they're too demanding, they're inflexible, they stick up for themselves
at everyone else's expense. All of these things are characteristic
of the grossest Jewish stereotypes, yet they could also be applied
almost directly to sum up the position of many people on the situation
in the Middle East. The Israelis are too pushy, they're too demanding,
they're inflexible, they stick up for themselves at everyone else's
expense.
A corollary of blaming the victim is the justification of the attacker.
The Arab terrorists who kill Israelis are violent because they're
angry. Can you imagine a Canadian using this justification in
any other context?
One of the more popular deflections of anti-Semitism of late is
to point out that Arabs are also Semitic people. But the term anti-Semitism,
whether etymologically correct or not, has since the 1880s been
endowed with the association of discrimination against Jews. To
split hairs now over who exactly is a Semite and therefore carries
the mantle of anti-Semitic victimhood effectively discounts the
entire historical experience of Jews.
One of the most successful aspects of the anti-Israel movement has
been convincing the world that Israel is rotten at its core, that
its occupation of the Palestinian territories eclipses any hope
of being considered moral. For example, Israel is decried as the
world's gravest violator of human rights – an assertion so
outrageous it would be laughable if much of the world didn't take
it at face value. Such demonization is only a step removed from
the Medieval assumption that Jews wore kippot to hide the demonic
horns they grow.
Canadians like to imagine ourselves as free from such base prejudices.
We may be too optimistic a people.
Pat Johnson is a Vancouver journalist and commentator.
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