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Politics : Middle East Politics -- Ignore unavailable to you. Want to Upgrade?

To: StormRider who wrote (1910)	7/7/2002 3:09:56 PM
From: StormRider	Respond to of 6945

CRITICAL BUT NOT RACIST Washington Post, 7/6/02 washingtonpost.com As an American Jew, I am outraged by Abraham Foxman's irrational conclusions from the Anti-Defamation League's poll on anti-Semitism in Europe [op-ed, June 27]. Although attacks on synagogues are undoubtedly troubling and cause for concern, Foxman's assessments of the trends associated with these attacks are so contrived as to be utterly puzzling. If 45 percent of those Europeans polled think that most Jews have a strong loyalty to Israel, they are right -- from an early age, we are taught that Israel is a homeland to Jews, and thus most Jews develop a strong connection to it. This perception being accurate, how is it that those who have noticed can be categorized as anti-Semitic? By the same token, Foxman reports that 62 percent of those polled see the outbreak of violence against Jews as a result of anti-Israel sentiment, not anti-Jewish feelings. Yes, criticism of Israeli policies is on the rise. But how is this tantamount to anti-Semitism? If I criticize the government of Zimbabwe, am I somehow a racist? Many Jews, myself included, are highly critical of Prime Minister Ariel Sharon's policies, as they feed into an endless cycle of violence that threatens Jewish and Arab lives. We are long overdue for a serious intellectual inquiry as to how the president of a leading American Jewish organization can falsely equate criticism of Israel with anti-Semitism, or, as I prefer to more accurately call the phenomenon, anti-Jewish sentiments. Our cousins the Arabs are Semitic too. -- Nicole Dannenberg Sorger