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OK, there are some things I should probably have raised here before adding the material from the EU report, but I'd like to raise the issues now, post-reverting.
1) I don't think it's appropriate to quote the US State Department reporting what the EU is saying when the full texts of the EU reports are available on-line. The most recent EU report is nuanced differently from the State Department report. I believe I summarised it quite fairly but probably more detail could be added.
2) the EU's Working Definition offers clear criteria to establish a borderline between legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and anti-Semitism masquerading as criticism. If that isn't relevant to the question of whether criticism of Israel is necessarily anti-Semitic, then I don't really see what is. It's been put back under "Responses", but while the investigation of the issue by the EU is a Response (to real incidents, to their discussion in the media, possibly not to the emergence of New antisemitism as a "concept" though), the Working Definition is more than just a Response; it is an important contribution to the definition of contemporary anti-Semitism and deserves a more prominent place in the article.
3) quoting the Working Definition's criteria without the concluding statement - that criticism of Israel on the same basis as criticism of any other government is legitimate - does not adequately represent the position of the EU report authors, and thus could be regarded as selective quotation. Itsmejudith 21:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
It's not in the bullet points but completes the bullet points to make the whole definition. Otherwise, why did the UK parliamentary inquiry include this sentence when they quoted the definition? They obviously thought it was relevant and so should we. As for "no-one" says that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, well I would agree that no-one who was seriously engaged in the debate would make such an argument. But it surfaces, for example, in letters to the newspapers. It can easily be shown that this idea is frequently referred to. It may well be a straw man argument but it is one that sources engage with. If they are misguided in doing so, then that is their problem. It is not up to us to define the terms of the debate, only to reflect it. Itsmejudith 21:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I found this quote interesting from Abraham Foxman [2],
In a way, I think it proves both of our points: Nobody says any criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but it's still a point which requires clarification, straw man or not. Mackan79 16:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Note that Foxman is only used in this article by critics of the concept, who like to wave him around to prove their own points. He isn't used in this article to actually support the concept; more scholarly sources are used instead. Jayjg (talk) 22:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Slim, I think the lead as is is problematic. First, New Antisemitism is not accurately summarized in a paragraph as "the concept of an international resurgence of attacks on Jewish symbols, as well as the acceptance of antisemitic beliefs and their expression in public discourse, coming from three political directions: the political left, far-right, and Islamism. [1]" It's a theory (or possibly a series of theories) regarding such a resurgence, and a theory directly and very much tied to the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. I understand there are issues to reconcile here, but I'm pretty sure a single sentence paragraph trying to distill New Antisemitism isn't the way to do it. (Comare Zionism, with four completely different ideas in the lead paragraph). Mackan79 14:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi, What would be the postives/negatives of renaming this article to Contemporary antisemitism? It would necesitate a number of changes in the article, but I think it would be a cleaner article once it was done. Regards, Ben Aveling 01:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
We can have material split across three articles, if that is the best way to do it. Or we can have two articles, with a redirect from new antisemtitism to contemporary antisemitism, or vice versa. The advantage of multiple articles is that it gives a sharper focus on a specific issue. The disadvantage is duplication.
The problem I have with the current article is that it isn't clear to me what the distinction between new antisemitism and 'old' antisemitism is, or even if there is one. Some duplication is OK but when I have no way to decide what should go into new antisemitism and what should go into antisemitism, I think there's a problem. The advantage of contemporary antisemitism over new antisemitism is that it has quite a clear definition. The advantage of new antisemitism over contemporary antisemitism could be that new antisemitism is not just antisemitism in the here and now but somehow something different. That we have a history of new antisemitism suggests that a difference exists, but I don't see what that difference is.
The current introduction says that new antisemitism is "the wave of antisemitism that escalated, particularly in Western Europe, after the Second Intifada in 2000, the failure of the Oslo accords, and the September 11, 2001 attacks." But it then says what is different about new antisemitism is that old antisemitism "was largely associated with the political right." So I'm confused. Is it the distinguishing factor the timing, or is it more to do with the source, in which case perhaps we should be talking not about new antisemitism but about new antisemites; a new chorus singing an old song? In the introduction we mention anti-zionism in passing, but we don't make clear what the relationship between it and new antisemitism is, we just say that there is one.
The history section talks about a Soviet new anti-Semitism, and says this antisemtism was "close to its modern form". But it doesn't explain what close means. Presumably there are important ways in which it is similar and ways in which it is different, but the article doesn't explain what they are.
Further down, we seem to be equating new antisemitism with anti-zionism. Maybe this is the crux of my issues with this article. We have anti-zionism; hatred of/opposition to an jewish state. We have anti-semitism; hatred of/opposition to the jewish race (common usage. technically arabs are also semites, but lets not go there now). We can also identify anti-Israel sentiment; opposition to some or all aspects of Israel. These things all overlap, but it's hard to say that any of them are the same, or a subset of each other. For example there were jews opposed to the creation of Israel because it was man-made, not created by god. And some dislike of Israel is anti-semitic, but not all of it. The boundaries are fuzzy, but for each of these concepts there is a clear and unmistakable core. I can't say that for new-antisemtism. I can't identify what new-antisemitism is that old-antisemtism is not.
To me, new antisemitism seems to be a grab bag of an expression that mixes some different issues: 1. the apparent resurgence in antisemitism, which I suggest properly belongs at contemporary antisemitism; 2. the difficulty in distinguishing between legitimate/illegitimate criticism of israel, which I suggest belongs here, or possibly at anti-zionism; and 3. the changing nature of the anti-semite (left/right/arab/european/russian/...) which I suggest belongs at contemporary antisemitism and/or at antisemitism. Regards, Ben Aveling 23:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
"New antisemitism" isn't really about a contemporary resurgence of old-style theological or "biological" antisemitisms; those remain "old", however recently they may occur -- unless, of course, there's an apparent meeting of ideological opposites or a paradoxical convergence of long-term political enemies based on a commonality of Jew-hating (in which case it then becomes relevant to "new" style antisemitism). A move to "contemporary antisemitism" would only obscure these important distinctions... AnonMoos 00:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
deindent
reindent
Ok, so Brian Klug says "The claim that I am criticizing is not that there is a new outbreak of 'old' antiSemitism but that there is an outbreak of anti-Semitism of a new kind." [5] I think this supports my claim that NA, per its proponents, isn't just about an increase or different source, but also a change in form. That's actually my main point. (Mackan79, continued below)
Otherwise, I was simply conceding that
NA may also be used more broadly, thus explaining our first sentence as it currently is. In any case, I've found support for both points: 1). That many people think New Antisemitism is explicitly about anti-Zionism, and 2). At the same time, others describe it more generally.
So some of these probably aren't reliable sources, but others are. I think they show a pretty clear pattern: people using "New Antisemitism" as a term specifically for the increased criticism and alleged demonization of Israel. Still, others do use the term more broadly (See Hanson, and others I didn't quote).
Finally, we have the summary on Antisemitism: "New antisemitism or 'modern political antisemitism', coming simultaneously from the left, the far right, and radical Islam, which mixes opposition to Zionism and a Jewish homeland in the State of Israel, with racial motifs associated with previous forms of antisemitism. [2][3][4][5][6]" Isn't this more accurate? Basically I feel like we could add a second sentence to the first paragraph at least, to make this second part more clear, which I think would prevent a lot of confusion. Mackan79 20:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
With regard to Ben's comment above. Ben, are you saying that it would not be useful to have historical articles as I suggested? I am not saying that it would resolve all the issues but surely it wouldn't hinder anything. I am not sure why you think the result would be that the Antisemitism and New antisemitism articles would be the same. As I see it, the Antisemitism article would carry all the main definitional work including the distinctions between religious and racial forms and the New antisemitism article would be devoted to that idea/concept/whatever in particular. BTW within the historical series I am most interested in the medieval period and hope to be making most edits to that, not to the 19th century onward. Itsmejudith 10:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I have attempted to improve this article by two simple edits. One was to change the sentence changing the words "not not be" is "is not" with regards to legitimate anti Isreali opposition. This is to try to ensure that this article does not come off as promoting POV. Use of the words "need not be" as the article states currently implies anti-semitism on the part of people who oppose Israel. In other words, "need not be" is a loaded phrase and puts POV into the article, and should be eliminated. Slim Virgin reverted on the basis that it was taken from a quote when clearly it was not. I will revert this back, unless anything else is posted. Secondly, there has been a platitude state at the end of the United States section. It is a useless sentence that says something to the effect that the United Nations Human Rights Committee spent more than half of its time on Israel, more time than all countries combined. It may seem petty to argue style. But clearly, there is no need to point out that more than half is majority. Any idiot with basic arithmetic skills could see that. However, it has been reverted twice. Therefore, I am reverting that section back to the way it should be. There is no reason to have the back of that sentence. Nlsanand 00:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
For the other edit.
The distinction between "is not" and "need not be". Please look at the two following sentences:
The first one clearly implies that THEY ARE RUDE, but don't have to be. Similarly, you are making the accusation that people who oppose Israeli apartheid are anti-semitic. Nlsanand 01:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Also, I've amended the section to say "need not be deemed". I think it is a good compromise. Nlsanand 22:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I'm a bit confused. The EUMC definition is titled "Working Definition on Antisemitism." [16] How is this a definition of "New Antisemitism"? Very clearly, it says it's a definition of antisemitism, which then gives contemporary examples. In fact, the working definition itself is italicized: "Working Definition: Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physcial manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their prperty, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." Please check it out, it doesn't call itself a definition of new or even contemporary antisemitism.
So, then, the document continues, after a set of general contemporary examples of antisemitism:
"Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:
However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic."
Can you also explain, then, why we're removing the final counter-example? The bulleted points are not offered as a definition, but as five examples, followed by one counterexample. The counter-example is directly applicable to the examples. How do you quote the document and simply cut that out? We discussed this above, and the only answer we got was that it's a straw man, but clearly that can't be a valid reason when the EUMC itself chose to include it. Any and all comments welcome. Mackan79 22:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Slim, your reversion is unjustified, as per Mackan79's points. You've restored an edit that a) smuggles in OR by saying what the EUMC doesn't say, that their true topic is "new" antisemitism; b) falsely describes bullet-pointed examples as constituting a "definition," where in fact the EUMC actually supplies a definition and the examples aren't it; and c) violates NPOV by selectively deleting a key qualifying sentence.-- G-Dett 23:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I thought they were trying to do what they said they were trying to do:
The purpose of this document is to provide a working guide for identifying incidents, collecting data, and supporting the implementation and enforcement of legislation dealing with antisemitism.
Antisemitism is a fact, a phenomenon. "New antisemitism" is a theory. It's a theory to which you subscribe, so you'd like to alter the wording of the EUMC document such that it looks they've explicitly endorsed the theory. But they haven't. Classic case of OR. Let it go.
They also explicitly provide a "definition," and it isn't the one you keep shoe-horning in:
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
The set of non-exhaustive examples you keep falsely presenting as their "definition" of "new [sic] antisemitism" actually constitutes a subsection, way down the page, explicitly about how "antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel." The subsection includes several qualifying phrases ("taking into account the overall context"; "However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic") which, unsurprisingly, you keep deleting. It takes considerable nerve to insist that other editors must clear it with you on the talk page if they wish to correct incontestibly false information in the article.
In short, you've offered a wholly unsatisfactory answer to my point a) above, and no answer at all to points b) and c).-- G-Dett 00:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Some editors here are engaged in WP:POINT. This isn't an article about the term, but about the idea, and there has been a long-standing agreement on this page that sources don't have to use the exact phrase "new antisemitism" to be included. It only has to be clear that they are talking about that idea, and in the case of the EU definition, it's abundantly clear by the examples they give and the language they use; indeed it's the rise of NAS in Europe that prompted the need for the EU's research and definition in the first place. Any editor here who pretends otherwise is either editing in bad faith, or hasn't read anything about the topic. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think anyone's arguing that sources "have to use the exact phrase 'new antisemitism' to be included" here. It's fine to use the EUMC definition; it's just not fine to alter their words so that they appear to be endorsing a theory you subscribe to.-- G-Dett 00:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I see you've now restored the misrepresentation. Why won't you quote the document accurately? Are we really going to go down the revert war/mediation/arbitration route over what is plainly a misrepresentation?-- G-Dett 01:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's what is "completely silly", Mackan; the EUMC comes up with a definition of some sort of antisemitism, which includes the ideas that
are a kind of antisemitism. Now, if it's not New antisemitism, then exactly what antisemitism are they describing? Racial antisemitism? Religious antisemitism? And, on top of that, reliable secondary sources explicitly tell us that it's New antisemitism that the EUMC is talking about. I can only assume that some of the arguments to the contrary are being made purely in jest; the alternatives are too horrible to contemplate. Jayjg (talk) 01:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know why anyone would contribute any further to this discussion when not agreeing with Slim/Jay is characterised as "editing in bad faith" but I direct Slim and Jay to WP:NOR. The EUMC definition states clearly what it defines. If you guys had the slightest regard for the policies you brandish like weapons, you would reword your statement to make it clear that the examples given by the EUMC are so characterised by commentators, not by the EUMC. The EUMC even states that it supplied the definition because operational definitions of antisemitism lack. It does not state that it needed a new definition for a new kind of antisemitism.
Furthermore, what you quote as the definition is not. They are examples given by the EUMC of antisemitism, which you have cherrypicked (ignoring the other examples of antisemitism that are given supra, which do not fit your definition so well, because they do not regard the state of Israel).
I note also that I entirely deplore the suggestion that Jay makes that anyone who argues contrary to his (extremely poor) argument is antisemitic (the irony that this is precisely the counterargument to the epithet we are describing should not escape us). Jay, you are smart enough to see that the definition given by the EUMC does not include the examples of antisemitism, as your text misleadingly suggests, but that they are given as examples to guide the work of researchers. Other examples are given. The EUMC in no way defines "new antisemitism", in no way characterises what it defines as that, and in no way suggests that what it describes is divisible. It's interesting that you cherrypicked the list of examples it gives of antisemitism directed towards the Israeli state, which cannot but be "new", on account of the Israeli state's not existing until recently. (Curiously, again, this is precisely the argument of the left in this area: that there is only a "new antisemitism" because pro-Israel commentators have started labelling any criticism of Israel as "antisemitic".) Now you and I might rehearse that argument here, Jay, but I think you can (but of course won't) agree that we should not be trying to synthesise it in the text. Grace Note 03:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
If we have to go to mediation and/or arbitration, then let's get on with it. Slim, your last question to me – "Which bit is not being quoted accurately?" – smacks of bad faith. I do not see the merest glimmering of a sincere attempt to engage with – or even acknowledge – the objections meticulously raised here. The current edit is flat-out false, and appears to be a deliberate doctoring and misrepresentation of source material.-- G-Dett 03:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
The following paragraph in this section needs serious work:
The inquiry adopted the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, namely that a racist act is defined by its victim, and that it is the Jewish community that is in the best position to determine what is anti-Semitic. [110] The report states that left-wing activists and Muslim extremists are using criticism of Israel as a "pretext" for anti-Semitism, [83] and that the "most worrying discovery" is that anti-Semitism appears to be entering the mainstream. [111] The inquiry calls for the adoption of a clearer definition of anti-Semitism that reflects its "complex and multi-faceted" nature. [111] It argues that anti-Zionism may become anti-Semitic when it adopts a view of Zionism as a "global force of unlimited power and malevolence throughout history," a definition that "bears no relation to the understanding that most Jews have of the concept: that is, a movement of Jewish national liberation ..." Having re-defined Zionism, traditional anti-Semitic motifs of Jewish "conspiratorial power, manipulation and subversion" are transferred from Jews onto Zionism. This is "at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism'," the report concludes, adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism "the lingua franca of antisemitic movements." [112]
First of all, it's heavily cherry-picked so as to look like an unqualified endorsement of the theory/concept of new antisemitism. All of the charged phrases floating around in this paragraph are qualified in their context, and the report explicitly says that "it is not the role of this inquiry to take sides in this major debate," i.e. the debate about NAS and the relationship between anger about Israeli policies and antisemitism (point 81). The sentence that reads "This is 'at the core of the "New Anti-Semitism,"' the report concludes, adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism 'the lingua franca of antisemitic movements'" contains much that is misleading as well as one outright falsehood. This is not how the report "concludes"; rather, it is a digressive side-example 24 pages into a 66-page report (point 83, beginning "For example, criticism of Israel is not in itself antisemitic..."). The sentence saying "This is at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism'" actually reads "This is at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism,' on which so much has been written." The sentence, in other words, is tangentially gesturing to an external body of work about one facet of the topic at hand (a facet the report endorses only with cautious qualifications, acknowledging it to be controversial, and trying to stay aloof of the controversy by positing a difference between antisemitic intentions and antisemitic effects). This cautious side note in the middle of the report has been edited by someone here so as to appear to be the concluding moment, where the report sums up its own findings. I'll leave it to veterans of this page to fix it, but if it doesn't happen I'll do it.-- G-Dett 00:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Mackan79, your reworded edit looks fine. Hopefully you've headed off an unnecessary revert war.-- G-Dett 20:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Leifern, the clause you've just added looks fine to me. Indeed, it's an important point, one the report comes back to in various ways when trying to explain its mandate. -- G-Dett 21:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I see that Humussapiens has restored the propaganda edit. I must say I'm accustomed to special pleading, double standards, and aggressive wikilawyering from these editors; what seems new however is the persistent shoe-horning in of bad-faith misrepresentations. Enough of the nonsense; let's go straight to mediation.-- G-Dett 05:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Humus, the "silly rv game" is yours and yours only. What you've just reverted was new material I added – not a revert of your last ridiculous edit. The latter I'm leaving for mediation, having given up on the expectation of serious and good-faith discussion.-- G-Dett 06:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Armon, I appreciate your good work in this section, rescuing what had become a bad situation indeed. I don't understand your latest edit however, and I think there might be a misunderstanding. Your edit summary says "rv OK how about WP:V? in any case the burden of proof is on removal -G-Dett check source it's "Contemp exmpls of AS in public life, media, schools, workplace, and and in the religious sphere". Have another look at the document in question. First of all, you'll find there are two subsections of examples. The first of these has the heading you quote in your edit summary, but this is not the section we quote from in our article; none of the examples we've entered into the article come from this subsection. They come from the second subsection, which is headed "Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:" and then it goes on to list the examples we do quote in our article. This is the framing language for the relevant section we quote in full in our article; that's why I sampled it in the edit you've now removed. Which brings me to the second apparent misunderstanding. You say "the burden of proof is on removal," but it's you who's doing the removing, no? Please consider self-reverting.-- G-Dett 15:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Jay, why have you restored an edit that has been shown to be factually false on one count and misleading on another? And why do you not see fit to account for your edit on the talk page? Especially given that the material you've just deleted was prefaced by a lengthy explanation on this page, posted some twelve hours before making the needed edit? Is this arrogance on your part or an oversight?-- G-Dett 17:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Slim, the changes were not only to improve the writing, but to make inaccurate statements accurate. The past/present tense issues were already there, I simply didn't fix it. In any case, you reinserted several inaccuracies:
Beyond that, the section is simply poorly written, failing to present any sort of coherent line of thought. It's talking about who defines racism, then completely drops that and talks about anti-zionism. Then it jumps to a general statement on rising antisemitism, then back to an example of anti-Zionism as antisemitism, etc. What's the topic of this paragraph? "Tidbits from the committee that seem relevant"? You must see this paragraph does a poor job of explaining its line of thought, in addition to presenting only tidbits from one side. Can we not fix this?
Anyway, the main point is the inaccuracies. Did you check that out? Mackan79 18:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I would just like it to be noted that neither the parliamentary enquiry report nor the EU documents are boring as someone said above. Even picking them over line by line and discussing on this page what they mean and how they should be cited is not boring. But it is incredibly time-consuming. How many words have been added to this page today? Itsmejudith 21:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a response to Slim's comment above of 19:19 UTC, 31 January. (Getting muddled about who said what on the talk page to whom and when is one of the things I find most wearing on this page.) Slim, I took my time going through the All-Party Inquiry report. I had to be sure I understood its status in relation to a) its own terms of reference, b) the "out there" NAS debate as far as I understand that debate, c) that debate as discussed in this article's mainspace, d) the arguments presented on this talk page. Now I think I understand all that. I've read some of the other background stuff, e.g. the Mcpherson report, and I frequently read policy documents and debates in the UK and EU so I know the policy context like the back of my hand. However I haven't read everything about the history of antisemitism in every historical period. I come to this as an amateur encylopedia editor, just like everyone else editing this page.
Now how can I proceed about trying to improve the way the Inquiry report is presented here? If I make changes in mainspace, will Jay revert me with nought but a No-Way-José edit summary? Shall I present everything here first? Should I set up a sandbox? Perhaps I feel a Be Bold moment coming on .... Itsmejudith 13:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Jay, would you mind deigning to explain and/or justify your plans to revert work that has been accompanied by lengthy, detailed, and cogent presentations of rationale on this page? Some modicum of respect for the work of others seems in order. Is it your intention to simply issue occasional peremptory, unresponsive, gnomic assertions here while engaging in ceaseless revert wars on the article page?-- G-Dett 02:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Slim, I have indeed shown respect for the work and research that has gone into this page. That's precisely why, when I found flaws in that research in the form of misrepresented source material, I detailed – well in advance of editing – the nature of the flaw and what I proposed to do about it. When after a period I made my modest edit I found myself almost instantly reverted – the first time blindly by an editor who clearly hadn't read the material he was deleting, and subsequently by Jayjg – who wrote nothing on the talk page justifying his deletion, wouldn't respond to requests for justification either here or on his talk page, and in whose edit summary blithely remarked that he was "fixing" my edit, which he hadn't looked at closely enough to notice was about the British all-party parliamentary inquiry and not the EUMC definition. [23]
If you're suggesting that new editors have to submit to having 'veterans' peremptorily toss their considered contributions into the trash can without so much as a flicker of mental recognition, then what you're suggesting is what I call owning.-- G-Dett 17:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I have decided to remove this paragraph from the article:
In The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, Father Edward H. Flannery writes that, because most of the spectacular displays of antisemitism have come from the right — for example, Czarist pogroms, the Dreyfus Affair, and Adolf Hitler — it has blinded onlookers to what he calls an "uninterrupted strain of antisemitism on the Left," [1] quoting Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin who write: "The further Left one goes, the greater the antisemitism." [2] Flannery writes that it came as no surprise to historians of the left that, as William D. Rubinstein wrote in 1978: "Today, the main enemies of the Jews and Israel are almost exclusively on the left, most obviously the Communist states, the radical Third World anti-Zionist nations and their sympathizers in the West." [3] Flannery argues that "all the progenitors of socialist theory, with the exception of St Simon, were bitter antisemites," [1] arguing that Marx and Engels took much of what Flannery calls their antisemitism from Proudhon, Bauer, Fourier, Toussenel, and Fichte. Flannery writes that in 1891, the Second International Socialist Congress refused to condemn antisemitism without also condemning philosemitism. He cites historian Zosa Szajkowski, who writes that he could not find a "single word on behalf of Jews" in the entirety of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920. The link between antisemitism and the ideology of the left is "not accidental," Flannery argues, because Judaism stresses nationality, peoplehood, or religious commitment; extreme leftist ideologies and traditional Judaism are "almost by definition incompatible." [4]
There are several reasons why this paragraph does not meet the standards of encyclopedic inclusion. I've explained my reasons in detail, and have provided sub-headers for the benefit of readers.
I would request that anyone who wishes to respond please do so after the end of this post.
The parts of Flannery's book referenced in this paragraph relate to a supposed "uninterrupted strain of antisemitism on the Left". Leaving aside the accuracy or inaccuracy of this charge, Flannery's evidence is not relevant to the concept of a "new antisemitism".
The problems of defining "new antisemitism" have been raised many times in discussions concerning this article, such that it may be impossible to find a definition that satisfies everyone. The term is currently defined on the article page as referring to the concept of a recent convergence of antisemitic thought and action involving three distinct ideologies: the far right, the left, and radical Islam. Previous versions of the article suggested that it was primarily a concept applied to the left, and specifically to the New Left. Some authors have used the term primarily in reference to radical Islam, while others have used it in a different sense, synonymous with "contemporary antisemitism".
Notwithstanding their differences, however, these definitions are linked by a common theme: they all refer to perceived developments in contemporary history. The excerpted portions of Flannery's text do not.
"NAS" is not defined as "antisemitism of the left", nor is it defined in terms of a linear progression of historical events dating back to the 19th century (which would be an absurdity for a "new" concept.) The fact that Proudhon and Fourier were antisemites is relevant to studies of Proudhon and Fourier, but not to the concept of a "new antisemitism". Similarly, the 1891 resolution of the Second International may or may not be relevant to a history of 19th century antisemitism, but it is clearly irrelevant to this page.
There are two editions of Edward Flannery's "The Anguish of the Jews". The first was published in 1965 by Macmillan Press. The second was issued in 1985 by Stimulus Books, a division of the Paulist Press (which mostly publishes Catholic devotional material). Copyright in the latter is owned by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence. There are significant differences between these books, and some sections (including the text referenced above) appear only in the second.
The original edition was released by a respected firm, and is recognized as being a work of scholarly merit. The second version was issued by a religious press, and there is some reason to believe that it may not have been adequately vetted (see below).
The circumstances of the Second Edition's publication can't help but draw into question its reliability as a source. (Are we really to be surprised that a book issed by the Catholic Church at the height of the Cold War would include sections attacking socialism?)
Flannery's comments on the relationship between antisemitism and socialism underwent a significant transformation between 1965 and 1985.
Consider the following statement from the 1965 edition:
Now, consider this revised statement from 1985:
It would be interesting to speculate on the reasons for this change, and particularly on whether or not it had anything to do with increased criticism of Israel from the Left after 1967. One way or the other, it seems inappropriate for us to reference Flannery's 1985 comments on antisemitism and socialism without drawing his 1965 comments into the picture in some way.
Most of the cited text is taken from two paragraphs on p. 274 of Flannery's 1985 edition:
There are a number of problems here.
There is one (1) footnote for the second paragraph:
It's a shame that Flannery didn't take the time to check the original source. If he had, he might have discovered this statement: "In quoting only the antisemitic pronouncements of the French socialists, before Edouard Drumont, the writer may be suspected of having ignored the pro-Jewish sentiments. In order to ally any such suspicion, the writer wishes therefore to say explicitly that his efforts to find sympathetic references to Jews in the French socialist literature, from Saint-Simon to the date of Drumont's first appearance, have been futile" (p. 60) Drumont's first appearance was in 1886.
Flannery might have also discovered the following statement, had he looked up the original essay: "It was not until antisemitism had joined hands with the "Boulangist" reaction (1889) that some socialist groups have become aware of the danger and started to fight against antisemitism" (p. 59; tense error in original). He certainly wouldn't have made his lunatic suggestion that Szajkowski found not "a single word on behalf of the Jews" in French socialist literature before *1920*, nor would he have suggested the "all the progenitors of socialist theory, with the exception of St. Simon, were bitter antisemites".
(I should add that Szajkowski's essay is an erudite scholarly piece, and deserves a better legacy than being used to prop up Father Flannery's efforts to malign the Left as antisemitic. An interesting fact I learned from the essay is that Fourier apparently concealed his antisemitism behind facetious support for a plan to move Europe's Jews en masse to Palestine.)
During the Dreyfus affair socialist leaders refused to counter the rightist attack on the Jewish army officer.
This statement is profoundly misleading. It's true that the "integral" faction of French socialism didn't participate in the campaign to exonerate Dreyfus (see Szajkowski, p. 59), but someone of Flannery's experience must surely have known that *most* French socialist leaders were active Dreyfusards. For him to suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest, and for *us* to repeat this suggestion is profoundly unencyclopedic.
On the subject of lunatic suggestions, may I assume that no one reviewing this page is willing to defend Flannery's unreferenced suggestion that "Protocols" was derived from socialist sources?
In light of these errors, I do not believe that the 1985 edition of Flannery's book should be considered a reliable source for the history of "new antisemitism".
Our summary describes Prager and Telushkin as having written, "The further Left one goes, the greater the antisemitism." This comment is presented in isolation, and without further clarification as to their intentions. The effect may be to have readers believe Prager and Telushkin were referring to a "left to right" spectrum. To judge from Flannery's remarks, however, it appears more likely that they were referring to a "left to *centre*" spectrum.
Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain a copy of Prager and Telushkin's book before writing my comments. I suspect, however, that the current edit may be a distortion of their true intentions. I am not suggesting that this was deliberate.
Flannery's statement that "Extreme leftist ideologies and traditional Judaism are almost by definition incompatible" is not relevant to this article. Opposition to "traditional Judaism" is not, in and of itself, generally recognized as sufficient proof of antisemitism, let alone of "new antisemitism". (Are secular Jews who reject their religious backgrounds automatically considered antisemites? Of course not. For that matter, are Reform Jews who reject Kashrut considered antisemites? Of course not.)
It may be possible to incorporate Flannery's statements on the Left and particularism into the article, but I doubt there's any compelling need to do this in light of his credibility issues on other fronts.
For all of these reasons, it is clear to me that the Flannery paragraph is not encyclopedic, and needs to be removed from the article. It may be possible to restore Rubinstein's quote at some point in the future, but only if we reference the original source.
I've put a fair bit of time into researching these matters. I trust that any editor who wishes to restore the Flannery paragraph will review my comments, and address my arguments.
Please add your comments after this line. CJCurrie 06:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
May I please reiterate my request that any editor who wishes to restore the Flannery paragraph please review my comments, and address my arguments. CJCurrie 01:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm truly baffled as to how to interpret this: [25]. CJCurrie 09:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Jay, you've chosen to revert, on the rhetorical grounds that Flannery trumps CJ. Can I ask why you've left this sentence in: "He cites historian Zosa Szajkowski, who writes that he could not find a 'single word on behalf of Jews' in the entirety of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920," which we know now to be false? Let us bracket for the moment the question of whether Flannery belongs at all. You think he does, so you restore him. But why not at least correct the sentence? Or at the very least, quote Flannery at greater length, so the falsehood is in his words and not ours? I'm not suggesting that this would suffice; I'm just trying to understand your negotiating posture. Is the point to show maximum contempt for CJ, as your edit summaries and posts here would suggest? Or do you not trust his legwork and believe him to be lying? Or is there a categorical principle involved here for you, that Wikipedia editors are to treat as infallible any assertions made by an RS? That even a modest editorial decision to put dubious claims in quotation marks, for example, rather than in free-indirect, so as to put a buffer between the voice of Wikipedia and manifestly false statements, would constitute OR? If there is some other principle involved, could you explain it please – in reasoned, detailed sentences, and not another crypto-sarcastic diktat?-- G-Dett 02:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I notice that neither one of you has directly addressed my arguments concerning the unsuitability of Flannery's arguments to this article. That's unfortunate, but not entirely surprising. What I find a bit more troubling is that neither of you has made any efforts to even *correct* the paragraph, based on what I've written. In its current form, the article presents Flannery's flawed scholarship as though it were accurate and credible. This is clearly unacceptable.
Seriously, does either of you honestly believe that a neutral editor (Mel Etitis, for instance, or Jmabel) would favour retention of the Flannery paragraph in light of the arguments I've presented? I doubt it.
The current Flannery paragraph is remarkably unencyclopedic, and has absolutely no business being here. I'm going to remove it again, and I'm going to request that you not restore it. If you want to return it in a revised form, please discuss it on the talk page first. CJCurrie 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
(And no, I didn't promise to leave the paragraph in place for a full day. I said I'd leave it in place *up to* a full day, on condition that SlimVirgin take advantage of the opportunity to read my comments.) CJCurrie 22:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
It's an almost insignificant point but Flannery was not writing about the "new antisemitism". He wrote long before the rightists who inform this article had invented the term. Including the passage about him is a new low in what is already a terrible piece of POV pushing masquerading as an article. It's entirely OR to suggest that his analysis has anything whatsoever to do with the "concept" that is under "discussion" in this article. I just don't see how we can justify having a section on the "history" of something that exists mostly in the minds of contributors here and a few of the more frothy pro-Israeli commentators, when it isn't simply an epithet thrown around by those who think Israel should have carte blanche for whatever reason. Grace Note 03:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I had been hoping that a greater number of uninvolved and neutral editors would have provided their views on this matter by now. I'm a bit concerned that this "controversy" could soon degenerate into the usual stale bickering between SlimVirgin's supporters and SlimVirgin's opponents; a few outside voices would be useful to ensuring that this unwelcome prospect doesn't come to fruition. I thank John Kenney for weighing in on this matter, and I hope others will follow in his footsteps.
For the time being, it will probably occasion little surprise among readers that I'm not convinced by the counter-arguments of Slim and Jay. Their comments about "Original Research" are especially puzzling: the NOR policy is designed to prevent editors from *adding* unverifiable and novel research, not to prevent editors from removing obviously flawed research. I'm also uncertain as to how a source that misinterprets Szajkowski by 34 years and claims "Protocols" as socialist-derived can honestly or accurately be described as reliable. To give credit where it's due, I appreciate that Moshe hasn't resorted to any transparent policy distortions in his remarks. (Even though I disagree with his conclusions, I appreciate that Moshe is approaching this discussion in a reasonable manner.) CJCurrie 06:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
As no-one has provided a convincing reason why the paragraph should be retained, I will remove it again presently. I am fully aware of the significance of my actions, and I believe that any neutral editor reviewing this situation would conclude that the paragraph should not have been returned in the first place. I can only wonder how much longer Slim and Jay will insist on defending an obviously unsuitable source. CJCurrie 06:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Question to Jay: Is there any basis for quoting the second less influential book rather than the first more influential book which says the opposite? Mackan79
What's the logic of re-inserting Flannery's inaccurate statement about Zosa Szajkowski?
It's fairly obvious this situation is degenerating into a full-blown edit war. I'm going to refrain from removing the paragraph again for the time being, in the hope that more uninvolved editors will weigh in shortly. I maintain that the paragraph has absolutely no business being in the article, and I'm prepared to take the matter as far as formal mediation if need be.
For the moment, I'm going to put a fact-disputed notice on the section. The current edit includes the following line: "He cites historian Zosa Szajkowski, who writes that he could not find a "single word on behalf of Jews" in the entirety of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920." Szajkowski does not write this. CJCurrie 16:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the essence of Wikipedia's Original Research policy: "Articles may not contain any unpublished material, or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position."
There is nothing in the policy that prevents me from challenging the reliability of a source on the talk page, nor is there anything in the policy that prevents me from removing obviously flawed information.
I hope that uninvolved parties reading this page will understand the defensive cry of "No original research" for what it is: an excuse, and a deflection. CJCurrie 19:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
One of the guiding principles of Wikipedia's editorial policy is that verifiability, rather than truth, is the standard for any piece of information to be included on an article page. That is, editors who wish to include *accurate* information on an article page must be able to demonstrate that the information has been published by a credible source.
This policy is meant to prevent editors from disseminating unverifiable personal knowledge (eg. "Celebrity X ran over my dog!"), and from promoting novel and untested theories (eg. "Were we too quick to dismiss phrenology?").
To judge from recent discussions, however, this principle may be open to abuse and misinterpretation. Slim, Jay et al almost seem to have inverted the principle, to suggest that demonstrably *inaccurate* information may be deemed encyclopedic if it appears in a reliable source (what?). They also seem to be suggesting that efforts to demonstrate the inaccuracy of such information are contrary to Wikipedia policy. This, of course, is nonsense.
I had hoped that neutral editors would have weighed in the Flannery controversy by now. Since that hasn't happened, I will remove the paragraph again. I make no apologies for doing this, as I emphatically do not require anyone's permission to remove demonstrably false information from the article.
To anyone who wishes to return the paragraph, I offer the following challenge: Why should we include false, misleading and irrelevant material from a book that was for all intents and purposes self-published? ("But the author wrote a classic study twenty years earlier!" is not a suitable response.) CJCurrie 01:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I am not really sure what the responses section is about. Is it a) about the responses to the "concept of NAS" (which SV claims the article is about) or is it b) about the responses to the phenomenon (actual or not) of NAS? pertn 08:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Gzuckier, your calling-of-bluffs would be the great triumph you hoped for had you posted it before 2001. The ADL's decline from courageous and pathbreaking civil-rights activism into political demagoguery was steady until then, precipitous after that. Not too long ago they were still publishing annual audits of anti-semitic events that were none other than, well, anti-semitic events, such as you'll find here. [29] By 2002, they were lumping antisemitic incidents and "anti-Israel" events into a single category, making no distinctions at all between the two (pace the silly claims on this page that no one equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and it's a "strawman" to say otherwise). So in their annual audits since then you get absurd sequences such as the following: [30]
- April 15 - Muslim student groups at University of California - Berkeley and UC - San Diego posted fliers featuring fabricated, distorted and out-of-context quotations from the Talmud and other rabbinical literature. Many of these anti-Semitic "quotations" are easily found on extremist Web sites. Samples include:
- -- "A Jew is permitted to rape, cheat and perjure himself, but he must take care that he is not found out, so that Israel may not suffer."
- -- "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be violated."
- -- "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts."
- -- "When the Messiah comes, every Jew will have 2800 slaves."
- April 15 - The Gaza Strip, a one-sided film that is severely critical of Israel, was screened at New Jersey's Drew University.
You heard that right, the academy-award-nominated James Longley makes it onto their list, right after pamphleteering about the Jewish right to rape and violate three-year-olds. (Add him to the examples Slim asked for.) Now scan to the bottom of the list and you'll find what you were after:
- January 23 - Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian spokeswoman was a guest lecturer at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI).
Sorry, I was wrong about Robert Fisk. But have a good look at the (black)list: I trust you'll concede that if Fisk had made an appearance on a U.S. campus in 2002, the ADL would not have hesitated to include him, right there alongside "fliers appeared on campus with an anti-Semitic diatribe written by the right-wing extremist and former Klansman David Duke," "a rock was thrown through the students' front window (where an Israeli flag had been displayed) and their car, parked out front, was also vandalized," etc. etc.
Let it be absolutely clear I'm not talking about "Jews" being "oversensitive." I'm talking about political groups being demagogic. I never gave much thought to the ethnic dimension of any of this, but in my experience "Jews" on American campuses are, like "Jews" in American life and letters generally, politically all over the map; and certainly active in substantial numbers on both sides of the debates about a) the moral legitimacy of the occupation, and b) the explanatory force and strategic purpose of the theory of "new antisemitism."
Cheers,-- G-Dett 19:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that what started out as a legitimate debate about the value of a certain section of the article has turned into an illegitimate debate about whether new anti-Semitism is a subject worthy of an article on Wikipedia. Clearly, it is worthy of a Wikipedia article reguardless of any individual's opinion on the phenomenon. It seems to me like time and energy would be better spent improving an article than needless debating over an issue that has been decided way before the debate began. -- GHcool 01:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Slim, my argument was that there is strong evidence indeed of (new) antisemitism being invoked in bad faith and for the transparent political purpose of shackling debate about the occupation in taboo. That was the point of my supplying details of the ADL blacklist. The second point was that you were dealing evasively with Pertn's argument that antisemitism does not figure prominently in the European left. Instead of trying to demonstrate that it does indeed figure prominently, you gave her several obvious examples of it, indeed "shocking" examples as you say, and then challenged her to deny that they constituted antisemitism. I suggested you were being a bit of a demagogue yourself. Her point was not that "Slaughter the Jews" wasn't antisemitic; her point was that "Slaughter the Jews" was not a prominent or influential sentiment among the European left.
Your reply to this simple, amply detailed and supported argument, is to say that a) you don't understand it, and that b) it's hogwash anyway:
saying that "some" of what's called antisemitism has been mislabeled is not an argument, because "some" clearly hasn't been mislabeled, and so long as "some" antisemitism is coming from the left in sufficient quantity that Jews all over the world, not just the ADL, are talking and writing about it, then clearly there's something going on, call it what you will. Again, you're getting too hooked up on the term. The idea is that there's something afoot, which is similar to, but not quite like, previous things that have been afoot.
I can't argue with this any more than I can arm-wrestle with a sea cow or pin a fog bank to a wrestling mat. I can only hope that the literate will see it for the gaseous mystification that it is, and place hope meanwhile in the evaporative effects of a few general observations. Reality being complex, there are usually several things afoot at once. In this case, one of the things afoot is antisemitism, some of it old and deep-rooted, some of it newly conceived in anger about the Israel/Palestine conflict. (Much like Islamophobia among Americans and Israelis, some of which is old and deep-rooted, and some of which is fed by anger about terrorism, Islamism and extremism.) Another thing afoot, however is a wave of propaganda, defamation, and charlatanry of the sort I have detailed, Jay has denied, and you have ignored. Both of these categories of phenomena are very real and very nasty; and both of them, unfortunately, are integral to the concept/theory/discourse of "New Antisemitism" in its current incarnation. We should cover both, and participate in neither.-- G-Dett 04:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Mackan79, the distinction you make in your last paragraph between intention and effect is an important one. Apart from a few (lamentably influential) demagogues, I think probably most who invoke "new antisemitism" do so out of good-faith concern about anti-Jewish bigotry, but are tangentially content to let the conceptual framework handicap (in both senses, to cripple and to tip the balance of) discussion of Israeli policies. Those who share their good-faith concern about anti-Jewish bigotry but oppose occupation policies are likely to stick with traditional terminology and avoid the theoretical framework of "new antisemitism," on the grounds that its explanatory payoff is small, its political liabilities significant, and its potential for exploitative mystification very large.
Now, regarding what the article needs once it's unblocked. I agree with Slim that it does touch on both of the topics comprised by the term "new antisemitism" (one, the contemporary evolution of anti-Jewish bigotry, and two, the invocation of same to contaminate critics of the occupation). The problem is, discussion of the latter topic is limited to subsection 2, where its treatment is moreover scattered and disorganized, bisected by sub-subsections on the "third wave" and "fourth wave," section headings which don't argue for the theory but merely presuppose it. As do the next two large subsections, "Political directions" and "Responses." In other words, the article as a whole begs the question by embedding critique of the theory within an overall structure that isolates and marginalizes that critique.
What we're left with is a (false) impression that on the one hand there's a large group of people, not only ordinary Jewish people but mainstream organizations, scholars, and government figures who all agree there's something called "new antisemitism" which is unacceptable and needs to be combatted; and on the other hand a small minority of figures who for this or that reason oppose the consensus on this theory, and who don't see much cause for concern about contemporary antisemitism. That's wrong. One indication of the wrongness of this structure for our article, the radical distortion of subject matter it entails, is to be found in our use of Edward Said's concern about Arab antisemitism to buttress the NAS thesis, which he by and large rejected. Another indication, closer to home because right on this talk page, is the crazy question put to Pertn by Slim as to whether she believed physical and verbal attacks on Jews qua Jews constituted antisemitism. Slim's question presupposes that a critical take on the theory of "new antisemitism" entails quiescence, complacency, or denial about bigotry. Maybe Slim asked the question in good faith and I've done her an injustice. This talk-page fallacy may simply be an understandable by-product of our fallacious framing of the article itself.
The actual situation, which the structure of our article should reflect, is that you've got near-unanimity among notable writers, scholars, and government figures that contemporary antisemitism is a problem, is unacceptable and should be combatted. Unanimity ends there, however. Some (they may or may not be a majority) think that the best way for us to combat it is to define it theoretically as a kind of multi-headed Hydra called "new antisemitism," organically singular and self-identical if protean in its manifestations; and that having once defined it as such we should bring the concept to bear not only on hate crimes and related phenomena but on discussion of the Israeli occupation, American foreign policy, and other related matters. Others prefer traditional distinctions and a traditional vocabulary, and think the theory is a mystification which inhibits legitimate discussion of political issues, and in so wilfully blurring lines does nothing to explain, expose, resist, or defeat the actual forms of bigotry which it purports to take as its subject.
Both the EUMC paper and the British all-party parliamentary inquiry are aware of the nature of this division, even if we aren't, and though their findings were indeed more warmly embraced by the first group than the second, they did take care, rhetorically at least, not to foreclose that debate or to come down explicitly on one side or the other of it. -- G-Dett 19:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
From reading this section of the Palestine Peace Not Apartheid article and in particular Abraham Foxman's comments relative to the matter it would seem appropriate to mention Carter in this article surrounding his book. Even news organizations like the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times are prominently mentioning his name in the articles like this one and this one. ( → Netscott) 16:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
The last 50 edits are almost all edit-warring; only the last bit is by an anon. I think that full protection, not semi-protections, is needed. People are talking, which is great, but talking while reverting isn't good. Guettarda 19:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
The conservative American Jewish Committee released a document/report entitled "Progressive" Jewish Thought & The New Anti-Semitism that was covered today in this news story in New York Times. -- 64.230.121.37 04:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I posted this on Mackan's talk page, now reposted here in the hope of getting more comments.
I have been trying to step back a bit to examine why the article would refer to this report and what bits it would refer to. I would really appreciate your view on this and then afterwards maybe we could turn to how it should be done.
The existence of the inquiry is clearly significant to the Antisemitism article, as it was a response to a real and perceived rise in antisemitic incidents and antisemitic discourse.
So, to what extent is the fact of this inquiry and its report relevant to the article New antisemitism, the purpose of which is to explain "new antisemitism" as a (contested) concept? Only tangentially, one might argue. Although the inquiry was set up in response to a rise in antisemitism, only some authors, not all, identify that rise as new antisemitism. If the article is about "new antisemitism" as a concept not as a phenomenon, then it is hard to say that the inquiry is relevant.
There is however, an overriding argument in favour of the use of the inquiry report as a source in the New antisemitism article. Because the recent rise in antisemitism (occasioning the inquiry) has been accompanied by a large amount of discussion of the term "new antisemitism", then the report will necessarily address questions that are at issue in that discussion (for example, the newness of this recent antisemitism, whether all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, the extent of antisemitism on the Left and among Muslims).
Since the fact of the inquiry’s establishment is pertinent to the article, the article should briefly summarise, in the report’s own terms, the context in which the inquiry was established, the purpose of the inquiry and what its recommendations were.
Next, the debate around "new antisemitism" as presented in the article, suggests a number of questions on which the inquiry's views are relevant and should, if possible, be cited. Some of these would seem to be:
These are not exhaustive and it goes without saying that the report is a reliable source in WP terms and can be drawn on for further factual information. These could include points that the report makes in passing so long as the general argument of the report is not thereby distorted.
Itsmejudith 10:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I am therefore working on a summary on the above lines and hope to post it before the end of this week. Itsmejudith 09:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
-- 172.132.153.245 03:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's another link at the Washington Post discussing the Nader controversy ( [41]), and an interview with Nader where he discusses what he said ( [42]). -- WassermannNYC 16:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Again, given that Buchanan is far more notable than any of the academics quoted in this article, perhaps we should included the now famous quote made by Pat Buchanan in 1990 that deals with the Israel lobby in Washington D.C. -- many saw Buchanan's comments as antisemitic at the time, and he is still considered an antisemite by many. At that time Buchanan referred to Capitol Hill as "Israeli-occupied territory" -- quoted in Media Notes, The Washington Post, September 15, 1990 ( in Wikipedia's article on Buchanan). This comment is what caused many to start seeing Buchanan as an antisemite (this label still hovers around him today, as he still writes article for VDARE and other publications that are very critical of Israel and Jews). Therefore, shouldn't Buchanan's quote be included in the article (especially in the section called "The far right and Islamism") as part of the "New antisemitism"? -- WassermannNYC 10:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
That's the main point -- Pat Buchanan is pretty much "old" school (very little "new" about him). "Old"-style anti-semitism only becomes "new" when there's an apparent meeting of ideological opposites or a paradoxical convergence of long-term political enemies based on a commonality of Jew-hating. AnonMoos 14:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Anyone seem all the announcements about these guys? In the UK they are in today's Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph. Anyone with time and energy putting context to this article who be welcome (broadly it is a group of British Jews who have declared that everyone should be free to discuss Israeli foreign policy without fear of labels)? -- BozMo talk 13:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Jay, where are you getting the figure of "100 or so"? The Daily Telegraph article says in its opening sentence that there are "almost 150 high-profile figures who have joined Independent Jewish Voices (IJV)." Is the article being updated regularly, and signatories have jumped 50% in the last hour? In any case, the "formation" is obviously relevant to the topic. Here are points 4 and 5 from their 5-pt. statement of principles:
4. There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance.
5. The battle against anti-Semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-Semitic.
One of their founding members is Brian Klug, to whom a good chunk of our article as it stands now is devoted. The group comprises prominent figures, including figures prominent in our article, is directly related to this topic, is receiving a good deal of media attention, and is clearly encyclopedic. The argument that it takes announcements of this sort several months before they "belong in an encyclopedia" is novel and seemingly ad hoc; for example SlimVirgin added the paragraph about the "Initiative for Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism" days after Yale announced it. [44]
Jay's objection that neither the IJV nor the articles covering it specify the "new" antisemitism also appears to be ad hoc. He has very explicitly argued that relevant material needn't mention "new" antisemitism, so long as it's clear (to him) that that's what they're talking about. -- G-Dett 18:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
What sophistry. Here is the first paragraph of Klug's comment in the Guardian today, written to accompany the group's public debut:
If there is one thing on which Jews can agree, it is this: it's good to argue. Jewish culture has thrived on argument - frank, sincere disagreement - ever since Moses disputed with God. But today an oppressive and unhealthy atmosphere is leading many Jews to feel uncertain about speaking out on Israel and Zionism. People are anxious about contravening an unwritten law on what you can and cannot discuss, may or may not assert.
Please, let's not have another enervating, pointless, and for you, Slim, unwinnable debate like the one we had about whether an example was a definition...-- G-Dett 19:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's a passage from Lerner's op-ed, "There Is No New Antisemitism":
Instead of seriously engaging with the issues raised (e.g. to what extent are Israel's current policies similar to those of apartehid and to what extent are they not?), the Jewish establishment and media responds by attacking the people who raise these or any other critiques--shifting the discourse to the legitimacy of the messenger and thus avoiding the substance of the criticisms.
Is this another "purely intra-Jewish" argument, Slim? If I read this comment from "There Is No New Antisemitism" as a comment on the "New Antisemitism," would you be "disturbed," Jay? Or is Lerner's statement categorically different from and unrelated to that of the IJV?-- G-Dett 21:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Jayjg writes: Exactly; Klug and his group seem to feel that current Jewish organizations are too supportive of current Israel government policies, and that they claim to speak for a broader spectrum of Jews than they actually represent - this is what they are protesting. How that becomes a comment on a confluence of antisemitism from the left, the right, and Muslim groups is frankly so bizarre that it troubles me that people would even suggest it. Have they read the article at all? If so, through what contorted lens? Jayjg (talk) 21:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem with this observation is that "NAS" is not defined exclusively as "the confluence of antisemitism from the left, the right, and Muslim groups". Even those public figures who promote usage of the term have never argued that it should only be used to designate such a confluence (rather than, say, perceived antisemitism of the left that is said to take the form of anti-Zionism).
It should be obvious to any neutral reader that Jay's objection to the IJV material cannot withstand the merest scrutiny. CJCurrie 22:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
The IJV website and campaign are certainly notable (signatories considered notable by Wikipedia include Lisa Appignanesi, Gerald Cohen, Stanley Cohen, Jenny Diski, Nicole Farhi, Stephen Fry, Alexander Goehr, Eric Hobsbawm, Ann Jungman, Beeban Kidron, Brian Klug, David Lan, Mike Leigh, Steven Lukes, Shula Marks, Mike Marqusee, Adam Phillips, Harold Pinter, Nigel Rodley, Jacqueline Rose, Leon Rosselson, Andrew Samuels, Richard Sennett, Avi Shlaim, Gillian Slovo, Shawn Slovo, Janet Suzman, Zoë Wanamaker and Sami Zubaida). Given they have something to say about the relationship between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, I feel they seem like a useful reference for the New antisemitism article. (By the way, good to see lots of great work on the article over the last few months.) Bondegezou 23:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
According to the Observer article, here is the situation which precipitated the formation of the IJV:
A major battle has erupted in Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic over accusations that left-wing Jews are fuelling anti-Semitism by challenging the existence of Israel.
On one side is an array of prominent Jewish community leaders and institutions saying that such criticism plays into the hands of Muslim radical groups and other extremists.
On the other side, left-wing Jewish writers and academics insist that basic freedom of expression is at stake. Some British Jewish voices have warned of an atmosphere of 'McCarthyism' reminiscent of the anti-Communist witchhunts in 1950s America.
The background against which the IJV has introduced itself, in other words, is precisely the debate over "new antisemitism" as defined by our article.-- G-Dett 02:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
"Klug and his group seem to feel that current Jewish organizations are too supportive of current Israel government policies, and that they claim to speak for a broader spectrum of Jews than they actually represent - this is what they are protesting. How that becomes a comment on a confluence of antisemitism from the left, the right, and Muslim groups is frankly so bizarre that it troubles me that people would even suggest it. Have they read the article at all?"
The sources don't agree with Slim and Jay that this is an "intra-Jewish debate" and as such has no bearing on NAS. If it's a question of "new antisemitism" (both the phrase and the concept) being explicitly invoked, today's Guardian coverage of the IJV settles it pretty clearly:
A parallel struggle is under way in the US where the American Jewish Committee published an article accusing liberal Jews such as the historian Tony Judt of fuelling anti-Semitism by questioning Israel's right to exist. The essay by Alvin Rosenfeld said that "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism" was "the participation of Jews alongside it".
"It requires a leap to take us from [the IJV statement] to new antisemitism, given that it's not usually Jews who are accused of being antisemites, thought of course it's possible," says Slim. Trouble is, the sources disagree with her on both points.-- G-Dett 20:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not going to keep on commenting about this because of the amount of nonsense being posted on this page, but one point is worth stressing. The new group says: "[O]ur project is to create a climate and a space in which Jews of different affiliations and persuasions can express their opinions about the actions of the Israeli government without being accused of disloyalty or being dismissed as self-hating" (emphasis added).
The project is to give Jews a space to criticize Israeli government policies, not a space for others to attack the right of the State of Israel to exist, or to attack Jews, or to promote antisemitism (new or old), or to try to turn an intra-Jewish debate into a battle between Jews and others. There's no indication on this group's website that it's even anti-Zionist. There's also no indication that this is about the concept of NAS, which has nothing to do with Jews criticizing Israeli government policies, or being prevented from criticizing them. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Leifern, do have another look at the introduction to the Observer article (3 paragraphs) and the conclusion to the Guardian one (2 paragraphs, especially the penultimate). -- G-Dett 21:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure this whole intra-Jewish discussion simply misses the point. According to the British Parliamentary Inquiry, the Jewish community is in the best position to determine what's antisemitic. Here, a Jewish group made the papers for commenting on the issues discussed on this page. Whether it's intra-Jewish or not, why would that even matter? I could see someone arguing that made it more relevant, not less.
In any case, couldn't we all contribute to a more civil talk page? I feel like if our parents walked in we'd all be grounded. Mackan79 21:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
It does indeed miss the point. Now, Jay, I have already pasted the sources in several times, given explicit links, etc., but will do so again. First, though, I must say it really is time for you to take some of your medicine, and read WP:CIVIL. If you want to say something along these lines, "quotes you have imagined in your own head don't count," it's fine with me. You know I'm all for colorful talk pages and always have been. Just don't do that and then whine for the ref if I say something about pseudo-common-sense.
Now. Both articles explicitly (yes, explicitly) link the IJV to the American Jewish Committee's essay about "the participation of Jews" in the new antisemitism. The Observer calls the AJC furore the "background" for the IJV announcement; The Guardian describes the AJC furore as a "parallel struggle." Here is the conclusion of the Guardian article:
A parallel struggle is under way in the US where the American Jewish Committee published an article accusing liberal Jews such as the historian Tony Judt of fuelling anti-Semitism by questioning Israel's right to exist. The essay by Alvin Rosenfeld said that "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism" was "the participation of Jews alongside it".
Prof Judt told the New York Times: "The link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is newly created." He feared the two would become so conflated that references to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust would be seen as "just a political defence of Israeli policy".
Thus ends the Guardian piece (emphasis added). And here is the opening section of the Observer article, which gives a nice nutshell of the NAS debate as we've covered it:
A major battle has erupted in Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic over accusations that left-wing Jews are fuelling anti-Semitism by challenging the existence of Israel.
On one side is an array of prominent Jewish community leaders and institutions saying that such criticism plays into the hands of Muslim radical groups and other extremists.
On the other side, left-wing Jewish writers and academics insist that basic freedom of expression is at stake. Some British Jewish voices have warned of an atmosphere of 'McCarthyism' reminiscent of the anti-Communist witchhunts in 1950s America.
Emphasis added. Following this, the Observer says: "Against this background, a new British group calling itself Independent Jewish Voices is planning to launch tomorrow on Comment Is Free, the Guardian's and Observer's online comment site."-- G-Dett 22:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, Jay, after all the [ctrl]-C [ctrl]-V exercises you've put me through, you've finally laid your cards on the table, and this is what you've got:
1. Observer link is imaginary (only in my head, as you put it earlier) because of a distinction between being brought into alliance with, on the one hand, and playing into the hands of, on the other. This distinction strikes me as newly conceived, entirely ad hoc. Where would the following sentence, taken directly from our article as it stands now, fit into this new distinction between making an alliance and playing-into-the-hands-of?
The report states that ignorance of the history of anti-Semitism means that some may not even realize that the language and imagery they use are part of the tradition of anti-Semitic discourse.
Or how about this one?
Gerry Gable, publisher of the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine, agrees that "a lot of anti-semitism is driven by the left. There are elements who take up a position on Israel and Palestine which in reality puts them in league with anti-Semites."
When you mint nonce criteria in this way, Jay, it erodes good faith.
2.Your rebuttal of the Guardian piece consists entirely of crafting a deliberately clumsy, syntactically dinky daisy-chain of a sentence purporting to sum it up, and in the ensuing distraction and/or irritation, smuggling out the key phrase ("New Antisemitism," of course) and smuggling in your substitute ("the author mentioned Jews"). Here's what you actually took the time to type, Jay: "So, we have a British newspaper reporter linking a British group to a paper written by Alvin Rosenfeld and published by an American group, in which the author mentioned Jews. It's the most tenuous thing imaginable, and the point made is indiscernible."
A few things, Jay. When a source says what you want him to say, he's "our source"; when he doesn't, he becomes a "British newspaper reporter." Your phraseology reveals more than you'd like it to. Now, secondly: the author quoted by our source doesn't "mention Jews". He specifically describes "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism" as "the participation of Jews alongside it," and then he goes on to name names. All of this is quoted explicitly by the Guardian in its conclusion to an article on the IJV. The Guardian is our source, Jay. Remember how you and Slim emphasize again and again that what's important is "what the sources say"? What the source says is very clear, here, Jay. It says that the IJV's struggle is "parallel" to that between American Jews and those who have prominently accused them of "participating" in the "New Antisemitism." (The Observer article you've so weirdly dismissed goes further than adducing a parallel; it describes them as a single phenomenon, a "a major battle" that "has erupted in Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic over accusations that left-wing Jews are fuelling anti-Semitism.") You may find this parallel "indiscernible," but our Guardian source, about whom you've suddenly become so dismissive, does not find the parallel indiscernible. He finds it self-evident, and that's what matters.-- G-Dett 23:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Richard Cohen's in today's Washington Post writing about the article Jay describes as "mentioning Jews" – that is, the one called "Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism".
Then there's this from today's Guardian:
Pro-Israel and Zionist groups have interpreted intensified criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism as the expression of a "new antisemitism". The IJV initiative leans towards the view that this charge is far too often used in an attempt to stifle strong criticism of Israeli policies. Some of the strongest accusations are levelled at so-called "left-liberal'"Jewish critics who are being described as self-hating Jews or even "Jewish antisemites".
Slim and Jay should contact The Guardian's editors forthwith, to explain that A) the IJV represents an intra-Jewish debate, with no bearing on the new antisemitism; B) that they are confusing being in alliance with with playing into the hands of, a "disturbing" error and a big "leap"; and C) that if they continue to make disturbing and bizarre errors of this kind, we'll downgrade them permanently from the status of "our source" to that of "British newspaper reporters."
That'll teach these sources a lesson about contradicting Wikipedia OR.-- G-Dett 03:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Another example of sources not making this connection "at all. Even implicitly":
A similar dispute arose in the United States after publication of an American Jewish Committee essay last month entitled "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism."
In the foreword, AJC executive director David A. Harris wrote that what had been surprising and distressing in a recent upsurge in rhetoric was "the very public participation of some Jews in the verbal onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish state."
While "A Time to Speak Out" did not name names, Oxford University philosopher Brian Klug singled out the Board of Deputies of British Jews and British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. In an article accompanying the declaration published in the Guardian, Klug said the Board of Deputies had become a mouthpiece for the Israeli government, devoting "much of the time and resources of its international division to the defense of Israel."
He also criticized Sacks for telling a pro-Israeli rally last year: "Israel, you make us proud."
"Others felt roughly the opposite emotion," said Klug, the author of 2004's "The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism."
No connection. At all. Nor here:
Pro-Israel and Zionist groups have interpreted intensified criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism as the expression of a "new antisemitism". The IJV initiative leans towards the view that this charge is far too often used in an attempt to stifle strong criticism of Israeli policies.
WP:AGF requires demonstration of good faith. Stonewalling of this kind lowers the threshhold of mutual trust, and makes it difficult to concentrate on serious issues. No one's suggesting that material on the IJV should take over the article, Leifern, and you needn't worry that it will. But no serious case has been made that it doesn't belong at all. Let's not squander energy and patience in disputes over the obvious and incontrovertible. -- G-Dett 18:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
-- 70.48.69.253 21:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I haven't yet been able to trace the intricacies of what's been going on, but there have been some over-hasty edits, I think. For example:
1. In this edit, Liftarn tags a caption as original research. The caption is: "this placard mixes anti-imperialist, anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-Zionist and anti-globalization imagery with some classic antisemitic motifs", and the placard contains the words "no war", "zionist pigs", a swastika-wearing devil bearing the U.S. and Israeli flags, etc... This is surely original research in the same sense that a photo of a tree captioned "a tree" would be original research.
2. In this, SLimVirgin says in her edit summary: "rv to Jayjg; can't see the point of Mackan's changes, except as change for change's sake, with accompanying deterioration of the writing, tense confusion etc (e.g. states then stated)", yet the edit in question had included a change from:
The inquiry adopted the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, namely that a racist act is defined by its victim, and that it is the Jewish community that is in the best position to determine what is anti-Semitic.
to:
In opening, the inquiry states that it took into account the the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, namely that a racist act is defined by its victim, concluding that it is the Jewish community that is in the best position to determine what is anti-Semitic.
Yet the former is false and the latter true, as the MacPherson report (being into the death of Stephen Lawrence) didn't say anything about the Jewish community and anti-Semitism — its conclusions concerning racism in general were being applied by the inquiry to anti-Semitism in particular.
3. In this edit, G-Dett said that he was "correcting (deliberately?) doctored source material", yet (aside from removing four references), his edit didn't obviously do anything of the kind. For example, he changed "The EUMC added that criticism of Israel cannot be regarded as antisemitism so long as it is 'similar to that leveled against any other country.'" to "The statement added that, 'However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.'" (slightly worse English, but not obviously different in content). The change from "the EUMC offered a definition of new or contemporary antisemitism,[ref.] one that the British government was urged to adopt by a 2006 all-party parliamentary inquiry" to "the EUMC offered a working definition of antisemitism that the British government was urged to adopt by a 2006 all-party parliamentary inquiry" changes "new or contemporary" to "working" (which is more accurate, though not obviously a doctoring of the source material, while the addition of "The definition offered several examples of ways antisemitism could manifest itself with regard to Israel" is helpful, but adds "could" (where the source document simply says "Examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel"). So there would seem to be different inaccuracies in both versions — neither being obviously serious, despite the emotional tone of the edit summary.
I could, of course, add more; I haven't yet (and I don't want to, if I can help it) divided people up into polarised "sides" in the dispute, so it may be that my randomly extracted examples will appear to favour one such side over another; that would be a misinterpretation. I think that it's clear that it's a genuine dispute, not a clash between the forces of truth and goodness against those of falsehood and evil.
Perhaps the first stage of calming down the dispute would be for those involved to go into the history of the article, look at their own edits, and try to see them from a neutral point of view.
Anyway, I'll continue looking at the history here and in the article in order to see if there's anything that I can reasonably contribute. I'm afraid that I'm in the middle of a very heavy teaching term, with lots of marking, but I'll devote as much time to this as I can. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 22:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I think this should be fairly uncontroversial since it is unrelated to the current dispute, but the present protection notwithstanding, these edits should be appropriate, right? After all, Rabbi Lerner has been a major voice in this debate for many years, and the editorial directly addresses the topic of this article. Andrew Levine 23:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
With respect to multiple topics, I'd like to reraise the general issue of the scope of New Antisemitism. As noted previously, I find it quite clear that the relationship between criticism of Israel and antisemitism is the very heart of the NAS concept, and in fact more primary than the issue of its origins. Ultimately, I think this requires a minor revision to the lead, which doens't mention Israel until the third paragraph. Also, though, I think this is integral to other issues of scope on the page. In raising this earlier, I provided a number of quotes:
To this I might add quotes in the article, in which all of the proponents clearly note the centrality of critizing Israel or Zionism to NAS, as well as the sources for the first sentence.("What we are witnessing today is the second great mutation of anti-Semitism in modern times, from racial anti-Semitism to religious anti-Zionism (with the added premise that all Jews are Zionists)." [63].) Finally, there's of course the far and away most central criticism, which argues "that it serves to equate legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and that it is used to silence debate."(Via our lead).
Put together, I simply think we need to recognize what this concept really says, and how it is generally being discussed. Regarding the lead, I so far haven't found a perfect solution. One option was simply to replace "Jewish Symbols" with a direct reference to Israel or Zionism. In any case, I'm also wondering if the centrality of this relationship is recognized or contested by other editors of the page. If people would respond civilly and directly, I promise to do the same. Mackan79 05:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Very good points here from Mackan79. Jay, I think your concern that this article hew closely to scholarly sources and avoid mention of popular or demagogic ones is admirable. But I think it's also problematic for two reasons. 1) The first is that it suggests a firm boundary between such sources. This is far from the case. For example, the article by Jack Fischel (who Mackan points out is our central scholarly source for the theory) is a review, mixed but largely positive, in a scholarly journal, of three books by Chesler, Foxman, and Dershowitz – the very authors you've argued are mere "strawmen" for critics of the concept. Yet here they are being taken seriously by the central scholarly writer on the subject, in a peer-review journal. What seems clear to me is that writers like Chesler, Foxman, and Dershowitz form an important part of the discussion, scholarly and popular, about NAS. There is an important symbiosis between them and the official "scholars" of the subject. At the very least, they drive up interest in and awareness of the topic, push its "notability" up and even raise the profile of scholars like Fischel; and the presence of scholarship like Fischel's in turn lends academic credibility to writers like Chesler, Foxman and Dershowitz. At most, these writers are then taken seriously as scholars or experts in their own right. In any case, they've done a great deal to shape discussion of NAS, so it's misleading of us to go the long way around them in our lengthy discussion of it. 2) This second reason is closely related to the first. Writers like Foxman and Dershowitz have enormous popular influence, and those critical of the concept of NAS are as concerned about how the concept is deployed as they are about how it's theoretically formulated in the first place. Similarly, for editors here who think an article on "New Antisemitism" has to cover the deployment of a political discouse as much as it covers the formulation of an academic theory, then popular influence is as important a criteria as academic stature. When critics single out Foxman and Dershowitz, they're not taking on a strawman. Far from it. As they see it, they're taking the bull by the horns; they're taking on the most ideologically pervasive form of the concept. They're confronting the aspect of the discourse of NAS that they think is far and away most important – its power to shape political discussion of the Middle East. If someone critiques the concept of Israeli apartheid by taking on David Duke or Jew Watch, that is a strawman because these sources are marginal, have close to zero political influence, and are wholly ignored or vehemently denounced by the serious sources whose position they supposedly share. The relationship in that case is entirely parasitic, not symbiotic. David Duke may draw sustenance from Carter's new book, for example, but Duke's interest is a tapeworm in the gut of Carter's career.
In short, "New Antisemitism" covers two things. It covers a) the various manifestations of contemporary antisemitism, and the theoretical rubrics under which they've been discussed. And it covers b) a political discourse (involving a "theory" in the popular sense) that is highly controversial. To say we should only cite and refer to scholarly sources only makes sense if you think this article's proper subject is only the academic debate, and not the political controversy. My own position is that the concept of "new antisemitism" clearly includes both, so both need to be treated; but the two are so intertwined that they need to be treated together in a single article.-- G-Dett 17:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd just like to remind everyone that I still have outstanding concerns about the article's paragraph on Edward Flannery. The current version of the article includes a demonstrably false statement, and is irrelevant besides. CJCurrie 01:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Yup. I think the article should have a NPOV tag (or other warning) as long as it is locked. pertn 08:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd argue for a "Totally Disputed" notice, personally. CJCurrie 05:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Are we all anti-semites now?, Matthew Yglesias:
and
-- 70.48.242.93 20:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Some discussion of or reference to Judis and Yglesias's articles would make sense in a discussion of the "Progressive Jewish Thought" article, I think, and perhaps in a discussion of "new antisemitism" itself. john k 06:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Why is there no mention of Alvin H. Rosenfeld's essay on here? The publication of the essay by the AJC and the response to it is by far the most notable event in the debate on New anti-Semitism yet you wouldn't know anything about it reading this article. -- Lyberry
It's clear that term term "Islamism" should be changed to "radical Islamism" or "militant Islamism" or some close variant thereof; as it stands now "Islamism" just simply isn't the correct term. Again, it's mostly radical/fringe Islamists that espouse beliefs thought to be part of the so-called "New antisemitism." One cannot lump the entire Islamic world (approx. 1.5 billion followers) in to one term -- it's the radical element of Islamists that are the "new antisemites," not ALL Muslims. Using such a broad term like "Islamism" implies ALL of Islam (the entirety of the Islamic world), and that is why I have a problem with this term. I cannot believe that glaring errors like this have sat in such closely watched article for so long -- this only shows that Wikipedia has a very long way to go before it can reach anything even remotely resembling 'NPOV.' I suggest that this be remedied ASAP. -- WassermannNYC 05:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Which is stronger:
“ | [W]hen anti-Semitism is everywhere, it is nowhere. And when every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no longer know how to recognize the real thing--the concept of anti-Semitism loses its significance — Brian Klug [5] | ” |
“ | People of goodwill who support the Palestinians resent being falsely accused of being anti-Semites. — Brian Klug [6] | ” |
or
I say the quote on the left for the following reasons: a) it covers more ground taking on both the anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism question as well as making the point that misusing the term anti-Semitism threatens to make it easier for real anti-Semitism. b) Klug ends his essay in the Nation with the quote on the left - writers often conclude on their stronger point so this suggests that Klug himself thinks this is a strong quote. c) on the other hand, the journal that published the essay from which the quote on the right comes used two other quotes as pullquotes over this one suggesting they didn't see it as particularly strong. d) the quote on the right doesn't really make an argument, it just expresses a complaint wheras the quote on the left summarizes Klug's main point quite powerfully.
Looking at their contributions the two editors who have expressed a preference for the quote on the right both seem to disagree with Klug's arguments so I'd like to hear what people who agree with Klug or are neutral think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tira_Massu ( talk • contribs)
It's a conflict of interest to have someone who disagrees with a writer decide which part of their argument should be highlighted, even if they have the best intentions as I'm sure you do. I'd like to hear the thoughts of people who either agree with Klug or are neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tira_Massu ( talk • contribs)
It probably won't surprise anyone to learn that I support inclusion of the first pull-quote, on the grounds that it is (i) more comprehensive, (ii) a better representation of Klug's views, and (iii) of greater relevance to the subject matter. CJCurrie 01:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think either quote is "stronger". They're both good quotes ("good" in the sense that they sum up a particular point of view of relevance to the article), which say slightly different things. It's a pretty sad state of affairs that there should be lengthy argument over which to use: Assume good faith has long since disappeared from this article... Given a choice, I would go with the former ("When anti-Semitism is everywhere...") for better representing Klug's views and because the point being made in the second quote ("People of goodwill...") is handled easily in the text anyway. Bondegezou 14:29, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, given that my last request for term clarification regarding "Islamism" was ignored, I'll try again...could someone please enlighten as what what the phrase "Jewish symbols" found in the opening sentence means? I tried to temporary patch this idiotic, vague, and useless phraseology but was immediately reverted by the article's babysitter/guard at the time. What gives? -- WassermannNYC 03:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Look at Image:United Koalition of War criminals.jpg for a typical example. AnonMoos 04:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Korean-American community leaders said they plan to launch a protest against the publisher of a popular South Korean comic book that contains anti-Semitic images.
One comic strip in the book shows a man climbing a hill and then facing a brick wall with a Star of David and "STOP" sign in front. "The final obstacle to success is always a fortress called Jews," a translation says.
Another strip shows a newspaper, magazine, TV and radio with the description: "In a word, American public debate belongs to the Jews, and it's no exaggeration to say that U.S. media are the voice of the Jews."
...article continued...
-- 172.128.25.32 03:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
The description of the Yale survey about anti-Israel attitudes and antisemitism needs to be improved. On the one hand, relatively unimportant details are given, such as the breakdown by gender, age, etc.
On the other hand, one important conclusion is omitted: that the connection holds true only for 56% of EXTREME detractors of Israel, while MODERATE critics of the country are not antisemitic by a 3-to-1 ratio. In my view, this is a figure that deserves to be cited.
Also, the description is misleading in that it links selected questions from both questionnaires in the survey; and the selection is disingenuous (only the most extreme questions are quoted).
The survey is, thus, slightly misrepresented here. I'm fixing it accordingly. -- Abenyosef 13:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
This is clearly a political term. It doesn't just mean "any recent anti-semitism". As the article says:
— Ashley Y 22:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
It's a concept, and a description of a phenomenon. Jayjg (talk) 22:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Needed or not, attribution abounds. This should be enough [65], and there's more where that came from. Ashley's accurate edit goes in.-- G-Dett 00:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
New antisemitism" is clearly both a political term (since it is an established identifying name for one particular phenomenon), and pejorative, as I pointed out. So the category is indeed applicable. — Ashley Y 00:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Ashley's edit has been sourced. What is all this nonsense about WP:ATT? And Slim, on what grounds have you again deleted the category?-- G-Dett 01:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
OK Slim, discuss. Why are you removing a sourced category link?-- G-Dett 01:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
You really are getting very nasty here, Jay. Do stop sending experienced editors back to basic protocol. Do stop pretending editors who've never so much as crossed paths before are "buddies," especially when you have been team-edit-warring for years now, as every single person on this page knows very well. And do stop stubbornly pretending that scrupulously cited sources don't say what they obviously do say, in the plainest of English.-- G-Dett 02:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Ashley Y, New antisemitism is clearly a sociological phenomenon, not a 'pejorative political term'. If you want to claim it is the latter, you need to provide proper attribution from reliable sources that back up your view. That's policy, you can't get around it. -- PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 02:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
True, but there's no challenge here apart from the circular one that it is challenged because it needs attribution, and it needs attribution because it is challenged (as I have repeatedly pointed out). — Ashley Y 03:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
PinchasC, NAS is "clearly a sociological phenomenon" to some reliable sources, and clearly a political ploy to others. It's not for Wikipedia editors to declare one side of this debate a winner.-- G-Dett 02:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
"To say that it's a pejorative political term is to imply that it's merely an insult and lacks other content." What gross nonsense. Few if any of the terms on that list fit this definition. Few if any would clear your standards of attribution. This is POV-pushing of the most embarrassing sort.-- G-Dett 04:21, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Please place any reliable sources which clearly state that "New antisemitism" is a "pejorative political epithet" here, quoting the words of the source that make that specific claim. Thanks. Jayjg (talk) 03:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
This is the wrong bar. There are plenty of sources that actually use "new antisemitism" as a pejorative political epithet. — Ashley Y 03:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Jayjg, I can no longer assume good faith, after you deliberately deleted the section I created (at your suggestion, no less) and moved the references to a different section, so as to make it imply something else. This edit was clearly done in bad faith. — Ashley Y 04:07, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Ashley. A gross breach of good faith on Jay's part, and not the first.-- G-Dett 04:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Jayjg, I can no longer discuss this with you until the matter of your bad faith edit (per WP:TALK#Behavior that is unacceptable) is resolved. — Ashley Y 05:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, do you have anything to say on the subject of your edit here, which you marked as minor? Was it deliberate or accidental? — Ashley Y 05:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Armon, "beating a dead horse" means artificial continuation of a discussion that has already been resolved. It clearly doesn't apply to the matter of Jay's talk-page vandalism, because – though clear evidence of it has been presented [66] – the problem has yet to be discussed, justified, or even addressed, much less resolved.-- G-Dett 18:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
So if someone uses "new antisemitism" as a pejorative political epithet (which I argue that several sources do), is that the same as clearly stating that it is? — Ashley Y 20:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
KlugCatalyst
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OK, there are some things I should probably have raised here before adding the material from the EU report, but I'd like to raise the issues now, post-reverting.
1) I don't think it's appropriate to quote the US State Department reporting what the EU is saying when the full texts of the EU reports are available on-line. The most recent EU report is nuanced differently from the State Department report. I believe I summarised it quite fairly but probably more detail could be added.
2) the EU's Working Definition offers clear criteria to establish a borderline between legitimate criticism of the Israeli government and anti-Semitism masquerading as criticism. If that isn't relevant to the question of whether criticism of Israel is necessarily anti-Semitic, then I don't really see what is. It's been put back under "Responses", but while the investigation of the issue by the EU is a Response (to real incidents, to their discussion in the media, possibly not to the emergence of New antisemitism as a "concept" though), the Working Definition is more than just a Response; it is an important contribution to the definition of contemporary anti-Semitism and deserves a more prominent place in the article.
3) quoting the Working Definition's criteria without the concluding statement - that criticism of Israel on the same basis as criticism of any other government is legitimate - does not adequately represent the position of the EU report authors, and thus could be regarded as selective quotation. Itsmejudith 21:12, 22 January 2007 (UTC)
It's not in the bullet points but completes the bullet points to make the whole definition. Otherwise, why did the UK parliamentary inquiry include this sentence when they quoted the definition? They obviously thought it was relevant and so should we. As for "no-one" says that all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, well I would agree that no-one who was seriously engaged in the debate would make such an argument. But it surfaces, for example, in letters to the newspapers. It can easily be shown that this idea is frequently referred to. It may well be a straw man argument but it is one that sources engage with. If they are misguided in doing so, then that is their problem. It is not up to us to define the terms of the debate, only to reflect it. Itsmejudith 21:20, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
I found this quote interesting from Abraham Foxman [2],
In a way, I think it proves both of our points: Nobody says any criticism of Israel is antisemitic, but it's still a point which requires clarification, straw man or not. Mackan79 16:15, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Note that Foxman is only used in this article by critics of the concept, who like to wave him around to prove their own points. He isn't used in this article to actually support the concept; more scholarly sources are used instead. Jayjg (talk) 22:10, 25 January 2007 (UTC)
Slim, I think the lead as is is problematic. First, New Antisemitism is not accurately summarized in a paragraph as "the concept of an international resurgence of attacks on Jewish symbols, as well as the acceptance of antisemitic beliefs and their expression in public discourse, coming from three political directions: the political left, far-right, and Islamism. [1]" It's a theory (or possibly a series of theories) regarding such a resurgence, and a theory directly and very much tied to the relationship between antisemitism and anti-Zionism. I understand there are issues to reconcile here, but I'm pretty sure a single sentence paragraph trying to distill New Antisemitism isn't the way to do it. (Comare Zionism, with four completely different ideas in the lead paragraph). Mackan79 14:30, 24 January 2007 (UTC)
Hi, What would be the postives/negatives of renaming this article to Contemporary antisemitism? It would necesitate a number of changes in the article, but I think it would be a cleaner article once it was done. Regards, Ben Aveling 01:09, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
We can have material split across three articles, if that is the best way to do it. Or we can have two articles, with a redirect from new antisemtitism to contemporary antisemitism, or vice versa. The advantage of multiple articles is that it gives a sharper focus on a specific issue. The disadvantage is duplication.
The problem I have with the current article is that it isn't clear to me what the distinction between new antisemitism and 'old' antisemitism is, or even if there is one. Some duplication is OK but when I have no way to decide what should go into new antisemitism and what should go into antisemitism, I think there's a problem. The advantage of contemporary antisemitism over new antisemitism is that it has quite a clear definition. The advantage of new antisemitism over contemporary antisemitism could be that new antisemitism is not just antisemitism in the here and now but somehow something different. That we have a history of new antisemitism suggests that a difference exists, but I don't see what that difference is.
The current introduction says that new antisemitism is "the wave of antisemitism that escalated, particularly in Western Europe, after the Second Intifada in 2000, the failure of the Oslo accords, and the September 11, 2001 attacks." But it then says what is different about new antisemitism is that old antisemitism "was largely associated with the political right." So I'm confused. Is it the distinguishing factor the timing, or is it more to do with the source, in which case perhaps we should be talking not about new antisemitism but about new antisemites; a new chorus singing an old song? In the introduction we mention anti-zionism in passing, but we don't make clear what the relationship between it and new antisemitism is, we just say that there is one.
The history section talks about a Soviet new anti-Semitism, and says this antisemtism was "close to its modern form". But it doesn't explain what close means. Presumably there are important ways in which it is similar and ways in which it is different, but the article doesn't explain what they are.
Further down, we seem to be equating new antisemitism with anti-zionism. Maybe this is the crux of my issues with this article. We have anti-zionism; hatred of/opposition to an jewish state. We have anti-semitism; hatred of/opposition to the jewish race (common usage. technically arabs are also semites, but lets not go there now). We can also identify anti-Israel sentiment; opposition to some or all aspects of Israel. These things all overlap, but it's hard to say that any of them are the same, or a subset of each other. For example there were jews opposed to the creation of Israel because it was man-made, not created by god. And some dislike of Israel is anti-semitic, but not all of it. The boundaries are fuzzy, but for each of these concepts there is a clear and unmistakable core. I can't say that for new-antisemtism. I can't identify what new-antisemitism is that old-antisemtism is not.
To me, new antisemitism seems to be a grab bag of an expression that mixes some different issues: 1. the apparent resurgence in antisemitism, which I suggest properly belongs at contemporary antisemitism; 2. the difficulty in distinguishing between legitimate/illegitimate criticism of israel, which I suggest belongs here, or possibly at anti-zionism; and 3. the changing nature of the anti-semite (left/right/arab/european/russian/...) which I suggest belongs at contemporary antisemitism and/or at antisemitism. Regards, Ben Aveling 23:32, 26 January 2007 (UTC)
"New antisemitism" isn't really about a contemporary resurgence of old-style theological or "biological" antisemitisms; those remain "old", however recently they may occur -- unless, of course, there's an apparent meeting of ideological opposites or a paradoxical convergence of long-term political enemies based on a commonality of Jew-hating (in which case it then becomes relevant to "new" style antisemitism). A move to "contemporary antisemitism" would only obscure these important distinctions... AnonMoos 00:26, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
deindent
reindent
Ok, so Brian Klug says "The claim that I am criticizing is not that there is a new outbreak of 'old' antiSemitism but that there is an outbreak of anti-Semitism of a new kind." [5] I think this supports my claim that NA, per its proponents, isn't just about an increase or different source, but also a change in form. That's actually my main point. (Mackan79, continued below)
Otherwise, I was simply conceding that
NA may also be used more broadly, thus explaining our first sentence as it currently is. In any case, I've found support for both points: 1). That many people think New Antisemitism is explicitly about anti-Zionism, and 2). At the same time, others describe it more generally.
So some of these probably aren't reliable sources, but others are. I think they show a pretty clear pattern: people using "New Antisemitism" as a term specifically for the increased criticism and alleged demonization of Israel. Still, others do use the term more broadly (See Hanson, and others I didn't quote).
Finally, we have the summary on Antisemitism: "New antisemitism or 'modern political antisemitism', coming simultaneously from the left, the far right, and radical Islam, which mixes opposition to Zionism and a Jewish homeland in the State of Israel, with racial motifs associated with previous forms of antisemitism. [2][3][4][5][6]" Isn't this more accurate? Basically I feel like we could add a second sentence to the first paragraph at least, to make this second part more clear, which I think would prevent a lot of confusion. Mackan79 20:33, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
With regard to Ben's comment above. Ben, are you saying that it would not be useful to have historical articles as I suggested? I am not saying that it would resolve all the issues but surely it wouldn't hinder anything. I am not sure why you think the result would be that the Antisemitism and New antisemitism articles would be the same. As I see it, the Antisemitism article would carry all the main definitional work including the distinctions between religious and racial forms and the New antisemitism article would be devoted to that idea/concept/whatever in particular. BTW within the historical series I am most interested in the medieval period and hope to be making most edits to that, not to the 19th century onward. Itsmejudith 10:47, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
I have attempted to improve this article by two simple edits. One was to change the sentence changing the words "not not be" is "is not" with regards to legitimate anti Isreali opposition. This is to try to ensure that this article does not come off as promoting POV. Use of the words "need not be" as the article states currently implies anti-semitism on the part of people who oppose Israel. In other words, "need not be" is a loaded phrase and puts POV into the article, and should be eliminated. Slim Virgin reverted on the basis that it was taken from a quote when clearly it was not. I will revert this back, unless anything else is posted. Secondly, there has been a platitude state at the end of the United States section. It is a useless sentence that says something to the effect that the United Nations Human Rights Committee spent more than half of its time on Israel, more time than all countries combined. It may seem petty to argue style. But clearly, there is no need to point out that more than half is majority. Any idiot with basic arithmetic skills could see that. However, it has been reverted twice. Therefore, I am reverting that section back to the way it should be. There is no reason to have the back of that sentence. Nlsanand 00:34, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
For the other edit.
The distinction between "is not" and "need not be". Please look at the two following sentences:
The first one clearly implies that THEY ARE RUDE, but don't have to be. Similarly, you are making the accusation that people who oppose Israeli apartheid are anti-semitic. Nlsanand 01:01, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Also, I've amended the section to say "need not be deemed". I think it is a good compromise. Nlsanand 22:31, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Ok, I'm a bit confused. The EUMC definition is titled "Working Definition on Antisemitism." [16] How is this a definition of "New Antisemitism"? Very clearly, it says it's a definition of antisemitism, which then gives contemporary examples. In fact, the working definition itself is italicized: "Working Definition: Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physcial manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and/or their prperty, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities." Please check it out, it doesn't call itself a definition of new or even contemporary antisemitism.
So, then, the document continues, after a set of general contemporary examples of antisemitism:
"Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:
However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic."
Can you also explain, then, why we're removing the final counter-example? The bulleted points are not offered as a definition, but as five examples, followed by one counterexample. The counter-example is directly applicable to the examples. How do you quote the document and simply cut that out? We discussed this above, and the only answer we got was that it's a straw man, but clearly that can't be a valid reason when the EUMC itself chose to include it. Any and all comments welcome. Mackan79 22:40, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Slim, your reversion is unjustified, as per Mackan79's points. You've restored an edit that a) smuggles in OR by saying what the EUMC doesn't say, that their true topic is "new" antisemitism; b) falsely describes bullet-pointed examples as constituting a "definition," where in fact the EUMC actually supplies a definition and the examples aren't it; and c) violates NPOV by selectively deleting a key qualifying sentence.-- G-Dett 23:32, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I thought they were trying to do what they said they were trying to do:
The purpose of this document is to provide a working guide for identifying incidents, collecting data, and supporting the implementation and enforcement of legislation dealing with antisemitism.
Antisemitism is a fact, a phenomenon. "New antisemitism" is a theory. It's a theory to which you subscribe, so you'd like to alter the wording of the EUMC document such that it looks they've explicitly endorsed the theory. But they haven't. Classic case of OR. Let it go.
They also explicitly provide a "definition," and it isn't the one you keep shoe-horning in:
Antisemitism is a certain perception of Jews, which may be expressed as hatred toward Jews. Rhetorical and physical manifestations of antisemitism are directed toward Jewish or non-Jewish individuals and their property, toward Jewish community institutions and religious facilities.
The set of non-exhaustive examples you keep falsely presenting as their "definition" of "new [sic] antisemitism" actually constitutes a subsection, way down the page, explicitly about how "antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel." The subsection includes several qualifying phrases ("taking into account the overall context"; "However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as antisemitic") which, unsurprisingly, you keep deleting. It takes considerable nerve to insist that other editors must clear it with you on the talk page if they wish to correct incontestibly false information in the article.
In short, you've offered a wholly unsatisfactory answer to my point a) above, and no answer at all to points b) and c).-- G-Dett 00:37, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Some editors here are engaged in WP:POINT. This isn't an article about the term, but about the idea, and there has been a long-standing agreement on this page that sources don't have to use the exact phrase "new antisemitism" to be included. It only has to be clear that they are talking about that idea, and in the case of the EU definition, it's abundantly clear by the examples they give and the language they use; indeed it's the rise of NAS in Europe that prompted the need for the EU's research and definition in the first place. Any editor here who pretends otherwise is either editing in bad faith, or hasn't read anything about the topic. SlimVirgin (talk) 00:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't think anyone's arguing that sources "have to use the exact phrase 'new antisemitism' to be included" here. It's fine to use the EUMC definition; it's just not fine to alter their words so that they appear to be endorsing a theory you subscribe to.-- G-Dett 00:48, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I see you've now restored the misrepresentation. Why won't you quote the document accurately? Are we really going to go down the revert war/mediation/arbitration route over what is plainly a misrepresentation?-- G-Dett 01:19, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Here's what is "completely silly", Mackan; the EUMC comes up with a definition of some sort of antisemitism, which includes the ideas that
are a kind of antisemitism. Now, if it's not New antisemitism, then exactly what antisemitism are they describing? Racial antisemitism? Religious antisemitism? And, on top of that, reliable secondary sources explicitly tell us that it's New antisemitism that the EUMC is talking about. I can only assume that some of the arguments to the contrary are being made purely in jest; the alternatives are too horrible to contemplate. Jayjg (talk) 01:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I don't know why anyone would contribute any further to this discussion when not agreeing with Slim/Jay is characterised as "editing in bad faith" but I direct Slim and Jay to WP:NOR. The EUMC definition states clearly what it defines. If you guys had the slightest regard for the policies you brandish like weapons, you would reword your statement to make it clear that the examples given by the EUMC are so characterised by commentators, not by the EUMC. The EUMC even states that it supplied the definition because operational definitions of antisemitism lack. It does not state that it needed a new definition for a new kind of antisemitism.
Furthermore, what you quote as the definition is not. They are examples given by the EUMC of antisemitism, which you have cherrypicked (ignoring the other examples of antisemitism that are given supra, which do not fit your definition so well, because they do not regard the state of Israel).
I note also that I entirely deplore the suggestion that Jay makes that anyone who argues contrary to his (extremely poor) argument is antisemitic (the irony that this is precisely the counterargument to the epithet we are describing should not escape us). Jay, you are smart enough to see that the definition given by the EUMC does not include the examples of antisemitism, as your text misleadingly suggests, but that they are given as examples to guide the work of researchers. Other examples are given. The EUMC in no way defines "new antisemitism", in no way characterises what it defines as that, and in no way suggests that what it describes is divisible. It's interesting that you cherrypicked the list of examples it gives of antisemitism directed towards the Israeli state, which cannot but be "new", on account of the Israeli state's not existing until recently. (Curiously, again, this is precisely the argument of the left in this area: that there is only a "new antisemitism" because pro-Israel commentators have started labelling any criticism of Israel as "antisemitic".) Now you and I might rehearse that argument here, Jay, but I think you can (but of course won't) agree that we should not be trying to synthesise it in the text. Grace Note 03:30, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
If we have to go to mediation and/or arbitration, then let's get on with it. Slim, your last question to me – "Which bit is not being quoted accurately?" – smacks of bad faith. I do not see the merest glimmering of a sincere attempt to engage with – or even acknowledge – the objections meticulously raised here. The current edit is flat-out false, and appears to be a deliberate doctoring and misrepresentation of source material.-- G-Dett 03:53, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
The following paragraph in this section needs serious work:
The inquiry adopted the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, namely that a racist act is defined by its victim, and that it is the Jewish community that is in the best position to determine what is anti-Semitic. [110] The report states that left-wing activists and Muslim extremists are using criticism of Israel as a "pretext" for anti-Semitism, [83] and that the "most worrying discovery" is that anti-Semitism appears to be entering the mainstream. [111] The inquiry calls for the adoption of a clearer definition of anti-Semitism that reflects its "complex and multi-faceted" nature. [111] It argues that anti-Zionism may become anti-Semitic when it adopts a view of Zionism as a "global force of unlimited power and malevolence throughout history," a definition that "bears no relation to the understanding that most Jews have of the concept: that is, a movement of Jewish national liberation ..." Having re-defined Zionism, traditional anti-Semitic motifs of Jewish "conspiratorial power, manipulation and subversion" are transferred from Jews onto Zionism. This is "at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism'," the report concludes, adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism "the lingua franca of antisemitic movements." [112]
First of all, it's heavily cherry-picked so as to look like an unqualified endorsement of the theory/concept of new antisemitism. All of the charged phrases floating around in this paragraph are qualified in their context, and the report explicitly says that "it is not the role of this inquiry to take sides in this major debate," i.e. the debate about NAS and the relationship between anger about Israeli policies and antisemitism (point 81). The sentence that reads "This is 'at the core of the "New Anti-Semitism,"' the report concludes, adding that many of those who gave evidence called anti-Zionism 'the lingua franca of antisemitic movements'" contains much that is misleading as well as one outright falsehood. This is not how the report "concludes"; rather, it is a digressive side-example 24 pages into a 66-page report (point 83, beginning "For example, criticism of Israel is not in itself antisemitic..."). The sentence saying "This is at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism'" actually reads "This is at the core of the 'New Anti-Semitism,' on which so much has been written." The sentence, in other words, is tangentially gesturing to an external body of work about one facet of the topic at hand (a facet the report endorses only with cautious qualifications, acknowledging it to be controversial, and trying to stay aloof of the controversy by positing a difference between antisemitic intentions and antisemitic effects). This cautious side note in the middle of the report has been edited by someone here so as to appear to be the concluding moment, where the report sums up its own findings. I'll leave it to veterans of this page to fix it, but if it doesn't happen I'll do it.-- G-Dett 00:18, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Mackan79, your reworded edit looks fine. Hopefully you've headed off an unnecessary revert war.-- G-Dett 20:07, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Leifern, the clause you've just added looks fine to me. Indeed, it's an important point, one the report comes back to in various ways when trying to explain its mandate. -- G-Dett 21:25, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
I see that Humussapiens has restored the propaganda edit. I must say I'm accustomed to special pleading, double standards, and aggressive wikilawyering from these editors; what seems new however is the persistent shoe-horning in of bad-faith misrepresentations. Enough of the nonsense; let's go straight to mediation.-- G-Dett 05:45, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Humus, the "silly rv game" is yours and yours only. What you've just reverted was new material I added – not a revert of your last ridiculous edit. The latter I'm leaving for mediation, having given up on the expectation of serious and good-faith discussion.-- G-Dett 06:26, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Armon, I appreciate your good work in this section, rescuing what had become a bad situation indeed. I don't understand your latest edit however, and I think there might be a misunderstanding. Your edit summary says "rv OK how about WP:V? in any case the burden of proof is on removal -G-Dett check source it's "Contemp exmpls of AS in public life, media, schools, workplace, and and in the religious sphere". Have another look at the document in question. First of all, you'll find there are two subsections of examples. The first of these has the heading you quote in your edit summary, but this is not the section we quote from in our article; none of the examples we've entered into the article come from this subsection. They come from the second subsection, which is headed "Examples of the ways in which antisemitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel taking into account the overall context could include:" and then it goes on to list the examples we do quote in our article. This is the framing language for the relevant section we quote in full in our article; that's why I sampled it in the edit you've now removed. Which brings me to the second apparent misunderstanding. You say "the burden of proof is on removal," but it's you who's doing the removing, no? Please consider self-reverting.-- G-Dett 15:06, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Jay, why have you restored an edit that has been shown to be factually false on one count and misleading on another? And why do you not see fit to account for your edit on the talk page? Especially given that the material you've just deleted was prefaced by a lengthy explanation on this page, posted some twelve hours before making the needed edit? Is this arrogance on your part or an oversight?-- G-Dett 17:33, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
Slim, the changes were not only to improve the writing, but to make inaccurate statements accurate. The past/present tense issues were already there, I simply didn't fix it. In any case, you reinserted several inaccuracies:
Beyond that, the section is simply poorly written, failing to present any sort of coherent line of thought. It's talking about who defines racism, then completely drops that and talks about anti-zionism. Then it jumps to a general statement on rising antisemitism, then back to an example of anti-Zionism as antisemitism, etc. What's the topic of this paragraph? "Tidbits from the committee that seem relevant"? You must see this paragraph does a poor job of explaining its line of thought, in addition to presenting only tidbits from one side. Can we not fix this?
Anyway, the main point is the inaccuracies. Did you check that out? Mackan79 18:57, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I would just like it to be noted that neither the parliamentary enquiry report nor the EU documents are boring as someone said above. Even picking them over line by line and discussing on this page what they mean and how they should be cited is not boring. But it is incredibly time-consuming. How many words have been added to this page today? Itsmejudith 21:44, 30 January 2007 (UTC)
This is a response to Slim's comment above of 19:19 UTC, 31 January. (Getting muddled about who said what on the talk page to whom and when is one of the things I find most wearing on this page.) Slim, I took my time going through the All-Party Inquiry report. I had to be sure I understood its status in relation to a) its own terms of reference, b) the "out there" NAS debate as far as I understand that debate, c) that debate as discussed in this article's mainspace, d) the arguments presented on this talk page. Now I think I understand all that. I've read some of the other background stuff, e.g. the Mcpherson report, and I frequently read policy documents and debates in the UK and EU so I know the policy context like the back of my hand. However I haven't read everything about the history of antisemitism in every historical period. I come to this as an amateur encylopedia editor, just like everyone else editing this page.
Now how can I proceed about trying to improve the way the Inquiry report is presented here? If I make changes in mainspace, will Jay revert me with nought but a No-Way-José edit summary? Shall I present everything here first? Should I set up a sandbox? Perhaps I feel a Be Bold moment coming on .... Itsmejudith 13:51, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
Jay, would you mind deigning to explain and/or justify your plans to revert work that has been accompanied by lengthy, detailed, and cogent presentations of rationale on this page? Some modicum of respect for the work of others seems in order. Is it your intention to simply issue occasional peremptory, unresponsive, gnomic assertions here while engaging in ceaseless revert wars on the article page?-- G-Dett 02:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Slim, I have indeed shown respect for the work and research that has gone into this page. That's precisely why, when I found flaws in that research in the form of misrepresented source material, I detailed – well in advance of editing – the nature of the flaw and what I proposed to do about it. When after a period I made my modest edit I found myself almost instantly reverted – the first time blindly by an editor who clearly hadn't read the material he was deleting, and subsequently by Jayjg – who wrote nothing on the talk page justifying his deletion, wouldn't respond to requests for justification either here or on his talk page, and in whose edit summary blithely remarked that he was "fixing" my edit, which he hadn't looked at closely enough to notice was about the British all-party parliamentary inquiry and not the EUMC definition. [23]
If you're suggesting that new editors have to submit to having 'veterans' peremptorily toss their considered contributions into the trash can without so much as a flicker of mental recognition, then what you're suggesting is what I call owning.-- G-Dett 17:29, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I have decided to remove this paragraph from the article:
In The Anguish of the Jews: Twenty-Three Centuries of Antisemitism, Father Edward H. Flannery writes that, because most of the spectacular displays of antisemitism have come from the right — for example, Czarist pogroms, the Dreyfus Affair, and Adolf Hitler — it has blinded onlookers to what he calls an "uninterrupted strain of antisemitism on the Left," [1] quoting Dennis Prager and Joseph Telushkin who write: "The further Left one goes, the greater the antisemitism." [2] Flannery writes that it came as no surprise to historians of the left that, as William D. Rubinstein wrote in 1978: "Today, the main enemies of the Jews and Israel are almost exclusively on the left, most obviously the Communist states, the radical Third World anti-Zionist nations and their sympathizers in the West." [3] Flannery argues that "all the progenitors of socialist theory, with the exception of St Simon, were bitter antisemites," [1] arguing that Marx and Engels took much of what Flannery calls their antisemitism from Proudhon, Bauer, Fourier, Toussenel, and Fichte. Flannery writes that in 1891, the Second International Socialist Congress refused to condemn antisemitism without also condemning philosemitism. He cites historian Zosa Szajkowski, who writes that he could not find a "single word on behalf of Jews" in the entirety of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920. The link between antisemitism and the ideology of the left is "not accidental," Flannery argues, because Judaism stresses nationality, peoplehood, or religious commitment; extreme leftist ideologies and traditional Judaism are "almost by definition incompatible." [4]
There are several reasons why this paragraph does not meet the standards of encyclopedic inclusion. I've explained my reasons in detail, and have provided sub-headers for the benefit of readers.
I would request that anyone who wishes to respond please do so after the end of this post.
The parts of Flannery's book referenced in this paragraph relate to a supposed "uninterrupted strain of antisemitism on the Left". Leaving aside the accuracy or inaccuracy of this charge, Flannery's evidence is not relevant to the concept of a "new antisemitism".
The problems of defining "new antisemitism" have been raised many times in discussions concerning this article, such that it may be impossible to find a definition that satisfies everyone. The term is currently defined on the article page as referring to the concept of a recent convergence of antisemitic thought and action involving three distinct ideologies: the far right, the left, and radical Islam. Previous versions of the article suggested that it was primarily a concept applied to the left, and specifically to the New Left. Some authors have used the term primarily in reference to radical Islam, while others have used it in a different sense, synonymous with "contemporary antisemitism".
Notwithstanding their differences, however, these definitions are linked by a common theme: they all refer to perceived developments in contemporary history. The excerpted portions of Flannery's text do not.
"NAS" is not defined as "antisemitism of the left", nor is it defined in terms of a linear progression of historical events dating back to the 19th century (which would be an absurdity for a "new" concept.) The fact that Proudhon and Fourier were antisemites is relevant to studies of Proudhon and Fourier, but not to the concept of a "new antisemitism". Similarly, the 1891 resolution of the Second International may or may not be relevant to a history of 19th century antisemitism, but it is clearly irrelevant to this page.
There are two editions of Edward Flannery's "The Anguish of the Jews". The first was published in 1965 by Macmillan Press. The second was issued in 1985 by Stimulus Books, a division of the Paulist Press (which mostly publishes Catholic devotional material). Copyright in the latter is owned by the Roman Catholic Bishop of Providence. There are significant differences between these books, and some sections (including the text referenced above) appear only in the second.
The original edition was released by a respected firm, and is recognized as being a work of scholarly merit. The second version was issued by a religious press, and there is some reason to believe that it may not have been adequately vetted (see below).
The circumstances of the Second Edition's publication can't help but draw into question its reliability as a source. (Are we really to be surprised that a book issed by the Catholic Church at the height of the Cold War would include sections attacking socialism?)
Flannery's comments on the relationship between antisemitism and socialism underwent a significant transformation between 1965 and 1985.
Consider the following statement from the 1965 edition:
Now, consider this revised statement from 1985:
It would be interesting to speculate on the reasons for this change, and particularly on whether or not it had anything to do with increased criticism of Israel from the Left after 1967. One way or the other, it seems inappropriate for us to reference Flannery's 1985 comments on antisemitism and socialism without drawing his 1965 comments into the picture in some way.
Most of the cited text is taken from two paragraphs on p. 274 of Flannery's 1985 edition:
There are a number of problems here.
There is one (1) footnote for the second paragraph:
It's a shame that Flannery didn't take the time to check the original source. If he had, he might have discovered this statement: "In quoting only the antisemitic pronouncements of the French socialists, before Edouard Drumont, the writer may be suspected of having ignored the pro-Jewish sentiments. In order to ally any such suspicion, the writer wishes therefore to say explicitly that his efforts to find sympathetic references to Jews in the French socialist literature, from Saint-Simon to the date of Drumont's first appearance, have been futile" (p. 60) Drumont's first appearance was in 1886.
Flannery might have also discovered the following statement, had he looked up the original essay: "It was not until antisemitism had joined hands with the "Boulangist" reaction (1889) that some socialist groups have become aware of the danger and started to fight against antisemitism" (p. 59; tense error in original). He certainly wouldn't have made his lunatic suggestion that Szajkowski found not "a single word on behalf of the Jews" in French socialist literature before *1920*, nor would he have suggested the "all the progenitors of socialist theory, with the exception of St. Simon, were bitter antisemites".
(I should add that Szajkowski's essay is an erudite scholarly piece, and deserves a better legacy than being used to prop up Father Flannery's efforts to malign the Left as antisemitic. An interesting fact I learned from the essay is that Fourier apparently concealed his antisemitism behind facetious support for a plan to move Europe's Jews en masse to Palestine.)
During the Dreyfus affair socialist leaders refused to counter the rightist attack on the Jewish army officer.
This statement is profoundly misleading. It's true that the "integral" faction of French socialism didn't participate in the campaign to exonerate Dreyfus (see Szajkowski, p. 59), but someone of Flannery's experience must surely have known that *most* French socialist leaders were active Dreyfusards. For him to suggest otherwise is intellectually dishonest, and for *us* to repeat this suggestion is profoundly unencyclopedic.
On the subject of lunatic suggestions, may I assume that no one reviewing this page is willing to defend Flannery's unreferenced suggestion that "Protocols" was derived from socialist sources?
In light of these errors, I do not believe that the 1985 edition of Flannery's book should be considered a reliable source for the history of "new antisemitism".
Our summary describes Prager and Telushkin as having written, "The further Left one goes, the greater the antisemitism." This comment is presented in isolation, and without further clarification as to their intentions. The effect may be to have readers believe Prager and Telushkin were referring to a "left to right" spectrum. To judge from Flannery's remarks, however, it appears more likely that they were referring to a "left to *centre*" spectrum.
Unfortunately, I was not able to obtain a copy of Prager and Telushkin's book before writing my comments. I suspect, however, that the current edit may be a distortion of their true intentions. I am not suggesting that this was deliberate.
Flannery's statement that "Extreme leftist ideologies and traditional Judaism are almost by definition incompatible" is not relevant to this article. Opposition to "traditional Judaism" is not, in and of itself, generally recognized as sufficient proof of antisemitism, let alone of "new antisemitism". (Are secular Jews who reject their religious backgrounds automatically considered antisemites? Of course not. For that matter, are Reform Jews who reject Kashrut considered antisemites? Of course not.)
It may be possible to incorporate Flannery's statements on the Left and particularism into the article, but I doubt there's any compelling need to do this in light of his credibility issues on other fronts.
For all of these reasons, it is clear to me that the Flannery paragraph is not encyclopedic, and needs to be removed from the article. It may be possible to restore Rubinstein's quote at some point in the future, but only if we reference the original source.
I've put a fair bit of time into researching these matters. I trust that any editor who wishes to restore the Flannery paragraph will review my comments, and address my arguments.
Please add your comments after this line. CJCurrie 06:42, 27 January 2007 (UTC)
May I please reiterate my request that any editor who wishes to restore the Flannery paragraph please review my comments, and address my arguments. CJCurrie 01:39, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
I'm truly baffled as to how to interpret this: [25]. CJCurrie 09:11, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
Jay, you've chosen to revert, on the rhetorical grounds that Flannery trumps CJ. Can I ask why you've left this sentence in: "He cites historian Zosa Szajkowski, who writes that he could not find a 'single word on behalf of Jews' in the entirety of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920," which we know now to be false? Let us bracket for the moment the question of whether Flannery belongs at all. You think he does, so you restore him. But why not at least correct the sentence? Or at the very least, quote Flannery at greater length, so the falsehood is in his words and not ours? I'm not suggesting that this would suffice; I'm just trying to understand your negotiating posture. Is the point to show maximum contempt for CJ, as your edit summaries and posts here would suggest? Or do you not trust his legwork and believe him to be lying? Or is there a categorical principle involved here for you, that Wikipedia editors are to treat as infallible any assertions made by an RS? That even a modest editorial decision to put dubious claims in quotation marks, for example, rather than in free-indirect, so as to put a buffer between the voice of Wikipedia and manifestly false statements, would constitute OR? If there is some other principle involved, could you explain it please – in reasoned, detailed sentences, and not another crypto-sarcastic diktat?-- G-Dett 02:23, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I notice that neither one of you has directly addressed my arguments concerning the unsuitability of Flannery's arguments to this article. That's unfortunate, but not entirely surprising. What I find a bit more troubling is that neither of you has made any efforts to even *correct* the paragraph, based on what I've written. In its current form, the article presents Flannery's flawed scholarship as though it were accurate and credible. This is clearly unacceptable.
Seriously, does either of you honestly believe that a neutral editor (Mel Etitis, for instance, or Jmabel) would favour retention of the Flannery paragraph in light of the arguments I've presented? I doubt it.
The current Flannery paragraph is remarkably unencyclopedic, and has absolutely no business being here. I'm going to remove it again, and I'm going to request that you not restore it. If you want to return it in a revised form, please discuss it on the talk page first. CJCurrie 22:26, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
(And no, I didn't promise to leave the paragraph in place for a full day. I said I'd leave it in place *up to* a full day, on condition that SlimVirgin take advantage of the opportunity to read my comments.) CJCurrie 22:29, 28 January 2007 (UTC)
It's an almost insignificant point but Flannery was not writing about the "new antisemitism". He wrote long before the rightists who inform this article had invented the term. Including the passage about him is a new low in what is already a terrible piece of POV pushing masquerading as an article. It's entirely OR to suggest that his analysis has anything whatsoever to do with the "concept" that is under "discussion" in this article. I just don't see how we can justify having a section on the "history" of something that exists mostly in the minds of contributors here and a few of the more frothy pro-Israeli commentators, when it isn't simply an epithet thrown around by those who think Israel should have carte blanche for whatever reason. Grace Note 03:00, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
I had been hoping that a greater number of uninvolved and neutral editors would have provided their views on this matter by now. I'm a bit concerned that this "controversy" could soon degenerate into the usual stale bickering between SlimVirgin's supporters and SlimVirgin's opponents; a few outside voices would be useful to ensuring that this unwelcome prospect doesn't come to fruition. I thank John Kenney for weighing in on this matter, and I hope others will follow in his footsteps.
For the time being, it will probably occasion little surprise among readers that I'm not convinced by the counter-arguments of Slim and Jay. Their comments about "Original Research" are especially puzzling: the NOR policy is designed to prevent editors from *adding* unverifiable and novel research, not to prevent editors from removing obviously flawed research. I'm also uncertain as to how a source that misinterprets Szajkowski by 34 years and claims "Protocols" as socialist-derived can honestly or accurately be described as reliable. To give credit where it's due, I appreciate that Moshe hasn't resorted to any transparent policy distortions in his remarks. (Even though I disagree with his conclusions, I appreciate that Moshe is approaching this discussion in a reasonable manner.) CJCurrie 06:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
As no-one has provided a convincing reason why the paragraph should be retained, I will remove it again presently. I am fully aware of the significance of my actions, and I believe that any neutral editor reviewing this situation would conclude that the paragraph should not have been returned in the first place. I can only wonder how much longer Slim and Jay will insist on defending an obviously unsuitable source. CJCurrie 06:05, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
Question to Jay: Is there any basis for quoting the second less influential book rather than the first more influential book which says the opposite? Mackan79
What's the logic of re-inserting Flannery's inaccurate statement about Zosa Szajkowski?
It's fairly obvious this situation is degenerating into a full-blown edit war. I'm going to refrain from removing the paragraph again for the time being, in the hope that more uninvolved editors will weigh in shortly. I maintain that the paragraph has absolutely no business being in the article, and I'm prepared to take the matter as far as formal mediation if need be.
For the moment, I'm going to put a fact-disputed notice on the section. The current edit includes the following line: "He cites historian Zosa Szajkowski, who writes that he could not find a "single word on behalf of Jews" in the entirety of French socialist literature from 1820 to 1920." Szajkowski does not write this. CJCurrie 16:29, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
This is the essence of Wikipedia's Original Research policy: "Articles may not contain any unpublished material, or any unpublished analysis or synthesis of published material that serves to advance a position."
There is nothing in the policy that prevents me from challenging the reliability of a source on the talk page, nor is there anything in the policy that prevents me from removing obviously flawed information.
I hope that uninvolved parties reading this page will understand the defensive cry of "No original research" for what it is: an excuse, and a deflection. CJCurrie 19:21, 29 January 2007 (UTC)
One of the guiding principles of Wikipedia's editorial policy is that verifiability, rather than truth, is the standard for any piece of information to be included on an article page. That is, editors who wish to include *accurate* information on an article page must be able to demonstrate that the information has been published by a credible source.
This policy is meant to prevent editors from disseminating unverifiable personal knowledge (eg. "Celebrity X ran over my dog!"), and from promoting novel and untested theories (eg. "Were we too quick to dismiss phrenology?").
To judge from recent discussions, however, this principle may be open to abuse and misinterpretation. Slim, Jay et al almost seem to have inverted the principle, to suggest that demonstrably *inaccurate* information may be deemed encyclopedic if it appears in a reliable source (what?). They also seem to be suggesting that efforts to demonstrate the inaccuracy of such information are contrary to Wikipedia policy. This, of course, is nonsense.
I had hoped that neutral editors would have weighed in the Flannery controversy by now. Since that hasn't happened, I will remove the paragraph again. I make no apologies for doing this, as I emphatically do not require anyone's permission to remove demonstrably false information from the article.
To anyone who wishes to return the paragraph, I offer the following challenge: Why should we include false, misleading and irrelevant material from a book that was for all intents and purposes self-published? ("But the author wrote a classic study twenty years earlier!" is not a suitable response.) CJCurrie 01:16, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
I am not really sure what the responses section is about. Is it a) about the responses to the "concept of NAS" (which SV claims the article is about) or is it b) about the responses to the phenomenon (actual or not) of NAS? pertn 08:33, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
Gzuckier, your calling-of-bluffs would be the great triumph you hoped for had you posted it before 2001. The ADL's decline from courageous and pathbreaking civil-rights activism into political demagoguery was steady until then, precipitous after that. Not too long ago they were still publishing annual audits of anti-semitic events that were none other than, well, anti-semitic events, such as you'll find here. [29] By 2002, they were lumping antisemitic incidents and "anti-Israel" events into a single category, making no distinctions at all between the two (pace the silly claims on this page that no one equates criticism of Israel with antisemitism and it's a "strawman" to say otherwise). So in their annual audits since then you get absurd sequences such as the following: [30]
- April 15 - Muslim student groups at University of California - Berkeley and UC - San Diego posted fliers featuring fabricated, distorted and out-of-context quotations from the Talmud and other rabbinical literature. Many of these anti-Semitic "quotations" are easily found on extremist Web sites. Samples include:
- -- "A Jew is permitted to rape, cheat and perjure himself, but he must take care that he is not found out, so that Israel may not suffer."
- -- "A Gentile girl who is three years old can be violated."
- -- "The Jews are human beings, but the nations of the world are not human beings but beasts."
- -- "When the Messiah comes, every Jew will have 2800 slaves."
- April 15 - The Gaza Strip, a one-sided film that is severely critical of Israel, was screened at New Jersey's Drew University.
You heard that right, the academy-award-nominated James Longley makes it onto their list, right after pamphleteering about the Jewish right to rape and violate three-year-olds. (Add him to the examples Slim asked for.) Now scan to the bottom of the list and you'll find what you were after:
- January 23 - Hanan Ashrawi, the Palestinian spokeswoman was a guest lecturer at Calvin College (Grand Rapids, MI).
Sorry, I was wrong about Robert Fisk. But have a good look at the (black)list: I trust you'll concede that if Fisk had made an appearance on a U.S. campus in 2002, the ADL would not have hesitated to include him, right there alongside "fliers appeared on campus with an anti-Semitic diatribe written by the right-wing extremist and former Klansman David Duke," "a rock was thrown through the students' front window (where an Israeli flag had been displayed) and their car, parked out front, was also vandalized," etc. etc.
Let it be absolutely clear I'm not talking about "Jews" being "oversensitive." I'm talking about political groups being demagogic. I never gave much thought to the ethnic dimension of any of this, but in my experience "Jews" on American campuses are, like "Jews" in American life and letters generally, politically all over the map; and certainly active in substantial numbers on both sides of the debates about a) the moral legitimacy of the occupation, and b) the explanatory force and strategic purpose of the theory of "new antisemitism."
Cheers,-- G-Dett 19:35, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
It seems to me that what started out as a legitimate debate about the value of a certain section of the article has turned into an illegitimate debate about whether new anti-Semitism is a subject worthy of an article on Wikipedia. Clearly, it is worthy of a Wikipedia article reguardless of any individual's opinion on the phenomenon. It seems to me like time and energy would be better spent improving an article than needless debating over an issue that has been decided way before the debate began. -- GHcool 01:10, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Slim, my argument was that there is strong evidence indeed of (new) antisemitism being invoked in bad faith and for the transparent political purpose of shackling debate about the occupation in taboo. That was the point of my supplying details of the ADL blacklist. The second point was that you were dealing evasively with Pertn's argument that antisemitism does not figure prominently in the European left. Instead of trying to demonstrate that it does indeed figure prominently, you gave her several obvious examples of it, indeed "shocking" examples as you say, and then challenged her to deny that they constituted antisemitism. I suggested you were being a bit of a demagogue yourself. Her point was not that "Slaughter the Jews" wasn't antisemitic; her point was that "Slaughter the Jews" was not a prominent or influential sentiment among the European left.
Your reply to this simple, amply detailed and supported argument, is to say that a) you don't understand it, and that b) it's hogwash anyway:
saying that "some" of what's called antisemitism has been mislabeled is not an argument, because "some" clearly hasn't been mislabeled, and so long as "some" antisemitism is coming from the left in sufficient quantity that Jews all over the world, not just the ADL, are talking and writing about it, then clearly there's something going on, call it what you will. Again, you're getting too hooked up on the term. The idea is that there's something afoot, which is similar to, but not quite like, previous things that have been afoot.
I can't argue with this any more than I can arm-wrestle with a sea cow or pin a fog bank to a wrestling mat. I can only hope that the literate will see it for the gaseous mystification that it is, and place hope meanwhile in the evaporative effects of a few general observations. Reality being complex, there are usually several things afoot at once. In this case, one of the things afoot is antisemitism, some of it old and deep-rooted, some of it newly conceived in anger about the Israel/Palestine conflict. (Much like Islamophobia among Americans and Israelis, some of which is old and deep-rooted, and some of which is fed by anger about terrorism, Islamism and extremism.) Another thing afoot, however is a wave of propaganda, defamation, and charlatanry of the sort I have detailed, Jay has denied, and you have ignored. Both of these categories of phenomena are very real and very nasty; and both of them, unfortunately, are integral to the concept/theory/discourse of "New Antisemitism" in its current incarnation. We should cover both, and participate in neither.-- G-Dett 04:36, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Mackan79, the distinction you make in your last paragraph between intention and effect is an important one. Apart from a few (lamentably influential) demagogues, I think probably most who invoke "new antisemitism" do so out of good-faith concern about anti-Jewish bigotry, but are tangentially content to let the conceptual framework handicap (in both senses, to cripple and to tip the balance of) discussion of Israeli policies. Those who share their good-faith concern about anti-Jewish bigotry but oppose occupation policies are likely to stick with traditional terminology and avoid the theoretical framework of "new antisemitism," on the grounds that its explanatory payoff is small, its political liabilities significant, and its potential for exploitative mystification very large.
Now, regarding what the article needs once it's unblocked. I agree with Slim that it does touch on both of the topics comprised by the term "new antisemitism" (one, the contemporary evolution of anti-Jewish bigotry, and two, the invocation of same to contaminate critics of the occupation). The problem is, discussion of the latter topic is limited to subsection 2, where its treatment is moreover scattered and disorganized, bisected by sub-subsections on the "third wave" and "fourth wave," section headings which don't argue for the theory but merely presuppose it. As do the next two large subsections, "Political directions" and "Responses." In other words, the article as a whole begs the question by embedding critique of the theory within an overall structure that isolates and marginalizes that critique.
What we're left with is a (false) impression that on the one hand there's a large group of people, not only ordinary Jewish people but mainstream organizations, scholars, and government figures who all agree there's something called "new antisemitism" which is unacceptable and needs to be combatted; and on the other hand a small minority of figures who for this or that reason oppose the consensus on this theory, and who don't see much cause for concern about contemporary antisemitism. That's wrong. One indication of the wrongness of this structure for our article, the radical distortion of subject matter it entails, is to be found in our use of Edward Said's concern about Arab antisemitism to buttress the NAS thesis, which he by and large rejected. Another indication, closer to home because right on this talk page, is the crazy question put to Pertn by Slim as to whether she believed physical and verbal attacks on Jews qua Jews constituted antisemitism. Slim's question presupposes that a critical take on the theory of "new antisemitism" entails quiescence, complacency, or denial about bigotry. Maybe Slim asked the question in good faith and I've done her an injustice. This talk-page fallacy may simply be an understandable by-product of our fallacious framing of the article itself.
The actual situation, which the structure of our article should reflect, is that you've got near-unanimity among notable writers, scholars, and government figures that contemporary antisemitism is a problem, is unacceptable and should be combatted. Unanimity ends there, however. Some (they may or may not be a majority) think that the best way for us to combat it is to define it theoretically as a kind of multi-headed Hydra called "new antisemitism," organically singular and self-identical if protean in its manifestations; and that having once defined it as such we should bring the concept to bear not only on hate crimes and related phenomena but on discussion of the Israeli occupation, American foreign policy, and other related matters. Others prefer traditional distinctions and a traditional vocabulary, and think the theory is a mystification which inhibits legitimate discussion of political issues, and in so wilfully blurring lines does nothing to explain, expose, resist, or defeat the actual forms of bigotry which it purports to take as its subject.
Both the EUMC paper and the British all-party parliamentary inquiry are aware of the nature of this division, even if we aren't, and though their findings were indeed more warmly embraced by the first group than the second, they did take care, rhetorically at least, not to foreclose that debate or to come down explicitly on one side or the other of it. -- G-Dett 19:27, 4 February 2007 (UTC)
From reading this section of the Palestine Peace Not Apartheid article and in particular Abraham Foxman's comments relative to the matter it would seem appropriate to mention Carter in this article surrounding his book. Even news organizations like the San Francisco Chronicle and New York Times are prominently mentioning his name in the articles like this one and this one. ( → Netscott) 16:19, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
The last 50 edits are almost all edit-warring; only the last bit is by an anon. I think that full protection, not semi-protections, is needed. People are talking, which is great, but talking while reverting isn't good. Guettarda 19:04, 31 January 2007 (UTC)
The conservative American Jewish Committee released a document/report entitled "Progressive" Jewish Thought & The New Anti-Semitism that was covered today in this news story in New York Times. -- 64.230.121.37 04:58, 1 February 2007 (UTC)
I posted this on Mackan's talk page, now reposted here in the hope of getting more comments.
I have been trying to step back a bit to examine why the article would refer to this report and what bits it would refer to. I would really appreciate your view on this and then afterwards maybe we could turn to how it should be done.
The existence of the inquiry is clearly significant to the Antisemitism article, as it was a response to a real and perceived rise in antisemitic incidents and antisemitic discourse.
So, to what extent is the fact of this inquiry and its report relevant to the article New antisemitism, the purpose of which is to explain "new antisemitism" as a (contested) concept? Only tangentially, one might argue. Although the inquiry was set up in response to a rise in antisemitism, only some authors, not all, identify that rise as new antisemitism. If the article is about "new antisemitism" as a concept not as a phenomenon, then it is hard to say that the inquiry is relevant.
There is however, an overriding argument in favour of the use of the inquiry report as a source in the New antisemitism article. Because the recent rise in antisemitism (occasioning the inquiry) has been accompanied by a large amount of discussion of the term "new antisemitism", then the report will necessarily address questions that are at issue in that discussion (for example, the newness of this recent antisemitism, whether all criticism of Israel is antisemitic, the extent of antisemitism on the Left and among Muslims).
Since the fact of the inquiry’s establishment is pertinent to the article, the article should briefly summarise, in the report’s own terms, the context in which the inquiry was established, the purpose of the inquiry and what its recommendations were.
Next, the debate around "new antisemitism" as presented in the article, suggests a number of questions on which the inquiry's views are relevant and should, if possible, be cited. Some of these would seem to be:
These are not exhaustive and it goes without saying that the report is a reliable source in WP terms and can be drawn on for further factual information. These could include points that the report makes in passing so long as the general argument of the report is not thereby distorted.
Itsmejudith 10:17, 2 February 2007 (UTC)
I am therefore working on a summary on the above lines and hope to post it before the end of this week. Itsmejudith 09:32, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
-- 172.132.153.245 03:37, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's another link at the Washington Post discussing the Nader controversy ( [41]), and an interview with Nader where he discusses what he said ( [42]). -- WassermannNYC 16:03, 3 February 2007 (UTC)
Again, given that Buchanan is far more notable than any of the academics quoted in this article, perhaps we should included the now famous quote made by Pat Buchanan in 1990 that deals with the Israel lobby in Washington D.C. -- many saw Buchanan's comments as antisemitic at the time, and he is still considered an antisemite by many. At that time Buchanan referred to Capitol Hill as "Israeli-occupied territory" -- quoted in Media Notes, The Washington Post, September 15, 1990 ( in Wikipedia's article on Buchanan). This comment is what caused many to start seeing Buchanan as an antisemite (this label still hovers around him today, as he still writes article for VDARE and other publications that are very critical of Israel and Jews). Therefore, shouldn't Buchanan's quote be included in the article (especially in the section called "The far right and Islamism") as part of the "New antisemitism"? -- WassermannNYC 10:39, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
That's the main point -- Pat Buchanan is pretty much "old" school (very little "new" about him). "Old"-style anti-semitism only becomes "new" when there's an apparent meeting of ideological opposites or a paradoxical convergence of long-term political enemies based on a commonality of Jew-hating. AnonMoos 14:27, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Anyone seem all the announcements about these guys? In the UK they are in today's Times, Guardian, Daily Telegraph. Anyone with time and energy putting context to this article who be welcome (broadly it is a group of British Jews who have declared that everyone should be free to discuss Israeli foreign policy without fear of labels)? -- BozMo talk 13:59, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Jay, where are you getting the figure of "100 or so"? The Daily Telegraph article says in its opening sentence that there are "almost 150 high-profile figures who have joined Independent Jewish Voices (IJV)." Is the article being updated regularly, and signatories have jumped 50% in the last hour? In any case, the "formation" is obviously relevant to the topic. Here are points 4 and 5 from their 5-pt. statement of principles:
4. There is no justification for any form of racism, including anti-Semitism, anti-Arab racism or Islamophobia, in any circumstance.
5. The battle against anti-Semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-Semitic.
One of their founding members is Brian Klug, to whom a good chunk of our article as it stands now is devoted. The group comprises prominent figures, including figures prominent in our article, is directly related to this topic, is receiving a good deal of media attention, and is clearly encyclopedic. The argument that it takes announcements of this sort several months before they "belong in an encyclopedia" is novel and seemingly ad hoc; for example SlimVirgin added the paragraph about the "Initiative for Interdisciplinary Study of Antisemitism" days after Yale announced it. [44]
Jay's objection that neither the IJV nor the articles covering it specify the "new" antisemitism also appears to be ad hoc. He has very explicitly argued that relevant material needn't mention "new" antisemitism, so long as it's clear (to him) that that's what they're talking about. -- G-Dett 18:19, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
What sophistry. Here is the first paragraph of Klug's comment in the Guardian today, written to accompany the group's public debut:
If there is one thing on which Jews can agree, it is this: it's good to argue. Jewish culture has thrived on argument - frank, sincere disagreement - ever since Moses disputed with God. But today an oppressive and unhealthy atmosphere is leading many Jews to feel uncertain about speaking out on Israel and Zionism. People are anxious about contravening an unwritten law on what you can and cannot discuss, may or may not assert.
Please, let's not have another enervating, pointless, and for you, Slim, unwinnable debate like the one we had about whether an example was a definition...-- G-Dett 19:20, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Here's a passage from Lerner's op-ed, "There Is No New Antisemitism":
Instead of seriously engaging with the issues raised (e.g. to what extent are Israel's current policies similar to those of apartehid and to what extent are they not?), the Jewish establishment and media responds by attacking the people who raise these or any other critiques--shifting the discourse to the legitimacy of the messenger and thus avoiding the substance of the criticisms.
Is this another "purely intra-Jewish" argument, Slim? If I read this comment from "There Is No New Antisemitism" as a comment on the "New Antisemitism," would you be "disturbed," Jay? Or is Lerner's statement categorically different from and unrelated to that of the IJV?-- G-Dett 21:53, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Jayjg writes: Exactly; Klug and his group seem to feel that current Jewish organizations are too supportive of current Israel government policies, and that they claim to speak for a broader spectrum of Jews than they actually represent - this is what they are protesting. How that becomes a comment on a confluence of antisemitism from the left, the right, and Muslim groups is frankly so bizarre that it troubles me that people would even suggest it. Have they read the article at all? If so, through what contorted lens? Jayjg (talk) 21:21, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
The problem with this observation is that "NAS" is not defined exclusively as "the confluence of antisemitism from the left, the right, and Muslim groups". Even those public figures who promote usage of the term have never argued that it should only be used to designate such a confluence (rather than, say, perceived antisemitism of the left that is said to take the form of anti-Zionism).
It should be obvious to any neutral reader that Jay's objection to the IJV material cannot withstand the merest scrutiny. CJCurrie 22:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
The IJV website and campaign are certainly notable (signatories considered notable by Wikipedia include Lisa Appignanesi, Gerald Cohen, Stanley Cohen, Jenny Diski, Nicole Farhi, Stephen Fry, Alexander Goehr, Eric Hobsbawm, Ann Jungman, Beeban Kidron, Brian Klug, David Lan, Mike Leigh, Steven Lukes, Shula Marks, Mike Marqusee, Adam Phillips, Harold Pinter, Nigel Rodley, Jacqueline Rose, Leon Rosselson, Andrew Samuels, Richard Sennett, Avi Shlaim, Gillian Slovo, Shawn Slovo, Janet Suzman, Zoë Wanamaker and Sami Zubaida). Given they have something to say about the relationship between criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism, I feel they seem like a useful reference for the New antisemitism article. (By the way, good to see lots of great work on the article over the last few months.) Bondegezou 23:42, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
According to the Observer article, here is the situation which precipitated the formation of the IJV:
A major battle has erupted in Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic over accusations that left-wing Jews are fuelling anti-Semitism by challenging the existence of Israel.
On one side is an array of prominent Jewish community leaders and institutions saying that such criticism plays into the hands of Muslim radical groups and other extremists.
On the other side, left-wing Jewish writers and academics insist that basic freedom of expression is at stake. Some British Jewish voices have warned of an atmosphere of 'McCarthyism' reminiscent of the anti-Communist witchhunts in 1950s America.
The background against which the IJV has introduced itself, in other words, is precisely the debate over "new antisemitism" as defined by our article.-- G-Dett 02:53, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
"Klug and his group seem to feel that current Jewish organizations are too supportive of current Israel government policies, and that they claim to speak for a broader spectrum of Jews than they actually represent - this is what they are protesting. How that becomes a comment on a confluence of antisemitism from the left, the right, and Muslim groups is frankly so bizarre that it troubles me that people would even suggest it. Have they read the article at all?"
The sources don't agree with Slim and Jay that this is an "intra-Jewish debate" and as such has no bearing on NAS. If it's a question of "new antisemitism" (both the phrase and the concept) being explicitly invoked, today's Guardian coverage of the IJV settles it pretty clearly:
A parallel struggle is under way in the US where the American Jewish Committee published an article accusing liberal Jews such as the historian Tony Judt of fuelling anti-Semitism by questioning Israel's right to exist. The essay by Alvin Rosenfeld said that "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism" was "the participation of Jews alongside it".
"It requires a leap to take us from [the IJV statement] to new antisemitism, given that it's not usually Jews who are accused of being antisemites, thought of course it's possible," says Slim. Trouble is, the sources disagree with her on both points.-- G-Dett 20:33, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm not going to keep on commenting about this because of the amount of nonsense being posted on this page, but one point is worth stressing. The new group says: "[O]ur project is to create a climate and a space in which Jews of different affiliations and persuasions can express their opinions about the actions of the Israeli government without being accused of disloyalty or being dismissed as self-hating" (emphasis added).
The project is to give Jews a space to criticize Israeli government policies, not a space for others to attack the right of the State of Israel to exist, or to attack Jews, or to promote antisemitism (new or old), or to try to turn an intra-Jewish debate into a battle between Jews and others. There's no indication on this group's website that it's even anti-Zionist. There's also no indication that this is about the concept of NAS, which has nothing to do with Jews criticizing Israeli government policies, or being prevented from criticizing them. SlimVirgin (talk) 21:13, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Leifern, do have another look at the introduction to the Observer article (3 paragraphs) and the conclusion to the Guardian one (2 paragraphs, especially the penultimate). -- G-Dett 21:35, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
I'm pretty sure this whole intra-Jewish discussion simply misses the point. According to the British Parliamentary Inquiry, the Jewish community is in the best position to determine what's antisemitic. Here, a Jewish group made the papers for commenting on the issues discussed on this page. Whether it's intra-Jewish or not, why would that even matter? I could see someone arguing that made it more relevant, not less.
In any case, couldn't we all contribute to a more civil talk page? I feel like if our parents walked in we'd all be grounded. Mackan79 21:58, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
It does indeed miss the point. Now, Jay, I have already pasted the sources in several times, given explicit links, etc., but will do so again. First, though, I must say it really is time for you to take some of your medicine, and read WP:CIVIL. If you want to say something along these lines, "quotes you have imagined in your own head don't count," it's fine with me. You know I'm all for colorful talk pages and always have been. Just don't do that and then whine for the ref if I say something about pseudo-common-sense.
Now. Both articles explicitly (yes, explicitly) link the IJV to the American Jewish Committee's essay about "the participation of Jews" in the new antisemitism. The Observer calls the AJC furore the "background" for the IJV announcement; The Guardian describes the AJC furore as a "parallel struggle." Here is the conclusion of the Guardian article:
A parallel struggle is under way in the US where the American Jewish Committee published an article accusing liberal Jews such as the historian Tony Judt of fuelling anti-Semitism by questioning Israel's right to exist. The essay by Alvin Rosenfeld said that "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism" was "the participation of Jews alongside it".
Prof Judt told the New York Times: "The link between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism is newly created." He feared the two would become so conflated that references to anti-Semitism and the Holocaust would be seen as "just a political defence of Israeli policy".
Thus ends the Guardian piece (emphasis added). And here is the opening section of the Observer article, which gives a nice nutshell of the NAS debate as we've covered it:
A major battle has erupted in Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic over accusations that left-wing Jews are fuelling anti-Semitism by challenging the existence of Israel.
On one side is an array of prominent Jewish community leaders and institutions saying that such criticism plays into the hands of Muslim radical groups and other extremists.
On the other side, left-wing Jewish writers and academics insist that basic freedom of expression is at stake. Some British Jewish voices have warned of an atmosphere of 'McCarthyism' reminiscent of the anti-Communist witchhunts in 1950s America.
Emphasis added. Following this, the Observer says: "Against this background, a new British group calling itself Independent Jewish Voices is planning to launch tomorrow on Comment Is Free, the Guardian's and Observer's online comment site."-- G-Dett 22:17, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
OK, Jay, after all the [ctrl]-C [ctrl]-V exercises you've put me through, you've finally laid your cards on the table, and this is what you've got:
1. Observer link is imaginary (only in my head, as you put it earlier) because of a distinction between being brought into alliance with, on the one hand, and playing into the hands of, on the other. This distinction strikes me as newly conceived, entirely ad hoc. Where would the following sentence, taken directly from our article as it stands now, fit into this new distinction between making an alliance and playing-into-the-hands-of?
The report states that ignorance of the history of anti-Semitism means that some may not even realize that the language and imagery they use are part of the tradition of anti-Semitic discourse.
Or how about this one?
Gerry Gable, publisher of the anti-fascist Searchlight magazine, agrees that "a lot of anti-semitism is driven by the left. There are elements who take up a position on Israel and Palestine which in reality puts them in league with anti-Semites."
When you mint nonce criteria in this way, Jay, it erodes good faith.
2.Your rebuttal of the Guardian piece consists entirely of crafting a deliberately clumsy, syntactically dinky daisy-chain of a sentence purporting to sum it up, and in the ensuing distraction and/or irritation, smuggling out the key phrase ("New Antisemitism," of course) and smuggling in your substitute ("the author mentioned Jews"). Here's what you actually took the time to type, Jay: "So, we have a British newspaper reporter linking a British group to a paper written by Alvin Rosenfeld and published by an American group, in which the author mentioned Jews. It's the most tenuous thing imaginable, and the point made is indiscernible."
A few things, Jay. When a source says what you want him to say, he's "our source"; when he doesn't, he becomes a "British newspaper reporter." Your phraseology reveals more than you'd like it to. Now, secondly: the author quoted by our source doesn't "mention Jews". He specifically describes "one of the most distressing features of the new anti-Semitism" as "the participation of Jews alongside it," and then he goes on to name names. All of this is quoted explicitly by the Guardian in its conclusion to an article on the IJV. The Guardian is our source, Jay. Remember how you and Slim emphasize again and again that what's important is "what the sources say"? What the source says is very clear, here, Jay. It says that the IJV's struggle is "parallel" to that between American Jews and those who have prominently accused them of "participating" in the "New Antisemitism." (The Observer article you've so weirdly dismissed goes further than adducing a parallel; it describes them as a single phenomenon, a "a major battle" that "has erupted in Jewish communities on both sides of the Atlantic over accusations that left-wing Jews are fuelling anti-Semitism.") You may find this parallel "indiscernible," but our Guardian source, about whom you've suddenly become so dismissive, does not find the parallel indiscernible. He finds it self-evident, and that's what matters.-- G-Dett 23:57, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
Richard Cohen's in today's Washington Post writing about the article Jay describes as "mentioning Jews" – that is, the one called "Progressive' Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism".
Then there's this from today's Guardian:
Pro-Israel and Zionist groups have interpreted intensified criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism as the expression of a "new antisemitism". The IJV initiative leans towards the view that this charge is far too often used in an attempt to stifle strong criticism of Israeli policies. Some of the strongest accusations are levelled at so-called "left-liberal'"Jewish critics who are being described as self-hating Jews or even "Jewish antisemites".
Slim and Jay should contact The Guardian's editors forthwith, to explain that A) the IJV represents an intra-Jewish debate, with no bearing on the new antisemitism; B) that they are confusing being in alliance with with playing into the hands of, a "disturbing" error and a big "leap"; and C) that if they continue to make disturbing and bizarre errors of this kind, we'll downgrade them permanently from the status of "our source" to that of "British newspaper reporters."
That'll teach these sources a lesson about contradicting Wikipedia OR.-- G-Dett 03:24, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Another example of sources not making this connection "at all. Even implicitly":
A similar dispute arose in the United States after publication of an American Jewish Committee essay last month entitled "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism."
In the foreword, AJC executive director David A. Harris wrote that what had been surprising and distressing in a recent upsurge in rhetoric was "the very public participation of some Jews in the verbal onslaught against Zionism and the Jewish state."
While "A Time to Speak Out" did not name names, Oxford University philosopher Brian Klug singled out the Board of Deputies of British Jews and British Chief Rabbi Jonathan Sacks. In an article accompanying the declaration published in the Guardian, Klug said the Board of Deputies had become a mouthpiece for the Israeli government, devoting "much of the time and resources of its international division to the defense of Israel."
He also criticized Sacks for telling a pro-Israeli rally last year: "Israel, you make us proud."
"Others felt roughly the opposite emotion," said Klug, the author of 2004's "The Myth of the New Anti-Semitism."
No connection. At all. Nor here:
Pro-Israel and Zionist groups have interpreted intensified criticism of Israel and anti-Zionism as the expression of a "new antisemitism". The IJV initiative leans towards the view that this charge is far too often used in an attempt to stifle strong criticism of Israeli policies.
WP:AGF requires demonstration of good faith. Stonewalling of this kind lowers the threshhold of mutual trust, and makes it difficult to concentrate on serious issues. No one's suggesting that material on the IJV should take over the article, Leifern, and you needn't worry that it will. But no serious case has been made that it doesn't belong at all. Let's not squander energy and patience in disputes over the obvious and incontrovertible. -- G-Dett 18:36, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
-- 70.48.69.253 21:01, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
I haven't yet been able to trace the intricacies of what's been going on, but there have been some over-hasty edits, I think. For example:
1. In this edit, Liftarn tags a caption as original research. The caption is: "this placard mixes anti-imperialist, anti-American, anti-capitalist, anti-Zionist and anti-globalization imagery with some classic antisemitic motifs", and the placard contains the words "no war", "zionist pigs", a swastika-wearing devil bearing the U.S. and Israeli flags, etc... This is surely original research in the same sense that a photo of a tree captioned "a tree" would be original research.
2. In this, SLimVirgin says in her edit summary: "rv to Jayjg; can't see the point of Mackan's changes, except as change for change's sake, with accompanying deterioration of the writing, tense confusion etc (e.g. states then stated)", yet the edit in question had included a change from:
The inquiry adopted the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, namely that a racist act is defined by its victim, and that it is the Jewish community that is in the best position to determine what is anti-Semitic.
to:
In opening, the inquiry states that it took into account the the view of racism expressed by the MacPherson report after the murder of Stephen Lawrence, namely that a racist act is defined by its victim, concluding that it is the Jewish community that is in the best position to determine what is anti-Semitic.
Yet the former is false and the latter true, as the MacPherson report (being into the death of Stephen Lawrence) didn't say anything about the Jewish community and anti-Semitism — its conclusions concerning racism in general were being applied by the inquiry to anti-Semitism in particular.
3. In this edit, G-Dett said that he was "correcting (deliberately?) doctored source material", yet (aside from removing four references), his edit didn't obviously do anything of the kind. For example, he changed "The EUMC added that criticism of Israel cannot be regarded as antisemitism so long as it is 'similar to that leveled against any other country.'" to "The statement added that, 'However, criticism of Israel similar to that leveled against any other country cannot be regarded as anti-Semitic.'" (slightly worse English, but not obviously different in content). The change from "the EUMC offered a definition of new or contemporary antisemitism,[ref.] one that the British government was urged to adopt by a 2006 all-party parliamentary inquiry" to "the EUMC offered a working definition of antisemitism that the British government was urged to adopt by a 2006 all-party parliamentary inquiry" changes "new or contemporary" to "working" (which is more accurate, though not obviously a doctoring of the source material, while the addition of "The definition offered several examples of ways antisemitism could manifest itself with regard to Israel" is helpful, but adds "could" (where the source document simply says "Examples of the ways in which anti-Semitism manifests itself with regard to the state of Israel"). So there would seem to be different inaccuracies in both versions — neither being obviously serious, despite the emotional tone of the edit summary.
I could, of course, add more; I haven't yet (and I don't want to, if I can help it) divided people up into polarised "sides" in the dispute, so it may be that my randomly extracted examples will appear to favour one such side over another; that would be a misinterpretation. I think that it's clear that it's a genuine dispute, not a clash between the forces of truth and goodness against those of falsehood and evil.
Perhaps the first stage of calming down the dispute would be for those involved to go into the history of the article, look at their own edits, and try to see them from a neutral point of view.
Anyway, I'll continue looking at the history here and in the article in order to see if there's anything that I can reasonably contribute. I'm afraid that I'm in the middle of a very heavy teaching term, with lots of marking, but I'll devote as much time to this as I can. -- Mel Etitis ( Μελ Ετητης) 22:26, 5 February 2007 (UTC)
Hello, I think this should be fairly uncontroversial since it is unrelated to the current dispute, but the present protection notwithstanding, these edits should be appropriate, right? After all, Rabbi Lerner has been a major voice in this debate for many years, and the editorial directly addresses the topic of this article. Andrew Levine 23:08, 6 February 2007 (UTC)
With respect to multiple topics, I'd like to reraise the general issue of the scope of New Antisemitism. As noted previously, I find it quite clear that the relationship between criticism of Israel and antisemitism is the very heart of the NAS concept, and in fact more primary than the issue of its origins. Ultimately, I think this requires a minor revision to the lead, which doens't mention Israel until the third paragraph. Also, though, I think this is integral to other issues of scope on the page. In raising this earlier, I provided a number of quotes:
To this I might add quotes in the article, in which all of the proponents clearly note the centrality of critizing Israel or Zionism to NAS, as well as the sources for the first sentence.("What we are witnessing today is the second great mutation of anti-Semitism in modern times, from racial anti-Semitism to religious anti-Zionism (with the added premise that all Jews are Zionists)." [63].) Finally, there's of course the far and away most central criticism, which argues "that it serves to equate legitimate criticism of Israel with antisemitism, and that it is used to silence debate."(Via our lead).
Put together, I simply think we need to recognize what this concept really says, and how it is generally being discussed. Regarding the lead, I so far haven't found a perfect solution. One option was simply to replace "Jewish Symbols" with a direct reference to Israel or Zionism. In any case, I'm also wondering if the centrality of this relationship is recognized or contested by other editors of the page. If people would respond civilly and directly, I promise to do the same. Mackan79 05:12, 7 February 2007 (UTC)
Very good points here from Mackan79. Jay, I think your concern that this article hew closely to scholarly sources and avoid mention of popular or demagogic ones is admirable. But I think it's also problematic for two reasons. 1) The first is that it suggests a firm boundary between such sources. This is far from the case. For example, the article by Jack Fischel (who Mackan points out is our central scholarly source for the theory) is a review, mixed but largely positive, in a scholarly journal, of three books by Chesler, Foxman, and Dershowitz – the very authors you've argued are mere "strawmen" for critics of the concept. Yet here they are being taken seriously by the central scholarly writer on the subject, in a peer-review journal. What seems clear to me is that writers like Chesler, Foxman, and Dershowitz form an important part of the discussion, scholarly and popular, about NAS. There is an important symbiosis between them and the official "scholars" of the subject. At the very least, they drive up interest in and awareness of the topic, push its "notability" up and even raise the profile of scholars like Fischel; and the presence of scholarship like Fischel's in turn lends academic credibility to writers like Chesler, Foxman and Dershowitz. At most, these writers are then taken seriously as scholars or experts in their own right. In any case, they've done a great deal to shape discussion of NAS, so it's misleading of us to go the long way around them in our lengthy discussion of it. 2) This second reason is closely related to the first. Writers like Foxman and Dershowitz have enormous popular influence, and those critical of the concept of NAS are as concerned about how the concept is deployed as they are about how it's theoretically formulated in the first place. Similarly, for editors here who think an article on "New Antisemitism" has to cover the deployment of a political discouse as much as it covers the formulation of an academic theory, then popular influence is as important a criteria as academic stature. When critics single out Foxman and Dershowitz, they're not taking on a strawman. Far from it. As they see it, they're taking the bull by the horns; they're taking on the most ideologically pervasive form of the concept. They're confronting the aspect of the discourse of NAS that they think is far and away most important – its power to shape political discussion of the Middle East. If someone critiques the concept of Israeli apartheid by taking on David Duke or Jew Watch, that is a strawman because these sources are marginal, have close to zero political influence, and are wholly ignored or vehemently denounced by the serious sources whose position they supposedly share. The relationship in that case is entirely parasitic, not symbiotic. David Duke may draw sustenance from Carter's new book, for example, but Duke's interest is a tapeworm in the gut of Carter's career.
In short, "New Antisemitism" covers two things. It covers a) the various manifestations of contemporary antisemitism, and the theoretical rubrics under which they've been discussed. And it covers b) a political discourse (involving a "theory" in the popular sense) that is highly controversial. To say we should only cite and refer to scholarly sources only makes sense if you think this article's proper subject is only the academic debate, and not the political controversy. My own position is that the concept of "new antisemitism" clearly includes both, so both need to be treated; but the two are so intertwined that they need to be treated together in a single article.-- G-Dett 17:33, 12 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd just like to remind everyone that I still have outstanding concerns about the article's paragraph on Edward Flannery. The current version of the article includes a demonstrably false statement, and is irrelevant besides. CJCurrie 01:57, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Yup. I think the article should have a NPOV tag (or other warning) as long as it is locked. pertn 08:39, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
I'd argue for a "Totally Disputed" notice, personally. CJCurrie 05:55, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Are we all anti-semites now?, Matthew Yglesias:
and
-- 70.48.242.93 20:03, 8 February 2007 (UTC)
Some discussion of or reference to Judis and Yglesias's articles would make sense in a discussion of the "Progressive Jewish Thought" article, I think, and perhaps in a discussion of "new antisemitism" itself. john k 06:06, 9 February 2007 (UTC)
Why is there no mention of Alvin H. Rosenfeld's essay on here? The publication of the essay by the AJC and the response to it is by far the most notable event in the debate on New anti-Semitism yet you wouldn't know anything about it reading this article. -- Lyberry
It's clear that term term "Islamism" should be changed to "radical Islamism" or "militant Islamism" or some close variant thereof; as it stands now "Islamism" just simply isn't the correct term. Again, it's mostly radical/fringe Islamists that espouse beliefs thought to be part of the so-called "New antisemitism." One cannot lump the entire Islamic world (approx. 1.5 billion followers) in to one term -- it's the radical element of Islamists that are the "new antisemites," not ALL Muslims. Using such a broad term like "Islamism" implies ALL of Islam (the entirety of the Islamic world), and that is why I have a problem with this term. I cannot believe that glaring errors like this have sat in such closely watched article for so long -- this only shows that Wikipedia has a very long way to go before it can reach anything even remotely resembling 'NPOV.' I suggest that this be remedied ASAP. -- WassermannNYC 05:22, 20 February 2007 (UTC)
Which is stronger:
“ | [W]hen anti-Semitism is everywhere, it is nowhere. And when every anti-Zionist is an anti-Semite, we no longer know how to recognize the real thing--the concept of anti-Semitism loses its significance — Brian Klug [5] | ” |
“ | People of goodwill who support the Palestinians resent being falsely accused of being anti-Semites. — Brian Klug [6] | ” |
or
I say the quote on the left for the following reasons: a) it covers more ground taking on both the anti-Zionism = anti-Semitism question as well as making the point that misusing the term anti-Semitism threatens to make it easier for real anti-Semitism. b) Klug ends his essay in the Nation with the quote on the left - writers often conclude on their stronger point so this suggests that Klug himself thinks this is a strong quote. c) on the other hand, the journal that published the essay from which the quote on the right comes used two other quotes as pullquotes over this one suggesting they didn't see it as particularly strong. d) the quote on the right doesn't really make an argument, it just expresses a complaint wheras the quote on the left summarizes Klug's main point quite powerfully.
Looking at their contributions the two editors who have expressed a preference for the quote on the right both seem to disagree with Klug's arguments so I'd like to hear what people who agree with Klug or are neutral think. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tira_Massu ( talk • contribs)
It's a conflict of interest to have someone who disagrees with a writer decide which part of their argument should be highlighted, even if they have the best intentions as I'm sure you do. I'd like to hear the thoughts of people who either agree with Klug or are neutral. —Preceding unsigned comment added by Tira_Massu ( talk • contribs)
It probably won't surprise anyone to learn that I support inclusion of the first pull-quote, on the grounds that it is (i) more comprehensive, (ii) a better representation of Klug's views, and (iii) of greater relevance to the subject matter. CJCurrie 01:46, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
I don't think either quote is "stronger". They're both good quotes ("good" in the sense that they sum up a particular point of view of relevance to the article), which say slightly different things. It's a pretty sad state of affairs that there should be lengthy argument over which to use: Assume good faith has long since disappeared from this article... Given a choice, I would go with the former ("When anti-Semitism is everywhere...") for better representing Klug's views and because the point being made in the second quote ("People of goodwill...") is handled easily in the text anyway. Bondegezou 14:29, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
Well, given that my last request for term clarification regarding "Islamism" was ignored, I'll try again...could someone please enlighten as what what the phrase "Jewish symbols" found in the opening sentence means? I tried to temporary patch this idiotic, vague, and useless phraseology but was immediately reverted by the article's babysitter/guard at the time. What gives? -- WassermannNYC 03:53, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
Look at Image:United Koalition of War criminals.jpg for a typical example. AnonMoos 04:16, 23 February 2007 (UTC)
LOS ANGELES (AP) -- Korean-American community leaders said they plan to launch a protest against the publisher of a popular South Korean comic book that contains anti-Semitic images.
One comic strip in the book shows a man climbing a hill and then facing a brick wall with a Star of David and "STOP" sign in front. "The final obstacle to success is always a fortress called Jews," a translation says.
Another strip shows a newspaper, magazine, TV and radio with the description: "In a word, American public debate belongs to the Jews, and it's no exaggeration to say that U.S. media are the voice of the Jews."
...article continued...
-- 172.128.25.32 03:30, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
The description of the Yale survey about anti-Israel attitudes and antisemitism needs to be improved. On the one hand, relatively unimportant details are given, such as the breakdown by gender, age, etc.
On the other hand, one important conclusion is omitted: that the connection holds true only for 56% of EXTREME detractors of Israel, while MODERATE critics of the country are not antisemitic by a 3-to-1 ratio. In my view, this is a figure that deserves to be cited.
Also, the description is misleading in that it links selected questions from both questionnaires in the survey; and the selection is disingenuous (only the most extreme questions are quoted).
The survey is, thus, slightly misrepresented here. I'm fixing it accordingly. -- Abenyosef 13:44, 25 February 2007 (UTC)
This is clearly a political term. It doesn't just mean "any recent anti-semitism". As the article says:
— Ashley Y 22:27, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
It's a concept, and a description of a phenomenon. Jayjg (talk) 22:51, 28 February 2007 (UTC)
Needed or not, attribution abounds. This should be enough [65], and there's more where that came from. Ashley's accurate edit goes in.-- G-Dett 00:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
New antisemitism" is clearly both a political term (since it is an established identifying name for one particular phenomenon), and pejorative, as I pointed out. So the category is indeed applicable. — Ashley Y 00:47, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Ashley's edit has been sourced. What is all this nonsense about WP:ATT? And Slim, on what grounds have you again deleted the category?-- G-Dett 01:12, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
OK Slim, discuss. Why are you removing a sourced category link?-- G-Dett 01:37, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
You really are getting very nasty here, Jay. Do stop sending experienced editors back to basic protocol. Do stop pretending editors who've never so much as crossed paths before are "buddies," especially when you have been team-edit-warring for years now, as every single person on this page knows very well. And do stop stubbornly pretending that scrupulously cited sources don't say what they obviously do say, in the plainest of English.-- G-Dett 02:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Ashley Y, New antisemitism is clearly a sociological phenomenon, not a 'pejorative political term'. If you want to claim it is the latter, you need to provide proper attribution from reliable sources that back up your view. That's policy, you can't get around it. -- PinchasC | £€åV€ m€ å m€§§åg€ 02:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
True, but there's no challenge here apart from the circular one that it is challenged because it needs attribution, and it needs attribution because it is challenged (as I have repeatedly pointed out). — Ashley Y 03:16, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
PinchasC, NAS is "clearly a sociological phenomenon" to some reliable sources, and clearly a political ploy to others. It's not for Wikipedia editors to declare one side of this debate a winner.-- G-Dett 02:36, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
"To say that it's a pejorative political term is to imply that it's merely an insult and lacks other content." What gross nonsense. Few if any of the terms on that list fit this definition. Few if any would clear your standards of attribution. This is POV-pushing of the most embarrassing sort.-- G-Dett 04:21, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Please place any reliable sources which clearly state that "New antisemitism" is a "pejorative political epithet" here, quoting the words of the source that make that specific claim. Thanks. Jayjg (talk) 03:19, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
This is the wrong bar. There are plenty of sources that actually use "new antisemitism" as a pejorative political epithet. — Ashley Y 03:27, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Jayjg, I can no longer assume good faith, after you deliberately deleted the section I created (at your suggestion, no less) and moved the references to a different section, so as to make it imply something else. This edit was clearly done in bad faith. — Ashley Y 04:07, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Agree with Ashley. A gross breach of good faith on Jay's part, and not the first.-- G-Dett 04:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Jayjg, I can no longer discuss this with you until the matter of your bad faith edit (per WP:TALK#Behavior that is unacceptable) is resolved. — Ashley Y 05:02, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
SlimVirgin, do you have anything to say on the subject of your edit here, which you marked as minor? Was it deliberate or accidental? — Ashley Y 05:41, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
Armon, "beating a dead horse" means artificial continuation of a discussion that has already been resolved. It clearly doesn't apply to the matter of Jay's talk-page vandalism, because – though clear evidence of it has been presented [66] – the problem has yet to be discussed, justified, or even addressed, much less resolved.-- G-Dett 18:23, 1 March 2007 (UTC)
So if someone uses "new antisemitism" as a pejorative political epithet (which I argue that several sources do), is that the same as clearly stating that it is? — Ashley Y 20:09, 2 March 2007 (UTC)
KlugCatalyst
was invoked but never defined (see the
help page).