[ad_1]
This is indeed a tragic time for the Jewish people, as Dave Rich argues (The October 7 attack by Hamas opened a space – and anti-Semitism filled it. British Jews live with the consequences, 16 May). He rightly insists on the extreme dangers of historic and ongoing anti-Semitism, which today rises and falls with the extremes of the Israel/Palestine conflict. Yet he fails to address the concrete plight of thousands of Jews, religious and secular, who, like me, have worked for decades for peace and an end to the occupation and land grabbing in Israel/Palestine.
Rich’s article was published the day after Nakba Day: commemorating the catastrophe of 700,000 Palestinians forcibly displaced from their homes and sent into exile to enable the establishment of Israel in 1948. There have always been Jewish criticisms of Israel’s dispossession of the Palestinians, but they tend to be dismissed immediately to allow only one narrative to be heard.
No one addressed this dismissal more persuasively than the Palestinian scholar, Edward Saidwho often speaks of the unspeakable horror of Hitler’s genocide of European Jewry, while knowing that we can only get serious about Israel/Palestine politics by acknowledging the suffering of both the Jewish and Palestinian peoples: an acknowledgment that offends neither the Jewish memory of Hitler’s Holocaust, nor that of the dispossession of Arab possessions by incoming Jews.
And yet it happens so rarely. Every Western child is taught the horrors of the Holocaust through books, movies, music, Jewish museums, all mentioning the Nazi killing centers, rightly repeating the threat of anti-Semitism. Yet these children almost never hear this other narrative of Arab dispossession in historic Palestine, following the massive influx of Jews in the early to mid-20th century—a migration that is still encouraged today. What needs to be done, Said suggested, is to insist on this connection between the two catastrophes without downplaying either: “There is enough suffering and injustice for everyone.”
That is why this Saturday I will be joining Jews marching for a ceasefire and peace and justice for all in Israel/Palestine.
Lynn Segal
Emeritus Professor, Birkbeck, University of London
David Rich’s article sensitively warned readers that anti-Semitism is a scourge that must be opposed, especially in light of the events since October 7. This message should be taken seriously by those who have been repulsed by the devastation and misery inflicted on the Palestinian people living in Gaza. British Jews should not be blamed for what the far-right Israeli government is doing.
In his otherwise emotional call for vigilance against anti-Semitism, Rich sees anti-Zionism as a source of anti-Jewish sentiment. This possible equation ignores the fact that there are many Anglo-Jews who raised their voices in defense of the Palestinian people during the war on Gaza and even went so far as to question Israel as a “Jewish state” that privileges the rights of Jews at the expense of Palestinian rights. These dissenting Jews operate according to a moral and ethical code of Judaism it requires Jews to speak out against injustice wherever they see it, even if the culprit is Israel.
Ron Mendel
Bristol
[ad_2]
