[Marxism] The New Anti-Semitism: Dying In Unicode

["Jeff Rubard" <jeffrubard@xxxxxxxxxxxx>]

> Message: 5
> Date: Fri, 16 Jan 2004 18:19:07 -0500
> From: Louis Proyect <lnp3@xxxxxxxxx>
> Subject: [Marxism] The myth of the new anti-Semitism
> To: marxism@xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx
> Cc: rggreener@xxxxxxx, jjmarlin@xxxxxxxx
> Message-ID: <6.0.1.1.0.20040116181751.01affec0@xxxxxxxxxxxxx>
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>
> Nation Magazine,
> Posted January 15, 2004
>
> The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism
> by Brian Klug
>
> In 1879 the German journalist Wilhelm Marr, a former socialist and
> anarchist, founded an organization that was novel in two ways. It was the
> first political party based on a platform of hostility to Jews. And it
> introduced the world to a new word: "anti-Semite."
>

In what is otherwise a fine article, Mr. Klug makes a genealogy of a
verbal definition his main thesis: and really, the new anti-Semitism is
"standalone".  That is to say, although European anti-Semitism continues
to turn on the question of Israel (here forever settled by events not
involving that state) there is a "mindset" abroad in the US which licenses
attacks on Jews and Arabs (..., and you don't usually have to fill in the
blank yourself) not governed by the concept of "Zionism" but governed by a
concept of "Arab terrorism" which in practice subsumes Semitic cultural
traditions felt in the "presentation of self" of both Jews and Muslims
without being explicitly acknowledged: and really, with Islam having such
great values by Protestant standards American Jews (esp. left-wingers,
although *these* can be made as well as born) have been in a position to
take the heat for an action (the WTC bombing) substantially directed
against them, as the popularity of the Mossad conspiracy theory attests
to, and its sequelae (the ham-handed ratcheting-down of US public
discourse, with effects not *felt* worldwide).

For those reliant upon the *truly* fearless public stances of US Jewish
leftists, this has been a heavy blow indeed: but the absolute worst of it
is that the (none too) particulars of this portend a long-term structural
shift in world society, the "Eurasianizing" of the Americas.  That is to
say, the end of "exceptionalist" currents in those parts of (both) North
and South American social life conducted with cosmopolitan intent, and the
movement of the "center of gravity" associated with political discourse
onto a field (the Internet, yeah yeah yeah) easily manipulated by powerful
interests (that is to say, organizational "megaliths" like NAM and
interpersonal fallout from them), including interests that aren't (the
lunatic-fringers of security apparatuses domestic and "imported").
Unfortunately, the ever-burning question of Israel is no longer the
biggest problem of US Jews -- and I for one have *no constructive
suggestions*.

Jeff Rubard


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