Masha Gessen is a Russian-American journalist. Gessen is also non-binary and trans, and insists on being referred to as they/their. They have been married and divorced twice and are now engaged, as of mid-December, to someone who is likely to be their third wife. Or husband. I’m not sure. They have been described — perhaps by themselves — as an “outspoken” critic of Putin and Trump, which suggests a certain standing-tall bravery. But how much “bravery” does it take to criticize two of the most criticized people on earth?
In early December, Gessen published a piece in The New Yorker about Germany, the Holocaust, Israel, and the war in Gaza. Gessen believes that the state of Israel has been able to escape criticism by invoking the Holocaust. Gessen notes that the IHRA (International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance) definition of antisemitism has been widely adopted, throughout Europe, in Australia, and by the U.S. State Department. She describes IHRA this way:
The IHRA’s actual definition — which all European states and Australia use, and which is also used by the U.S. State Department though it’s non-binding — is anodyne, but it has 11 examples which are meant to help people interpret and apply this definition of antisemitism. Two of those examples are: portraying Israel as a racist enterprise and comparing Israeli policies to those of Nazis. That is considered a priori antisemitic. I’m sure there are times when claims that Israel is a racist enterprise and comparisons of Israelis to Nazis are antisemitic; it may even be the majority of those cases. But I know for a fact that it’s not all of them, and so it cannot be definitional.
She “knows for a fact” that likening Israeli policies to those of Nazis is not antisemitic. How does she know? Just because: “For a fact.” Discussion over. Well, in my binary and ornery way, I beg to differ. I think anyone who finds Israeli policies similar to those of the Nazis is antisemitic. Just like Masha Gessen, “I know that for a fact.”
The impact of this definition [the IHRA definition of antisemitism] has been really chilling in Germany in particular, because it’s what the work of several dozen “antisemitism commissioners” [German officials dedicated to rooting out antisemitism in the population] is based on. One of the things that happens as a result is that people who criticize Israel are denounced as antisemites. And they lose prizes, they have shows canceled, they get attacked in the media. And a lot of times they’re Jews, and in particular even Israelis, because those are the people that are likely to be criticizing Israel very harshly.
How many critics of Israel, denounced as “antisemites” in Germany, have had shows canceled, or lost out on prizes, and become pariahs? Masha Gessen seems to think a great many, though she provides only four examples. She claims that “a lot of times they’re Jews.” If she means people obsessed with the “crimes” of Israel, such as the Israeli historian Ilan Pappe, whose entire quasi-scholarly oeuvre is devoted to the supposed atrocities planned or committed by the Jewish state, yes, these people should be described correctly as antisemites. Someone who lies continuously about nonexistent crimes attributed to Israel, such as that the IDF kills Palestinians in order to harvest their organs, is an antisemite. Someone who claims the Jewish state intends to take over all the territory “from the Nile to the Euphrates” is an antisemite. Someone who claims that the Israelis have planned to poison the water supply of the Palestinians is an antisemite. And an individual, or a group — like the NGOs Human Rights Watch and Amnesty International, and the UN itself, that applies impossibly high standards to Israel that are not applied to any other country, is rightly called antisemitic.
What about support for B.D.S. (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) — is that antisemitic? Gessen doesn’t think so. They tell us that “the B.D.S. Movement seeks to use economic pressure to secure equal rights for Palestinians in Israel.” But Palestinians in Israel — that is, Israeli Arabs — already have equal rights. Israeli Arabs sit on the Supreme Court, serve in the Knesset, go abroad as ambassadors. The chairman of the largest bank in Israel, Bank Leumi, is an Arab. Jews and Arabs work in the same offices and factories, play on the same sports teams and in the same orchestras, are treated by the same medical personnel, consisting of both Arabs and Jews, in the same hospitals Jews and Arabs own businesses together, everything from restaurants to high tech start-ups. In only one respect are Israeli Arabs treated differently from Israeli Jews: Jews must, while Arabs may, serve in the military. Gessen needs to burn the midnight oil and learn a good deal more — she appears to know almost nothing — about the rights, the equal rights, of Arabs in Israeli society.
They are also wrong about the goal of those who support B.D.S. Those BDSers don’t seek “equal treatment” of Jews and Arabs in the state of Israel. They want the Jewish state to disappear altogether, in order to be replaced by a twenty-third Arab one. This will be achieved, they hope, by applying such economic pressure on Israel that it will be forced to yield territory to a Palestinian state, allowing itself to be squeezed back within the now-indefensible 1949 armistice lines, with a nine-mile wide waist from Qalqilya to the sea. Once that is achieved, Israel – so the Palestinians hope – will be so weakened that the combined might of Arab armies and terror groups will be able to gang up on the Jewish state, and at long last defeat the hated Jews, expelling or killing all of them. The people who wave signs calling for “B.D.S.” also chant “from the river to the sea/Palestine will be free” which is another sign of their true intent: they want a Palestinian state extending from the river Jordan to the Mediterranean, leaving no room for a Jewish state.
The impossibly high standard of behavior that is demanded of Israel, and that is demanded of no other country in the world is inherently antisemitic. For example, the UN has said that in all the wars fought since World War II, the average civilian-to-combatant ratio has been 9 to 1. The American and British armies have done better. In Iraq, the Americans achieved a 3 to 1 ratio; in Afghanistan, the American and British armies had a ratio of between 3 and 5 civilians killed for every combatant. But in the Gaza War, in the hellishly difficult circumstances of urban warfare, and with an enemy that has embedded itself everywhere within a civilian population, the IDF has achieved an amazing civilian-to-combatant ratio of 9 to 7. But those who rant against Israel, and instead of being impressed are infuriated with Israel for killing any civilians, can reasonably be described as antisemites.
Mark says
That person looks like a rat from Gaza underground tunnels had been his home for centuries .
bill says
I would like to say to that ‘thing’, the only label I see appropriate. The same answer I always give to all who compare the Israelis to the Nazis. The Nazi policy in Eastern Europe was extermination
of the people they considered sub human and not fit for life. Hitler said as much. So if the Israelis were like the Nazis the ‘palestinians’ would not exist, they would have been eliminated long ago. In fact as Robert Spencer has often pointed out, there are more of them now than when the state of Israel was established
FYI says
it/him/her/they/whatever
A walking metaphor for Cognitive Dissonance
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Actually, Hugh, the newly invented word here is “themself” – for a singular person who insists on using “they/them” for its pronoun. In fact, the Pentagon recently used that term, & was confronted about it by Sen Tom Cotton
࿗Infidel࿘ says
Also, Masha Gessen would have been far better off had it remained in the Soviet Union. Depraved as the Soviets were, one thing they never considered was neutering their population the way today’s woke Left is trying worldwide
rick says
I take it that Gessen besides being non-binary and trans is also Jewish. How he can be Jewish is a mystery by itself as Jewish Religion looks upon gays as an abomination so I would think being non binary and trans is even worse than that. A sad “human being”who barely makes even that definition of him/her/they fit. Better a real definition of him/her/they is as a “Self Hating Jew”. But of course in his/her/they case, there are other “self hating” nouns to add to “Jew”.
James Lincoln says
Masha Gessen Is one very, very confused individual.
WPM says
That thing looks like Biden’s AG Garland ? Is that his long lost love child??The personality seems similar seeing everyone a “Nazi” or right wing who disagrees with its confused opinions.
bill says
As far as I know definitional is not a word. The word is definitive. Of course Americans love making up new words so i may be wrong
OLD GUY says
The correct pronoun for that is THING.
CardanoCrusader says
Of course. In other news, the US no longer runs clandestine experiments on human populations, and Fauci swears he didn’t authorize funding of Covid research in China.
“In 2009, an interview with Dr. Yehuda Hiss—former head of the Abu Kabir Forensic Institute—was leaked. Recorded in 2000 by Nancy Scheper-Hughes—professor of anthropology at the University of California-Berkeley—Hiss said that pathologists at the institute took skin, corneas, bones and heart valves from the bodies of Israeli citizens, Israeli soldiers, Palestinians and immigrants, often without consent from the deceased’s family.
The release of Scheper-Hughes’ recording was in response to an article by Swedish newspaper Aftonbladet. The publication featured interviews with Palestinians who alleged that young men from the West Bank and Gaza Strip were being killed by the Israeli military and their bodies returned with organs missing. Its content was condemned by many leaders and journalists across the world.
“Whatever was done was highly informal. No permission was asked from the family,” Hiss said.
The Israeli military confirmed that organ harvesting took place, but that it ended in the 1990s.
“This activity ended a decade ago and does not happen any longer,” a spokesperson told Israel Channel 2.”
https://www.newsweek.com/israel-organ-harvesting-allegations-explained-1847101
Georgians says
You should not feed her delusions by calling her “they.”
RobTheGray1 says
Demanding to be called by an inapplicable pronoun is bad enough, but to insist that an individual be called a plural is just butchering our language – to what purpose? Self-aggrandizement, as when kings & queens call themselves “we?!”
maria villa says
Putin does not take kindly to someone like this ‘thing.’ Putin would have ‘it’ exterminated.