Tom MacWright

tom@macwright.com

I read The politics of anti-semitism by Alexander Cockburn, Jeffrey St Clair & Contributors on

Review

I bought this book used at my neighborhood anarchist bookstore, so I expected it to have a viewpoint. It certainly did.

The common thread running through the arguments is that the contributors believe anti-semitism is conflated with anti-Zionism, and the two should be separated in discourse. They retell crimes against Palestinians and repeat the story of the USS Liberty to illustrate the relationship between the US & Israel.

The quality of the pieces varies, but I found the majority to be readable and fascinating. Not in the sense that it’s completely persuasive, but more in the sense that I can now see the landscape that frames this viewpoint.

There are low points, and they’re very low. I thought that Poetry as Treason? was inappropriate, centering around a claim with no grounding in reality.

I’m now reading Israel to follow this up.

Details