A Feminist for Zion
DANNHAUSER, WERNER J.
A Feminist for Zion Phyllis Chesler's unlikely assault on the new anti-Semitism. BY WERNER J. DANNHAUSER A funny thing happened to Phyllis Chesler on the way to the Hall of Fame of radical...
...she does not hesitate for a moment to urge those of her persuasion to "make common cause with the Christian left, right, and center, with whom we may disagree on other fundamentals...
...Such a liability pales when set beside the fact that Phyllis Chesler is the author of Women and Madness...
...If one wants to find out what really happened at Jenin, one can find out here...
...What is more, she has impeccable credentials for now defending Israel, for she has criticized the nation in the past...
...The left's historical record is by no means pure (Chesler might have mentioned Karl Marx's repulsive rhetoric in On the Jewish Question), but traditionally, anti-Semitism has been more often on the right than on the left...
...But then, at about 11 a.m...
...Today, hatred of the Jews unleashes its intolerance in the name of toleration, seeks the exclusion of Jews in the name of inclusivity, and spreads hate in the name of universal brotherhood...
...She counsels men and women to expose the lies about Israel (that is surely steady work...
...She has been, and she continues to be a harsh critic of the role of the settlements in Israeli life...
...She urges Jews— and not only Jews—to set aside their schismatic instincts and doctrinal splits...
...The name of this sick and sickening belief is anti-Semitism...
...It is not only that in the diseased minds of the terrorists the two countries are virtually indistinguishable evils...
...Chesler's analysis of what she calls the "old anti-Semitism," traditional murderous hatred of Jews, is entirely conventional and not entirely convincing: Anti-Semitism consists of scape-goating the Jews for all that is wrong in the world...
...It is also that—in an astonishing number of places around the world—the Jews are being blamed for the destruction of the World Trade Center: either because of some conspiracy theory that Zionists planned the attack, or because of some rootcause theory that the sinful existence and history of Israel is the reason behind the attack...
...In the author's own words in a new introduction, it has sold "more than two and one-half million copies" and been "translated into many languages including Japanese and Werner J. Dannhauser is a visiting professor in political theory at Michigan State University...
...on September 11, 2001, she walked over to her computer and typed the sentence, "Now, we are all Israelis...
...What is more, Chesler can be maddeningly repetitive, and her book conveys the impression of having been haphazardly thrown together rather than organized...
...It contains a summary of Arab attacks against Israel, the details of Islamic terrorism against the United States from the 1970s on, the sorry record of European anti-Semitism in our time—and lots more...
...A further novelty of the new anti-Semitism is that "it is being perpetrated in the name of antiracism and anti-colonialism...
...A sprawling work of almost four-hundred pages, it is a "classic" in the literature of feminism...
...She does not lose her composure when she speaks of Ariel Sharon, and she is capable of mentioning with approval such writers as Daniel Pipes, Yoram Hazony, Charles Krauthammer, and the Italian journalist Oriana Fallaci (whom she resembles in certain respects...
...True courage does not so much consist in taking a stand against the majority as in taking a stand against one's peers...
...Unfortunately, The New Anti-Semitism is something of a mess...
...it is a willingness to forsake the cozy warmth of one's intimate group when integrity demands it...
...If one wants "the goods" on media bias against Israel, this is the place one can turn to as an introduction...
...I am not recanting my ideals as a civil-rights worker, as a member of the antiwar movement, or as a feminist...
...In the resulting book, The New Anti-Semitism, Chesler has in mind a more intimate connection between Israel and the United States...
...She fought vehemently for the equality of women praying at the Western Wall...
...it infects a number of her former comrades in arms and friends...
...What is more, in pointing to the cruelties Christianity has inflicted on Jews, she does not do enough to explain pre-Christian anti-Semitism...
...This proud radical feminist has done just that...
...The prose frequently falls victim to dubious grammar and syntax...
...When all is said and done, this book is bound to impress impartial readers by its author's courage...
...Only anti-Semitism can explain the ceaseless special and unjust treatment of one nation among the nations...
...The book is also useful as a compendium of sensible advice...
...She was a shoo-in, even though she is a practicing Jew who finds in Judaism more than a myth fostering patriarchal oppression...
...It behooves those of us who are neither feminists nor radicals to welcome her to the good fight...
...Nevertheless, both her friends and her enemies will be tempted to shout, "You've come a long way, baby...
...In any event, Chesler hits her stride only when she turns to the new anti-Semitism, which she identifies as "the most virulent anti-Zionism, which in turn has increasingly held the Jewish people everywhere, not only in Israel, accountable for the military policies of the Israeli government...
...Chesler's suggestions are specific and down-to-earth...
...Chesler makes no bones about the fact that this new anti-Semitism is rampant among feminists and other radicals...
...Her former allies will find in her a formidable opponent, for she backs up what she says with a wealth of factual material...
...BY WERNER J. DANNHAUSER A funny thing happened to Phyllis Chesler on the way to the Hall of Fame of radical feminism...
...It can be said on Chesler's behalf, however, that nobody has ever understood the phenomenon perfectly, certainly not the Zionists with their noble delusion that a Jewish state would solve the Jewish problem...
...In other words it speaks the language of the left...
...She admits and even asserts that it is possible to oppose particular policies of Israel and even the idea of a Jewish state without being guilty of hating Jews—though anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism have always overlapped more than anti-Zionists admit, and in practice there is scarcely a difference any longer...
...She writes, "I regret nothing...
...Hebrew...
...Published in 1972, the book is now available in a twenty-fifth-anniversary edition...
...This is a pity, for The New Anti-Semitism is a genuinely useful and even noble book—first of all because it is a compendium of material relevant to the case for Israel...
...So mysterious is it that one can sympathize with those Jews of the nineteenth century who took refuge in irony and said anti-Semitism consists of disliking Jews more than is reasonable...
Vol. 9 • October 2003 • No. 5
