Sunday, July 27, 2008

It's Okay, There's a Jew Involved!

This is a really great post at Ignoblus about a divestment plan being put on the ballot in Seattle. Start with the fact that the organizers are being more than a little underhanded, roping together an anti-Iraq war measure with a divest from Israel measure under the moniker of "Divest from War and Occupation." To my knowledge, it only targets the Iraq war and Israel (with an option for expansion to "any similar unjustified attack" -- presumably by the United States, as a hedge in case we attack Iran).

But the post focuses on something else -- namely, the use of a few Jewish organizers to deflect attention from the fact that the vast majority of Jews find these sorts of proposals to be severely problematic. One sees this all the time with regards to minority politics: Ward Connerly and Shelby Steele get trotted out to take the contrarian point of view on issues of importance to the Black community, and, having done so, it is no longer necessary to account for the fact that one side has the overwhelming support of their community. I'm not saying that Connerly and Steele don't have the right to express their opinions (nor do I deny the right of their Jewish comrades to do likewise), but it has to come with the context that most of their peers find their position to be outright hostile to their own community.

But what happens instead is that
if one can find a single, contrarian Jew, then there is no need to wrestle with the fact that an overwhelming majority of Jews hold any particular opinion.... the collective voice of Jews need never be taken seriously, even when the audience is insignificantly gentile.

I also like how Ignoblus discusses the classic "it's basically a crime to criticize Israel" tripe. That critique is deployed to make any defense of Israel that asks "progressives" to take critical account of their position and the continuing significance of anti-Semitism as (in the immortal words of Jerome McCristal Culp) "a type of shrill craziness". It derails the discussion from the start by making the baseline regarding discussion of Israel the "fact" that Jews are neurotic.

There's a lot of talk about how any critique of Israel is anti-Semitic. What isn't discussed is that our complaints keep coming because there has been virtually no critical engagement by the progressive community about how anti-Semitism does interact with the Israel/Palestine conflict. They'd much rather deploy their Clarence Thomases and Ward Connerlys as a shield to wave away the vast majority of Jews (and our account of our experience and reality) as insignificant insanity.

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

David,

I think one reason why few of your peers have taken to heart your argument about the lack of serious Leftist engagement with anti-Semitism is that your "critique" of what you see as the dominant discourse never actually acquires a critical thrust. And I think this is chiefly because, whether you want to own up to this or not, in the status quo your side holds nearly all of the relevant chips. The US policy toward Israel makes the security of "Jewish bodies" (as you like to say, I have never understood why adding the word 'bodies' in to the mix makes your argument more critical, I guess it's the new 'erased') it's number one concern, and while it may at the end of the day have little to do with a cognizance of anti-Semitism and a whole lot to do with power politics, we have seen that if Israel claims that a whole bunch of Palestinian casualties is the cost of Jewish security, the US will nod along politely.

So question: what does it look like when the Left does take up your oft-issued challenge?

Let's take the bill at hand. If your interlocutor argues that we ought not support Israeli military activities because they are (a) extra-legal occupations and/or (b) involve killing innocent civilians which is an unjustifiable activity then you say... what?

Even if your interlocutor accepts that anti-Semitism is real, and tangible, and very very bad for Jews, how does this change the policy discussion? Your interlocutor is either right or wrong on the matter of international law, and increasing or decreasing their attentiveness to anti-Semitism does little to change that. And even a very robust appreciation for the precarious position of Jews should hopefully not lead an interlocutor who categorically rejects military justifications for civilian casualties to make an exception - Jews are oppressed enough that they get to kill civilians. Rebutting this position would probably require a tact that generally makes allowable some amount of civilian death, not one that specifically greenlights it with reference to the history of anti-Semitism.

What I'm getting at here, David, is that you have never, and never deign, to discuss what you expect would change in matters of policy debate if anti-Semitism were better recognized by the Left. Your arguments against policies favored by the pro-Palestine or anti-Israel or whatever you like to call them forces in the Left don't just depend on such a recognition, they depend on the reversal of many other positions. What you want isn't a heart-to-heart about oppression as a preface to policy talk -- and why should you, it would gain you nothing -- what you want is for people to support the policies you think are better for Israel. But you don't ever link such policies to your "critical" discussion of anti-Semitism. You just continually assert that anti-Semitism is real and people need to accept that.

I think the reason for this is, again, that you couldn't ask for a better policy situation for Israel in the US. All of your talk about "getting critical" comes up to smoke-and-mirrors because at the end of the day you ARE deploying this argument not to advocate for a substantive change in the status quo but to deflect arguments by people who do want to change policies.

To make your argument less of a waste of everybody's time, I would recommend:

1) Some rules of thumb for delineating anti-Semitism "fake outs" from real, structuralized anti-Semitism in Leftist dialog

2) Some considerations on how Leftist politics should change once anti-Semitism is better recognized. What does a pacifist opponent of Israel military policy do with a more profound appreciation for the history of anti-Jewish violence? Does appreciation HAVE to mean they renounce their pacifism? And if it doesn't then on what grounds CAN you assert that pro-divestment forces are actively anti-Semitic? Or are you making a claim that pacifism is totally wacky and we would only ever expect Jews to adhere to it because of structural anti-Semitism? And if that is your claim would you care to warrant it?

There's so little going on here, and that comes a little as a surprise to me as I think about this because you've been shopping this argument around for some time. But it never goes past: "Your critiques fail to take anti-Semitism seriously, so no dice." If the end result of your critical perspective is: discussion terminated, then I think it is valid to say you are curtailing discourse by using anti-Semitism as a rhetorical cudgel.

But prove me wrong: tell me where someone like me, who rejects the right of a state to kill civilians in the name of security, goes in his critique of a state that kills dozens every single year. You have indicated before that we "aren't that far apart" on this issue, but I feel that just about every time a critical move against current US support for Israel comes up, you break for and I against. So as someone who does take anti-Semitism seriously, what should I be re-thinking?

Or is this really just smoke and mirrors?

- Matt

Anonymous said...

Okay, I've already written way too much, but I think an exchange you had with PG clarifies exactly why I am beginning to suspect that your pet argument is exactly the type of conversation-ending cop-out you say it isn't.

You say: We need a deep understanding of anti-Semitism when we talk about Israel and Palestine. Your examples include not calling Jews Nazis.

PG says: Can you give me an example of what would be against Israel but not anti-Semitic.

You: No. The whole discourse is fucked.

Problem - in this post, as in many others, you are defending the propriety of pro-Israel forces in responding to SPECIFIC POLICY ARGUMENTS (such as: we ought to divest from Israel) as being anti-Semitic. But when called out on how the discourse would look if people did critically engage anti-Semitism, you decline.

IF the point really is, we need to re-think the whole discourse, fine. But that can't serve to shut down specific arguments about policy. It is a very different think to say, "The issue of anti-Semitism is at hand here, and we need to make sure we're considering it," then to say, "Those who want to divest are pushing an anti-Semitic policy." Rejecting specific measures with a justification based on your dissatisfaction with the discourse in which they operate is total bait-and-switch.

For your argument to have a critical thrust it needs to follow like: X proposal is rooted in anti-Semitic idea that Y, therefore we don't cede to it. (And I think, also: a deep consideration of Y actually leads us to proposal Z). Just saying, "The tentacles of anti-Semitism have tainted this discourse! Boo, divestment!" Does nothing of the kind.