Sunday, March 22, 2009

Anti-Jewish Sentiment?

I was reading Renee's latest on Global Comment and saw in the side bar of other recently published posts a story from the anti-war march in SF yesterday entitled Police Brutality in San Francisco Takes Over Anti-War Rally: March 21, 2009.

I was reading along and was interested to see what appeared to be some rather disturbing anti-Arab sentiment on the part of the SFPD. But then, I got to this;
I cannot help but wonder if this violent attack by the police was instigated by a local Zionist lobby.

This is where I stop and blink and look at the next two paragraphs to go and wonder to myself, "did this writer seriously just flippantly throw out just a pinch of old school Antisemitism and then go merrily on her way?" And why yes, it appears to me she did!

We have got to be able to engage with this stuff, critiquing Zionism even, without resorting to these Jewish stereotypes. Anti-Arab racism does not excuse antisemitism, they're BOTH damaging and they BOTH prevent us from being able to move forward on issues in the Middle East.


**As a side note I thought it was worth pointing out that I do realize that Zionism and Jewishness are not the same thing. But come on, they're more than a little related. Especially when one starts talking about a the influence of "the Zionist lobby". That's just too damn close to the still all too common antisemitic trope of a Jewish master conspiracy.**