Is anti-Zionism now inherently anti-Semitism?
Chuck Schumer more or less says it is:
When criticism against Israel is allowed to cross over into something different — into a denial of a Jewish state in any form, into open calls for the very destruction of Israel, while at the same time the self-determination of other peoples is exalted — that is an example of the discriminatory double standard Jewish people have always found so hurtful. And we worry about what could come next.
Because for centuries, what is good for everybody else has been too often denied to the Jew. Jews could live here but not there; Jews could hold this job but not that.
And to declare that only the Jewish people cannot have their own state, in any form, is a glaring example of that double standard Jewish Americans so fiercely object to.
I implore every person and every community and every institution to stand with Jewish Americans, and to denounce antisemitism in all of its forms. Americans are stewards of the flames of liberty, tolerance and equality that warm our melting pot and make it possible for Jewish Americans to prosper alongside Palestinian Americans as well as every other immigrant group.
America has always been exceptional. But when it matters most, are we still a nation that can defy the course of human history, where the Jewish people have been ostracized, expelled and massacred over and over again?
I’m not an expert, to put it mildly, on this subject, as I learn every time I witness a discussion of it. My only contribution to the discussion in this post will be this observation: What wasn’t an anti-Semitic line of argument in one historical context might well necessarily become one in another.
I’m interested in reading your thoughts.