Colors: the new-new anti-Semitism

Steven Salaita al-Bassaleh 12 November 2013

First Lady Michelle Obama in the White House kitchen with a conspicuously yellow Big Bird.

Lawrence Jackson White House Photo

It was a sad moment when sources at Israel’s foreign ministry pointed out a correlation that should have been obvious to any person of conscience. 

When the Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign, long suspected of anti-Semitic loyalties based on the dubious word “solidarity” (to say nothing of the more onerous “Irish”), tagged Israeli products with yellow stickers urging consumers to boycott them, the ministry rightly observed, “It is not by chance that the BDS [boycott divestment and sanctions] organization chose to express its protest with a yellow sticker—which is reminiscent of dark days of racism and incitement.” 

That so many of us failed to make the connection of a yellow sticker that has nothing to do with the Holocaust illustrates the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism among local sticker-making shops, the IG Farben of the modern age. The Israeli government and its hate-fighting minions saved the day by once again affirming the importance of factual analysis. 

Like an anachronistic settler colony, anti-Semitism flourishes in the least appropriate places. Now that an authority as credible as the Israeli government has exposed the color yellow as anti-Semitic, we must be on guard for rubber duckies, jaundice, corn, school buses, bumblebees, mustard (especially of the French variety), the sun, bananas, Big Bird, dandelions, number two pencils, lemonade, snowy fields where dogs roam, legal pads, butter, canaries, grapefruit and even — as one Israeli diplomat suggested a few years ago — Asian people.

The new-new-new anti-Semitism

The discovery that yellow is anti-Semitic begs the question of which other colors conceal evil intentions. Let’s investigate if any can be considered kosher: 

  • Black: Hitler’s wimpy little mustache was black. No black then. 
  • Brown: most Palestinians are brown. Brown is out. 
  • Pink: Eva Braun sometimes wore pink. All around the world, little girls proudly display their hatred of Israel with this infernal color. 
  • Orange: the inventor of Fanta was a Nazi. Bye-bye, orange. 
  • Green: the color of German uniforms during World War II. Green is a no-go. 
  • Red: the background of the Nazi flag. We cannot compromise on red. 
  • Gray: Nazi concentration camp prisoners wore gray. Away with gray! 
  • Blue: the ideal eye color to Nazi eugenicists. Blue is therefore terribly offensive. (Unfortunately, we must immediately lobby Israel to change its flag from an anti-Semitic endorsement of eugenics to something more tasteful like a clean-pressed length of Saran Wrap). 
  • White: Eichmann and Goebbels were white. Need I say more?
  • Purple: in Nazi concentration camps, Jehovah’s Witnesses, not Jews, were required to wear purple. Purple is okay then. 

Clearly, we have a serious problem. The new anti-Semitism was once any support of the PLO. Not long after, it was the refusal to condemn that bearded rapscallion, Arafat. Then it became acceptance of peace with Egypt. After that, it manifested itself in the perfidious desire for a Palestinian state. Later it evolved into sympathy for Palestinian children murdered during the second intifada. Finally, it gave way to that hideous hate fad known as BDS. 

The new-new-new-new-new-new-new anti-Semitism, however, may be the most vicious of all: color. Only a people as cunning as the Palestinians and their brainwashed supporters could have invented something so dastardly, so devious, so detestable, that it conceals anti-Semitism in the spectral sensitivities of the human eye. We are up against an insidious adversary, indeed. 

As much as it might pain us to outlaw color (except for purple), we must act in the best interest of humanity and extinguish anti-Semitism wherever it exists. The Irish Palestine Solidarity Campaign proved that those opposed to Jewish supremacy in Palestine are motivated by the nefarious desire to exterminate the Jews. We must create a world that is, despite Israel’s alleged nuclear arsenal, safe for us to inhabit, one without hue or contrast, awash in semiotic paranoia, beholden to exaggeration, disseminating imaginary victimhood, and doggedly resistant to any form of justice. 

After all, it would be a tragedy for the seriousness of anti-Semitism to be devalued.

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Comments

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brenda replied on

Thanks for pointing out the absurdity of this paranoid reaction to the choice of the colour yellow. Gosh it couldn't be that it just stands out nicely, hence its choice in the standard highlighter marker? For the billionth time, those of us who support BDS do not object to the Jewish faith--not at all; we object to the racist, arrogant, murderous nature of the zionism that has burned throughout Israeli history, wreaking havoc upon the entire region.

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Larinsky replied on

It was funny that a lot of your sarcastic comments have, actually, a lot of truth to them such as the remark on the ill-campaign known as BDS.

Steven Salaita

Steven Salaita’s latest book is Uncivil Rites:  Palestine and the Limits of Academic Freedom.