Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP) members were quite possibly among those who inspired Howard Jacobson’s award-winning novel, The Finkler Question, as they resemble UK Jews he refers to as “Ashamed Jews,” Jews who are proud to be ashamed of their Israel-supporting fellow Jews. The group’s executive, an anti-Zionist Jew named Deborah Maccoby, published a letter in The Guardian on Jan. 12th (What Jews can learn from Muslims) in response to an op-ed by Jonathan Freedland about recent jihadist attacks in Paris (Charlie Hebdo: first they came for the cartoonists, then they came for the Jews). Deborah Maccoby Maccoby, in her Guardian letter, not only asserts that Jews need to learn from their Muslim counterparts’ putative condemnations of jihadist violence “and say loud and clear in response to Israeli atrocities ‘not in my name‘”, but suggests that Jews’ failure to distance themselves from Israeli “atrocities” renders them culpable for subsequent antisemitic violence:
Jonathan Freedland…claims that Jews are targeted simply as “a kind of ultimate symbol of the west”, as a result of “a curious kink in the ultra-Islamist mindset”, or as the traditional scapegoat of European fascists. But the Israeli government, with its new bill proposing to make Israel the nation-state of all the Jews in the world, and Jewish organisations such as the Board of Deputies, with their claim that the majority of Jews support Israel’s oppressive policies, contribute to the conflation of Jews with Israel and the subsequent rise in antisemitism and attacks on Jews.
Maccoby further claims that a Jewish “not in my name” campaign will “make the recruitment of young Muslims by jihadis more difficult”. If you at all question our instrinsic belief that holding Jews, or Jewish groups, responsible to some degree for racist attacks against their co-religionists – as Maccoby does – is morally indefensible, try out this hypothetical charge:
Muslim-American groups, through their actions, contribute to the rise of Islamophobia and attacks against US Muslims.
Or, try this:
African-American organizations, through their actions, contribute to the rise of white racism and attacks against African-Americans. Further, African-Americans must change their behavior to make the recruitment of young whites by the KKK more difficult.
Such sentiments – blaming victims, be they African-Americans, Muslims or Jews, for racist crimes committed against them – of course represent nothing more than the last refuge of intellectual scoundrels, bigots and their enablers.
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COMMITTEE FOR ACCURACY IN MIDDLE EAST REPORTING AND ANALYSIS
Guardian prints letter by anti-Zionist Jew blaming Zionist Jews for antisemitism
Jews for Justice for Palestinians (JfJfP) members were quite possibly among those who inspired Howard Jacobson’s award-winning novel, The Finkler Question, as they resemble UK Jews he refers to as “Ashamed Jews,” Jews who are proud to be ashamed of their Israel-supporting fellow Jews.
Deborah Maccoby
The group’s executive, an anti-Zionist Jew named Deborah Maccoby, published a letter in The Guardian on Jan. 12th (What Jews can learn from Muslims) in response to an op-ed by Jonathan Freedland about recent jihadist attacks in Paris (Charlie Hebdo: first they came for the cartoonists, then they came for the Jews).
Maccoby, in her Guardian letter, not only asserts that Jews need to learn from their Muslim counterparts’ putative condemnations of jihadist violence “and say loud and clear in response to Israeli atrocities ‘not in my name‘”, but suggests that Jews’ failure to distance themselves from Israeli “atrocities” renders them culpable for subsequent antisemitic violence:
Maccoby further claims that a Jewish “not in my name” campaign will “make the recruitment of young Muslims by jihadis more difficult”.
If you at all question our instrinsic belief that holding Jews, or Jewish groups, responsible to some degree for racist attacks against their co-religionists – as Maccoby does – is morally indefensible, try out this hypothetical charge:
Or, try this:
Such sentiments – blaming victims, be they African-Americans, Muslims or Jews, for racist crimes committed against them – of course represent nothing more than the last refuge of intellectual scoundrels, bigots and their enablers.
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