Pinkwashing Machine

I don't get "pinkwashing." As a concept, I mean. I don't get the supposed logic behind it. It is, as best I can tell, the only movement explicitly predicated on its adherents being morons -- at least if you take it at face value. If you don't take it at face value, it gets more pernicious still. But I race ahead of myself.

"Pinkwashing" is the supposed phenomenon whereby Israel uses its relatively good record on gay rights to distract people's attention away from the occupation. As supervillain strategies go, this seems relatively benign. Moreover, I can't imagine this is Israel's actual thought process. Picture the scene: The elders of Zion are meeting. They have the banks, the media, Hollywood -- all the tools of the global Zionist network -- at their disposal, and are trying to figure out how to keep Palestinians immiserated for as long as possible. The conclave is completely stumped until suddenly, Shmuel hits on a solution: Be nice to gays! It's to progressives like cat videos are to the rest of the world -- once they see it, they won't be able to think about anything else! Boom, problem solved -- until those meddling activists saw through the cunning plot and cried "pinkwashing."

This is a joke. For "pinkwashing" to make sense in the manner its proponents claim that it does, one basically is admitting that holding onto two thoughts is one too many. It's a claim that you are entirely incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. This doesn't happen in other contexts. If I wax lyrical about something I like about the United States -- our First Amendment right to free speech, for example -- I have yet to be accused of "washing away" the plight of the homeless. Our political discourse patterns regularly manage to hold multiple thoughts about the United States at the same time -- things we like, and things we dislike, and things we're ambivalent about. Amazing, I know. And I can do the same thing about Israel too -- I can like some of its characteristics, be ambivalent towards others, and outright oppose some more. It's really not that difficult.

Unsurprisingly, there is something more going on here, and that something is the "delegitimization" debate. Pinkwashing activists, I have to believe, aren't so delusional as to seriously believe that celebrating Israel's gay rights record actually prevents us from thinking critical thoughts about Israel's treatment of Palestinians. What they do think -- accurately -- is that viewing Israel positively in even a single dimension prevents us from holding onto the viewpoint of Israel as an inherently evil and fundamentally irredeemable state. Israel is fundamentally different from other states in that it is a paragon of wrongdoing -- it is rotten to the bone and must therefore be eradicated. Remember how the Church of Scotland viewed the liberal elements of Israel's declaration of independence? Seemingly proof that Zionism can encompass positive liberal elements, the Church instead dismissed them as external to and in tension with the Zionist project. Pinkwashing is the same thing. If Israel seems to be doing good, it's a trick or a distraction.

If one views Israel as of the same class as other countries -- a mixture of right and wrong, good and bad, then Israel's positive gay rights record poses no threat (what a strange reaction, incidentally, to instinctively recoil when a country does good!). Normal politics is not like a PGA Tour event where countries try to move up the leaderboard in the search for "best". In normal politics, we try to encourage the good and fix the bad, and recognize that no matter what field we work in we will invariably see a mix of both.

But the anti-pinkwashers don't view Israel as normal politics. The idea that Israel can do good really is a threat, because when it comes right down to it they really do have a problem with thinking two thoughts at once. Israel only allows for one thought: "evildoer." There's no room for engagement, no room for discussion, no room to consider the angles. Israel is evil, and anything that complicates that picture must be ruthlessly suppressed until the cancer can be eradicated. Even if individual "pinkwashing" activists don't hold that as their politics, that's the tenor of their discourse.

Is it any wonder, then, that most Jews react with such hostility to the pinkwashing charge? It's hardly because they want a world in which there are no critical thoughts about Israel -- Jews are perfectly capable of criticizing Israel, and again, I can't imagine anyone is dumb enough to think that "pinkwashing" would actually succeed in this endeavor even if that was the goal. Rather, the reason this politics is rejected is because it is fundamentally eliminationist in character. They understand that the conceit of "pinkwashing" really relies on a view of Israel as a wholly and purely demonic entity that must be dismantled and destroyed.

To the extent we care about what the Jewish community thinks about Israel (and many people -- pinkwashers generally included -- really don't), that discussion isn't going to go anywhere until it's accepted that Jewish views don't stem from a place of ignorance, delusion, or mass communal psychosis. When we perceive a discourse or a politics as a threat to us, that understanding should be accorded deference. Not unlimited deference, and not unthinking deference, but deference none the less. Jews reject the pinkwashing narrative because Jews understand that the pinkwashing narrative comes from a fundamentally malignant place; one that views Jewish communal projects not as flawed but as a flaw, not as having done wrong but as simply being wrong. There's no reason for us to view it as anything other than bigotry. And that's how I see it too.

Redlines

Eric Yoffie says what I've been pleading for someone to say: Synagogues (or other Jewish communal spaces) are not open-mic nights. There is no obligation to let everyone speak. The Jewish community should welcome vigorous debate (it wouldn't be much of a Jewish community if we didn't), but it is also entirely appropriate to police the borders of that debate, and to declare that certain views are simply unwelcome. We should oppose ethnic hatred, racism, and bigotry. We should oppose those who object to Jewish self-determination or who think Jews can justifiably be murdered for having the temerity to live in their homeland. We should oppose those don't think Israel should be allowed to exist as a secure Jewish democratic state.

And to wit, Yoffie says: J Street yes, BDS no. CUFI yes, Pamela Geller no. And I agree with that. I'm no fan of CUFI, to say the least, but so long as it doesn't endorse one-stateism or other bigoted proposals, I'll disagree with them on the stage. And J Street and I also have our quibbles, but same deal. Meanwhile, I am a strong supporter of recognizing that the BDS folk and Pam Geller are more or less cut from the same cloth, in part because it causes both parties' heads to explode (both groups are also prone to calling for the other to be excluded while wailing about "censorship" or "muzzling" when they're left out).

So all in all, I consider Yoffie's typology to be pure win.

Scold in Chief

I am in absolute agreement with Ta-Nehisi Coates' discussion about how President Obama talks to the Black community. For all the talk about how President Obama is too solicitous to the "blahs", it is evident that he holds them up to a far higher standard than he does other communities. Which isn't necessarily a bad thing, but it is a notable thing, and sometimes it can be a counterproductive thing. As Coates points out, there's nothing intrinsically worse about dreaming to be the next LeBron James as the next Peyton Manning, or the next Kanye compared to the next David Bowie. And I've always wondered how, if at all, the whole "reading a book is acting White" is anything more than a localized instantiation of the more general truth that nerds are unpopular.

Again, perhaps this sort of "tough love" outlook is a net benefit for the Black community. It certainly tracks what White people say they want Black people to say to their own community (though it is perhaps unsurprising that Obama gets no credit for it). But I can't help but note that we are much less approving of this sort of approach when it is directed at ourselves. "Tough love" when directed toward Blacks is "blaming America first" or "politicizing a tragedy" when it comes to Whites.

Chaos Muppets

Impeachment is the word of the day, as after faux-scandal after faux-scandal have failed to stick, Republicans have finally found a government act that everyone agrees was an abuse of power (the IRS audits). Now, from what we know if the IRS scandal at this stage talk of impeachment is obviously ludicrous. Nonetheless, Jon Chait argues that Republicans should let the crazy fly.

It's an interesting question, to be honest. Our constitutional system depends on norms to function, and what we've seen these past few years is what happens when these norms start to breakdown -- when it becomes acceptable to try and kneecap entire wings of government by refusing outright to confirm any agency appointees, or to hold the entire economy hostage through the debt ceiling, or, for that matter, by tossing "impeachment" around every time Obama hears a sneeze without saying "God bless you." Our political system (defined crudely as who wins and loses elections), by contrast, is zero-sum -- it doesn't matter how much the American people hate you so long as they hate the other guy more. Chaos, as Littlefinger reminds us, is a ladder, and a calculated decision to sow chaos certainly can end up redounding to one party's benefit. The system is calibrated to respond to people who stay within well-defined borders, and when a player comes along who openly flouts those rules, he can gain a distinct advantage. This is why the Joker is Batman's most dangerous foe -- his behavior defies even those norms which govern how criminals behave.

But that chaos can aid its progenitors does not mean it always will, and the truly chaotic actor is by definition incapable of ceasing setting fires just because its no longer in his interest. The problem for Republicans is that I don't think this is planned chaos. The Clinton impeachment, for example, was obviously farcically weak on its merits, but at least it could be plausibly sold as a political strategy. It turned out to be a bad gambit -- the American people reacted badly, and the GOP was tarred as a bunch of overzealous hypocritical loons -- but they at least could claim that outcome was apparent only with the benefit of hindsight.

By contrast, today it seems quite clear that all the impeachment chatter is not a calculated strategy but simply an uncontrollable reflex. Impeachment was uttered about Solyndra and Fast and Furious. A number of high-profile Republicans have contemplated it for one alleged offense or another. World Net Daily convened a panel to discuss impeaching Obama over no less than a dozen different "scandals" ranging from the Libya war to Cap and Trade. Rob Portman gets elder statesman points for not being ready to commit to impeachment yet.

Republicans were convinced in 2012 that Benghazi was their ticket to victory, and were shocked that American voters didn't seem to think the Obama administration did anything wrong. One could say they've learned nothing. But I think the problem is deeper. The impeachment talk is no longer a political strategy -- its just the raw result of the conservative id flailing about, and Republicans can no longer keep it under control.

Our Divine Constitution

It wasn't the first academic piece I had accepted for publication (that would be "When Separation Doesn't Work: The Religion Clause as an Anti-Subordination Principle, which came out in the Dartmouth Law Journal when I was still at Carleton).

It wasn't the first piece of academic scholarship I published in a true law review (that would be my law review comment, The Price of Victory: Political Triumphs and Judicial Protection in the Gay Rights Movement). Nor was it the first piece I published as a professor (The Perils and Promise of the Holder Memo), or even the first full-length piece I had accepted for publication (Sticky Slopes, which I believe is scheduled to come out this October).

But nonetheless it is a milestone, and I am pleased to announce the publication of my first full-length law review article to actually hit the presses: Our Divine Constitution, 44 Loy. U. Chi. L.J. 1201 (2013). An abstract is below (I realized that I never actually wrote an abstract for this piece, so I whipped this up in the last 20 minutes).

The presumption that God is omnibenevolent — inherently just, wise, kind, and merciful — is so pervasive as to be almost a tautology. Were God not just, God would not be God. And the United States Constitution, often analogized to a religious document, has regularly been spoken of in the same way. While we accept that the Constitution can tolerate injustice, we are highly resistant to the notion that it can actively command it. When that appears to occur, we are torn between our intuition that the Constitution must allow for justice, and our instinct that our sense of justice cannot deviate from the dictates of the Constitution. We reject either that the contested point is the true command of the Constitution, or the true requirement of justice. Moreover, because Western political thought predicates the legitimacy of constitutional law on its consistency with prefigured conceptions of justice, if we cannot adopt either of these apologias, the only remaining move seems to be rejection of the Constitution itself.

In this review of Robert A. Burt’s book "In the Whirlwind: God and Humanity in Conflict," I address this tension both in terms of theology and legal philosophy. Borrowing from the literature on "protest theology", I argue that neither our faith in the Constitution nor our faith in God is or can be predicated on the idea that these sovereigns are always behaving in a perfectly just manner. But I also reject the notion that injustice is an inherent part of these entities or that our relationship with them is unrelated to our desire for them to help instantiate justice. Our commitment to God and the Constitution is not dependent on their supposed perfection. It exists because it is a relationship we find meaningful even in spite of continual, mutual failings. It persists in spite of those shortcomings not because either God or the Constitution is "truly" or "essentially" just, but because we think it is a relationship worth preserving, and that each can at least be appealed to in the language in justice.

As always, I'd love you feedback.

It's been a really hard year this year, and it did not go the way I had hoped (to put it mildly). But I can do this, and this article will be the first of many.

To Know is not To Understand

Reprinting a status update from David Hirsh, whose Engage organization is simply an indispensable resource for those concerned with anti-Semitism and are looking for an unabashedly progressive and unapologetic approach to combating it:

There is a huge reluctance amongst many antiracist Jews to see antisemitism; to understand it; to oppose it, to defend their fellow Jews, to educate their fellow antiracists. They have lost the ability to sniff antisemitism. They know, without knowing, that to do so puts them outside of the intellectual and political world in which they live. They know, without knowing, that to see, understand, sniff or oppose antisemitism is considered vulgar, selfish, dishonest, dishonourable, disgraceful; It is the end of them being considered progressive, intelligent, antiracist, engaged. The act of knowing is itself punished by exclusion, yet this fact itself does not help them to know.

I'm reminded of a story recounted by Steve Cohen (the British Marxist, not the Tennessee Congressman), who famously described himself as an "anti-Zionist Zionist" ("at least that should confuse the bastards"), about a review of his classic pamphlet "That's Funny, You Don't Look Anti-Semitic". If you click the link and/or read the pamphlet (which you should -- it's one of the most important works of modern anti- anti-Semitism ever written), it is evident immediately that Cohen is a sharp critic of Israel and Zionism -- to a far greater degree than I support, and in ways that I ultimately think are incompatible with Jewish and human equality. But despite this I've always considered Steve an ally, because it is very clear that he thinks critically about anti-Semitism and is unafraid to call it out and does not shy away from the fact that the existence of anti-Semitism does and should alter what sorts of political programs, tactics, and commitments are permissible. 

Anyway, Cohen publishes his pamphlet, which is quite open in its critique of Zionism in the midst of leveling an equally open critique of anti-Semitism amongst anti-Zionists. And the reviewer acknowledges his critique of Zionism, but dismisses it as hollow because he also criticizes anti-Semitism. The exact words were "It is not enough to trot out platitudes, as he does, about being against Zionism and in support of the Palestinian struggle.".And so Steve replied:

So I'm not allowed into the club even though I fulfil the entry requirements. I'm not allowed in because I recognise and oppose the existence of anti-Semitism on the Left—and this therefore renders all support for Palestinians a "platitude". Well it ain't me who's here confusing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

I encountered a similar situation a few years ago. I had been writing a lot on another blog about anti-Semitism, and a commenter asked me "no offense, but is there any criticism of Israel that you wouldn't automatically consider to be anti-Semitic?" And I told her, guess what? Offense taken. First, because caring about anti-Semitism should not give any inference about what positions I take on Israel (much less an unyielding one that cannot tolerate any criticism); second, because I'd spent considerable time documenting and explaining why I thought various things were anti-Semitic, and now I'm told that this some sort of "automatic," thoughtless, kneejerk expression; and third, because I had (at the time) a searchable blog that made it quite clear that I criticized Israel myself quite regularly. No matter -- opposing anti-Semitism itself was enough to render me a suspicious character in her eyes.

There's a saw about the modern right that it isn't so much "racist" as it is "anti-anti-racist." It doesn't really care one way or the other about racism, but it is very committed to attacking those who attack racism. I feel similarly about much of the left (Jewish and otherwise) with regards to anti-Semitism. It's not so much that they themselves are anti-Semitic (though some are), but they seem to positively recoil if anyone might think they could be so gauche, so (dare I say) provincial, as to actually fight against anti-Semitism. Combating anti-Semitism is viewed as a dead giveaway for all manner of mendacious positions -- an inability to criticize Israel, a desire to see Palestinians dispossessed, silencing of people of color, hatred of cosmopolitanism, outdated tribalism -- take your pick. And if, as in Cohen's case, those charges are manifestly untrue -- it still doesn't matter. The pretension at being progressive is but a platitude.

If I sound too harsh towards the Jews Hirsh is talking about, I don't mean to be. To be Jewish anywhere in the world (except that one place the existence of which non-Jews are so angry about) is to be ultimately at the mercy of others. Knowing how not to get kicked out of the club is a survival skill, and Jews know that talking too loudly about anti-Semitism (and for some, any talk is too loud) is a quick way to be shown the exit. The instinct they feel to duck is a perfectly sensible one. But as Hirsh says, the knowledge that to remain in the majority's good graces they have to sing the majority's praises is a sign of the fundamental inequality they experience. And when they promote the majority's narrative that combating anti-Semitism is a far greater problem and graver evil than anti-Semitism itself, they do damage to other Jews. They block the emergence of a serious, unflinching, and badly necessary conversation about anti-Semitism, and they contribute to the expulsion of those who labor so hard and so courageously to bring that conversation about in what remains deeply infertile soul.

An Israel Roundup

A smattering of Israel links sitting on my browser:

Left and right groups agree: Israel is freezing new settlement construction.

Norm Geras has a great article up in Fathom about Israel as an "alibi" for anti-Semitism.

In a similar vein, Eve Gerrard has her own piece about the "pleasures of anti-Semitism". She identifies three: "the pleasures of hatred," "the pleasures of tradition," and "the pleasures of moral purity". The last of these is the one that I see as the most important and most striking.

Stephen Hawking canceled an academic trip to Israel, in what was initially reported to be a boycott move, then a health decision, and now is back to being a boycott statement. Carlo Strenger pens an open letter in response, calling the boycott movement a "way to ventilate outrage about the world's injustices where the cost is low."

The Attorney General of Israel just issued a sweeping and sharp directive aimed at mandating gender equality in sectors of Israeli society where Haredi influence has long propogated segregation.

... and one more: leading Shas MK urges Bibi to accept the Arab Peace Plan. I keep on forgetting that Shas in the opposition right now.

With Friends Like These....

A Facebook friend, with the ever-so-wry "just sayin'", just posted a quote attributed to a certain Father John Sheehan, S.J.:

“Every time anyone says that Israel is our only friend in the Middle East, I can’t help but think that before Israel, we had no enemies in the Middle East.”

As a pure statement of history, this is of course false. The U.S. has had its share of pre-1948 enemies in the Middle East (the Barbary Pirates, the Ottoman Empire in WWI, various Arab factions which sided with the Nazis in WWII, etc.).

But pushing beyond that, I think this statement needs to be unpacked a bit even if we took it at face value. The argument being made by our friendly Jesuit priest is that prior to Israel's establishment, we were all buddy-buddy with the dominant powers in the Middle East, but that all went to hell once the Jews had the temerity to establish their own state. Damn Jews.

This, of course, is an interesting view over how we should think about "friendship," to wit, that the most important consideration is whether it allows us to maintain and preserve preexisting relationships of power. Which ... okay, so that's one way of looking at it. Charles De Gaulle did say that "nations do not have friends, only interests." But I'd hope that's not the only way that we would think about how we select our friends.

Consider the following statement as a parallel:

"Every time anyone says that Blacks are Democrats' only friends in the South, I can't help but think that before Blacks were allowed to vote Democrats had all the votes in the South."

As a historical matter, this is at least as true (and probably more so) than Sheehan's statement. And some people do seem to resent Blacks for that, and essentially blame them for the Democratic Party's misfortunes in the American South. But most of us, one hopes, would recognize that supporting civil rights was the right thing to do regardless of whether it ultimately helped or hindered Democratic electoral fortunes. And if we're looking for someone to blame, it should be the White voters who decided that supporting civil rights was a dealbreaker, not the African-Americans who had the temerity to want to be treated as equals.

How much of the current strain between America and the countries of the Middle East can be attributed to the existence of Israel is debatable, but it is fair to say that most of these countries are less than keen on the friendship or the existence of an Israel at all. And they expressed that antipathy quite cogently, in the form of a series of wars and ethnically cleansing 99% of the Jewish population from the Arab World. Such actions don't always result in American opposition, particularly when (as noted) such opposition places us in conflict with the local elites. But where it does, it seems weird to object on the grounds that we weren't sufficiently solicitous of the preexisting hierarchy.

After doing all this work, I got interested in the provenance of the quote itself and who this "Father John Sheehan" is. And that is a surprisingly difficult proposition. The quote shows up a lot on Google, but it is almost invariably unsourced except to say "John Sheehan, S.J." The closest thing I've found to a source is a citation to Volume 21, No. 2, p. 34 (2002) of the Journal of Historical Review. The problem being that the Journal of Historical Review is the house journal of Holocaust-deniers -- it's a conspiracy website with footnotes. Meanwhile "John Sheehan" might as well be "John Doe" if you're thinking of generic name for a Jesuit Priest -- while that could just explain why it's so hard to find the particular "John Sheehan" who said it, it also might explain why there seemingly is no information of the "John Sheehan" who supposedly said it.

The bottom line is that I think the quote is a hoax -- it flies around various anti-Zionist and anti-Semitic circles, but I don't think it's real.

This story does come with a happy ending though: I posted all of this (including my sense that the quote was fake) on my friend's Facebook wall, and you know what she said? She thanked me for my sleuthing, admitted she had probably taken in, and resolved to be more careful next time (and affirmed that the quote did not express her views on the American/Israeli alliance, which she says should be preserved).

Quote of the Evening

Tonight's quote of the evening was found while reading Joseph William Singer's The Player and the Cards: Nihilism and Legal Theory, 94 Yale L.J. 1 (1984), which ranks quite high on my list of "titles I'm bitter are already taken." But the quote itself isn't from Singer, but rather Nelson Goodman:

A rule is amended if it yields an inference we are unwilling to accept; an inference is rejected if it violates a rule we are unwilling to amend.

Nelson Goodman, Fact, Fiction, and Forecast 64 (4th ed. 1983).

I Would Come Here

Why am I blooging this? Because it makes me happy, that's why. Do I need another reason?

If he could only afford it, Geoff Ramokgadi says he would temporarily transplant himself to Hungary and launch a grassroots drive to eradicate rising anti-Semitism here.

Ramokgadi, a black convert to Judaism, represents one of the smallest Jewish communities of the world: the 14-family-strong Jewish community of the Kingdom of Swaziland.
[...]
Rather bewildered by the recent surge in anti-Jewish sentiments in Hungary, Ramokgadi says he would like to engage in dialogue with the locals here to figure out what lies behind the trend. “We must sit down the people here and ask them, ‘Why are the Jews being singled out? Where should they go?’” he says. “Yes, Israel is a country for them, but here is where they are born, so why are they being treated like aliens?”

Walking down the street the other day, recounts Ramokgadi, he encountered two boys who were playing guitar and asked to join them. “They saw my tag and asked if I was Jewish. I told them I was. Then I took out 10 euros and handed it to one of the boys. He was about to cry when I did that. It all starts with changing one person. One person changes another and then you have shalom. This is all I want. If only I had the money, I would come here.”

Some days my mood is "I bet if I could just talk to these people, they'd see I'm a human just like them" and some days my mood is "they'll never change, so I'll just curse them into hell from here." I like the former mood better.

Keep on representing the Tribe, Ramokgadi.

The Oppressor Class

Phoebe Maltz nails it, discussing the creation of a late 19th century German colony established, in part, to keep good Aryans away from those meddlesome Jews:

Anti-Semites weren't - aren't - just people who think they're better than Jews. They're people who think they're being oppressed by Jews.

This is part of the reason why anti-Semitism so easily finds footing among certain branches of the far-left. To be sure, it's also why anti-Semitism finds footing among the far-right -- the right certainly has no trouble imagining untrustworthy aliens who threaten Our Way of Life. But the left's rhetoric of opposing "oppression" and "hierarchy" can easily incorporate anti-Semitic prejudices insofar as they buy into popular narratives of Jews and the quintessential oppressing class.

This also relates to some popular prescriptions of how Jews can end anti-Semitism (much like ending rape or ending racism, this is of course typically presented as the obligation of the victim rather than the perpetrator). Jews will cease being hated when they cease possessing power, whether it be social (control of Hollywood), political ("the Jewish lobby"), national (Israel), or what have you. See, for example, this piece of work (proof that finding yourself on a Google Book Search isn't always a happy day). A Jew who has the temerity to succeed (and in particular, succeed at persuading others) is a Jew who is playing to stereotype. A polity where Jews are successfully convincing non-Jews to adopt policies Jews find amenable is a polity that clearly, clearly, has been damaged or diseased in some way. How else could Jews possibly win but by dirty pool?

The corollary is that Jews have a normative obligation to be weak, to be at the sufferance of others. It is wrong for Jews to win, and it is extra wrong for Jews to win based on their own decisions and determinations (as opposed to being gifted a privilege by the benevolent majority). Jewish power is always taken to be Jewish oppression; hence, the bare fact that Jews sometimes are in a position where they don't have to answer to the Gentile world is itself an outrage. This is why so much of the "critical" (so to speak) assault on Jewish institutions focuses not on what they do, but the fact of their continued existence. That Jews have institutions which can make decisions which impact the world without -- gasp -- gentile permission; this is the anathema. The problem is when Jews are subjects -- actors who have the ability to influence the world around them. The solution is to make them subjects -- subjugated and controlled by others who know best.


My Problem With Podhoertz's "Negro Problem"

Norman Podhoertz has a retrospective commemorating the 50th anniversary of his famous essay "My Negro Problem-and Ours". The original essay I may have read and forgotten -- I've certainly heard of it. This reflection is certainly interesting as a historical artifact -- it's always interesting to know more about the circumstances around which such a piece is written. But at least judging by how Podhoertz talks now, it's difficult to think he's really got a good insight into the "negro problem." I'm dubious, for example, that there exists a single Black person (well -- I take that back -- if I've learned anything from Jewish politics, there's always one) that really thinks racial relations have actually deteriorated since 1963. And whether or not the rise of out-of-wedlock births in the black family is having some antisocial effects, to declare it "the root cause of all the ills that plague the black community" smacks of someone who really doesn't want to think hard about this question anymore.

I've never quite understood why the nonracist wing of the conservative movement didn't embrace the black power agenda, and reading this essay just deepens the dilemma. Podhoertz gives their actual ideology the short shrift -- the black power movement thought that whites were incorrigibly racist, but their solution was simply to be left alone. Blacks get to run their own schools, blacks get to run their own communities. White racism was only a problem insofar as it was coupled with whites dominating blacks. This is easily compatible with conservative views of federalism, individual liberty, and community control. It is not easily compatible with conservative views of racial supremacy, the need to civilize the savage man, and the sense that white freedom included the freedom to dictate terms to blacks. In that respect, Podhoertz's protests to the contrary notwithstanding, the modern GOP really did take on a healthy dose of John Calhoun.

Of course, this "dilemma" is easily resolved in the descriptive sense: Nonracist Republicans didn't promote the ideology of black power because they preferrred to make a successful run at the votes of Southern racists. That's what the southern strategy was all about. But it's still a bit surprising that there wasn't at least a little more pushback. One gets the since from reading Podhoertz that even the Republicans who friends with Black intellectuals at the time weren't really invested in the struggle, and today they're so alienated that they just don't care about it at all.

Dispatches from the Elders

The Church of Scotland takes on Jewish claims to the land of Israel. It's strategy for doing so is to put forward an extreme irrendetist and biblical-literalist position, characterize this as "the position of Zionism," and then proceed to reject it outright. One might immediately raise an eyebrow at the phrase "the position of Zionism," since "Zionism" is not a monolith and lacks a central governing authority that could present such a singular and specific "position." Or perhaps they got a text from the Elders of Zionism laying out the official white paper? Anyway, the Church kind of recognizes the problem, as it concedes that various Zionist leaders adopted much more nuanced positions that were quite attentive to the importance of establishing a liberal democratic state. Indeed, it notes that these positions were enshrined in Israel's declaration of independence. But somehow, it retains the confidence that these statements create "a tension . . . with the state of Israel’s ethno-national, Zionist goals," rather than creating a tension with the Church of Scotland's overly narrow and ahistorical definition of what Zionism is. And so "Zionism" remains incompatible with any conception of good -- a uniquely Jewish evil that Christians must demolish and Jews must "repent" of.

Of course, there's nothing wrong in the abstract with attacking far-right renditions of Zionist ideology. I do this with at least as much regularity as I attack the resurrection of Christian anti-Semitic ideologies. There is, however, a huge problem with launching this attack as if it is a hit on the sine qua non of Zionism. Structuring the assault that way results in a misappropriation of huge swaths of Jewish experience, and leads the Church here to make a considerably wider-ranging "critique" (if one wants to call it that) of the Jewish peoples' purported "particular exclusivism," our sense of ourselves as "victims and special," and our alleged "specialness." They demand of Jews an obligation to stop believing that we are "serving God’s special purpose and that abuses by the state of Israel, however wrong and regrettable, don’t invalidate the Zionist project." Meanwhile, the Church endorses a return to a "radical critique of Jewish theology and practice." I can't wait to see how that turns out.

Scottish Jews are understandably aggrieved, and accuse the Church of "claiming to know Judaism better than we do." This, of course, is probably the trademark of Christian approaches to Jewish institutions of all stripes (see also the UK's Methodist Church), and so it is hardly a surprise to see that rear its ugly head again. One does continue to marvel at what makes Christian organizations think we will read such a message and think "by golly, they must be right, because if there's one group I trust to issue accurate assessments about moral questions in general and Jewish experience in particular, it's institutional Christianity!" The arrogance, if nothing else, is as astonishing as ever.

Perhaps the Church could take some of its own advice about asymmetries of power and note its own privileged position in getting to interpret the meaning of Jewish history and Jewish ideologies. But somehow, I'm doubtful.

The Good News Club

Two pieces of good news related to the Holy Land. First, incoming Justice Minister Tzipi Livni indicated that she'll be cracking down on Israeli "price tag" militants. "Price tag" refers to the cost these radical settlers claim they impose on Israeli actions seeking to undo the occupation, and the result is they've attacked both Palestinian and Israeli targets alike in a sweeping spree of terrorism. I've been quite adamant that Israel needs to come down hard on these thugs, and I've also been a long-time fan of Livni. Good to see she's stepping up.

Meanwhile, the Arab League has announced that it would be willing to accept variations from the '67 borders as a basis of a new Palestinian state. The swaps would have to be agreed-upon and "minor", but since '67 borders-with-agreed-upon-swaps is the acknowledged formula by everyone even remotely serious about securing the democratic self-determination of Jews and Palestinians alike, it's good to get another stakeholder on board.

The Appearance Gap

During the recent Kamala Harris incident (wherein Barack Obama, in the course of calling Harris "brilliant", "dedicated", and "tough", also called her "the best looking attorney general"), a common reaction was that Obama's statement was an innocent compliment and any negative reaction was just over-sensitivity (see here for an example). What's the harm in a nice compliment?

The answer was always that such remarks -- even when complimentary on face -- make it harder for women to be taken seriously and thus hurt their entry and advancement in professional spaces. And lo and behold! New research bears this argument out (via). The study tracked what happened in a hypothetical match-up between a male and female candidate depending on whether the women's appearance was remarked upon. It found that when the female candidate's appearance was mentioned -- regardless of whether the mention was positive, negative, or neutral -- it caused a material drop in her poll numbers. To be sure, the study did not similarly measure the effect of mentioning the male candidate's appearance, so we don't know if men would be burdened in the same way. But since it is fair to say that a woman's appearance is far more likely to gain attention in the media than a man's, the finding is still important even if the effects would theoretically be entirely gender-blind.

The Laboror and the Field

Ta-Nehisi Coates post on Dr. Benjamin Carson is heart-breaking because, for whatever reason, I suspecting exactly this about Dr. Carson.

For kids like me who came up in Baltimore during the '80s and '90s, Carson has special importance. Whenever the black folks at our summer camps or schools wanted to have a "Be A Credit To Your Race" moment they brought in Dr. Carson. I saw him speak so many times that I began to have that "This guy again?" feeling. As an adult, knowing how much it takes to speak in front of people, I can recognize that Carson's willingness to talk to black youth (and youth in general) came from a deeply sincere place. There were no cameras at those summer camps and school assemblies. No one had money to pay him. But he showed up. And that was what mattered.
[...]
It's perfectly respectable to think Obamacare is bad for the country. It's less respectable to claim that Obama isn't an African-American. It's perfectly respectable to believe in a flat tax. It's less respectable to tell a room full of white people that Obama, isn't "a strong black man" or that he has "never been a part of the black experience in America." It's respectable to believe that the Ryan Budget is the key to the future. It's less respectable to believe that equating same-sex marriage with child-rape puts you on Harriet Tubman status.

The corollary of that last metaphor -- the idea of liberalism as a plantation -- is especially noxious and deeply racist. It holds that black people are not really like other adult humans in America -- people capable of discerning their interest and voting accordingly -- but mental slaves too stupid to know what's good for them.

When Ben Carson uses this language he is promoting himself at the expense of the community from which he hails. More, he is promoting himself at the expense of the community in which I once saw him labor. That is tragic.

I think an interview session between Coates and Dr. Carson would be fascinating; all the more so because of Coates' experience as a child who saw him as a role model and recognized the sincerity of his labor.

Any Jew knows and respects the value of dissent, but any Jew also can recognize a member of the tribe who simply revels in the role of providing a Jewish voice for what non-Jews love to hear. Their role isn't to persuade Jews, it's to give non-Jews a Jewish facade to justify maintaining their prior beliefs about Jews and ignore any Jew who tells them differently. That role also exists in the Black community, and it was the part Dr. Carson chose to play. It's all the more tragic because as Coates' personal experience with Dr. Carson years ago documents, it wasn't always thus. Dr. Carson once (and for all I know, still does) labor in his own community -- with the cameras off, with the goal of making his people stronger. That I might disagree with some of Dr. Carson's prescriptions on what constitutes strength does not make that endeavor less laudable. But the fact that Dr. Carson has done the right thing does make it hurt more when he does wrong.

Jew is Always the Right Answer

I once played a round of pub trivia with the category "conspiracy theories". I proposed that we just answer "Jews" for every question. What are the odds we'd be wrong?

I bring that story up again with reference to this post:

There’s a post going around that rightfully brings up how unfair it is that when a Muslim is charged with a crime it is Islam, not the individual, that goes on trial. But it emphasizes that by asserting that when a “Jew kills someone” (and there a religious Jew with peyos and a kippa and the white shirt - black pants uniform is drawn shooting a fallen child with a rifle) “religion is not mentioned.”

The image itself I take issue with and how it’s another example of portraying Jews as child killers, though I have no doubt the intent was to hi-light how Israeli soldiers have killed Palestinian children without Judaism as a religion being vilified in the West.

But it’s also incorrect. When a Jew does something wrong, kills someone, or commits a crime, it is near always mentioned. Jews around the world live terrified, waiting for the day some Jew does something wrong and we’re all blamed and condemned. When I hear about something horrible happening, whether it be a killing, a political scandal, embezzlement, or just someone making a stupid comment, I close my eyes and think, please don’t let it have been a Jew, please don’t let it have been a Jew, please don’t let it have been a Jew, because I know that if it was, we’re all in trouble.

Obviously amen to that, and I would add that there is something particularly pernicious about taking a shot at Jews for mistreatment of Muslims that is not, primarily, instigated by Jews. Instead of a clear line of accountability, the grievance seems to be against Jews for having the temerity to actually (supposedly, and in fact inaccurately) be respected as equals.

But of course as the post notes, we're not actually exempted from these blanket judgments when one of the tribe does wrong. Indeed if anything I'd say what makes Jews special is that we're subjected to that treatment even when none of ours had anything to do with the underlying event. Muslims as a whole get blamed for al-Qaeda. Louis Farrakhan spouts bile, and all Blacks are repulsive "reverse racists." And Jews face that too, of course: our bad parts (Bernie Madoff, Jewish slumlords) get attributed to the whole too. But that's really just the tip of the iceberg -- we're also blamed for atrocities committed by other people. A white guy from New Jersey slaughters kids at a Connecticut school? Jews. Muslim extremists attack the twin towers? Jews. Hugo Chavez dies of cancer? Oh you better believe it's Jews (link warning).

To my knowledge, this does not happen to other groups. And the fact that the (grotesque) blanket condemnations of Muslims is held to be in contradistinction to the alleged privileged position of Jews, when in fact this particular facet of oppression may target Jews more severely than any other group, is deeply worrisome. It signifies at best a fundamental blindness to the reality of anti-Semitic discourse, and at worst a form of ingrained anti-Jewish hostility that sees this treatment as normal, even desirable.

A Danish Jew in Denmark

A Danish Jew experiments by walking through a Copenhagen neighborhood while wearing a kippah.

Krasnik set out to walk two kilometers down Nørrebrogade, through a neighborhood he used to call home, in the city in which he was born and raised, wearing a yarmulke. The discomfort began quickly. “The first Arab guys I talked to happened to be in a very infamous, violent gang” that controls a large chunk of the drug trade in Nørrebro. Krasnik asked them what they thought would happen to him if he were to continue walking through the neighborhood wearing a kippah. “I mean, you’re Jewish,” one said to him. “But how can we know that you’re not Israeli?” If you’re an Israeli, Krasnik was told, “we have a right to kick your ass.”

Not being an Israeli—Krasnik specified that he was, in fact, a Danish Jew—he escaped without a beating. It was an inauspicious start, but he forged ahead and was soon confronted by another group of young immigrants. “Some young people, boys, started to shout ‘are you Jewish?’ and were giving me the finger,” he recalled. “One of the younger guys, a Somali, came over and asked me, ‘Are you Jewish?’ I said, ‘Yes of course.’ And he ran back to the group and said, ‘Go to hell, Jew.’” No one tried to hit Krasnik—it was early afternoon, and the street was bustling—but the journalist had the feeling that physical violence loomed.

“I started to feel … unpleasant,” he told me. “I thought: If I keep doing this for an hour or two, something will happen. And if I did this everyday, I would get my ass kicked around.”

On the final leg of his 2-kilometer walk, he approached a small grocery store, where five or six young men—“probably 25 years old, of Pakistani or Palestinian background”—were loitering outside. They too quickly spotted his yarmulke. “They stopped me immediately and asked, ‘Are you Jewish?’ And when I said yes, they said ‘Take that [kippah] off.’ One was shouting from behind, ‘You’re from Israel!’ I said, ‘No, I’m from Denmark and I live just down the road.’ ”

The remainder of the story is equally harrowing: principals advising Jews not to enroll in their schools, anti-Semitic incidents doubling, Jewish groups forbidden from displaying Israeli flags at a multicultural festival (which contemplated excluding Jews entirely), and protesters hurling rocks at the Israeli embassy. This all has been met with ambivalence, at best, from the Danish government.

In Fits and Starts

I'm happy that CPAC is having sessions on appealing to Black voters. I really am. And the "Frederick Douglass Republicans" line strikes me as a better approach than most. Sure, "Democrats are the party of the KKK" is not actually going to persuade anyone, but baby steps, right?

Still, I find it hilarious that this session dissolved into chaos after a group of white supremacists came in shouting about how appealing to Black voters constituted oppression of White Southerners.

Amazingly, the panel host tried to defuse the situation by saying that Douglass "forgave" his slavemaster. That only prompted the belligerent Whites to reply "For giving him food? And shelter?" And then we were off to the races (so to speak).

And this, in a nutshell, is why Republicans can't appeal to Black voters. It's not that there aren't people genuinely interested in trying. And it's not that there aren't people who are thinking hard and critically about how conservative policy priorities might benefit, or be made harmonious with, the priorities of the Black community. It's that there is a significant cadre of conservatives who are so attached to White racial resentment that they find this whole project offensive, and the conservative movement has proven unable to keep that element out of the fore.

Whistlin' in the Wind

Israel brought one of its most prominent pop stars, the Persian-born Rita, to perform before the UN General Assembly and deliver a message of peace between the Israeli and Iranian peoples.

‎"I am proud of being Jewish and Israeli. I am about to reveal a piece of the ancient, rich and beautiful culture of Persia. The concert combined both languages intertwined simply and beautifully, just like the prayer in my heart that we, the common people, will be able to make an impact eventually.

"There is a story about a boy who walked into a synagogue and didn't know how to pray like everyone else, so he just whistled with all his might. I have no knowledge of the language of politics, but I will be there, whistle my prayer and hope that it reaches as far as Iran."

In the story she refers to, incidentally, the learned Rebbe of the synagogue declares that the boy's whistle (in my recollection, he blew a note on his flute, but same principle) is what allowed their prayers to ascend and be heard in heaven. May it be the case here, too, that the voices of regular people with a passion for engagement and desire to hear each others songs also heal rifts and create peace where politicians and ideologues have failed.

Hell, What's One More?

Indiana Right to Life Director Sue Swayze defends mandatory transvaginal ultrasounds:

“I got pregnant vaginally. Something else could come in my vagina for a medical test that wouldn’t be that intrusive to me. So I find that argument a little ridiculous.”

H/T.

Memmi on "What is a Zionist?"

I'm finally sitting down to try and make some progress on my pile of books. Reading Professor Zasloff inspired me, what can I say. And the book that I've actually been making some real progress in is Albert Memmi's Jews and Arabs (Eleanor Levieux, trans., Chicago: J. Philip O'Hara 1975). Memmi, of course, is a Tunisian Jewish writer whose work I've praised before. But the chapter I'm reading now ("What is a Zionist?") makes some particular important and erudite points.

[O]ne cannot propose any effective liberation if the specificity of each condition has not been grasped. That is why I protested so strongly when attempts were made to reduce the colonial problem first, then the Jewish problem, to a matter of class struggle . . . . It is reductions such as those which have made the ideology of the political left in Europe impotent.
[...]
What, then is the meaning of the oppression of the Jew? I have demonstrated [in prior work] that the Jews are not oppressed only in the practice of their religion, or only as a religious group; they are not oppressed only as a cultural group; nor only in the exercise of their political rights, nor only in their economic activities, etc. The Jews are oppressed in every one of their collective dimensions. In other words, they are oppressed as a people.
[...]
[W]hether we like it or not, we are looked upon as a special category of foreigners and we are treated as such. Unlike our universalists, the Jewish masses know this and take it into account. The Jewish masses never have more than a limited amount of confidence in their fellow citizens. That is why they constantly confirm their unity, for they know that when a catastrophe occurs, the only help they can hope for will come from other Jewish communities that have been temporarily spared. People ought to stop stupidly repeating that such solidarity cannot be allowed! That it is a reverse form of racism and other such nonsense. It is a perfectly natural self-defense reaction on the part of an endangered group. Let people stop persecuting the Jews, first, and then we ill see what they can be reproached with.

Thus, the Jews are oppressed as a people. If we accept the idea that liberation should be achieved on the basis of the specificity of each case of oppression, then we are now in a position to take another step forward: oppressed as a people, it is only as a people that the Jews will be genuinely liberated. Today, however, the liberation of peoples still retains a national physiognomy.
[...]
. . . . I have not been more sparing in my criticisms of that young state [of Israel], of its political errors or its theocratic self-satisfaction. . . . All this, however, is merely a matter of criticizing details. The essential and undeniable fact is that from now on, the State of Israel is part of the destiny of every Jew anywhere in the world who continues to acknowledge himself as a Jew. No matter what doubts or even reproofs certain of Israel's actions may arouse, no Jew anywhere in the world can call its existence in question without doing himself grave harm. And the nonJews, especially the liberals, must understand that Israel represents the still-precarious result of the liberation of the Jew, just as decolonization represents the liberation of the Arab or black peoples of Asia and Africa.
[...]
. . . . I did not hide the fact that these new ties, this sentimental solidarity with the new state, were likely to intensify the climate of suspicion in which Jews everywhere have always lived. But we have always been in danger. I do not believe that we can be in greater danger. Let us at least face danger with dignity. Above all, and once again, the perspective of accusation must be reversed. If the Jews had not been so accused, threatened, and periodically prevented from living, they would not have tried to secure a possible refuge. It is really too presumptions of the people who have persecuted us for centuries, who have made us second-class citizens, often despite their own laws, to dare to reproach us with this ambiguity that they have cultivated in us regardless of our protests, our efforts, and the sometimes shameful pledges we gave them. What they call our double allegiance was forced upon us. We would have liked nothing better than not to need it!

What exactly is a Zionist?

A Zionist is anyone, Jew or non-Jew, who, having found that the Jewish situation is a situation of oppression, looks upon the reconstruction of a Jewish state as legitimate: so as to put an end to that oppression and so that Jews, like other peoples, may retrieve their dimensions as free men.

Or again, anyone who considers the liberation of the Jews as a Jew desirable.

Albert Memmi, Jews and Arabs 92-97 (Eleanor Levieux, trans., 1975) (emphasis original).

Today's Reading Assingment

Jonathan Zasloff, Left and Right in the Middle East: Notes on the Social Construction of Race, 47 Va. J. Int'l L. 201 (2006). It is one of the first academic examples I've seen which compares Israel and its identity as a "Jewish state" to the American affirmative action debate, and accurately notes that there is an inversion of the normal left/right split on the question. He also makes an intriguing parallel between the Palestinian "right of return" and the American debate over property rights and "takings", again noting that the rightward position would seem to favor Palestinians and the leftward one Israel.

On the one hand, my tenure-o-meter always winces whenever I see one of my ideas has already been taken. On the other hand, if I ever get around to organizing the "New Perspectives on the New Anti-Semitism" symposium I keep on running in my mind, an additional candidate for participation has just emerged.

A Not So New Dawn

Digby looks on with alarm as the Neo-Nazi Golden Dawn party continues to swell in strength. "These," she tells us "are the wages of austerity."

Well ... look. I'm not fan of austerity politics. But let's not be too quick to cast Golden Dawn or the Greeks who voted for them as victims. There's nothing inherent in austerity politics that makes people think "you know who I hate? Jews! And everyone else who isn't me!" That comes from a pre-existing cultural frame wherein hostility to Jews and other others is already built in. Deprivation brought on by austerity politics may bring that to the surface, but it was always present and remains a problem even when not living in austere times. The moral of the rise of Golden Dawn isn't "if you enact austerity politics, anti-Semitism will return in Europe." It's "anti-Semitism still is a serious problem in Europe, and the right trigger can bring back to the surface with all the violence and fury that attached to it in the mid-20th century."

Brooklyn BDS Megapost!

It wouldn't do to pass on this controversy without giving my thoughts (more than I already have, anyway). You know, for posterity.

On free speech and academic freedom

1) College departments have the right to sponsor events featuring speakers with controversial, even arguably racist or anti-Semitic, views. That's part of academic freedom. There's also no general rule that controversial speakers must be "balanced" with the "other side", though this might be prudent in certain cases.

2) Academic freedom means that such decisions cannot come with material repercussions (such as slashing funding).

3) However, academic freedom does not immunize such decisions from criticism. Indeed, we should be quite disconcerted if a college department decides to sponsor or promote such events, and it is legitimate to say so.

4) Sponsoring an event does not imply endorsement of its views. But it does imply endorsement of a certain kind -- that the event is "in bounds," that it is within the pantheon of legitimate and valid thoughts that it is worthwhile to consider. This is why I'm fine with the Economics department sponsoring a talk by Richard Epstein but would be less thrilled if they brought in some gold standard nut.

5) Academic departments have the right to decide whether a given viewpoint is "in bounds". Similar to the above, this decision is also subject to criticism.

6) If an academic department is going to sponsor an event, it should be open to all students. If pro-Israel students were systematically excluded from attending the BDS event, that is as problematic as forcing Brooklyn to cancel the event would have been.

7) Eric Alterman wins the "best overall" award for his column on this subject.

On BDS and the event itself

1) Yair Rosenberg is right to call out the media for whitewashing what BDS is actually about. It is not just generic "criticism of Israel", and opposing it in no way implies that one opposes all criticism of Israel.

2) This NYT report on the controversy is pretty terrible on that front.

3) Referring to protesters outside, Butler remarked that "as you can hear, unconditional supporters of Israel.” Apparently, she's been reading LGM's comments.

4) Butler also apparently made the following argument: Criticism of Israel can only be anti-Semitic if all Jews supported Israel, and "Honestly, what can really be said about the Jewish people as a whole?" It is difficult to think of a criterion for anti-Semitism more calculated to neuter the term (it's not racist if Herman Cain agrees with me!) -- which, one suspects, is the point.

The Only Winning Move is to STFU

There's another BDS brouhaha, with Brooklyn College hosting Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti at a college forum on the topic. Such things are always touchy -- college faculty members should be free to host or even promote racist or anti-Semitic speakers or ideologies, and other people should be severely disconcerted at the fact that college faculty members want to host or even promote racist or anti-semitic speakers or ideologies. Straddling that position is rather delicate. After all, if one says something like "Omar Barghouti and Judith Butler are promoting an anti-Semitic ideology", why, one is silencing debate!

And what if one doesn't say that, but instead tries to step back a bit and call the event one "that will verge on anti-Semitism"? Lawyers, Guns and Money with the call:

Seriously, talk about yer classic moments in passive-aggressive weasel wording ... "We won’t actually call the speakers anti-Semitic. But they might do something other than criticize the Likud platform for being insufficiently dismissive of Palestinian rights, so close enough."

Seriously, talk about yer classic moments in moving the goalposts. After constantly howling about Jews call everything and its mother anti-Semitic, we discover that it doesn't actually matter if we agree to dial it back. Just as the "criticizing Israel isn't anti-Semitic" debate doesn't change a whit when someone says the quiet part out loud, it doesn't actually matter how the objection is raised -- objecting is still objectionable.

Meanwhile, the post comes with the bonus revelation that the BDS movement comprises the entirety of the political spectrum left of Naftali Bennett. Somebody should page that dastardly, settlement-freeze-promoting radical leftist .... Alan Dershowitz.

.... I feel like in posting this, I'm thumbing the eye of a friend who asked me to post on Jon Chait's glorious takedown of the ludicrous Free Beacon claim that TNR was purging its Jews. Alas, that the Free Beacon is run by utter idiots is neither novel nor capacious enough for significant commentary, and Chait, as per usual, has said anything I might want to.

The Snowflake that Starts an Avalanche

Boy Scouts get ready to kick out a troop for having a non-discrimination policy that covers sexual orientation. The offending policy reads

Pack 442 WILL NOT discriminate against any individual or family based on race, religion, national origin, ability, or sexual orientation.

The Boy Scouts, which insisted before the Supreme Court that discriminating against gays was essential to their expressive mission, are none too pleased, and is threatening to derecognize the pack if they don't take the statement down. As Les Baron, CEO and Scout Executive of the local umbrella scout organization put it: "That's a message that's against our policy, and we don't want it continue to be out in our community," Baron says.

One has to wonder if a dam is beginning to crack. Of course, Pack 442 is still deliberating over whether to rescind their non-discrimination policy or to stand firm. And Pack 442 would not be the first scout group to lose its charter over this issue. But as the years pass and the BSA's position grows more isolated and antiquated, this sort of local rebellion will only become more frequent and harder to ignore. And at some point, the levy will break and the organization will have a full-scale rebellion to contend with.

That Seemed To Go Quicker Than Normal

What does it take for Israel to rapidly evacuate a West Bank outpost that is deemed illegal? Why, if it's Palestinians who have set up camp there. Indeed, it appears that the Israeli government ignored a court injunction in their haste to ensure that the Palestinian outpost of Baab al Shams (built in the controversial "E-1" area near Jerusalem) was evacuated. One imagines that the Supreme Court does not look favorably on being ignored in this way.

AIPAC Won't Object to Hagel

Word in from Peter Beinart is that AIPAC will not oppose former Sen. Chuck Hagel's (R-NE) nomination as Defense Secretary (perhaps Bernard Avishai will issue a retraction? Or perhaps not). Beinart notes that this is consistent with AIPAC's key interest in differentiating itself from the "pro-Israel" far-right (groups like the ECI and RJC), as the worst thing that could possibly happen to Israel's standing in the US is if it became known as a annex of partisan Republicanism. As Jeffrey Goldberg points out, AIPAC is not stupid and has no interest in sacrificing its bipartisan credentials over a nomination fight. In the words of a top AIPAC official, "we don’t deal with nominees. We deal with policies." And from my vantage, anything that puts daylight between AIPAC and the far-right is good news.

In any event, this seems to falsify at least one of two claims: (1) the "Israel Lobby" is indomitable, and no mortal can long resist its wrath, or (2) the "Israel Lobby" can't countenance anyone who registers any sort of criticism of Israel whatsoever. In Hagel, we have someone who has criticized Israel before (and it's worth reiterating that this distinguishes him from precisely nobody who's ever had any opinion on Israel -- including far-right groups like ZOA), and AIPAC is perfectly content to see him confirmed. Despite this, I predict AIPAC's neutrality on this issue will have zero impact on any of the rhetoric surrounding it, because said rhetoric remains untethered from anything AIPAC actually does.

When the Chips Are Down

The ongoing conflict in Syria has created a new Palestinian refugee problem, as Palestinians (and other minority groups) have been among the most vulnerable and heavily impacted by the ongoing brutal civil war. Refugees have began pouring into Jordan and Lebanon, but both countries' support for Palestinians in other countries notoriously exceeds the hospitality they display to Palestinians in their own borders. Facing an escalating crisis, the UN has asked that the Palestinian Authority (West Bank) and Hamas (Gaza) take in some of their compatriots themselves.

Both refused. The PA's excuse is at least facially reasonable: they don't have any money. But Hamas gives a different reason: rescuing these Palestinians now, you see, would denigrate any "right of return" claims they have against Israel later. I'd say these Palestinians are only useful to Hamas as a bargaining chip against Israel, except that Hamas has no interest in striking a bargain: Palestinians living abroad have precisely one role to play in Hamas' vision of Palestinian nationalism: a human wave to wash away the Jewish state. If they can't serve that function, they have no value and Hamas couldn't care less about them. It's that simple.

New Year's Resolutins: 2013

Just because essentially nobody can read it is no excuse for dispensing with tradition. It's my new year's resolutions for 2013! Previous installments can be found here. And as always, we start with evaluating my performance vis-a-vis last year's list:

Met: 1 (several times over!), 2, 3, 4 (not yet, anyway, as far as I know), 5, 6, 7, 9 (just this past weekend!), 10, 11, 14.

Missed: 8, 15.

"Well, technically I met this....": 12, 13.

Unfortunately, despite a frankly superb showing by the numbers, number 8 looms quite large and casts a big shadow over the rest of the list. So I come into the new year more demoralized than I can remember in some time. But it's the sort of thing I'll have to just push through. It will come.

Anyway, to the new year's resolutions:

1) Find employment post-clerkship. (Met)

2) Be at peace with the employment I have post-clerkship. (Missed)

3) Move the big screen TV into the living room. (Met)

4) Make significant progress on another article. (Met)

5) Keep the blog's blood pumping long enough so it can return in full force when the clerkship ends. (Pick 'em)

6) Feel decently competent in an additional area of law beyond my current specialty. (Pick 'em)

7) Watch either The Two Towers or Return of the King with Jill. (Missed)

8) Have people over to watch a boxing event. (Missed -- I think, but don't actually remember)

9) Present Our Divine Constitution somewhere. (Missed)

10) Try the cooperative multiplayer in Portal 2. (Met)

11) Attend the Carleton Reunion! (Met)

12) Crack the 200 follower mark on Twitter. (Met)

13) Find my copies of War and XPs and No Cure for the Paladin Blues. (Met -- amazingly enough, since I didn't find them until I moved to DC)

14) Don't be jealous of other people's successes, even when things aren't falling into place for me. (Met -- I can honestly say this)

Dead Man Tell No Tales

The big Senate news is Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie's (D) selection to replace Sen. Daniel Inouye (D), who recently passed away. Inouye -- a legendary figure in Hawaiian politics -- released a deathbed letter saying his "one and only choice" for a successor was Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D). But Abercrombie rocked the boat by instead picking Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz to take the seat. Schatz will serve two years until a 2014 special election; the winner of that will have to run for reelection in 2016.

So the question on everyone's mind is why Abercrombie decided to spurn Inouye's dying wish? The line I've heard is that Abercrombie wanted to demonstrate "independence" from Inouye's giant shadow. If so, it strikes me as a bit weak -- it seems less like a bold stroke and more like, well, kicking a dead guy.

I'm not saying that Abercrombie was obligated to pick Hanabusa. I'm saying that one would hope that there are substantive differences between her and Schatz that motivated the pick, because if it was more of an inside-baseball sort of deal then I can't imagine that it will really turn out well for Abercrombie.

The Ever-Shifting Influence of AIPAC

Last week, Open Zion (through Peter Beinart) was predicting that AIPAC would not "publicly oppose" the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense, because it would be a fight it "can't win." This week, Open Zion (through Bernard Avishai) accuses a who's who of Jewish organizations (including, but not limited to, AIPAC) of being "Neo-McCarthyites" due to their alleged role in sinking Hagel's as-yet-unannounced nomination.

Maybe all this shows is that the political instincts of Open Zion just aren't that good. Or maybe it shows that Open Zion treats AIPAC more as a phantom to project their own distaste for how American and Jewish politics operates than as an actual organization that does actual things. There is a lot of fulmination about AIPAC's "intimidation", but very little about what AIPAC has actually done in this controversy, and there's whining that Jewish organizations are haphazardly "branding" anyone who opposes them as an anti-Semite without noting that this charge has been explicitly disavowed with respect to Hagel (oh, but they don't have to say it, because the things they are attacking Hagel for are "things only an anti-Semite would do." How conveniently unfalsifiable, that saying you're not calling someone anti-Semitic isn't even relevant evidence to whether one is trying to "cow" them into submission by calling them anti-Semitic).

Finally, I'd note that we have a bit of Chas Freeman syndrome all over again here -- the Jews are only after that one thing. Senator Hagel hails from the realist wing of the foreign policy community. And there are plenty of Americans who are not foreign policy realists, for a variety of reasons that often have nothing to do with Israel and which can be held independent of any political beliefs on Israel. Chinese dissidents, for example, had plenty of reason to be skeptical of Freeman without taking any positions whatsoever on Israel. And so it is with Hagel -- if one is not a fan of his particular intellectual orientation to foreign policy, one can be skeptical of his nomination without it being Israel-or-bust.

Probably Just a Massive Welfare Operation

LGM has some stories from the failed Romney campaign:

Rich Beeson, the Romney political director who co­authored the now-discredited Ohio memo, said that only after the election did he realize what Obama was doing with so much manpower on the ground. Obama had more than 3,000 paid workers nationwide, compared with 500 for Romney, and hundreds of thousands of volunteers.

“Now I know what they were doing with all the staffs and ­offices,” Beeson said. “They were literally creating a one-to-one contact with voters,” something that Romney did not have the staff to match.

Like the LGM guys, I too am curious what Beeson thought the Obama campaign was doing with all those workers. Did they think it was just a handout to layabouts -- "walking around money", as I believe the conservative conspiracy goes?

Anyway, the good news is that the corporate-style campaign Romney run is both (a) a terrible model and (b) culturally ingrained within the modern Republican Party. So I look forward to many more electoral spankings coming their way.

Making Lemons out of Lemonade

This is a very interesting and, in its way, very tragic column by Peter Beinart on the potential nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) as Secretary of State. Beinart starts off by observing that AIPAC is not exactly VP of the Chuck Hagel fan club, which is probably true enough. He then predicts that AIPAC will not publicly oppose Hagel's nomination. Why? Because they "can't win." Hagel has too much support amongst both Democrats and Republicans. Well, ring up another for the supposedly indomitable Israel Lobby. And of course, it's possible that AIPAC won't oppose Hagel because they don't think he's worth opposing.

But moving on -- Beinart does predict that some folks will be pretty vociferously anti-Hagel: the putatively "pro-Israel" groups to AIPAC's right. Groups like the Emergency Committee for Israel, or the Republican Jewish Coalition, or the Washington Free Beacon, will hardly share AIPAC's sense of prudence.

Now, what does Beinart take from this? That AIPAC will have been "outflanked", "look[ing] like the loser in a fight it didn’t want to have." Which is strange, because I see it as "AIPAC consciously putting distance between itself and groups to its right," which is an unabashed gain for the good guys. Indeed, the more that AIPAC views entities like the ECI and company as obstacles to its continued influence and Israel's continued security, the better, since AIPAC still does have plenty of influence and I'd love for some of that clout to go towards taking Noah Pollak down a peg.

But Beinart is too excited at seeing AIPAC in a bind that he's missing an opportunity to take back the center. The way Beinart puts it, any time AIPAC doesn't join the far-right on something Israel-related, it's because it can't, not because it doesn't want to. The group is as right-wing as it possibly can be, and any act that seems more centrist is to be cheered not because it signifies that the lodestone of pro-Israel is tacking center, but because it purportedly signifies that the lodestone of pro-Israel is losing its grip.

And I think that's a mistake. The pro-Israel left may not be best buddies with AIPAC, but they're not preordained to be our adversary either. It is those right-wing groups like the ECI that are the real threat from within the "pro-Israel" camp, and if they're dumb enough to actively marginalize themselves from mainstream organization, you have to take that and run with it.

Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore Meets Tommy Hilfiger

Gaza manufactuers have created a new perfume scent named "M-75", after the rockets Hamas shot into Israel during the last flare-up of violence. The director of the manufacturing company says it serves as the "smell of victory" over Israel, and customers seem to agree. One tourist from neighboring Egypt bought thirty vials and said "I hope the smell is strong enough for them to whiff in Tel Aviv and remind the Jews of the Palestinian victory." Charming.

The Populace of No

McClatchey polls America on the fiscal cliff. And it turns out, we're quite worried about it. 70% say it matters if we make a deal. 74% say that the parties should compromise rather than stay steadfast on principle.

And then voters are asked whether they support various plans for reducing the deficit.

Democrats oppose every option except raising taxes on the rich. Republicans oppose every option, period.

Only More So

There are some people who think a two-state solution is out of reach. I myself have varying degrees of cynicism about it. This mapping tool made me feel optimistic Other times, I feel pessimistic. My mood swings.

But the thing is, no matter how cynical I get about a two-state solution, I never become less cynical about one-state. That's because they're joined at the hip -- essentially all the barriers and problems and obstacles that make a two-state solution elusive, also make a one-state solution impossible. Whether you fault Israeli intransigence or Palestinian maximalism, settlement expansion or "right of return", price tag militants or Hamas rocketry, the same problems in mostly the same form also poison the one-state well.

Gershom Gorenberg, in his new book, “The Unmaking of Israel,” a jeremiad directed at the Jewish settlement movement, writes at length about the absurdity at the heart of the proposal.

“Palestinians will demand the return of property lost in 1948 and perhaps the rebuilding of destroyed villages. Except for the drawing of borders, virtually every question that bedevils Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations will become a domestic problem setting the new political entity aflame.”

Gorenberg predicts that Israelis of means would flee this new state, leaving it economically crippled. “Financing development in majority-Palestinian areas and bringing Palestinians into Israel’s social welfare network would require Jews to pay higher taxes or receive fewer services. But the engine of the Israeli economy is high-tech, an entirely portable industry. Both individuals and companies will leave.”

In the best case, this new dystopia by the sea would be paralyzed by endless argument: “Two nationalities who have desperately sought a political frame for cultural and social independence would wrestle over control of language, art, street names, and schools.” In the worst case, Gorenberg writes, political tensions “would ignite as violence.”

In the worst, worst case, said violence will turn into a regional nuclear war.

When one listen's to one-staters, there is often lip service to the claim that they simply think a two-state solution is "dead" (for whatever reason). What's left unsaid is how that brings a one-state solution to life. The reason why that analysis is missing is because the pragmatics aren't actually doing any of the work. One-staters support one-state not because it's more feasible than two-states, but because they think it is normatively superior to two-states. A world in which there are zero majority-Jewish states is qualitatively better than one in which there is one majority-Jewish state.

Beautiful Scenic Vistas are Just the Gift-Wrapping

This might actually be the dumbest thing I ever read:

Bryan Fischer, the director of issues analysis of the conservative fundamentalist American Family Association, on Thursday told a so-called “expert” who denies climate change that not using God’s fossil fuels would be like “crushing” someone’s feelings by rejecting their birthday present.

The Cornwall Alliance’s Calvin Beisner, who has previously said that believing in climate change “is an insult to God,” explained on Thursday that the Bible said it was also very rude to not use oil, coal and natural gas.

Fischer likened the situation to a birthday present he was given at the age of six. “I opened up a birthday present that I didn’t like, and I said it right out, ‘Oh, I don’t like those,’” the radio host recalled. “And it just crushed — and the person that gave me gift was there. You know, I just kind of blurted it out, ‘I don’t like those.’ And it just crushed that person. It was enormously insensitive of me to do that.”

“And you think, that’s kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective fuel sources,” Fischer added. “And we don’t thank him for it and we don’t use it.”

“You know, God has buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them.”

Oh my goodness. Although I have to say if you had asked me to predict who would say the dumbest thing I'd ever read, Bryan Fischer would have been a top candidate, right alongside Steve King.

"Central [If Unstated]...."

Edward Goldstein opens his column on the UNGA Palestine vote by asserting that:

A central component of Israeli diplomacy and Jewish thinking has long been the assumption, asserted as necessary, that the Holocaust confers permanent, unassailable virtue on Israel and Jews. In light of the Holocaust, whatever Israel does is justified, especially if declared to be security related. Whatever and however Jews argue in support of Israel is correct. The obverse is also assumed and frequently asserted: in light of the Holocaust, no one has the right to criticize Israel, especially Europeans, and anyone who does may be suspected of anti-Semitism.

This is, of course, a rather gross statement to make. But what can be said in respond to it? Obviously, I could say that nobody (much less the entirety of "Jewish thinking"), in fact, claims that "the Holocaust confers permanent, unassailable virtue on Israel and Jews." Nor does anyone assert that everything Israel does is inherently justified, nor that all criticism of Israel is verboten and signifies anti-Semitism. But if I made that obviously true retort, Goldstein would just say "sure, nobody comes out and says those precise words, but it is the clear implication" -- a counter-argument with the convenient advantage of being completely unfalsifiable.

Indeed, I think this paradigm of moral purity is far more likely to be imposed on Jews from without than claimed from within. The fact of the Holocaust and other acts of anti-Semitism doesn't establish that Jews are unassailably virtuous. Why would it? There's nothing about oppression that purifies its victims -- imperfect people can be victims too. What it establishes is that non-Jews are not perfect; it destabilizes the hegemonic presence of non-Jewish voices and thus creates space for Jewish voices to be heard. To the casual observer that looks like a claim that Jews are "perfect", but that's only because Jews are claiming the right to speak on equal terms with a non-Jewish presence that had previously arrogated to itself a label of universal transcendence.

The frame that oppression makes the oppressed "perfect" is really more of a reactionary step. The framework sets up for Jews (and other minorities) a standard they can't possibly meet. And once they fail to meet it, it justifies stripping the label of "victim" and returning to the status quo where they can safely be ignored. It obviates the need to problematize the non-Jew in favor of providing a temporary elevation of the Jew to non-Jew status, contingent on the Jew maintaining a standard of conduct that nobody else can or is expected to meet. "From now on, Israel's cause will have to stand strictly on its merits"--"merits", here, defined wholly from a non-Jewish perspective and free from the distortive effect of a Jewish presence.

Goldstein is a Jewish writer, and he has the right to say what he wants. But this is really just evidence of how Jewish people can present anti-Semitic themes. I don't claim to know what is in Goldstein's heart, but the way he presents Jewish agency and Jewish contributions bears far less in common with how Jews typically conceive of ourselves, and more in common with what others typically say about us.

Maybe Try Zigging When They Expect You To Zag?

Yesterday, the UN General Assembly voted 138-9-41 to grant Palestine status as a non-member observer state. Israel and the United States were among the nine "no" votes, arguing that it was a symbolic distraction from the necessity of bilateral negotiations.

On the merits of this vote, I'm indifferent. I don't think UN votes accomplish anything useful, and it is already pretty well-known that the UN will happily pass any resolution that comes before it that is framed as pro-Palestine and/or anti-Israel. This resolution could have stated that Israel killed Roger Rabbit and the vote tally wouldn't have meaningfully differed. As for the ICC, I do think this is probably a red herring. The prosecutor would be exceptionally unlikely to take these cases, and if it did it may well start with prosecuting Hamas terrorism. I'd add that if the prosecutor (quite plausibly) declines to open a case on the grounds of complementarity (that Israeli courts can and do investigate these sorts of allegations effectively), that would actually be a pretty rare endorsement of Israel from an international legal body.

But nonetheless, I don't really fault Palestine for seeking even symbolic victories that antagonize their Israeli adversary. I don't like it either, but that's what happens when you're in an antagonistic relationship -- you seize opportunities to humiliate and piss off your opponent. Neither side is really innocent of this sort of behavior, and here at least I can respect why the symbolism is genuinely meaningful. And hey, if it allows Abbas to return to negotiations on the claim that he's now in a position of strength, so much the better.

My real question is why Israel didn't just go ahead and support the bid on purely tactical grounds. Look, Israel knew this resolution was going to pass. There was no doubt about that, which is why Israel began dialing back its threats of diplomatic retaliation and instead began mumbling about how this was all symbolic and didn't mean anything. Which -- maybe! But -- aside from the fact that if Israel had endorsed the bid I'd have given greater than 50/50 odds that Palestine would have pulled it -- if passage is inevitable and the substantive effect is negligible, why not vote in favor and gain some free credibility?

The answer, as usual, is probably nothing more than that the current Israeli government is comprised of idiots. Oh well.

A Sanctified Institution

Immigrant to America? Want citizenship? Forget things like the pesky DREAM Act! Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has a better recommendation: just marry an American! After all, if marriage is kind of like buying a cow (which I'm given to understand that it is), why not buy American?

In reality, Jezebel pretty much says what I want to say:

if Kyl actually encouraging marriages for citizenship someone should let him know that's a Federal felony. So much for the sanctity of marriage, hypocrites. And even if marriage is a good option for someone, it isn't a totally safe bet, anyway — there are plenty of couples where one of the partners is found guilty of something like an expired visa and are given penalties that range from years to a lifetime. There are just so many issues here, and I have a feeling I'm not even scratching the surface.

I would add that -- criminal liability aside -- there is something rather bloodless about telling someone they should marry, not for love, not because of true connection, but in order to access a legislative privilege. If this is the GOP's big plan to win back Latinos, well, best of luck.

Record Skip

It was said by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) about Susan Rice's handling of Benghazi, but it might as well be any Republican on any issue: "I blame the president above all others."

The electoral honeymoon is over, I see.