Anti-semitism versus anti-Israel sentiments

I think I can at least start on a note of agreement with most people reading this:  The situation in the Gaza strip is bad.  It has been bad for a while, and I don't think anyone has been acting particularly well.  Unfortunately, it got worse this weekend, when Israeli soldiers boarded a ship trying to break the Gaza blockade and, while apparently under attack (although likely with non-lethal force), fired on civilians aboard.  Nine people were killed, none of them Israeli.  The ship was attempting to navigate through a military blockade, which has been in place since 2007 when Hamas (which refuses to recognize Israel) took control of the Gaza strip, but it was also carrying humanitarian aid, not military paraphernalia. We still do not have all the facts, but I would say what is clear is that the Israeli military acted in a way that was strongly aggressive and poorly thought-out (sending a few soldiers to board a heavily populated vessel was a recipe for disaster), and that the handling of this incident does not seem consistent with the promotion of peace. 

But that's not what I want to talk about.  There will be plenty of people talking about this, and I think it is something we urgently need to discuss.  What level of military action against civilians is warranted?  Is it ever appropriate to cut off humanitarian aid to a country, even when at war with its leaders?  To what extent should a country's citizens, whether or not they support the government in charge, be liable for its actions?  I hope there will be many fruitful and interesting conversations in the coming days about justifiable military force, both on behalf of Israel and countries like the United States, who have set a higher limit on acceptable civilian casualties than I believe to be warranted.  I hope those conversations will both help us honor those killed today, and find a better way forward to a lasting peace.  But I'm no expert on that.

What I have, unfortunately, had to become an expert on is anti-Semitism.  And that's what I'd like to try to talk about today.  It may seem crass to discuss discrimination against Jews in light of the recent death of civilians at Israeli hands.  I'm sorry if the timing bothers you.  Honestly, I would first say that I don't think it's ever a bad time to talk about racism.  Secondly, this post has been on my mind for a while, but some things I saw on twitter in response to the #flotilla incident encouraged me to stop putting it off.  There were a couple predicating tweets, but one in particular stuck out: Someone tweeted the following "quote" from Hitler (I say "quote" because, while I'm sure the sentiment is accurate, it doesn't appear to be a direct translation), with the #freedomflotilla hashtag.  "I could've burned all the Jews, but I left some so you could see why I wanted them to burn."

Yom HaShoah: Never Forget

Today is Yom HaShoah, Holocaust remembrance day. A common phrase I associate with this day of remembrance is "never forget."  I find it especially poignant this year, because it seems to me we are entering an era, as those who survived the camps are replaced with a younger generation who only read about them in Number the Stars, where we are forgetting the horrors of years' past.  We are forgetting them in a subtle way: by the insidious separation of Hitler's beliefs and his crimes, his symbols and his practices, his life and the deaths he wrought.  I'll give you three examples.

Kate Harding asks: What exactly did Sandra know about this Nazi stuff?

Kate Harding at Jezebel:

I'm all for giving celebrities their privacy amid salacious gossip and personal turmoil, but since Bullock surely knows all about that photo and the other accusations now, I can't figure out why we haven't heard from her yet. This is not the kind of thing you let slide, even if all you want to do, quite understandably, is hide out and lick your wounds. Perhaps she's just taking her time crafting a blistering statement denouncing James' apparent anti-Semitism, avowing her unfortunate but total ignorance of it and announcing the imminent divorce. But if that's not out by tomorrow? Something's seriously [f*ed] up here. Remaining silent at this point is such an inexplicable career move — questions of human decency aside — I can't quite believe we haven't seen such a statement already. And I really can't believe there aren't more people making noise about it yet.

I think it's a fair question.  Others don't, apparently, so Kate has a new piece at Shapely Prose defending the original article.