Massachusetts Teachers Oppose Israel Genocide and Could, But Don't, Persuasively Refute Accusations of Being Antisemitic
Why don't they persuasively refute the antisemitism accusation? FEAR!
The ruling class is clearly using its false framework about Israel and Palestine (that the conflict is between Jews versus Palestinians) and its censorship of the truth (that the conflict is between billionaire ruling classes and the have-nots—both Jewish and non-Jewish—that they oppress) to pit good people against each other. An example of this close to where I live is reported in the Boston Globe here:
Here is the message I posted May 18 on the Massachusetts Teachers Association website’s “Contact us” page:
Bravo! to the MTA for demanding a ceasefire in Gaza and for supporting Palestinians against Israeli genocide.
Here is how you can make the MTA immune to the false accusation of antisemitism.
First consider the basis for that false accusation. Larry Summers, when he was president of Harvard University, accused anti-Zionists of being "antisemitic in effect if not intent."
The basis of the "in effect" accusation is the false premise that Israeli violence against Palestinians is for the purpose of making Israeli Jews safe. Were this true, then it would be antisemitic in effect even when devout Jews oppose Zionism because they would be opposing that which is necessary to make Jews safe.
Until the Zionist false premise (that Israeli violence is necessary and done to make Jews safe) is refuted, the charge of "antisemitic in effect if not intent" will be persuasive to many people, and the defense of "Many of us our Jews so we aren't antisemitic" will not work (such Jews are dismissed by pro-Zionists as "self-hating Jews.")
But the Zionist premise is false!
The true purpose of Israeli violence is something that even currently passionately pro-Israel people oppose when they learn the truth about it.
I link below to three articles of mine about this true purpose; my articles are ENTIRELY based on reputable linked-to or cited sources. I am not just "quoting myself."
First note that "Zionist" is not a derogatory word for Jew. If it were such a derogatory word there would not be, for example, the World Zionist Organization (https://www.wzo.org.il/
). I use the word "Zionist" with its proper meaning in my articles linked to below about Israeli violence against Palestinians. A Zionist is a person who agrees that there must be a Jewish state with a guaranteed large Jewish majority population, with a government that says it is explicitly for "the Jews" rather than for all of its citizens, and with apartheid laws ( https://www.pdrboston.org/israel-s-apartheid-laws ) for this purpose.
I have written about the true purpose of seven-plus decades of Israeli violence against Palestinians (violent ethnic cleansing and denial of the refugees' right of return, brutal and humiliating military occupation of the West bank, violent enforcement of apartheid laws inside Israel) and proven my case with mainstream sources here ( https://covertactionmagazine.com/2023/11/27/israels-government-attacks-ordinary-jews-as-well-as-palestinians/?fbclid=IwAR18O6MNVFmMXV3jrIAkxAWjKIAeFsVFXjkyOagQUrHcUw27eYiGknJ2q38 ) showing that Zionist violence against Palestinians is used by the Israeli billionaire ruling class to make Palestinians a bogeyman enemy that it pretends to protect ordinary Israeli Jews from in order thereby to get away with severely economically oppressing working class Israeli Jews to get rich off of them.
I have written here ( https://www.pdrboston.org/israel-funds-hamas-keeps-it-in-power ) about how—and why—Israel’s government for decades has been funding HAMAS and working to keep it in power in order to make the Palestinian bogeyman enemy maximally frightening.
I have written here ( https://johnspritzler.substack.com/p/why-really-zionist-leaders-have-always?r=1iggn ) about how the early Zionist leaders who became Israel’s leaders opposed rescue efforts of Jews from the Nazis during the Holocaust because these rescue efforts didn’t advance the Zionist leaders’ goal of obtaining a Jewish working class of their own to get rich and powerful off of in Palestine.
If the public knew the truth about the real anti-working-class--including anti-Jewish-working-class--purpose of Israeli violence against Palestinians, then the vast majority of the public—INCLUDING GOOD PEOPLE WHO CURRENTLY ARE PASSIONATELY PRO-ISRAEL!!—would be condemning Israeli violence against Palestinians the way that the vast majority of the public condemned apartheid in South Africa in the early 90s once they learned of its existence.
John Spritzler
spritzler@comcast.net
114 Strathmore Rd. #101
Brighton, MA 02135
phone (857) 540 3690
Retired Senior Research Scientist, Harvard T.H. Chan School of Public Health
Here’s why I am, unfortunately, not optimistic that my message will have any effect on the leaders of the MTA. The reason is simple: FEAR.
Leaders of organizations such as the MTA fear adopting the framework of class conflict—which is clearly the framework I use in my message to the MTA above—for any issue, including the Israel/Palestine issue. Why?
The reason they fear adopting the class conflict framework is that if one does adopt this framework it means implicitly, if not explicitly, aiming to unite all of the have-nots against all of the oppressive haves in a fight to remove the rich haves from power: class war. Leaders of organizations such as the MTA fear that if they do anything that even hints of seriously waging class war then the ruling class will come down on them like a ton of bricks, and they don’t relish that experience. So they avoid any analysis or framework that properly frames an issue in terms of class. In other words, they never challenge the censorship by the ruling class of the truth.
In the case of Israel/Palestine, they prefer to keep the issue framed the way the ruling class wants it framed: “The Jews versus the Palestinians”; that Israel has a right to protect Israeli Jews by using violence against Palestinians, but it needs to limit its violence to only the bare minimum required instead of the current genocidal violence in Gaza.
The MTA leaders know (at least they will know it when they read my message) that their response to accusations of antisemitism by pointing to the fact that some of them are Jewish is not persuasive. They know (or will know) that in order to persuasively refute the accusation of antisemitism they must explain that Israeli violence is NOT in any way whatsoever for the purpose of protecting Jews but on the contrary is part of a method Israeli billionaires use to oppress Jews, and that opposing this Israeli violence is the way to TAKE THE SIDE OF WORKING CLASS ISRAELI JEWS.
There is only one reason why MTA leaders don’t persuasively refute the accusation of antisemitism this way: FEAR of what would happen to them if they did.
Leaders of organizations are particularly vulnerable to this fear when they value the status quo and their comfortable position within it. The people who are most likely to speak the truth and wage class war are the people who are most unhappy with the status quo, either because of their personal suffering or their anger at the unjust suffering of others.