3.12.03
Anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism
A column in the Guardian delivers the friendly reminder that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.
On another note, we see that the EU's report on anti-Semitism (warning: PDF file) has been leaked.
I have made it through all 112 pages of the report and will be posting some comments about it tomorrow. I will say for now that while the report does contain a valuable listing of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe (and, sadly, there were many in the time period under consideration), the EUMC's description of the paper as being of "poor quality" is entirely on the mark. Two points: first, the fact that the authors, Werner Bergmann and Juliane Wetzel, considered anti-Zionism as being a form of anti-Semitism is despicable.
Second, there is at least one instance of outright plagiarism in the report. Consider this passage, from footnote 32:
A column in the Guardian delivers the friendly reminder that anti-Zionism is not anti-Semitism.
On another note, we see that the EU's report on anti-Semitism (warning: PDF file) has been leaked.
I have made it through all 112 pages of the report and will be posting some comments about it tomorrow. I will say for now that while the report does contain a valuable listing of anti-Semitic incidents in Europe (and, sadly, there were many in the time period under consideration), the EUMC's description of the paper as being of "poor quality" is entirely on the mark. Two points: first, the fact that the authors, Werner Bergmann and Juliane Wetzel, considered anti-Zionism as being a form of anti-Semitism is despicable.
Second, there is at least one instance of outright plagiarism in the report. Consider this passage, from footnote 32:
Just 1967 [sic] Martin Luther King Jr. emphasised: "Anti-Semitism, the hatred of the Jewish people, has been and remains a plot [sic] on the soul of mankind. (...) So know also this: anti-Zionist is inherently anti-Semitic, and ever will be so." Martin Luther King Jr., Letter to an Anti-Zionist Friend, Saturday Review, August 1967, p. 76.The problem with this citation is that this article by King Jr. does not exist:
The treatise, it is claimed, was published on page 76 of the August, 1967 edition of Saturday Review, and supposedly can also be read in the collection of King's work entitled, This I Believe: Selections from the Writings of Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. That the claimants never mention the publisher of this collection should have been a clear tip-off that it might not be genuine, and indeed it isn't. The book doesn't exist. As for Saturday Review, there were four issues in August of 1967. Two of the four editions contained a page 76. One of the pages 76 contains classified ads and the other contained a review of the Beatles' Sgt. Pepper's album. No King letter anywhere.Tell us, Herr Bergmann und Frau Wetzel... from what anti-historical treatise did you lift this bullshit reference?
