Family in Paris: It's Getting Hotter

I am back from Paris. It was very hot. And I need to vent.

Before I do so, I want to stress that we had plenty of fun on this trip. When I told my mom I was invited to present at the Critical Theories of Antisemitism conference, she seized the opportunity to organize a whole family vacation around the trip, including my parents and my brother, sister-in-law, and their daughter (who's six months younger than Nathaniel). And as far as that project is concerned, it was great. We saw a lot of neat things, and more importantly, we got to spend time together as a family.

But on the travel side of traveling, boy did we get rogered.

As a quick point of reference, here was what the plan was, travel-wise:

• June 12: Depart PDX for Chicago O'Hare, then continue onward to Paris.
• June 13: Land in Paris.
• June 13-17: Stay all together as a family in an AirBnb in Passy
• June 17: Brother and his family leave for wine country.
• June 17-20: Parents and our family go to an AirBnb in the Marais while I attend the conference.
• June 20: Parents leave for Normandy.
• June 20-24: Jill, Nathaniel and I go to a hotel in Montparnasse for the remainder of the trip.
• June 24: Fly home (via O'Hare), arriving in PDX at 9:30 PM.

With that said, here's the actual blow-by-blow.

June 12

• We arrive at the airport three hours early for our international flight, scheduled to depart at 1:45 PM. As soon as we get to the ticketing desk, we learn that our flight to Chicago has been delayed such that we'll miss our connection to Paris. The woman at the desk tries to rebook us on another flight.
• We spend three hours at the airport perpetually almost being booked on another flight. At one point she told us to run to the Delta counter to check our bags for a flight leaving in 40 minutes, only for that flight to get delayed (and thus make our connection impossible). Nathaniel is a good sport for most of this, but by the third hour he's starting to get understandably cranky.
• Eventually, the agent gives up and tells us to call a phone number. The earliest we can get rebooked? 7:30 PM ... the next evening (through Heathrow). It will get us to Paris a full thirty hours later than scheduled.
• We go home.

June 13

• I hear it might be a bit warm in Paris, so I decide to use the extra day to get a quick haircut. I'm so excited, I accidentally back out of our garage before the garage door actually, you know, opens. Now it won't close. Oops. No time to deal with that.
• We get a worried text from our neighbor who noticed our garage door was open. Aren't we supposed to be on vacation? That stung.
• Off to the airport (we manually closed the garage door before we left)! We've actually done the PDX-Heathrow flight before with Nathaniel before, so we're optimistic. And it pays off -- he sleeps through most of the flight! Way to go champ!

June 14

• We land in Heathrow. There is a tram to take us from where we land to the main terminal.
• Just kidding: the tram is out of service. We have to walk the entire distance.
• We get to our departure gate, which is actually apparently a bus depot. And given how long the bus ride to the airplane took, I think our plane may have actually been on a runway in Gatwick.
• We get to our plane. While we've purchased a seat for Nathaniel so he doesn't have to sit in our laps, the gate agent tells us that our car seat won't fit in the plane seat and we'll need to gate check it (along with our stroller, which we had already been gate checking).
• We board the plane and reach our aisle. The flight attendant is confused as to why we don't have a car seat, since it would absolutely fit on the plane.
• We land in Paris. Our "gate checked" stroller and car seat are not gate checked at all but are sent to regular baggage claim.
• Finally we reach the AirBnb 30 hours later than expected. My parents had hired a private chef to cook dinner from us; he's in the middle of serving when we arrive. It looks delicious but we're too tired to really appreciate it. It is a warm evening, but it will get hotter.

June 15-17

• We spend several quality days together as a family. I take the metro to a bunch of art galleries and auction houses (including one that had a very neat preview of a chateau's collection being auctioned off), then walk to the Arc de Triomphe. 
• It is getting hotter.

June 17

• Brother, sister-in-law, and niece all say goodbye, while the rest of us travel to an AirBnb in the Marais. The apartment has two main levels (not including a terrifying basement we don't mess with). The bottom level has two tiny bedrooms and a bathroom. The upper level has a spacious kitchen and living room, all as one space. The problem is that the crib will literally only fit in the upper level, meaning that once Nathaniel goes to sleep we're all trapped in our hobbit hole bedrooms from dusk till dawn.
• I spend the day visiting art galleries. It is a lot of fun.
• It is getting hotter.

June 18-19

• I attend my conference, which is very nice, and my parents are able to watch Nathaniel so Jill can have some personal time as well.
• We book a time at an indoor petting zoo near our next hotel in Montparnasse, since that seems like a fun activity to do with Nathaniel.
• It is getting hotter. News reports speak of a generational heatwave making headlines around the world, with temperatures into the 90s and still rising. Paris is in a state of declared emergency.

June 19

• Our last night in the Marais. We are ready to check out of the AirBnb in the morning and move to our final stay location, the voco Paris Montparnasse, while my parents depart for Normandy.
• At 10 PM, we receive a message from the hotel that the air conditioning is broken. They suggest calling them for compensation and assistance rebooking.
• We call them. Nobody answers. The hotel may not even be open, as it is getting hotter.
• Scrambling, we book a new hotel near the Opera. It is almost three times as expensive as the old hotel -- which is what happens when you book on eight hours notice in the midst of a generational heatwave. Luckily, the email from voco suggested they'd provide compensation.

June 20

• We check into our new hotel. The people there are lovely and we really like the neighborhood. I decide to spend the day with the family to ensure we get settled rather than attend the last day of the conference. In spite of everything, I'm glad to be at this new hotel, particularly given their robust assurances that their air conditioning was in top-notch condition.
• On the other hand, Nathaniel learned how to whine today when he doesn't get what he wants. Literally -- it was a milestone discovered mid-trip. How lucky for us.
• I do go to the conference closing dinner in Montmartre. I consider not going, because I am very tired and it is getting hotter, but I decide to attend. By sheer exhaustion-related luck, I elect to Uber to the restaurant rather than take the metro, which turns out to be exceptionally wise as the restaurant is up a mountain of steps from the closest metro stop and the temperature is now approaching 100 degrees. Disaster averted.

June 21

• Conference is over -- now it's just family time! We decide to go to the petting zoo anyway, even though it is nowhere near our new hotel. It is a lot of fun, though it was extremely hot waiting outside on the building waiting for it to open.
• It is getting hotter.

June 22

• We finally get in contact with the voco to discuss compensation. We ask to be paid the difference in rates between the hotels, since we had to rebook at the last minute. The man at the desk is confused as to why our new hotel costs so much, and says that had we called him, he could've found a hotel for much less money, so no, he will not reimburse us for the difference. After all, what if we had booked the Ritz Carlton?
• We point out that we did not book the Ritz Carlton, that the reason the new hotel was more expensive was because it was last-minute in the midst of a historic heat wave, and that we tried to call the original hotel and nobody answered so we were forced to do our best. These are apparently not persuasive arguments. There will be no reimbursement.
• Defeated, we decide to see the Calder exhibit at the Louis Vuitton Fondation. It is fantastic, and more importantly, extremely well air-conditioned, which is important because it is getting hotter.

June 23

• It's our last full day in Paris. We have some ideas for some things to do, but ultimately we decide to stay close to the hotel and its air conditioning. It is the hottest it has been the entire trip -- over 100 degrees.

June 24

• Time to go home! We leave for Charles de Gaulle at 10 AM. Today will be even hotter than yesterday, but thankfully we'll leave before the temperature peaks.
• Our flight to Chicago takes off on time. But Nathaniel -- who has always been fantastic on flights and has really been a rock star this entire trip -- decides that our luck has run out. He screams for the first third of the journey, then for the second third decides he needs to run up and down the aisle. Finally he sleeps a little bit for the final hour (but starts screaming again during the landing).
• We arrive in Chicago forty minutes early, and we have a three-hour layover. How lucky for us! We can relax, let Nathaniel run around, change his diaper, even grab some dinner. We just have to get through customs, pick up our checked bags, recheck our checked bags, and go back through security.
• Customs line stretches approximately back to Wisconsin. A nice official spots us and moves us up in the line (thanks Nathaniel), but then the customs agent checking people at the front of said line goes on break and isn't replaced. The line stops. It's been an hour since we landed.
• Finally reach the customs agent, who is very interested in exactly what sort of "academic conference" I was attending in Paris. I debate whether telling him I was at a conference on "global antisemitism" will make it more or less likely I'll be thrown into a prison camp. Land of the free, baby!
• We wait for our checked bags. They don't show. Whoops -- turns out there were two flights arriving from Paris at the same time, and this was the other one. We sheepishly move to the correct baggage carousel.
• We wait for our checked bags. They don't show. Whoops -- turns out someone took them off the carousel while we were at the wrong one and set them aside. We sheepishly gather our bags and then immediately recheck them. This process feels gratuitous. It's been two hours since we landed.
• There is a tram to get from the international to the domestic gates. It is up a flight of stairs. There is one elevator with a capacity of approximately 1.5 people, which moves at a speed best described as "glacial", and a line of twelve people in wheelchairs in front of us. We decide to take an escalator, studiously staring upward to avoid seeing any signs suggesting strollers can't go on escalators.
• After the tram and two more elevator rides, we get back into a long security line. By the time we reach the front, it has been three hours since we landed. We arrive at the gate fifteen minutes before boarding, having had no time to relax, let Nathaniel run around, change his diaper, or grab dinner. My eye is feeling irritated.
• We board the plane. The plane then sits delayed on the tarmac for an hour. My eye is getting worse, and starts exploding with tears. Fortunately, being absolutely exhausted and being unable to open my eye without excruciating pain synergize surprisingly well, and I sleep through most of the flight. Even better, so does Nathaniel.
• We arrive in Portland a mere hour late (better than thirty hours, amirite?). Grab our bags, grab a taxi, get home before midnight. Remember we need to call someone in the morning to fix the garage door. Go to bed. Pray that Nathaniel approximates sleeping through the night (he does, but only because he doesn't fall asleep until two AM).

Fin.

Mal Voyage

Greetings from Portland!

That's not a sentence I wanted to write. If things had gone to plan today, Jill, Nathaniel and I would be en route to Paris right now. But a delay on our first flight meant we were going to miss our connection in Chicago, and from there the day devolved into three hours of camping in front of an American Airlines agent as she strove unsuccessfully to find us any alternative flights. 

There were several occasions where we almost got booked on a flight to London, but then we kept being kicked out. But the most comical sequence came in attempting to get us on a flight to San Francisco (to London, to Paris). The timing was tight, since by the time we got around to that solution the flight was leaving in forty minutes (of course, we had been at the airport for almost two hours at that point). So the gate agent told Jill to get in line at the United booth so we could check our bags immediately in the event she was able to get us on the flight. Which she was able to do ... until she wasn't ... and then she was again ... and then she wasn't ... and then she was. And I have a corresponding text chain with Jill where I tell her to come back ... no stay in line! ... wait, no, come back--DON'T COME BACK GET BACK THERE!

And after all of that, the San Francisco flight was delayed too, so we wouldn't make the London connection.

After three hours, we gave up and rebooked a flight tomorrow evening to London and then onward to Charles de Gaulle, which will get us in a scant thirty hours later than scheduled. Huzzah.

A few bits of silver lining. 

1. We'll be able to sleep in tomorrow morning.
2. We've actually done this Portland --> London flight before, and Nathaniel did great on it. To be sure, five months old and seventeen months old are very different in terms of travel experience. But Nathaniel is a phenomenal sleeper and the flight is a red-eye, so we're optimistic.
3. And speaking of Nathaniel, he did pretty great all told. Most of the time we were at the airport, he was cheery and climbing around and generally a happy camper. By the end -- when we had blown past lunch time (we gave him snacks) and nap time -- he was understandably starting to get a bit cranky. But he instantly fell asleep on the Lyft ride home (which again augurs well for sleeping on the plane).

Anyway, the trip is off to an inauspicious start. Here's hoping tomorrow goes better.

Israel is How Europe Can Stick It To Trump

Over the past few days, we've seen a spate of hitherto solid Israel allies in Europe announce they'll be recognizing the state of Palestine. France kicked things off, and it was swiftly followed by the UK and Canada. (There also has been an interesting wave of Arab states calling on Hamas to demilitarize and relinquish power).

I'm not going to comment here on the substance of the decision. Briefly, it is obvious that Palestinians deserve self-determination in a recognized state, and I'm unpersuaded by those who are arguing the move will backfire against the Palestinians. As for those who claim that recognition "rewards Hamas", I say that, if we are to think of this decision in those terms, it's better to see this as not as rewarding Hamas for 10/7, but as punishing Israel for its conduct after 10/7.

But that's not what I want to focus on here. Rather, I want to explore a different question: Why now? What made these countries take this step now?

Obviously, there is not one single answer to that. But in addition to some of the obvious factors -- increased sympathy for the Palestinian cause and increased frustration with Israeli intransigence chief among them -- I suggest an additional cause is that stepping out on Israel is a comparatively cheap and insulated way to symbolically repudiate Trump and Trumpism.

The Trump administration's pivot away from our traditional allies and alliances has been met with a justified mixture of alarm and fury from those we've abandoned. From escalating trade wars to threats of annexation, Trump has done unprecedented damage to America's global standing. People want to see their leaders punch back. But many of the most obvious avenues for retaliation come with substantial risks of their own. As idiotic and self-destructive as tariffs are for the United States, it remains the case that European countries must be careful and adroit in their own trade negotiations. Symbolism has its place there, but it can't be the whole story; missteps can exact real and serious tangible damage on one's own people.

But sticking it to Israel offers much of that same symbolic flouting of Trump, at a much lower risk. Most of the "damage" there, if there is any, will be externalized, not internalized. To the extent some countries might have been reluctant to step out against Israel for fear of alienating the United States, that ship has sailed; today these countries are looking for opportunities to signal they're standing up to the American madman. And while the Trump administration might make noises about retaliation, I think they're fighting on too many fronts for protecting Israel diplomatically to be a serious priority -- and that's even if one believes that Trump's Israel policy is based on sincere ideological commitment, which I don't. If one thinks Trump is just using "Israel" as an excuse to enact various forms of domestic repression, the ultimate disinterest can be doubled. In essence, Europe recognizing Palestine (a) looks increasingly justified and sensible given recent Israeli conduct and (b) offers an opportunity to be seen as standing up to Trump, in a context where tangible blowback is likely to be minimal. No wonder it's looking more attractive!

None of this should be seen as warranting any sympathy for Israel of course. They've chosen their course -- lashing themselves to the most extreme and vicious iteration of global rightwing ultranationalism -- and they have to live with the consequences. That's the risk of hitching your wagon entirely to a single powerful but widely loathed patron -- if daddy gets distracted, you're on your own and you've made yourself an awfully tempting target. Once again, when the right is done finding Israel useful, it will leave it in the wreckage.

Quote of the Day: Sartre on Just Remembering Jews

See if this one resonates with anyone:

In my Lettres Francaises without thinking about it particularly, and simply for the sake of completeness, I wrote something or other about the sufferings of the prisoners of wars, the deportees, the political prisoners, and the Jews. Several Jews thanked me in a most touching manner. How completely must they have felt themselves abandoned, to think of thanking an author for merely having written the word "Jew" in an article!

Jean-Paul Sartre, Anti-Semite and Jew: An Exploration of the Etiology of Hate (New York: Schoken 1995 [1948]), 72.

The Train Has No Brakes: International Scouting Edition

Two French Jewish delegates were barred from an interfaith scouting meeting hosted in Tunisia, in response to demands from the Tunisian BDS movement. Neither delegate was Israeli, and the organization they were representing, the International Forum of Jewish Scouts, is an umbrella organization for Jewish scouts across the globe.

There does seem to be some confusion as to who was responsible for the exclusion: the JTA article attributed it to meeting organizers, but the IFJS statement contends that BDS activists and nationalist parties in Tunisia sought and received a judicial order barring the Jewish delegates from attending.

But nobody seems to be contesting that this was a consciously sought-after outcome by Tunisian BDS groups, who had explicitly condemned the participation of the IFJS as "disguised normalization" of Israel.

In conclusion, the BDS movement has nothing to do with antisemitism and Jews who think otherwise are simply incapable of tolerating criticism of French Jewish scouts Israel.

The Bachelor's Roundup

Today is a big week.

It is my last week as an unmarried man. This coming Sunday, September 2nd, 2018, I will be married. 9/2/18 -- it's very mathematical, and mathematical around the number "18" too, which is nicely auspicious.

Jill has been out of town since Wednesday -- she says on a work trip, though I think she's just having a second bachelorette party. She gets back late tonight, and then we both fly to Minnesota together on Thursday.

So ... this might be a light posting week. Or not! I'm unpredictable.

* * *

The Washington Post has a long article on the Lumbee Indians of North Carolina and the unique neither-fish-nor-fowl status they have under federal Indian law. I had a case that tangentially connected to the Lumbee when I was at Covington, so I actually was familiar with their situation -- and this article does a good job providing additional depth.

There is little doubt in my mind that, if Trump goes down, his hardcore followers will blame the Jews.

A fascinating -- if chilling -- essay by Cass Sunstein on how ordinary Germans experienced the rise of Nazism. The takeaway is that, for them, things still always felt "ordinary". They went camping, they hung out with friends, they made jokes. We have a very wrong idea of the phenomenology of authoritarianism -- at least for those persons not directly targeted for suppression.

David Hirsh goes into detail to explain what should be obvious: why Jeremy Corbyn dismissing "Zionists" as people who have "lived in this country for a very long time, probably all their lives," and yet "don’t understand English irony" is antisemitic. It leverages specifically antisemitic tropes, and it does so in a way that's only sensible if one is leveraging those tropes (the idea of "Zionists" retaining status as perpetual aliens who remain unassimilable outsiders no matter how long they live in their "host" countries is incoherent without supervening on "Zionist as Jew").

Who could have guessed that, if the fringe group Jewish Voice for Labour put on a forum on antisemitism, it would become a forum for antisemitism? Everyone, that's who!

Regarding the French Open's ban on Serena Williams wearing a "catsuit", it's simultaneously amazing and not at all amazing that misogynoir so easily trumps the truckloads of money and attention Williams -- one of the biggest stars in global sports -- brings to women's tennis.

The French Have Some Weird Views About Zionism

Ifop, on behalf of the Union of Jewish Students in France, commissioned a poll on Israel and Zionism. Here are some things a majority of French respondents believe:

1. "Zionism is an international organization that seeks to influence the world and societies to the Jews’ benefit."
2. "Zionism is a racist ideology"
3. Anti-Zionism is an antisemitic ideology.
4. Zionism is a "movement of liberation and emancipation for the Jewish people."

Presumably, most of these aren't overlapping. But since they all claimed majority support, by definition there must be some people who think both that "Zionism is a racist ideology" and "Anti-Zionism is an antisemitic ideology", or "Zionism is a movement for liberation and emancipation for the Jewish people" and "Zionism is an international organization that seeks to influence the world and societies to the Jews’ benefit."

I can't tell if that means their views on Zionism are really deep, or just incoherent. My vote is "incoherent."

WPSA and Personal Troll Roundup

I presented my "White Jews: An Intersectional Approach" paper at the Western Political Science Association (intersectionality section) yesterday. It went quite well! I've now presented the paper to political theorists, to Jewish Studies folks, and to intersectionalists. If you haven't read it yet, I think it's pretty good.

But the prize for biggest professional accomplishment this week goes to the discovery that someone has created a website dedicated solely to informing the world that "David Schraub the UCLA Law Professor is a Disgusting Zionist Punk."  That's how you know you've made it. I may not have the highest quality trolls ("UCLA"?), but at least they're mine. (I can't say I recommend reading the entire screed on the website, but it's worth browsing for a few laughs).

* * *

The African Muslim immigrant who saved a dozen Jews during the 2015 terrorist attack on a Paris kosher supermarket quietly arrived at the funeral of the elderly Holocaust survivor who was stabbed and burned to death in her apartment in an antisemitic hate crime. "I want to tell the Jews of France, you are not isolated. You are not abandoned. This is your country."

Jews and Muslims in America actually agree on quite a lot! And alignment increases alongside devoutness (more devout Jews and more devout Muslims share more in common), as well as contact (the more Jews and Muslims interact with each other, the more likely they are to perceive the two faiths as being similar in nature).

A former police officer turned criminal defense attorney discusses the Stephon Clark shooting, the way police are acculturated to fear (especially fear Black men), and the way poor instructions (e.g., "show me your hands" when your hands are holding a cellphone) can place innocent people in impossible situations.

Russian airline allegedly "deports" U.S. citizens of Indian descent back to India during a layover in Moscow. Great -- another reason for Trump to love the Russians.

Jewish News (UK) publishes an interview with Jeremy Corbyn. It's rare to see a conversation this long between two parties who so evidently loathe one another (it's really, really apparent in the interview).

Harvard Hillel is hosting a "liberation seder" focusing specifically on the ongoing injustices faced by Palestinians under occupation. The organizers worked closely with Jewish groups already affiliated with Hillel to ensure that it did not run afoul of the partnership guidelines. I'm all for this -- I have mixed feelings about the guidelines, but it's important to establish decisively that they will not be applied ad hoc to prohibit any criticism of Israel that's deemed too "sharp" in character. (Harvard Hillel has actually been consistently good on this issue -- refusing to allow the guidelines to metastasize to block, say, a program which has nothing to do with BDS because one participant backs the movement).

Sephardic Chief Rabbi in Israel may face criminal charges for likening a Black child born to White parents to a "monkey."

Another Tentacle Roundup

The JTA just published my thoughts on the Israel Anti-Boycott bill (adapted from this post). Let's see -- I've done Tablet, Forward, Ha'aretz, and now JTA. We all know the Jews run the media, but what do you call the Jew who's taking over the Jewish media?

Anyway, world domination is distracting, and it's causing my browser to clutter up. Let's deal with that, shall we?

* * *

While the hook for my Israel Anti-Boycott bill is "everyone is going crazy", I should say that I found J Street's statement to be measured and thoughtful.

The Dean of Yale Law remarks on why law schools have largely avoided the anti-free speech hysteria that is (perhaps to an exaggerated degree) encompassing other sectors of academia. Short version: law school relies upon a series of deliberative virtues, like hearing out your opposition and considering both sides of an argument, that encourage people to take arguments seriously. Strongly endorse.

In Fathom (haven't gotten them yet!), John Strawson reviews a new book on Colonialism and the Jews.

Rep. Blake Farenthold (R-TX) blames "female Senators" for holding up Obamacare repeal, says if they were men he'd challenge them to a duel. Blake Farenthold kind of has a problem with women.

Sarah Ditum: Why Does Labour Have an Abuse Problem? A strong, thought-provoking essay.

Far-left French leader Jean-Luc Melanchon denies that the French (through the Vichy government) have any responsibility for the Holocaust.

I'd Do Anything for France, But I Won't Do That

The first round of the 2017 French presidential elections has concluded, and center-to-center-left Emmanuel Macron (23.8%) will face far-right firebrand Marine Le Pen (21.7%) in the runoff. Center-right candidate Francois Fillon came in third with 20%, while Communist-backed lefitst Jean-Luc Melenchon placed fourth at 19.4%. Benoit Hamon of the incumbent Socialist Party came in a distant fifth with 6.3%.

Le Pen's National Front Party has roots that are fairly described as fascist, and she is a fierce opponent of the EU. Unsurprisingly, Donald Trump and Vladimir Putin both are fans of Le Pen. And with Macron advancing to the run-off, he quickly earned the endorsements of erstwhile opponents Fillon and Hamon, as well from the French and Belgian Prime Ministers and German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

As for Melenchon: he won't endorse anyone in round two. Like Corbynistas in the UK, for all its "by any means necessary" pretensions the French far-left actually isn't willing to do what it takes to stop the far-right from winning. It turns out that it's one thing to oppose fascism by calling for the radical overthrow of the capitalist state and the seizure of the means of production, and it's quite another to do something truly radical like ... vote for a more centrist candidate.

The fact that Melenchon basically has the same view as Le Pen when it comes to the EU (compared to the definitively pro-EU Macron) probably isn't helping matters either -- and the far-left/far-right convergence around Euro-skepticism also buttresses the Corbyn comparison.

Fortunately, polls have Macron smashing Le Pen in a head-to-head race. But still, we've been deceived by polls before. And the decision by Melenchon to, in effect, join Trump and Putin in propping up Le Pen is recklessly irresponsible and deserves nothing but our scorn.

Veil of Ignorance

Last month, in Tablet Magazine, Paul Berman attempted to mount a defense of the French prohibition of Muslim veils (the infamous "Burkini" ban, or, earlier, forbidding headscarves in schools). There is a faint bit of cheekiness to it, in its appeal to French cultural history as the be-all-end-all of the argument. Why don't we respect their culture? This is just the way the French do things! Maybe it is time to check our American egos, and acknowledge that other countries have valid ideas of governance in their own right? To ban the veil is, Berman argues, simply an example of the French value of secularism -- sometimes referred to be its French term, laïcité. 

If his is meant to be a subtle jab at the lazy invocation of cultural relativism that some members of the left regularly indulge in, then well done. If it is meant to be more than a satire, though, there is a problem. The French ban on the veil is indeed an example of laïcité, though Berman actually objects to the use of the term since for him laïcité is nothing more than "the Jeffersonian principle of a wall between church and state, in its French version." This is true, in the same sense that the Revolutionary Courts are the "Marbury principle of judicial review, in its Iranian version." It may fill a similar niche, but it is shorn of all the limitations and checks that make the concept worth emulating. Laïcité is "separation of church and state" in the exact way that hyperbolic American conservatives have breathlessly condemned it: taking out the "state" and substituting in "public life." A ban on headscarves in public schools (or kippot -- oddly unmentioned by Berman given that they too are covered under the French law) would not be an example of separating church from the state --it is an effort to excise religion from public life. It does not govern statecraft, it governs individuals exercising their religion as individuals on those occasions where they step outside the home.

The reason why American (and French) liberals object to the ban on religious garb worn by private citizens who have the temerity to enter the public square is that this sort of compulsory secularism is not liberation even (in Berman's oh-so-vague clawback) "in principle". It is not compatible with religious equality for anyone, and in practice its burdens fall heavier on minority groups whose religious practices will always seem louder simply because they are different (notably, crucifixes are not banned so long as they are not "obtrusive"). If secularism takes this form, it is simply a different form of theocracy -- our personal rights stop to the extent they offend the (ir)religious orthodoxy.

If Berman is looking to build opposition to the veil, a misshapen argument that butchers liberal values of secularism is unlikely to do the trick. Perhaps he would do better to make common cause with an Egyptian MP who is pitching a veil ban on the grounds that it is a "Jewish" practice. After all, just as in certain circles it is sufficient to argue against a practice by labeling it "Islamic" (or "Islamist", which -- whatever merits it might have as a carefully-used term, here is not being used with care), in others there isn't any more powerful argument against a given behavior than persuading everyone that "it's Jewish".

Can't Win From Losing

Tablet has an interesting profile up on Delphine Horvilleur, a prominent French Rabbi (prominent both for her own sake as powerful voice for liberal Judaism, and because she is among a very small group of female Rabbis in France). One passage that struck me, though, was her anxieties about how Jews are perceived as a "community" in a France whose model of equality is marked by an extreme hostility to any sort of differentiation:

Still, despite herself, her Jewishness has lately come to the fore. After the January attack at a kosher market, she no longer brings her children grocery shopping; she has caught herself remarking to friends that men with peyos are “courageous” to ride the Métro in Paris. As much as she detests the “competition for victim-status” in which the French tend to engage, jockeying for recognition from the entitlement state—this is “the great French malady,” she said—she finds herself reassured by the soldiers who have been assigned since the killings to guard synagogues and other Jewish sites throughout the country. And yet she worries that protection will be viewed by some non-Jews as yet another symbol of Jewish privilege, reinforcing notions of a “Jewish community.” “It’s normal that the state protect us,” Horvilleur said, using the first-person-plural in what seemed an unconscious confirmation of her fears. “But at the same time, the more they protect us, the more they weaken us.”

This last part, wherein Rabbi Horvilleur frets that enhanced security for Jewish institutions will be seen as proof of "Jewish privilege", really resonates with some points I tried to make in my own Tablet piece (and the director's cut). There, I noted the strong belief amongst many that Jews are anti-discrimination "winners" -- that though we might have faced discrimination in the past, now we receive the full panoply of legal and social protections such that we've been fully integrated into society as equals. At best, this is inaccurate but presented as a model to aspire to. At worst, it is viewed as an injustice of its own -- lucky Jews, greedily hording private sympathies and public rights to themselves while the "real" victims continue to suffer. And it is opinions like this that cause Jews to have to worry that being in a situation where armed guards have to be posted outside their buildings will be taken as proof of how privileged Jews really are.

Onward to France!

A Spanish town whose name translates to "Camp Kill Jews" has elected to make a change.

Instead, the town’s new name, Castrillo Mota de Judios, translates to “Jews’ Hill Camp,” which was actually the town’s old name before it was changed in 1627 to “Camp Kill Jews.”

I have to say I appreciate the history behind this. Also "Jews' Hill Camp" sounds like a location I'd find in Skyrim.

With momentum now on our side, perhaps we can persuade the French hamlet of "Death to Jews" to change its name as well.

"Jews Lose": Big Media David Edition

Tablet Magazine invited me to write an essay on the "Jews Lose" doctrine I wrote about previously on this blog. It's obviously exciting to see my name in the big lights, and as an academic I am quite intrigued by this whole "being paid for my articles" concept.

There was one chunk of the article which was cut for space reasons that I wanted to share with you on this space (consider it the "director's cut"). One prominent theme I tried to explore in my essay was this prevailing sense that Jews are the quintessential anti-discrimination "winners". Unfortunately, this label (not accurate to begin with, as my essay demonstrates) isn't always viewed magnanimously, but rather often is presented as an example of unfairness -- why are Jews given so much when other groups have so little? As a result, we get this weird phenomenon where alleged injustices perpetrated against Muslims by non-Jewish institutions (e.g., satirical cartoons mocking Islam) are met with attacks against Jews. A few years ago, we saw this in Holland, where Muslims angry that authorities dropped a hate crimes prosecution against (non-Jewish) Geert Wilders (whose filmed allegedly mocked Mohammed) responded by putting up cartoons mocking the Holocaust.

The broader issue is that presenting Jews as anti-discrimination "haves" often comes in the form of resentment and almost invariably washes away the actual particularities of the Jewish experience. Consider Falguni Sheth’s Salon article exploring the history of Muslim vilification in the context of the recent Paris massacres. She notes that “terrorism” is a “loaded term” that often seems to arbitrarily include only Muslim acts of mass murder. Clearly she has a point, one strikingly illustrated when a former CIA Deputy Director seemingly forgot about Anders Breivik’s massacre in Norway as an example of terrorism in Europe. She also makes the accurate observations that Muslims face considerable pressure to “assimilate” into French society rather than maintain a conspicuous identity as a separate minority group, and that while Charlie Hebdo did satirize Christianity, those cartoons are hardly analogous to those which mock Muslims. Why? Because unlike Muslims, “Christians are neither religious nor ethnic minorities. Christians are not politically vulnerable in the Republic of France; they are the opposite — secure and fully capable.”

All valid points. But then we get to Professor Sheth’s concluding question: “What if the Charlie Hebdo massacre had been committed by Catholic or Jewish extremists?” Wait, what? How did we get roped into this? Are Jews not a distinctive religious group who have faced considerable pressure to assimilate into an unmarked “French” identity? Are they not a religious and ethnic minority experiencing considerable vulnerability, not the least of which is their propensity to be targeted in precisely these sorts of massacres?

The belated appearance of Jews at the end of Professor Sheth’s article does little to advance her argument—it would have just as much force if it solely compared Muslims against a social class that actually was “secure” in its French status. Rather, Professor Sheth seems to include Jews as a means of emphasizing the unjustness of Jews supposedly possessing something other minorities don’t—they apparently do not experience and are not at risk of experiencing the mass vilification and bigotry that Muslims must endure when individual Muslims commit acts of violence. This assertion seems difficult to back up. While thankfully we have not seen a Jewish-initiated mass murder in the West in quite some time, it is notable that we need not wait that long to refute Professor Sheth’s prediction.

Jews don’t have to perpetrate a murderous strike against a vulnerable minority in order for the spotlight to shine on alleged Jewish bad behavior—such rhetoric is a standard part of the conversation any time Jews are the victims of mass political violence. Sometimes it is a BBC reporter lecturing a French Jew at a rally commemorating her murdered peers that “many critics of Israel’s policy would suggest that the Palestinians suffer hugely at Jewish hands as well,” sometimes it is a British parliamentarian whose idea of solidarity with those slaughtered at a Kosher market was to tweet “Je suis Palestinian”, And that does not even get into those who are convinced that Jews are actually responsible for the terror in France—a group that includes the mayor of Ankara, leaders of the Free Gaza movement, the International Business Times (since taken down), and the Ron Paul Institute. My twitter feed may be right that a murder commented by a white guy will be attributed to a “disturbed loner” while a Muslim killer is invariably a “terrorist.” But it is also true that regardless of whether the finger on the trigger is white, black, Asian, Arab, or Polynesian, someone will always be there to insist that the Mossad really did it.

I don't think Professor Sheth wishes that people would attack Jews as a group for individual Jewish sins. But the fact that she doesn't recognize that we do experience this, regularly, for sins real and imagined is worrisome. It demonstrates the power of the assumption that Jews win; even coming in the face of a very high-profile loss of Jewish life that was nonetheless met with the usual discussions about bad behavior by other Jews elsewhere.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XIV: Charlie Hebdo

A few days ago, there was a bombing at a Colorado NAACP branch office. Some folks noted that this event seemed undercovered in the news media. Today, a dozen people were killed after terrorists stormed the offices of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine. This has gotten plenty of coverage, and Phoebe Maltz Bovy immediately picks up on the inevitable:

Yes, the NAACP attack should get more coverage. No, the fact that the Paris attack (killing 12, as vs thankfully zero, and with major international implications) is more in the news isn't unreasonable. Nor (ahem, Twitter) should it be interpreted as evidence that The Zionists control the media.

To be fair, I didn't actually find any examples of this myself -- Phoebe says she read such claims on this thread but that they've apparently been taken down. I trust Phoebe, so I'm running with it, but if you'd like we can devote this comment section to "Things People Blame the Jews For: Making Up Sources."

In any event, assuming there is a Jewish conspiracy to overcover Charlie Hebdo at the expense of the NAACP bombing, well, be careful what you wish for -- we might not want too much attention to be put upon the former event. Greta "Reading Gilad Atzmon makes me awfully glad I was raised a Methodist" Berlin knows who really was behind the French strike. Two guesses as to who!

It's the Mossad. I gave you two guesses because "Shin Bet" was also a live possibility.

I do want to give Berlin credit for her celerity. When Ellie Merton won the prize for being the first to blame the Jews for the Anders Breivik massacre in Norway, it was a full two days after the event. Berlin was already pumping her conspiracy theory out in a matter of hours. That's the type of rapid-reaction anti-Semitism that today's on-the-go social media consumers deserve.

Things People Blame Jews For, Volume III: Rudeness of the French

I had an idea for this week's "things people blame Jews for" edition. It was solid, and thematic around a life event of mine. But sometimes, things just fall into your lap, and you can't bear to let them pass. So it is with this week's entry, wherein we discover that Jews are to blame for ... the rudeness of the French [http://henrymakow.com/2013/10/French-Rudeness-Due-to-Occult-Attack%20.html].

In general, the French are rude because as a people, we are under attack.

Most of people just reflect back the aggression they are suffering themselves.

We are under an occult attack from the Masonic Jewish cabal that controls France. Although the majority of French cannot identify this source, we are reacting to the evil we are being fed by the media, politics and culture as a whole.

We've been uprooted as a Christian people, and the loss of Christianity as religion, ethic, moral values, communication, education and so on, is what's turning us into reckless maniacs.

We do not know how to interact with others nicely because evil is being forced down our throat daily. This creates a deep sense of moral discomfort and insecurity. And when you add the constant influx of foreigners into the country, inspired by the Masonic Jewish cabal, you end up with a people that feels (the word is not too strong) terrorized.

I have to admit this one surprised even me. Typically, Jews are blamed for grand social calamities or massive disasters. Being blamed for a bad attitude is distinctly small ball -- even if it does come tied to our supposed control of an entire nation-state. On the other hand, at some level it also is demonstrative of our limitless reach and zeal for control. Any tyrannical cabal can control a banking system -- it takes a true attention to detail to be responsible for individual mood swings as well.

While the hat tip goes to Adam Holland, this post had to be dedicated to Phoebe Maltz Bovy, given that it is basically the bizarro version of her own blog.

Red State, Part II

Reacting to border clashes with Syria stoked by Palestinian activists attempting to cross over into Israel, Bibi Netanyahu claimed the events as proof that Palestinians are not interested in a state based on 1967 borders. Which, if my understanding of the past few weeks' events is correct, puts them in the same camp as the U.S. Republican Party. Moral incoherence makes for strange bedfellows, indeed.

Of course, the substance of Bibi's claim is, at best, woefully underproven. At most, the clashes on the Syrian border demonstrate that some Palestinians (to wit, those involved in the clashes) don't want a state based on 1967 borders. Their intentions, however, cannot be transmuted onto all Palestinians. For example, PA leader Mahmoud Abbas has indicated his willingness to work off of the French peace proposal I wrote about Friday, one which calls for two states for two peoples on basis of '67 borders. Bibi, by contrast, has made no definitive moves with respect to the proposal.

The fact of the matter is that both sides have elements which don't support a '67-based, two-state solution to the conflict. Simply cherry-picking extremists and holding them out as the epitome of the Israeli or Palestinian position is not good-faith dealing. Unfortunately, it is becoming more and more evident that Netanyahu has no interest in a good-faith pursuit of a negotiated settlement to the conflict. Earlier in his tenure, it was the PA which was jerking Israel around; now it seems like the situation is reversed.

What's sad is that the second I read about the French proposal, I figured that it was simply a race to see who could agree to it first -- at which point the other side would be obliged to find some reason to reject it. It seems both sides are just incapable of having sane leadership committed to resolving the conflict at the same time. If one side starts to behave reasonably, the other side becomes beholden to its extremist irredentist wings.

French Peace Plan: Two States for Two People

In an effort to jump-start stagnant peace negotiations between Israel and Palestine, the French government has released a new framework for beginning negotiations -- notable because (like President Obama), it explicitly stipulates "two states for two peoples" -- in other words, a Palestinian state for the Palestinian people, and an Israeli state for the Jewish people.

Also like President Obama (and like every single serious peace proposal by any party, for that matter), borders would be negotiated on basis of '67 lines, with agreed-upon swaps. It also is -- surprisingly -- neutral on the question of Jerusalem as a capital for both states, and delays negotiation on that question as well as on the issue of refugees until after borders and security arrangements are finalized. East Jerusalem is a red-line for Palestinians the same way that "right of return" is for Israelis, but I don't care if each side holds out for a favorable agreement on its issue of choice, so long as they get back to the table and start talking.

Overall, the parameters of the French framework are a step closer to Netanyahu's demands, and he'd be a fool not to jump on it -- assuming, that is, he is actually genuine about trying to actualize a two-state solution that envisions an independent Palestine alongside Israel. That assumption, of course, is far from clear.

French Connection

A new study reveals intense bias against French Muslims of Senegalese descent in the French job market (and a milder one against Christians of Senegalese descent). The study was modeled off the famous Are Emily and Greg More Employable than Lakisha and Jamal? study, which revealed similar (racial) biases in American labor markets. However, this topic is considerably less-studied in France because of that nation's near-fanatical devotion to "colorblindness" and the pure secular state. As this study pointedly demonstrates, that policy is an abject failure.

Resist/Accept Oppression!

Dave Kopel, the Volokh Conspiracy's resident gun scholar, has an interesting request of his readers. Or rather, an interestingly juxtaposed pair of two requests:

I believe I have read--but I can't recall where-- that during the Second World War, some English pacifists proposed that when the Nazi troops arrived in England, unopposed by military resistance (thanks to pacifist policy), they should be greeted with Christian love. Such a greeting would be disarming, and the Nazis, seeing that the invaded population were Christian friends rather than belligerents, would realize the error of the war-like Nazi ways.

Does anyone have a citation or other information about this proposal?

.... How a good article or book chapter on Frantz Fanon's influence in promoting racist violence and other terrorism? There's mention of this scattered in many sources, but how about a consolidated, extended treatment?

Hmmm.

Now, I admit to playing psychologist as to the motives of Kopel's request, but I feel pretty confident about this. The former bleg is about the need to sometimes violently resist oppression. The latter bleg is indicting Fanon for encouraging...the violent resistence of oppression. The British pacifists were clearly unrealistic in their appraisal of Nazi evil (and of course, the Jew in me knows what happens to those of us who are not by any twist "Christian friends"). But the French colonization of Algeria was undeniably evil as well -- is Kopel guilty of misapprehending the nature of the situation as well? There's no indication that pacifism would have been any more likely to drive the French out of Africa than it would have been a deterrent to Nazi occupation of the UK.

Fanon, at least, was consistent: he won the Croix de Guerre after being wounded fighting for the Free French Forces in World War II.