Not so long ago we learned in school that our solar system contained 9 planets which, in order from the sun outward, were as follows:
Mercury
Venus
Earth
Mars
Jupiter
Saturn - these were all the planets known to everyone up through Galileo's time
Uranus
Neptune
Pluto
Then, in 2006, some well-informed, well-educated and very anal-retentive astrophysicists decided that Pluto was really a "Dwarf Planet" (Little People of America take note!) and no longer deserved to be classed with it's bigger, gassier, ring-ier, moon-ier neighbors. Thus were disappointed many an elementary school student, executives at Disney and knee-jerk defenders, like myself, of "the little guy" despite the best efforts at explanation by Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
We must remember that Pluto, regardless of technical definition, is a rock out in the Kuiper Belt, orbiting our sun and acting very planet-like in all matters except size. Pluto is a solid fact regardless of what definition and name we apply to it. Personally, I think we should redefine it as a full planet but rename it Neil DeGrasse Tyson. I like Mr. Tyson though I have never met him, making my landing in his presence about as likely as my landing on the planet Neil DeGrasse Tyson (nèe Pluto). In any case, the point is that nèe Pluto is an incontrovertible fact name and designation notwithstanding.
Such is also true of the current designation of many statements, words and phrases called anti-Semitic. The major difference, however, is that words are ephemeral and fungible regardless of our technological ability to record them and collect them. For example, the phrase "From the River to the Sea" is only anti-Semitic if you presume that Palestinians have no right to the lands on which they have lived for at least 1,950 years or possibly since Abrahamic times. The Palestinian State, which preexisted the 1948 recognition of Israel as a Jewish Homeland, held the lands from both sides of the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.
The great Anglo-Irish playwright, George Bernard Shaw, wrote an extremely short vignette in response to The Balfour Declaration which culminates with the declaration from Shaw himself that Balfour had created "another Belfast". With 75 years of history in hand, I think that we can say that Shaw was spot-on prescient. Israeli Governments from 1948 onward have laid claim of the lands "From the River to the Sea" based in the thin promise of a book of mythologized history
For the whole history of the modern Israeli nation the world has presumed that both Israeli and a Palestinian nations would exist side-by-side in the old protectorate of Palestine. That is the presumption of the United Nations resolution that created Israel in 1948 and the presumption of successive agreements since. It is the presumption that both nations would exist "From the River to the Sea". However, the Anti-Defamation League has now decided that Palestinian supporters chanting "From the River to the Sea" are inherently calling for the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel. Inherently the phrase is nothing of the kind but now the ugly creature, Context, raises its objectional, 2-faced head.
If you're a true anti-Semite, like the Tiki Torch carrying scum that marched in Charlottesville,Virginia in 2017, "From the River to the Sea" does mean the murder of Jews and destruction of Israel. Those "good people" are now the darlings of the Republiscum Party here in the United States. If you are shocked by wanton murder, genocide and suppression of an entire people, "From the River to the Sea" means creation of an autonomous, contiguous Palestinian homeland that extends along side Israel from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean coast. If you are intent on suppressing the Palestinian people by denying them their own homeland, one that preexisted modern Israel, of the land between the Jordan River and Mediterranean coast you will define "From the River to the Sea" as an anti-Semitic phrase as vile and noisome as the "Arbeit Macht Frei" inscribed above the entrance to Auschwitz or the "Jedem Das Seine" above Buchenwald's gate. That definition is no more valid than my suggestion that we make Pluto a full planet again and rename it Neil DeGrasse Tyson.
The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has defined "From the River to the Sea" as an anti-Semitic curse because they feel that anything that fails to support a restoration of Biblical Galilee, Samaria and Judea from the time of Kings David and Solomon must ipso facto be anti-Semitic. That is, of course, special pleading nonsense. It is the same sort of special pleading nonsense that inspires the American ultra-right wing claim of validity to Constitutional "Originalism". In Constitutional "Originalism" right wing extremists cherry pick evidence, regardless of how specious, from the past to support their predetermined opinions. Likewise, the ADL cherry picks authority from a book of myth, legend, fiction and history filtered through myth, legend and fiction to claim ownership of a land in which they had no ownership for 1,900 years.
Criticism of Israel is not ipso facto anti-Semitism. If it were, thousands of Jewish Israelis, who have spent months, both before and after October 7th, protesting the policies of the Netanyahu government, would be considered anti-Semitic, something that is, on its face, utter nonsense. It is possible to criticize the policies of any Israeli government while being a staunch supporter of a Jewish homeland in the former protectorate of Palestine and even one that stretches "From the River to the Sea".
Protests against the wanton murder of 35,000 Palestinian civilians justified by outright lies and blatant obfuscaction in pursuit of the farrago of "eliminating" Hamas is ipso facto genocide despite the number of times that Benjamin Netanyahu and his supporters object to that definition. Both the lies and obfuscations seem predetermined to cover the Israeli government's evil intent. When, I would ask, did the "conference" of the Netanyahu government take place to codify the "final solution" for the Gaza Palestinians? Who, if not Benjamin Netanyahu himself, presided at this "conference" in the role of Reinhard Heydrich? You, dear reader, if you find this comparison of the current Israeli government to the Nazi scum at the infamous Wannsee Conference appalling, I would ask you to explain to me any difference other than one being held for genocide perpetrated on Jews and the other being perpetrated for genocide by Jews.
Daniel Jonah Goldhagen's book Hitler's Willing Executioners: Ordinary Germans and the Holocaust establishes, as definitively as possible, that the ordinary Germans, who might not have been Nazi Party members, were sufficiently anti-Semitic as to support the rounding up of Jews in their communities and not care what happened to those same Jews. I would agree with Goldhagen's most negative assertions that those ordinary Germans knew or suspected that the Concentration Camps were actually murdering Jews. I do so from an incident from my teens.
As a high school senior is was taking German as my foreign language. I then planned a life in politics for myself and felt that a central European language like German would situate my skills well for the on-going conflict with the Soviet Union. My German teacher, Herr Kaslaukas, had been a translator assigned to a commanding officer in the 3rd Army. Herr K, (a Kafka reference was not lost on me) had been, as my Uncle Eddy was, at the liberation of the Buchenwald Death Camp. One day one of my classmates asked Herr K about his World War II service. Quickly the discussion came to his experience with the Nazi Death Camps. Herr K told us that the officer (Colonel?) to whom he'd been assigned had entered the Buchenwald Camp and entered one of the barracks in which men too weak to walk lay. Herr K said that his officer had been in Europe since D-Day, that he'd seen men in his command "blown apart by shells and, literally, cut in half by machine gun fire". Then he added that his officer, "came out of that building, went behind it and threw up."
Herr K went on to say that what I remember as the next day an higher ranking officer arrived at Buchenwald. That officer ordered that his troops enter Weimar, immediately across the river, round up every person they could find and march them over to the camp. These good, ordinary Germans from Goethe's city, were marched through the camp. As they exited Herr K was tasked with stopping them individually to ask what they knew of this camp and the horrors there. What was most remarkable was that Herr K was relating this story to us but for most of it he had clearly been back at Buchenwald on a cold, April day in 1945. He had taken us with him. I, for one, was seeing this story play out with his eyes which is why, nearly 60 years later, the hairs on the back of my neck still rise remembering his description. So he asked those ordinary Germans of Weimar what they knew of this camp. The smell must have blown into town when the wind was right. They must have heard the screams of men being tortured in the nearby "Screaming Forest". Herr K told us what those ordinary Germans answered, "We didn't know. We thought they were making soap. We didn't know." He paused. "They knew. They knew."
Today, there are Israelis who are appalled by the actions of their government because "They knew." Other Israelis are happy that Al Jazeera is being closed down so they can avoid inconvenient truths. "They knew." There are leaders of Israel who claim that they never would consider genocide of the Gaza Palestinians. "They knew." There are members of the Israeli government who deny any atrocities by the IDF. "They knew." The IDF members who deliberately murder jouralists, doctors and humanitarian aid workers then claim it was all an accident. "They knew." The Israeli air force pilots who bombed and sank the USS Liberty with all hands on board in 1967 then claimed it was an accident. "They knew." The leaders of the Anti-Defamation League here in the United States who claim that bombings that have murdered thousands of Palestinian children are just the old, anti-Semitic "Blood Libel". "They knew." The politicians, Israeli and American Republiscum who define anything anti-war as anti-Semitic for their crass personal gain purposely ignore or encourage the inhumanity perpetrated on the people of Gaza. "They knew." Secretary of State Anthony Blinken, Defense Secretary Lloyd Austin and Joint Chiefs Chairman General C. Q. Brown have denied that Israel is committing genocide with U. S. weapons. "They knew." My President, Joseph Robinette Biden Jr., for whom I will vote again in November, who has supplied this genocidal Israeli government with the means to wholesale murder of the Palestinians of Gaza has only lately moved to rein in the Netanyahu government. He knew.
One of my Jewish grandsons has stayed away from both anti-war and pro-Palestinian demonstrations on his college campus. For his decision to stay away from both sides he has been called anti-Semitic by fellow Jews and vile names by pro-Palestinians. He is personally appalled by the Netanyahu government. I couldn't be more proud of him.
The Holocaust has not prevented Jews from perpetrating the Nakba which is on-going in Gaza. The genocide of Jews does not, appallingly, preclude a genocide by Jews. Pluto may be a "Dwarf Planet" to astrophysicists but it is the 9th planet in our solar system to most of us. The war on Gaza may be an action for Israel's defense to some but it is manifestly genocide to most of us. The Hamas attack on October 7th was horrible and appalling to most of us. The genocide in Gaza is horrible and appalling to most of us. Rachael bitterly weeps for her children but by her side Hagar weeps full as many and as bitter tears for hers too. It is long past time that we should allow both Rachael and Hagar to dry their eyes. We all know that.
