Smears for fears

Just tracked back to the Time of the Barmecides, blog of James Mangan. He quotes Chomsky's experiences of anti-semitism in Philadelphia before telling an Oliver Kamm to "fuck off".

Now it appears that there is quite a smear campaign going on, invoking anti-semitism to suppress the opinions of anti-war and anti-Zionist campaigners. The false allegation of anti-semitism against anti-Zionists is nothing new of course, but this is far more widespread and the usual suspects these days are not very usual anti-semitic suspects at all as many are Jewish. Oliver Kamm accuses Noam Chomsky of anti-semitism because of a reference he made to "privileged people [who] want to make sure they have total control, not just 98% control". In spite of Chomsky himself being Jewish, and in spite of the fact that Chomsky knows that not all Jews are priveleged and in spite of the fact that Chomsky knows that not all privileged people are Jewish, and (finally, I promise) in spite of the fact that Kamm himself must surely know all these things, he says that "Chomsky’s remark is shabby and repellent. It marks the first case I have come across in his writings on the Jews that crosses the line from bombast to bigotry."

On another site, Harry's Place. has accused Lenin of Lenin's Tomb and me of being "former. anti-fascists" for suggesting caution when dealing with reports from the Board of Deputies' Community Security Trust of an increase in anti-semitic incidents from 2003 to 2004. Meaders has a good write up of this on Dead Men Left. I searched in vain for Harry's note of the fact that the police also urged caution when dealing with the same thing.

As I have posted before, anti-semitism has reared its head in some leftist and Jewish discussions but it can't be effectively opposed when a ragbag of pro-Zionist and pro-war commentators are wilfully smearing people to frighten the potential victims of anti-semitism and to intimidate or undermine earnest anti-racists who oppose all forms of racism.