The Lifeboat News
[ Message Archive | The Lifeboat News ]

    Israel is not just racist towards Palestinians but it is also racist towards Black Jews 📂 Archived Message

    Posted by Keith-264 on November 4, 2021, 3:43 pm

    https://azvsas.blogspot.com/2021/11/israel-is-not-just-racist-towards.html

    If Israel is primarily a Jewish Supremacist State it is ALSO a White Supremacist State


    In February 2019, in response to an article on Al Jazeera by Yoav Litvin on ‘The Zionist fallacy of ‘Jewish supremacy’ I wrote a response Why Israel is a Jewish, not a white supremacist state. In retrospect I may have bent the stick too far because yes, Israel is a White Supremacist State but the primary divide is between Jews and Palestinians not Black and White Jews. Litvin was right to say that:

    White supremacy is dominant within Israeli society, which privileges white-skinned Ashkenazi Jews at the expense of dark-skinned African Jews, Sephardi and Mizrahi Jews as well as African refugees. African/black Jewish communities are often denied recognition by Israeli authorities with some members even deported.

    Where Litvin went wrong was to say that ‘Zionist propagandists have promoted the anti-Semitic fallacy that Israel is a Jewish state, which represents Judaism and thus all Jews.’ Of course it is anti-Semitic to say that Israel is a state of all Jews, with the implication that all Jews, even anti-Zionists ‘belong’ in Israel. But it is also true, as a matter of fact that Israel is a Jewish state in so far as Israel is a Jewish Supremacist State. Just as Northern Ireland was a Protestant Supremacist State, Israel gives privileges to Jews, all Jews, that it doesn’t give to Palestinians.

    Unfortunately Litvin conflated two things. Israel as a Jewish State does not imply that Israel is a state representing Judaism but it does mean that Israel is a Jewish state, in a racially supremacist sense. Hence why Litvin’s statement that

    ‘If it is accepted, as it is by Zionists, that Israel indeed represents Judaism and all Jews – an expression of “Jewish supremacy” – then those who are pro-Palestinian must also reject Jews and Judaism.

    No state represents a particular religion per se. However many states use religion, as in the case of Saudi Arabia and Iran, to legitimise repression of their inhabitants. Judaism like all religions, is not a fixed body of doctrines. It changes as society changes and Jewish religion has changed politically over the last century from an anti-Zionist to a Zionist position.

    Hence why Litvin made the cardinal mistake of saying that if Palestinians reject a Jewish state they reject Judaism. No they reject Jewish Supremacy. Irish Republicans have never rejected Protestantism as a religion. On the contrary some of the most famous Republicans were Protestant, such as Wolfe Tone and Sir Roger Casement, executed by the British in 1916 for treason.

    Wolfe Tone

    So it was necessary for me to write a corrective to Litvin’s article where I argued that ‘Zionism is certainly tainted by white supremacy, but this is a secondary, not primary, feature’.

    This is seen very clearly in the following articles. Yes Black Israelis such as the Ethiopian Jews and the Black Israelite communities in the Negev are discriminated against vis a vis Jews but not in terms of the Palestinians. Indeed the struggle against discrimination against Black Israeli Jews is also a struggle to be recognised as equal partners in the oppression of the Palestinians. Ctd....

    Message Thread:


    « Index