A friend of mine was sitting in NY in Aroma, a cafe who some know is owned by Israelis. All of a sudden a demonstration appeared in front of it about Israel. The people sitting with him were appalled, one of them German, as protesting in front of a café because it is owned by Israelis is so reminiscent of Nazi Germany and many former actions against blacks. 

In case people didn’t hear Helen Thomas’ recent interview:




Yes, the Jews/Israelis should return to Germany and Poland where they came from she says. What Helen Thomas exposed was the true thoughts and bigotry behind the purported “political” opinions of many who constantly talk against Israel. If she was younger she would have been more careful, as many of her associates are, but she wasn’t. People are upset at her as she exposed a secret, the secret of their real opinions.

In France a cinema chain (hilariously named Utopia) canceled all screenings of a film for being made by an Israeli, only lifting the ban after another filmmaker sent a letter withdrawing his films from the cinema chain and they were afraid of the repercussions.  

Many such actions existed before, such as Ken Loach call for censorship , British academia constant attempts to boycott Israel, and growing voices in American academia.

After any action taken by Israel immediately all the bigots jump out. I say bigots and not antisemites because while in Europe this bigotry is a continuation of a historic antisemitism in America its origins are more of pure bigotry mixed with old-fashion anti-Semitism. The latest case=excuse was Israel taking over of ships trying to break a blockade on Gaza. This happens everywhere where ships try to break blockades. This time the “peace activists” armed with weapons attacked the stupidly unprepared soldiers kidnapping a soldier. The soldiers then quickly killed the kidnappers and freed the soldier. The operation of taking over the boat was mishandled, like so many military operations all over the world. There are constant military screw-ups – the military is not the smartest part of any country. In this case they thought they were coming to stop peace activists and weren’t prepared for the militants on board (which are now a usual part of many groups of “peace activists”.)

Result: world condemnation and a continuing of the deteriorating relation with Turkey which is quickly becoming a second Iran. (As a side note I’ll mention that Europe’s demands of a lessening of the power of the army in Turkey, the only power that kept Turkey a democratic and secular country instead of an Islamic dictatorship is one of the many ways the world is increasingly becoming a war zone between the religions.)

Every time something happens all the world jumps, and all the bigots come out. For some reasons attacks by the Hamas don’t bring about calls to boycott Palestinian films or people.

The special kind of bigotry against jews/israeils that is spreading in the US is very different from anti-Semitism, and one can call it that only for ease of use. It is based on wanting to be part of a community and is usually bound together with other political opinions. I can’t well describe which kind of community at the moment as though I find it very worrying I spend very little time thinking about it.  Like my friend who sat in Aroma, like the people in Nazi Germany, I too find these people too silly to think or worry about. But they are growing.


There is actually a point to this post besides expressing my worries, and that is a point repeated in many other posts. What is there to do? The case in France was resolved by a dualism of censorship. Is that really the only way? Is an economic boycott of bigots really the only way to stop them?