The Irish really don't need memories of their own historical oppression to inspire human sympathy for the Palestinians. They are, however, considerably less susceptible to US threats and bribes. Spain and France are also moving towards debates, and there will surely be others over the coming weeks. Does anyone else sense that in the shadow of this concern for Palestinians may lurk a European inclination for independence from US preferences?
Many words have more than one meaning. There are the meanings listed in a dictionary, literal meanings, generally understood meanings, meanings depending on context, and what the user means by it. Antisemitism today is generally understood to mean anti-Jewish. That is the way it is used by Zionists, and journalists etc. in reference to anti-Jewish speech or acts. Words come into existence, evolve and disappear according to need. A good illustration is 'exceptionalism', a word not found in standard dictionaries where the nouns related to 'exceptional' are 'exceptionality' and 'exceptionalness'. It was coined not that long ago by Madeleine Albright to justify US hegemonic and cultural evangelism, a meaning lately broadened in some quarters to apply to Israel in Palestine.
I question if it is really helpful to dismiss those who look at Jews collectively as bigots. Israelis, Netanyahu persistently, claim Israel is a home for all Jews, and while many Jews deny the conflation of Zionist and non-Zionist, they do all want a home for the Jewish people, they want it in Palestine and, although they get a bit vague about the specifics, they want it to include more than was designated in 1947. Judaism is rife with incomprehensible schismatic divisions and more or less always has been. In the past they were largely confined within the Jewish community. What we are observing today is these schisms spilling over into the wider non-Jewish world and it is increasingly obvious that this, together with the horrors played out in Gaza, has great potential to reignite dormant anti-Semitism, which is anyway an emotion rather than the rational conclusion to a considered intellectual process.
Symbolic it may appear to some, but such a motion is an established and integral part of the British parliamentary system. It's usefulness is it allows contentious issues to be brought into the open, debated and aired without the necessity for any dramatic immediate action. As such it has in this case performed its function, the debate was courteously conducted, informed and informative, and I am sure it left anyone who followed it clearer about the issue than any number of contradictory journalistic contributions. There was surprisingly little hasbara and what there was only exposed the paucity of meaningful arguments against the motion. The vote itself should prove salutary to Israeli decision makers and an inspiration to other European lawmakers.
Spot on! And they can play several games at once.
The Irish really don't need memories of their own historical oppression to inspire human sympathy for the Palestinians. They are, however, considerably less susceptible to US threats and bribes. Spain and France are also moving towards debates, and there will surely be others over the coming weeks. Does anyone else sense that in the shadow of this concern for Palestinians may lurk a European inclination for independence from US preferences?
Many words have more than one meaning. There are the meanings listed in a dictionary, literal meanings, generally understood meanings, meanings depending on context, and what the user means by it. Antisemitism today is generally understood to mean anti-Jewish. That is the way it is used by Zionists, and journalists etc. in reference to anti-Jewish speech or acts. Words come into existence, evolve and disappear according to need. A good illustration is 'exceptionalism', a word not found in standard dictionaries where the nouns related to 'exceptional' are 'exceptionality' and 'exceptionalness'. It was coined not that long ago by Madeleine Albright to justify US hegemonic and cultural evangelism, a meaning lately broadened in some quarters to apply to Israel in Palestine.
I question if it is really helpful to dismiss those who look at Jews collectively as bigots. Israelis, Netanyahu persistently, claim Israel is a home for all Jews, and while many Jews deny the conflation of Zionist and non-Zionist, they do all want a home for the Jewish people, they want it in Palestine and, although they get a bit vague about the specifics, they want it to include more than was designated in 1947. Judaism is rife with incomprehensible schismatic divisions and more or less always has been. In the past they were largely confined within the Jewish community. What we are observing today is these schisms spilling over into the wider non-Jewish world and it is increasingly obvious that this, together with the horrors played out in Gaza, has great potential to reignite dormant anti-Semitism, which is anyway an emotion rather than the rational conclusion to a considered intellectual process.
Symbolic it may appear to some, but such a motion is an established and integral part of the British parliamentary system. It's usefulness is it allows contentious issues to be brought into the open, debated and aired without the necessity for any dramatic immediate action. As such it has in this case performed its function, the debate was courteously conducted, informed and informative, and I am sure it left anyone who followed it clearer about the issue than any number of contradictory journalistic contributions. There was surprisingly little hasbara and what there was only exposed the paucity of meaningful arguments against the motion. The vote itself should prove salutary to Israeli decision makers and an inspiration to other European lawmakers.