Their Anti-Racism and Ours posted by Richard Seymour

David Aaronovitch smears the Left by association with "anti-semitism". Tony Blair and his liberal supporters worry about our "anti-Americanism". Mark Strauss writes a devastatingly stupid article for Foreign Policy laying blame on "anti-globalisation" protesters for the surge in anti-semitic attacks - adding the outrageous charge that some protesters at Porto Allegre brandished the Swastika. (Notice that he considers the following anti-semitic: "Nazis, Yankees, and Jews: No More Chosen Peoples!" So, if we want to avoid anti-semitism, we really ought to be endorsing the idea of Jews as Chosen Peoples. If we object to the idea of a two-state solution, we may be providing a "snapshot of an unfolding phenomenon known as 'the new anti-Semitism'." Neat.)


It's not hard in all of this to see why we have become wary of this language. But we leftists should actually be a lot more aggressive on this - we are the ones who fight racism of all kinds, anti-semitism included. Was it the White Army or the Red Army who engaged in anti-semitic pogroms? Was it the left or the right in pre-war Germany which propagated a vicious climate of anti-semitic hatred? Was it the left or right in France which recently took to the streets in protest against the massive vote for Le Pen? Was it the left or right in Britain which led the Cable Street protests, blocking a Fascist march?

This is our terrain. We are the anti-racists, not those hypocritical masters of pomp, churning out sorry drivel for the mainstream press.

And we should know our terrain, and tread very carefully on it. Saying Israel is an apartheid state is not anti-semitic. On the other hand, if you find the Jews responsible for everything from the Russian Revolution to 9/11 and the Gulf War, you might be said to have a small fixation with Jews. The Medialens website was unfairly attacked by David Aaronovitch last year because a handful of posters on its message board had reduced the place to a loony bin of "Jewish plots" and all sorts. He rendered his message to "the Left", as if squadrons of young radicals were signing themselves up to conspiracy chic with a touch of anti-semitism thrown in. Well, that is inaccurate. But it is also true that some people who are by no means anti-semitic and who do consider themselves on the Left have defended the perpetuators of such conspiratorial gibberish. They have done so out of resentment at the denkverbotten that has surrounded discussion of Israel in Britain and America. They do not agree with such views, or at least would substantially modify them, but they agree with the right to express them. I myself do not agree that anyone has the inherent "right" to express racist or anti-semitic views - rights are not absolute, especially when one person's rights are incommensurable with another's. Moreover, we surrender a lot of valuable ground when we allow ourselves to defend the indefensible.

We cannot allow the neoconservative right or liberal Zionists a single straw to clutch at if they attempt to slander anti-Zionists as "Anti-semitic in their effect if not their intent". Or much, much worse, as we have come to expect. So, let's drop this stupid free-speech stipulation that prevents us from terminating the abuses of racists, and let's remember what our history and struggle has been. It is, and has always been, a fight against oppression and injustice everywhere - we were on the side of Jews in Europe just as much as we are on the side of Arabs in Palestine. It is a history far more distinguished and honourable than that of the right, who now have the cheek to appropriate our language and use it in the service of oppression.