Chag kasher Sameach to all celebrating Passover starting this Friday night; Happy Easter to those celebrating this Sunday.
We hope you enjoy your seder(s)/services/ celebrations and the reflections they invite.
Passover is about freedom. We at SFMEW are grateful for the freedoms we have in America. This past week Israelis demonstrated their freedoms and robust democracy when they went to the polls. At your seder we recommend you verbally celebrate Israel’s democracy and freedom – more robust than in any other country in the Middle East, and in most of the world – by being a clear and vocal advocate to your friends, relatives, and acquaintances.
In the New Mexican today (April 17, 2019) Ellen Shabshai Fox asks, “Why is it that whenever people criticize Israel, they are labeled anti-Semitic? Is it possible that said critique is…sincere…? Why can’t I, as a Jew, think critically about Israel, or as an American criticize America?” The whole letter is reprinted below.
Just as with her letter of Feb. 7, 2019 criticizing Karen Milstein’s letter from Feb. 2 (see our 2/26/19 post here), Fox makes incorrect assumptions. First, certainly SFMEW does not label all Israeli critics anti-Semitic. We do so when we feel the writer/speaker has surpassed the criteria of the US State Department or the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance (IHRA). This includes those calling for the destruction of Israel, either directly or indirectly through their support of BDS, or their support of organizations that propagate false narratives and double standards of Israel or the conflict.
Second, we welcome critical thinking about Israel, Israeli policies, and efforts to promote peace and harmony in the Middle East. At the same time the writer or speaker should critique using the facts of the conflict, or proposed solutions, not “false facts,” wishful thinking, or propaganda. Fox’s Feb. 7, 2019 letter has multiple factual errors. We’ve written on propaganda and most of the common factual errors in the past.
For example, in her Feb. 7 letter Fox references “the Nakba.” As well-detailed by Dr. Raphael G. Bouchnik-Chen in a Begin-Sadat Center for Strategic Studies Perspectives Paper (No. 1,143), Nakba was not converted into a victimhood term until 1998, when Yasser Arafat proclaimed May 15 “Nakba Day.” Nakba was used before 1998 by Arab scholars and historians to be Arab-critical: “a self-inflicted disaster emanating from the Arab world’s failure to confront Zionism.” Bouchnik-Chen shows how in 1948 Syrian historian Constantin Zureiq attributes “the Palestinian/Arab flight to the stillborn pan-Arab assault on the nascent Jewish state rather than to a premeditated Zionist design to disinherit the Palestinian Arabs…”*
But Fox claims that the Palestinian refugee crisis was a “mass eviction…during the 1948 war” attributing blame solely to the Israelis, while we know the vast majority fled rather than were forcibly evicted.^ She fails to mention how the Arab states refused to settle the refugees, even after 70 years of their living in their midst, and have systematically discriminated against them by not giving them citizenship and preventing their ability to purchase property or practice certain professions.
Further, Fox claims that labels limit opportunities for dialogue. We strongly agree. She fails to mention that most current pro-Palestinian efforts to delegitimize Israel as a nation use labels and are anti-normalization – these efforts work against dialogue and peace by alienating the two sides. For example, as we have pointed out before, the BDS movement is very complicit in this anti-normalization activity, which is why peace-loving Americans and the US Congress declaim BDS.
Finally, Fox attempts to use her Jewishness as a shield against misinformation. But as we know, claiming one is Jewish doesn’t mean her arguments can’t be anti-Semitic.
If Fox wants to criticize Israel and doesn’t want to be labeled anti-Semitic, then she needs to work with historical facts, not “false facts” or propaganda.
Take Action
Do a mitzvah before your seder: write a letter to the editor of the New Mexican to rebut Fox’s “questioning.” Use one of the points above or from our Feb. 26 post found here. Send your letter by clicking here. Feel free to review our guidelines for writing letters to the editor.
FYI, we have analyzed Fox’s 26 letters to the editor in the New Mexican since 2014. She has only written twice about the Arab-Israeli conflict – Feb. 7 and April 17, 2019. Here’s the letter from April 17 in its complete form.
Questioning is good
Why is it that whenever people criticize Israel, they are labeled anti-Semitic? Is it possible that said critique is a sincere effort by people who care about Israel to seek a course of examination or correction, i.e. with regard to Palestine, where correction is needed?
I am highly critical of America’s performance in the world today. Does that make me anti-American? Labeling like this blocks opportunity for dialogue and leads to even more polarization between people who hold opposing views. Why can’t I, as a Jew, think critically about Israel, or as an American criticize America?
Ellen Shabshai Fox, LISW
Footnotes:
^We admit this is a complex subject that can’t easily be summarized in a single sentence. Here’s a good summary of the research on this question from “Myths and Facts – a Guide to the Arab-Israeli Conflict”: “The Palestinians left their homes in 1947-49 for a variety of reasons. Thousands of wealthy Arabs left in anticipation of a war, thousands more responded to Arab leaders’ calls to get out of the way of the advancing armies, a handful were expelled, but most simply fled to avoid being caught in the cross fire of a battle.” Only Jordan has permitted Palestinian refugees from the 1948 war full citizenship.
*As Bouchnik-Chen points out, in the year 1948, “the term “Nakba” was glaringly absent from Arab and/or Palestinian discourse. Its first mention – in George Antonius’s influential 1938 book The Arab Awakening – had nothing to do with the (as yet nonexistent) Arab-Israeli conflict but rather with the post-WWI creation of the modern Middle East (‘The year 1920 has an evil name in Arab annals: it is referred to as the Year of the Catastrophe or, in Arabic, Aam al-Nakba’).”
We recommend:
Who? 
and local rabbis
What? “New Mexico Remembers A Statewide Commemoration of Yom HaShoah (Holocaust Remembrance Day)”
When? Thursday, May 2, 2019, 6:00 p.m.
Where? The Rotunda at the New Mexico State Capitol, Santa Fe
How much? This event is free of charge and open to the community.
Featuring remarks by Holocaust survivor Andy Holten, Speaker of the State Legislature Brian Egolf, Governor’s Chief Operating Officer Teresa Casados, and State Representative David Gallegos.
SFMEW is a grateful beneficiary of the Jewish Federation of New Mexico.