Brooklyn BDS Megapost!

It wouldn't do to pass on this controversy without giving my thoughts (more than I already have, anyway). You know, for posterity.

On free speech and academic freedom

1) College departments have the right to sponsor events featuring speakers with controversial, even arguably racist or anti-Semitic, views. That's part of academic freedom. There's also no general rule that controversial speakers must be "balanced" with the "other side", though this might be prudent in certain cases.

2) Academic freedom means that such decisions cannot come with material repercussions (such as slashing funding).

3) However, academic freedom does not immunize such decisions from criticism. Indeed, we should be quite disconcerted if a college department decides to sponsor or promote such events, and it is legitimate to say so.

4) Sponsoring an event does not imply endorsement of its views. But it does imply endorsement of a certain kind -- that the event is "in bounds," that it is within the pantheon of legitimate and valid thoughts that it is worthwhile to consider. This is why I'm fine with the Economics department sponsoring a talk by Richard Epstein but would be less thrilled if they brought in some gold standard nut.

5) Academic departments have the right to decide whether a given viewpoint is "in bounds". Similar to the above, this decision is also subject to criticism.

6) If an academic department is going to sponsor an event, it should be open to all students. If pro-Israel students were systematically excluded from attending the BDS event, that is as problematic as forcing Brooklyn to cancel the event would have been.

7) Eric Alterman wins the "best overall" award for his column on this subject.

On BDS and the event itself

1) Yair Rosenberg is right to call out the media for whitewashing what BDS is actually about. It is not just generic "criticism of Israel", and opposing it in no way implies that one opposes all criticism of Israel.

2) This NYT report on the controversy is pretty terrible on that front.

3) Referring to protesters outside, Butler remarked that "as you can hear, unconditional supporters of Israel.” Apparently, she's been reading LGM's comments.

4) Butler also apparently made the following argument: Criticism of Israel can only be anti-Semitic if all Jews supported Israel, and "Honestly, what can really be said about the Jewish people as a whole?" It is difficult to think of a criterion for anti-Semitism more calculated to neuter the term (it's not racist if Herman Cain agrees with me!) -- which, one suspects, is the point.

The Only Winning Move is to STFU

There's another BDS brouhaha, with Brooklyn College hosting Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti at a college forum on the topic. Such things are always touchy -- college faculty members should be free to host or even promote racist or anti-Semitic speakers or ideologies, and other people should be severely disconcerted at the fact that college faculty members want to host or even promote racist or anti-semitic speakers or ideologies. Straddling that position is rather delicate. After all, if one says something like "Omar Barghouti and Judith Butler are promoting an anti-Semitic ideology", why, one is silencing debate!

And what if one doesn't say that, but instead tries to step back a bit and call the event one "that will verge on anti-Semitism"? Lawyers, Guns and Money with the call:

Seriously, talk about yer classic moments in passive-aggressive weasel wording ... "We won’t actually call the speakers anti-Semitic. But they might do something other than criticize the Likud platform for being insufficiently dismissive of Palestinian rights, so close enough."

Seriously, talk about yer classic moments in moving the goalposts. After constantly howling about Jews call everything and its mother anti-Semitic, we discover that it doesn't actually matter if we agree to dial it back. Just as the "criticizing Israel isn't anti-Semitic" debate doesn't change a whit when someone says the quiet part out loud, it doesn't actually matter how the objection is raised -- objecting is still objectionable.

Meanwhile, the post comes with the bonus revelation that the BDS movement comprises the entirety of the political spectrum left of Naftali Bennett. Somebody should page that dastardly, settlement-freeze-promoting radical leftist .... Alan Dershowitz.

.... I feel like in posting this, I'm thumbing the eye of a friend who asked me to post on Jon Chait's glorious takedown of the ludicrous Free Beacon claim that TNR was purging its Jews. Alas, that the Free Beacon is run by utter idiots is neither novel nor capacious enough for significant commentary, and Chait, as per usual, has said anything I might want to.

The Snowflake that Starts an Avalanche

Boy Scouts get ready to kick out a troop for having a non-discrimination policy that covers sexual orientation. The offending policy reads

Pack 442 WILL NOT discriminate against any individual or family based on race, religion, national origin, ability, or sexual orientation.

The Boy Scouts, which insisted before the Supreme Court that discriminating against gays was essential to their expressive mission, are none too pleased, and is threatening to derecognize the pack if they don't take the statement down. As Les Baron, CEO and Scout Executive of the local umbrella scout organization put it: "That's a message that's against our policy, and we don't want it continue to be out in our community," Baron says.

One has to wonder if a dam is beginning to crack. Of course, Pack 442 is still deliberating over whether to rescind their non-discrimination policy or to stand firm. And Pack 442 would not be the first scout group to lose its charter over this issue. But as the years pass and the BSA's position grows more isolated and antiquated, this sort of local rebellion will only become more frequent and harder to ignore. And at some point, the levy will break and the organization will have a full-scale rebellion to contend with.

That Seemed To Go Quicker Than Normal

What does it take for Israel to rapidly evacuate a West Bank outpost that is deemed illegal? Why, if it's Palestinians who have set up camp there. Indeed, it appears that the Israeli government ignored a court injunction in their haste to ensure that the Palestinian outpost of Baab al Shams (built in the controversial "E-1" area near Jerusalem) was evacuated. One imagines that the Supreme Court does not look favorably on being ignored in this way.

AIPAC Won't Object to Hagel

Word in from Peter Beinart is that AIPAC will not oppose former Sen. Chuck Hagel's (R-NE) nomination as Defense Secretary (perhaps Bernard Avishai will issue a retraction? Or perhaps not). Beinart notes that this is consistent with AIPAC's key interest in differentiating itself from the "pro-Israel" far-right (groups like the ECI and RJC), as the worst thing that could possibly happen to Israel's standing in the US is if it became known as a annex of partisan Republicanism. As Jeffrey Goldberg points out, AIPAC is not stupid and has no interest in sacrificing its bipartisan credentials over a nomination fight. In the words of a top AIPAC official, "we don’t deal with nominees. We deal with policies." And from my vantage, anything that puts daylight between AIPAC and the far-right is good news.

In any event, this seems to falsify at least one of two claims: (1) the "Israel Lobby" is indomitable, and no mortal can long resist its wrath, or (2) the "Israel Lobby" can't countenance anyone who registers any sort of criticism of Israel whatsoever. In Hagel, we have someone who has criticized Israel before (and it's worth reiterating that this distinguishes him from precisely nobody who's ever had any opinion on Israel -- including far-right groups like ZOA), and AIPAC is perfectly content to see him confirmed. Despite this, I predict AIPAC's neutrality on this issue will have zero impact on any of the rhetoric surrounding it, because said rhetoric remains untethered from anything AIPAC actually does.

When the Chips Are Down

The ongoing conflict in Syria has created a new Palestinian refugee problem, as Palestinians (and other minority groups) have been among the most vulnerable and heavily impacted by the ongoing brutal civil war. Refugees have began pouring into Jordan and Lebanon, but both countries' support for Palestinians in other countries notoriously exceeds the hospitality they display to Palestinians in their own borders. Facing an escalating crisis, the UN has asked that the Palestinian Authority (West Bank) and Hamas (Gaza) take in some of their compatriots themselves.

Both refused. The PA's excuse is at least facially reasonable: they don't have any money. But Hamas gives a different reason: rescuing these Palestinians now, you see, would denigrate any "right of return" claims they have against Israel later. I'd say these Palestinians are only useful to Hamas as a bargaining chip against Israel, except that Hamas has no interest in striking a bargain: Palestinians living abroad have precisely one role to play in Hamas' vision of Palestinian nationalism: a human wave to wash away the Jewish state. If they can't serve that function, they have no value and Hamas couldn't care less about them. It's that simple.

New Year's Resolutins: 2013

Just because essentially nobody can read it is no excuse for dispensing with tradition. It's my new year's resolutions for 2013! Previous installments can be found here. And as always, we start with evaluating my performance vis-a-vis last year's list:

Met: 1 (several times over!), 2, 3, 4 (not yet, anyway, as far as I know), 5, 6, 7, 9 (just this past weekend!), 10, 11, 14.

Missed: 8, 15.

"Well, technically I met this....": 12, 13.

Unfortunately, despite a frankly superb showing by the numbers, number 8 looms quite large and casts a big shadow over the rest of the list. So I come into the new year more demoralized than I can remember in some time. But it's the sort of thing I'll have to just push through. It will come.

Anyway, to the new year's resolutions:

1) Find employment post-clerkship. (Met)

2) Be at peace with the employment I have post-clerkship. (Missed)

3) Move the big screen TV into the living room. (Met)

4) Make significant progress on another article. (Met)

5) Keep the blog's blood pumping long enough so it can return in full force when the clerkship ends. (Pick 'em)

6) Feel decently competent in an additional area of law beyond my current specialty. (Pick 'em)

7) Watch either The Two Towers or Return of the King with Jill. (Missed)

8) Have people over to watch a boxing event. (Missed -- I think, but don't actually remember)

9) Present Our Divine Constitution somewhere. (Missed)

10) Try the cooperative multiplayer in Portal 2. (Met)

11) Attend the Carleton Reunion! (Met)

12) Crack the 200 follower mark on Twitter. (Met)

13) Find my copies of War and XPs and No Cure for the Paladin Blues. (Met -- amazingly enough, since I didn't find them until I moved to DC)

14) Don't be jealous of other people's successes, even when things aren't falling into place for me. (Met -- I can honestly say this)

Dead Man Tell No Tales

The big Senate news is Hawaii Gov. Neil Abercrombie's (D) selection to replace Sen. Daniel Inouye (D), who recently passed away. Inouye -- a legendary figure in Hawaiian politics -- released a deathbed letter saying his "one and only choice" for a successor was Rep. Colleen Hanabusa (D). But Abercrombie rocked the boat by instead picking Lt. Gov. Brian Schatz to take the seat. Schatz will serve two years until a 2014 special election; the winner of that will have to run for reelection in 2016.

So the question on everyone's mind is why Abercrombie decided to spurn Inouye's dying wish? The line I've heard is that Abercrombie wanted to demonstrate "independence" from Inouye's giant shadow. If so, it strikes me as a bit weak -- it seems less like a bold stroke and more like, well, kicking a dead guy.

I'm not saying that Abercrombie was obligated to pick Hanabusa. I'm saying that one would hope that there are substantive differences between her and Schatz that motivated the pick, because if it was more of an inside-baseball sort of deal then I can't imagine that it will really turn out well for Abercrombie.

The Ever-Shifting Influence of AIPAC

Last week, Open Zion (through Peter Beinart) was predicting that AIPAC would not "publicly oppose" the nomination of Chuck Hagel to be Secretary of Defense, because it would be a fight it "can't win." This week, Open Zion (through Bernard Avishai) accuses a who's who of Jewish organizations (including, but not limited to, AIPAC) of being "Neo-McCarthyites" due to their alleged role in sinking Hagel's as-yet-unannounced nomination.

Maybe all this shows is that the political instincts of Open Zion just aren't that good. Or maybe it shows that Open Zion treats AIPAC more as a phantom to project their own distaste for how American and Jewish politics operates than as an actual organization that does actual things. There is a lot of fulmination about AIPAC's "intimidation", but very little about what AIPAC has actually done in this controversy, and there's whining that Jewish organizations are haphazardly "branding" anyone who opposes them as an anti-Semite without noting that this charge has been explicitly disavowed with respect to Hagel (oh, but they don't have to say it, because the things they are attacking Hagel for are "things only an anti-Semite would do." How conveniently unfalsifiable, that saying you're not calling someone anti-Semitic isn't even relevant evidence to whether one is trying to "cow" them into submission by calling them anti-Semitic).

Finally, I'd note that we have a bit of Chas Freeman syndrome all over again here -- the Jews are only after that one thing. Senator Hagel hails from the realist wing of the foreign policy community. And there are plenty of Americans who are not foreign policy realists, for a variety of reasons that often have nothing to do with Israel and which can be held independent of any political beliefs on Israel. Chinese dissidents, for example, had plenty of reason to be skeptical of Freeman without taking any positions whatsoever on Israel. And so it is with Hagel -- if one is not a fan of his particular intellectual orientation to foreign policy, one can be skeptical of his nomination without it being Israel-or-bust.

Probably Just a Massive Welfare Operation

LGM has some stories from the failed Romney campaign:

Rich Beeson, the Romney political director who co­authored the now-discredited Ohio memo, said that only after the election did he realize what Obama was doing with so much manpower on the ground. Obama had more than 3,000 paid workers nationwide, compared with 500 for Romney, and hundreds of thousands of volunteers.

“Now I know what they were doing with all the staffs and ­offices,” Beeson said. “They were literally creating a one-to-one contact with voters,” something that Romney did not have the staff to match.

Like the LGM guys, I too am curious what Beeson thought the Obama campaign was doing with all those workers. Did they think it was just a handout to layabouts -- "walking around money", as I believe the conservative conspiracy goes?

Anyway, the good news is that the corporate-style campaign Romney run is both (a) a terrible model and (b) culturally ingrained within the modern Republican Party. So I look forward to many more electoral spankings coming their way.

Making Lemons out of Lemonade

This is a very interesting and, in its way, very tragic column by Peter Beinart on the potential nomination of former Sen. Chuck Hagel (R-NE) as Secretary of State. Beinart starts off by observing that AIPAC is not exactly VP of the Chuck Hagel fan club, which is probably true enough. He then predicts that AIPAC will not publicly oppose Hagel's nomination. Why? Because they "can't win." Hagel has too much support amongst both Democrats and Republicans. Well, ring up another for the supposedly indomitable Israel Lobby. And of course, it's possible that AIPAC won't oppose Hagel because they don't think he's worth opposing.

But moving on -- Beinart does predict that some folks will be pretty vociferously anti-Hagel: the putatively "pro-Israel" groups to AIPAC's right. Groups like the Emergency Committee for Israel, or the Republican Jewish Coalition, or the Washington Free Beacon, will hardly share AIPAC's sense of prudence.

Now, what does Beinart take from this? That AIPAC will have been "outflanked", "look[ing] like the loser in a fight it didn’t want to have." Which is strange, because I see it as "AIPAC consciously putting distance between itself and groups to its right," which is an unabashed gain for the good guys. Indeed, the more that AIPAC views entities like the ECI and company as obstacles to its continued influence and Israel's continued security, the better, since AIPAC still does have plenty of influence and I'd love for some of that clout to go towards taking Noah Pollak down a peg.

But Beinart is too excited at seeing AIPAC in a bind that he's missing an opportunity to take back the center. The way Beinart puts it, any time AIPAC doesn't join the far-right on something Israel-related, it's because it can't, not because it doesn't want to. The group is as right-wing as it possibly can be, and any act that seems more centrist is to be cheered not because it signifies that the lodestone of pro-Israel is tacking center, but because it purportedly signifies that the lodestone of pro-Israel is losing its grip.

And I think that's a mistake. The pro-Israel left may not be best buddies with AIPAC, but they're not preordained to be our adversary either. It is those right-wing groups like the ECI that are the real threat from within the "pro-Israel" camp, and if they're dumb enough to actively marginalize themselves from mainstream organization, you have to take that and run with it.

Lieutenant Colonel Bill Kilgore Meets Tommy Hilfiger

Gaza manufactuers have created a new perfume scent named "M-75", after the rockets Hamas shot into Israel during the last flare-up of violence. The director of the manufacturing company says it serves as the "smell of victory" over Israel, and customers seem to agree. One tourist from neighboring Egypt bought thirty vials and said "I hope the smell is strong enough for them to whiff in Tel Aviv and remind the Jews of the Palestinian victory." Charming.

The Populace of No

McClatchey polls America on the fiscal cliff. And it turns out, we're quite worried about it. 70% say it matters if we make a deal. 74% say that the parties should compromise rather than stay steadfast on principle.

And then voters are asked whether they support various plans for reducing the deficit.

Democrats oppose every option except raising taxes on the rich. Republicans oppose every option, period.

Only More So

There are some people who think a two-state solution is out of reach. I myself have varying degrees of cynicism about it. This mapping tool made me feel optimistic Other times, I feel pessimistic. My mood swings.

But the thing is, no matter how cynical I get about a two-state solution, I never become less cynical about one-state. That's because they're joined at the hip -- essentially all the barriers and problems and obstacles that make a two-state solution elusive, also make a one-state solution impossible. Whether you fault Israeli intransigence or Palestinian maximalism, settlement expansion or "right of return", price tag militants or Hamas rocketry, the same problems in mostly the same form also poison the one-state well.

Gershom Gorenberg, in his new book, “The Unmaking of Israel,” a jeremiad directed at the Jewish settlement movement, writes at length about the absurdity at the heart of the proposal.

“Palestinians will demand the return of property lost in 1948 and perhaps the rebuilding of destroyed villages. Except for the drawing of borders, virtually every question that bedevils Israeli-Palestinian peace negotiations will become a domestic problem setting the new political entity aflame.”

Gorenberg predicts that Israelis of means would flee this new state, leaving it economically crippled. “Financing development in majority-Palestinian areas and bringing Palestinians into Israel’s social welfare network would require Jews to pay higher taxes or receive fewer services. But the engine of the Israeli economy is high-tech, an entirely portable industry. Both individuals and companies will leave.”

In the best case, this new dystopia by the sea would be paralyzed by endless argument: “Two nationalities who have desperately sought a political frame for cultural and social independence would wrestle over control of language, art, street names, and schools.” In the worst case, Gorenberg writes, political tensions “would ignite as violence.”

In the worst, worst case, said violence will turn into a regional nuclear war.

When one listen's to one-staters, there is often lip service to the claim that they simply think a two-state solution is "dead" (for whatever reason). What's left unsaid is how that brings a one-state solution to life. The reason why that analysis is missing is because the pragmatics aren't actually doing any of the work. One-staters support one-state not because it's more feasible than two-states, but because they think it is normatively superior to two-states. A world in which there are zero majority-Jewish states is qualitatively better than one in which there is one majority-Jewish state.

Beautiful Scenic Vistas are Just the Gift-Wrapping

This might actually be the dumbest thing I ever read:

Bryan Fischer, the director of issues analysis of the conservative fundamentalist American Family Association, on Thursday told a so-called “expert” who denies climate change that not using God’s fossil fuels would be like “crushing” someone’s feelings by rejecting their birthday present.

The Cornwall Alliance’s Calvin Beisner, who has previously said that believing in climate change “is an insult to God,” explained on Thursday that the Bible said it was also very rude to not use oil, coal and natural gas.

Fischer likened the situation to a birthday present he was given at the age of six. “I opened up a birthday present that I didn’t like, and I said it right out, ‘Oh, I don’t like those,’” the radio host recalled. “And it just crushed — and the person that gave me gift was there. You know, I just kind of blurted it out, ‘I don’t like those.’ And it just crushed that person. It was enormously insensitive of me to do that.”

“And you think, that’s kind of how we’re treating God when he’s given us these gifts of abundant and inexpensive and effective fuel sources,” Fischer added. “And we don’t thank him for it and we don’t use it.”

“You know, God has buried those treasures there because he loves to see us find them.”

Oh my goodness. Although I have to say if you had asked me to predict who would say the dumbest thing I'd ever read, Bryan Fischer would have been a top candidate, right alongside Steve King.

"Central [If Unstated]...."

Edward Goldstein opens his column on the UNGA Palestine vote by asserting that:

A central component of Israeli diplomacy and Jewish thinking has long been the assumption, asserted as necessary, that the Holocaust confers permanent, unassailable virtue on Israel and Jews. In light of the Holocaust, whatever Israel does is justified, especially if declared to be security related. Whatever and however Jews argue in support of Israel is correct. The obverse is also assumed and frequently asserted: in light of the Holocaust, no one has the right to criticize Israel, especially Europeans, and anyone who does may be suspected of anti-Semitism.

This is, of course, a rather gross statement to make. But what can be said in respond to it? Obviously, I could say that nobody (much less the entirety of "Jewish thinking"), in fact, claims that "the Holocaust confers permanent, unassailable virtue on Israel and Jews." Nor does anyone assert that everything Israel does is inherently justified, nor that all criticism of Israel is verboten and signifies anti-Semitism. But if I made that obviously true retort, Goldstein would just say "sure, nobody comes out and says those precise words, but it is the clear implication" -- a counter-argument with the convenient advantage of being completely unfalsifiable.

Indeed, I think this paradigm of moral purity is far more likely to be imposed on Jews from without than claimed from within. The fact of the Holocaust and other acts of anti-Semitism doesn't establish that Jews are unassailably virtuous. Why would it? There's nothing about oppression that purifies its victims -- imperfect people can be victims too. What it establishes is that non-Jews are not perfect; it destabilizes the hegemonic presence of non-Jewish voices and thus creates space for Jewish voices to be heard. To the casual observer that looks like a claim that Jews are "perfect", but that's only because Jews are claiming the right to speak on equal terms with a non-Jewish presence that had previously arrogated to itself a label of universal transcendence.

The frame that oppression makes the oppressed "perfect" is really more of a reactionary step. The framework sets up for Jews (and other minorities) a standard they can't possibly meet. And once they fail to meet it, it justifies stripping the label of "victim" and returning to the status quo where they can safely be ignored. It obviates the need to problematize the non-Jew in favor of providing a temporary elevation of the Jew to non-Jew status, contingent on the Jew maintaining a standard of conduct that nobody else can or is expected to meet. "From now on, Israel's cause will have to stand strictly on its merits"--"merits", here, defined wholly from a non-Jewish perspective and free from the distortive effect of a Jewish presence.

Goldstein is a Jewish writer, and he has the right to say what he wants. But this is really just evidence of how Jewish people can present anti-Semitic themes. I don't claim to know what is in Goldstein's heart, but the way he presents Jewish agency and Jewish contributions bears far less in common with how Jews typically conceive of ourselves, and more in common with what others typically say about us.

Maybe Try Zigging When They Expect You To Zag?

Yesterday, the UN General Assembly voted 138-9-41 to grant Palestine status as a non-member observer state. Israel and the United States were among the nine "no" votes, arguing that it was a symbolic distraction from the necessity of bilateral negotiations.

On the merits of this vote, I'm indifferent. I don't think UN votes accomplish anything useful, and it is already pretty well-known that the UN will happily pass any resolution that comes before it that is framed as pro-Palestine and/or anti-Israel. This resolution could have stated that Israel killed Roger Rabbit and the vote tally wouldn't have meaningfully differed. As for the ICC, I do think this is probably a red herring. The prosecutor would be exceptionally unlikely to take these cases, and if it did it may well start with prosecuting Hamas terrorism. I'd add that if the prosecutor (quite plausibly) declines to open a case on the grounds of complementarity (that Israeli courts can and do investigate these sorts of allegations effectively), that would actually be a pretty rare endorsement of Israel from an international legal body.

But nonetheless, I don't really fault Palestine for seeking even symbolic victories that antagonize their Israeli adversary. I don't like it either, but that's what happens when you're in an antagonistic relationship -- you seize opportunities to humiliate and piss off your opponent. Neither side is really innocent of this sort of behavior, and here at least I can respect why the symbolism is genuinely meaningful. And hey, if it allows Abbas to return to negotiations on the claim that he's now in a position of strength, so much the better.

My real question is why Israel didn't just go ahead and support the bid on purely tactical grounds. Look, Israel knew this resolution was going to pass. There was no doubt about that, which is why Israel began dialing back its threats of diplomatic retaliation and instead began mumbling about how this was all symbolic and didn't mean anything. Which -- maybe! But -- aside from the fact that if Israel had endorsed the bid I'd have given greater than 50/50 odds that Palestine would have pulled it -- if passage is inevitable and the substantive effect is negligible, why not vote in favor and gain some free credibility?

The answer, as usual, is probably nothing more than that the current Israeli government is comprised of idiots. Oh well.

A Sanctified Institution

Immigrant to America? Want citizenship? Forget things like the pesky DREAM Act! Senator Jon Kyl (R-AZ) has a better recommendation: just marry an American! After all, if marriage is kind of like buying a cow (which I'm given to understand that it is), why not buy American?

In reality, Jezebel pretty much says what I want to say:

if Kyl actually encouraging marriages for citizenship someone should let him know that's a Federal felony. So much for the sanctity of marriage, hypocrites. And even if marriage is a good option for someone, it isn't a totally safe bet, anyway — there are plenty of couples where one of the partners is found guilty of something like an expired visa and are given penalties that range from years to a lifetime. There are just so many issues here, and I have a feeling I'm not even scratching the surface.

I would add that -- criminal liability aside -- there is something rather bloodless about telling someone they should marry, not for love, not because of true connection, but in order to access a legislative privilege. If this is the GOP's big plan to win back Latinos, well, best of luck.

Record Skip

It was said by Sen. Lindsey Graham (R-SC) about Susan Rice's handling of Benghazi, but it might as well be any Republican on any issue: "I blame the president above all others."

The electoral honeymoon is over, I see.

Who is Who?

Mondoweiss (link warning) reposts Winona LaDuke:

"...euro-americans in the United States can't talk about Gaza, because we can't talk about Israel. Because we can't talk about the fact that the world is not suffering from a Israeli/Palestinian conflict, but that the world is suffering from the fact that Europe has never been able to deal with it's 'Jewish Question' without some sort of intense barbarity and horror from the Inquisition to the Holocaust. And that Europe, in particular 'Great' Britain, the masters of divide an conquer 'solved' the problem by supporting the radical, terrorist, extremist Zionists and their mad plan to resettle the 'homeland.' We can't talk about Israel because we can't talk about Wounded Knee. Because we can't talk about Sand Creek or Carlisle 'Boarding School.' Because we can't talk about forced sterilization or small pox blankets or Kit Carson and his scorched earth policy in the Southwest. Because we have Andrew Jackson on our twenty dollar bill. Because we are one huge settlement on stolen land. We can't talk about Israel because we are Israel."

We need to start with the racist exclusion of Sephardic and Mizrachi Jews from this story, since that exclusion is rampant in virtually all discourse about Israel and particularly shines through here. Israel exists in part because "Europe has never been able to deal with it's [sic] 'Jewish Question' without some sort of intense barbarity and horror," but also in part because the Arab world has been equally fruitless in its effort to resolve its "Jewish Question" without resorting to same. To reiterate: a plurality Israel's Jewish population is of non-White European descent. The median Israeli Jew is in Israel not because Europe couldn't resolve its Jewish problem, but because the Arab world couldn't resolve theirs. We can fairly say that the Arab world had historically been better than Europe in its treatment of Jews, we can also note that isn't a particularly high bar to clear. The important point is that the "Jewish question" is not solely a European phenomenon, and pretending that it is erases both the lives and life experiences of Israel's considerable non-White European population.

But put that aside, and let us unpack. LaDuke observes that the history of Jews in Europe is of Europeans slaughtering Jews. She accurately identifies the conditions Jews were facing in Europe that presaged the Zionist movement. Under normal circumstances if one is caught in an abusive relationship the right rational response to get the hell out of there, which is of course what Jews tried to do. But this response -- not sticking around to be slaughtered -- is labeled by LaDuke as "radical, terrorist, extremist [and] mad." Which just goes to show how upset people are, how jarring they find it to their expectations of what should be, when Jews don't die. Within the space of a single sentence LaDuke concedes that Jews in Europe were subjects of brutality and horror, then presumes that their desire to get out from under that thumb and go somewhere else to govern their own lives is naught but some sort of dominationist psychosis.

Even if one didn't think rebuilding a Jewish state in Israel was a legitimate response to European brutality (which lays upon LaDuke the obligation of proffering an alternative program for Jews beyond "sit around and hope Europe figures out a 'solution' to its 'Jewish question' before the next killing spree"), this is still a rather amazing explication of the mindset surrounding Zionism from the Jewish vantage point. But of course, the "Jewish vantage point" is precisely what's excluded from LaDuke's discussion. What we have instead is a substitution of foreign ideologies and symbolic interpretations of Jewish political action for what Jews said about themselves and perceived their own situation to be. In form, to be sure, this isn't a particularly uncommon form of anti-Semitism, but it is still worth pointing out. And I borrow again, as I love to do, from Christine Littleton: the heart of non-anti-Semitic method 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 about us."

All that being said, there is a link here between how we talk about Israel and our inability to reckon with our own colonialist history, which can actually fairly be closely tied to colonialist and dominationist impulses. There is amongst the European West a deep desire for absolution from a history of racist sins -- a history of colonialism being only but one. This desire is genuine, but it is also typically "cheap" (as in Bonhoeffer's "cheap grace") -- we want the absolution, but don't want to pay the penance.

Israel is valuable because it serves as a useful point of projection for our own sense of moral inadequacy. Opposing Israel offers psychological guilt-release. It is a scapegoat in the literal sense -- we can place our sins upon it and, through sacrifice, gain absolution (the goat, of course, actually pays the penalty). Moreover, unlike more plausible targets for absolving Western sins (e.g., the European states themselves), Israel is relatively marginal, relatively weak, and relatively isolated. One cannot express rabid anti-Americanism of this sort without incurring significant costs. The US isn't going anywhere, and if it did, it would entail severe costs on the people seeking absolution. Israel could plausibly be thrown down, and if it did it would entail virtually no costs on those "repenting". As I remarked once before: "all the joy of liberal guilt-induced self-flagellation, except the wounds show up on someone else's body." For all the talk about Israel's terrifying power, it's Israel's relative marginality and weakness (compared to Europe or America or England) that renders it an attractive target.

The framework of "we are Israel" is very interesting from this standpoint. Wouldn't it make more sense to say "Israel is us"? After all, even if we thought that Israel was a valid case of colonialism (which it isn't), surely it isn't the paradigm case. When the United States distributed smallpox blankets or massacred Native Americans, we weren't emulating the Israeli example. The absolute worst you can say about Zionism -- ignoring, as LaDuke does, the massive difference in motivations and circumstances, and erasing non-European Jews entirely, and making a ton of other concessions to unreality -- is that it was emulating the European example. If that's the case, Israel is flawed as we are, but also as complex as we are and as redeemable as we are.

But note the subtle shift of responsibility here -- our misdeeds are characterized as following another's evil example. Israel stands in for our own misdeeds -- it is the platonic ideal of our own wrongs. We are not intrinsically bad, we're only bad insofar as we're "Israel". Our absolution comes when we're no longer Israel. It offers a way to maintain a sense of moral growth and possibility by externalizing the source of the sins onto another body deemed irredeemably corrupt.

This move only works effectively when "we" and "Israel" are unified as a single entity -- it would not be penance to oppose somebody else's wrong, after all. And so Israel must be refolded into the very European community whose brutal anti-Semitism caused (in part) its formation in the first place. This is why adopting an independent Jewish narrative of Zionism is so dangerous -- acknowledging there is such a narrative and that it runs independent from (and often orthogonal to) the story of European depravity would threaten the fictive unity between Israel and "us", essential for the vitality of the repentance project. And so it is that the Jewish perspective is squeezed out and replaced with a foreign entity; our own evil spirits personified. That, of course, is something very useful. But it is cheap grace.