SELF PORTRAIT OF AN ANTISEMITE

Self portrait of an Antisemite

(taken from: Yaacov Lozowick's Ruminations - click topic's tittle to get to original article)

Here's a fine example of why freedom of speech is so important. The parents of Rachel Corrie, ISM activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza in 2003, have published her letters. Roberta P. Seid has read them carefully, and tells of her findings. They are depressing but also illuminating, detailing the cynicism with which the Palestinians and their useful fools manipulated impressionable young men and women, innocent of any knowledge, into the Palestinian war against Israel. These young people came fervently to believe the worst about Israel, even when the facts staring them in their faces proved them wrong, not to mention all the other facts they willfully looked away from. And of course, at one point in the story there's an Israeli professor in America who encourages Corrie onward on her path of hatred.

Did Rachel Corrie regard herself as an antisemite? I expect not, though I doubt she really worked through her convictions on this issue. But she clearly was one. Her animosity towards Israel was anything but "criticism of Israeli policies". It was overt rejection of Israel's right to defend itself, indeed, even of it's right to define its own interests, formulated with systematic lying. That's conclusive enough evidence for antisemitism. Does it make any difference if she realized the import of her positions? Not in particular. Most antisemites throughout the ages were not articulate nor conscious about it, they simply were.