Who assaulted Jews at a Los Angeles restaurant?
- Category: Israel/Palestine
- Published on 21 May 2021
- Hits: 1239
May 20, 2021
Today the press reported an assault on Jews dining outside a restaurant in Los Angeles. The assailants were Zionist agents cunningly posing as supporters of the Palestinian cause.
Now, before you dismiss me as a total nut, let me explain. I do not consider it likely that these guys were paid by Israel or consciously acting in its interests. Subjectively they were probably not Zionist agents (though I don’t exclude the possibility altogether). They were probably just ignorant fellows, distraught at the torments inflicted on fellow Palestinians and accustomed to identify the tormentors simply as ‘the Jews.’ They may have been worried sick about relatives in Gaza under the Israeli terror bombing. And as men they had been conditioned not to break down in tears but to react violently to acute distress and anger.
Objectively, however, they were acting in the interests of Israel and Zionism. On that I insist.
Incidents of this sort reawaken dormant fears in Jews’ minds. That applies even to those of us who sympathize with Palestinians. It is surely natural that these reawakened fears should weaken our pro-Palestinian sympathies and distract us from our efforts to fight against Zionism.
As for Jews who feel a tribal loyalty to Israel, such incidents 'prove' to them that they are right to focus on anti-Semitism as the main problem, enabling them to wallow in feelings of victimhood instead of facing up to the moral and political challenges with which Zionism confronts them.
Moreover, a major factor in determining the outcome of the ongoing struggle over Palestine is net change in the immigration of Jews to Israel (i.e., the number of immigrants minus the number of emigrants). Consider. There are about seven million Jews in the United States. That is quite a small proportion of the US population, but it’s a big number relative to the population of Palestine. What would be the impact on the demographic situation in Palestine if ‘only’ one or two million of these seven million American Jews were scared into emigrating to Israel, assuming that half settle in the occupied territories. What a windfall for the Zionist project! Yet more Palestinian land stolen, yet more Palestinians dispossessed, yet closer to completion of the ethnic cleansing of Palestine. And we haven’t yet taken into account other countries with sizeable Jewish communities -- Canada, France, Britain…
Some Zionist commenters on press reports of the incident in Los Angeles say something like this: ‘This is of course terrible, but perhaps it has a positive aspect. There will surely be an increase in the number of American Jews making aliyah to Israel.’ And in Israel there are many who say, more openly: ‘Serves those complacent American Jews right. Now maybe at last they’ll come here, where they belong.’
You will now understand, or so I hope, why I say that the guys who assaulted Jews at that restaurant were objectively Zionist agents. In a way it seems a pity if they were not paid. To give the master such sterling service and not even get paid for it – could anything be more wretched?
From the very start, Zionism and anti-Semitism have been linked by shared attitudes and interests. Today that remains as true as it ever has been.
