The Tribune

With CHARLIE HARPER

SINCE Hamas launched its sneak attack on southern Israel nearly three months ago on October 7, the UN estimates that 21,000 Palestinians have been killed. Thousands of Israelis have also perished. As the war drags on with both political and military leaders in Tel Aviv forecasting a lengthy continuation of Israeli military action, friends and families in the US are increasingly finding themselves conflicted about what to think about the situation.

Long-time friends Elizabeth and Rebecca had a long chat the other day. Rebecca is a practising Jew and a college history professor. Liz, her college roommate and still close buddy, is a corporate marketing director. Liz dropped around for coffee with a lot of questions.

“Becca,” she inquired, “you know I have always agreed with American support for Israel. It’s a democracy, their values are similar to ours, and they face seemingly constant existential threats to their survival as an independent nation. But this war … some of my friends are saying the Israeli tactics in Gaza remind them of the Nazis in the Warsaw ghetto.”

“I’m glad to see you Liz, and I’m thinking out loud as I try to answer your questions,” Rebecca replied. “I’m conflicted myself, and you know I love Israel. First of all, the Nazi comparison is ridiculous on its face, as you know. The Poles never attacked Nazi Germany. They were simply in the way of Hitler’s advance eastward. Hamas attacked Israel, with devastating and deadly results. Israel had every right to retaliate.

“But I’m well aware of all the tumult on campuses and elsewhere in the US as the Israeli invasion drags on and seems increasingly disproportionate to the provocation. It indirectly cost the president of the University of Pennsylvania her job, and some pundits are saying others may lose their jobs too. There have been charges of Zionism and antisemitism and other stuff flying around.”

Rebecca paused for a minute. “I actually wonder if Hamas and the theocrats in Tehran didn’t launch this attack at least partly to stimulate just the kind of discord we are seeing all over the US. But whatever the case, we all see these tragic images on television every day and night, and people will wonder when enough is enough.

“Then (Israeli president) Netanyahu goes on TV and says Israel has months more of ‘work to do’. It’s a bad look for Tel Aviv.”

Elizabeth said “something else has been bothering me. I’m a little mixed up about antisemitism and Zionism and anti-Zionism and all these labels people are throwing around. Can you help decipher it all?”

“Like so much these days, it all depends on your point of view,” Rebecca replied. “Historically, after the Second World War anti-Zionism was widely interpreted to mean opposing the international (Western) effort to set up a Jewish state in a part of the Middle East that was then a British-controlled territory called Palestine. This seems to be generally agreed. And after all the horrors inflicted on the Jews in Europe by both the Nazis and the Soviets, anti-Zionism and antisemitism were almost equivalents.

“Now, anti-Zionism can mean support for the elimination of Israel as the sovereign homeland of the Jews. Many Jews say this anti-Zionism is not a pushback against a kind of imperial, expansionist Israel. It is instead indistinguishable from hatred of Jews generally, or antisemitism.”

Liz sat up. “Wait a minute. Just because you don’t support Israel stealthily settling more and more of the West Bank and other neighbouring areas doesn’t make you antisemitic. It means you don’t think Israel has a right to continue to colonise these adjacent areas while trying to hide behind false rhetoric. That’s why we’re often the only votes in support of pro-Palestinian resolutions in the UN.”

“I get that,” Rebecca replied. “It’s easy to be critical of Israel. Their leadership clearly states that every economic, political and military move they make is designed to buttress their existence against a determined movement to exterminate the independent Jewish state, where many of the world’s Jews reside.”

Rebecca looked at her phone for a moment. “Did you see this report on Zionism and antisemitism in the New York Times?” she asked.

“Listen to this: ‘Jonathan Jacoby, the director of a group of academics and Jewish activists affiliated with the Bard Center for the Study of Hate, said the group had wrestled with the issue for several years now, seeking a definition of antisemitism that captures when anti-Zionism crosses from political belief to bigotry. He warned that shouting down any political action directed against Israel as antisemitic made it harder for Jews to call out actual antisemitism, while stifling honest conversation about Israel’s government and US policy toward it.’”

“Thanks. Whew!” Elizabeth said after a pause. “Let’s talk about something else.”

But the debate is likely to intensify. Republicans are taking potshots at Biden’s attempts to maintain a moderate, humane stance as death and destruction increase in Gaza and elsewhere in the region. Leftist anti-Zionists are easy to deride as antisemitic.

All the while, attention on this complex, tragic issue centres on Israel and the United States. That is because of the world’s estimated 20 million Jews, most of them – two-thirds, by many estimates – live in either Israel or the US. Nearly four million Muslims also live in the US.

Together, then, the combined Jewish and Muslim residents of the US amount to about three percent of the American population. While that may not compare in size to other ethnic and religious demographic groups, both groups are active politically.

It’s making life tough for Americans.

Great holiday fun in European Premier League

Now in the midst of its traditional (and unique) “festive period” of lots of games during the Christmas – New Year’s Day holiday season, the English Premier League has reached the mid-point in its 2023-2024 season. It looks like only three of the EPL’s 20 teams have a realistic chance to win the title this year.

While most of Europe’s other major national soccer leagues give their teams and players a Christmas break, the EPL intensifies its scheduling. Teams play two or three times a week in a frenzy of competition that raises injury concerns and, to some observers, dilutes the product on the field.

But the EPL is also a stupendously rich league with unequalled television revenue and worldwide reach. So there is little incentive to change. Indeed, the league’s recent decision to not schedule games on Christmas Eve next year was regarded as a significant concession.

On the field, meanwhile, only three teams enter the second half of this season with a realistic shot at the title. The favorite actually sat this week in fifth place, but has played two fewer games than its leading challengers.

That’s because Manchester City was off in Jeddah, Saudi Arabia, claiming its astounding sixth championship of 2023 at the Club World Cup tournament. Six other teams competed – two from Saudi Arabia and one each from Mexico, Japan, New Zealand and Brazil.

City returns to UK action as the betting favorite to claim its fourth straight EPL title and sixth championship in the past seven seasons. But the Citizens already have lost three of their 17 league matches. Their main rivals Arsenal (two losses) and Liverpool (only one loss) are still ahead in the standings and will likely fight City to the end in May before the title is decided for this season.

Beyond this elite group of three title hopefuls lingers a group of pretenders, mostly with famous names and gaudy pedigrees. Among these are Birmingham’s revived Aston Villa; North London’s Tottenham; Newcastle, and frequent EPL champion Manchester United. These four will likely joust for next year’s European competition places that are left over after the top three claim their spots.

If City do prevail and win again, their title will be all the more impressive because they have not since the first 20 minutes of the season had the services of the league’s most prodigiously creative player, the Belgian midfielder Kevin de Bruyne. This talisman has been sidelined virtually all season with a hamstring injury. When he returns next month, watch out.

Until then, we can expect some stumbling in the thicket of Christmas season games in the EPL, even by the front runners. It happens every year, and it should be great holiday fun.