“Anti-Racist” Intersectionality Equals Antisemitic Hate
By Tzofar
In liberal circles now, the buzz word is “intersectionality”, better defined as “co-opting”. For example, according “feminist” Sara Ahmed, if you point out the abuse of women in Muslim society, you are a racist. Anti-racism has co-opted and subjugated the women’s movement. This is intersectionality—or angry moral spinelessness.
Women’s rights are secondary to the fight against racism, because Islam (a religion and not a race) has been defined by leftist academia as “non-white”. Therefore, mostly–Muslim Palestinians are also defined as “non-white” and the Jewish population of Israel can then be neatly termed “European colonialists”. Never mind that Jewish Israelis are a multi-ethnic group including Africans, Asians, Europeans, and Middle Easterners. Those Jews who came from Muslim states where they lived for millennia were thrown out after being stripped of their personal and communal assets. The left is unconcerned about this human rights issue because it is more important to define Jews “intersectionally” as “whites” to justify their anti-Zionist agenda.
Real human rights violations are systematically ignored. While feeling morally superior, what feminist at the National Women’s Studies Association or its UK counterpart now dares to protest Islamic child marriage, stoning, or FGM?
In a clear-sighted article titled “The pleasures of antisemitism”, Eve Garrard describes the love of hate that permeates antisemitism. Her definitions parallel those of Natan Sharansky’s three D’s of antisemitism: demonization, delegitimization, and double standards.
We can integrate Sharansky’s terms with Garrard’s explanations of why antisemitism is so emotionally satisfying. Demonization gives the raging anti-Israel left the thrill of superiority. Delegitimization, an inheritance of traditional religious antisemitism, allows anti-Jewish actions—because what happens to Jews is what always happens to Jews and, after all, what they deserve once they are properly demonized.
Double standards allow the antisemite to feel not just superior, but morally superior. The selective nature of the “moral” criticism levelled at Jews and Israel is what allows them to maintain their false righteousness. It is glaringly obvious that the vast majority of leftist assertions about Israel are purposeful lies or sins of omission. But accuracy is not the issue here. This is a seething, emotional attachment to a set of beliefs re-enforced not logically, but in a fevered hysteria. These beliefs are prevalent in Islam and intersect with leftist memes.
Islamic thought holds an all-or-nothing belief that there is either a winner or a loser—everything is a zero-sum game. The ideal is total Islamic domination and nothing else. Zero-sum thinking dovetails neatly with Communist economic theory in which every capitalist who makes money must be stealing from the poor. There is no concept of wealth creation; whatever is in the pot is up for grabs. A recent clip of a Palestinian cleric speechifying at al-Aksa includes his rant on how global wealth totals only $950 billion, and the Rothschilds (read Jews) control most of it.
Anti-Israel activists were satisfied that the Soda Stream plant over the 1949 Armistice Line closed, leaving hundreds of Palestinians laborers out of work, but happily free from the oppression of working for Israelis (read Jews). Likewise, glorification of terrorists and continuous incitement create an emotional fever pitch and aspirations to kill Jews, actions which are justified by the Israel’s leftist opponents as “understandable” reactions to “occupation”.
None of this makes sense to the pragmatist. In the pragmatic view, in comparison to other Arab states, higher standards of living and greater personal freedoms characterize the Arab population of Israel, and the West Bank PA population is not far behind. Certainly Syrians and the non-Muslim victims of ISIS are demonstrably in the direst condition in the Middle East. Yet anti-Zionist antisemites still contend that the Palestinians are the most abused, obviously because their “oppressors” are Israelis (Jews again), and accusing Muslims of anything is “racist”.
Israel’s leadership is perpetually blamed for failing in “hasbara”, the Hebrew term for public relations. The term, which translates as “explaining”, immediately shows its flaws. As anyone who has ever watched “I Love Lucy” knows, once you start “splaining” you are by definition in trouble. And on the pro-Palestinian and Islamic front, no one is listening to reason.
To hear the facts would burst the self-righteous bubble of superiority of the left-wing pro-Palestinians, and even worse, make the “oppressed” and their supporters accountable for hate crimes and promoting terror. That would not be a “feelgood” moment. But there must be a strategy to discredit hate and get to that moment. If not, Israel and its supporters will not be able to defeat the snowballing movement to delegitimize Israel and legitimize social, governmental and terrorist actions directed against Israelis and Jews everywhere.
