Thursday, October 21, 2010

The Moderate JDL

Continuing his intense, but well-deserved, attack on the ADL, Jon Chait remarks on the occasion of the organization giving an award to Rupert Murdoch shortly after Abe Foxman complained about rising "polarization, rage, stridency and partisanship":
If you're interested in the general principle of tolerance and equality, then awarding Rupert Murdoch is preposterous. But if you define your values in a purely sectarian way, then a figure who advances an illiberal agenda that defines Jews as one of the "good" nationalities is right up your alley. Looks increasingly clear that Foxman has made his choice, and is defining the ADL's agenda not as the universalistic vision of the ADL's founders but as a moderate Jewish Defense League.

It's really sickening, watching Foxman mutate a once-indispensable member of the anti-bigotry coalition into this.

31 comments:

N. Friedman said...

Don't you think, David, that, just now, if Jews do not do things directed towards protecting Jews, the Jewish people will be destroyed? Have you not noticed the tsunami coming our way? And, haven't you noticed that people on our side of the ledger keep finding ways to rationalize what is coming?

Now, Mr. Murdoch is not my cup of tea, to be sure. But he is clearly a friend of the Jewish people. And, he is not the bigot that has been insinuated - he merely is not a liberal. So, how do you reach the view that awarding him is troubling?

An award to him would not be my choice, if anyone cared. But, it is not a disgrace either.

chingona said...

Don't you think, David, that, just now, if Jews do not do things directed towards protecting Jews, the Jewish people will be destroyed? Have you not noticed the tsunami coming our way?

I almost hesitate to ask, but could you expand on this?

(For the record, I think NOT dividing groups of people into "good" groups and "bad" groups based on ethnicity and religion is doing something directed toward protecting Jews. David Frum, of all the people I never thought I'd be quoting approvingly, has pointed out that Jews generally have not done well with that sort of calculus. But really, I don't want to debate that with you. I want to know how you envision this tsunami.)

N. Friedman said...

chingona,

I have a number of things in mind. One. The rising tide of Jew hatred. Two. The war to delegitimize Israel - which, in my mind, is a war to delegitimize not just Israel but Jews more generally. Three. The Islamist movement, with Iran building the forces to advance that movement's agenda - which includes eradicating the world's Jews. It is, in my mind, a perfect storm, one that is gathering and growing.

That storm unites itself against Jews as follows (and I am quoting Bernard-Henri Lévy):

Since if truly, the idea gained favor that Jews are a villainous people who stifle the voices of other peoples, who play with their own people's martyrdom, and who do it all just to support a fascist State, wouldn't it be logical, normal, to hate them, just a little? And wouldn't the idea of sparing them, of closing our eyes, of indulging a bit their own claims to be victims, itse1f become suspicious and even reprehensible?

Call it the New Antisemitism.

chingona said...

A nuclear Iran presenting a potentially existential threat to Israel, I'll grant you.

I don't see, however, rising hatred of Jews in the U.S. I see persistent low-grade antisemitism, and I see a idealization of Jews from the Christian Right that makes me very uneasy. But I don't see a rising tide that's about to sweep us all away.

chingona said...

I should add, lest I seem too partisan, that I think there is antisemitism on the anti-Zionist left, but those folks are beyond marginal in the United States and a lot would need to change for them to wield significant influence here.

David Schraub said...

I think that the anti-Zionist left does represent a true threat in Europe, but I agree in the US they are currently quite marginal.

Chingona: I'm curious about your thoughts on the Hirsh article, if you have any (slash time to read it -- I know you're quite busy).

chingona said...

I haven't, and I'm going out of town this weekend, but I'll try to get to it.

N. Friedman said...

David and chingona,


Regarding David's comment (which seems to accurately present your view): "I agree in the US they are currently quite marginal."

The key term here is "currently." In 2001, such people were marginal in Europe. That has changed and changed quickly. And that is the concern here.

joe said...

Then who would possibly want a major media outlet showering such fringe views with adulation?

N. Friedman said...

joe,

Today, there is no mass-appeal/believable formula around which right wing Antisemites can organize - nothing akin to a Nazi movement, a Church formula of Antisemitism (most particularly in secular Europe) or anti-clerical formula or nationalism will get people to go kill Jews in mass numbers. There are only fringe ideologies with limited appeal - e.g. that of the KKK.

Only the Left, just now, has a mass appeal ideology around in the West which Antisemites could plausibly unite to do violence against Jews. That ideology involves Jews supposedly monopolizing suffering and lying in support of the supposedly beyond the pale state called Israel. That ideology turns a blind eye to Islamist Antisemitism as well.

Rebecca said...

To say nothing of JVP making it onto the ADL's list of the top 20 anti-Israel groups - the ADL is a fucking caricature of itself, really.

David Schraub said...

I don't think there's anything intrinsically wrong with labeling the JVP "anti-Israel". Admittedly, the term is vague, but JVP's linkages with areas that many folks would consider pro/anti-Israel brightlines (anti-Zionism, BDS, one-stateism), I'm not really uncomfortable with the label.

I think part of the question is whether JVP would characterize itself as "pro-Israel. I accept that they would deny they're "anti-Israel", but I don't think (unlike, say, J Street) they conceptualize of themselves as a "pro-Israel" organization.

Rebecca said...

Nothing intrinsically wrong with calling it "anti-Israel" - well, certainly if you don't think telling lies is wrong. But I do (I don't think "get people to stop supporting JVP" is an end that justifies the means "tell lies," unlike other discussions that could be and have been had about lying), presumably you do, and I would have hoped that the ADL would as well.

There's a difference between "Zionism is not a requirement for membership" and "Anti-Zionism is a requirement for membership/a stated tenet of the organization." There's a difference between "Two-state is not the only way" and "One state is the only way." I also get the impression that the BDS supported by JVP is of companies (Israeli and non-Israeli) that make military material and sell to settlers and that sort of thing, rather than of all Israeli companies. While some members surely support the latter, it's extremely disingenuous to claim that that's a goal of the organization.


Also, typo earlier, that should have been "top 10."

David Schraub said...

Sure, that's quite true, and it comes down to whether a "pro-Israel" (or "not anti-Israel") organization ought to tolerate anti-Zionists or one-staters or BDSers amongst its members. There's a solid case that it shouldn't.

There, too, is a difference between believing in violent resistance against Israel as a requirement for membership, or simply not a barrier to membership, but I think we could reasonably say that adopting either standard would foreclose a group from claiming it is not "anti-Israel". The question is whether BDS or anti-Zionism or one-stateism ought fall in the same category.

joe said...

If the answer to that question is yes, how is that anything other than, well, not to put too fine a point on it...

David Schraub said...

Apparently, "being against something" is a conceptual impossibility for you (or it makes one Dubya!).

joe said...

No, but I see the possibility for pro-X to not be a synonym anti-X.

Maybe I was unclear. Let's get concrete. Susan Collins is an pro-choice Republican, right? Does it follow that the Republican party is now "pro-abortion," or however right-to-life groups frame it?

Well, maybe it does to someone with an extreme position. Or, as Rebecca notes, if we don't believe in truth in advertising.

David Schraub said...

Shrug. When someone with a dissenting view is beneficial (or tolerable) heterogeneity, and when it is heresy, is a discussion all groups have at one point or another (Democrats and Republicans obviously included). The GOP doesn't exist to be an abortion-centered issue group -- if Collins joined Operation Rescue's board of directors, I think its membership could rightfully ask if they were still pro-life.

Moreover, I think Collins would concede she is an aberration from the GOP's main line on abortion, and that her membership in the GOP isn't based on any perceived affinity between her and their positions on abortion. The JVP doesn't claim that its anti-Zionist or pro-one-state members are dissenters from the overall line -- it is quite explicit that it does not wish to take a position on these things. If the GOP announced its studious neutrality on the issue of abortion, I highly suspect that its ertswhile pro-life allies would see that as quite the betrayal -- and rightfully so.

joe said...

Well yes, they can see it as a betrayal and decide who their friends are, as you are fond of saying. But what is obscured in all of this is that words have meaning. I'd expect "anti-Israel" to mean against Israel's continued existence or at least against some pretty core founding values. And in the latter case we still need to be careful not to over-extend, f'rinstance: do we call "anti-American" every organization that stands in favor of restricting something that an expansive reading of the Bill of Rights would protect? That certainly sounds suspiciously extreme and absolutist to me. (As an aside, I think under such a standard the ADL would have failed such a test some time ago because as I understand, it's fairly supportive of efforts to criminalize or otherwise restrict speech it deems too offensive.)

So, just as the ADL can decide it wants to adopt a philosophy of "I got mine" and contribute to efforts to stigmatize Muslims over Park 51, the ADL can use "anti-Israel" as a catch-all term for people and groups who don't meet some checklist for what is affirmatively "pro-Israel." But I see no need to respect that kind of rhetorical move any more than I respect Ann Coulter for saying liberals hate America just because we don't support an American revival of the Crusades, because again, words have meaning; love and hate are emotions expressed in a lot of ways and certainly not conditioned on a voting a straight party ticket.

David Schraub said...

I'd expect "anti-Israel" to mean against Israel's continued existence or at least against some pretty core founding values.

And what we're talking about is "anti-Zionism" and "one-statism", both of which colorably qualify as running "against Israel's continued existence or ... against some pretty core founding values" (Zionism being the core founding value, and one-statism being effectively a call to dissolve Israel entirely).

Anytime you're dealing in degrees, there's a risk that people will apply the wrong degree. That means we have to be more careful in our analysis -- not abandon analysis entirely.

joe said...

We are at an impasse because this brings me full circle to Rebecca pointing out "There's a difference between 'Zionism is not a requirement for membership' and 'Anti-Zionism is a requirement for membership/a stated tenet of the organization.' "

Rebecca said...

It also brings us back to the Susan Collins analogy - would a conservative organization be justified in describing the Republican Party as one of the top ten "pro-abortion" groups in the country? Of course not.

David Schraub said...

No, it doesn't, because the Collins analogy remains inapt for the aforementioned reasons. (1) The GOP's core institutional mission doesn't center around abortion, and it's usually accepted that in any organization some members will have divergent views on at least a few secondary or tertiary issues, (2) the number of GOPers with Collins' views on abortion is negligible, while we have no info on the proportion of JVPers who are Zionist versus anti-Zionist, and (3) both the GOP and Collins would likely affirm that her abortion position is at odds with that of the GOP, and that her position is marginal, whereas the JVP explicitly refuses to take a stance on the issue at all -- unlike the GOP on abortion, it is institutionally agnostic on Zionism, and thus does not label its anti-Zionist members marginal along that axis. If the GOP announced tomorrow that it was institutionally agnostic on the issue of abortion, and said "the important thing is insuring that women are safe and abortions are rare," the pro-life community would flip the hell out.

The better analogy would be a policy org ("The Institute for Abortion Policy") which explicitly disavows choosing between a pro-life and pro-choice outlook, and has members who identify as either. It's goals are to press for "informed consent" laws and attempt to insure that as many abortions as possible are done in the first trimester of pregnancy (no position on whether late-term abortions should be legally banned). Would the pro-choice community label such an org "anti-choice"? Of course it would (top 10 depends on who else is in the game). We could create a similar org which was institutionally agnostic between pro-life and pro-choice which pro-lifers would have in their cross-hairs.

Rebecca said...

Maybe a better analogy would be in order, since you seem a little out of touch with pro-choice positions.

Pro-choice orgs are all for as many abortions as possible being done early. The problem is that waiting periods, lack of providers, and cost end up pushing abortions into the second trimester - their opposition is to restricting second-trimester abortions, not to having most abortions take place in the first trimester.

Likewise, "informed consent" laws...aren't. The opposition is to the spiel about the embryo being a separate living being and/or about false medical risks - just the opposite of informed consent.

I don't think such an institute would be labeled anti-choice.

Is there another analogy that might be better?

David Schraub said...

The whole point of the examples I gave was that they were policies that aren't facially "anti-choice" in a strong sense, but are deeply associated with the anti-choice movement. Add to that cocktail the organization explicitly refusing to say whether it is pro-life or pro-choice, and having a strong pro-life contingent amongst its membership, and I suspect pro-choice orgs would be less than happy (for perfectly good reason). But the specific policies aren't what matters -- you can come up with your own set of facially ambiguous policies with which pro-choicers (or pro-lifers) would be quite suspicious of the promotion of by groups that refuse to take an explicit side and include many pro-lifers (or pro-choicers).

Rebecca said...

But haven't you been arguing that one-statism and anti-Zionism are anti-Israel ideologies?

David Schraub said...

Yes, I am. The Anti-Zionists = the avowed pro-lifers in our fictional abortion group. The policies advocated by the respective groups are both facially ambiguous. Take ambiguous (but plausibly anti-choice/anti-Israel) policies, and add the prominent membership of avowedly anti-choice/anti-Zionist members, and then mix in that the organization explicitly refuses to take a position on being anti-choice/anti-Zionist, and you have a group which can plausibly be called anti-choice/anti-Israel (assuming, as I am, that being anti-Zionist is colorably taken as being anti-Israel).

Rebecca said...

I feel like that presumes that there aren't any "pro-Israel" people in the group.

David Schraub said...

No more than our hypothetical abortion group couldn't have self-identified "pro-choicers" in the group.

Rebecca said...

And I'm still skeptical that such a group would be The Big Anti-Choice Villain. More so because of the presence of pro-choicers, but also because, surprise, their positions aren't anti-choice.

David Schraub said...

Well, it only has to crack the Top 10. In any event, the question is whether a group which (a) is centered on abortion (b) takes positions on abortion which are facially ambiguous but often seen as insufficiently attentive/respectful to the needs and autonomy of women (whether my particular examples were good ones is immaterial) (c) contains members who identify as pro-life, pro-choice, and/or neither, with no particular characterization being the norm, and (d) specifically refuses to characterize itself as either pro-life or pro-choice, and declares itself agnostic on whether abortion ultimately remains legal or not, would be considered a "anti-choice organization" by the broader pro-choice community. I think there is a substantial chance that the answer to that question is yes, and I wouldn't consider that label to be facially wrong.