What is just, and what is just hateful
It isn’t often that a short YouTube video will dominate the Jewish media conversation, but that is what happened last week when Helen Thomas’s incendiary words made headlines nationwide. Thomas’s anti-Israel statement was tactless and shocking, but people say stupid things about this conflict all the time. Her comments were important, rather, because they illustrated the failure of the anti-Israel left to condemn hateful rhetoric.
When a rabbi began interviewing her on Jewish Heritage Day at the White House on May 27, Thomas told Israeli Jews to “get the hell out of Palestine” and go home to “Germany, Poland and America.” These comments should have met universal rebuke. Instead, they shed light on the failure of anti-Israel commentators to distance themselves from extremist sentiments. Philip Weiss, of MondoWeiss, wrote a blog post about how Thomas was being punished for “castigating Israel’s ‘occupation.’” Weiss continued to assert that the media should remember the “ethnic cleansing” of Palestine that took place 62 years ago and still “festers in the soul of Arab-Americans” like Thomas. He then claims that the real problem is the Israel lobby and concludes: “Talk about why Helen Thomas is nursing [a] 62 year-old pain.”
In Weiss’ campaign to attack Israel and defend Palestinian rights, it seems to me that he has blinded himself in a way endemic to the anti-Israel left. Thomas was not “castigating Israel’s occupation.” Those perpetuating Israel’s occupation do not come from homes in Poland and Germany, and Thomas’ comments referred to more than the settlers living in the West Bank and Golan Heights. Rather, she was denying the right of all Israeli Jews to live in Israel because the Israeli government has wronged and is wronging the Palestinians. This argument sounds familiar: some in the pro-Israel community argue that because Palestinian leadership has supported suicide bombings, all Palestinians have forfeited their claim to basic human rights. But Weiss and other defenders of Thomas have compromised their ability to see such parallels. Weiss is correct in pointing out the fact that Ms. Thomas is nursing pain, but I am sure that Avigdor Lieberman is nursing a deep pain of his own. Should we ignore or forgive his anti-Arab racism and bigotry as Weiss is forgiving Thomas’s?
We must refuse to take the view that all criticism of Israel is right, and we need to concern ourselves with human dignity on both sides of the conflict. We must remember that Israel is not just a concept or a player in a geopolitical conflict, but rather a place with millions of real people who have fears, face hardships and deserve safety and freedom.
There are many ways in which one can and should criticize Israel without a trace of anti-Semitism. Israel is doing many things that are wrong and harmful to the Palestinians, who deserve a state of their own. And though I am sympathetic to some pro-Israel positions, I am not asking the pro-Palestinian left to rewrite its historical narrative or reassign responsibility for the conflict’s tragedies. I am asking, however, for us all to realize that hatred and bigotry go both ways, and that we should not blind ourselves to sensitivity when we fight for a cause.
Statements like Thomas’s enable pro-Israel pundits to cry “anti-Semitism!” whenever anyone criticizes Israel. Right-wing pro-Israel commentators call so many things and people anti-Semitic that the term ends up losing meaning and listeners tune it out. But when Helen Thomas tells Israeli Jews to go home to Poland and Germany, those same commentators again cry “anti-Semite,” and this time they are right. Thomas’s words are scary not only because they are anti-Semitic but also because they give the Israeli right and its American supporters fodder for their continued siege of Palestinian rights, on the basis that the defenders of those rights are extremists.
We should be concerned not only with extremists themselves, however, but also with how extreme statements affect the moderates in the debate. Many Israelis and supporters of Israel are reasonable, moderate people. Many of those who criticize Israeli actions are also reasonable, moderate people. But when Israel’s moderate critics fail to condemn anti-Israel extremists, they push moderate Israelis and supporters of Israel toward the extremists on the Israeli side. They end up supporting the argument that all criticism of Israel is anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic, which does not help the Palestinians.
We should be deeply concerned by the plight of the Palestinians. We should oppose misguided policies of the Israeli government. But we should never forget that the Jews living in Israel are also fragile, breakable human beings.
Moriel Rothman, a student at Middlebury College, is the national president of J Street U.
