Vanguard News Network
VNN Media
VNN Digital Library
VNN Reader Mail
VNN Broadcasts


Go Back   Vanguard News Network Forum > News & Discussion > This Just In
Donate Register Multimedia Blogs Search Today's Posts Mark Forums Read Login

 
Thread Display Modes Share
Old February 3rd, 2014 #1
Robert_S
Member
 
Robert_S's Avatar
 
Join Date: Mar 2013
Posts: 322
Default THE ISRAEL TABOO: Money and sex aren’t the only things Canadians don’t talk about



LAST SUMMER, I went on a canoe trip down the
Petawawa River, paddling the same rapids Pierre
Trudeau once travelled. In the middle of this
iconic Canadian scene, a friend and I started chatting
about Israel. As our voices slowly rose, two other canoes
approached, and we all put down our paddles for an
impromptu summit. Surrounded by and oblivious to the
peace and tranquility of Algonquin Provincial Park in
central Ontario, we started arguing. Is a corrupt
occupation ruining Zionism? Is boycotting Israel anti-
Semitic? Are Israelis guilty of human rights violations?

How much responsibility should Palestinians take for
their situation? Our token WASP kept quiet, unable to get
a word in, until finally he asked, “How will they ever
figure out how to get along in the Middle East? Even the
Montreal Jews can’t agree.”

No matter what you say about Israel, someone will get
angry. Venturing to question the Jewish state gets you
labelled an anti-Semite by right-wing Zionists, but left-
wing activists can be just as vicious. Admit that you want
Israel to remain a safe haven for Jews, and you’ll be told
your Zionism is racist. My Jewish friends are scared of
lefties, and my lefty friends are scared of Zionists. As a
lefty Jew, I’m scared of both.

A few years ago, I gave a talk in Los Angeles at the
University of California’s Center for Near Eastern
Studies, where I spent a semester during a post-doctoral
fellowship. I was making the case that Israelis in the
occupied territories misuse Holocaust memory when they
argue that settling Palestinian land is necessary to guard
against a second Holocaust. A representative of a Zionist
watchdog organization showed up, ostensibly to guard
against anti-Semitism in Middle Eastern studies
departments. When he posted his misunderstanding of
my lecture online, I received a series of standard threats
from strangers. One expressed a hope that I would “show
[my] sincerity by leading the way to the gas chambers,”
while another stated, somewhat ungrammatically, that I
was “carrying a death wish for himself.” Within twenty-
four hours, my post-doctoral supervisor in Montreal got
an email saying I was a “turd” who would “shit his
pants” if I was put “on the front lines.” This entirely
accurate insult highlighted an unacknowledged truth:
talking about Israel does put you on the front lines.
When emotions explode into anger and accusations start
flying, you are no longer discussing the conflict. You are
a part of it.

My media activist friends have a traditional Marxist
theory about why it’s so tough to talk about Israel. For
them, it boils down to power, which means money.

Zionist money funds lobby groups and media watchdogs
that attack the pro-Palestinian media. My friends argue
that this creates a climate of antagonism, and that many
media outlets systematically avoid the question of Israel
because it’s too much hassle to deal with the backlash.

Read more: http://thewalrus.ca/the-israel-taboo/
 
Reply

Tags
canada, free speech, joseph rosen, zionism

Share


Thread
Display Modes


All times are GMT -5. The time now is 08:03 AM.
Page generated in 0.80254 seconds.