Reading 'Adbusters' - normally something I feel v safe doing - I came across a page by Todd Gitlin called '8 strategies we use to navigate the ceaseless flood of media.'
For The Paranoid, he writes "The Paranoid believes that They are programming us...If we are at a loss, drifting or suffering, it must be because They - the Government, the Liberal Media, the Media Monopoly, the Zionist Occupation Government - are pushing the buttons. Though it is extreme, paranoia is a warped version of legitimate fear."
I perfectly well understand the context for this - it is a witty light-weight piece in a mag... but the unthinking racism implicit in it is exactly the kind of thing that trips me up most. It's because it's unnecessary as well as unexpected. The snippet would scan just as well with Zionist Occupation Government.
But it is there and where it falls in the list evokes the old scary anti-Semitic conspiracy myth of Zionist World Bankers. Also it is the only entity on the list which is solely composed of one ethnic group - surely the definition of racism.
But the icing on the cake is the final line: "a warped version of legitimate fear". If Todd Gitlin was Palestinian (-descent) or living in the Occupied Territories, Lebanon or Jordan, he would have some claim to "legitimate fear". But as a North American, he has nothing to fear from Israel anyway - especially compared to the sizable threat of his own Government, the American Liberal Media and the American Media Monopoly - his own world, of which he has actual experience and some agency.