ISIS Gives a Holiday Callout

In a radio message aimed at boosting his forces' morale, ISIS leader Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi wants people to know he hasn't forgotten about Israel:

"The Jews think we forget about it and got distracted from it," the ISIS leader purportedly said. "No, oh Jews. We have not forgotten Palestine and never will."

Aw, he remembered us! It's the thought that counts. Anyway, somebody should forward this message to Vicki Kirby -- she'll certainly be relieved to hear it (Adrian Kaba, by contrast, might think this is just a smokescreen to throw folks off the trail).

Christmas Eve Roundup: 12/24/15

I'm at my girlfriend's parents' house in Owatonna, Minnesota for the week. I'm tempted to duck into a Chinese restaurant tomorrow just to see who (member of the tribe or otherwise) will show up in the rural Midwest.

* * *

A federal court has struck down the provision of federal law prohibiting the registration of offensive trademarks. Most people are following this issue because it is the legal basis for stripping protection from the Washington Redskins. But this case involved an Asian-American band that sought to trademark its name, "The Slants." This nicely illustrates one of the central problems with "hate speech" regulation (broadly defined) -- it is hard (at least as a legal rule) to separate out subtle, subversive, or reclaimative usages of slurs.

Ha'aretz suggests that Arab countries are quietly reaching out to their Jewish diaspora (particularly in the United States) as a means of establishing back-channel links to Israel.

Israeli authorities have opened an investigation into the grotesque video showing Jewish wedding attendees celebrating the murder of a Palestinian child in the Duma firebombing.

Mark Graber has thoughtful comments on BDS.

Kevin Jon Heller and I had a very nice conversation about how discourse about anti-Semitism is situated inside discourse about Israel.

Uncovering Cultural Dissent

Two Muslim women, Asra Q. Nomani and Hala Arafa, have an editorial in the Washington Post objecting to persons wearing a hijab as expressions of cultural solidarity with Muslim women. It is perhaps a sign of the times that I initially assumed the objection would be on cultural appropriation grounds. But actually, Nomani and Arafa contend that demanding women wear a hijab (and the authors also object to the term) is an unduly restrictive interpretation of the Koran promoted by conservative Muslim groups in order to repress women. The solidaristic impulses of persons partaking in "World Hijab Day" are in effect promoting as authentic a particular conservative interpretation of Islam that is oppressive to women.

I'm obviously unqualified to weigh in on the theological debates. But the column raises some difficult questions regarding the project of cultural solidarity. There seem to be two main tacks one can take. On the one hand, one can affirm the rights of the culture as it is commonly presented. The problem is that this, in effect, means reifying the power of the dominant actors within a given culture, at the expense of dissidents promoting alternative views (this was a point raised by Timothy Burke when talking about "cultural appropriation, see also Madhavi Sunder's superb article Cultural Dissent for more on this). This, of course, is what the authors are objecting to: by treating the hijab as the quintessential requirement of what Islam requires out of women, "solidaristic" women act to marginalize feminist dissidents within Islam that reject the hijab's mandatory place within the faith.

The other approach some take is to look for particular elements within a culture whose values seem to be consonant with one's own, and stand with those persons. Most western feminists in their own lives would, of course, fervently reject any demand that they wear a head scarf or otherwise obscure their bodies in a particular way. So they would express solidarity with Muslim women by expressing solidarity with those women who (like Nomani and Arafa) are struggling for similar liberation from oppressive gender norms within their own culture. The problem with this strategy is that it feels quite a bit like cherry-picking. Indeed, it's not clear how it's a form of solidarity at all: one isn't actually interested in cultural rights qua cultural rights, but is taking an external set of value preferences and hoping that the culture converts to adopt them.

There are no doubt some who read that last paragraph and thought "so what?" But one of the motivating instincts behind respecting cultures qua cultures, at least to some degree, is a justified suspicion that we lack a sufficiently thick socio-historical understanding of the relevant norms of the culture so as to be confident in our appraisals of what their particular practices really "mean". "Anything sounds bad out of context," after all, and context is often lacking when one is gazing at a distant culture from afar. Couple that with lingering attitudinal biases which can color one's appraisals of the relevant culture and there are good reasons to be appropriately cautious about one's instincts. That goes double when somebody from the culture comes up and starts saying exactly what you want to hear about it. These worries -- and they are legitimate ones; they're a large part of why I think some form of "respect for culture" is important -- are I think what prompts folks to swing sharply to the other side and adopt an uncritical solidaristic position (which I also think is ultimately harmful and untenable).

So there is a real difficulty here, and one has to be judicious between taking others as they are and a sort of blind "solidarity" which ends up being a rote ratification of pre-existing power. Culture is as it does, and I tend to reject claims that Islam "really" does or "really" doesn't require the hijab (and I view claims about what "is" authentically Jewish or American or what have you in the same way). These things are contestable and are borne out by practice. As a liberal, it is important to me that people have the right to engage in these contestations, so I think we should be appropriately skeptical of simply jumping in to affirm one side of the debate over the other. Ultimately, I think we need to respect the right of dissidents to dissent, but also need to engage with cultures as they are and not assume that they are simply being outrageous when there seems to be a divergence from our own view. Cherry-picking is what gets us "I'm not racist, Herman Cain agrees with me" or "I'm not anti-Semitic, some of my best friends are JVP", and that's not really a satisfactory response. The point is that actually respecting cultures while respecting cultural dissidents is difficult work, that requires considerable intellectual adroitness beyond that which is often admitted by the pure "solidarity" model.

Obama's "Race Card" Ploys Somehow Everywhere and Nowhere

Peter Wehner has a column today titled "Obama has Worsened Race Relations". Here are some things in that column:

• A 2009 prediction that, if the President's poll numbers drop, "be prepared for the 'race card' to be played" coupled with an in-advance judgment that any claims of racism over the next eight years "will be ... transparently false".
• The claim that Obama, along with Eric Holder, has "acted in ways that have divided us, stoked resentments, and heightened tensions and mistrust."
• The claim that Obama and Holder "have repeatedly put a racial frame around incidents that have nothing to do with race."
• The claim that Obama and Holder "have sought to exploit grievances rather than overcome them."
• The claim that "Obama, throughout his presidency, has been a master at dividing Americans of every race and class order to advance his own political interests."

Here is something you won't find in Mr. Wehner's column:

• Any actual examples (quotes, statements, policies, announcement -- anything) from President Obama that even supposedly demonstrates the President doing any of these things.

Fancy that.

Kuwait Airways Drops NYC-London Route To Avoid Non-Discrimination Obligations

In October, I flagged an administrative decision by the Department of Transportation which concluded that Kuwait Airways refusal to board an Israeli citizen on a flight from New York to London violated the carrier's non-discrimination obligations. The airline contended that its policy was in accordance with Kuwaiti law prohibiting (on pain of hard labor) it from contracting with any Israeli, but the Department (rightly, in my view) decided that otherwise unlawful national origin discrimination does not become permissible just because it is mandated by a foreign nation.

This week, the airline announced it was ceasing its New York to London service. A challenge to the DOT decision remains pending before the D.C. Circuit, so it seems likely that Kuwait Airways will return to the route if it is allowed to resume discriminating against Israeli passengers. But for the time being, its stance is clear: If we have to board Israelis, we won't board anyone.

The Allure of the Alphas

There's a trope among a certain wing of Nice Guys cum MRA types, that describes who women are attracted to. "Sure, women say they're interested in nice, smart guys, but it's all a lie. Ever notice how all the girls hang off the meathead high school quarterback and not the class nerd? That's because women are attracted to the alphas. It's evolution, man. They just can't resist the allure of power, even when it's in the hands of a some rich idiot jock who doesn't respect them and is clearly just using them for his own ends. It's like moths to a flame. Their little lady-brains are so primitive."

And then they laugh and laugh, and attend a Donald Trump rally.

Is Shmuel Rosner Serious?

Prominent Israeli columnist Shmuel Rosner has an essay up with the interesting title "Did President Rivlin just choose Obama and Roger Waters over fellow Israelis?" It's an interesting title because neither Obama nor Waters really figure into the article, nor is there any reason one should be associated with the other. Rosner's article concerns Rivlin's alleged diminishing credibility on the right due to various figures he's met here in America. The list of alleged apostasies are as follows:

In the last couple of days Rivlin is at the center of controversy because of three things he dared to do: meet President Obama and say nice things about him; refuse to dance to the Orthodox tune talking to progressive US Jews; participate in a conference (organized by Haaretz Daily) in which several controversial figures and organizations also participated.

For this, Rosner contends, Rivlin has earned the ire of "leaders and voters of Israel's right are angry, or disappointed with Rivlin for doing all these things."

The title of my post is meant in earnest: Is Rosner serious? This detailing of sins strikes me as a mockery: Look at the whiny right-wingers -- they're outraged that the President of Israel dared to be nice to the leader his country's closest ally. And he attended a conference with liberal Israeli groups! Why, he might as well join Jewish Voice for Peace! And the descriptions don't really get any better: it's a parody of highly attenuated "was in a room with someone who met with someone who's part of an organization that...." One of Rosner's sources, for example, complains that Rivlin's White House meeting was tainted by  supposed appeal to a "Reform rabbi who is a member of organizations supportive of BDS" (which Rabbi? Which organizations? How are they "supportive"? The mystery remains).

Likewise Rivlin's speech at the Haaretz conference: the speakers ranged from Samantha Power to Breaking the Silence; the latter being so horrible that Rivlin should have boycotted the event altogether.  Israeli MK Aymeh Odeh spoke as well; maybe they could have compared no platforming notes.  And if you're still wondering how Roger Waters plays into all this, well, apparently he showed up at said conference. Not as a speaker or an invitee, just a guy who attended. That sure is headline-worthy.

So in that sense, it looked like Rosner was having a bit of fun at the expense of oversensitive Israeli conservatives. But through the rest of the column, Rosner seems to be playing it straight. He says Rivlin "was too flexible in accepting the invitation to the conference", though he considers the mistake an understandable one. As a warrant, Rosner links to another of his columns where he describes Breaking the Silence as an "annoyance" and "problematic". Perhaps so, but one has to think that "other speakers are annoying" represents an alarmingly low threshold for refusing to speak at an event.

I'm really having trouble wrapping my head around the staggeringly minor set of supposed misdeeds and the seemingly genuine report that Rivlin has sacrificed his credibility. Rosner's pentultimate paragraph concludes:

The last couple of days could be the days in which he annoyed too many Israelis too much. These could be the days in which he lost his ability to explain because his explanations no longer carry much weight with certain Israelis. These could be the days in which some Israeli circles will arrive at the conclusion that the President flipped because he cares more for the cheers from abroad than for the barraging at home.

I mean, really? Really? It's hard to take that with any degree of seriousness. But maybe he's right, at least in his assessment of the tolerance levels of Israeli conservatives. But if that's so, then the Israeli right-wing needs to learn to grow a spine. Because if this is a real complaint, they have a real problem with perspective, and Israeli's position is too precarious to indulge such an abject display of pathos.

The Bitter Polls with the Sweet

I've blogged before when public opinion polls out of Palestine have yielded heartening results. Due avoidance of selection bias means that I have to do the same when the polls are less positive. The latest poll data from the Palestinian Center for Policy and Survey Research is just a cascade of bad news. Most Palestinians (67%) support stabbing attacks. A plurality (46%) think that armed resistance is the best way to achieve Palestinian national aspirations; that number shoots up to 60% in the absence of peace negotiations.

Perhaps most disheartening are the numbers regarding end-game solutions. Only 45% of Palestinians support a two-state solution, 54% are opposed. Lest one thinks that what is favored in the alternative is a liberal egalitarian paradise, that polls even worse: a whopping 70% oppose "a one-state solution in which Arabs and Jews enjoy equal rights," with only 29% in favor (this, at least, is consistent with the more optimistic polling I linked to several years ago, which also had "equal rights in one state" a distant third place choice behind two states for two peoples, and a one-state solution for Palestinians only).

One can dig into the data and try to extract some pearls of hope, but they're few and far between. This is really just all around bad.

Understanding Mistakes: The Odeh "Snub" of the CPMJO

Last week, a meeting between the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and Israeli Palestinian MK Ayman Odeh fell apart when the latter refused to enter offices that the CPMJO shares with the Jewish Agency. Odeh contends that the Jewish Agency is an important element of anti-Arab discrimination in Israel, and asserted that he would have been happy to meet in a different location. The CPMJO, for its part, refused to endorse what was an effective "no platforming" of one of its partner organizations. The incident marred an otherwise important and productive trip to America where Odeh connected with many prominent Jewish organizations.

I consider both parties to have made a mistake. Odeh shouldn't have refused to meet in the offices, and when he did the CPMJO should have accommodated by moving the meeting. But the mistakes are understandable ones stemming from understandable motives.

Odeh already faces pressure from some of his Arab constituents for meeting with Jewish groups at all; its possible that this would have been a bridge too far (or, less optimistically, that he needed to take a stand like this to whip up said base and show he hasn't gone soft). These are realistic concerns faced by any politician. As for the CPMJO, right now one the most serious threats to Jewish global equality are efforts to box out Jewish institutions from normal processes of public dialogue. So anything that even hints at no platforming or boycotting pushes on a very sensitive pressure point.

Ultimately, I don't think these concerns should have trumped. It's too important to take the chances to build connections and bridges when given the opportunity. And Odeh is perhaps a once-in-a-generation political leader of the Israeli Palestinian community with whom American Jews desperately need a bond. Though this was a mistake, hopefully the fact that it was an understandable mistake will not cause it to permanently sabotage future opportunities.

UPDATE: I consider this to be a positive step.

Catholicism ... WOW!

This looks like a really great document released by the Vatican:

The new document, titled “The Gifts and Calling of God are Irrevocable,” discussed at length how Christianity is rooted in Judaism. Because of this, it said, the Church is “obliged to view evangelization to Jews, who believe in the one God, in a different manner from that to people of other religions and world views.” 

It added, “In concrete terms this means that the Catholic Church neither conducts nor supports any specific institutional mission work directed towards Jews.” 

Goals in Jewish-Catholic dialogue, according to the document, include “joint engagement throughout the world for justice, peace, conservation of creation, and reconciliation” in a way that would make the religious contribute toward world peace. “Religious freedom guaranteed by civil authority is the prerequisite for such dialogue and peace,” it said. 

“In Jewish-Christian dialogue the situation of Christian communities in the state of Israel is of great relevance, since there — as nowhere else in the world — a Christian minority faces a Jewish majority,” the document said. “Peace in the Holy Land — lacking and constantly prayed for — plays a major role in dialogue between Jews and Christians.” 

Among other goals, the document said, were “jointly combating all manifestations of racial discrimination against Jews and all forms of anti-Semitism, which have certainly not yet been eradicated and re-emerge in different ways in various contexts.” It particularly stressed the need for “unceasing vigilance and sensitivity in the social sphere” and called for tangible joint Jewish-Catholic cooperation, such as in charitable activity to help “the poor, disadvantaged and sick.”

 Sounding the right notes for me.

The Natural Interpretation, Part II

Last year, I reported on Ismo, a Dutch rapper whose lyrics included the lines "I hate those fucking Jews more than the Nazis” and “don’t shake hands with faggots.” His story was notable less for the specific lyrics than for his amazing defense that "By ‘faggots’ I didn’t mean homosexuals and by ‘Jews’ I didn’t mean all Jews" (the Jews he had in mind were the "Zionist" ones, naturally). In any event, Ismo complained bitterly about people "twisting his words" so that "I hate those fucking Jews" and "don't shake hands with faggots" somehow got misinterpreted as something prejudiced.

Anyway, apparently Ismo just was acquitted of charges of hate speech in a Dutch court, which found the lyrics to be offensive but protected as artistic expression. Anti-discrimination advocates are urging the prosecution to appeal the verdict.

Since I'm an American lawyer with the usual set of free speech commitments that identity entails, my thoughts are the following:

• Under American rules regulating free speech, this is obviously the right outcome, as American constitutional jurisprudence does not allow the proscription of "hate speech" per se.
• The Netherlands, like most European countries, has a considerably less speech-protective legal regime that does permit hate speech bans.
• As a matter of policy, I generally support the American free speech position over its European competitors.
• That said, where a country does have a legal regime akin to that of the Dutch, I want it to be enforced evenly; Jews and gays should be able to claim its protections to the same degree as anybody else.
• I have no knowledge of the general contours of Dutch hate speech jurisprudence so as to speak to whether this case deviates from the norm.
• Regardless of the proper legal resolution of the case, there is no question that Ismo's lyrics were homophobic and anti-Semitic and his protestations to the contrary are laughable.

Rep. David Jolly (R-FL) Calls on Trump To Drop Out

In a speech before the House of Representatives, GOP Representative David Jolly (R-FL) called on Donald Trump to drop out of the presidential race over his comments urging a ban on Muslims entering the United States. It won't happen of course -- a recent national poll has Trump taking a stunning 41% of GOP primary voters -- but it's a noble sentiment. And, it must be said, a bold one: Jolly is no deeply entrenched incumbent; he's running in the GOP primary right now to replace Marco Rubio in the Senate (nor can he simply return to his home district, which got a lot bluer in redistricting).

The interesting thing, of course, will be what happens if the impossible becomes reality and Trump wins the nomination. Will folks like Jolly recant their condemnations? Or will we see a genuine crackup within the elite Republican class -- many of whom (make no mistake) revile Trump?

What makes Trump such a threat to the Republican mainstream is that not only is he willing to say the quiet parts out loud, but because of his vast personal wealth (and lack of political ambitions other than the presidency) he's relatively insulated from normal pressure by party elites. So he can appeal entirely to the raw, angry id of a base that is sick of having to keep the quiet parts quiet.

Those Republicans who had previously shrugged off dog whistles in that direction as simple expedient political misdirection now may face a very stark moral choice. Jolly's speech is a bold one even now, given his current political position. But it will take courage of another magnitude to continue to forthrightly condemn Trump's bigotry if he actually wins the nomination.

Stages of Writing a Paper: A Personal Narrative

As an academic, a large part of my job is writing scholarly papers. For me, at least, I've discovered that the process tends to follow a pretty standard set of steps.

(1) "I have an interesting idea. I should turn it into a paper!"

(2) "This paper will be so easy to write! Why, I've practically written the whole thing already if you count what I've said when talking to myself in the shower!"

(3) "So this blank page needs to turn into ... fifty pages of text. That doesn't seem very doable. Maybe I need more shower-talk."

(4) [4 months later] "Okay, let's just start throwing words on a page, if only so that damn blank page one stops staring at me."

(5) "The good news is there are now many words on many pages. The bad news is that most of the words bear little connection to an overarching theme, a unified structure, or even each other."

(6) "An arbitrary deadline is approaching! Just slam out something with complete sentences in a comprehensible order and edit from there!"

(7) "Huh, this is actually looking decent. I knew I liked this idea. A couple more edits and I can really make it sparkle."

(8) "I AM A GOD AMONG SCHOLARS! ALL THE JOURNALS WILL PROSTRATE THEMSELVES BEFORE ME FOR THE RIGHT TO PUBLISH THIS DIVINE MASTERPIECE!"

(9) "Okay, I'm happy with the content. Now it's time for my favorite part: futzing around with individual sentence structure [this is not sarcastic -- I really do love doing this]."

(10) "Alright, microedits are done. Now let's reread it as a cohesive whole."

(11) "Actually, now that I'm reading it again I hate everything about this paper. I also hate myself for taking an interesting idea and ruining it by implanting it in the body of this wretched paper. This sentiment probably has everything to do with my shortcomings as a writer and nothing to do with the fact that I've now read 94 drafts of it over the course of a year and a half."

(12) [Submit]

FBI Releases 2014 Hate Crime Data

When it came to hate crimes, not much changed from 2013 to 2014. It still is the case that most hate crimes have a racial motivation (47% of all hate crimes); religion and sexual orientation tie for second place, being the subject of 19% of all offenses each. Of racial hate crimes most of the targets were African-American (64%).

When it comes to religious-based hate crimes, Jews continue to be the most common targets -- 58% of such attacks targeted Jews (Muslims were the second-most frequent targets at 16%). Interestingly, at least as far as the numbers go the experience of gay men parallels that of Jews almost exactly: 58% of sexual orientation based crimes target them (and again, there were essentially the same number of sexual orientation based hate crimes as there were religious crimes). So, you know, we're in it together.

There is some good news, though: hate crimes overall dipped slightly from 2013. So that's a little heartening, I guess.

College Is/Is Not About Challenging Cherished Beliefs (Choose One)

Even five years ago, the dominant conservative complaint about American university culture was that it was too offensive. They'd seize upon some program or event they found outrageous -- typically something sex-related like the "Vagina Monologues" -- and talk about how colleges were imposing libertine corruption on our nation's youth. Or they'd pull out some class focusing on Marxism and complain about "leftist indoctrination" of radical ideas. Presentation of such views in an academic setting was, we were told, offensive to conservative and Christian students and hostile to traditional American values. Even as recently as this past summer we saw shades of this at Duke University, where conservatives complained about a freshman reading assignment of an LGBT-themed graphic novel. Such an assignment was uncomfortable and at odds with some students' Christian outlooks and, the argument went, they should not be exposed to it.

Then, seemingly without skipping a beat, the talking points did a complete 180. Now the line is that there is absolutely no right not to be "offended" in a university setting, and persons who register such complaints are whiny, coddled millennials who don't understand the point of a liberal arts education. Any concerns or protests regarding what content is and is not presented in university events, classes, and lectures pose a dire threat to free speech. Is something making you uncomfortable on campus? Good, because that's the whole point of college: it exists to challenge students and make them think critically about what they believe, not to make them comfortable and quiescent.

I write this because, well, I think Tennessee Lt. Gov. Ron Ramsey missed the transition memo.

Students attend college to study great thinkers and prepare for an increasingly competitive job market. They don't go to have their values and traditions sidelined and undermined. I can assure you that university offices of diversity will be subject to increased scrutiny during our upcoming legislative session.

This was in response to a non-binding university recommendation that holiday parties be non-sectarian rather than be overtly about Christmas. (And -- brief digression -- how is that Republican Jewish voter outreach going, Mr. Ramsey?).

Anyway, the clear principle being affirmed here is that the American college experience is not about undermining people's values and sidelining their traditions, unless those people are not white Christian men. In which case, we should all deeply worry about how these groups haven't inculcated the value that college is about being challenged and being uncomfortable.

Naftali Bennett's Big Ideas

Shorter Naftaili Bennett: "A demilitarized Palestinian state wouldn't be sustainable in the long-term. But a permanent arrangement whereby Palestinians are only allowed to vote on local matters and are precluded from free movement in the vast majority of the state that they are deemed a part of? That sounds like something everyone would be cool with. I am a serious and realistic thinker."

When People Say You're Brave, People Are Describing a Problem

Janet Freedman has an outstanding piece in The Forward on why the National Women’s Studies Association's BDS Vote was "over before it began" (the vote passed by a crushing 653-84 margin). It's a post that demands reading, and it is particularly hard reading given Evelyn Beck's powerful 1988 description of how Jewish women have historically been marginalized in Women's Studies. All that's old is new again, it seems. One wonders how many of the voters are familiar with Beck's article, and how many of those that are, care.

Some themes are beginning to emerge. I had known about the relative marginality of discourse on Jews in feminist circles from Beck's work and, from my own reading, in legal anti-discrimination circles. Then I find out "also anthropology." Then someone else chimes in: "also art history." One starts to notice a pattern.

Freedman also writes the following:

Following my remarks at the BDS round table, there was just one comment from the audience validating some of my points, but I received many private expressions of support and appreciation for my “courage.”  Several people told me it would be damaging to their careers to openly express opposition to the resolution.

I can personally attest to this as well, because it is something I've encountered every time I've given similar remarks in progressive academically-inclined circles. It happens in classroom settings. It happened after the UConn conference. It happened during my ill-fated stint guest-blogging at Feministe (I hadn't read those posts or comments in awhile -- I still can't bear to reread the one's on Feministe itself -- but I'm now amazed at how my reaction parallels some of the arguments regarding "safe spaces" and whatnot found in the campus protests). Invariably, someone or someones come up to me and, very quietly, thank me for saying what I said, lamenting that they don't feel comfortable doing the same, and commending me for my courage.

And if people keep telling me how brave I am for talking forthrightly about anti-Semitism, people are describing a problem. A real problem, not a ginned-up, fake, bad-faith one concocted by over-sensitive Jews always crying anti-Semitism to browbeat good people into obedience. And a problem that contemporary academia is in deep denial about.

Freedman's article also makes evident something else I've only recently come to grips with: However anti-Semitic the BDS movement is, it's never more anti-Semitic than when responding to complaints of anti-Semitism. Here's how the NWSA addressed the contention that the BDS resolution might be anti-Semitic:

"(W)hat is really anti-Semitic is the attempt to identify all Jews with a philosophy that many find abhorrent to the traditions of social justice and universality that Judaism enshrines."

That is nothing short of appalling. It's appalling for the reasons Freedman identifies: it divides out a few "good Jews" from the Jewish people writ large to tag the rest as "abhorrent to the traditions of social justice and universality." It's appalling for imposing an impossible standard of unanimity on an outgroup before their complaints will be addressed; as if the mere presence of disagreement warrants dismissing the community writ large. Compare

"Is urging the exclusion of the Yale student protesters from the academic community racist? What is really racist is the attempt to identify all Blacks with a movement that many find abhorrent to the traditions of free speech and academic freedom."

To call such a statement cringeworthy would be far too generous (#NotAllBlacks?). It is surely incompatible with any commitment to taking the outgroup and its concerns seriously, as equals.

But even if it weren't appalling for any of those reasons, one still must admire the gall of the NWSA in instructing Jews "what is really anti-Semitic." Thank goodness they were there to teach us! Who knows what sort of uppity ideas about "naming our own oppression" we might have come to in their absence!

The fundamental problem is what I outlined in the anthropology post: progressive academics who would recoil at expressions of alienation by many outgroups do not feel the same sense of loss when it is Jews who do the complaining. The reasons why feed into deeply-rooted anti-stereotypes about Jewish power, but Jews are not the only ones who have experienced this. Feminists learned a hard lesson when Cherrie Moraga lamented in 1981 about how dominant women "seem to feel no loss, no lack, no absence" when women of color are excluded, and how this indifference has "hurt [her] deeply". It is a lesson they still have not learned for Jews. And if they don't feel a loss when Jews feel afraid to speak to them -- indeed, if they feel aggrieved when Jews dare to speak to them -- it is unclear how, if at all, Jewish arguments can do any good at changing things.

Timothy Burke on Cultural Appropriation and Cultural Regulation

Timothy Burke has an absolutely superb blog post on the latest flare-ups about cultural appropriation and his concerns about how some student activists are unwittingly reinforcing a project of bureaucratic regulation of cultural expression. It's definitely a "read the whole thing" bit, but here's a taste:

The concepts of appropriation and ownership.... is where moves are being made that are at least potentially reactionary and may in fact lead to the cultural and social confinement or restriction of everyone, including people of color, women, GLBQT people, and so on. In some forms, the argument against appropriation is closely aligned with dangerous kinds of ethnocentrism and ultra-nationalism, with ideas about purity and exclusivity. It can serve as the platform for an attack on the sort of cosmopolitan and pluralistic society that many activists are demanding the right to live within. 

Appropriation in the wrong institutional hands is a two-edged sword: it might instruct an “appropriator” to stop wearing, using or enacting something that is “not of their culture”, but it might also require someone to wear, use and enact their own “proper culture”.

When I have had students read Frederick Lugard’s The Dual Mandate in British Tropical Africa, which was basically the operator’s manual for British colonial rule in the early 20th Century, one of the uncomfortable realizations many of them come to is that Lugard’s description of the idea of indirect rule sometimes comes close to some forms of more contemporary “politically correct” multiculturalism. Strong concepts of appropriation have often been allied with strong enforcement of stereotypes and boundaries. “Our culture is these customs, these clothing, this food, this social formation, this everyday practice: keep off” has often been quickly reconfigured by dominant powers to be “Fine: then if you want to claim membership in that culture, please constantly demonstrate those customs, clothing, food, social formations and everyday practices–and if you don’t, you’re not allowed to claim membership”. 

And then further, “And please don’t demonstrate other customs, clothing, food, social formations and everyday practices: those are for other cultures. Stick to where you belong.” I recall a friend of mine early in our careers who was told on several occasions during her job searches that since she was of South Asian descent, she’d be expected to formally mentor students from South Asia as well as Asian-Americans, neither of which she particularly identified with. I can think of many friends and colleagues who have identified powerfully with a particular group or community but who do not dress as or practice some of what’s commonly associated with that group. 

[...]

What I think many activists mean to forbid is not appropriation but disrespect, not borrowing but hostile mockery. The use of costumes as weapons, as tools of discrimination. But it’s important to say precisely that and no more, and not let the word appropriation stand in for a much more specific situational critique of specific acts of harmful expression and representation. “Appropriation” is being used essentially to anticipate, to draw a comprehensive line proactively in order to avoid having to sort out with painful specificity which costumes and parties are offensive and which are not after the fact of their expression. 

[...] 

One of the things that I heard coming from a substantial wave of student activism here several years ago was that they held themselves to be already knowledgeable about all the things that they felt a good citizen and ethical person should know. It was the other students, the absent students, the students who don’t study such subjects, who worried them. And some of the activists had a touching faith in a way in the power of our faculty’s teaching to remake the great unwashed of the student body. If only they took the right classes, they’d do the right thinking. As one Swarthmore student in spring 2013 said in the group I was in, “I can’t believe there are students here who graduate without having heard the word intersectionality.” 

This moment worried me, even though it is important as always to remember: this was a young person, and I said things under similar circumstances that I would be deeply embarrassed to hear quoted directly back to me. It worried me because I hear that same concern a lot across the entire space of cultural activism, both on and off-campuses. 

It worries me first because that student and many similar activists are wrong when they assume that what they don’t like in the culture is a result of the absence of the ideas and knowledge that they hold dear. Far more students here have been in a course where concepts like “intersectionality” come up than this student thought. All political ideologies in the contemporary American public sphere, from the most radical to the most reactionary, have a troubling tendency to assume that agreement with their views is the natural state of the mass of people except for a thin sliver of genuinely bad actors, and therefore where a lack of agreement or acceptance holds, it must be because the requisite knowledge has been kept from the masses. This is a really dangerous proposition, because it blinds any political actor to the possibility that many people have have heard what you have to say and don’t agree for actual reasons–reasons that you’ll have to reckon with eventually. 

It worries me second because I think some activists may be subconsciously thinking that if they can sufficiently command custodial or institutional power, they will not have to reckon with such disagreement. Not only does that mistake custodial power as permanently and inevitably friendly to their own interests, it is where the temptation to use class power against other social groups will enter in, has already entered in.
This is what worries me most. The thing that I wish that student had recognized is that some of the people that he wishes knew the word intersectionality already know the reality of it. They might not have the vocabulary he does, but they have the phenomenology right enough. Perhaps more right than the student did.

That is, I concede, a pretty long taste. But the whole thing is nonetheless worthwhile. Timothy Burke was one of the very first bloggers I read, and for whatever reason he had kind of fallen off of my radar screen. This is a mistake on my part, and one I will hopefully remember to correct in my reading habits.

JVP Just Can't Quit Alison Weir

Hey remember that time that Jewish Voice for Peace cut ties with Alison Weir due to her anti-Semitism due to her not bothering to hide the obvious fact that the totally-not-anti-Semitic positions she shares with the JVP are also widely-beloved by neo-Nazis? Well, that lasted all of six months.

Jewish Voice for Peace and CAIR continue to sponsor talks by blood-libel advocate Alison Weir. https://t.co/wL3QbVOJdI

— Adam Holland (@ad_holland) November 24, 2015

Who could have predicted!

Jeremy Corbyn and Donald Trump: United in Grievance

The claim that Bernie Sanders is the left-wing equivalent of Donald Trump has always been absurd. The real parallel is newly-minted UK Labor chief Jeremy Corbyn. Like Trump, Corbyn appeals to a really nasty id deep inside their party's base, who are delighted that someone is finally saying aloud the extremist things they've thought for years but have not dared say until recently. And like Trump, Corbyn's base is driven by a sense of grievance and victimization, allowing him to defy predictions that he'd fade once the media took their more fringe-y (or outright vicious) positions and placed a spotlight on them. Indeed, such attention is an aid rather than a hindrance; the media pointing out Corbyn's extremism only fuels his supporters' sense that its them against the evil powers-that-be. Which pretty much has been the story of Trump's campaign, when you think about it: the media just assuming the fever would eventually break, and being ever-more dumbfounded when it doesn't.