Back in the Swing Roundup

Go to school, read a book, be a lawyer/
Hell yeah, man, I'm all for the cause.

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New study reveals parents believe all teens but their own to be hyper-sexual (their own teens are entirely asexual).

Fox News is annoyed that President Obama didn't gratuitously insult American Jews (the Jewish community appreciated the gesture). I know exactly how committed the conservative Christian movement is to fully including Jews in the fabric of America.

Statements of Avrom Krengel (chair of the South African Zionist Federation) and Richard Goldstone after their recent meeting.

Lebanon delays asking Hezbollah to disarm.

The Judeosphere predicts a fall into obscurity for Walt & Mearsheimer (the latter's work on neo-realism will not soon be forgotten, but hopefully his ill-considered forays into the study of domestic lobbying and Mideast politics will be).

More evidence of the Catholic Church shuffling around predator priests.

Phoebe Maltz on literature and anti-Semitism.

Senator Bennett Out in Utah

Senator Bob Bennett (R-UT), a reliable conservative who raised far-right hackles because he refused to publicly act like a psychopath, has lost a Republican Primary convention and is effectively out as the Senator from Utah.

Bennett's defeat marks the first time a sitting Senator has lost in an intraparty fight since 2006 when Sen. Joe Lieberman was ousted by wealthy businessman Ned Lamont in the Democratic primary. Lieberman went on to run and win as an independent; under state law Bennett cannot pursue that course.

It also marks the first major victory for the conservative wing of the Republican party, which has organized itself under the banner of the Tea Party movement to protest what they believe to be a government run amok.

Bennett, a reliable conservative on most issues, had repeatedly expressed exasperation at his predicament -- insisting that the ideological right's issues with him were less about his record and more about the tone he struck during the partisan warfare in Washington.

Actually, this is the second time in recent years something like this has happened in Utah -- Jason Chaffetz's primary defeat of arch-conservative six-term Rep. Chris Cannon (R) on grounds of insufficient conservatism had a very similar ring.

You Know It's Bad

Rep. John Boehner (R-OH), of all people, talking sense about Senator Joe Lieberman's (I-CT) proposal to strip alleged terrorists of their citizenship:

"If they're a U.S. citizen, until they're convicted of some crime, I don't know how you would attempt to take their citizenship away," House Republican Leader John A. Boehner (Ohio) told reporters Thursday, according to Bloomberg News. "It would be pretty difficult under the U.S. Constitution."

Sentence first, verdict later, as the Queen says.

The Jordan Move Was Pretty Sweet Too

In my defense, "I'm not sure that's 100% safe" was only my second thought -- after "that's adorable" but before "wow, that's really awesome".



Via.

What Goldstone's Past Actually Teaches Us

An article in an Israeli newspaper digs into Richard Goldstone's past as a judge during South Africa's apartheid era. The story focuses on Judge Goldstone's role in sentencing several Black defendants to death, as well as other actions which seemed rather sketchy given the way they reified South Africa's racist structure:

Goldstone claimed that he never discriminated against black defendants and acted to the best of his abilities to act fairly, though he was sometimes morally opposed to the laws he was upholding. He noted that he was equally committed to maintain equality and to uphold the law, two principles that often clashed.

I think this is very important. Matt Yglesias dismisses the entire article because "an awful lot of people were in morally compromising situations" during the apartheid era.* And this is undoubtedly true. The ANC seems to think of Judge Goldstone as a good jurist and a friend, and that's enough for me to accept his anti-racist credentials.

But the importance of this article isn't really about somehow showing Goldstone to be a dreaded racist. Nor am I convinced that Goldstone's participation in the Gaza inquiry was meant to sanitize this unsavory past. Jon Chait gets it closest when he writes that "Goldstone seems to be disinclined to make a brave, lonely stand against the prevailing currents."

But what I was most reminded of was my own intuition on Goldstone's self-image of the role of law:

Judge Goldstone, I've often thought, is like a very judicious, public-spirited, personally fair-minded person who volunteers to be the judge at the Scottsboro trial. The instinct is equal parts admirable, naive, and egomaniacal. Admirable, because of the belief (which I think Judge Goldstone had) that what the situation really needed was for someone who wasn't infected by the endemic prejudice to step in and be a fair arbiter. Naive, because it drastically underestimates the degree to which the prejudice infects the entire system, and thus is perfectly complimentary with formal legal categories -- Jim Crow ate up and spat out formal constitutional doctrine with a near-careless ease (it took rather dramatic changes in how we viewed American law for institutional racism to be rooted out). Egomaniacal, because of the belief that one messianic person could effectively counter an entire system simply by playing by its own rules. Formalism, no matter how judiciously applied, only works when the surrounding system is just. When that quality isn't present, following the rules will do virtually nothing, because they mean virtually nothing.

The above block-quoted section fits this to a T. Goldstone, I think, rationalized his service as an apartheid-era judge because, in contrast to his explicitly racist fellows, he knew he was fair and judicious, and would follow the rules and dot every "i" and cross every "t". The overwhelming faith in formalism remains the blindspot. When the system is unjust, following the rules does surprisingly little. Judge Goldstone may be (or may not be) a meticulous technician within the system, but he has no view of the big picture. He can't fathom that simply playing by the rules isn't enough.

* The rest of Matt's piece is a rather half-hearted effort to swat aside the possibility that Israel is the victim of unfair treatment because -- well, he doesn't explain why, except to say that the folks who support Goldstone don't all hate Black people. Well, that's great, but it is entirely possible to hold egalitarian views towards one marginalized group and be prejudiced against another. I would never impeach Desmond Tutu's anti-apartheid credentials, but I sure as hell will impeach whatever credibility he has speaking about Jews and Jewish experience.

The question is whether the system we're working in -- international law as mediated through UN institutions -- is one that treats Jews and Jewish claims fairly, and it's not like this argument hasn't been made with considerable sophistication and evidence. Matt wants to force us into this binary where either we have to oppose the entire facial ideology of international law, or accept that the system as currently administered is meted out fairly. This doesn't so much answer the critique as sidestep it entirely, secure in the confidence that the ultimate response to claims of discriminatory activity is to mock the complainant.

Prom Night!

...at the law school (well, for the law school. Thankfully, it's being hosted downtown).

To tide you over, the AJC's 2010 annual survey of American Jewish Opinion is chock full of interesting results.

Bleed American

Some California high schoolers decided to wear American flags all over their body during Cinco de Mayo. Eugene Volokh defends them from charges of discourteousness:

Even if the students wore American flag garb only on Cinco de Mayo, I take it that the message was “you want to stress your Mexican heritage, and we want to stress our American heritage” or at most “we don’t entirely approve of your stressing your ethnic heritage, since we should all think of ourselves as Americans.” This might convey some disagreement, but it hardly strikes me as discourteous; and to the extent that it’s a “rebuke,” it’s the sort of message that people are entitled — not just as a matter of law, but also of good manners — to send. Courtesy doesn’t require absence of disagreement. It requires that the disagreement not be framed in a rude way, and I don’t think there’s anything rude in the messages that I infer the clothes were trying to send.

I think Volokh is missing the most obvious potential message here, though, and it's one that is clearly discourteous: That unlike the Cinco de Mayo celebrators, the wearers here are real Americans. Volokh's claim that the message is that we should all view ourselves as Americans is, under this view, precisely the opposite message. The students may have been intending to send (or the recipients may have received, regardless of intent) the message that "people with your cultural heritage and background are something alien and external to 'American', which is what we represent."

Or maybe not. But it's a very plausible reading of the t-shirts, and one Volokh doesn't address. And needless to say, that message would be quite morally pernicious.

Rent-a-Roundup

Anybody interested in subletting an amazing townhouse in Hyde Park?

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DougJ looks at the polling regarding Arizona's anti-immigrant law, declares that "if it were up to white voters, we would be living under a Franco-style military dictatorship."

Incidentally, that same poll reveals that Blacks are even less likely to support the Arizona law than Latinos (whose own support can safely be characterized as minuscule).

Republicans discover one right for terrorists they can support.

South African human rights activist Rhoda Kadalie discusses her recent fact-finding trip to Israel.

Tzipi Livni calls for a Kadima/Likud alliance that can actually make peace, not to mention stem the poisonous tide of ultra-orthodox influence over Israel.

An element away from disaster.

Resurrected from the Depths

It seems appropriate to note at this juncture that Walt and Mearsheimer are not experts in the area that The Israel Lobby covers, and indeed, their analysis is fraught with embarrassingly elementary mistakes which have nothing to do with whether they are, in some sense, "anti-Semitic" or not. There's plenty to find morally condemnable in their outlook, but that debate shouldn't distract us from the fact that their analysis is just descriptively awful -- lest we get mired in hellish contrarian mush about how they are bold prophets providing the hard truths that everybody else is too cowardly (because of the Israel Lobby!) to say aloud.

Read the Fucking Constitution

The Onion hits it out of the park, again.

Legal Advancement Roundup

The Supreme Court sweepstakes draws closer to its conclusion, and meanwhile, I begin my quest for a clerkship.

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Ken Waltzer takes on John Mearsheimer's ever-more infamous speech.

Another entry in the just give war a chance catalog.

Yes, we know that terrorist suspect in the attempted Times Square bombing Faisal Shahzad is an American citizen. But still, does he really need to be read his Miranda rights? That's reserved for White terrorists!

Meanwhile, retired general Paul Eaton blasts the anti-constitution wing of the GOP for putting American lives at risk.

Dennis Prager sees another data point for why Whites are smarter than Blacks -- they're tea partiers! Clearly, the only explanation for why Blacks wouldn't want to join a White-dominated movement is that they're irrational creatures.

Obama and Biden interview Judge Wood.

How many anti-Semitic themes can be fit onto one website? The Palestine Telegraph endeavors to find out.

The Phoenix Suns, whose top player is a Canadian immigrant (who wants odds on whether he'll ever be asked to show his papers?) denounce the new Arizona anti-immigrant law.

Rabbi Michael Lerner's House Vandalized by Right-Wing Thugs

In an email, I've just received word that the house of Rabbi Michael Lerner, of Tikkun magainze, has been vandalized by right-wing thugs:

Berkeley police today confirmed that the attack on Rabbi Lerner's home late Sunday June [sic] 2nd or early morning Sunday July [sic] 3rd was in fact a crime and was being investigated.

The attackers used a powerful form of glue to attach posters to his door and around the property of his home attacking Lerner personally, and attacking liberals and progressives as being supporters of terrorism and "Islamo-fascism." They posted a printed bumper sticker saying "fight terror--support Israel" next to a carcature of Judge Goldstone whose UN report on Israel's human rights violations in its attack on Gaza last year has been denounced as anti-Semitic and pro-terror by right wingers in Israel and the U.S.. The caricature has Goldstone talking about his being kept from his grandson's bar mitzvah, and the caricature of Rabbi Lerner responds by saying "any enemy of Israel is a friend of mine."

This is indeed a hate crime, and should be vigorously pursued with the perpetrators caught and punished to the fullest extent of the law. The Jewish community has no place for retrograde thugs who attack people due to having dissident political views. I may have my differences with Rabbi Lerner, but he is a Jew, and thus an attack on him threatens me as well.

Unfortunately, the end of the email alert concludes with the following suggestion: "What can you do? Let people know that this kind of thing is happening in the Jewish world to people who critique Israeli policies."

We are quite fortunate that this sort of thing, by and large, is not happening to "people who critique Israeli policies". The explosion of violent anti-Semitic incidents has by and large not been focused on Israel's critics. Actually, I take that back: for many of the victims may well have criticized Israel on numerous occasions -- I reject the notion that the average Jew is in that nebulous class of people who purportedly are "unable to critique Israeli policies". But it is true to say that when Jews are targeted for violence, it is not typically because they critique Israel. Insofar as I fear being targeted for anti-Semitic treatment or violence, it is not my criticisms of Israel that worry me. There are, of course, extremists who do undertake such violence for that reason -- Rabbi Lerner's attackers being one, the pipe bomb targeting Ze'ev Sternhell was another. But I do not feel besieged, and I do not accede to the notion that, as someone who has criticized Israeli policies in the past and plans to do so in the future, I should feel besieged as a result.

My Letter to Andrew

I just sent this email to Andrew Sullivan, regarding his defense of Professor Mearsheimer's recent division of the American Jewish community into its good and bad Jews

Andrew,

Regarding your defense of Professor Mearsheimer's division of the public American Jewish community into the righteous and the profane: You focus your attention on the folks Mearsheimer lumps into his list of "new Afrikaners" -- a group that ranges from Mort Klein (a despicable right-wing thug if there ever was one) to David Harris (whose organization, the AJC, vociferously denounced the Israeli government's announcement of new settlements during Vice President Biden's visit). But more interesting to me are the folks Mearsheimer lists as "righteous Jews", and how their own outlooks track what Mearsehimer claims to be his and their position on the optimal solution to the conflict.

The way I understand Mearsheimer's argument is that the first-best solution to the conflict is a two-state solution based on 1967 borders. However, he claims, this may be becoming impossible, forcing us to move to a decidedly second-best (to put it mildly) outcome -- the so-called "one state solution", whereby Israel is dissolved into a single (perhaps bi-national) state with Palestine. My understanding of your own position is that you agree that this would be a bad thing, but perhaps it is rapidly becoming the inevitable thing as the best solution grows ever-more distant (and agree with Mearsheimer as far as that goes).

The reason I find Mearsheimer's list of "righteous Jews" odd, then, is that far fewer of them would agree with the above paragraph than the names on the "new Afrikaners" list. While I admit I don't know the positions of all the folks on both lists, the only person I could say with confidence would disagree that the two-state based on '67 borders solution is the best outcome is Mort Klein. By contrast, several of the "righteous Jews" are either indifferent or outspokenly opposed to that position. To be sure, there are folks on Mearsheimer's list of righteous Jews that do agree with you and I that a two-state solution is the preferable one; that if we do enter a world where a single state was the only viable outcome, that would constitute a tragedy, not a triumph. And some of these folks are people I'm proud to associate myself with, like J Street (interestingly, the only group amongst the "righteous" that Mearsheimer equivocates on -- who, I wonder, does he think amongst the J Streeters is flying a false flag?). But opponents of this vision are well represented. Norman Finkelstein is indifferent but thinks a two-state approach is more practically feasible in the near-term. Tony Karon prefers a unitary state but also thinks two states are acceptable if that is easier to attain. Philip Weiss prefers one state. Tony Judt calls the idea of a separate Jewish state an "anachronism", he too thinks one state is the first-best outcome. Naomi Klein is indifferent between the two.

Mearsheimer also groups the entire list -- "righteous" and "Afrikaner" -- under the broader label of "American Jews who care deeply about Israel." This is the fulcrum of your defense of his delineation -- that Mearsheimer's objection to the "New Afrikaners" is that, within the broader class of people who care about Israel, their political prescriptions are deeply misplaced; the "righteous Jews" are the ones who truly care and know best. But again, to characterize them as folks who "care deeply about Israel" is simply not an accurate description of several of his "righteous Jews". I mean that in an entirely value-neutral way -- not that their politics are inconsistent with a deep concern for Israel (though I think in many cases they are), but simply that they wouldn't characterize themselves as folks who "care deeply about Israel". Finkelstein and Weiss, I imagine, simply think that Israel is responsible for a significant amount of evil in the world, and are working to try and rectify it -- there is no sentimentality behind it, anymore than efforts to end North Korean brutality are motivated by deep caring about North Korea. Naomi Klein got her start in this whole field by proclaiming herself to be a "Jew against Israel".

Put simply, by their own admission a goodly portion of Mearsheimer's "righteous Jews" are not folks who "deeply care" about Israel and are committed to achieving a two-state solution for as long as it is a plausible goal. Their commitments and desires lie elsewhere. They are not our friends. They are not our allies.

But allies do exist. J Street, and its new European cousin J Call are two. TULIP -- Trade Unions Linking Israel and Palestine -- is another. Engage and OneVoice are two more. They are the real deal. And now, more than ever, they need our help, and cannot afford that the folks who are true friends of Israel, who recognize the current path is unsustainable, dissipate their energy by affiliating with charlatans.

Sincerely,

David Schraub
The University of Chicago Law School '11
Articles Editor, the University of Chicago Law Review
The Debate Link: http://dsadevil.blogspot.com

Calling for JCall

A group of prominent Jewish leaders have announced the formation of JCall, meant to be a European equivalent of J Street. The new group will include several luminaries in the progressive pro-Israel movement, including French philosopher Bernard Henri-Levy and David Hirsch of Engage.

“We are citizens of European countries, Jews, and involved in the political and social life of our respective countries,” the newly formed organization declares in its petition, which has already gathered over 2,000 signatures. “Whatever our personal paths, our connection to the State of Israel is part of our identity. We are concerned about the future of the State of Israel, to which we are unfailingly committed.”

JCall joins an already vibrant set of European institutions committed to a fair, just, peaceful settlement between the Israelis and Palestinians, including the already mentioned Engage and the international but largely European-focused TULIP. Welcome!

Boycotting Arizona?

Amanda Marcotte discusses the possibility in an extremely thoughtful post. Now, as y'all know, I'm very skeptical of boycotts. But so is Marcotte, and she lays out her generic skepticism in ways that really resonate with my own suspicions:

I’m usually against “boycotts”, mostly because they aren’t really boycotts. Most calls to boycott that I encounter have no objective in mind except to give the boycotter cause to feel morally superior. Most so-called boycotts are utterly useless in exerting pressure, and the targets are neither harmed nor seem to give a shit. For instance, the calls to boycott the Superbowl because of the Tim Tebow ad. What was that supposed to accomplish? CBS wasn’t quaking in their shoes. Most boycotts have no goals, no leadership, no real effect. When I asked people who were claiming to boycott Roman Polanski’s movies to punish him for raping a 13-year-old, I asked them if they really thought that Polanski was going to feel that and then....well do what, exactly? He can’t unrape her. He’s probably not going to stop fleeing from the authorities. The answer was usually, “Well, I just can’t allow myself to give money to him,” which is basically a moral argument about picking up a taint from engaging someone who did something wrong. Not that I’m criticizing that per se. I think there’s value in some kinds of moral repulsion, which is why most of us don’t want to kick around with rapists and murderers. But avoiding something because it repulses you isn’t a boycott.

Boycotts have to be targeted, specific, and wide-reaching to work. The Montgomery bus boycott is the reason people like the idea of boycotts, but you have to look at why it was effective. First of all, a specific goal for the action was outlined, which was ending the segregation policy on city buses in Montgomery. The organizers realized that to have a broad impact, they didn’t need broad action. Specificity wasn’t sacrificed to make a general statement. Second of all, the boycott created consequences for those with the power to change things. Surprisingly few calls for boycotts do this. Third, there was leadership and organization. The message of the boycott was very clear to those feeling the effects of it.

So yeah, I think that is mostly right. Many of my problems with the BDS movement against Israel track these problems: a huge swath of it does seem premised on the signaling of moral outrage more than in creating concrete consequences (I think I more leery of this sort of behavior than Marcotte is -- place me on the Nussbaum side of the Nussbaum/Kahan debate over whether disgust is a useful emotion for pressing progressive social change). The goals of the movement are neither unified nor generally specific -- I've heard the goals characterized as everything from forcing the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state and its replacement by a single state (reasonably specific, but also morally bad), to boycotting until a negotiated settlement is reached (vague, and also not entirely in Israel's hands), to boycotting until Israel ceases violating international law (still vaguer, as international law is ambiguous, indefinite, and doesn't have any truly widely accepted adjudicators with the authority to make pronouncements), to boycotting until Israel becomes a "responsible global citizen" (vaguest of all).

So is Arizona different? Marcotte lays out the case.

This is why I think a broad boycott of Arizona has the potential to work. First of all, it’s specific. (Repeal this law immediately.) It links the consequences to the law, and the consequences have the potential to be strongly felt, as Rachel explains in the video. It’s widespread, with people from all walks of life and all angles providing leadership on this issue. And it’s organized behind a lot of leadership. You have celebrities speaking out, politicians joining the boycott, pundits encouraging it, even sports writers! It has legs, in other words. Plus, it’s very clear that this has nothing to do with hating on Arizona or some errant issues that are attached to it. Just as the bus boycotters weren’t saying that buses were bad, boycotters here are making it clear they love Arizona, but they will have nothing to do with it until they change their ways.

Not bad, but I'm still dubious. There are a couple of issues that still pull at me. Most notably, I'm not convinced at the ability of the boycott to maintain such a narrow target profile. The state just passed two more racially suspect ordinances, one prohibiting accented teachers from teaching English (my suspicion is that a Georgia drawl won't be targeted), the other barring ethnic studies programs. Are reversing these part of the boycott? What if we get one repealed, but not the other two? The problem is on both ends: maintaining cohesion, but also the ability to "call off the dogs" when Arizona does what it's putatively being asked to do.

Similarly, Arizona legislators met late last night and modified the immigration bill significantly, both clarifying that the police could only inquire into the immigration status of someone lawfully detained (so not someone asking a cop for directions), and also deleting "solely" from the provision purportedly restricting the use of race as grounds for immigration suspicion. Is that sufficient to make the law acceptable? Is that sufficient to get the boycott called off? Are these questions equivalent to each other? Presumably a boycott is not considered a justified response to any policy disagreement, but only the most outrageous deviations from moral conduct. A serious problem I have with boycotts is that once they get rolling, unless they are extremely disciplined with regards to the aims and organization, it becomes very tempting to try and use them as a brute force club to try and mold the target into the wielder's ideal utopia -- a far cry from the surgical, targeted use originally contemplated.

Moreover, one of the reasons boycotts tend to be high-risk strategies is that until they reach some critical mass, they almost always are counterproductive. Amanda is right as far as she goes that the boycott movement isn't motivated by hatred of Arizona. But that doesn't mean it won't be perceived that way. The Arizona legislation comes at the intersection of two heavily victim-oriented ideologies: White protestant American conservatism, which tends to see itself as perpetually besieged by smug outsider liberal elitists, and anti-immigration sentiment, which of course sees the entire nation as under attack by a wave of hostile immigration. Given the availability of those two mentalities, it is quite likely that the first response of Arizonans to a boycott will be to close ranks against the "assault". Of course, given enough momentum, a boycott could simply slam past that resistance, in which case it works anyway. But it is a calculated risk at best. And I think the Montgomery Bus Boycott, which was intensely local and whose target was far narrower than an entire state, consequently had a far more reachable tipping point than the boycott Arizona folks.

So I do think that Amanda makes some solid points that make the Arizona case a closer call than most other boycott movements. But ultimately, I'm still very dubious, and prefer greatly that we allow the burgeoning legal challenges to take their course before resorting to the very blunt, high-risk, and difficult to control boycott process.

Mearsheimer Lists His Good Jews

The Jerusalem Fund recently invited University of Chicago Professor and Israel Lobby author John Mearsheimer to lecture on the subject of "Righteous Jews vs. New Afrikaners". In other words, good Jews versus bad Jews -- a subject I've already given my thoughts on (Hussein Ibish has a more broad-scale dissection of the talk). So dispense with what's been said. More evocative to me is who Mearsheimer groups into each camp:

American Jews who care deeply about Israel can be divided into three broad categories. The first two are what I call “righteous Jews” and the “new Afrikaners,” which are clearly definable groups that think about Israel and where it is headed in fundamentally different ways. The third and largest group is comprised of those Jews who care a lot about Israel, but do not have clear-cut views on how to think about Greater Israel and apartheid. Let us call this group the “great ambivalent middle.”

Righteous Jews have a powerful attachment to core liberal values…..To give you a better sense of what I mean when I use the term righteous Jews, let me give you some names of people and organizations that I would put in this category. The list would include Noam Chomsky, Roger Cohen, Richard Falk, Norman Finkelstein, Tony Judt, Tony Karon, Naomi Klein, MJ Rosenberg, Sara Roy, and Philip Weiss of Mondoweiss fame, just to name a few. I would also include many of the individuals associated with J Street and everyone associated with Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as distinguished international figures such as Judge Richard Goldstone. Furthermore, I would apply the label to the many American Jews who work for different human rights organizations, such as Kenneth Roth of Human Rights Watch.

On the other side we have the new Afrikaners, who will support Israel even if it is an apartheid state…..I would classify most of the individuals who head the Israel lobby’s major organizations as new Afrikaners. That list would include Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League, David Harris of the American Jewish Committee, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Ronald Lauder of the World Jewish Congress, and Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, just to name some of the more prominent ones. I would also include businessmen like Sheldon Adelson, Lester Crown, and Mortimer Zuckerman as well as media personalities like Fred Hiatt and Charles Krauthammer of the Washington Post, Bret Stephens of the Wall Street Journal, and Martin Peretz of the New Republic. It would be easy to add more names to this list.

These lists are ... well, they're bizarre. I think grouping Abe Foxman with Mort Klein is a little difficult to swing; and grouping David Harris with either is also hard to swallow as representing anything real.

On the side of the "righteous Jews", things get even hairier. Norman Finkelstein and Phillip Weiss "care deeply about Israel"? In what respect? Have they ever said anything to that effect? My understanding is that both Finkelstein and Weiss are quite vocal in wishing for the end of Israel as a Jewish state. It seems baffling also to group committed boycott supporters like Klein, with avid and outspoken opponents like the folks at J Street (who have correctly noted the BDS movement's fundamental incompatibility with the pursuit of peace and justice). Indeed, this conflation seems to be part of the broader attempt to sabotage J Street by associating it with names, ideas, and ideologies it has quite clearly repudiated and finds abhorrent.

Beyond picking at who is grouped with who, there are some deeper problems. As might be apparent, these broad lumpings really don't get at the heterogeneity of views in the Jewish community; they serve less to demarcate good and bad actors as they serve as proxies for Mearsheimer's political priors. I should be clear that there are bad people who are Jews -- Mort Klein being an obvious example -- but I don't see it as emblematic of some broader Jewish pathology the way that Mearsheimer does. The move here is to flatten distinctions amongst the Jewish community, then label huge swaths of it as either infected or moral cowards. Sweeping generalizations are not becoming.

Finally, of course, I recoil at the notion that Norman Finkelstein be considered a righteous anything, let alone a righteous Jew who is somehow a deep friend of Israel. For the most part, Mearsheimer's good Jews are a rather horrible bunch, whose commitment not just to Israel, but to basic norms of democratic equality and peaceful co-existence is questionable to say the least. It is notably that the one group he is ambivalent about (J Street) is also the one most firmly committed to an actual, concrete peace policy aimed at securing justice for both Jews and Palestinians. The list, in other words, reveals more about what Mearsheimer's moral ideals are than they do about whose policies we should seek to emulate.

Connecting Racism and Anti-Semitism

Statement of Robert Fine and Claudine Attias Donfut regarding their establishment of a forum to discuss the intersections between racism and anti-Semitism:

Our ESA Network on Racism and Antisemitism brings together, into a common forum of discussion, research activity in each of these areas. An informing idea behind setting up this network is that a prevailing current in the sociology of race has been that of a black-white binary which excludes other forms of racism that do not fit this binary. Our conviction is that an explicit connection between racism and antisemitism (and other intra-European racisms) helps us redress such exclusions. We also recognise that prevailing currents in study of antisemitism have generally not led scholars to situate this phenomenon with the context of racism more broadly but rather to view antisemitism sui generis as an independent phenomenon. Our belief is that Sociology can play a more universalistic role in overcoming tendencies toward particularism and that the broadening of our sociological imagination will flow from recognition of connected sociologies.

The connection between racism and antisemitism may appear uncontroversial, almost banal, but today any sociology that seeks to connect the phenomena of racism and antisemitism must be willing to confront serious resistance arising from a number of related sources. On the one hand, there are specialists who have an interest in maintaining a kind of sub-disciplinary specialization and in saying that this form of racism is real whilst that form of racism is minor or marginal or not real at all. There are emphatic theories of difference that construct walls between one form of racism and another and find it difficult to recognize the sheer versatility of racism. There are standpoint epistemologies that say that only the victims can properly understand the racism or antisemitism directed at them and slip into paradigms of competitive victimhood that refuse to acknowledge the victimization of others.

In relation to antisemitism, most social scientists acknowledge that antisemitism was a major issue in the past but there are many who deny that antisemitism is any longer a significant issue in the present and argue that antisemitism has become more rhetoric than reality. They may embrace a philosophy of history that sees the new Europe as having overcome its darker, nationalistic temptations; or they may say that the conditions in Europe that once led to antisemitism have now been superseded and Islamophobia and other racisms have substituted for antisemitism. There is a temptation in sociology to resort to the symbolic erasure of antisemitism and disregard the mythological images antisemitism inherits from the past, because they are unwanted reminders of the subterranean streams of European civilization.

In terms of political argument it is sometimes said that the charge of ‘antisemitism’ is employed dishonestly as a means of deflecting attention from the allegedly racist character of Zionism and the Israeli state. It is said that a focus on Jews as victims of antisemitism serves to obscure the wrongs Jews themselves commit as victimisers. In these political debates we have to acknowledge that anti-racists can represent concern over the ‘antisemitism’ question mainly as a smokescreen for racism against Moslems, Arabs or Palestinians; and conversely we have to acknowledge that anti-antisemites can represent ‘antiracism’ as an ideology of those whose hostility to Israel is antisemitic in its effects if not its motives.

In the face of all these resistances, which we only touch upon here, our conviction is that the project of connecting racism and antisemitism – which is not at all the same as identifying them – is worth doing. Racism and antisemitism evolved together in European societies as coeval manifestation of how Europeans at once turned on non-Europeans outside Europe and on one another within Europe. To see their connectedness today is our way of keeping in mind the universalistic promise of the sociological imagination.

Very interesting. I lend my full support.

Israeli Diplomat Attacked in Britain

The Israeli government is expecting a rather strong condemnation after this:

A lecture given by Israel's Deputy Ambassador to Britain Talya Lador-Fresher at the University of Manchester deteriorated Wednesday into violence when pro-Palestinian protesters stormed at the diplomat in an attempted attack.

The protesters were waiting for Lador-Fresher outside the lecture hall, but this did not deter her from entering as planned. Immediately upon her exit, the protesters lunged at the diplomat, prompting security guards to whisk her back into the hall. Following a consultation on the site, it was decided to escort her out of the premises in a police car.

The deputy ambassador was removed from the hall and into the police vehicle. However, this did not block the protesters, who surrounded the car and climbed on the hood, trying to break the windshield.

Lador-Fresher ultimately was taken away from the scene safe and sound.

Of course, if anyone gets arrested, we can expect to see some thugs protesting on behalf of the attackers. That will be the usual joy to behold.

UPDATE: At the very least, the statement by the University of Manchester is quite tone-deaf:

A Manchester University spokesman said: “The University is fundamentally committed to freedom of speech, exercised within the law. It follows that it should also allow peaceful and lawful protest to take place on its campus.

“We took all reasonable action to put appropriate security measures in place for this meeting, including a complete lockdown of the building, a high-level security presence, ID checks at the door and ticket-only arrangements.”

I think, being charitable, that the spokesman is not saying that surrounding the ambassador's car and bashing on the windshield is a "peaceful protest", but rather that the University's security arrangements were designed to allow both the diplomat to speak and for "peaceful and lawful protest" to occur. Still, it certainly could be interpreted as a dismissal of the violent nature of the attack here. Given the current atmosophere in British universities, it is fair to ask that their officials take a more unambiguous line on these sort of issues.

Pulling for Cards

Oh, Republicans. One day, they're upset because Democrats want Black people to vote. The next day, they're livid because Obama is purportedly not considering Black candidates for the open SCOTUS seat (as noted, Leah Ward Sears has shown up on several lists of potential nominees, though I don't think she is being considered all that seriously. Ann Claire Williams' name has also bounced across my browser).

The Long Arm of Democracy

Arizona's new "immigration law" -- a targeted slap at Latinos and one that flings the door wide open towards racial profiling -- is a travesty upon the nation. But if there is a glimmer of good news, it is that it may not last long. Kos reminds us of the California GOP's experience with Proposition 187, another immigrant-bashing piece of work which resulted in the decimation of the state's Republican Party as Latinos flocked Democratic. Early polling looks like the same dynamic will occur in Arizona, from a situation where Republicans could get a solid 40% of the Latino vote, to an era where they'll be lucky to break 30%. And in a region of the country where the proportion of Latino voters continues to rise, this is no small thing.

Consider also this story:

I’ve got nothing, and it’s open thread time, so let’s talk about my Mother. She’s 74 years old, brown (US citizen from Mexican parents), and tough as nails. She spends her winters in a small town near Tucson, a few miles from where she grew up.

Since the Arizona immigration law passed, I’ve been thinking about what’s going to happen the first time she’s pulled over and asked for her papers. The results of my thought experiment aren’t pretty. To say that she’ll be unintimidated by the local cops is a gross understatement. My concern is for the officer who pulls her over, as well as the police department and town that she’ll sue. Life gets a little dull for the retired, and the family joke is that Mom has a titanium grudge carrier, so I expect she’ll do her part to bankrupt her local municipality, and enjoy doing it.

Mom’s a proud Goldwater Republican. She was happy with Reagan, voted for Bush II in 2000 (but not in ‘04), and has long been active in the local Republican party. But I can say with absolute certainty that she will not vote for a Republican, for any office, ever again. She’s the proudest person I know—proud of her family, her achievements in life, and her Mexican heritage. And, whatever else this new law is, it is profoundly disrespectful. I don’t know if this law will kill the Republican party in Arizona, but I can assure you that they’re already dead to her.

Sometimes, democracy sucks. But sometimes, when democracy sucks, it swings back around later and punches the suckers in the face. And that's a good feeling.