Remember these arguments in the 1950s-70s?
"Oh we have nothing against negros and we'd be happy to hire some. It's just that our customers are racist, and we'd lose business if we did hire black people."
Such statements were understandably ridiculed by people in the civil rights movement.
But nowadays, that same argument is used about Jews [h/t EL]. The best-selling novelist, Richard Zimler writes in The Guardian about the discrimination against Jews:
In early March, he [Zimler's publicist] called and confessed – in a distressed tone I’d never heard before – that he had just been turned down by two cultural organisations that had previously shown enthusiasm for hosting an event with me. “They asked me if you were Jewish, and the moment I said you were, they lost all interest,” he said. “They even stopped replying to my emails and returning my phone messages.”
I’ll call my publicist John as he prefers to remain anonymous. He has also asked me to refrain from identifying the organisations that reacted negatively to my being Jewish. John told me that the final conversations he had with the two event co-ordinators convinced him that they weren’t antisemitic themselves but they feared a backlash – protests by their members and others – if they extended an invitation to a Jewish writer.
Interestingly, Zimler understands criticisms of some of Israel's policies. After all, what country is blameless? But he has little, if anything, to do with Israel:
Let’s not get sidetracked with references to Israel. Although it’s perfectly legitimate for those who oppose Netanyahu’s policies to protest against them, I have no connection with Israel. I have neither investments nor family there. And my most well-known books take place in Portugal and Poland. It’s true my new novel is set in the Holy Land, but it takes place 2,000 years before the foundation of the state of Israel. As for my nationality, I’m American and Portuguese.
Clearly, the shunning of Zimler is because he is Jewish, and not because he is from Israel.
And undoubtedly I will be adding a book or two by Zimler to my e-collection. I'm open to recommendations.