Julius continues, “the Jewish anti-Zionist says ‘Jewish particularism’ of every kind must be rejected; Jews should not cut themselves off from their fellow students, workmates, and neighbours. Jews should seek a ‘Jewishness not sealed behind walls of conviction’, but open to the infinite possibilities of tomorrow.” Again, the absurdity behind such a statement is mind blowing. On the one end it refers to Jews as an ideal lucid homogenous collective, yet in the same breath it insists upon making this collective characterless. The truth of the matter must be said here. As long as Jews regard themselves as a homogenous collective and operate as a collective they happen to install a barrier between themselves and the rest of humanity. False calls for humanism and employment of Marxist jargon can’t and won’t cover it up.

Though I am totally convinced that the majority of the IJV signatures are well meaning and genuine peace lovers, the philosophy they happened to succumb to is rather embarrassingly lame. However, this is not big news. This flaw at the heart of the IJV’s declaration failed in every form of Jewish tribal left thinking for over a century. It is this very basic fault that made ‘Jewish anti-Zionists’ (JAZ), the Bund and IJV look like the ‘Best universalists amongst tribalists’ or alternatively ‘the ultimate tribalists amongst the universalists.’

“In the IJV’s principles,” cites Julius, one of its foundations includes “putting human rights first; repudiating all forms of racism; and giving equal priority to Palestinians and Israelis in their quest for a better future… (these are) principles that unite people of goodwill…group or ethnic loyalty, by contrast, is not a principle - or not a worthy one, at least.” “It must be,” answers Julius with scorn, that it is “Jewish quality to have no qualities at all.” It is very sad to admit, but Julius has a point here. As much as I would prefer to support the well-intentioned IJV agenda, I have to confess that the cosmopolitan attitude expressed above is totally irrelevant and even counter-effective as far as the Palestinian national struggle is concerned. As much as Julius insists upon the right of Jews to celebrate their symptoms as Jews, it is the humanist duty to insist upon a similar right of Palestinians to celebrate their ‘group or ethnic loyalty’. It is rather shocking to admit that Zionist and Palestinian criticism of Jewish anti-Zionism is almost similar.

The Moraliser

At this point, Julius is ready to pour a rain of contempt over his dissident brothers. “These Jewish anti-Zionists claim to speak as the moral conscience of the Jewish people. They no longer assert, as their revolutionary forebears once did…they play the part of scourges of the Jewish State.” ‘The scourge’, explains Julius, is a kind of “moraliser, that is, a public person who prides himself on the ability to discern the good and the evil. The moraliser makes judgments on others, and profits by so doing; he puts himself on the right side of the fence. Moralising provides the moraliser with recognition of his own existence and confirmation of his own value.”

But Julius doesn’t stop just there, he continues, “a moraliser has a good conscience and is satisfied by his own self-righteousness. He is not a self-hater; he is enfolded in self-admiration. He is in step with the best opinion. He holds that the truth is to be arrived at by inverting the “us = good” and “other = bad” binarism.

Julius should have grasped that ‘self-loving’ and ‘binary opposition’ settings are exactly that which set any form of Jewish tribal left within the ever-growing rabbinical tradition. The real meaning of secularism within the Jewish tribal left discourse means the replacement of ‘God-loving’ with ‘self-loving’, The modern Jewish tribal leftist believes in himself. And the binary formula he adopts should be read as Us = kosher / Other = taref.

However, if Julius would spend some time looking in the mirror while contemplating over the issues of ‘binarism’ and ‘self-loving’ he may find out that he is falling into the exact same trap. The Euston neo-conservative think tank he himself founded is intellectually premised on the exact same parameters. It is based on white liberal ‘self-loving’ and ‘binary opposition setting’ in the shape of us/them, kosher/taref, West/the rest.

Once again we notice, that Julius’s study is fuelled by projection. Once again we see that as much as it is interesting to read what Julius has to say, it is far more interesting to ask why he says what he says. Every insight Julius provides us with stands as a revelation concerning the Zionist project and the Zionist mindset.

The Crypto Zionist’s Role

Only in the last part of his study, Julius reveals his true motivation. Apparently the British Zionist academic has some Judeocentric conspiratorial expectations from his fellow dissident brothers. He would like to see them fighting the anti-Semites in the Palestinian solidarity discourse. He would like to see them operating as Sayanim.

The development of his argument is rather interesting.

According to Julius, the Jewish anti-Zionist “wrongly assumes that group loyalty is inconsistent with the ethical life, and that universalist moral foundations cannot sustain a version of nationalism.”

This is indeed reassuring to see that Julius asserts the most radical form of right wing views. Seemingly, the man learned a lot from the revisionist historian he managed to defeat in court. However, the truth must be said. Julius is absolutely correct here. There is NO contradiction between group loyalty and the ethical life. Torah Jews prove it beyond doubt. This is why Torah Jews are far more popular amongst Palestinian solidarity campaigner than any other Jewish collective. Julius is also correct to argue that there is no contradiction between universalist moral foundations and nationalism. Again this insight is no different to the Palestinian critiques of the cosmopolitan Jew. A Palestinian would rightly say: ‘If you are a cosmopolitan Jew who opposes nationalism, how exactly do you plan to support my Palestinian national struggle?’

Julius correctly suggests that anti-Zionist Jews fall into contradiction when they hold that while dispersion is good for the Jews, it is bad for the Palestinians, and when they demand of the Jews that they disavow ‘nationalism,’ while valuing the Palestinians’ “continuing struggle for justice;” Julius obviously hit here on some severe level of lack of integrity within the Jewish left discourse.

In short, it seems as if Julius manages to establish a profound criticism of Jewish anti-Zionism. Seemingly, Jewish anti-Zionism is inconsistent to the bone. Due to the impossibility to bridge the gap between the tribal and the universal, Jewish anti-Zionism is doomed to fall either into inconsistency or lack of integrity.

But here is where Julius comes with some clear suggestions regarding the Jewish role within the left. Trotsky, according to Julius, wasn’t operating as a Jew, yet he could “smell anti-Semitism in others”. But Julius doesn’t stop just there. “Contemporary Jewish anti-Zionists,” he says, “have lost the sense for it.” It is clear beyond doubt that Julius expects his dissident brothers to keep up day and night tracing and fighting the anti-Semites. He expects the Jewish anti-Zionists to operate as Sayanim, people who are motivated to operate as Zionist agents due to Jewish tribal brotherhood.

As funny as it may sound, Anthony Julius describes here the exact role taken by the discredited UK JAZ group who for a while worked day and night fighting, smearing and lobbying against those whom they regard as anti-Semites. Bearing in mind that Julius is a Zionist who calls the anti-Zionists to fight anti-Semitism , it is impossible not to see JAZ (http://azvsas.blogspot.com/) as an integral part of the Zionist plot on the verge of Sayanim.

Julius continues, “Jewish anti-Zionist contributions to anti-Semitically inflected positions taken by non-Jewish anti-Zionists consist of the following: (a) to give cover to the holders of such positions by endorsing them ‘as Jews’ (b) to endorse those positions as true, with the all the authority of an ‘insider’ or ‘expert’.”

It is very clear that as far as Julius is concerned, anti-Zionist Jews are not exactly ordinary human beings. They are primarily Jews and must serve their tribal interests first. At large, Julius’s expectations from his fellow brothers fall short of fulfilment. Not a single prominent Jewish anti-Zionist has ever joined the Zionist hunting expedition. They obviously have far better things to do. Those who were and still are foolish enough to follow Julius’s instructions and become hunters of anti-Semites have managed to marginalise themselves within the anti-Zionist movement beyond repair. If they were acting as double agents at some stage, they are now exposed in a very unflattering light.

The reason is simple. Every genuine anti-Zionist realises that if Israel is the Jewish State and the crimes committed by this State are committed in the name of the Jewish people then we are bound to ask, ‘who are the Jews? What is Judaism? And what is Jewishness?’ There is no alternative than to question the Jewish lobby and the role of Jewish media. These are the parameters of contemporary anti-Zionism, this is what anti-Zionism is all about, and if this is what new anti-Semitism is all about, we have nothing left to admit to the hunters than being anti-Zionists means we are going to be hunted sooner or later.

Interestingly enough, the IJV collapsed because independent, assimilated intellectuals tend to operate independently, they do not and could not succumb to tribal concerns. Prominent independent voices could never operate in an atmosphere of a synagogue. The IJV collapsed because its prominent members were too independent to operate as a fig leaf for the Jewish national project.

Sadly, we would have to admit that as much as the Jewish left is inconsistent to the bone, as much as it loses its way between Athens and Jerusalem, Zionism is unfortunately a success story. It is consistent, it knows exactly where Athens is but it prefers the road to Jerusalem. Zionism is a proud tribal project, it gives a new dynamic contemporary meaning to Jewish existence. Unfortunately this meaning is oppressive and murderous on the verge of genocidal. Since Zionism is a monolithic voice of the Jewish people, the future of anti-Zionist discourse will inevitably address a scope of issues to do with the Jewish question.

As much as I do not agree with Julius’s prime agenda, I tend to agree with many points raised by him. Jewish anti-Zionism is a futile project. It leads nowhere, it is there to make Jews look nice and to dismantle a real debate about Zionism and Jewish nationalism in general. If secular Jews intend to resist Zionism genuinely rather than just gather a momentary sympathy to their cause, then the only way to do it is to join the human family and to act as ordinary people. Such an act would give the French revolution and emancipation a real new meaning.

(1) part one: http://www.z-word.com/z-word-essays/jewish-anti-zionism-unravelled%253A–the-morality-of-vanity-%2528part-1%2529.html
part 2 http://www.z-word.com/z-word-essays/jewish-anti-zionism-unravelled%253A-questioning-antisemitism-%2528part-2%2529.html

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