The LRB Has Not Yet Published This Letter

The following letter was sent for publication to the London Review of Books on January 14.

Despite being "considered for publication", it has not yet appeared.

"Neve Gordon, upset that anti-Semitism, in his estimation, has been 'inverted' in that "the charge ‘anti-Semite’ is used to defend racism, and to sustain a regime that implements racist policies" (The ‘New Anti-Semitism’, LRB, Vol. 40 No. 01 · 4 January 2018), suggests a remedy and writes: "We can oppose two injustices at once. We can condemn hate speech and crimes against Jews, like the ones witnessed recently in the US, or the anti-Semitism of far-right European political parties, at the same time as we denounce Israel’s colonial project and support Palestinians in their struggle for self-determination."

As one who daily fulfills the policy of returning Jews to their national historical homeland, and who rejects any charge of inherent racism in accomplishing that goal, I can only hope that Gordon succeeds in convincing his colleagues, friends and others to follow through on his suggestion.  However, I would wish to point out, to him and to readers of the LRB, that anti-Jewish sentiment and activity exists amongst Arabs, theologically as well as politically, and specifically Arabs of Palestine, and it has existed long before any "occupation" or "settlement construction" began.  The Mufti of Mandate days did not need to seek support from Nazi Germany in 1933, nor accept funds during that decade, nor travel to Berlin and make anti-Semitic broadcasts in support of the Nazi regime until the war's end.

Mahmoud Abbas surely can oppose Jews entering the Haram A-Sharif courtyard but does he need to pronounce that I "have no right to defile it with [my] filthy feet." (PA TV, Sept. 16, 2015)? Do their newspapers have to print caricatures with Jews represented by hook-nosed, side-curl figures"?  The PalWatch website presents hundreds of examples of hate language and drawings.

I trust in leaving out Arabs when he listed only US and European right-wing anti-Semitism, as well as left-wing Judeaphobia, Gordon was not protecting anti-Semites who perhaps align themselves with his racist approach that the Land of Israel beyond an ephemeral "Green Line" must be off-limits to Jews."

^

Neve Gordon Is At It Again

Over at Amy Goodman's Democracy Today, she spoke with two one Lanny Davis and also Neve* Gordon.

Here's one excerpt that bothered me:

NEVE GORDON: ... First of all, I agree with the idea of a basic right to self-defense. And the right to self-defense is a right to self-defense from violence. We have to understand that the occupation itself is violence. It’s an act of violence. Putting people in a prison, in a prison of one million and a half million people and keeping them there for years on end without basic foodstuff, without allowing them to enter and exit when they will, is an act of violence. Without electricity, without clean water, it’s all an act of violence. And these people are resisting. I am against the way they’re resisting, but we have to look at their violence versus our violence.

About between ten and twenty people, Israelis, have died from rockets in the eight years that rockets have been launched from the Gaza Strip into Israel. During the same amount of time, 4,000 Israelis have died from car accidents. And yet, we don’t see an outrage against the terrorism on the streets in Israel. But from these twenty people, we’re allowed to enter into the Gaza Strip and bomb them from the air into their cage and kill 275 children.

Yes, car accidents are a terrible problem but they are accidents.

If there were a group of drivers, who, say, called themselves the "Hamas Steering Wheel Devils" and went around purposefully ramming their cars into Jews (that has actually occurred, by the way), even if only, God forbid, three Jews were killed, I'd do all I could, including bombing their garages to make sure they are stopped.

Neve is a complete idiot, fool or, worse, a secret Hamas supporter. And I won't get into his first claim about

Putting people in a prison, in a prison of one million and a half million people and keeping them there for years on end without basic foodstuff, without allowing them to enter and exit when they will, is an act of violence. Without electricity, without clean water, it’s all an act of violence

which is not exactly the truth, not by a longshot or even a Qassam missle length.


P.S.

His name is ניב in Hebrew and is pronounced Neev like in sieve.

It translates as idiom which is fairly close to idiot, in spelling.