chapotraphouse

I already knew this, but this has reaffirmed the reality for me more than ever. We cannot afford to condition our support for Palestine on Anti-Zionist Jews. This was something I particularly learned from Finkelstein but also generally during the Great March of Return. I appreciate anti-zionist Jews, but I'm sorry it does not matter if they oppose Israel. Frontloading protests with them conditions Palestinian humanity based on their empathy. If every single American Jew agreed with Bibi, the calculus would be the exact fucking same.

The irrational essence of Gentile anti-Semitism is inferred inductively from the irrational essence of The Holocaust. To wit. Hitler's Final Solution uniquely lacked rationality — it was «evil for its own sake," «purposeless" mass killing; Hitler's Final Solution marked the culmination of Gentile anti-Semitism; therefore Gentile anti-Semitism is essentially irrational. Taken apart or together, these propositions do not withstand even superficial scrutiny. 29 Politically, however, the argument is highly serviceable.

By conferring total blamelessness on Jews, the Holocaust dogma immunizes Israel and American Jewry from legitimate censure. Arab hostility, African-American hostility: they are "fundamentally not a response to any objective evaluation of Jewish action" (Goldhagen).30 Consider Wiesel on Jewish persecution: «For two thousand years ... we were always threatened.... For what? For no reason." On Arab hostility to Israel: "Because of who we are and what our homeland Israel represents — the heart of our lives, the dream of our dreams -when our enemies try to destroy us, they will do so by trying to destroy Israel." On Black people's hostility to American Jews: "The people who take their inspiration from us do not thank us but attack us. We find ourselves in a very dangerous situation. We are again the scapegoat on all sides.... We helped the blacks; we always helped them.... I feel sorry for blacks. There is one thing they should learn from us and that is gratitude. No people in the world knows gratitude as we do; we are forever grateful. "31 Ever chastised, ever innocent: this is the burden of being a Jew. 32

The Holocaust dogma of eternal Gentile hatred also validates the complementary Holocaust dogma of uniqueness. If The Holocaust marked the climax of a millennial Gentile hatred of the Jews, the persecution of non-Jews in The Holocaust was merely accidental and the persecution of non-Jews in history merely episodic. From every standpoint, then, Jewish suffering during The Holocaust was unique. Finally, Jewish suffering was unique because the Jews are unique. The Holocaust was unique because it was not rational. Ultimately, its impetus was a most irrational, if all-too-human, passion. The Gentile world hated Jews because of envy, jealousy: resentment. Anti-Semitism, according to Nathan and Ruth Ann Perlmutter, sprang from "gentile jealousy and resentment of the Jews' besting Christians in the marketplace . . . large numbers of less accomplished gentiles resent smaller numbers of more accomplished Jews. "33 Albeit negatively. The Holocaust thus confirmed the chosenness of Jews. Because Jews are better, or more successful, they suffered the ire of Gentiles, who then murdered them.

In a brief aside, Novick muses «what would talk of the Holocaust be like in America" if Elie Wiesel were not its "principal interpreter" ?34 The answer is not difficult to find: Before June 1967 the universalist message of concentration camp survivor Bruno Bettelheim resonated among American Jews. After the June war, Bettelheim was shunted aside in favor of Wiesel. Wiesel's prominence is a function of his Ideological utility. Uniqueness of Jewish suffering/uniqueness of the Jews, ever-guilty Gentiles/ever-innocent Jews, unconditional defense of Israel/unconditional defense of Jewish interests: Elie Wiesel is The Holocaust.

This is from Finkelstein's paper of the same name, not the book though parts are carried over directly.

The handicapping of anti-genocide activism in an attempt to not be cammed antisemitic is a problem. I get that optics are important, but what have good optics actually accomplished materially for Palestinians? Nothing by more slaughter.