The murders in Copenhagen, coming so soon after the Charlie Hebdo horror, have made it crystal-clear--if clarity was needed--that European anti-Semitism hardly ended with the defeat of the Third Reich. Condemnation of the murders has of course been universal or very nearly so, but many have nonetheless followed their condemnation and condolences with a clearly stated (or tentatively whispered) "but."
But Israel...
as though the policies of the Israeli state somehow "explain," in whole or in part, the mindset of the killers. The "explanations" are always carefully coupled with outrage at the methods used in Copenhagen and Paris, but the linkage between killing in Europe and killing in Gaza is often simply assumed. On DKos, this has led in turn to multiple diaries decrying any such linkage.
The problem is real, even if those diaries are in various ways flawed expositions of it. I absolutely agree with their underlying theme, that any linkage between the murder of Jews in Europe and Israeli war crimes in Gaza is a kind of victim-blaming. It draws on pervasive and longstanding undercurrents in Christian and Muslim societies about "Jewish conspiracies" and international Jewish solidarity that transcends the nationality of individual Jews. Targeting Jews in Europe for the crimes of the Israeli state only makes "sense" at all if Jews are a supra-national group concerned first with the fate of other Jews. Are those who link Europe and Israel this way necessarily anti-Semites? Obviously not; some are themselves Jews (and I'm not interested--here or ever--in discussing specious canards about "self-hating Jews,") and gentile Kossacks who hold that view are mostly people of goodwill. Many are friends of mine. This diary isn't any sort of a veiled j'accuse.
And yet...
A poster here aptly noted that the IRA didn't kill Americans of English descent, nor did Basque separatists target victims in Uruguay. This surprises no one. Why then is the linkage between Jews in Europe and the existence and policies of the Israeli state taken for granted by so many otherwise thoughtful progressives? Why... unless Jews are "different" from other people? Something disturbing is going on here.
I want to briefly discuss one aspect of this. If one accepts--as I do--that gay people have primary standing in defining homophobia, and AAs have primary standing in pointing out what is or isn't racism, and women are uniquely qualified to understand sexism, then surely Jews have primary standing in defining and pointing out anti-Semitism. To argue otherwise is to place Jews in a "special" category among historically oppressed groups. That's a very slippery slope. If a white Kossack defends another white user here against a charge of racism made by an AA Kossack, they are--properly--told that black Americans know racism when they see it. Do Jews know anti-Semitism when we see it?
The slope gets more slippery, very quickly. I agree with those who argue that some Jews are far too quick to label any criticism of Israel as anti-Semitic. If we accept however that some Jews, some of the time, cry wolf about anti-Semitism, in fact use Jew-hatred in an appallingly cynical way, as a rhetorical weapon to defuse criticism of Israel, it follows that some AAs, some of the time, use racism in a similar way. To argue otherwise is to once again put Jews in a separate category and deny us the primacy given other oppressed groups in defining our own oppression. I'm not at all comfortable taking either side of that argument.
Where does that leave the notion of "primacy?" Who decides when someone is crying wolf? I have no easy answers. I haven't even asked all the questions.