Israelis Are Not Nazis

Mira Vogel writes on 13 November:

Last night, "formally hosted" and "subsidised" by the Student Union, Suzanne Weiss darkened the door of my institution as an invited speaker. She was invited by the Palestine Twinning Campaign to which the officers of the local branch of my trade union, UCU, voted to donate £200 of our subs. The meeting - From the Warsaw Ghetto to the Gaza Ghetto - had been advertised with a monochrome poster juxtaposing images of the Warsaw Ghetto wall and a segment of wall round Gaza. Beforehand the Activities Officer read out a statement to the effect that the opinions expressed that evening were those of the speakers, and not the Student Union. It was hard to reconcile this with the October motion resoundingly passed by the 16-member student assembly which included the statement, if I have it correctly, that "hosting Ms Weiss would be a great honour to the union and what our union ethos incorporates". 
Read the whole of Mira's piece here.

David Hirsh writes:
There was an event at Goldsmiths, University of London, last week, which aimed to spread the view that what happens in Gaza today is similar to what happened in the Warsaw Ghetto under the Nazis. Confronted by criticism of this event, Jennifer Jones, speaking to the Jewish Chronicle on behalf of the Students Union at Goldsmiths, expressed the hope that 'the few vocal Zionists on campus become involved in a more positive capacity to support those suffering under the occupation'.

The overwhelming majority of living Jews are Zionists if what is meant by the term is that they do not support campaigns to de-legitimize Israel and to disband it against the will of most Israelis. Indeed in this sense, the overwhelming majority of human beings are Zionists too. And they are right to be Zionists in this sense. They are right because Israelis are behaving entirely rationally when they insist that there are lots of people in their neighbourhood who might want to kill them or to drive them out and that they need a state with which to defend themselves.

I hear the sense in which Jennifer Jones uses the term 'Zionist' as exceedingly threatening and it is not easy to communicate why, to a person who is unable to see why for themselves. I understand the word 'Zionists' in this context to mean 'Jews', except that it does not include a category of exceptional 'good Jews'. The category of 'good Jews' here should be understood as those Jews who are not disgusted by the designation of Israeli Jews as Nazis – those Jews who are prepared publicly to kosherize such a designation as being legitimate on the antiracist left.
Read the whole of David's piece here.

Petra Marquardt-Bigman writes:
The activists at Goldsmiths college, University of London, are mistaken if they believe they are breaking any new ground by planning an event entitled "From the Warsaw Ghetto to the Gaza Ghetto".  The idea of calling Gaza a "ghetto" - supposedly in order to rally political support for the Palestinians - is anything but new: There is a 1984 movie entitled "Gaza Ghetto", and there are all sorts of writings floating in cyberspace that put the comparison to the desired political use. But it is worthwhile asking what exactly the desired political purpose is, because reading through the screeds that compare Gaza to a ghetto, it's hard to avoid the conclusion that this comparison is popular primarily among those who feel that the best way to support the Palestinian cause is to de-legitimize Israel.
When it comes to de-legitimizing Israel, it's clear that the most passionate practitioners of this political ploy believe that nothing beats comparing Israel to the Nazis. Unsurprisingly, this comparison can be found in the Hamas charter (e.g. Article 20), but anyone who would hope that such comparisons are limited to extremist groups hasn't kept up with the growing acceptance of antisemitic themes in mainstream political discourse. Years before some student activists in London decided now that it would serve their political purposes to compare the situation in Gaza to the Warsaw Ghetto, two British Members of Parliament (MPs) did exactly the same back in 2003. 
Read the whole of Petra's piece here. 

London U. Event Likens Gaza to Ghetto

Israel is not an apartheid state either.  For a number of Engage pieces on this analogy, Click here.