The Submission is the Point, Part II

The Rome Pride Parade has banned Keshet, Italy's LGBTQ Jewish organization from having a float in their parade. They say it's because Keshet failed to "distance" itself from the "ongoing genocide in Gaza." Specifically, they did not expressly use the word "genocide" to describe what was happening in Gaza.

Before we proceed further, let's read what Keshet did say while under lying under the gaze of Rome Pride.

They said that, as a Jewish (not Israeli -- Keshet has no affiliation or connection to the Israeli government) organization, "the conflict in the region is not our area of expertise." Nonetheless, they said they "feel close to the suffering of the Palestinian people." However, they also explained their hesitation around using the specific word "genocide", including their experience with how those using that word frequently ended up targeting the entire Jewish, not Israeli, community for culpability: 

We are especially concerned with the sentence that we keep on hearing that ‘the Jewish people are carrying out what they were subjected to,' a sentence that does not just refer to a conflict or a government but ends up connecting what is happening to the whole Jewish people.

Agree with Keshet's stance or not, this hardly seems like the sort of intractable political gap that should make them personas non grata. If it were the case that Rome Pride was hoping to find a mutually acceptable arrangement with Keshet; a way that they could stand together even if they didn't fully agree together, this would seem to more than satisfy that.

This is a critical point to make. I don't doubt that there are differences in how the leaders of Rome Pride and the leaders of Keshet perceive what is happening in Israel and Palestine. And sometimes differences are simply too large, and the gulf is too wide, such that there is no hope for reconciliation. But there is a distinction between how a group acts when it views its interlocutor as a partner whom it hopes to be able to stay in fellowship and community with, with whom it would be terrible and agonizing if it were forced to cut ties with, versus when it sees the other as an enemy, to either be placed under vassalage or  be met on the battlefield. In the former case, you look for how you can harmonize, for how differences and distinctions can be absorbed in the spirit of a broader common ground. In the latter you desire disagreement; you try to throw up as many redlines as possible, you are excited to find a reason to say "no".

And it's very clear how Rome Pride saw its relationship with the LGBTQ Jews. What they wanted out of Keshet was not something that could be mutually acceptable. What they wanted was submission. Knowing why Keshet didn't want to use that specific word, knowing that its demurral had nothing to do with refusing to extend care and concern for Palestinians or even with expressing solidarity with Israel and everything to do with their specific experiences as Jews and how they were being actively marginalized -- that only made the prospect of submission all the more alluring. They wanted Keshet to bend before them, and if they didn't bend, they were happy to see them break. JTA reports that Rome Pride announced Keshet's exclusion within 15 minutes of the end of the two parties' meeting. That is not a timeline that speaks to an organization that was earnestly attempting to find common ground and would only announce exclusion as the last resort of completely irreconcilable differences. That is the timeline of a group that was ready and eager and excited to righteously announce their expulsion.

All of this is familiar. And again, it is not about finding common ground; it is entirely about asserting dominance. Two years ago, I wrote about the Israeli artist showing at the Venice Biennale, who elected to close her exhibit until "a cease-fire and hostage release agreement is reached." You might have thought those protesting her presence would be elated, that she was publicly taking a stand against the war. They were in fact furious. They hated that the artist (a regular presence at Israeli anti-war demonstrations) did this voluntarily, of her own accord, when what they wanted was for it to be wrested from her. Nothing would satisfy them unless they felt that their target was beaten and broken. What might appear to be a mutually agreeable resolution is despised not in spite of but because of its mutuality: "if they agree, then it was not imposed, and if it was not imposed, then there was not truly submission."

Rome Pride says they are "fully capable of distinguishing between the Israeli government and the Jewish community." But they also hold Keshet "responsible for having failed, and continuing to fail, to distance itself from the ongoing genocide in Gaza," Which raises the question: why should they need to "distance" themselves? What makes them so close?

It is, of course, because they're Jewish. Keshet's concern -- that the term "genocide" was being used to demand collective responsibility and collective culpability from Jews, not Israelis -- was entirely vindicated. They understood the game. All Jews understand the game. How many years ago did Steve Cohen write this immortal passage?

Every Jew on the left will know that terrible syndrome whereby, whatever the context and wherever one is, we will be tested by being given the question "what is your position on Zionism?" Wanna support the miners—what's your position on Zionism? Against the bomb—what's your position on Zionism? And want to join our march against the eradication of Baghdad, in particular the eradication of Baghdad—what's your position on Zionism? And we all know what answer is expected in order to pass the test. It is a very strong form of anti-Semitism based on assumptions of collective responsibility. Denounce Zionism, crawl in the gutter, wear a yellow star and we'll let you in the club.

Cohen's insight is that this practice is not about ensuring overlapping values or common interests. It is about domination. That's why Cohen, who is in fact anti-Zionist, is deemed to fail the test -- he does not abase himself enough; he does not make it clear that he acknowledges being beneath those demanding his supplication.

And so too here. Leave aside the fact that last year's Rome Pride march saw the Jewish marchers attacked and harassed in despicable fashion. That is more standard-issue thuggery, albeit thuggery that is rightly viewed as part of the context for Rome Pride's decision this year. This year, Rome Pride demanded a show of self-abnegation from the Jews. The Jews refused to give them one, and Rome Pride deemed that unacceptable. That's what happened. Do not get caught up in thinking that there is some deeper or more essential ideological gap here. The submission was the point.

The Submission is the Point

The Venice Biennale is an annual art exhibition designed to showcase the work of artists around the world. Open to exhibitors from any country with diplomatic relations with Italy, the event includes an official Israeli exhibit -- a fact which has unsurprisingly drawn the ire of those demanding a complete cultural boycott of Israel.

This year, though, there was a bit of a twist on that tale: the Israeli representative, Ruth Patir, elected to close her own exhibit until "a cease-fire and hostage release agreement is reached."

Patir -- who has been a regular participant in pro-ceasefire/anti-Bibi protests in Israel -- is not characterizing her decision as endorsing a boycott of Israel, which she emphasized she opposes, and I think we should respect her framing of her own actions. Much like with Natalie Portman, there's no reason to think that Patir does not know or understand the choices she's made.

But I don't really want to focus on the what Patir did, exactly. Rather, I want to take a look at how her decision was received by those who were demanding the removal of the Israeli exhibit. Consistent with the above, it would not be right to say that Patir was joining the boycotters. But it certainly seems like her actions were aligned with what the boycotters seem to want. 

Yet their reaction is, well, I would say it is very interesting and very revealing. What it reveals, in particular, is how the goal of this campaign is very clearly not to create a space where Israelis come out in opposition to the violent practices of their government, or more broadly one that creates space for an imagined future where Israelis and Palestinians relate to one another as equals. They do not see Israelis as potential partners even in an imagined futures. They see Israelis as enemies who must be made to submit. The submission, above all else, is the point.

Here's how they characterize Patir's decision vis-a-vis their campaign:

“The artistic team of the Israeli pavilion has retreated as a direct consequence of widespread pressure and our collective campaign.”

Note the framing. Patir "retreated" in the face of "pressure". She did not, under this telling, voluntarily align with -- even partially -- the effort to end the war in Gaza. She is not an example of someone stepping out from an (under this telling) benighted framework to see the essential need to speak out. She did not even make a volitional choice on her own. She was forced, coerced, compelled to back down. That's the victory -- not "Israeli publicly demands ceasefire", but "Israeli publicly forced to yield."

And having secured the dominant position, are the boycotters magnanimous in their claimed victory? Not at all. Her will may have been bent; but it must be broken. Referring to the fact that the closed exhibit can still be seen through the windows, the boycotters make clear that Patir remains firmly in the camp of an enemy to be crushed:

The Genocide Pavilion has been forced to respond to 24,000 signatories who condemn the Israeli genocide against Palestinians in Gaza but, contrary to the artistic team’s claims, they have not withdrawn, the pavilion has not been closed. 

ANGA reiterates its demand to shut down the pavilion in its entirety.

ANGA does not applaud empty and opportunistic gestures timed for maximum press coverage, and leaving video works on view to the public....

Leave aside the almost absurd richness of complaining about "gestures timed for maximum press coverage" (how is that a bad thing in this context?). The boycotters will not be satisfied until it is clear that Patir has yielded, that her choices are not her own, that what happens to her is something imposed upon her against her will. It is not elevating the call for a ceasefire, it is not even (really) the closure of the exhibit, that was desired here. It is the submission that is the point, and that has not yet adequately been achieved.

This type of politics rings familiar. It called to mind Justice Alito's contradictory desire "to bludgeon the legal community into freely accepting his preeminence." It's not enough for him to prevail on the formal terrain of saying what the law is, the legal community must yield to his superiority. I saw a similar dynamic in some circles of the 2020 Bernie Sanders campaign -- when it looked like he was on the path to victory, some of his backers looked ecstatically at the prospect that the Democratic Party establishment would be forced to "bend the knee". They were less excited about winning the Democratic primary than they were about defeating the Democrats. The submission of the enemy was the point.

This politics, fundamentally, demands not just victory but domination over the enemy. And as a result, it cannot tolerate -- it is infuriated by -- possibilities of agreement or reconciliation from the putative enemy. Often, the substantive issues supposedly being fought over are besides the point. If you wonder why some parts of the left can't seem to take "yes" for an answer, this is why: for Democrats to simply agree to some progressive proposal, without it being seen as somehow wrested from the party over its most primal objections, deprives these persons of the visceral sensation of domination -- it cheats them of their victory. So the framing will never be "I'm happy that they've moved closer to what I want," it can only ever be "they've retreated as a direct response to our pressure and collective campaign." The submission of the enemy was the point.

That's what's happening here in Venice. Some might naively argue that the message of the boycotters to Patir's decision is "counterproductive" -- why are they responding with such hostility and negativity towards an Israeli who is publicly stepping forward to demand a ceasefire? But as I often say, what's counterproductive depends on what you're trying to produce. If what you're trying to produce is more Israelis recognizing the imperative of a ceasefire, a collective change in Israeli outlook to alter the current bloody course, then yes this response might be counterproductive. But if what you're trying to produce is a world in which Israelis are stripped of autonomous choice entirely, are no longer in a position to self-determine at all or even be one agential part of a broader collective movement, then the boycotters' choice of action is entirely productive -- Ruth Patir's choice to close her exhibit, precisely because it was her choice, is just as threatening to that vision and equally must be crushed.

And just so we're clear: there's an Israeli parallel to this horrible political approach. There's a significant channel of right-wing Israeli thought which insists that peace can only occur when Palestinians acknowledge they've been beaten, that they've lost. From that position of submission, Israel can impose a new state of affairs that is vaguely and magnanimously promised to be just. But no deal can be reached under any terms if it is a deal made amongst equals, because the very notion of Palestinian equality is incompatible with them accepting they've been thoroughly defeated. Indeed, the whole idea of a deal that's agreed to by the Palestinians itself becomes automatically suspect -- if they agree, then it was not imposed, and if it was not imposed, then there was not truly submission.

But if your politics demands submission on a national or collective level -- Israelis or Palestinians as a whole forced to yield, forced to accept dominance, it is almost by definition not going to be one that actually is centered around equal respect for all. At most, it will promise to magnanimously dole out justice (more than they deserve) onto the vanquished party once it is well and clear that they are vanquished. But the vanquished will not be seen as candidates for equal participation in the future community. Indeed, any efforts they might make to participate -- even in ways that might superficially suggest they are aligned with one's own vision of what just equality might look like -- will only confirm that they have not fully submitted, and must be crushed further. The submission is the point.

To reiterate, this sort of toxic politics is not unique nor does it fully characterize the desires of either pro-Israel or pro-Palestinian actors. But it does seem like this particular campaign in Venice is one whose politics take this form of demanding complete and total Israeli submission above and to the exclusion of all else. And the results are exactly what one would expect.

Almost Midway Roundup

It's been a hellacious semester for me -- I massively overcommitted, and have been traveling nearly every week for the past month or so. But we're approaching the end of the tunnel. This weekend I'm flying to Chicago for a conference, and then I have one more trip scheduled after that, and then I should be pretty well clear until Winter Break.

In reality, I'm probably past the midway point. But for the Chicago trip I'm flying into and out of Midway airport. Get it? Almost Midway? I know, I'm a riot.

Anyway, roundup time.

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Last year, the University of Oregon Hillel was vandalized with the message "Free Palestine You Fucks". Everybody was appalled by this antisemitic act. But I noted that under certain relatively popular mantras about what antisemitism is, including those backed by groups like Open Hillel, one very easily could deny the antisemitic character of the incident. And lo and behold -- it appears the University of Oregon decided it could get away with not characterizing the event as an antisemitic hate crime.

Right-wing parties in Italy decline to support formation of a commission investigating antisemitism. BuT I ThoUghT aNTi-SeMitiSm iN EUroPe OnlY caMe frOM tHe leFT (and Muslims)!

Milwaukee-area man arrested in racially-motivated acid attack against person he apparently thought was an illegal immigrant.

So, who's going to tell Maajid Nawaz that "Jexodus" is already, um, taken?

This is not a parody: children attending the White House Halloween party were told to "build the wall". This is not a parody either: Trump staffer defends the decision by saying "Everyone loses their minds over everything, and nothing can be funny anymore."

Special Favorite

In 1883, the United States Supreme Court held (in a cluster of cases known collectively as The Civil Rights Cases, 109 U.S. 3 (1883)) that the Civil Rights Act of 1875 was unconstitutional. In doing so, Justice Bradley, writing for the majority, made the following observation regarding the current status of Blacks in America and the legal rights they could justly claim:

When a man has emerged from slavery, and by the aid of beneficent legislation has shaken off the inseparable concomitants of that state, there must be some stage in the progress of his elevation when he takes the rank of a mere citizen, and ceases to be the special favorite of the laws, and when his rights as a citizen, or a man, are to be protected in the ordinary modes by which other men's rights are protected. 

I love this passage, because it so neatly illustrates just how detached the "special rights" complaint is from actual extant conditions faced by minority groups. "Come on -- slavery was abolished, like twenty years ago already! It's time to stop being the law's special favorite and just be equal."

I thought of this upon stumbling across an old Garry Wills review of a book titled "The Popes Against the Jews," which (as the name suggests) documents a variety of Vatican pronouncements targeting the Jewish people.  It leads with the following quote, from a prominent Catholic journal known as an informal organ of the Vatican itself.

The Jews — eternal insolent children, obstinate, dirty, thieves, liars, ignoramuses, pests and the scourge of those near and far . . . managed to lay their hands on . . . all public wealth . . . and virtually alone they took control not only of all the money . . . but of the law itself in those countries where they have been allowed to hold public offices . . . [yet they complain] at the first shout by anyone who dares raise his voice against this barbarian invasion by an enemy race, hostile to Christianity and to society in general.

That quote came in 1880. Italy had only emancipated its Jews in 1861, and in Rome it was not fully actualized until 1870. Yet here we are, complaining about the powerful Jews, controlling all the laws and all the money, yet nonetheless having the temerity to complain "at the first shout by anyone who dares raise his voice" against their "barbarian invasion by an enemy race." Aren't Jews so ridiculously oversensitive?

One hears similar refrains about both Blacks and Jews today -- that they are the law's "special favorite", that the time has long since past where racism or anti-Semitism was a real thing worth complaining about, and indeed the real victims are those chafing under accusations of either prejudice. In doing so, they insist that they do take these forms of oppression seriously, they are just engaged in a sober analysis of the contemporary moment. And yet, isn't it funny how the same argument in the same language appears no matter the historical moment is?

Fancy that.

Sunday Roundup: Landlord/Tenant Edition

Busy weekend. Our landlord is trying to sell our house, which isn't directly a problem for us -- our lease is unaffected -- except that the real estate agent wants the four of us to live in full "sell the house" mode (every room sparkling clean, willing to vacate at anytime for showings, etc.) for the indefinite future. We're quite willing to be helpful up to a point, perhaps a few days of glittering cleanliness, but we can't effectively vacate the house as law students on any random night (where exactly are we supposed to go in Hyde Park?). I assume they can't force us to do anything, so I think we're in a solid bargaining position -- but the idea of a conflict is stressful to me.

Okay, that was a longer introduction than I intended. Roundup!

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Should we keep "negro" as a census option?

South Carolina likens free lunch programs for impoverished children to feeding stray animals. Why? "Because they breed. You’re facilitating the problem if you give an animal or a person ample food supply. They will reproduce, especially ones that don’t think too much further than that."

Anti-Semitic incidents way up in 2009.

Israeli right-wing extremists call Rahm Emanuel a traitor to the Jewish people in response to his upcoming visit to the country.

Cuban and American doctors are cooperating to relieve the Haiti crisis.

Italian gay couple hunger strikes for marriage rights.

Hussein Ibish warns of the perils of certainty regarding the outcome of the Israeli/Palestinian conflict.

Pittsburgh police officers nearly beat a student to death for aggravated possession of Mountain Dew (now they're charging him with resisting arrest).

A judge charged with investigating Judge Sharon Keller's conduct in preventing the filing of a last-minute death penalty appeal has decided that fault mostly fell on the defense team, not the judge. He did find several instances of poor judgment on Keller's part, but recommended she receive no punishment. The report will be delivered to the Commission on Judicial Conduct, which can decide whether to accept, reject, or modify the recommendations.

Italian Stallions

Italian officials strongly repudiated a call by a small, leftist union to boycott Jewish (not Israeli) shops in "protest" of the Gaza operation.

Rome's mayor and provincial president went shopping at Jewish-owned stores after a trade union called for a boycott to protest Israel's attacks on Gaza.

Politicians across the spectrum condemned the boycott appeal by the Flaica-CUB union, a small, independent leftist union in the retail services and food sector, saying it was reminiscent of the Fascist era. The boycott call was announced in a flier and Flaica-CUB chief Giancarlo Desiderati told newspapers that a list of shops was being drawn up.

"It's an idea that has an undeniable anti-Semitic flavor and that recalls the darkest pages of our history," Provincial President Nicola Zingaretti said after meeting Jewish shopkeepers Thursday in the historic Ghetto neighborhood.

Mayor Gianni Alemanno, joined by Rome's Jewish community president Riccardo Pacifici, bought two shirts and a tie from a Jewish-owned clothing store in another neighborhood and expressed "firm and intrasigent condemnation" for the boycott call. He recalled that such calls in the 1930s led to the imposition of Fascist-era anti-Semitic laws in 1938.

That's how you respond to such non-sense.

Italian Stallions

Italian officials strongly repudiated a call by a small, leftist union to boycott Jewish (not Israeli) shops in "protest" of the Gaza operation.

Rome's mayor and provincial president went shopping at Jewish-owned stores after a trade union called for a boycott to protest Israel's attacks on Gaza.

Politicians across the spectrum condemned the boycott appeal by the Flaica-CUB union, a small, independent leftist union in the retail services and food sector, saying it was reminiscent of the Fascist era. The boycott call was announced in a flier and Flaica-CUB chief Giancarlo Desiderati told newspapers that a list of shops was being drawn up.

"It's an idea that has an undeniable anti-Semitic flavor and that recalls the darkest pages of our history," Provincial President Nicola Zingaretti said after meeting Jewish shopkeepers Thursday in the historic Ghetto neighborhood.

Mayor Gianni Alemanno, joined by Rome's Jewish community president Riccardo Pacifici, bought two shirts and a tie from a Jewish-owned clothing store in another neighborhood and expressed "firm and intrasigent condemnation" for the boycott call. He recalled that such calls in the 1930s led to the imposition of Fascist-era anti-Semitic laws in 1938.

That's how you respond to such non-sense.

Return of the Old Guard

Sexism on the rise in Italy. Unfortunate. But women's groups are hopeful that this generation of students -- who are majority female for the first time in Italian history -- will push back.

Kill The Cockroaches

Those were the famous words repeated over on Rwanda's radio stations, words which helped sparked the brutal genocide that took the lives of over 800,000 Tutsis and moderate Hutus. It was also the first thing that came to mind upon reading these comments by the deputy mayor of Treviso, Italy, Giancarlo Gentilini:

"I will immediately give orders to my forces so that they can carry out an ethnic cleansing of faggots," Gentilini told the station in an interview.

"The faggots must go to other [places] where they are welcome. Here in Treviso there is no chance for faggots or the like."

Thousands of people showed up outside his office to protest, and a local prosecutor is apparently investigating Gentilini to see if his comments violate Italy's law against promoting hatred. That's a good first step, but I'd go further: Is there anything that renders this outside the contours of the Convention on the Prevention and Punishment of the Crime of Genocide? "Ethnic cleansing" is genocidal language, and Article III, section C of the convention states that "[d]irect and public incitement to commit genocide" is punishable under the convention. Italy ratified the convention in 1952, and thus under Article IV is punish anybody violating any of the terms of Article III, "whether they are constitutionally responsible rulers, public officials or private individuals." The only question is whether gays qualify as "a national, ethnical, racial or religious group" under the terms of Article II of the convention.

In any event, regardless of whether it meets the technical requirements of the Genocide Convention, calls for the "ethnic cleansing" of any group is a crime against humanity, and must be condemned and punished in the strongest possible terms.

Via Pam's