Speaking as a South Park Zionist , I can relate to this column, written by a student at McGill University:
I thought I knew who I was before I came to university.
I thought, for instance, that I wasn’t a racist. But when I told two girls tabling against Israel that the State had a right to exist, they cleared that up for me. Which was lucky, because after a year of educating my Jewish youth group on the dangers of Islamophobia, I might have gone my whole life not knowing how much I hated people different from me.
I also thought that I was a big lefty; I was going to be an activist for all kinds of social justice causes. This was corrected quickly. A year of carefully observing university-level protestors taught me that I couldn’t be involved with leftist politics without hating capitalism, anybody with a smidgeon of authority, and, of course, Israel. They pointed me to my people: the neo-cons, which surprised nearly everyone with whom I’d ever had a political discussion.
And since Israel seemed to come up in every political interaction I had, I thought that I was pretty liberal when it came to Israeli politics – for example, opposing the settlements and the war in Lebanon. One of my best friends is from Ramallah, and he thought I was moderate. But the enlightened Torontonians informed me that my devotion to the two-state solution placed me squarely in the extremist camp.
The activist left has done what no conservative could ever have accomplished— they pushed me to the centre.
It started with the protests. The ones where demonstrators donned black masks and shouted. Intimidated. Emanated pure negativity. What kind of dream did they have? They were straight out of a nightmare.
Then there was the writing. The people who thought they were radical and critical, but who really just recited the tropes of the sixties leftist movement. Who thought you were crazy for entertaining new ideas after 40 years of stagnation.
There was the “anti.” Anti-racism. Anti-oppression. Anti-capitalist. What were they for? All they talked about was destruction.
And, worst of all, there was the narcissism. The self-righteousness, entitlement, and lack of appreciation for history. As if they were marching with King or Ghandi or Mandela.
I have no interest in the activist right, but the unethical behaviour of the activist left— who I agree with on many issues—isn’t any better….They can call me a racist and a neo-con all they want. I’m over it. But one day they’re going to run into an actual racist. One day they’ll meet a real right-winger. And they won’t know what hit them.
This is a very common response to the anti-Zionist extremism of many on the left. My experience was similar, which is why I no longer consider myself a liberal.
How can I join my voice with those who have such hatred in their hearts?
Oh, and btw, if you really want to see unbridled hatred toward the Jewish state, just check out Daily Kos I-P.
They bitch-slap Israel on an hourly basis over there.
http://www.dailykos.com/tag/Israel
“One day they’ll meet a real right-winger. And they won’t know what hit them.” at that point, they’ll be staring into a mirror, or at least, at someone very much like themselves. frankly, i feel the kind of people you’re describing are a bunch of fake leftists, or rather, they’re symptomatic of the fact that the left is dead. but regardless, they need to called out for what they are: cranks and reactionaries. and don’t let a bunch of nebbishes like that define what you’re overall political position should be. that’s giving them too much power.
The guy is an idiot. He still clings to the so-called “progressive” “left” despite the fact that it is a defunct morally backwards movement. At least he has taken one small step in the right direction though.
I used to consider myself pretty far to the left. The unthinking dogmatism of the extreme left is as disgusting as the extreme right. I no longer think in terms of left and right. I believe what I believe, where it falls on a line is irrelevant as a line in theory stretches to infinity.
Stan
“One day they’ll meet a real right-winger. And they won’t know what hit them.”
Not sure about it. They may find that right-winger agreeing with much of what they preach…
Before you qualify all people on the left as antisemites I recommend to read the excellent interview of Prof. Moishe Postone.
Zionism, anti-semitism and the left
Submitted on 5 February, 2010 – 21:55
* Left anti-semitism
* Solidarity 3/166, 4 February 2010
Left anti-semitism
Author:
Martin Thomas
Moishe Postone is a Marxist academic based at the University of Chicago. As well as writing extensively on Marx’s political economy, he has also been central to the development of theories of “left anti-semitism”, which look at ways in which positions taken by left groups, particularly on Israel/Palestine, can feed into, or be based on, hostility to Jews. Martin Thomas spoke to him.http://www.workersliberty.org/story/2010/02/05/zionism-anti-semitism-and-left
“One day they’ll meet a real right-winger. And they won’t know what hit them.”
Actually, they’ll say: Let’s have tea together.
@David Schraub@ would you have tea together with Hungarian right wingers who are aggressive antisemites?
Ehh.. He wrote a column for the paper over the year. He exaggerates things and accused the competing newspaper of a “blood libel” for writing sympathetically about Israel Apartheid Week.
What does that last line even mean, “One day they’ll meet a real right-winger. And they won’t know what hit them”? One day they’ll meet a right-wing Jew and will be so much more appalled than usual that they will not be able to stutter out how he is a racist? Or, one day they’ll meet a revanchist Jew who might physically endanger them?
Should Labour Zionists be using the JDL as a threat, like Arab moderates use Hamas? I’m not sure what he’s saying; it’s incoherent. He may just be ending with a cliche without intending any meaning whatsoever except affirming for himself that he’s not right-wing.
The left, of which I’m still a beleaguered member, has done a lousy job finding any common ground with itself–as your post makes abundantly and sadly clear.
See also my novel The Antiracism Trainings:
http://www.amazon.com/Antiracism-Trainings-David-Reich/dp/193540279X/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1264799779&sr=8-1
http://www.prickofthespindle.com/reviews/4.2/small_presses/reich/the_antiracism_trainings.htm