The Canadian Left vs. Israel
Occasionally I visit the Liberal analog to Blogging Tories. It's called Liblogs, and you can see it here. To my regret, it's awash in anti-Israel opinion, some of it troublingly anti-Jewish.
I haven't read every entry on Blogging Tories, but it's pretty solidly pro-Israel and anti-Hamas, especially its biggest blogs, like Small Dead Animals. Nor have I read every entry on Liblogs, but skimming it, it seems that the majority are hostile to Israel.
Take James Curran, just to choose one example. In this recent entry (click here if that link doesn't work in your browser) he states that, because "the rest of the world" thinks Israel is wrong, it's probably wrong. He cites the British PM calling for a ceasefire (good idea: the Israeli attack began precisely because Hamas quit its sham ceasefire, and rained down missiles on Israeli towns). And Curran also cites moral giants like China, Russia and, hilariously, Egypt, as proof of Israel's moral flaws. Perhaps Curran would like Israel to take those country's approaches when dealing with Islamist terrorists -- kill them all, and kill whatever civilians are in the way, too.
So Curran has a weak sense of right and wrong -- he thinks it's a matter of a vote at the UN. He has a weak grasp of how other countries deal with terrorism. Fine. But look at what Curran says when a commenter points out, as I did, that Karel Schwartzenberg, the Czech foreign minister, has spoken up for Israel. Curran writes, in his own comments section (at 4:22 p.m.):
Of course you already know by now that Prince Schwarzenberg's great grandfather was Jewish. No need for me to tell you that I'm sure.
and then, just to be crystal clear, he adds (at 4:44 p.m):
My point is that Prince Schwarzenberg's comments were based on his own bias and were not that of his country.
Right. I get it. Schwarzenberg wasn't speaking as a Czech. He was speaking as a Jew. You can't be both, you see. He has dual loyalties -- he must be dismissed as disloyal to the Czech Republic, and speaking only in the interests of his faith.
(His faith, of course, is Christianity. Even if Curran's allegation about Schwarzenberg's great-grandfather is accurate, Judaism is matrilineal; Schwarzenberg's family was never Jewish, under Jewish law. And even under the Nazi law of "mischlings", even if Curran's allegation were true, Schwarzenberg would have too little Jewish blood in him to count as a Jew. Who knew that Curran was stricter about weeding out the Jews than Hitler himself! I'd like to see Curran's source for his Jew-hunting claim. I've looked at three biographies of the man, and see no reference to it. Was Curran consulting an anti-Semitic website like Stormfront? Seriously, where did he get the idea for his slur from?)
By citing Schwarzenberg's imaginary Judaism as "proof" of the man's "bias", Curran moves from being merely uninformed and foolish, to being an anti-Semitic bigot. He probably doesn't think he is. He's just parroting the fashionable leftist line that Israel is demonic and the Palestinians -- no matter what terrorism they conduct -- are angelic. Look at Curran's comments page -- they're not exactly brimming over with dissent. That's today's Left for you.
It's too bad. The Left used to be the champion of Israel and the Jews. But that was only when the Jews were perpetual victims -- when they were rootless and persecuted, and especially after they were decimated in the Holocaust. But after the 1967 Six Day War, when Israel showed it was no longer the underdog, the Left chose a new victim to champion -- the Palestinians. Well, actually not the Palestinians. The corrupt, violent Palestinian leadership, a mix of tyranny, Jew-hatred and kleptocracy.
Curran will surely say he has no time for Hamas. But then he hasn't thought through the logic of his own bigotry: if he thinks that Israel is morally wrong to respond to violent attacks on its own civilians, then he is de facto supporting Hamas terrorism, whether he is too dainty to admit it.
I have my disagreements with Jason Cherniak, the founder of Liblogs, but to the man's credit, in his own small way (see his comment on Curran's blog) he's trying to save the Liberal Party from defining itself as the anti-Israel party. I hope he succeeds, but so far, so bad.
I'm proud that Stephen Harper and the Conservative cabinet are pro-Israel -- and as that party ratchets up government spending, foreign policy is probably my favourite thing about them. But I do not want the Conservatives to have a monopoly on pro-Israel sentiments. I think every Canadian party ought to be pro-Israel, because Israel mirrors our own democratic, liberal values in a very undemocratic, illiberal part of the world. Their fight against Islamic terrorism predates ours; they're merely the front line. We could be in the same violent mess as them in 20 years -- and Europe could be in 10 years.
In
the 2008, Liberal weakness on Israel, combined with Conservative
strength, helped tip the balance in a number of ridings, especially in
Thornhill. But I really wish Israel weren't an election issue in Canada
-- I wish that the overt anti-Israel views, and the subtle
anti-Semitism, of bloggers like James Curran is not indicative of where the Liberal party is headed under Michael Ignatieff.
UPDATE: I see that Curran has replied... by avoiding the matter altogether. Just to be clear: I think it's fair ball to oppose Israeli policy, just as it is fair to oppose Italian policy or Canadian policy. In a war between Israel and a terrorist group, opposing Israeli policy shows a weak commitment to principles like democracy, freedom, the rule of law, the right of nations to self-defence, etc., but it's fair. What moves from mere bad judgment to anti-Semitism is Curran's attack on the foreign minister of the Czech Republic because his great-grandfather was allegedly Jewish -- and thus, according to Curran, he's "biased", and doesn't truly represent Czechs. That's not fair comment; that's not a political opinion. That's anti-Jewish bigotry.
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