IfNotNo....?

My last post on IfNotNow's attempt to introduce Palestinian narratives into Jewish summer camp programming suggested that INN missed an opportunity to Brandi Maxxxx its putative adversaries. (The "Brandi Maxxxx" strategy is when a somewhat-marginal group or institution holds its position out as being of a kind with that of a centrist group -- in this case, e.g., emerging out of genuine love for Israel and a place of care and concern for Israel's future -- thereby forcing the centrist group to either implicitly accede to the connection or aggressively repudiate the principles).

The unnecessarily harsh and distancing statement of INN directed at Camp Ramah (one of the major Jewish camps INN had sought to work with) emphasized the gap between the two (and therefore, in effect, the non-mainstream nature of INN's position) and effectively let Ramah claim the "big tent" high ground. By contrast, if INN had suggested that they and Ramah were in agreement, in order for Ramah to disavow INN it would have to "register a much more specific disavowal of IfNotNow and discussion of the occupation in its camps, in which case -- IfNotNow has a much stronger basis for critique against Ramah and Jewish camps going forward."

But now Ramah has come out with a new statement that basically did that anyway. It is rather gratuitously nasty in tone and makes it pretty clear that it is the one taking its ball and going home, not INN. The result is that INN gains a lot more credence, in my book, when it asserts that organizations like Ramah are institutionally allergic to any serious reckoning with the reality of the occupation and Palestinian lives. It also reemphasizes something I've long railed against: that when it comes to Israel politics, the Jewish community places a border on its left flank but not its right. Ramah is rigorous and emphatic in policing how far to the left its willing to let its staff go on Israel -- but there's no indication that there's any standards they apply on the right.

(Interestingly, the commentary IfNotNow gave to this letter was I thought much better in tone than its prior response to Ramah's more moderate initial statement. It might just be a matter of comparison though -- it's easy to look reasonable and fair-minded when your interlocutor so nakedly decides to go overboard).