An ambassador smeared

[leprofessional]

An ambassador smeared
Obama's man in Belgium faces calls for his firing after factual remarks on Israel and anti-Semitism
Source: Salon
BY Justin Elliott

Comments

[alryssa]

I am utterly enthralled by this man's glasses. I honestly thought for a while they'd been 'shopped.

[browneyedguuurl]

IKR?!

[screamingintune]

lol I stared at the picture for a solid minute trying to figure out if they were drawn on. they don't look real!

[aviv_b]

I do see what he is trying to say, but the distinction he attempts to draw between classical anti-semitism and 'new' anti-semitism is in reality a distinction without meaning. Were the Israeli/Palestinian conflict to be resolved tomorrow, anti-semitism would still be with us. Would there be less tension between some communities of Jews and Muslims, perhaps. But as long as there are governments and community leaders that see scapegoating 'the Jews' as a convenient way to distract from their own failings, then its not going away

[a_grumble_cake]

In the end I don't think Mr. Gutman should be fired, particularly based on a misquotation, but I think he is a bit naive if he thinks that a solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is going to have any measurable impact on antisemitism.

I agree with this. I read his speech and he presented a very simplistic division between old minority hating antisemitism vs. hatred of Jews because of the Israeli Arab conflict. In fact, he seems very reluctant to call the second kind of antisemitism by its name, instead calling it a 'phenomena', 'problem', 'ethnic tension' and 'bigotry'.

His speech totally ignores the fact "old" anti-semitism is deeply intertwined with "new" anti-semitism in the Arab world, which makes this sentence hopelessly naive imo:

"I can envision the day when it disappears. Peace in the Middle East would indeed equate with a huge reduction of this form of labeled “anti-Semitism” here in Europe. "

[aviv_b]

Anti-semitism doesn't disappear, even when there aren't any Jews around. The Merchant of Venice was written in the late 1590s. Jews were expelled in 1290 and it wasn't until the mid 1600s that a small group of Jews were identified as living in London. So you have three hundred years without any significant exposure to Jews in England and yet you still have strong anti-semetic sentiment

[sesmo]

Unsurprisingly, if you look at Muslim sentiment toward Jews immigrating into Israel prior to the formation of the country, the anti-Semitism was there. It has nothing to do with Israel.

[militsa]

I saw this on Salon a couple of days ago and found it interesting; this is the kind of discussion or argument that happens on a university campus (and it's not "new"--I remember it from my student days 20+ years ago) but it's odd to see it in a more public and political space.

This whole thing makes me uncomfortable because Gutman is a U.S. ambassador, so what he says really does matter, and he was talking about a real-world problem in very academic, finer-point terms--such remarks at an academic conference would generate more discussion, not news coverage. I don't think he should be fired, though--and I certainly don't appreciate that ridiculous conservative presidential candidate concern trolling, which could not be a more blatant pandering to Jewish voters. (Ugh, Commentary, for anyone who doesn't know, is a Neo-con intellectual propaganda magazine that still seems to think it is 2002.)