Given some (or many) emails that I have received from readers in the last week, and given that many Arabs have been forwarding an article (or more) by Patrick Buchanan (who is in my diciontary a fanatical right-wing anti-Semite whose support I reject) I feel obligated to repost a previous post from a few days ago:
A Note of Caution. It is very important that we don't turn this conflict into an Arab-Jewish conflict, which it is not, and it has never been, and it should never be. I say this not only due to my stiff opposition to anti-Semitism since I got active in the Palestinian cause in my teens, but also because this is partly an Arab-Arab conflict. I mean, there are American and European Jews I know who are more supportive of the Palestinians and their struggle than many Arabs--certainly more than Arab regimes and their paid "intellectuals" and propagandists. So at a time like this, with emotions running high on "our" side, it is important that we don't allow anti-Semitic kooks to infiltrate the ranks of Palestinian struggle, here or there. This is a conflict between Zionism and Arab reactionary forces on one side, and those who are opposed on the other side. Those of us on the left should also not forget our progressive ideals and leftist goals, but Israel is now bombing not fundamentalism or reaction, but the whole of Lebanon. And you should remember--as leftists--that the mother/father of Islamic fundamentalist fanaticism (the House of Saud) is on the side of Israel in this conflict.