A growing trend on deviantART (and perfectly exemplified by a recent news article) are efforts directed at deviantART administration to ban, censor and "punish" any artists who criticize Zionism or Israeli occupation under the cries of "hate speech" and "Antisemitism." This article primarily features artists -- mostly cartoonists -- here on deviantART whose some of their works are critical of the Israeli actions and are in support of resistance. They are accompanied with commentary explaining possible motives for creating art that explores this subject and trying to shed some light on a very simply question: is criticism of Israel anti-Semitic? It also points out that such bullying and persuasion to stifle the discussion of the aforementioned topic is not an isolated case, but an example of coordinated efforts across many western countries particularly in the US and mentions how an Internet giant whose flagship product is used daily by hundreds of millions of users responded to similar efforts. It concludes by a tiny discussion of American and deviantART policies regarding creative freedom and freedom o f speech.

Before we start, I would like to ask a question reflecting a point raised by a few fellow deviants: Should deviantART be "only for art but not for politics?" The Britannica Concise dictionary defines art as the "combination of skill and imagination in the creation of objects, environments, or experiences." But what about "politics"? Most definitions that I have seen revolve around one central point: the acquisition of power and activities related to or resulting from it. This covers a very board spectrum of topics deeply rooted in our daily lives. It's not just about foreign policy and regional conflicts. It's about the rights and duties associated with being human and projected towards not only other humans but also to other forms of life like animals, plants and our surrounding environment. Should art not explore these topics for the sake of raising awareness or merely for the sake of artistic expression? I strongly disagree. Perhaps there's a term more accurate than "politics" that those deviants would like to use. If so, I'd like to hear it.

Now let's let's go back to our topic. Is criticism of Israel/Zionism Antisemitism? That's a very good question but before trying to seek an answer there are even more important questions:

• What's Zionism?


• Why would someone criticize Israel, a country recently established in the Middle East, often being promoted as a close alley of the United States and one of the few "democracies" in the region?


• What's Antisemitism?

Needless to say, these are topics that have been subjected to heated scholarly research and media propaganda; and used extensively in politics that makes it really hard to dissect and follow except for the most dedicated researchers.



One such dedicated researcher is Dr Norman Finkelstein. Dr Finkelstein is an American professor of political science at DePaul University, in the United States. He is a Jew himself and whose parents are Holocaust survivors. He has written extensively on the Arab-Israel conflict and a variety of topics and most notably the Holocaust. Dr Noam Chomskyis the Institute Professor Emeritus of linguistics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology and the world renown expert in linguistics also does write on related topics. On the other end of the rope, there's Alan Dershowtiz the Felix Frankfurter Professor of Law at the Harvard Law School, who writes and engages in debates in related topics taking primarily pro-Israel positions. Dr Finkelstein and Dr Dershowtiz have met in several informative (and sometimes amusing!) debates of which some have taken place on Democracy Now! and later "satired" by the talented Brazilian cartoonist Charlos Latuff (~Latuff2 .)



That being said, I'll try to answer the questions listed above in the most brief way. Although I cite sources be it publications, interviews or people, this ultimately represents my views on these particular topics in a way that, I think, is fair.

I don't have the slightest problem with people disagreeing with these views partially or totally. As laid out before, the topic (due many factors) is flammable and bursts into flames on the first touch. This is merely to illustrate that what's being labeled as "hate speech" might (and certainly is) not so. This is not intended as a detail-filled scholarly discussion of history of the region.

So what's Zionism? An "ideology" (a set of beliefs) that supports establishing a homeland for the Jewish people in the biblical land of Israel and which modernly geographically matches Palestine (very loosely speaking.) Some claim it's a religiously driven movement but others claim it's essentially secular. Is this movement embraced by and for Jews only? How does relate to the topic of this article? We will see shortly.

The story of the modern state of Israel begins with the Balfour Declaration, in November 2, 1917, Arthur Balfour, late British Prime Minister . A "declaration of sympathy with Jewish Zionist aspirations" pointing out that "His Majesty's Government view with favour the establishment in [then British occupied] Palestine of a national home for the Jewish people."^[1] Although the statement mentioned that "it being clearly understood that nothing shall be done which may prejudice the civil and religious rights of existing non-Jewish communities in Palestine, or the rights and political status enjoyed by Jews in any other country," time has proven otherwise. From all over the world, Zionist Jews have migrated from their countries to the new "promised land." "The central Zionist dilemma", Dr Norman Finkelstein notes in a debate^[2] between himself and former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami, "was they wanted to create a predominantly Jewish state in an area which was overwhelmingly not Jewish, and he cites the figure, I think 1906 there were 700,000 Arabs, 55,000 Jews, and even of those 55,000 Jews, only a handful were Zionists. [..] Now, the Israeli historian Benny Morris, at one point, he said there are only two ways you can resolve this dilemma. One, you can create what he called the South African way, that is, create a Jewish state and disenfranchise the indigenous population. That's one way. The second way is what he calls the way of transfer. That is, you kick the indigenous population out, basically what we did in North America. Now, as Mr. Ben-Ami correctly points out, by the 1930s the Zionist movement had reached a consensus that the way to resolve the dilemma is the way of transfer."



Terrorist gangs of Zionists (namely Haganah, Stern and many others) were formed with the ultimate goal of solving the aforementioned Zionist dilemma by inflicting attacks on the local population, the British forces in the region and later neighbor countries to this very same moment and associated resistance activities to retaliate back. In this book Scars of War, Wounds of Peace: The Israeli-Arab Tragedy, Ben Ami says, "“The reality on the ground was that of an Arab community in a state of terror facing a ruthless Israeli army whose path to victory was paved not only by its exploits against the regular Arab armies, but also by the intimidation and at times atrocities and massacres it perpetrated against the civilian Arab community. A panic-stricken Arab community was uprooted under the impact of massacres that would be carved into the Arabs' monument of grief and hatred.”"^[2] And to conclude, the Israeli historian Benny Morris acknowledged that "Yes, Palestinians were ethnically cleansed in 1948."



Fruitful came the efforts of those gangs. In 1948, a declaration of "Independence" was made and the State Of Israel was formally established. This started a wave of sweeping rage across the region and started many wars that are yet to be resolved. After several wars, the current state of the ground is that:

• Palestine (or what's left after 1948) is still occupied


• The Lebanese formed resistance groups (mostly notably Hizbullallah) and drove the Israeli occupation out of of the Lebanese soil in 2000 with the exception of Sheba Farms which is still occupied.


• The Syrian Golan Heights is still occupied


• A combination of war and peace treaties resulted in Egypt restoring the occupied lands in Sinia.

But as you probably have noticed by now: there are lands still illegally occupied by the State of Israel and that the population of these lands deserves their freedom and have every right to resist the occupation. It's interesting to note that many leaders and members of the early Zionist gangs later became prominent Israeli politicians like former Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir who openly argued that "‘neither Jewish ethics nor Jewish tradition can disqualify terrorism as a means of combat[!!]"^[3], and Ariel Sharon.

To face the world while committing such crimes you have to have enormous efforts of public relations and surefire weapons to stifle a discussion where these topics are raised. In a paper titled The Israel Lobby, John Mearsheimer, Wendell Harrison Professor of Political Science at Chicago and Stephen Walt is the Robert and Renee Belfer Professor of International Affairs at the Kennedy School of Government at Harvard dissect the dynamics by which public opinion is shaped to bear a pro-Israel stance. It explains how strong lobbying efforts terrorize politicians and academics in the United States to keep Israeli critics out of the scene. It mentions one weapon used to silence those academics an politics who try to question Israeli actions: The accusation of being anti-Semite.



The Britannica Concise defines Antisemitism as "hostility toward or discrimination against Jews as a religious or racial group." Despite that the Semitic family includes many other races (even Arabs) not just Jews, the common usage of term is now mostly (yet inaccurately) is to designate hatred against Jews "as a religious or a racial group." That being said, when someone labels someone another as "anti-Semite", it's meant that they bear pure hatred for Jews just because they are Jews, regardless of their actions or any other factors. So the proponents of the Zionist movement exploit this label to set back anti-Israel/anti-Zionism critics on the basis that Zionism is a religious movement. One common argument being raised here on deviantART by some Zionism supporters is that, according to religious scriptures, Jews are promised the land of Zion (Israel) and that there was a predominantly Jewish population in this area thousands of years ago Well alright but the question is does this give you a license to kill it's modern population and occupy the area? . Another argument being raised that is criticizing the actions of the government of Israel is anti-Semitic because it's population is predominantly Jewish or that it bears religious monuments? and it sounds ridiculous as it seems. Does criticizing the actions of the United States (as a government) is anti-Christian because it's population is predominantly Christian? Of course not. Doesn't criticizing the dictatorship of Saudi-Arabia is anti-Islamic because Muslims do pilgrimage to Mecca?!! Definitely not Needless to say, the author of the news article in question does know (and acknowledged in a comment) that using the term anti-Semitic is inaccurate but "it's not as catchy or known as 'antisemitism'." Moreover, a deviant has noted in response to the article that the author (protesting "hate speech" against Zionism) had a piece in his gallery equating the Nazi swastika in the word Islam, basically the same thing he is protesting. The author responded that people should take a "deeper look" into the deviation!



As many of you has noted in the discussion, the are are Jews who oppose Zionism both individuals (like Dr Finkelstein and Dr Chomsky) and organized groups like Neturei Karta International or Jews against Zionism but you'll get the usual reply that they are "extremists." and that's totally expected as long as they disagree with their views. Also there are those who are not Jews but embrace the Zionism ideology, like Christian Zionist movements, most notably in the United States. Dr Norman Finkelstein has written a book on the misuse of Antisemitism titled Beyond Chutzpah: On the Misuse of Antisemitism and Abuse of History.

"Death to Israelis", "Death to the Zionist Baby-Killing Regime" and more "shouts" were used by the article author as examples of "Antisemitism" accompanied by photos of children throwing rocks or holding guns. Despite how "strong" such statements might seem to be, I think they would seem perfectly alright for someone whose country is occupied or who strongly opposes the occupation. In the second intifada (armed resistance uprising against occupation,) it's interesting to note that the Israeli newspaper Ha'aretz to used a similar statement to describe that the IDF (Israeli "Defense" Force) ". . . is turning into a killing machine whose efficiency is awe-inspiring, yet shocking.’" The IDF fired one million bullets in the first days of the uprising. Since then, for every Israeli lost, Israel has killed 3.4 Palestinians, the majority of whom have been innocent bystanders; the ratio of Palestinian to Israeli children killed is even higher (5.7:1)." as noted in the Israel Lobby^[3] paper. During the recent war on Lebanon, in quest to "rescue" a single captured soldier, the head of an IDF rocket unit in Lebanon said in an article in Ha'aretz, "What we did was insane and monstrous, we covered entire towns in cluster bombs," I think it's understandable that authors of deviations with such strong statements not just "plain racists."

But should they really make such statments? I disagree. Why?



"Most young Israelis don't know what the IDF is doing to the Palestinians...Most young Israelis had never visited a Palestinian town or talked to a Palestinian. Many don't know what life is like on the other side of the border. But I have gone there, and I know how the Palestinians suffer as a result of the occupation. That's why I just can't become a soldier in the IDF. I simply can't do it". These are the words of Omri Evron a 19-year-old Israeli considered a criminal by Israeli authorities because he refuses to enlist to the Israeli occupation army. He's a part of many "refusnik" movements like Seruv and The Refuser Solidarity Network.

Now comes the final part, What are deviantART policies regarding free speech in general and when it comes to this topic in particular? In my opinion, they are at least vague and at worst (in some cases) contradictory. But I have recently started to realize that this understandable considering the nature of of the topic, plain bullying of the administration from inside and outside of deviantART, and the amount effort required to maintain such a huge community. The (new) version of the Etiquette Policy states that deviantART will " ensure that members are free to express themselves within reason with as few restrictions as possible" and that "we ask that our members avoid making offensive remarks based on gender or sexual preference and that you do not make any remark, comment or critique which is intended to be a direct insult to an individual, group, or genre of artwork. Hate propaganda is met with zero tolerance." It doesn't define what's "hate propaganda" or what are "offensive remarks" and what's not. Yet FAQ #12 mentions that "statements made in the public areas of the site will be considered hate propaganda if a reviewing administrator judges that they meet the current definition in use at the administrative level." I previously asked $realitysquared in Open Policy Chat about the definition of "hate art" but he responded that "it's a difficult subject to condense into an easily understood explanation." Also when I asked about the uproar cause by anti-Islam deviations (most notably Muhammed-mocking cartoons on deviantART) and whether they constitute a violation of deviantART policies, he told me, "We are well aware of all of these submissions, there are in fact 'Anti' images of everything ranging from insults to American Ideals and/or the current president, to Israel, to Palestine, to Christian, and every other religious and political situation. These are, in the vast majority of cases, ruled to be a valid artwork which we choose to protect under the First Amendment."

deviantART is the sun of many forms of art on the internet around which revolves an enormous community. This makes it a wonderful place yet (I imagine) very hard to manage through all legal, social and financial issues. It will be sure risky for such a community to be deemed encouraging patterns of thoughts like Antisemitism or Neo-nazism but that's at the expense of demoting a value in the United States missing in many other parts of the world: Freedom of Speech, brought to you by the First Amendment. It passes the ball to activism groups with the right tools (and backed by financial and political support) to strongly influence public opinion regardless of how dirty or noble the cause is, in reality. The bombastic search engine Google (and whose co-founder is of Jewish decent like deviantART) has been faced with such concerns before. Search results for "Jew" returned a site that was deemed offensive by many, ranked #1. Google has received dozens of letters calling for such material to be removed from the search engine. They issued a public explanation stating that they "do not remove a page from our search results simply because its content is unpopular or because we receive complaints concerning it," preferring their commitment to the quality of their work rather than their personal beliefs. I hope to see such level of commitment on deviantART and we can surely work together staff and community to achieve it.


For peace but also for freedom,
=dancewiththesky


P.S Please support `leaf-lover in her article deviantART not deviant-Anti-Semitic-ART






References:
[1] The Balfour Declaration on BBC.
[2]
Norman Finkelstein & Former Israeli Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben-Ami Debate: Complete Transcript
[3] The Israel Lobby, a paper by John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt