Criticising Israel: A Guide for Non-Racists

I have had more than one person state, as though they were saying something original and clever:

"But its not Anti-Semitic to criticize Israel!"

Which is totally fair enough.

Of course, there are many legitimate criticisms of Israel to be made!

Some of the most poignant, and specific criticisms come from print media originating with the Israeli press itself, like Ha'aretz, for example. They know whereof they speak, and they tell it how they see it. I have read very strong criticisms of the Israeli State that I would call excellent journalism, and I think it is an important thing that nations are held accountable for their actions.

But to put it simply: Of course not every Israel Critic is a Jew-Hater. But many a Jew-Hater IS an Israel Critic, and plenty hide behind that label.

I suggest that legitimate criticism of Israel has most of the following attributes:

1. It relates to specific events, the account of which is supported by evidence.
2. It makes specific criticisms and opposes specific policies and people, rather than sweeping condemnation of an entire country or all Jews in the world.
3. It avoids gross generalizations about Jewish character, such as "greedy" "thieving" "money loving" and all the other straight-up racist attributions that seem to get under the radar these days. It defines terms like Zionist, and respects the usual meaning of the terms that it applies to people.
4. It tells both sides of the story. For example, the tragedy of Palestinian dispossession does not mean that there is only one side to the story. The expulsion of a million Jews from Arab lands needs mentioning, since it happened at the same time, to greater numbers of people, than the Palestinian tragedy. The context does nothing to lessen the tragedy to the Palestinians, but helps to lead people to demand a fair solution for both parties; one-sided narratives lead to demonetization of the other side, and help not at all.
5. It does not engage in the deliberate falsification facts about the Jewish people. The repetition of persistent propaganda, such as the Blood Libel, the Khazar Theory, which holds that modern Jews are all "fake" and have no links to the Middle east, the falsification of history about the killing of Jewish people in WW2- these things are straight up Racist falsehoods, and need to be decried as such. Legitimate criticism has no room for this.
6. It uses meaningful analogies. For e.g: If one was to compare the Israeli fight against Palestine with the fight of Russia against the Chechens, it allows meaningful parallels to be drawn, and serious questions raised about the acceptability of civilian deaths in such conflicts. It involved an Islamic militant group within a civilian population opposing the rule of a more powerful state that had occupied the territory.  This is a helpful analogy. Comparing Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, by contrast, is not so useful. The Germans imported people to the Ghetto by train from various bits of Europe into an area 1/100th the size of Gaza, then deported and gassed 7000 inmates of the ghetto per week, from a population of 400,000, such that shortly the entire population was dead. If the Israelis had pursued such a policy, the entire population of Palestine would have been killed in 26 months, and extinct by the spring of 1951. The analogy is not meant to inform, it is meant to demonize, and it is not legitimate.
7. The use of the terms Nazi and Fascist to describe the Jewish state are similarly not meant to be informative. The Palestinian leadership at the time of Israel's foundation were in fact legitimate Fascists, as the Mufti of Jerusalem had spent WW2 in Berlin, met Hitler, and had been part of the Waffen SS. He visited extermination camps, and agreed (in writing) to assist in the murder of Palestine's existing Jewish population if the Axis powers had won the war. Throwing this term at an Israeli is calculated to anger and demonize the Jew or Israeli Arab it is used against, and is historically quite offensive. Israel is a democracy, and has over a million Arab and Muslim citizens, who can vote, trade, serve in the Army and stand for elections like any other citizen. There have been Arabs in positions as high as the Vice President in the government of Israel, and there are Black, Muslim, Christian and Thai people in government roles. It is not likely that Nazi Germany would have made a Jew or a Black person the Vice President of the Third Reich, I respectfully suggest, and there are more appropriate terms to describe a democratic state that has get itself involved in a dubious conflict.
8. If it must delve into the Legitimacy of the Israeli state, it uses fair context, and does not create narratives that rely on selectively edited histories.
For example, suggesting that the partition of the British Mandate to create a Jewish homeland was unprecedented and cruel is possible only if neglecting the context of the partition of Pakistan, which created a Muslim homeland in Hindu India, in the same decades, also in a previously British dominion. The partition of Jordan from the Mandate of Palestine is also significant, as the creation of Jordan reduced Palestine by far more area than the creation of Israel did. This gives historical context. It is not a simple story of Greedy Jews From Europe Came and Stole Everything, and those who limit the narrative to such are being dishonest.
9. Be honest about Hamas. These guys are not characters out of a Victor Hugo novel, no matter how much French Existentialists like Jean-Paul Sartre would like them to be swarthy archetypes of Jean Val Jean, with headscarves instead of Tricolor. Discuss their Charter, and insist they clarify their position on killing Jews. As in, all of them, all over the world. Because that is really not cool, and makes it very hard to be friends.  

So. Be specific, avoid repeating modern reiterations of old racist propaganda, give historical context, and be fair.

That's it, really.

Oh....and don't be a fuck-wit like Leunig, and use literary allusions to call Israel a Nazi state, without ever coming out and saying it. Really, don't do that. "And then they came for me...sniff, sniff..."

Get your hand off it, mate.

It's not cool. Even if you draws awesome ducks.