tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post1369990222598857462..comments2024-03-18T22:21:33.261-07:00Comments on The Debate Link: What Does It Mean To Be Loved?David Schraubhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/04946653376744012423noreply@blogger.comBlogger14125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-88422528610289418672011-04-05T20:37:17.678-07:002011-04-05T20:37:17.678-07:00Just lost a comment. I hate the blogger commenting...Just lost a comment. I hate the blogger commenting system.<br /><br />I followed your link. I agree with you that any group (or person) forming a careful opinion on Israel/Palestine issues is obligated to take Jewish views seriously and sympathetically (ditto for Palestinian views). I disagree that the only possible way for an organization to do this is through face-to-face formal meetings with large Jewish organizations. And nowhere in that link do you mention such a requirement.<br /><br />I honestly think that, no matter who or how much the Presbyterian study committee consulted -- even if they had sit-down, face-to-face meetings with a dozen mainstream Jewish groups -- if in the end they had come out in favor of any BDS at all (even limited BDS), Jewish groups would have been very pissed at them. OTOH, if they had done exactly the same process (with no formal meetings), but had come out strongly against BDS, no one in the mainstream Jewish community would have been pissed at them.<br /><br />Regarding your "Alpha and Omega," I agree that the Presbyterians shouldn't treat the response of the larger Jewish communities with scorn. I also agree that no one can tell them that they're mistaken about being pissed off; obviously, only Jews ourselves can say how Jews feel. That's not a debatable topic, and no one should question it.<br /><br />But there remains the question: Were the large Jewish groups justified in condemning the Presbyterian study group? If you're saying that no one can legitimately disagree with large Jewish groups about that, then we disagree.Barry Deutschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08796981762797604817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-2992109152875325512011-04-04T11:06:14.778-07:002011-04-04T11:06:14.778-07:00My Can Zionism be Defended by Proxies is a generic...My <a href="http://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2008/05/can-zionism-be-defended-by-proxies.html" rel="nofollow">Can Zionism be Defended by Proxies</a> is a generic attack on groups left and right, but more "right", for being "pro-Israel" in ways insufficiently attuned to what Jews themselves say on the subject. I feel like I've made this critique specifically with respect to folks like John Hagee, but I can't find it right now. I'll just call in my chips on the last time you played this whole <a href="http://www.amptoons.com/blog/2009/04/30/naomi-klein-on-bds/#comment-176727" rel="nofollow">show me where you've said X</a> and were forced to admit you were eating crow. I've also remarked on my blog and yours about the necessity for including more pro-Palestinian voices in congressional debates and the importance of Jewish speakers advocating policy outcomes with respect to the conflict to adequately take into account Palestinian perspectives and interests. <br /><br />(Of course, Presbyterians are definitionally Presbyterian, just as Republicans are definitionally Republicans, nonetheless, I don't think the GOP can adequately claim to respect Black voices only with reference to its exceptionally thin bench of Black Republicans. Insofar as a group -- political, religious, whatever -- is making policy prescriptions geared towards an external group, it has an obligation to give that group full and fair consideration as it is constituted).<br /><br />But what I think is the alpha and omega of this debate is that, in producing a report that took the form of a lecture of Christians to Jews about what Jews needed to do, the Jewish community <i>did not feel it was seriously consulted or listened to</i>. They don't think the PCUSA was operating in good faith, they don't think the committee was fairly arranged, and they don't think they were heard and considered as equals. Obviously, the PCUSA will claim it was totes listening and fair. But referring back to the Littleton quote: Being respectful of Jews begins "with the very radical act of taking [Jews] seriously, believing that what we say about ourselves and our experience is important and valid, even when (or perhaps especially when) it has little or no relationship to what has been or is being said <i>about</i> us." The Jewish community was pissed the fuck off over how they were treated by the PCUSA -- both in terms of the substance of the report, and in terms of feeling shut out of the process in favor of more marginal voices prefigured to agree with the PCUSA position but unrepresentative of the broader community -- and I don't think it is unreasonable to say that this feeling of marginalization deserves redress, rather than scorn.David Schraubhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04946653376744012423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-49030115245934790012011-04-04T10:38:23.311-07:002011-04-04T10:38:23.311-07:00David, it's unfair to imply that I won't t...David, it's unfair to imply that I won't take anything seriously that's pro-Israel.<br /><br />I don't think the comparison of a Presbyterian church committee on Israel to the Republican party makes sense. The Republicans are a group we should expect to be broadly representative of America (except along a partisan scale); but Presbyterians are by definition Presbyterian.<br /><br />So no, I don't think it's a problem that when a Presbyterian committee sits around writing their position paper, the people in the room are all Presbyterians.<br /><br />You suggest that I only feel that way because I largely agree with this committee's stance on Israel/Palestine issues. But there are a lot of right-wing churches that take a stance on Israel/Palestine that I disagree with, and I suspect that there weren't any Jews in the room when those statements were written, either. (And no Palestinians, either). I don't see any problem with that, as long as they seriously read or otherwise familiarized themselves with the views of Jews (including Israeli Jews) and Palestinians as part of their preparation. My criticism is based on the policy position itself, not the process.<br /><br />And I think yours is, too. When have you ever used this "institutions have a responsibility to consult with their counterpart groups in a face-to-face meeting" standard before this case came up? Show me the times you've criticized "pro-Israel" organizations (or "pro-Israel" synagogues and churches, if this is a standard that only applies to religious organizations) for having positions on Israel/Palestine issues without first having face-to-face meetings with their counterpart Palestinian groups, for example.<br /><br />I think you're right that any group formulating an official position statement on Israel/Palestine must take seriously Jewish and Palestinian opinion. (I'm putting words into your mouth -- you didn't say anything about listening to Palestinians -- but I assume you'd agree with me on that.) I don't believe the sole reasonable way to do that is to have face-to-face meetings with official representatives of large, representative Jewish and Palestinian organizations.<br /><br />You sneer at this opinion, paraphrasing it as "there are Jews on the internet." But I don't find your sneering sarcasm persuasive. When I want to understand an issue, I try to find serious, intelligent people on both sides and read what they say, making sure to seek out the reasonable voices I disagree with. You seem to think that this is a ridiculous, sneerworthy method, but you haven't really explained why.<br /><br />You're right that a Church committee is not the same as an individual, but I don't think that this really matters for the specific question we're discussing. <br /><br />From what I understand, your position is that if a church committee made a good-faith effort to read a range of Jewish and Palestinian intellectuals, and take their concerns seriously, as part of their research process before writing a position paper, then that would be antisemitic. But I honestly don't understand: Why is that anti-Semitic? (And is it also racist towards Palestinians?)Barry Deutschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08796981762797604817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-39771750484990181822011-04-04T06:51:18.343-07:002011-04-04T06:51:18.343-07:00I'm not that big a source, but the Forward is ...I'm not that big a source, but the <i>Forward</i> is hardly trivial -- it's a very important newspaper for the traditional Jewish left. And the criticism isn't that they didn't sit down with AIPAC. It's that they didn't sit down with representatives from the Conservative, Reform (with one exception), Reconstructionist, or Orthodox movements (look at who issued the criticism in the quote -- the USCJ). Or groups like the AJC. We're not talking about groups whose primary function is to talk about Israel, we're talking about groups whose primary function is that they represent large and important swaths of mainstream Jewish opinion and practice. You're massively strawmanning if you think this can be boiled down to AIPAC (which wasn't even mentioned in the article in question), and I really resent how AIPAC gets used as a hobby-horse in this way to justify a church group essentially ignoring all of its counterparts within the Jewish community, as if anybody, AIPAC included, holds itself out as filling that role (it reminds me of how AIPAC got tossed out on your blog as the paradigm of using "anti-Semitism" to stifle criticism of Israel, until it was observed that they never actually do that. In certain circles, AIPAC has morphed from an actual institution that takes positions and does things, to a buzzword to swat aside inconvenient arguments. Don't want to take seriously a complaint from anything remotely pro-Israel? Cry "AIPAC"! If AIPAC didn't exist, they'd need to be invented, and where AIPAC isn't part of a controversy, they apparently need to be summoned into it just so they can play the critical role of "reactionary Jews worth ignoring").<br /><br />I also think "you can find out what Jews think on the internet!" is an absurd response to all of this. This is like the Republican Party writing up its party plank on racism via conference call with Ward Connerly and Thomas Sowell (which, now that I think of it, is probably what they do), then saying that everyone knows what the NAACP thinks. It's patronizing and disrespectful, and you wouldn't be justifying it if you weren't in the camp of the dissenters on this issue. There's no respect for face-to-face dialogue in cases like this. And yes, there is a qualitative difference between ignoring the fringe and ignoring the mainstream.<br /><br />I am not an institution. I don't have the resources to have study groups with all relevant players, and you know better than to apply the same analysis to individuals as you do to institutions. Particularly when we're talking about a <i>church</i>, there is a special obligation on their behalf to ensure that they're respectful of Jewish perspectives and organizations as they are, not as they wish they would be. That's respect for Jewish autonomous self-governance, and it's something the PCUSA didn't do.David Schraubhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04946653376744012423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-1473813791976188012011-04-04T00:20:24.687-07:002011-04-04T00:20:24.687-07:00"They don't actually deny it, that I read..."They don't actually deny it, that I read in this one article" isn't reasonable proof of anything, David. As far as I know, nobody but you has fixated on this particular critique of them, so they'd have no reason to address it. (I'm assuming they don't read this blog).<br /><br />The truth is, you have no idea who they did or didn't talk to; you just refuse to give them any benefit of the doubt, I suspect because you disagree with their conclusions.<br /><br />In any case, I find your entire logic dubious. Since when does avoiding anti-Semitism require sitting at a conference table with AIPAC before writing an opinion paper about Israeli/Palestinian issues? It's not as if the opinions of groups like AIPAC are secret and unknown; any intelligent person who has been following the debates knows pretty well what both AIPAC (and, for that matter, J Street) say.<br /><br />Note that I'm not saying that Jewish opinions should be irrelevant. But intelligent Jewish opinions on Israel/Palestine are available from a wide variety of sources, in books, on the web, through personal relationships, etc.. Leaping from "they don't appear to have sat down with any AIPAC-like groups" to "they don't consider Jewish opinions relevant" is not reasonable or fair.<br /><br />To me, your entire line of criticism feels like an post hoc rationalization; I can't imagine you criticizing their process in this way if they had come out against BDS.<br /><br />Nor have I ever seen you criticize anyone for issuing opinion papers about Israel/Palestine issues without first sitting down with a representative sample of Palestinian organizations.Barry Deutschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08796981762797604817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-47924610818967795912011-04-03T10:59:41.629-07:002011-04-03T10:59:41.629-07:00I think you're grasping at straws. First of al...I think you're grasping at straws. First of all, the PCUSA has been on the radar screen of mainstream Jewish organizations for awhile now (due to their flirtation with the BDS crowd). I don't think the PCUSA either could or would have any reason to keep secret who they were talking to (contents of the conversation, maybe, but not who was invited). There are obviously PCUSAers sympathetic to more mainstream Jewish positions that could easily relay this information. Nor have I seen the PCUSA deny the claims regarding who they talked to -- that they really did invite, say, the AJC. Basically, your "smell test" boils down to an unsupported intuition that these organizations couldn't possibly know what they claim to know, even though nobody else appears to be disputing it (the J Street thing doesn't demonstrate anything -- the PCUSA can still meet with lots of left-wing Jewish organizations and not J Street, while still mentioning the organization in its final report. The group's work primarily took place in 2008 and 2009, when J Street was just a baby anyway -- it was only founded April 2008.).<br /><br />I'm also a little flummoxed over how your objection would change things even if accurate. Unless you think the mainstream groups are lying and actually were invited to tons of meetings, there seem to be only two possibilities: (1) The PCUSA essentially only talked to the non-mainstream Jewish groups, as claimed (which would be bad), or (2) the PCUSA didn't talk to <i>any</i> Jewish groups in rendering its decisions and recommendations (which would also be bad). Both outcomes would support the thesis of the post, namely, that non-Jewish claims of being philo-Semitic, or non-Jewish determinations regarding matters important to the Jewish community, don't require them to actually listen to what the broad swath of the Jewish community says Jews need -- it's a simple matter of declaration.David Schraubhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04946653376744012423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-4515313754694969112011-04-03T06:13:40.806-07:002011-04-03T06:13:40.806-07:00But the article also said that "J Street issu...But the article also said that "J Street issued a statement stressing that despite being mentioned in the report, it was not consulted and did not speak with the Presbyterian study group." <br /><br />Is there any statement from someone who directly participated in these alleged talks -- either from left-wing Jews, or from Presbyterians? Not that I can see. Is there any explanation of how the anonymous critics came by their knowledge of meetings that they didn't actually attend? Nope. <br /><br />The only source given in the article for the allegations are unnamed "Jewish communal officials." I haven't read every word of the Presbyterian report, so maybe I missed something, but no such consultations are mentioned in it, as far as I can tell.<br /><br />I don't think this passes the smell test.Barry Deutschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08796981762797604817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-77318546731100068572011-04-02T11:15:04.326-07:002011-04-02T11:15:04.326-07:00My critique of the PCUSA comes from this passage i...My critique of the PCUSA comes from this passage in the Forward article:<br /><br /><i>The report “speaks down to the Jewish community,” said a statement issued by the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism. Jewish communal officials complained that while the study group that prepared the report spent hours speaking to left-wing groups, it only invited one representative from a mainstream American Jewish group and only for a one-hour panel alongside representative of non-Jewish groups. The representative, Mark Pelavin, associate director of the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, said this was hardly enough to convey what the community feels. “I told them they cannot check the box of consulting with the Jewish community by inviting me to this short discussion,” he said.</i><br /><br />It's not about what they say, it's about who they listened to. As noted, it seems they made a conscious decision "to engage [almost] only with those Jewish groups that it viewed as already amenable to its political priors."David Schraubhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/04946653376744012423noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-19796272045758273822011-04-02T09:57:37.093-07:002011-04-02T09:57:37.093-07:00I generally like and often agree with this article...I generally like and often agree with this article.<br /><br />I'm a bit confused about your response to the <a href="https://www.pc-biz.org/Explorer.aspx?id=3179&promoID=126" rel="nofollow">Presbyterian statement</a>, though. The Forward article you linked to referred to this passage:<br /><br /><i>Our hope is that we can work together for a more just and secure Israel. We have found this to be possible with local networks more often than with national organizations within the mainstream Jewish community. We are hard-pressed to find statements from such organizations that are willing to oppose the occupation or the settlement policy that has dominated Israel since 1967. Even so, we are hopeful as organizations like J-Street, B’Tselem, Jewish Voice for Peace, and others continue to raise the banner that being pro-Israel and being truly Jewish is not tantamount to complicity in the excesses of Israeli policy. It is our hope that the leadership of mainstream American Jewish organizations will catch up with this growing reality of Jewish identity in the U.S.</i><br /><br />The only thing here I find objectionable is the final sentence; who the heck are they to make unsupported statements about the "reality of Jewish identity in the US"? (Maybe they're suggesting something similar to <a href="http://www.nybooks.com/articles/archives/2010/jun/10/failure-american-jewish-establishment/" rel="nofollow">Peter Bienart's argument</a>?)<br /><br />But viewed with the benefit of the doubt, it's possible they meant that they're hoping that on the particular issues they cite (settlement and occupation), the large Jewish organizations will come to agree with J-Street. I don't think that's an antisemitic view. But if this is what they intended, I'd still object to how it was phrased.<br /><br />In any case, that last phrase -- which I find objectionable -- isn't what I've seen others object to. Rather, the claim seems to be that it's antisemitic for them to note that some Jewish groups are (broadly speaking) in agreement with their anti-occupation, anti-settlement position.<br /><br />You describe this as them going out of their way "to engage only with those Jewish groups that it viewed as already amenable to its political priors." That doesn't seem to me a fair inference from what they wrote.Barry Deutschhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/08796981762797604817noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-75622621270116477162011-03-19T07:46:25.434-07:002011-03-19T07:46:25.434-07:00One last comment.
Most of what you are writing ab...One last comment.<br /><br />Most of what you are writing about is not Antisemitism at all or even racism. It is merely the normal language of discourse, both within groups and between groups, and is due to the requirements of language to express thoughts so that their intended meaning is understood clearly.<br /><br />On your theory of racism, were I to have written, back in the mid-1930's, that Germans are Antisemites who seem likely to try to annihilate the Jews, your theory would define that as a racist comment.<br /><br />As you would say, such a comment condemns an entire people. BS. Such a comment - aside from being the truth -, rather, speaks volumes about the fact that you prefer gentle language to examining the world as it is. Not all Germans were Antisemites, after all. Perhaps, most were not Antisemitic at all. I doubt there is any definitive polling, so who knows. Either way, a defining core in the 1930's were and, if one wants to respond to such defining core in language, one needs to generalize. <br /><br />It is unfortunate that innocent people are caught in the same language necessary to express thoughts coherently. However, whether all Germans were Antisemitic or not, the Antisemitic program came to own the Germans. So, about Nazi Germany, post 1933, it would have been fair to have made the comment I made above - whether or not your logic calls it a racist comment. It spoke a truth, one which needed to have been spoken forcefully before horrors erupted, not after the fact.<br /><br />I am not raising the point merely as an historical note without contemporary pertinence. Rather, my charge is that your anti-racism shields Antisemites when, just now, the greatest threat from an eliminationist program exists. You do not do so intentionally; I'll concede you that much. However, you do so nonetheless, by your objection to pointing out in clear generalized language the eliminationist Antisemitism that pervades Muslim Arab thinking today. Your comment about Morris being exemplary, frankly in its foolishness, since his comment is no worse than my noted comment regarding Germans in the 1930's. In fact, it is nicer, positing a sociological explanation, tribalism, for Arab attitudes about Jews. <br /><br />I do not bother here to say the obvious, which is that not all Arabs hate Jews; not all Muslims hate Jews. However, enough do and Antisemitic attitudes are tied to multiple political programs (which is why generalization in language is a necessary thing) that, given the opportunity to act, would result in a catastrophe. To quote a leading Muslim writing and popular radio host, with an audience of 40 million people:<br /><br /><i>Throughout history, Allah has imposed upon the [Jews] people who would punish them for their corruption. The last punishment was carried out by Hitler. By means of all the things he did to them – even though they exaggerated this issue – he managed to put them in their place. This was divine punishment for them. Allah willing, the next time will be at the hand of the believers ...</i> Yusuf al-Qaradawi. [Source: January 30, 2009, MEMRI]<br /><br />We have a program above described, one subscribed to my tens, if not hundreds of millions of people. As is obvious by now, your entire way of thinking has no effective reply to this new Antisemitism because generalized, essentialist language is necessary in order to respond. Rather, your language requires us to address only the individual, notwithstanding that such attitudes have come, largely speaking, to own the Muslim Arab world. That is an unfair comment to many innocent people. Yet, it is a true statement and I defy you to call it racist.<br /><br />I raise this as a dramatic objection to your entire way of thinking about race, which I think is wrong-headed and dangerous.N. Friedmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-34267924705169729712011-03-19T06:55:08.722-07:002011-03-19T06:55:08.722-07:00David writes: "The idea that the mechanics of...David writes: "The idea that the mechanics of anti-Semitism discourse in America differ in any meaningful sense from racism discourse appears to be universally held, and for the life of me I can't fathom the foundation for it." <br /><br />Nonsense. David needs to pick up a history book in order to see how Antisemitism is like and how it is very much dislike racism. In fact, Antisemitism has foundations quite different from ordinary forms of racism. The foundations are sufficiently different that it is, I think, fair to say Antisemitism is not really a form of racism at all but, rather, something quite different that can include but does not have to include racism. Which is to say, Nazi Antisemitism was racist; so is the nationalist version. Clerical Antisemitism, however, is not racist; nor is anti-clerical Antisemitism. The Anti-Zionist version of Antisemitism is not racist nor is socialist Antisemitism.<br /><br />To quote Lévy's book, <i>Left in Dark Times</i> (p. 147:<br /><br /><i>EVERY HISTORIAN OF the phenomenon agrees that the story is both very simple and very complex. <br /><br />They know that its core hardly varies but that the discourse that expresses it, that clothes it, changes with the times. <br /><br />And they know that, if it changes, if it feels the need to evolve, it does so because it needs to stand out, to convince, to be heard by the greatest number of ears, to reach into souls and to rally them-and that<br />is why it has to embrace the fears, the fantasies, and the rhetoric of the moment.</i><br /><br />Racism is merely one of the languages in which Antisemitism can be clothed. However, to confuse racism with Antisemitism makes no sense because racism fails to explain most Antisemitic phenomena.N. Friedmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-56982197343359615982011-03-19T00:45:06.977-07:002011-03-19T00:45:06.977-07:00http://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2005/06/that-which-do...http://dsadevil.blogspot.com/2005/06/that-which-does-not-kill-me.html<br /><br />I don't get where someone on the record as laying claim to a racial genetic legacy of heightened smartness gets off touting their anti-racist bona fides. Maybe the latter is an adapted behavior to increase the odds of getting laid in higher ed circles?joenoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-67710649599274468932011-03-18T20:41:50.202-07:002011-03-18T20:41:50.202-07:00David,
You need to read some of the French "...David,<br /><br />You need to read some of the French "new" philosophers about the anti-racism movement. They are, to the say the least, think it has not served its purposes very well and, on top of that, has been a very strong intellectual apparatus, at least in Europe, for spreading hatred against Jews. I have in mind people like Alain Finkielkraut and Bernard-Henri Lévy.<br /><br />Finkielkraut goes as far as to argue that anti-racism as an ideology needs to be torn down, as it does not serve its interest. In Lévy's book, <i>Left in Dark Times</i>, there is substantial discussion of the matter, most particularly how anti-racism has turned into support for fascism and Islamism. Lévy still thinks, though, that it is possible to re-cast anti-racism so that it is no longer an illiberal, fascistic ideology that it has become. You really should read the noted book. It is an antidote for a great deal of the worst aspects of the anti-racism ideology.<br /><br />Note: this is different from opposing genuine movements directed towards equality and civil rights. Anti-racism is, I think, merely a cover for totalitarian fascism, and I think the noted thinkers show it to be so.N. Friedmannoreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7321349.post-75132304242110558882011-03-18T20:08:25.381-07:002011-03-18T20:08:25.381-07:00Yes! I've learned a lot from you about what an...Yes! I've learned a lot from you about what anti-racism really means, and this is further helpful in putting the struggle against anti-semitism in the same context.<br /><br />And you're quite right about philo-semitism. It's not about the Jews, it's about the Gentiles' views of the Jews.Rebeccahttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17626228106192215280noreply@blogger.com