{"id":130640,"date":"2016-05-10T05:32:39","date_gmt":"2016-05-10T11:32:39","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/05\/10\/of-historic-prejudice-and-modern-geopolitics.html"},"modified":"2016-05-16T17:35:47","modified_gmt":"2016-05-16T23:35:47","slug":"of-historic-prejudice-and-modern-geopolitics","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/05\/10\/of-historic-prejudice-and-modern-geopolitics.html","title":{"rendered":"Of historic prejudice and modern geopolitics"},"content":{"rendered":"

This is an interesting story about a school and its banning of a club focused on human rights and affiliating with Amnesty International.<\/p>\n

But more interesting to me is the (not unique) conflation in the story between (a) criticism of Israel and\/or support of the Palestinian Arabs with (b) anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews.<\/p>\n

Now, I will admit that I am not Jewish, so this gives me a different perspective than, I would suppose, some folk who are. But it seems to me that Judaism, Zionism, and the contemporary policies of the government of Israel are, in fact, three distinct things, and one can criticize different elements of those without criticizing or condemning all of them. <\/p>\n

Thus, it seems possible to disagree that there needs to be a Jewish homeland (Zionism) without it being an attack on Jews as a religion or an ethnic group (or a combination thereof). Or, more germanely, it is possible to criticize the policy of the government of Israel without being against the idea of a Jewish state.<\/p>\n

Or, rather, let's frame it a different way. It is possible to criticize the policies of the government of the United States (from at home or abroad) without challenging the existence of a nation called the United States, or the people who call themselves American. One can, for example, critique historic or present actions and policies toward Native American groups without by implication calling for the United States to be abolished. <\/p>\n

(That there are those who would, to follow the example, suggest that past offenses against Native Americans means that the US should cede sovereignty over significant parts of its territory does not mean that all criticism about Native American policy of the United States leads to the same conclusion. Similarly, that there are those who believe that all Israeli territory is theft from Palestinian Arabs and that therefore the state of Israel should be destroyed does not mean that any criticism of Israeli policy or support of Palestinian rights is per se<\/i> an attack on the state of Israel or on Judaism.)<\/p>\n

A student club that calls for the extermination of the Jews is rightfully banned from existence. A student club that aligns with an organization that supports the rights of Palestinian Arabs is not at all the same thing; making it out to be so is intellectually dishonest, and not worthy of an educational institution, even if someone sends them a nasty letter about it.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

\n
\n
\n<\/a>
\nA New Albany High School Bans Amnesty International – The Atlantic<\/a><\/span>
\nThe rise of illiberal norms and the weakening of free speech continues to undermine the very causes valued by the American left.\n<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

View on Google+<\/a><\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

This is an interesting story about a school and its banning of a club focused on human rights and affiliating with Amnesty International. But more interesting to me is the (not unique) conflation in the story between (a) criticism of Israel and\/or support of the Palestinian Arabs with (b) anti-Semitism and hatred of Jews. Now, … Continue reading “Of historic prejudice and modern geopolitics”<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_seopress_titles_title":"","_seopress_titles_desc":"","_seopress_robots_index":"","_seopress_robots_follow":"","_seopress_robots_imageindex":"","_seopress_robots_snippet":"","_seopress_robots_primary_cat":"","_seopress_robots_breadcrumbs":"","_seopress_robots_freeze_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_custom_modified_date":"","_seopress_robots_canonical":"","_seopress_social_fb_title":"","_seopress_social_fb_desc":"","_seopress_social_fb_img":"","_seopress_social_fb_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_fb_img_height":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_title":"","_seopress_social_twitter_desc":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img":"","_seopress_social_twitter_img_attachment_id":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_width":0,"_seopress_social_twitter_img_height":0,"_seopress_redirections_value":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled":"","_seopress_redirections_enabled_regex":"","_seopress_redirections_logged_status":"","_seopress_redirections_param":"","_seopress_redirections_type":0,"_seopress_analysis_target_kw":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true,"jetpack_social_post_already_shared":false,"jetpack_social_options":{"image_generator_settings":{"template":"highway","default_image_id":0,"font":"","enabled":false},"version":2}},"categories":[106,10,380,740,46],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-130640","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-plusposts","category-geopolitical-brouhaha","category-nationalism-exceptionalism","category-race-racism","category-school-daze"],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":133735,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/06\/26\/church-and-state-and-demographics.html","url_meta":{"origin":130640,"position":0},"title":"Church and state and demographics","author":"***Dave","date":"Mon 26-Jun-17 7:49pm","format":false,"excerpt":"It's occasionally illustrative to our own nation (for those who have eyes to see) when majority-religion issues tie up governments in knots over providing equity across sectarian lines when the majority population sees no reason to do so. Because That's How Things Are, and doing it differently is therefore Clearly\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":133549,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/05\/25\/when-men-will-not-sit-next-to-women-on-an-airplane.html","url_meta":{"origin":130640,"position":1},"title":"When men will not sit next to women on an airplane","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 25-May-17 6:39pm","format":false,"excerpt":"In this case, we're talking about ultra-Orthodox Jewish men on air flights between the US and Israel. Does their religious doctrine not allowing them to interact with strange women, or even touch them, override the wishes of other passengers who don't want to change seats -- or, for that matter,\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138442,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/27\/loyalties.html","url_meta":{"origin":130640,"position":2},"title":"Loyalties","author":"***Dave","date":"Wed 27-Mar-19 11:18pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Ilhan Omar criticized pressure to pledge loyalty to Israel. Mike Pence confirmed it.","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/mike-pence-aipac-2019.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/mike-pence-aipac-2019.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/mike-pence-aipac-2019.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/mike-pence-aipac-2019.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/mike-pence-aipac-2019.jpg?resize=1050%2C600&ssl=1 3x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/mike-pence-aipac-2019.jpg?resize=1400%2C800&ssl=1 4x"},"classes":[]},{"id":135087,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2017\/10\/12\/us-withdraws-unesco-course.html","url_meta":{"origin":130640,"position":3},"title":"The US withdraws from UNESCO because of course we have","author":"***Dave","date":"Thu 12-Oct-17 2:24pm","format":false,"excerpt":"Because, after all, why should the US have any interest in international organizations, given that we're the bestest nation with the smartest president and the biggest military. And, in the case of UNESCO, why would the US have any interest in any of the many things the organization does, including\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2017\/10\/macchu-picchu.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200},"classes":[]},{"id":132210,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2016\/12\/10\/the-man-of-the-year.html","url_meta":{"origin":130640,"position":4},"title":"The Man of the Year","author":"***Dave","date":"Sat 10-Dec-16 11:30pm","format":false,"excerpt":"An interesting article looking at the cover of Time Magazine's \"Person of the Year\" and some nuances of the photograph that might not be immediately evident.Though some of the art interpretation in the article gets a bit ... interpretative, a lot of it is ... very interesting.More of Nadav Kander's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "~PlusPosts"","block_context":{"text":"~PlusPosts","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/blogging\/plusposts"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":138076,"url":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/2019\/03\/05\/allegiance.html","url_meta":{"origin":130640,"position":5},"title":"Allegiance","author":"***Dave","date":"Tue 5-Mar-19 7:25pm","format":false,"excerpt":"I've read Rep. Omar's recent comments about the influence of the pro-Israel lobby in American politics and honestly, they only way they can be considered anti-Semitic is if you consider any criticism of the government of Israel or American foreign policy toward it to be, per se, anti-Semitic. \"But she's\u2026","rel":"","context":"In "Geopolitical Brouhaha"","block_context":{"text":"Geopolitical Brouhaha","link":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/category\/geopolitical-brouhaha"},"img":{"alt_text":"","src":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ilhan-omar.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1","width":350,"height":200,"srcset":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ilhan-omar.jpg?resize=350%2C200&ssl=1 1x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ilhan-omar.jpg?resize=525%2C300&ssl=1 1.5x, https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp\/wp-content\/uploads\/2019\/03\/ilhan-omar.jpg?resize=700%2C400&ssl=1 2x"},"classes":[]}],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130640","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=130640"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130640\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":130692,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/130640\/revisions\/130692"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=130640"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=130640"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/hill-kleerup.org\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=130640"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}