Social media have their pros and cons. The Twitter hashtag is definitely a “pro.” A hashtag can instantly convey a world of meaning to millions of people.
I offer for consideration #JewHatePrivilege. It encapsulates the reality that, while expressed hatred for any minority identity groups is normally considered repulsive, and even subject to punitive measures, expression of hatred for Jews is an anomaly. It is not only permitted, it is virtually protected speech. Actually, #JewHatePrivilege is not specific enough, because the privilege takes two distinct forms. There is #MuslimJewHatePrivilege and there is #WesternJewHatePrivilege.
We saw an example of #MuslimJewHatePrivilege in demonstrations this summer throughout Europe, in which Muslims screamed Judeophobic curses, like “Hamas, Hamas, Jews to the gas,” and “Kill the Jews,” at which nobody batted an eye (Indeed, it is customary in Europe for police to blatantly ignore incitement to violence against Jews, but to arrest anyone sporting an Israeli flag, in order to prevent riots they know they cannot contain). We saw it in Palestinians’ joyful street demonstrations following the recent massacre of Jews at prayer in a Jerusalem synagogue. And we saw it early this month in Khalil Attieh, vice-chair of Jordan’s Parliament, burning an Israeli flag in parliament and boasting of his hatred for Jews: “Hating the Jews is a great honor for me.”
Jordan is the closest thing Israel has to a “friend” in the region, and yet a high official in its government spews forth hatred at least equivalent to the exterminationist Nazi view of Jews as vermin. Nobody comments, because Muslims, from the lowliest ignoramus to the highest educated elites have #MuslimJewHatePrivilege.
In the West one is not permitted to say, “I hate Jews”; one is only permitted to say, “I hate Israel.” One is not permitted to say, “Kill the Jews”; one is, however, permitted to advocate for the delegitimization of Israel as a recognized state, effectively reducing seven million Jews to pariah status and a third historical exile(Jews, already ethnically cleansed from other Arab nations in which they had lived since antiquity, would not be welcome in the Palestinian state that would replace Israel in the dream palaces of the anti-Zionists).
The BDS movement (boycott, sanction, divestment from Israel) wants Israel off the map as a Jewish state. And BDS has been gaining strength in recent years. University after university in the U.S. (and to a lesser extent Canada) has seen resolutions against Israel succeed. In most cases the resolutions have no empowerment rights. But the fact that unions and academic associations pass them does have moral sway over apolitical students and the general public. They do entrench ever deeper what Jerusalem’s Shalem College president Martin Kramer calls “habituation to a language of loathing.”
The gloves are off nowadays. By gloves, I mean the pretext that BDS is about “criticizing” Israel and has nothing to do with anti-Semitism. Growing confidence is bringing out the naked exterminationism at the heart of the movement. “Bringing down Israel will really benefit everyone in the world and everyone in society, particularly workers,” said Lara Kiswani, executive director of the Arab Resource and Organizing Center at a Nov 12 panel discussion at U.C. Berkeley, mounted by the BDS Caucus of UAW 2865, the union for 13,000 University of California graduate student workers. These student-teachers and other workers will be voting on a union resolution to boycott Israel on Dec 4.
When Kiswani talks about “bringing down Israel”; when Kiswani says “BDS really should be about shifting the cultural framework and shifting how we see Israel and isolating it and making it feel unwelcome anywhere and everywhere”: Can anyone seriously believe that “it” is a state?? No, nobody talks about states in this fashion. Kiswani means “shifting how we see Jews” and “making them feel unwelcome.”
Kiswani certainly made at least one Jew in that audience feel unwelcome. That graduate student spoke up during the Q & A: “I’m the voice of dissent in this room…I am a rank-and-file member of the [UAW 2865] union. I’m Latina. I’m Jewish and I’m pro-Israel, and I’m really disturbed because I want to dialogue with people on the other side, and I really just feel a strong sense of hatred coming from the voices and the language…”
Now normally, or normally for our era, when a member of an identifiable group considered by progressives to be disadvantaged – a woman, an aboriginal, a gay or lesbian – says that he or she is offended, or feels personally threatened by remarks a speaker has made, no effort is spared to make the wounded person feel included, reassured. In some cases the speaker might be reprimanded or even ordered to stop speaking. The offended person is comforted, taken to a “safe space,” and commiserated with. Only one identifiable minority group is ineligible for such cosseting: pro-Israel Jews.
Here, in Kiswani’s response to the Jewish woman, is #WesternJewHatePrivilege in full spate: “See, part of the problem with the Palestine question, particularly on campus, is it always gets framed as this two-sided thing and liberal democracy loves to make it seem like everyone has a right to speak, including the oppressor alongside the oppressed…I don’t think that this form of liberal democracy really has a place in terms of real struggle…Maybe liberal Zionists here on this campus have a hard time understanding what that means…As long as you choose to be on that side, I’m going to continue to hate you.”
At this point, the Jewish graduate student left the room in tears. She probably went home because, you see, there is no “safe space” at Berkeley for wounded Jews to retreat to. Sadly, there is no space where any pro-Israel Jew feels safe on most campuses in the West. The hatred they feel is real. Kiswani’s hatred is real. It’s not hatred of a state. It’s hatred of the people in the state. And, by extension, outside it too. It’s anti-Semitism. And, thanks to #WesternJewHatePrivilege, it’s getting worse every day.
Video footage of the event is available here.
