I Would Have Liked To Tell Her....

Scout Bratt, who was apparently among the protesters who shut down the "Creating Change" conference event hosted by A Wider Bridge and featuring Jerusalem Open House, defends the "disruption" in the Forward. As an argument, it isn't worth much. It does provide a good example of what I termed the "conspiratorial edge" in rhetoric about Pinkwashing. Bratt asserts that Israel has a "branding" campaign seeking to designate itself as LGBT friendly, which may well be true. But she does not provide any evidence that A Wider Bridge (much less Jerusalem Open House, which is not mentioned in her article at all) has any connection to that effort. Here's the extent of Bratt's case for linking the two up:

It’s because of this interconnected struggle that we can’t sit quietly and watch pinkwashing organizations like A Wider Bridge paper over Israel’s harmful policies toward Palestinians — policies that harm gay Palestinians in Haifa as well as in Ramallah. This pinkwashing is an integral part of Israel’s “Brand Israel” public relations strategy, which appeals to racist ideas of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as backward and intolerant in contrast to the supposedly enlightened Western liberalism of Israel.

Well those certainly are two sentences next to one another. How is A Wider Bridge part of the governmental "Brand Israel" strategy? Does the fact that Israel seeks to promote its LGBT policies necessarily make all queer Israelis mouthpieces for the government? What, exactly, does A Wider Bridge do that constructs Palestinians and Arabs as backwards? If A Wider Bridge seeks only to "paper over" Israeli governmental policies, why is it hosting avowedly left-wing organizations like Jerusalem Open House who regularly and openly criticize the Israeli government? Apropos my recent Tablet article, how does A Wider Bridge emphasize Israel's "Western liberal[]" character when it is among the few North American organizations to devote significant attention to Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish narratives?

One searches in vain for answers which are not forthcoming. And they need not be forthcoming, because the meta-answer is that "whenever queer Israelis are present, they're in on the Zionist plot." What more needs to be said? Two Jews are an argument, three are a conspiracy.

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the heart of Bratt's column does not focus on seriously arguing for why the sort of exclusion she promotes is justified. The heart of it, rather, is an ode to how good it feels to be part of this protesting community. I'll quote her at length:

So often, calls for dialogue or critiques of protest rhetoric are invoked to mask the deep need for self-reflection and critique. Rather than listening to and grappling with the urgent cry for justice expressed at Creating Change, many commentators have reverted to the usual accusations. 

Yes, banning an organization from a conference or protesting the reception it hosted may have been disruptive. But why are we so afraid of disruption? 

At our alternative Shabbat service, hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago and Coalition for a Just Peace in Israel-Palestine, I saw a community united by a shared sense of what it will take to bring about the world we want to see. Sometimes, that will include disruption. As we read from the weekly Torah portion about the splitting of the Red Sea, we asked one another, “What does it mean to divide and conquer? How can my true liberation be bound up in your drowning, your oppression, your suffering?” What we were welcoming that Shabbat was not rest, but action. Not comfort, but empowerment. The sea parting for all of us, or none. The world that is on its way, not the world as it is. 

As the space filled with yearning and energy, we drank up the feeling of being surrounded by those who shared our commitment to building community in the name of justice for all.

The ecstatic, almost messianic zeal one reads in these words is meant to be uplifting. It is actually terrifying. When I read this passage, I immediately turned to Milan Kundera's thoughts on the matter:

She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison.

And so we get the earnest question about why anyone should be concerned about "banning an organization from a conference or protesting the reception it hosted." What could possibly go wrong, when it feels so right to be "surrounding by those who shared our commitments," and off they went with fists raised and march slogans (of "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free") chanted in unison?

Bratt concludes with what has to be a sick joke: lamenting the "increasingly personal attacks on activists [in Israel], legislating against human rights organizations, and escalating state and vigilante violence that goes unchecked." To write that even as her cohort precipitated just such an attack, even as it drove off such an Israeli human rights organization, even as it used its coercive power and implied threat of violence against progressive Israelis secure in the knowledge that they would go unpunished, is an outright mockery.

But it did crystallize one further thought in my mind. A few days earlier, Maya Haber put out a call urging progressive Jews to invest in liberal and progressive infrastructure in Israel. Through the 1990s, conservative Jews dedicated vast sums of money funding think tanks and NGOs and programming and institutes, which paid dividends in prompting the nation's right-wing drift post Oslo. The left should respond in kind; building its own civic society network to revive Israel's dormant progressive base. And I agree with her. whole-heartedly! That is one of the most important things that progressive Jews and non-Jews can do to help precipitate a just peace wherein both Jewish and Palestinian self-determination rights are actualized on equal terms.

But the problem Haber overlooked is that a considerable element of the left doesn't want to see a reinvgorated Israeli left. Certainly, they claim to be appalled by efforts to marginalize Israeli peace organizations; groups like Breaking the Silence or B'tselem. Yet it turns out that when such groups try to present their message to the world, they're targeted with the same exclusionary zeal as all other Israelis. Ami Ayalon is among the highest-ranking Israeli security officials to support "Breaking the Silence". But when he came to speak at Kings College London, it was at the invitation of the Israel Society, and it was anti-Israel protesters throwing chairs and smashing windows in a bid to drown him out. Likewise with Moshe Halbertal at Minnesota, preparing to explain why military forces (Israelis included) are obligated to put their own troops at risk in order to protect civilian populations.  And likewise with Jerusalem Open House. JOH has to be counted among the human rights organizations Bratt claims to care so much about. Yet when the chips were down, she was among those demanding they be silenced, and A Wider Bridge was the organization that had their backs.

The reason for this incongruity is that, once you're deep enough down the rabbit hole, the prospect of a "Zionist left" is more threatening to them than a Zionist right. The latter only confirms their prejudgments about what Zionism is and inevitably must be. The former, by contrast, challenges these preconceptions, it would force them to reckon with alternate possibilities and consider richer narratives. Jerusalem Open House, A Wider Bridge, Ami Ayalon -- they aren't protested because they're going to say something outrageous to progressive ears. They're protested because they'll say something that, if truly considered as part of an egalitarian commitment to deliberation, would probably have resonance.

It wouldn't, to be sure, be the sort of resonance that leads to raised fists and chanted slogans. It would not be the sort of feeling Bratt would want to "drink up". But it would provide the foundations for a genuine progressive step forward. And with regard to that ambition, Bratt is not an ally. She's a saboteur.

B.o.B.'s Pro-Flat Earth, Pro-Holocaust Denier Diss Track

So this happened. The rapper B.o.B. put out a diss track targeting Neil DeGrasse Tyson for the mortal sin of noting that the earth is, indeed, round. The track, titled "Flatline" (get it?), also contains quite a few other conspiracy theories, including a shoutout to Holocaust Denier David Irving and the lyric "Stalin was way worse than Hitler/That’s why the POTUS gotta wear a Kipper."

For the most part, I find this more amusing than anything, though I am worried that I may not be able to listen to my two different versions of "Haterz Everywhere" guilt-free anymore. I do want to briefly point out two things, though:

(1) It's amazing how conspiracy theories hang together, and how the Jews always get roped into them. Flat earthism is nuts in its own right, but there's no inherent reason to think its adherents should have any particular views on Jews. Yet of course it is entirely unsurprising to hear Jews pop up here.

(2) The Gawker post actually doesn't mention the Holocaust denier thing at all (they do allude to there being more conspiracy theories in the lyrics other beyond belief in a flat earth). To be sure, pointing that out might kill the buzz of "haha, B.o.B is so stupid and ridiculous, beefing with Neil DeGrasse Tyson." Flat earthism is just dumb, but it doesn't really hurt anyone; anti-Semitism is more of a killjoy. Still, it strikes me as unlikely that other overt forms of racism or intolerance would pass by similarly unremarked-upon. The distinction, I feel, is that pointing out anti-Semitism -- even in such clear terms -- is considered to be gauche. It isn't something that we should keep a critical eye on and interrogate when we see it, it is something that we're all too sensitive towards and should be more willing to let slide.

Now to be sure, I'm not particularly threatened by this musical track (frankly, associating Holocaust denial with "Earth is round" denial is doing me a favor). So in a functioning deliberative space regarding anti-Semitism, I wouldn't really mind simply laughing this incident off. Indeed, (as much as a performative contradiction as this is) I don't think there's much more to say about B.o.B.'s Holocaust denial other than to snicker at how idiotic he's being. But it still stands out to me that it wasn't mentioned at all, and I think that failure is reflective of something worth pondering about.

"An Intersectional Failure" To Include Mizrahim

Tablet Magazine has just published an article, "An Intersectional Failure: How Both Israel’s Backers and Critics Write Mizrahi Jews Out of the Story", that looks at recent discussions concerning intersectionality and how they might apply to the situation of Mizrahi and other non-Ashkenazi Jews. The article, coauthored by JIMENA's Analucia Lopezrevoredo and myself, notes that even as there has been a recent flurry of  writing on intersectionality as it pertains to the Jewish community, none of the writers (critics or defenders of the concept) have even mentioned Mizrahi or Sephardic Jews. This absence echoes a larger erasure of non-Ashkenazim from both Jewish and non-Jewish conceptions of the global Jewish community.

Title notwithstanding, this is not a problem restricted to the context of Israel. Certainly, discussions about Israel -- whether they seek to cast it as a "White" state by and for European colonists or downplay the very real discrimination and mistreatment non-Ashkenazi Jews continue to experience in Israel -- are one very important forum where this phenomenon can be identified. But there are more broad cultural implications as well, including disrupting the assumption in Western circles (Jewish and non-Jewish) that Ashkenazi culture is the default Jewish culture, emphasizing and celebrating the long history many Jews had in the Arab world and their important contributions to Arab and Middle Eastern culture, and incorporating the plight of Jews driven out of Arab countries into broader discussions of achieving a Mideast peace.

These issues, as one might expect, do not lend themselves uniformly to either conventional "left" or "right" narratives.  But too often, "non-Ashkenazi Jews are engaged with only as far as they support someone else’s narrative. Once they seek to speak in their own voice, their putative allies disappear." That needs to change.

Our concluding paragraph reads as follows:

Mizrahi, Sephardic, and other non-Ashkenazi Jews have stories and demands which pose a challenge to Jewish and non-Jewish groups of any political persuasion. But the obligation to be intersectional does not end when a marginalized group ceases to say what one wants to hear. Taking non-European Jews seriously means taking them seriously on their own terms. This basic principle of justice is one in which both the non-Jewish and Ashkenazi Jewish communities have often failed to uphold. They, and we, need to do better.

Speaking for myself, I hope that this column triggers a needed discussion both in and out of the Jewish community. Serious consideration of non-Ashkenazi Jewish perspectives is not an option for groups that want to talk about Jews, or Middle Easterners, in a just and egalitarian fashion.

Protesters Storm Jewish Event at LGBT Conference

A briefly canceled, then reinstated event featuring the Jewish LGBT group A Wider Bridge and the Israeli LGBT group Jerusalem Open House was shut down part way through as nearly two hundred protesters stormed the event and commandeered the stage. It represents an unfortunate end to an unfortunate saga, and another entry in the growing effort to exclude all but the most rabidly anti-Zionist Jewish voices from global deliberative discourse.

Part of the blame for the chaotic reception is due to fumbles by the host organization, the National LGBTQ Task Force, whose initial cancellation decision greatly elevated the controversy over the event and turned what might have been an isolated group of protesters into a full-blown calamity. But we ignore the toxic conditions that have allowed such illiberal tendencies to fester in progressive organizations. As I wrote in my last post:

To be most generous to the conference organizers, one suspects that they knew that various anti-Israel radicals would try to disrupt the event, knew that they would not be able to stop them, and knew that this occurrence would distract from the "community-building, social atmosphere" image the conference wanted to display. But let's be clear: that rationale is a tacit acknowledgement of just how deep that prejudice runs. It is a capitulation; an admission that they don't have the resources to tackle it and so certain LGBT persons are outside its protective purview.

And that's what we're seeing here. Even if there were some evidence that the Israeli government is actively seeking to leverage its relatively strong LGBT record to "cover" for the occupation (and I continue to think that's oversold), it's become abundantly clear that the "pinkwashing" label has taken a decidedly conspiratorial edge. Any LGBT organization in Israel, or any Jewish LGBT organization anywhere, that is not avowedly anti-Zionist (which is to say, any of substantial size) will simply be asserted to be part of a grand Zionist pinkwashing plot. At that stage, the "pinkwashing" charge has become anti-Semitic root to branch.

A Wider Bridge and Jerusalem Open House are not opposed because they are mouthpieces for the Israeli government. They're opposed because certain purportedly progressive groups want to have a conversation about Israel that does not include Israelis. For the most part, they want to have a conversation about Jews that does not include Jews save those token few who sign on to the exclusionary project. The spurious "pinkwashing" label is there to legitimize this campaign.

It seems that every couple of years Jews get reminded once again that -- when push comes to shove -- nobody (left, right, or center) has our backs. We can't count on LGBT groups to protect our LGBT members. We can't count on anti-racism groups to protect our non-White members. We can't depend on general civil rights groups to protect any of our members. Each time, the message is not "you're one of us" but rather "you're here at our sufferance." I'd love, just once, to be proven wrong on this. But it hasn't happened yet.

Two Links on the Mizrahi Moment

Two older links regarding Mizrahi Jews that I'm posting because (a) they're good articles and (b)  I want to ensure I have them saved for later.

The first, by Ophir Toubul, argues that Israel's White Ashkenazi Left Doesn't Own the Peace Process. I actually had already read this piece before and found it exceptionally insightful, and wanted to make sure I had it memorialized for future reference.  It presents the case for a "Mizrahification" of the peace process and Israel writ large that can genuinely and respectfully interrelate with the broader Middle Eastern community, without pretending that the Mizrahi community represents some post-Zionist fantasy of Jews alienated against Israel and ready to effectively jettison their Jewish communal affiliation and become a subordinate member of a pan-Arab identity.

The second, which I found while searching for the first, interviews American Mizrahi Jews to get their thoughts on a movement by American Arab groups to get "Middle Eastern" disaggregated from "White" on the Census. Their thoughts are fascinating, complex, and often deeply ambivalent. Most would identify as Middle Eastern if given the chance, and many articulated instances of discrimination based on their Middle Eastern appearance. But unlike their Muslim and Christian Arab brethren (organizing under the slogan "Check it right, you ain’t white!"), the Jews were often reluctant to self-identify as "people of color." Some suggested that for them anti-Semitism was a more serious day-to-day discriminatory threat than anti-Middle Eastern sentiment, and (implicitly) that "people of color" denotes a particular type of discrimination qualitatively different from that which they experienced. Others simply didn't seem to view identifying as "Middle Eastern" and identifying as "White" as competitive with one another.

Anyway, both articles are good reads, and so both are getting a plug and permanent enshrinement on my blog's archives. Congratulations.

Evicting Jewish Settlers and the Arab MK Who Cried Foul

Israel can be a weird place sometime, at least for persons who think it's straightforward one:

Israeli troops forcibly removed Jewish settlers from homes they said they had purchased from Palestinians in the occupied West Bank city of Hebron on Friday, prompting some right-wing Israeli lawmakers to threaten to withhold support for the government.

So far, not that weird. Maybe some folks would be surprised that this particular Israeli government would evict Jewish settlers in any case. But that's not the strange part. The strange part is who was among the objecting lawmaker:

Three right-wing lawmakers, two from Likud and another from the ultranationalist Jewish home party, said they would not attend parliamentary votes on Monday in protest at the move.

“It is forbidden to evict Jews from their homes and there will be consequences, we demand the prime minister’s involvement in the matter,” said Ayoub Kara, a Druze Arab Likud lawmaker.

 So ... that's not exactly the statement one expects to read from an Arab MK, even one on the Likud list (most Arab members of the Knesset are part of the Joint Arab List). But it just goes to show you that Israel is a much odder place than one gives it credit for.

(For my part, for what it's worth, good riddance to these Hebron settlers. But nobody asked me).

Trumping the Undercard

I got to say, this is pretty neat:

Boxing promoter Bob Arum plans to make a statement against Donald Trump with an all-Hispanic undercard on his next big pay-per-view show. 

Arum said Tuesday that he'll feature all Hispanic fighters on the undercard of Manny Pacquiao's third meeting with Timothy Bradley on April 9 in Las Vegas. Arum called it "the Donald Trump undercard." 

Arum is no fan of the Republican presidential contender's calls for a wall on the U.S.-Mexico border and the deportation of an estimated 11 million people living in the country illegally. 

"I want them to know there are a lot of people that have their back and are not going to allow them to be deported," Arum said. "And if Trump got elected, I would be in the streets with them protesting."

At one level, it's not too surprising that a boxing promoter would take this stance, given the importance of the Latino community as the main base of boxing fandom in the United States. But still, it's a bold step and one that, as a boxing fan, I'm proud to see.

This article also informed me that before his boxing promotion career Arum, now 84 years old, was an attorney with the Department of Justice in the Kennedy and Johnson administrations. He's also a graduate of Harvard Law -- a distinction he shares with fellow boxing promoter Lou DiBella. Famed boxing adviser Al Haymon is also a Harvard alum. Turns out that there are a lot of really smart cookies in the boxing business!

The Zionist Space Conspiracy Continues, Part IV

Yair Rosenberg has the deets. Israel is voted into the UN space agency just as a new planet is discovered. Ali Abunimah is right to be concerned.

Prior entries in the series here, here, and here.

LGBT Conference: Hearing from LGBT Jews Would Be Too "Divisive", Not "Safe"

The National LGBTQ Task Force canceled an event from its "Creating Change" conference, apparently due to the host groups' ties to Israel. The event, which would have been on Friday, featured A Wider Bridge, a  group that seeks to present the stories of queer Israelis to the North American American LGBTQ community, and Jerusalem Open House, a prominent Israeli LGBT advocacy and activist organization. While initial reports cited "safety" concerns as the rationale, there were no reports of any incipient violence. A statement from National LGBTQ Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey confirmed that the cancellation was instead due to the "divisive" nature of hearing Jews and Israelis speak about their experiences:

“Last week, we decided to cancel a Friday night reception at the Creating Change Conference entitled ‘Beyond the Bridge.’ We cancelled the reception when it became clear to us it would be intensely divisive rather than the community-building, social atmosphere which is the norm for Friday night at the conference. While we welcome robust discourse and political action, given the complexity and deep passions on all sides, we concluded the event wouldn’t be productive or meet the stated goals of its organizers. We also have the overarching responsibility to ensure that Creating Change is a safe space for attendees. Since the cancellation, we have been accused of being many things including being anti-Jewish, or anti-Semitic — which are wrong and deeply painful to those of us in the National LGBTQ Task Force family. We believe in the self-determination of all people, no matter where they call home, the right of LGBTQ people to live in peace and safety, and in constructive dialogue that moves the work for social justice forward. We are an organization dedicated to LGBTQ freedom, justice and equality for all.”

The cancellation is particularly painful given Jerusalem Open House's efforts to recover from the horrific stabbing attack perpetuated by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremist at the Jerusalem gay pride parade. That attack deeply traumatized the gay rights community in Israel, and one of the goals of international conferences like these is to let vulnerable queer communities know that the rest of the world has their back. But, of course, Jews can never count on the rest of the world to have our backs, or fronts, or sides. It's a very "divisive" thing to do, after all.

To be most generous to the conference organizers, one suspects that they knew that various anti-Israel radicals would try to disrupt the event, knew that they would not be able to stop them, and knew that this occurrence would distract from the "community-building, social atmosphere" image the conference wanted to display. But let's be clear: that rationale is a tacit acknowledgement of just how deep that prejudice runs. It is a capitulation; an admission that they don't have the resources to tackle it and so certain LGBT persons are outside its protective purview.

I also have to note how, as is so frequently the case, the bald rejection of being labeled "anti-Semitic" is not coupled with any argument why (let alone any consideration of the possibility their interlocutors have a point). Indeed, while they transition straight into universal formulations of their organizational values, they can't spare a word to confirm that they apply to Jews specifically. Do Jews have the right to "self-determination" (do they count as a "people"? It's hardly a closed question). Do they think Jews have the right to organize social justice oriented dialogue on their own terms (evidently not). Perhaps they think it is self-evident that refusing to even listen to Jewish and Israeli LGBT voices describe their own experiences is not anti-Semitic. It doesn't seem self-evident to me, nor to the prominent voices in that community who have blasted the decision. But as is too frequently the case, the spectre of anti-Semitism doesn't prompt introspection, only defensive complaints of how "hurtful" it is.

Finally, the invocation of "safe space" here finely demonstrates my intuition that this concept is a check Jews are not entitled to cash. Here, "safety" is being deployed as a weapon; as a narrative tool to cast Jewish and Israeli groups as inherently putting the lives of others at risk. Jews are hardly the only minority group whose mere presence is taken by some to constitute a threat. When the National LGBTQ Task Force endorses that narrative, it is inscribing violence, not combating it.

The event will be hosted instead at a hotel across the street from the main conference venue. One hopes that the publicity, at least, will give them more attendees. But one also hopes that the remaining participants in the conference will take their owns steps to ensure that LGBT spaces are open to the voices of all.

UPDATE: The Task Force has reversed its decision and reinvited A Wider Bridge. Kudos.

"Crying" About Anti-Semitism Beyond the Dogwhistle

In the last Republican presidential debate, Ted Cruz took aim at "New York values" as a means of attacking Donald Trump. Several commenters leveled objections to the phrase, a controversy that the Jewish Telegraphic Agency covered with the following headline:

Ted Cruz says Donald Trump has ‘NY values,’ the Internet cries anti-Semitism.

I'll return to the details of Cruz's case in a moment, which is not clear-cut. But before we get there, something needs to be said about that headline. The Nation couldn't have framed it any better: the notion that Jews are always "crying" anti-Semitism; making mountains out of molehills and whining about imaginary anti-Semitism behind every rock is an ubiquitous feature of our public discourse. So much so that Jews have gotten very defensive about it; preemptively assuring others that they're not the sort of Jew who "calls everything anti-Semitic", that they absolutely understand we need to "tread lightly" around anti-Semitism talk. And so it is that, in contrast to the stereotype, Jews have in fact gotten exceptionally gun-shy when it comes to discourse about anti-Semitism, well aware that even the slightest whiff of the invocation will bring down a furious racket of "there they go again!" JTA's headline, intentionally or not, is demonstrative of just how much we've assimilated this narrative.

In any event, the question of anti-Semitism with respect to Cruz's comments is more complicated than it is given credit for by either side. Much of the discourse has centered around the "dog whistle" concept: that when Cruz said "New York", he meant (and his listeners heard) "Jew" (see, e.g., Jezebel's column "Ted, Just Say 'Jewish'"). People immediately made the link to Toby Ziegler's famous comment, in The West Wing's pilot, in response to a conservative lobbyist's derision towards Josh Lyman's "New York sense of humor":

"She meant 'Jewish'. When she said 'New York sense of humor', she was talking about you and me."

(Apropos my above point, I'd note that nobody quotes the next line: Josh quietly saying "You know what Toby, let's not even go there.").

I thought of that line too, but it was actually the second one that came to mind. The first was a statement by Colin Powell in response to Sarah Palin's denigration of the values of New Yorkers and other urban dwellers in favor of the "real Americans":

When [Gov. Palin] talked about small town values are good -- well most of us don't live in small towns. I was raised in the South Bronx, and there's nothing wrong with my value system from the South Bronx.

The Ziegler line is about dogwhistles; Cruz "meant 'Jewish'". But reducing the question of anti-Semitism or racism to what Cruz "meant" is a spectacularly thin way of conceptualizing the issue. The Powell quote, by contrast, gets at something more subtle: that whether there is a hidden meaning or not, the fact still remains that comments like Cruz's (or Palin's) are profoundly degrading -- and degrading to the specific sorts of people who distinctively live in places like New York. E.g., Jews. Or gays. Or Blacks. Or immigrants. And we might say that, at the very least, someone who really cared about Jews or Blacks or whomever would think in terms of the effects his statements would have on the group.

Whether there was an implied substitution of "Jew" for "New York" is in many ways a side issue. It is groups like the Jews, that is, the people who distinctively live in urban coastal centers, who are presented to the nation as worthy of scorn; and it is those people who will have to deal with the fallout. A dogwhistle sets out to harness anti-Semitism, this merely produces it anew. Surely, when Ted Cruz tells his audience that the value set which describe most Jews are contemptible, it is no far leap for people to accordingly conclude Jews are contemptible too.

The upshot of telling a national audience of partisans that "New York values" are bad values is eminently predictable, and it is not salutary -- for Jews or for many other minority groups disproportionately concentrated in and identified with our urban centers. And so we're left with two possibilities: Either Cruz thought of that. Or he didn't.

If It's a War You Want....

Swedish Foreign Minister Margot Wallstrom provoked outrage in Israel when she alleged that the nation was engaging in "extrajudicial executions" when police forces killed terrorists engaged in stabbing attacks in civilian areas. Israel has responded by declaring that Wallstrom is no longer welcome in the country.

The bases for critiquing Wallstrom are legion, including the usual charges of hypocrisy (police officers in Europe -- including Sweden and France -- have killed armed assailants before, without any fretting by Wallstrom about the deaths constituting "executions"). Harvard Law Professor Noah Feldman also observes that Wallstrom seems to badly misunderstand the relevant international law principles she purports to be defending. Most notably, Feldman observes that even if police use of lethal force in stopping an armed attacker presents an international law question in the first place (far from clear), the international law language she appeals to is that governing armed conflict, not criminal conduct. Questions of "proportionality" and "distinction" refer to the legality of military strikes which will result in civilian casualties in pursuit of a bona fide military objective. Civilian and military targets must be distinguished, and civilian casualties must be proportionate to the military objective pursued. These considerations are simply inapposite where the police are seeking to stop an identified criminal in a civilian context.

There's another point worth making here that Feldman does not raise. Obviously, some defenders of Palestinian attacks on Israel would argue that these are military, not criminal actions. It's possible that this is the view that Wallstrom is seeking to channel: the stabbing attacks conducted by Palestinians against Israelis are part of an ongoing military conflict between Israel and Palestine, and so therefore Israel's response should be thought of in terms of the laws of war.

Obviously, the goal of this framing is to elevate the stabbing attacks beyond that of unsavory criminality. The stabbers are not mere criminals, but soldiers, entitled to all the respect that position entails. Now there are all sorts of reasons why characterizing stabbing attacks as military operations is problematic, and another lengthy list of reasons why if they are "military" they're also war crimes. But putting that aside, Wallstrom and other advocates of "militarizing" Palestinian stabbing attacks overlook one essential characteristic of the laws of war relevant to this conversation:

Soldiers can be killed.

This is a bedrock feature of the law of armed conflict: it is obviously not illegal (in of itself) to kill a soldier on the battlefield. They can be killed immediately, without warning, and without opportunity to surrender. And one can kill as many soldiers as one wants. There is no "proportionality" requirement with respect to combatants. Nor is there a requirement that they be given judicial process. A combatant who does legitimately surrender is entitled to have that surrender accepted, and upon capture is entitled to various protections as a POW. But there is no obligation to try and take enemy soldiers alive. If they're there and they're active, they can be killed -- even if they aren't an immediate threat to kill someone.

In this way, one might say, it's sometimes better to be a criminal than a soldier. Criminals are entitled to judicial process; that's the process through which they are punished. Killing a criminal on the street is only justified if there is an objective, imminent threat to someone's safety (the officers or surrounding civilians). None of that is necessary to kill a soldier. This oddity exists because, odd as this might sound, killing a soldier is not taken to be punitive. We don't kill soldiers on the battlefield as punishment for them breaking a law (being a soldier does not, in itself, break a law). We kills soldiers on the battlefield because that's what war is. And so by the same token, a captured soldier cannot be punished simply by virtue of their status as a soldier. Detention in a POW camp is also non-punitive; it is lawful as a means of incapacitating an enemy force. To punish an enemy soldier -- e.g., to hang him -- you need to charge him with a crime (such as a war crime). But judicial process is not something that exists on the battlefield itself.

For my part, I think it is evident that the Palestinian knife attackers are not soldiers, but ordinary criminals. And so that does mean that they are subject to ordinary rules of policing, which means they cannot be killed unless they pose an imminent safety threat. But if their defenders want to cloak them in the garb of the soldier, they need to accept the consequences of the label. Soldiers can be killed in war. That's what war is. And if it's a war Palestine wants, Israel is not under any obligation to lose it.

Bibi Narrowly Avoids Mature Response to Brazilian Diplomatic Imbroglio

A few months ago, I noted a brewing foreign policy disaster for Israel stemming from Bibi's selection of a prominent settler leader, Dani Dayon, to be Ambassador to Brazil. Brazil indicated that it would not accept the appointment, and as of the start of the year it looked like Israel had gotten the message and was withdrawing Dayon's nomination. It was seemingly the only mature response to yet another ridiculous unforced error by the Netanyahu administration, which has spent the last few years playing demolition derby with Israel's already-fragile standing in the global community.

Which makes it only appropriate to find out that this aforementioned mature response has apparently now been reversed. Instead, Bibi has reportedly informed Brazil that if they don't accept Dayon, they won't get an ambassador -- a de facto downgrading of relations with South America's largest nation. Who does this help? No one. Who does it hurt? Israel (Brazil will survive mostly unscathed, one suspects). What's the point of this? To protect the Israeli right's fragile ego? To bluster and fulminate and show that Israel won't be pushed around? Or just to demonstrate that Bibi has taken up the mantle of how Abba Eban once described Israel's Arab adversaries: he "never misses an opportunity to miss an opportunity."

No, Obama is Not Going To Be The Next UN Secretary General

"There comes a point in every plot where the victim starts to suspect; and looks back, and sees a trail of events all pointing in a single direction. And when that point comes, Father had explained, the prospect of the loss may seem so unbearable, and admitting themselves tricked may seem so humiliating, that the victim will yet deny the plot, and the game may continue long after."*

Some things just seem to attract conspiracies. Jews, for one. Barack Obama, for two. The latest conspiracy theory about the latter is that he is seeking to become the next UN Secretary General. It appears to trace back to a Kuwaiti newspaper Al Jarida, which not only got the scoop but snagged exclusive quotes from senior Netanyahu aides seeking to block the appointment -- no small feat given that Kuwait and Israel have no diplomatic relations and Kuwait bars entry to anyone with an Israeli stamp on their passport. It has bounced around the usual far-right suspects -- Breitbart, Arutz Sheva, the American Spectator; some of whom admit in text that the report seems "far-fetched", others of whom go straight to the hyperventilation machine ("OBAMA COULD BECOME PRESIDENT OF THE WHOLE WORLD"). Or check out this hot take from the prominent Israeli cartoon Dry Bones:

That came with a caption from the author: "Apparently it's True!!! YIKES!"

So obviously, this is in fact not true. It is rather transparently ludicrous. The story has no corroboration outside of a single Kuwaiti newspaper which has no way of getting the information it purports to have, and would certainly not be rebroadcast by Breitbart magazine in any other context.** There's no reason why Barack Obama would want a thankless position like UN Secretary General, which is about as far away from being King of the World as you can get. And, most importantly, the UN Secretary General cannot come from a citizen of any of the permanent UN Security Council members -- so Obama isn't even eligible.

Hell, even in the realm of "unrealistic high profile positions Barack Obama might want upon leaving office", there's a better candidate: United States Supreme Court Justice. There's precedent for the President-to-Justice move, in the form of William Howard Taft, and it fits better with Obama's background as a law professor and overall temperament. Of course it will never happen because Republicans would pitch a fit in the Senate, but at least it'd be the regular type of implausible.

Individual conspiracy theories aren't really interesting to me. But what I am interested in is what causes people to not just buy into conspiracy theories, but go back to the same wells over and over again. There are some people who read this on Breitbart or Dry Bones and or whatever and simply won't accept that it's not true. But there's another cadre who might accept that it isn't true, but won't engage in any reassessment about their instincts in determining who is a reliable purveyor of information and who is not. They'll continue to draw from the same sources in the same ways and get duped, over and over again. The game continues long after the plot becomes clear.

* Source.

** The one thing that can over come right-wing Islamophobia and anti-Arab racism is when they can unify in hatred of Barack Obama. Then suddenly uncorroborated Kuwaiti media arms are wholly credible of resting an entire story upon.

What Do (EU) Jews Actually Consider To Be Anti-Semitic?

One of the lodestones of progressive understandings of discrimination and inequality is that marginalized groups are in a privileged position to "name their oppression." At the extreme this can be expressed as an unassailable authority to define what their oppression is (a position I can't endorse). But more modestly, the idea that we should give a pretty healthy presumption to how marginalized groups understand their own experience -- and that certainly, their views are relevant and important (indeed, essential) inputs into how we work through these issues -- strikes me as exactly right.

In that vein, I've just come across some really interesting survey data from the EU which asks Jews about (among other things) what they consider to be anti-Semitic.

.@AbuKedem The consensus of Jews should determine the def'n of antisemitism: @ibn_ezra @WarpedMirrorPMB @adamlevick pic.twitter.com/NCphO81MN9

— Nurit Baytch (@NuritBaytch) January 10, 2016

If you click through you can see the charts more clearly. The results clarify certain intuitions while falsifying other stereotypes. To begin, as one would expect most Jews do not, in fact, view "criticism of Israel" by a non-Jew as anti-Semitic. Only 34% take that view, which, to provide some context, is also roughly the same percentage of Idaho voters who cast their ballot for Barack Obama in 2012. So the next time you hear people talking about "Jews think any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic," replace in your mind "Idahoans are strong backers of Barack Obama" and reflect on how silly that sounds.

Widespread rejection of the generic formulation that criticism of Israel equals anti-Semitism, of course, doesn't mean that no specific criticisms can be so labeled (The Nation, take note). 72% of Jews think that a boycott of Israeli goods or products is anti-Semitic. Likewise, 81% think that saying Israelis behave "like Nazis" to Palestinians is definitely or probably anti-Semitic, and 90% believe that saying "Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood" at least probably qualifies as anti-Semitic (Naomi Klein, take note).

These are striking figures. To be sure, as noted at the outset, they do not end the discussion over what is anti-Semitism. But they do provide an important beginning. Talking about anti-Semitism, first and foremost, must start from talking about how Jews perceive anti-Semitism. Most Jews are well-aware of the obvious truth that criticism of Israel is not anti-Semitic simply by virtue of that fact; and the equally obvious truth that particular criticisms in particular contexts made in particular ways may well be. Now it's time for the rest of the world to catch up.

Disgusting Sandy Hook Conspiracy Theorists Have Academic Freedom Too

Time for an unpopular opinion: I lean towards the position that Florida Atlantic University violated academic freedom requirements when it fired James Tracy, a tenured communications professor. Tracy became notorious for his wild-eyed conspiratorial beliefs about the Sandy Hook massacre -- namely, that it didn't happen at that at least one of the family's involved actually faked having a child for money. He has pursued this line of inquiry quite vocally, including sending demands to the grieving family demanding that they "prove" their child is real. Bonus irony points: Tracy's area of study is conspiracy theories.

FAU claims to be firing Tracy not for his views on Sandy Hook, but because he failed to file certain disclosures regarding out-of-classroom activities. Like Paul Campos and Ken White, I smell a pretextual rat. It is almost impossible to imagine this misbehavior, if it would be punished at all, would be grounds for dismissal were it not for Tracy's public airing of his repulsive views.

In the Steven Salaita case, I took the firm position that

Yes, I think Salaita made anti-Semitic tweets, yes, I think his academic freedom was violated, no, clause "a" and clause "b" should not have anything to do with one another. Academic freedom includes the right to make anti-Semitic (or racist, or sexist, or whatever) statements; Salaita should not have been effectively stripped of his position for doing so; and he was entitled to (and I'm glad he received) a significant cash payout given that he detrimentally relied on Illinois' failure to adhere to basic academic freedom standards.

One could say similar things about Tracy. His outlook regarding Sandy Hook is truly appalling, but he nonetheless retains the academic freedom to promote said views, and clause one and two of this sentence should bear no relationship with one another. Nonetheless, it is obvious that the response to this case will not parallel the Salaita case, because it was evident that the passion with which Salaita was defended was entirely unrelated to the academic freedom issues in play, and instead stemmed from the belief that Salaita's beliefs were not just "protected by academic freedom" but actually salutary on their merits (lest one think that Tracy is the exception and Salaita is the rule in terms of the ferocity of the academic response, witness the comparatively muted response to LSU's firing of Teresa Buchanan, a case where the challenged conduct seems almost ludicrously trivial).

Even though academic freedom by its nature should not depend on whether one agrees with the behavior of Tracy, Salaita, or Buchanan, it is evident that the manner in which these debates play is inextricably linked to such substantive appraisals. This is not to say that people don't "really" believe in academic freedom and were simply cynically deploying it in the Salaita case. It is not agreement with the principle, but the ferocity with which it is dependent, that varies based on how one feels about the substance. Nobody will call for boycotts of FAU or LSU, and so it is fair to say that the boycott effort against UIUC was not motivated by "academic freedom" but by a desire to defend Salaita on the substance.

The Nation Plays with Cards

The Nation publishes a column by Steven Salaita which Rabbi Jill Jacobs (Executive Director of "T'ruah: The Rabbinic Call for Human Rights") contends contains anti-Semitic tropes. Specifically, Rabbi Jacobs argues that Salaita characterizes Zionism in such sweeping, world-encompassing terms -- "It is necessary to connect  this Zionist presence with the suppression of all radical ideas," "Zionism is part and parcel of unilateral administrative power," or, "[support for Israel is] an omnipresent but invisible accoutrement to swivel chairs, mineral water, and mahogany tables" -- that it evokes " the well-known bogeyman of a Jewish conspiracy that controls banks, governments, and other seats of authority."

Here is The Nation's reply, in full:

We take it very seriously whenever one of our readers raises the specter of anti-Semitism, racism, or any other form of a targeted prejudice in our pages. As a magazine founded by abolitionists and committed to principles of justice, inclusion, and equality, we abhor anti-Semitism and are acutely sensitive to the dangers it poses. We also recognize how charges of anti-Semitism, wrongly applied, have the power to defame, ruin careers, and silence criticism. While we respect Rabbi Jacobs, we reject her claims about this article. Zionism and Judaism are, indeed, different, just as Zionists and Jews are different. Zionism is a political and national movement—a discourse, as academics, might say; Judaism is a religion, heritage, tradition, and way of life for millions of people. It is our strong belief that critique of the movement, even harsh or challenging critique, is not an attack on the religion or the people.

What's fascinating about this response is how it is conspicuously non-responsive. Rabbi Jacobs' objection did not state that "Steven Salaita's column is anti-Semitic because it criticized Zionism". She leveled specific objections to specific passages which, she argued, summon the specter of classic anti-Semitic tropes regarding world-dominating Jewish conspiracies. One can of course disagree with that assessment, and respond by saying why the passages in question do not in fact raise the tropes that Rabbi Jacobs claims that they do.

The Nation's reply does not do this. It is rather a complete non-sequitur: Judaism and Zionism are different. Indeed they are, but so what? Does that mean that any criticism of Zionism, no matter how it is formulated, cannot be anti-Semitic? Surely, The Nation cannot believe that (can it?). But if we do concede that it is possible to criticize Zionism in anti-Semitic ways (e.g., by doing so in ways which raise the spectre of world-dominating Jewish conspiracies), then The Nation hasn't actually said anything in response to Rabbi Jacobs. It has not taken her claim seriously, it has not provided a substantive reply.

Why does The Nation not feel the need to actually address the argument Rabbi Jacobs makes? Why is it comfortable relying on a position that is responsive only if it adopts the absurd position that criticism of Zionism can never be anti-Semitic?

Hints to the answer can be found in my "Playing with Cards" article, which explores how people systematically dismiss discrimination claims (racism, sexism, anti-Semitism, etc.). The article focuses on the common trope that such claims are routinely offered in bad faith ("you're playing the X card!"), hence, they need not be addressed. At one level, it is unsurprising that The Nation goes down this route in its reply; statements of the form "We also recognize how charges of anti-Semitism, wrongly applied, have the power to defame, ruin careers, and silence criticism" are so cliche nowadays that they almost aren't worth remarking on (though one is doubtful about whether The Nation would add a similar caveat to its declaration about how seriously it takes, say, a charge of racism or sexual assault). On another level, though, it is very revealing that it shows up in this specific reply

What, exactly, is the pertinence of this passage over and beyond a normal on-the-merits disagreement (of the sort that The Nation notably does not offer)? Is The Nation suggesting that Rabbi Jacobs has "wrongly applied" the charge? That she did so dishonestly? Is her sincerity relevant to the question? Is any charge that The Nation "rejects" necessarily "wrongly applied", or is there room for disagreement? One gets the sense that all of this is meant to be left deliberately ambiguous. On the one hand, they claim to "respect" Rabbi Jacobs and take anti-Semitism claims seriously, indicating that she didn't do anything out-of-bounds in raising her concerns. On the other hand, talking about the evils of "wrongly applied" anti-Semitism claims is not germane to The Nation's reply unless we're to understand that Rabbi Jacobs is in the same class as those Jews who are always crying anti-Semitism to "silence" critics of Israel.

Finally, it is worth remarking upon the opening line, wherein The Nation dutifully affirms how, as progressives in good standing, it takes the issue of anti-Semitism seriously. I wish we could declare a moratorium on liberals delivering this recitation, as there is nothing about identifying as a progressive that in any way guarantees one takes anti-Semitism (or sexism or racism or anything else) seriously. But in "Playing with Cards", I make a further observation regarding the strange ubiquity of the pairing: general declarations regarding how "serious" the issue of discrimination is coupled with a facial dismissal of the specific discrimination claim on the table. This rhetorical construction serves several purposes, but one major result is that it constructions discrimination as so serious that it cannot actually be applied to anyone -- and certainly not to me.

At first glance, it is odd that The Nation would open by stating how serious it  takes the allegation of anti-Semitism, only to proceed to deliver an irrelevant aside about "wrongful" complaints followed by a complete non-sequitur that is entirely non-responsive to the allegation made. But to those who have observed the patterns through which discrimination claims -- of racism, of sexism, of anti-Semitism -- are routinely dismissed, there is nothing strange at all. The Nation is simply following a well-worn path enabling actors to perform a commitment to taking discrimination seriously while utterly failing to grapple with it.

Maine Governor: My Statement that Drug Traffickers Named "D-Money" are Impregnating "Young, White Girls" Was Not About Race

I think we just hit peak post-racial, everybody:

Maine Republican Gov. Paul LePage told a town hall audience on Wednesday that heroin use is resulting in white women being impregnated by out-of-state drug dealers named "D-Money."

LePage was asked by an attendee what he was doing to curb the heroin epidemic in his state. "The traffickers—these aren't people that take drugs," he explained. "These are guys with that are named D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty, these types of guys, that come from Connecticut and New York, they come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave, which is a real sad thing because then we have another issue we that we've go to deal with down the road."

But if any of you thought that statements about "D-Money" "from New York" coming up to Maine to "impregnate a young, white girl" has anything to do with race, well, Governor LePage's spokesperson is here to clear that up.

Statement from @Governor_LePage spox, who says the governor wasn't discussing race. #mepolitics pic.twitter.com/gegStcmesA

— Michael Shepherd (@mikeshepherdME) January 7, 2016

Gosh, will people ever stop playing the race card? Anyway, I'm so glad that we avoided any ridiculous misinterpretations.

Open Hillel: Erasing the Line, Redrawing the Line, or Handing Over the Pen?

Open Hillel has just announced a new academic advisory board. It comprises a range of different viewpoints from along the left-liberal spectrum, ranging from Judith Butler to Peter Beinart to Zachary Braiterman. The announcement offered me the opportunity to ask a few questions clarifying some confusion I had about Open Hillel's mission and principles.

The Open Hillel movement emerged out of objections to the application of Hillel International's "standards of partnership", most specifically a provision preventing partnership with organization which endorse the BDS movement (a rule which, OH maintains, effectively prevents collaboration with most Palestinian groups which have endorsed said movement). Open Hillel objected to this rule as stifling open inquiry and debate regarding Israel (hence the name).

The discourse around Open Hillel has, to my ears at least, conflated three distinct questions:

1. Is Hillel justified in drawing certain lines whereby certain groups or positions are beyond the pale?
2. If line-drawing is permissible, has Hillel drawn them in the right place (excluding BDS)?
3. Should decisions over the above be made by a central organization or by individual Hillel chapters?

We can view these three questions as expressing three potential positions regarding "where to draw the line": First, that there should be no line, second, that the line should be drawn somewhere else from where it is now, or third, that somebody else other than Hillel International should be in charge of the line-drawing decision.

The way I've often thought about this question is by asking whether Open Hillel would think it an injustice if Hillel refused to partner with or host Pam Geller? If the answer is yes, then that means Open Hillel really is taking a principled "open inquiry" stance. If the answer is no, then Open Hillel doesn't object to line-drawing per se, only to where the lines are drawn. And if the answer is "all of these decisions should be made at the chapter level", then the question is simply shifted to a new forum (and Open Hillel's ambitions become a lot narrower than often assumed). Any of these represent a legitimate position, but they are very different positions that raise different arguments in response, and I've never been clear on which one Open Hillel actually takes.

Anyway, I was able to ask the question to Open Hillel on twitter, and their response did help clarify things:

@ZacharyBraiterm I've long wondered whether @OpenHillelNow supports Hillel being open to arguably racist far-right Jewish/Israeli voices?

— David Schraub (@schraubd) January 7, 2016

@ZacharyBraiterm ie, is @OpenHillelNow an "open mic" free speech org, or does it simply disagree with where @HillelIntl draws the line?

— David Schraub (@schraubd) January 7, 2016

@schraubd @ZacharyBraiterm If there's interest from students in bringing someone far right, then sure. No need to whitewash views which...

— Open Hillel (@OpenHillelNow) January 7, 2016

@schraubd ...exist among Israelis/Palestinians. Not sure how far right you're talking. We tried bringing Mort Klein to our 2014 conference.

— Open Hillel (@OpenHillelNow) January 7, 2016

That exchange suggests Open Hillel really does see itself as being inside the "open mic" camp (it answers my first question in the negative), and thinks that any voice -- even if many students find it hateful or offensive -- should be fair game. That principle applies equally to Pam Geller and to BDS acolytes (both of whom many people find hateful and offensive). In this way, Open Hillel can be seen as standing against the "safe space" trend one sees on some college campuses, where certain types of views are said to be so inherently marginalizing so as to be validly excluded from public dialogue. They are closer to the Williams College "uncomfortable learning" group, affirming the importance of hearing ideas many people -- dominant and subordinated group members alike -- might prefer to ignore.

One might question, then, why Open Hillel focuses so much on the BDS issue if its free inquiry commitment really is so non-partisan. But here I think they have a valid response: BDS is right now the predominant flashpoint for Hillel International's interference into local chapter affairs. Indeed, it's notable that while Hillel's partnership standards put several hoops in front of left-wing groups to jump through, there are no corresponding boundaries whereby someone can be beyond the pale on the political right. There are no guidelines that, for example, suggest Hillel would refuse to partner with groups or speakers that demonize Palestinians or engage in racist incitement (let alone prohibitions on right-wing "one-staters"). Indeed, there's nothing that would prevent Pam Geller from having a platform.

This is a serious problem for people who, like me, don't find the idea of "drawing a line" to be inherently problematic. I've often remarked that the Jewish community cannot only have a boundary on its left border. Even people who think that it is reasonable to say "BDS is beyond the pale" can't act surprised if that contention falls on deaf ears where only left-wing movements are so exiled. If Hillel International really does want to preserve its position that BDS should be no platformed, the best thing it could do would be to release similar guidelines, enforced with similar robustness, that demarcate what sorts of right-wing positions, agitation, or incitement (against Palestinians or against Jewish leftists) is also out of bonds.

Hillel's infirmities notwithstanding, it still remains the case that Open Hillel's position depends on the viability of a true "open mic" policy. And there are arguments to be had here. One goes to the last question I posed: who makes the call? Should "openness" be a mandate from Hillel International (an inversion of the guidelines), or do local chapters decide for themselves what voices they think are legitimately worth including in dialogue and who/what should be left out. The tweets imply the latter,  and Open Hillel's about page suggests the same: their prime mission is to change Hillel International's partnership guidelines so as to permit local chapters to adopt their own standards; they then say they will "encourage" these chapters to themselves adopt open policies. So if a local Jewish campus community democratically elects to exclude voices Open Hillel thinks should be included, that seems to be their prerogative. Obviously, OH can (and has said it will) "encourage" chapters to reverse those positions, but it presumably could not demand any sort of centralized rule requiring inclusion.

The larger problem rests in the feasibility of a true "open mic" position. Even if one believes that OH activists, in their bones, think it is equally outrageous to exclude the Pam Geller's of the world and the Jewish Voice for Peace activists of the world, they'd still face the problem of what to do with groups who openly oppose "open dialogue" in any capacity -- perhaps most notably, "anti-normalization" groups. Hillel International's final partnership guideline targets those who "[e]xhibit a pattern of disruptive behavior towards campus events or guest speakers or foster an atmosphere of incivility;" a rule clearly designed to encompass folks who, say, tried to shout down Moshe Halbertal. In this, they seem to be in accord with Open Hillel (which presumably must also view such actions as incompatible with the spirit of open dialogue). And indeed, Open Hillel specifically says "Open Hillel is committed to making its events, programs, membership, and leadership open and accessible to all who share in Open Hillel's mission and values", which leaves the door open to excluding those who are seen as not sharing in its "mission and values." A true commitment to openness isn't as straightforward as it appears, particularly when not everybody shares the principle.

Indeed, one can see shades of the problem in Open Hillel's reference to being open to any speaker who elicits "interest from students." Embedded in that statement, I think, is the valid hope that there are many potential speakers that most students would not be interested in; that private consensus can replace organizational diktat in ensuring that truly ridiculous and repulsive views aren't offered a forum. But which views qualify? It's the "Academic Freedom vs. Academic Legitimacy" debate all over again. If Jewish students on a particular campus expressed an "interest" in bringing in Pam Geller to speak, I don't think most of us would react by lauding their commitment to open inquiry and hearing various points of view. Even if we concede their "right" to extend the invitation, we would be dismayed at the students' appraisal of what sorts of views are worthy entrants in serious conversation. Certainly, I would think that a community which thought that Pam Geller was presenting something "interesting" has gone badly off the rails. But many view the proposition that the world's only Jewish state should be exiled from the global community in the exact same way. So we're right back into the "where to draw the line" question; the only difference is that the forum has changed. And while Open Hillel obviously has substantive opinions on where the line should be drawn (specifically, that BDS advocacy should remain in-bounds), its entire rhetorical arsenal acts as if the line drawing endeavor can be avoided entirely.

In short, Open Hillel does seem to be attempting to take a genuinely "open mic" approach to discourse within Hillel, applicable to controversial left and right speakers alike. That's a perfectly respectable position (albeit one that perhaps cuts against some of the current left-liberal zeitgeist, and one which OH seems willing to subordinate to the broader value of chapter control). Unfortunately, the "open mic" approach actually cannot eliminate the question of "where to draw the line", it can only shift the forum in which that question is debated over. One can legitimately say, as OH apparently does, that such questions should not be made at the national level but rather be devolved to individual campus chapters. But campus Jewish representatives will nonetheless not be able to avoid making decisions about what sorts of views -- from Pam Geller to BDS -- should and should not be seen as legitimate entrants into Jewish communal conversation.

The Travails of Combining Public Law and Political Theory

I am a political theorist who is interested in law a site of political and democratic dialogue. This is a very natural connection for me -- the whole reason I got interested in law in the first place was that it felt like the space where the rubber hit the road with regard to our public discussions regarding matters of equality, rights, freedom, etc.. But for whatever reason, pretty much everyone who does public law in political science departments is an empiricist. They study things like judicial behavior using data and models.

One upshot of this is that I'm rather isolated from the political science public law community, but that's not a huge problem since I'm still perfectly tied into the public law scholars at law schools. The bigger issue comes when I try to bring law-centered approach to political theory. Then this happens:

Me: Hello! I am hereby submitting a proposal to present at your political theory conference! My topic is on the role of judges in protecting marginalized groups; specifically, the deliberative advantages of the judiciary being "force to listen" to claims that other political actors can dismiss out of hand.

Conference organizer #1: I don't know. That sounds like a pretty niche area. I mean, does anybody really pay much attention to the intersection of minority rights and the law? I think we need something with a wider base of appeal.

Conference organizer #2: I agree. How about a paper presenting an esoteric reading of five pages of a 19th century German philosopher known to approximately two dozen people outside of this room instead?

Conference organizer #1: That sounds great! But is our conference unbalanced what with eight "history of political thought" papers scheduled and just one contemporary piece?

[Everybody laughs uproariously, and scene]

Learning a new discipline is weird.

2016's Opening Roundup

It's a new year, and so it deserves to be kicked off with a roundup!

* * *

Jeannie Suk and Jake Gersen have posted a draft of their forthcoming article "The Sex Bureaucracy" (forthcoming this summer in the California Law Review). I saw them workshop this paper at Berkeley last fall, and it is certainly going to provoke discussion (I think it raises some important points, though there is a lot I disagree with).

The Supreme Court may be about to eviscerate tribal court civil jurisdiction over non-Indians who engage in consensual relations with the tribe or its members. This is unnerving for a host of reasons. First, I thought that the issue was settled by relatively recent precedent (the Tribe's attorney, Neal Katyal, is right that the Supreme Court's "tribal exhaustion" cases make zero sense if civil jurisdiction doesn't exist). Second, it threatens to reverse decades of hard-won progress in the courts to recognize and respect Indian sovereignty. And third, the argument forwarded by several Justices that tribal courts pose an inherent due process risk to non-tribal members because the juries will be comprised of Indians is flatly outrageous, especially given the existence of the Indian Civil Rights Act.  As Justice Breyer observes, this is no different from a citizen of Alabama getting an all-Mississippian jury in Mississippi state court, and just as with diversity jurisdiction generally (which is authorized by Congress but not a due process right) if Congress identifies a problem Congress is free to step in and regulate.

Israel has finally withdrawn its nomination for Dani Dayon to serve as Ambassador to Brazil. Brazil was set to publicly reject the appointment of the former settler leader, and the entire spectacle was yet another unforced diplomatic error by the increasingly hapless Netanyahu foreign policy machine.

An Israeli soldier who passed on confidential IDF information to terrorists (in this case, those of the "price tag" variety) has been sentenced to four years in prison. If only we could do the same to the right-wing MKs who did the exact same thing (Agricultural Minister Uri "If a person who transfers information about IDF movements is a spy, then I am a spy" Ariel, I'm looking at you).

Zeynep Tufekci has a touching editorial in the New York Times about "Why the Postal Service Makes America Great." This hits me where I live. First, I'm never prouder of being an American than when talking with immigrants about how wondrous they are about America. Immigrants, of course, are people who almost by definition made incredible sacrifices (social, financial, sometimes physical) to come here because they believe in their bones in the American dream. They have an excitement about America that is infectious and exhilarating. But separately, I too have long been in awe of the U.S. postal system. It is nothing short of amazing that I can address a letter to anyone in the country, no matter what far-flung flyspeck village they might live in, and have it delivered to them in a timely and reliable fashion.

Binjamin Arazi offers up the progressive case for Israel. It's quite good -- most posts in this vein quickly become smarmy declarations about how good the gays have it or how Israel is "the only democracy in the middle east!" This one, by contrast, puts the focus where I do: on progressive understandings of oppression and liberation (here applied to Jews). Still perhaps a little smarmy, but definitely below median (and who am I to judge on that front, anyway?).

"The Force Awakens" Was Ruined Because Wedge Antilles Wasn't In It

The following is a work of self-parody. Even though I enjoyed "The Force Awakens," I basically believe what I'm writing below because Wedge Antilles is awesome. That said, I also know that my sentiment is abjectly ridiculous, so I'm deliberately writing it in as overblown fashion as possible.

The critics love the new Star Wars movie. Fans are ecstatic that something has washed away the wretched prequels. And I can't say that it didn't have its moments. But The Force Awakens comes with one unforgivable flaw: Wedge Antilles isn't in it.

Now you may be wondering, "David, why do you care so much about a character who got maybe a minute's worth of screen time in each of the original three movies?" First of all, notice the end of that sentence: "each of the original three movies." That's right: Wedge is in all three of the movies comprising the holy trilogy. You know who else makes that cut? Luke, Leia, Han, Chewbacca, C-3PO, R2-D2, and Darth Vader. Oh, and Obi-Wan Kenobi, if you count his blue ghost form. You know who isn't on that list? Boba Fett (being photoshopped into A New Hope doesn't count). Jabba the Hutt. Admiral Ackbar. Yoda. The Emperor. This is an elite crew.

And what does Wedge do during his on-screen time? Well, he kicks things off by being one of three starfighter pilots to survive the first Death Star trench run, serving as a human shield for Luke Skywalker and taking fire for long enough so that Han Solo could bail his buddy out. Then he moves on to Hoth where he is the first snowspeeder pilot to take down an AT-AT using the "tie them up with tow cables" trick. Fancy flying! What was Luke doing? Getting shot down and having his gunner squished by a giant metal foot, that's what. Following that, Wedge leads Red Squadron in the Battle of Endor, surviving another Death Star trench run (the only pilot to have two on his ledger) and blowing the damn thing up from the inside out (Luke's contribution to the battle, by contrast, was to surrender to his daddy at the outset). And that doesn't even get into what he did post-Endor: commanding Rogue Squadron, leading the commando team that captured Coruscant, liberating Thyferra ... the list goes on (and for those of you crying "but that isn't canon anymore," shut it. I'm an Orthodox Star Wars fan. I don't accept the legitimacy of the Disney Reformation).

Wedge Antilles, in other words, has enough heroic deeds in the space of three minutes of screen time to match what any of the "real" stars did over six hours of film. And unlike said celebrities, Wedge does all of this without the benefit of a character shield. George Lucas isn't George R.R. Martin: we could be pretty confident that Han, Luke, and Leia were going to make it until at least the end of the final movie. But someone like Wedge is perfectly dispensable -- just ask Biggs Darklighter -- which makes his protagonist-level accomplishments all the more badass.

And yet, The Force Awakens proceeds with not a single Wedge Antilles sighting! Instead, we get a movie that begins with a lie: the title crawl informs us that "Leia has sent her most daring pilot on a secret mission...." only to find out that it's some dude named Poe Dameron. Poe Dameron? How many Death Stars does he have painted on his X-Wing? Here's a hint: less than two.

The real agony is that the actor who played Wedge, Denis Lawson, was actually offered a role in the new movie and turned it down. Apparently, the role was too small and would be "boring." Now look: like all decent human beings, I was obviously hoping that the new Star Wars movies would center entirely around Wedge and Rogue Squadron. But buck up, man! This is Star Wars, and you're a legend! Take your hundred grand and show these nerf-herders what a real X-Wing ace can do with a one minute cameo appearance.

Was The Force Awakens better than the Star Wards prequels? Yes, obviously -- they didn't have Wedge in them either. But no true successor to the original trilogy can justify ignoring that story's greatest hero. You can keep your Han Solos and your Poe Damerons and your MIA Luke Skywalkers. Wedge Antilles is the greatest starfighter pilot in the galaxy.

New Draft Posted: Dismissal

A draft of my latest article, "Dismissal", has been posted on academia.edu and SSRN. An abstract is below: 

One of the earliest steps in civil litigation is the motion to dismiss under Rule 12(b). Dismissal offers the opportunity to preemptively dispose of a given claim that does not present a legally-judiciable case or controversy prior to expending time or energy on matters like discovery or a trial. Everyday talk, of course, is not bound by such procedural rules. Yet in normal conversations we often engage in something very similar to legal dismissal. When faced with discomforting claims our instinct is not to engage in reasoned deliberation over them. Instead, we frequently brush them aside without considering their merits. By delegitimizing the claim as entirely unworthy of substantive public deliberation, we need not reason over it. This carries significant dignitary harms. Who we talk and listen to is an important marker of who we consider to be our moral and political equals. The decision to dismiss—casting the speaker as wholly unworthy of engagement and entirely incapable of transmitting useful knowledge—implicitly (sometimes not so implicitly) rejects that equal status. It represents an “epistemic injustice”—a wrong aimed at one’s status as a knower. Yet despite being a ubiquitous part of everyday conversation, this broader understanding of dismissal has not been independently identified or assessed.  

Dismissal is thus an important phenomenon in all deliberative forums, not just courts. But courts do possess one characteristic that makes them worth assessing independently: they are a site where—some of the time—deliberators have to listen. This places them on very different terrain than politicians, pundits, or everyday citizens, all of whom are relatively free to brush aside discomforting claims at their discretion. Courts may play an important role in protecting unpopular groups not because judges are wiser, less prejudiced, or more insulated from democratic pressures, but simply because courts offer a space where—some of the time—arguments must be heard and reasons must be given. This quality is not the whole game for marginalized groups. But it is not nothing either. It is a significant and valuable epistemic niche that courts can occupy in a broader deliberative system.

Any and all comments are of course welcome.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XXIII: Saudi Executions

Saudi Arabia recently executed a Shi'ite cleric (along with 46 other people), eliciting a strong protest from Iran. This isn't wholly surprising on the part of either party: Iran is a Shi'ite majority nation and Saudi Arabia has been on a bit of an execution roll this year. But what's, well, also not that surprising is who Iran cast the blame on.

In a strongly worded statement, the [Islamic Revolution Guards Corps] said Saudi Arabia's execution...was 'a Zionist conspiracy' to 'intensify sectarianism' among Shi'is and Sunnis.

Because when I think "places Jews have leverage over", I think Saudi Arabia.

What am I saying ... Jews have leverage over everyone. My mistake, carry on.

Worshiping Different Gods

I have a confession to make. In the context of interfaith relations between Jews, Christians, and Muslims, I really don't like it when people say "we worship the same God."* In part, it's because I have no idea what this statement means or how it could be verified. At what point does adding Jesus into the mix (or name your other sectarian division) mean the God has changed? No matter how you slice it, the theology in this debate seems like it is being driven by the politics (whether the politics are "we're all fellow-travelers on spaceship Earth" or "I'll be damned if I share anything in common with those evil Muslims/Christians/Jews").

But the bigger problem is that making "the same God" the trump card argument for interfaith solidarity doesn't exactly inspire much confidence in our ability to respect those religions who unquestionably worship different Gods (Hindus, for example), or those that don't worship God at all (atheists, many Buddhists). I really do wonder what Hindu-Americans think when they hear progressives make this argument as the centerpiece of their calls for religious tolerance. It must be profoundly alienating at best, deeply worrisome at worst.

The better thing to say is that it doesn't matter whether Jews, Christians, Muslims, Buddhists, Hindu, Atheists, or anyone else share a God in common or not. We're all entitled to respect, we're all entitled to be treated equally, and we all should be free to practice (or not) our faiths as we see fit. A constructed sameness of the Abrahamic faiths -- if it even is real -- is worse than unnecessary, it's deeply harmful and exclusionary.

If one does want to make an argument of this sort, I vastly prefer the Talmud's formulation, as articulated by Rabbi Morris N. Kertzer

The Talmud tells us: “The righteous of all nations are worthy of immortality.” ....There are many mountain tops and all of them reach for the stars.

* Needless to say, I do not support any forms of retaliation or sanction against persons -- particularly academics -- who do make this argument.

New Year's Resolutions: 2016

It's time for everybody's favorite annual Debate Link feature: New Year's Resolutions! We begin, as we always do, by assessing our performance over the previous year.

Met: 1 (two articles? Try four articles!), 2,  4 (retitled), 7, 8, 9 (by the barest of technicalities), 12, 13, 14.

Missed: 5 (peaked at 11).

Pick 'em: 3, 6, 10, 11 (neither Jill nor I can remember if I bought any new pants).

That's a strong year! Can 2016 top it? That probably depends on how carefully I phrase the resolutions below:

(1) Win a bet on a boxing match (Met -- 95% sure, anyway).

(2) Successfully teach a course in Energy Law (Met).

(3) Take, or be scheduled to take, at least one subfield examination (Met, and solidly so).

(4) Have a dissertation committee (or have a clear idea of who will be on said committee) (Met).

(5) Submit an article to a peer-reviewed journal (Met).

(6) Read a considerable work on Mizrahi Jewish political thought (Pick 'em -- What is "major"? "What is "political thought"?).

(7) Regularly attend law school events and workshops (Pick 'em -- What is "regularly"?).

(8) Have Dismissal accepted for publication (Missed -- took me until 2019!).

(9) Attend a Sharks game with Bay Area friends (Met).

(10) Work on not assuming that, if I am unfamiliar with a person's or group's argument, they must not have one (Met -- subjective, but I really think I improved here).

(11) Work on listening to and considering arguments that I'd normally not listen to or consider (Met -- see #10).

(12) Hang or otherwise display my sports memorabilia (Missed -- a few, but not enough).

(13) Beat Witcher 3 (Met).

(14) Attend a party (Met).

(15) Do some form of stretching, yoga, or physical therapy designed to address my ludicrously tight muscles (Met -- but this will be a continuing priority).

Seems like a good set to me. Happy New Year to all, and here's to 2016!

Adventures in Conservative Safe Spaces: An Infinitely Ongoing Series

The Albuquerque Journal reports that a free speech lawsuit filed against the University of New Mexico has been dismissed. The plaintiff, a UNM student, claimed she was kicked out of class for expressing opposition to lesbianism.

Before we proceed, this case is an excellent reminder to consult your lawyer friends before having opinions on any legal developments. The article reports that the presiding Judge, the Honorable M. Christina Armijo, had initially refused to dismiss the case, but changed her mind as additional evidence demonstrated that the professor in question "offered [the student] numerous opportunities to rewrite her essay to adhere to academic standards or to take alternative academic routes to achieve her class grade."

Litigation proceeds in steps, and in the early stages judges are obliged to generally accept a plaintiff's allegations as true. Hence, when a judge "refuses to dismiss a case", all she's saying is that -- without looking at anything but what the plaintiff is asserting in her complaint -- there is judiciable case in front of her. Later, once both sides have adduced evidence through discovery, either party can move for "summary judgment", where the judge decides whether -- taking all disputed facts in the light most favorable to the non-moving party -- a reasonable factfinder could rule in their favor. Again, in both of these steps the judge is obligated to simply assume (within reason) that the disputed facts are as one side or the other says they are. So denying either of these motions does not and should not imply that the facts are actually as they are stated.

While I haven't found the opinion itself, that seems to be what happened here. Initially, the court had to consider the case simply as it was presented by the student. And you can imagine how that looks: a demure, God-fearing Christian, tentatively questioning whether lesbianism was an ideal family structure. The evil hippie professor immediately screaming at her to "Get out you bigoted wench!", before snapping a cross over her knee and using her bra to light a Bible on fire as all the PC children in class laughed and laughed.

But as litigation progresses, the other side gets to present its case too.  And once the judge saw the undisputed content of the professor's contact with the student, things take on a different light. It seems that the professor's comments on the student paper contained nothing more than the normal critical feedback challenging both word choice (use "childless" rather than "barren") and critical support (urging her to back up statements that lesbianism is "perverse"). And when the student complained that viewing movies with lesbian themes was "unendurable", the professor simply told her that there would be more such films as the course progressed.

What it seems we have here is a classic case of conservatives wanting "safe spaces" in college. The student was uncomfortable with lesbian themes in a film class ("unendurable"). She didn't want her views on lesbianism (that it was "perverse") to be challenged, she was outraged that she needed to defend them critically. Of course, lots of people share this vice. But it is not clear (or perhaps all too clear) how demanding a "safe space" when you're a conservative becomes a free speech issue (whereas when liberals do it, it is of course the greatest threat to academic freedom and open expression the world has ever seen).

ISIS Gives a Holiday Callout

In a radio message aimed at boosting his forces' morale, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi wants people to know he hasn't forgotten about Israel:

"The Jews think we forget about it and got distracted from it," the ISIS leader purportedly said. "No, oh Jews. We have not forgotten Palestine and never will."

Aw, he remembered us! It's the thought that counts. Anyway, somebody should forward this message to Vicki Kirby -- she'll certainly be relieved to hear it (Adrian Kaba, by contrast, might think this is just a smokescreen to throw folks off the trail).

Christmas Eve Roundup: 12/24/15

I'm at my girlfriend's parents' house in Owatonna, Minnesota for the week. I'm tempted to duck into a Chinese restaurant tomorrow just to see who (member of the tribe or otherwise) will show up in the rural Midwest.

* * *

A federal court has struck down the provision of federal law prohibiting the registration of offensive trademarks. Most people are following this issue because it is the legal basis for stripping protection from the Washington Redskins. But this case involved an Asian-American band that sought to trademark its name, "The Slants." This nicely illustrates one of the central problems with "hate speech" regulation (broadly defined) -- it is hard (at least as a legal rule) to separate out subtle, subversive, or reclaimative usages of slurs.

Ha'aretz suggests that Arab countries are quietly reaching out to their Jewish diaspora (particularly in the United States) as a means of establishing back-channel links to Israel.

Israeli authorities have opened an investigation into the grotesque video showing Jewish wedding attendees celebrating the murder of a Palestinian child in the Duma firebombing.

Mark Graber has thoughtful comments on BDS.

Kevin Jon Heller and I had a very nice conversation about how discourse about anti-Semitism is situated inside discourse about Israel.