Joe Walsh Should Be Pro-Israel PAC's Public Enemy #1

There is one member of Congress who is a loud-and-proud supporter of a one-state solution. His name is Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL), a Tea Party extremist who came to Washington on the crest of the 2010 GOP wave. His opponent is decorated war hero Tammy Duckworth, who lost both her legs in combat (Walsh is sick of hearing about that).

Walsh's extremist views have made Israel a surprisingly large issue in his suburban Illinois race. Walsh's district isn't very Jewish (good thing too, because he views most Jews with contempt), but by being so clear in opposing one of the bedrock principles of American pro-Israel advocacy, he has put himself in the crosshairs.

Or he should be. I've already noted the deafening silence that has met the rise of one-stateism on the American right. And as The Forward reports, many of the middle-of-the-road pro-Israel groups are ducking this race entirely (Walsh is getting support from some fringe right-wing groups and is under heavy fire from J Street).

As de Talleyrand famously put it: "This is worse than a crime, it's a blunder." We'll put aside the part where pro-Israel groups should oppose Walsh because Walsh's views are fundamentally dangerous for Israel by the terms of these own groups' statements. Taking out Walsh is in these groups' best interest on a host of levels.

First of all, if Walsh stays in Congress he is showing that one can defy the American pro-Israel consensus with impunity. Obviously, part of being an effective advocate is showing that opposition comes with political costs -- a reputation that takes a hit when a first-term Congressman appears to have the big bad Israel Lobby running scared. And in a sense, Walsh is more dangerous to the pro-Israel establishment than most because he's at the vanguard of a movement seeking to strip "pro-Israel" away from mainstream Jewish groups and turn it into an evangelical Christian construct which doesn't care a whit about Jewish lives or Jewish values. Does anyone think Walsh actually has a use for groups like AJC in directing the future of pro-Israel? Of course not. The more the power of people like Walsh waxes, the more that of the mainstream Jewish community wanes.

Second, a critical element of the pro-Israel community's Washington strategy is to maintain support for Israel as a bipartisan value. Yet that image is increasingly under threat as the heavy pro-Israel hitters are beginning to be seen as essentially arms of the right. There are left-wing politicians they will attack for insufficient support of Israel (sometimes rightly, sometimes not), but there is no way one can be anti-Israel from the right (save Pat Buchanan-esque crpyto-conservatism). Given that, liberal organizations are naturally going to wonder if the supposed bipartisanship of the pro-Israel community, really is. Taking on Congressman Walsh -- demonstrating that they're willing to police their right flank as well as their left one -- would do much to reestablish the fraying centrist credibility of these groups.

And finally -- taking on Walsh is likely a freebie. Walsh is a far, far right-wing Republican who was elected in a wave year and whose seat got even more liberal in redistricting. Most prognosticators think he's going down anyway. So why not line up on the winning side? Even if one is misguided enough to think Walsh is anything other than a massive liability, there's no reason to not jump on the bandwagon here, given the benefits outlined above. If pro-Israel groups can't challenge right-wing Republicans even when the odds are stacked in their favor, what good are they?

Joe Walsh is, almost without a doubt, the single most anti-Israel Congressman serving in Washington today. He needs to be taken down, and hard. And it is a disappointing commentary on the state of the American pro-Israel lobby that they seem unable to muster the balls to take him on.

Maine Gov. LePage Calls IRS "Gestapo" -- Twice

I had vaguely heard of this before reading LePage had apologized, but I didn't really look into the specifics -- I just figured it was yet another case of embarrassingly overheated Tea Party rhetoric. But The Forward's more comprehensive coverage manages to shock even me.

Generally, casual Nazi references are done pretty thoughtlessly -- the speaker tends not to flesh things out too much because doing so would pretty rapidly demonstrate the absurdity (and moral depravity) of the comparison. But LePage was hardly being casual or off-the-cuff -- here are his remarks to a Vermont alternative paper after the original firestorm from the first time he called the IRS the Gestapo:

“What I am trying to say is the Holocaust was a horrific crime against humanity and, frankly, I would never want to see that repeated. Maybe the IRS is not quite as bad - yet,” LePage said.

Asked if the IRS was headed in that direction, LePage responded, “They’re headed in that direction.”

Asked if he knew what Adolf Hitler’s secret police did during World War Two, including the imprisonment and murder of millions of Jews, LePage said, “Yeah, they killed a lot of people.” Asked whether the IRS “was headed in the direction of killing a lot of people,” LePage answered: “Yeah.”

If I can have a moment of levity before I return to outrage -- "frankly", the Governor doesn't want the Holocaust to repeat itself? Why thank you -- I'm so glad you can be frank with us. It's so rare to have someone willing to boldly stand up for unpopular positions like "I don't want mass genocides to reoccur."

But anyway, Gov. LePage makes it very clear that when he is talking about the IRS-as-Gestapo, he is talking about mass slaughter, and that he does think that the IRS is "headed in that direction". The warrant for that is, naturally, the ACA -- I wouldn't say I was joking when I called the GOP's perspective on the ACA "taxing the rich to exterminate the poor", but I didn't expect a state governor to come out and say it so directly.

Keeping Things On the Table

I nominate "off the table" as the dumbest concept in foreign policy. It's why Alan Dershowitz says J Street isn't "pro-Israel" -- they allegedly demand that the military option be "off the table" with respect to Iran (J Street denies that's their position, they simply think a sanctions-based approach makes more sense).

But what, exactly, does "off the table" even mean here? Unless J Street has secretly sabotaged our nation's armed forces, the "military option" is always "on the table". We still have planes! They can still bomb things! That's always available. Even if we decide not to do it now, we can change our mind later -- the military will still be there. Now, of course, at some point it might be too late -- but that could be the case if the military option is "on the table" but ultimately not used.

Compare, for example, if Iran said they were developing nuclear weapons, but using them offensively was "off the table". Would you be comforted? No, of course not -- in part because we might not trust them, but in larger part because even if they're being genuine they can always change their mind instantly. As can we -- military capacity isn't a perishable good. It'll keep.

J Street Attacks Walsh's One-Stateism

J Street has released ads attacking Rep. Joe Walsh (R-IL) for supporting a one-state solution to the Israeli/Palestinian conflict (apparently parallel ads are up attacking Rep. Allen West as well). This is a tactic I've been urging for some time now. But while I like the concept, I think the execution needs work -- as the ad language is still too defensive for my tastes.



I don't think the ad emphasizes enough the consensus view amongst mainstream Jews that such plan means the end of Israel -- not a bigger Israel. And at the end, when it says that supporting one state "isn’t pro-Israel", I'd instead have said "is anti-Israel". In general, I think political rhetoric is strongest when it takes as a given the point it is trying to make, rather than make it seem like the point of controversy. The ad here should have acted as if it is simply accepted that to be a one-stater is to be anti-Israel (easy to do, given the plethora of quotes by respected Jewish groups saying just that), and then flambé Rep. Walsh for his anti-Israel views.

Part of the problem is that J Street has been framing this campaign as trying to cut against the norm of "Israel right or wrong". But good project or not, here the Israeli government isn't wrong -- as the ad points out, the Israeli government has consistently stated that the two-state solution is the solution it wants. It's Walsh who has decided to stake out a position critical of the Israeli government and most Israelis and Jews, so why shouldn't he get the (mostly fabled, but still) "classic" treatment that people "critical of Israel" are said to get?

This ad hits Republicans on Israel "from the left", and that's important. But it could have been more visceral about hitting Republicans for being anti-Israel from the left -- thus helping bring back a form of genuine progressive pro-Israel politics as well as documenting the way in which conservative Republican stances on Israel are hostile to many of Israel's core values and security concerns.

Boobirds

Mitt Romney delivers a speech before the NAACP. Mitt Romney promises to repeal "Obamacare". Mitt Romney is met with a chorus of boos.



My favorite part is how the video cuts just as Mitt Romney starts to mention "a survey of the Chamber of Commerce." That'll win 'em back, Mitt!

In any event, I'm curious what the impact of this booing will be. The odds are nothing -- it's no news that Black people disagree with Republican policies. But assuming we do care what Black people think, there is something notable about this. Sometimes a politician can go into a group's backyard, elicit boos, and come out ahead -- spin it as telling "tough truths" or "tough love". But that doesn't quite work here -- the GOP's attack on the ACA hasn't been that it is good for some but ultimately unaffordable. It is that it is a moral catastrophe loathed and despised by everyone. That narrative can't really countenance people booing at eliminating it -- it's predicated off of pretty universal disdain for the program.

Likudnik Policies

Man, I hate when American politicians blindly parrot Likud Party policies. Take this proposal by Likud MK (and Knesset Speaker) Reuven Rivlin:

"I would prefer for the Palestinians to be citizens of this country," he said, "rather than divide the land." This was no slip of the tongue. Rivlin's office gave the statement to the press, thereby making him the highest-ranking political figure to have publicly raised the possibility of a single State of Israel from the Mediterranean to the Jordan.

Rivlin places those comments within the framework of a broader outlook: The land, he says, is not divisible. Jews and Arabs have lived side by side here since the dawn of Zionism and before. His own family arrived in Palestine in the early 19th century. Settlement east of the Green Line is no more moral than settlement to the west of it. And incidentally, the Palestinian claim is as legitimate and just as the Jewish claim.

And the solution? The Knesset Speaker rejects the idea of a "state of all its citizens", i.e. − a binational state. But he is pondering the possibility of some kind of joint sovereignty arrangement in Judea and Samaria under the Jewish state, or even a regime composed of two parliaments, one Jewish and one Arab.

"We're living in a political reality that requires answers. "When people say that the demographic threat necessitates a separation, my reply is that the lesser danger, the lesser evil, is a single state in which there are equal rights for all citizens. Realpolitik requires us to opt for the danger in the demographic threat over the existential threat of separation.

As is noted, this makes Rivlin that highest-ranked Israeli (and, now that I think of it, probably Israeli or Palestinian) to endorse a one-state solution.

Rivlin's has always been relatively iconoclastic and concerned with the rights of Israel's Arab minority. But no matter -- the point is, the next time you see a JVP-sort endorsing a one-state solution, try scuffing at them and calling them a "Likudnik". It'll be fun for everyone!

Younger Jews Care More About Israel

An interesting new survey finds that Jews thirty-five and younger feel more attachment to Israel than the next oldest age cohort (35-45), though still less than those 45 and older. This runs counter to conventional wisdom that Jewish attachment to Israel is declining among the younger generation (and, since the survey explicitly excluded Orthodox Jews and alums of Jewish day schools, it's not a result of expanding numbers of very observant Jews either).

Perhaps equally important is that the rise in this younger cohort runs parallel to a drop in confidence with the Israeli government. This doesn't surprise me -- as I often repeat, caring about something means having opinions about it (this is also why David Bernstein's defense of "pure" Israel advocacy makes little sense) -- but it is demonstrative of the fact that the younger generation's willingness to put pressure on the Israeli government comes from a sense that Israel is important and needs friends -- not a stance of anti-Israel rejectionism.

Didn't You See Me Winking?

Louisiana has recently passed a voucher plan which would allow state educational funds to be used to send kids to religious schools. Louisiana conservatives saw that and said "sounds great". That is, until they realized Islam is a religion:

Rep. Valarie Hodges, R-Watson, says she had no idea that Gov. Bobby Jindal’s overhaul of the state’s educational system might mean taxpayer support of Muslim schools …

'I liked the idea of giving parents the option of sending their children to a public school or a Christian school,' Hodges said.

Hodges mistakenly assumed that 'religious' meant 'Christian.'

Via.

I have to go through this every time someone mistakenly says that "religious" Americans or "people of faith" believe that, say, abortion is murder. Maybe your religion does, but mine (Judaism) doesn't. In any event, as much as the casual desire to discriminate against Muslims is repulsive, the chain of "logic" Rep. Hodges brought to the table -- it apparently not even occurring to her that there exist non-Christian religions -- is hilarious.

PCUSA Votes to Invest for Peace

A pro-divestment motion before the Presbyterian Church's general assembly narrowly failed tonight, with the assembly electing instead to invest in the Palestinian economy and other projects which bring about peace. For that, two congratulations are in order: first, for rejecting the divestment motion -- a divisive and one-sided approach which in effect, views all Israeli actions taken in the West Bank and Gaza, including those which save innocent lives, as inherently malign -- and second, for voting to invest in the Palestinian economy. People who oppose BDS without any sort of corresponding efforts to actually improve the lives of Palestinians and forge a two-state solution are worth nothing to me. The PCUSA is doing the right thing not (just) because it voted against divesting, but because it voted in favor of taking tangible action aimed at strengthening the emerging Palestine.

We might also congratulate left-ward groups like APN and J Street for taking a stand against divestment here. Given their reputation and given the close nature of the vote, it is very possible that their intervention was decisive. They were there when they were needed. And they provided a sterling demonstration that the liberal, pro-peace wing of the American Jewish community is as opposed to divestment as anyone else. This is not AIPAC and ZOA. This is the near-entirety of the mainstream Jewish community.

Finally, the PCUSA vote represented BDS' high-water mark in the US. Which is to say, their high water mark is getting narrowly defeated, while their median outcome is getting soundly thrashed. The fact is that BDS doesn't have a meaningful, sustainable constituency in this country. Most Americans -- of all faiths and political backgrounds -- view it as a non-starter. They think it singles out Israel, they're unconvinced of its efficacy, they view it as a Trojan Horse for one-stateism and other radically anti-Israel politics. The point is that the BDS movement in the United States appears to be essentially a non-starter. On its best days, it manages to only lose by small margins rather than large ones. Without the support of the sorts of entities who accuse Jews of bombing American churches and find the very existence of a Jewish state abhorrent, it would scarcely register as a political entity at all. It has not and cannot serve as a basis for a political movement that takes seriously the respective national self-determination rights of Jews and Palestinians.

Now, to be sure, there are people who don't care -- either because they don't care about the rights of Palestinians to self-determination and an independent, secure, democratic state, or because they don't care about those rights for Jews. But for what I take to be the majority which does care about these things, alternative processes have to forged. It can no longer be that this is an issue which is left aside until crisis moments like divestment votes. We need to work for this on the ground. Christian, Jewish, and Muslim groups needs to join together to figure out how to make stuff happen -- how to get parties back to the negotiation table, how to freeze the settlements, how to harness the consensus in both Israel and Palestine in favor of a two-state solution, how to convince each that the other is a willing partner. This has to be day-to-day work -- it can't wait. The BDS movement has the strength that it does in part, yes, because of a committed core of activists who are simply outraged that there is at Israel, but also because of a middle that just doesn't see other entities which seem to be consistently working (or claiming) to work for actual change.

These groups do exist -- OneVoice is the most obvious candidate. And so my modest proposal is that, for the next two years, Jewish, Christian, and Muslim groups united at the local level and engage in a full-court press in favor of OneVoice -- bolstering its mission, its visibility, and its status as the single best route for peace in Israel and Palestine. It is the best hope for all people in the region, and it needs a cadre of activists here in the USA willing to fight for it.

Hell's Kitchen: Grading the Top Ten

With the elimination of Patrick, we're down to the Hell's Kitchen top ten. I have to say, for all the drama and chaos of this season, there's a fair bit of quality amongst the chefs remaining. Not all of them, of course -- we haven't cut all the deadweight yet. But there are at least three chefs that seem to me true top quality, and a few more that are only a step behind.

Red Team

Dana: One of the top three cooks remaining, Dana probably has the most personality of all of them (not saying much -- generally, the best cooks are the ones providing the least drama). Dana seemed on the verge of getting pulled into the massive red team drama-fest, but has mostly extricated herself and seemed content to watch Robyn and Kimmie annihilate themselves backstage. Now that they've been separated, more eyes are going to fall on Dana. She's been sharp on station, but the one thing we haven't seen yet is leadership skills. A

Barbie: Barbie started off as the scapegoat for the Red Team, which was approximately 33% just, 66% unjust. She did have struggles on station and a bit of an attitude, but no more than anyone else, and the red team's picking on her seemed more motivated by personal animosity than objective ordering of talent. Fortunately, she seems to have gotten past that and coalesced well with the Red Team (except Tiffany, but we'll get to her in a moment). She's shown an ability to jump on flailing stations (like Tiffany's) and get stuff done, while handling her own affairs, which is good. But some consistency issues still lurk on the line. B+

Kimmie: Ever-shifting relationship with Robyn notwithstanding, Kimmie is enigmatic in the kitchen. Streaky might be the best way to describe her -- she can cook, but there are times she loses her cool and composure and suffers as a result. I'm not convinced she has the mental fortitude to hang with the top dogs much longer, and I've also seen no leadership ability from her at all. C+

Christina: The de facto leader of the Red Team, Christina has been a voice of maturity and sanity all season. One got the feeling that everyone on the Red Team respected her, no small feat given how bad that team's dynamics have been all season. Plus, she's been consistently excellent on the line. I think she's the whole package -- great leadership, great cooking, and a great head on her shoulders. A serious threat to take to the title. A+

Tiffany: Oh lord, where to begin. Tiffany's biggest problem isn't that she's a bad cook, though she is. It isn't that completely lacks any self-awareness, though she does. It isn't even that she doesn't care, though she doesn't. It's that she seems outright offended that other people do care. Why is Barbie the weakest chef? Because she does bother to communicate times. Bzzz. Wrong answer. Tiffany is only still here because there have been more high-profile screw-ups (I won't even say worse) than hers each week. She could have easily gone home five episodes ago. D

Blue Team

Brian: Jill and I couldn't remember his name (we called him "the goofy one"). Brian seems like a solid cook. He's been pretty strong all season, mostly staying out of trouble, but never really shining. I also haven't seen any real capacity to lead from him. And judging by some of his interviews, having ladies in the kitchen come black jacket time will cause him to suffer from a never-ending boner. He's definitely in that second tier, but it's still very much in the air whether he kick it up another notch. A-

Justin: The strongest chef left on the Blue Team. Justin (who looks kind of like Brad Pitt, no?) has done a very good job, never to my recollection been singled-out for shame on the line, and has kept his cool on the line. Recently the editor-monkeys tried to stir up stuff by making him out to be a control freak. Because if there is one thing Chef Ramsey hates, its someone who is obsessed with making sure food gets made right. A

Clemenza: "Credenza", as he's known on the TWOP forums, is a bit of a dark horse. He's the most experienced cook left. He's not bad by any stretch. He's shown a good ability to fight back from adversity. But I don't see him able to consistently perform against the tip-top competitors. He might make black jackets, but he's not Vegas material. B

Royce: Royce may not be as bad as some think he is, but he's nowhere near as good as he thinks he is. He may be the only chef that rivals Tiffany in the non-self-aware field. Seriously, this whole season has been Royce declaring his perfection immediately before, during, and/or after he screws up. It's unbelievable. And I think Ramsey doesn't like him -- I actually agree that he didn't deserve to get booted from the kitchen last episode, but he's on thin ice. It's a shame -- I so like his mentor Ralph. C+

Robyn: The Blue Team's newest addition, Robyn is an interesting case for me. I actually wonder if Chef Ramsey sees some of himself in her. Gordon always toes that line of barely contained rage perfectly -- his fury makes his food and kitchen run better, but he never really loses control. Robyn ... does not have that control. But I do get the sense that her meltdowns stem from a similar passion about putting out good food and high standards, rather than just a generic mental imbalance. She's very type-A, like Chef Ramsey (whom I'd be curious to see in a genuinely subordinate role). But even though I have an odd affection for her, I just don't think Robyn has enough self-control for Gordon to put her in charge of one of his restaurants. B

The Answer is Enforced Silence, Not More Speech

We've been seeing a trend in recent years where the greatest threat to free inquiry, for conservatives, is other people speaking. Consider the fall out from Chief Justice Roberts' ACA opinion. Conservatives are convinced that Roberts changed his vote due to "left-wing media pressure". Here's Avik Roy at the National Review:

Perhaps, the next time a Republican president nominates a Supreme Court justice, he should make the candidate swear to never pick up a newspaper.

The bottom line, if Jan Crawford is right, is that conservative justices can be blackmailed by left-wing editorialists. It’s not a pretty picture.

As Roy Edroso points out, this might be the first time that "mere viewing of contrary opinions" has been characterized as "blackmail". Obviously liberals thought that a decision striking down the ACA would be terrible as a matter of law. The position of liberals had consistently (since well before the debate over the ACA specifically began) been that this law was obviously constitutional and could only be struck down if judges let their ideological preferences overcome any semblance of respect for law or precedent (they were buttressed in their belief due to the fact that this was the consensus conservative position too right up until it became associated with the Obama presidency). It's hardly surprising that, upon watching the well-understood contours of the Commerce Clause appear on the verge of shifting due to what was essentially a political temper tantrum, they'd speak up about it. Exactly how is airing this viewpoint "blackmail"?

J Street, APN Speak Out Against Divestment

Two left-leaning American pro-Israel groups -- J Street and Americans for Peace Now -- have spoken out against a proposed divestment resolution currently being debated by the PCUSA. This isn't surprising -- both groups have been quite consistent in opposing BDS. But it matters because J Street and APN probably have the largest constituency of liberal Jewish groups, and are unimpeachable members of the pro-peace camp. Their position here at the very least gives lie to the notion that to be an organization which cares about a just Israeli/Palestinian peace means to support BDS. Indeed, as leaders from both groups emphasize, to cooperate with the BDS movement runs orthogonal to pursuing a just peace, as the BDS movement has long presented itself in opposition to any solution which allows Israel to preserve itself as a site for Jewish self-determination. Here's APN:

“We believe that divestment campaigns such as this are misguided and counterproductive," said APN President and CEO Debra DeLee. “By targeting Israel rather than the occupation, this divestment campaign creates the impression that PC (USA) is making common cause with historically virulently anti-Israel organizations and individuals, who are often not interested in Israeli security concerns or Palestinian behavior but in Israel’s destruction. Divestment campaigns such as this therefore raise very real and understandable worries about global anti-Semitism and the perception that the campaigns are not truly (or only) about Israeli policies but rather reflect a deep-seated hatred for and rejection of Israel."

And here's J Street:

I would say to the Church’s leaders as they again consider joining forces with the BDS Movement, that the Movement’s rhetoric and tactics are not only a distraction, but a genuine threat to conflict resolution. Even the limited divestment approach under consideration by PCUSA falls under the rubric of larger BDS efforts to place blame entirely on one side of the conflict. Such an approach encourages not reconciliation, but polarization. Further, too many in and around the BDS movement refuse to acknowledge either the legitimacy of Israel or the right of the Jewish people as well as the Palestinian people to a state,

Well-spoken by both. Incidentally, I just skipped over to the front pages of the ADL, AJC, and AIPAC, none of whom have anything about the PCUSA debate on their sites. I don't know what to think about this -- on the one hand, their silence belies the idea that this all the Nefarious Israel Lobby squelching all dissent in its path. On the other hand, the fact that these groups simply registering an opinion is the only prerequisite for such accusations can be made is itself emblematic of the problem -- the definition of "silencing" is when a Jew decides to speak and someone doesn't like what she has to say. There is nothing insidious or wrongful about Jewish organizations having opinions -- even (and I know this shocks) having opinions that major Christian denominations disagree with, even (and I know this shocks even more) having those opinions reflected in American policy. Jews, having influence and power when there are Christians who disagree with them? What is the world coming to, I wonder.

But I digress. The point is that, for whatever reason, it is left-wing, pro-peace Jews who are the most vocal in the opposition to PCUSA divestment, and they deserve credit for that. It's demonstrative that the liberal Jewish community -- which is to say, the majority of the Jewish community -- is easily able to straddle together the need for Israel to make hard choices to bring about peace, and the recognition that Israel is not the only problem here (but people who think that about Israel are a huge problem). J Street and APN -- which have far more clout and influence than fringe posers like the JVP -- are the real face of what a progressive, empathetic, and motivated concern for the future of Israel and Palestine looks like.

Snyder Vetoes Voter Suppression Bills

I'm pleasantly surprised by this: Michigan Governor Rick Snyder (R) has vetoed a set of bills which, though nominally targeting (largely non-existent) voter fraud, would in effect serve to suppress eligible voters. Snyder said the bills would cause "confusion" due to the obscure procedures they enacted.

I have no idea why Snyder -- a rather orthodox (which is to say, tea-flavored) Republican, decided to break with the GOP orthodoxy on this. I don't know of any inside-baseball explanation for this, so let's just congratulate him on doing the right thing.

Many Motives, One World

The constant debate in terms about Israel is about whether any given act it takes is done to "preserve Israeli security" or "maintain the occupation". The answer, of course, is "both". Or more accurately, "either". Do they maintain the occupation? Yes. Do they protect Israel from real, extant security threats? Also yes. Israel has legitimate and illegitimate objectives, and the same actions can plausibly advance either. It is often impossible to tell which is the "real" motive from afar. The odds are, it is a mixture of each.

Take the three companies that the PCUSA may soon divest from: Caterpillar, Motorola, and Hewlett-Packard. Caterpillar sells armored bulldozers to Israel. Motorola runs cell phone networks in the settlements. And Hewlett-Packard provides information technology to the Israeli navy.

Caterpillar's bulldozers are sometimes used to build Israeli settlements, which is bad. Sometimes they demolish Palestinian houses because these houses are built "illegally" (in quotes because the process for Palestinians to gain building approval seems to be deliberately arcane and Kafka-esque), which is also bad. Sometimes it's because these houses are being used as bases for terrorist activity and firing, which is good. Sometimes it's to do normal construction activities inside Israel, which is good. When Caterpillar operates in Israel, it advances all these possibilities at the same time. If it withdraws from Israel, it retards all these objectives. It is true that we can sometimes clearly distinguish between good and bad usages -- but not always: demolition of a Palestinian house on claims that it is being used to smuggle weapons or as a firing post for terrorist will likely be met with skepticism by pro-Palestinian activists claiming it is gratuitous punishment -- we really have no way of knowing who is telling the truth from afar.

Motorola provides cellular technology to settlements, and settlements are illegal. Is that bad? I suppose, though it's unclear why this is different from companies which sell, say, food to settlers. Motorola also apparently provides some weapons technology (such as bomb fuses), and again, one can point out that the IDF's capacity to deliver lethal force can be used either to "protect Israel" (good) or "maintain an occupation" (bad). And one also points out that these are indistinguishable from afar. That Israel has an effective military by definition means its military is capable of pursuing both legitimate and illegitimate objectives. Trying to cripple that military means the opposite -- it would weaken both Israel's ability to maintain an occupation and it's ability to defend itself. It's difficult to disentangle these from one another.

Hewlett-Packard is perhaps the toughest case to justify. HP provides technology to Israeli Navy. To the extent this debate is about the settlements, HP is irrelevant -- Gaza has no settlements and the West Bank isn't on the water. Rather, HP is presumably being indicted because of the navy's efforts in placing a blockade on Gaza. I'm not convinced the blockade is illegal at all (it seems to fall inside the rules laid out by the San Remo Manual on International Law Applicable to Armed Conflicts at Sea, and most of the arguments against its legality either don't cite any legal arguments at all, or, as in the case of the UNHRC's report, made me embarrassed to share the profession of "attorney" with them). Of course, I also don't care about international law anyway -- so the blockade may still be wrong. In any event, the point is more or less the same: a blockade both can restrict the flow of necessary goods into Gaza (bad), and restrict the flow of weapons into Gaza (good).

A large part of why the bulk of the Jewish community is so uncomfortable with divestment from these companies is that they are unconvinced the divesters are putting any moral weight on the other side of the ledger. That is to say, while I say that Motorola simultaneously is enabling "good" (enabling Israel to defend itself) and "bad" (enabling Israel to maintain an occupation), the divesters don't consider the former to be "good" at all. It's either "irrelevant" or perhaps even "bad". This is particularly so with HP, which arguably isn't doing anything wrong at all -- it is not supporting the settlements at all. But regardless, the point is that there are two sides to the ledger, and it's not clear that even legitimate Israeli interests are being taken to account -- indeed, whether it is acknowledged that Israel has interests capable of being characterized as legitimate at all. In essence, it's the same problem in reverse -- the same tactics could plausibly advance legitimate (end the occupation) and illegitimate (end Israel) objectives, and it is impossible to tell from afar which is which.

So what does one do? In essence, the problem is one of trust -- all parties have ample reason to distrust one another, and little way of verifying which moves are legitimate and which ones are aggressive -- they tend to look the same. So I tend to focus on two, seemingly contradictory ambitions: (1) Rebuilding trust and (2) Making it so parties don't have to trust one another. The first is obvious -- mistrust significantly diminishes the range of actions one party can take without provoking the other. So in order to get things done, there has to be space for political action to breathe. That means listening to the other's concerns and claims of serious threat, even if one thinks they're unfounded. I don't think that Israel secretly harbors a desire to maintain control of Jericho forever, but I understand why Palestinians worry about it. And so Israel should behave in ways that alleviate that concern, and be mindful of how their actions interact with that lens upon Israeli motivations. Likewise folks operating from a pro-Palestinian perspective -- they may be absolutely confident that they're totally incorporating Jewish interests and concerns, but Jews seem convinced of the opposite. They have to take account of that fact, rather than engaging in further inflammation. This is the general project of groups like OneVoice, and why they are worthy of your support.

The second proposal is less romantic, but in some ways more important. Israelis and Palestinians don't trust one another. They don't think the other has their best interests at heart. Each are probably, at least to some degree, right about that. But right now they have to trust on another, because they're enmeshed in a relationship of mutual dependency -- both have to take actions predicated on what they believe the other will do. That is one reason why a two-state solution is not just the best solution but also, as Ziad Asali of the American Task Force for Palestine reminds us, is the only one that will ever work. A situation where Israelis and Palestinians are regularly in a position to influence the other's lives is a situation that will likely be characterized by strife, discord, and probably violence. So the goal should be to extricate the warring parties from one another as soon as possible.

This also, in part, is why I do not support a demilitarized Palestine. Part of the reason is simply because I want Palestine to have a monopoly on violence in its territory (if the PA doesn't have guns, then only Hamas will have them). But in part, it's also because I want Palestine to be in a position where it doesn't need to trust Israeli good intentions because it is capable of defending itself. For the same reason, I support Israel having a strong military (including a strong navy). Israel has a great many people who claim to want to destroy it. If Israel is militarily weak, it has to take those threats extremely seriously (in neorealist terms, it has to act aggressively on turn one because it can't guarantee there will be a turn two). If Israel is militarily strong, it can afford to take more risks and concessions because if its goodwill is exploited, it can rest confident its ability to utterly demolish whoever it is that was dumb enough to cross them. Power doesn't guarantee cooperation, but it creates the conditions by which cooperation is possible, because it makes it so that losing once doesn't mean losing everything. And that same logic is why, ultimately, empowering Palestine is the largest step in making Israel secure -- and vice versa.

BDS, The PCUSA, and Caring About Anti-Semitism

One thing that is evident to observers of the BDS movement is how thoroughly it is shot through with anti-Semitism. One sees this in ways ranging from allegations that Jews engineered the financial crisis to folks threatening to make Jews' "life hell". And one corollary to that is that institutions enmeshed in the BDS movement have extreme difficulty in crafting any sort of robust policy against anti-Semitism, as to do so would create sharp dissonance with their own avowed politics and priorities. So it was that the UCU -- a prime player in the British BDS campaign -- simply decided to abandon any definition of anti-Semitism at all.

As the American focus of this debate shifts to the Presbyterian Church (USA), one sees a similar pattern emerge. Jewish organizations had already issued complaints that the PCUSA had been deliberately excluding the mainstream Jewish community from deliberations about issues of concern to the Jewish community, instead inviting handpicked representatives from the marginal fringe who would eagerly provide cover to the PCUSA's pre-existing political priors. Meanwhile, as Will Spotts documents, despite its claims to the contrary the PCUSA has been rather consistent in evading any sort of reckoning with potential anti-Semitism -- rejecting internal reports that acknowledge to a problem within their church and demanding instead that any accounts of anti-Semitism be phrased so broadly that they could never firmly be pinned on anything the PCUSA actually does. The prime criteria for what is anti-Semitism, to groups like the PCUSA, is that it can under no circumstances encompass anything that the PCUSA actually does. That, of course, is not how someone who cares about anti-Semitism operates -- that's how someone who cares about ticking the "I'm not anti-Semitic" box off their mental checklist operates.

Giving Offense

Took a second stab at apartment hunting today, with considerably more success than the first go-around. With luck, we may have a place to live next year.

Meanwhile, I haven't been able to get this Alyssa Rosenberg post on "offense" off my browser, so now's as good a time as any.

I think that one of the common defenses whipped out by people who make art—or hell, say things in any forum—that’s sexist or racist or transphobic is to say that they’re brave, speaking truths others dare not utter. The thing this, these people rarely speak these so-called truths to unfriendly audiences. And the easiest thing you can do with any audience is to confirm the beliefs they already hold. Sometimes, that can be a useful thing to do. Confirming that people aren’t alone in their beliefs or reactions to things can be a powerful way to bring marginalized people together. And telling people that their beliefs matter and are actionable in the world is a major mobilizing tool. But there’s a difference between those kinds of conversations and affirming people’s fears, prejudices, and need to be superior to someone. If you view giving offense as a sign of courage, it’s much more courageous to poke at your allies rather than the people weaker that you’ve determined to keep that way, to take a broad view, really see what the conventional wisdom is, and then challenge that. There are pieties in every movement, be it left, right, or center. But if you want to skewer them, you have to do better than “bitches be crazy” or “trans people are gross.” Smashing things and causing pain are not the same things as making a point.

What one believes to be unsaid, rarely is.

(Im)Proper Constitutionalism: Roberts' Revenge?

Now that the original frenzy over the ACA ruling has died done (a little), folks are starting to dig a little deeper into the opinions (particularly Roberts') to figure out what it means for the next case (incidentally, you can read the opinions here). Chief Justice Roberts' formulation is that the individual mandate does not lie within Congress' commerce clause power (nor the necessary and proper clause), but functions effectively as a tax and thus is part of Congress' taxing power. Now that I've quickly read over the commerce/N&P parts of the opinions (well, Roberts, Ginsburg, and the joint dissent), I have a few thoughts on them as well.

First thing is first -- I'm not sure I've ever seen as vicious a spanking as Justice Ginsburg delivers to Chief Justice Roberts on the commerce clause question. It is an utter smackdown of epic proportions. She clearly demonstrates that, under existing precedent, the ACA should have been by all rights a slam dunk, and that the parade of horribles Roberts and others have trotted out are more or less fanciful. So you go Justice Ginsburg. Keep on keepin' on.

Some folks are speculating that Chief Justice Roberts is pulling a Marbury -- issuing an opinion that on face is a victory for the President while actually sharply moving doctrine in a new direction undesired by the Chief Justice's political opponents (in Marbury, establishing judicial review, here, sharply circumscribing the Commerce Clause).

Chief Justice Roberts' attempt to atomize the discussion (is this individual person "in the health insurance market"?) is reminiscent of the style of commerce clause analysis the Court rejected in Jones & Laughlin. There, the Court rejected older decisions which looked individually at particular segments of the steel production process and asked if, individually, they were exhibiting a substantial effect on interstate commerce. The Court instead said we should look at the "steel industry" as a whole (which clearly does significantly impact ISC), and then Congress can issue regulations of the steel industry as part of regulating ISC. Similarly, the "health insurance market" is clearly a huge part of interstate commerce, so the question is whether regulating persons who do not possess health insurance substantially effects that market -- which of course it does (Justice Ginsburg's arguments about these persons "proximity" to the market were particularly on target).

But the part of the opinion that is more eyebrow raising to me is not the Commerce Clause analysis, but rather the decision to give the "proper" in "necessary and proper" independent weight. Given McCulloch (and Raich), that the individual mandate satisfies the necessary and proper clause would seem to be obvious -- it is an essential part of Congress' attempts to regulate the health insurance market as a whole. The rhetoric in McCulloch focused particularly on the word "necessary" -- to wit, does it mean "absolutely indispensable", or just convenient or useful? The Court found it meant the latter, reasoning that an alternate interpretation would render the Courts an effective super-legislature judging for themselves what was the single best way of regulating health care policy (this did not stop the joint dissent from explicitly doing just that, saying that the individual mandate was not necessary because the dissent could conceive of alternative health care regulations). This means, as Chief Justice Roberts acknowledges, that courts are very deferential about what legislative policies are "necessary".

Still, with "necessary" seemingly a bust, what about "proper"? It was the claim that the individual mandate was not a "proper" way of exercising the commerce clause authority that was Chief Justice Roberts' ultimate hinge. Here, Chief Justice Roberts accords no such deference, and that's especially worrisome given that the only constraining text he's using is the word "proper". As much as we might worry about courts imposing their own policy preferences when they utilize relatively open-ended language like "due process of law" or "cruel and unusual punishment", that risk has to be tripled when the alleged constitutional infirmity is that the law isn't "proper". I don't even know what that could conceivably mean other than raw imposition of judicial preference.

And the Chief Justice's opinion hardly inspires confidence that "proper" will mean anything more than "personally distasteful". What makes a law not "proper"? All Chief Justice Roberts can give us is that the legislation isn't "proper" where it would "undermine the structure of government established by the Constitution" or is "not consist[ent] with the letter and spirit of the constitution." There is almost no constraining bite to that "doctrine" at all -- it is an open invitation to simply strike down whatever it is a given Justice finds distasteful. Which is more or less how it was used here: The individual mandate is not "proper" because ... mandates, ew, scary. There just isn't a workable argument in there -- particularly when, as Justice Ginsburg (again!) notes, it is far from clear that the mechanism of a penalty payable as a tax is more far-reaching than Chief Justice Roberts' own example of admittedly "proper" congressional exercises (such as, say, keeping someone in jail). Nor is it clear why, if the form of a mandate is so repugnant to the constitutional order, it becomes okay when it is viewed as a tax regulation rather than a commerce regulation. The answer is that programs like this aren't actually that scary, but using constitutional language as vague as "is it proper" is an invitation to disaster.

Now, on the "proper" end of things, it is possible that this is meant to be a ticket good for this ride only -- that the Court will not in fact start using questions of "is the law proper" to strike down legislation left and right (well, most likely left). But maybe not -- if it was meant to be just a tool for this case, Roberts would have joined his conservative colleagues and struck the thing down. If we do see a revitalization of Lochner-era due process jurisprudence under the new guise of "proper", that would be nothing short of a catastrophe.

Why Roberts Why?

That must be the question conservatives are asking themselves today. After all, the prevailing wisdom (one I signed onto) was that this was a 5-4 decision one way or the other, with Kennedy holding the swing vote. Now, I thought maybe if Justice Kennedy bit, Roberts might come along -- both to keep the decision from being yet another 5-4 ruling and to keep the opinion for himself. But Justice Kennedy voted to strike down the ACA -- indeed, by signing on to a far-right joint dissent for himself, Alito, Scalia, and Thomas, it indicates that it wasn't even a close call for the usually swingy justice. Which means that it was Chief Justice Roberts serving as the middle vote. So what prompted him to (switch his?) vote to uphold President Obama's signature law?

I have two potential explanations floating around right now. The first is legalistic. Chief Justice Roberts has always been a big government conservative. In fact, that's why he was appointed to the Court in the first place -- President Bush wanted someone he could count on to affirm his vast expansions of executive power in the War on Terror. One of the ways I teach my students that judges can exercise some independence from politics is that the political motivations which put them on the Court may not turn out to track the same sets of concerns as their careers progress. The classic example is Justice Frankfurter. Frankfurter was appointed to the Court as a fierce advocate of judicial restraint, which, with the Four Horsemen running roughshod over any and all state and federal economic regulation, was a defining progressive value at the time. And Frankfurter did turn out to be a reliable vote to uphold the New Deal. But as his career continued, the defining controversies for the Supreme Court started to become civil and criminal rights cases. And there, Frankfurter's deference to legislatures led to a far more conservative voting record. I'm not saying Chief Justice Roberts always is going to vote in favor of enhanced government power, only that the particular ideological profile he cuts -- the one that put him on the bench in the first place -- might have made him more sympathetic to the ACA than one might expect from a run-of-the-mill conservative judge.

Second, there are institutionalist concerns that may well have played a role. When he was first appointed Chief Justice, Roberts made clear that he wanted a more unified, less ideologically polarized Court. Whatever else one thinks of his tenure, it is clear that in that respect his has been a colossal failure. The Roberts Court has been bitterly fractured along partisan lines, and more and more (particularly with Citizens United) has been gaining a reputation as an ideologically conservative activist court. It's not that liberals are suddenly going to start singing the praises of the Roberts Court, but had the ACA been struck down, that train would have left the station for good. Basically, Chief Justice Roberts saw in this case that a vote to strike down the ACA was a vote to permanently remake his Court's image into one adjunct to the Republican Party. And he blinked.

ACA Upheld!

What, you didn't hear? (Oh, by the way, the Stolen Valor Act was struck down too).

Now, I haven't read the opinions yet. But it's not like that's stopping anyone else from opining. And I know the basics: The 4 liberal justices vote to uphold on commerce clause grounds, Alito, Thomas, Scalia, and Kennedy vote to strike down the entire law, and Roberts votes to uphold the law as an exercise of the tax power (there's a minor hiccup regarding how medicare funding is allocated that I'll ignore for now). Scattered thoughts below:

* I agree that the dissent's simultaneous assertions that the whole of the ACA must be struck down because the mandate and funding conditions are unconstitutional, and that the mandate is not "necessary and proper" to Congress commerce clause authority, are completely inconsistent with each other.

* I also agree that Justice Ginsburg repeatedly citing Justice Scalia's Raich opinion is a thing of beauty.

* Revenge of the tax power! That was the issue that everyone kind of forgot was an issue, even though that's really what the mandate most closely simulates. I don't know enough about tax law to understand why it isn't a tax for the purposes of the Anti-Injunction Act, though.

* Conservatives might claim a minor victory in that the opinion may further cabin the commerce clause power a bit, but ultimately I don't think that changes that much.

* People who say they're moving to Canada after this really need to rethink their strategy.

* UPDATE: I separately give my thoughts on why Chief Justice Roberts voted the way he did.

Anti-Semites Lose in New York

Well, it looks like a lot of worrying was for naught. The semi-credible attempts of two anti-Semitic nuts to make it to New York's congressional ended tonight, both by sizable margins. With 69% reporting, Hakeem Jeffries is blowing out Charles Barron 74.5/25.5 in NY-8 Democratic primary. Jim Russell did a little better in the NY-17 Republican primary, but only reached 35% against Joe Carvin (94% reporting).

Jeffries crushing victory over Barron ratifies something we should have already known: Black voters can indeed be trusted to hear the concerns of their Jewish colleagues, and are not swayed by racialized and anti-Semitic appeals. The belief that Blacks are more prone to conspiracy theories and other harbingers of extremism has never been true, and this is just one more data point for that.

Of course, fringe candidates can sometimes gain more traction than they should -- in both parties (as Russell demonstrates further upstate). But for whatever reason, there is a mythology that Black voters are more prone to this sort of nuttery. And it's just not true. It's consistently not true, and they're proving it time and again.