In my roundup the other day, I included the case of an Muslim death row inmate in Alabama who had received a stay of execution by the 11th Circuit because the state was refusing to let his Imam be with him during his execution (the state would have allowed a Christian chaplain, who was a prison employee, in the room). I noted that Alabama appealing the stay -- but I almost didn't bother, since in my head I figured there was no chance the Supreme Court would get involved. Why would they? The stay was at most a minor inconvenience, the Establishment Clause problem seemed obvious and extreme, and there was no pressing issue here that demanded high court intervention to stop the case from proceeding at its own pace.
Shows what I know. In a 5-4 decision (over a brutal Kagan dissent), the Supreme Court vacated the stay and allowed the execution to proceed. The inmate had filed his challenge too late -- not that it was actually barred, mind you, the Court just decided of its own discretion that the inmate was dilatory and that therefore it wouldn't allow the 11th Circuit to hear the case (never mind that, based on the record available, it seems that the inmate filed his case in a perfectly timely fashion).
I have to confess, this rattled me -- more than I would have anticipated -- and I'm clearly not the only one. There are times when courts issue rulings I disagree with, and there are times that courts -- even the Supreme Court, with near-infinite discretion over its own docket -- are effectively compelled to step in and issue a decision in fraught circumstances where some people are going to be displeased with the outcome.
But this wasn't one of those cases. There was no need for the Court to step in here; indeed, it was a shockingly aggressive intervention in a case where the balance of equities seemed to run decisively in favor of the inmate. In this context, the Court's decision -- and the meager faux-technical rationale behind (that doesn't even seem to stand on its own weight) -- feels worse than wrong. It feels petty. It feels mean-spirited, and it feels cruel. And while there are many times where I disagree with this Court on important issues, it is rare that I've felt that they were cruel.
But that's what this decision was. I don't have a philosophical objection to the death penalty (though I have a welter of objections to how it is administered in practice). But I've always felt very strongly that it is important to treat even condemned inmates with respect and dignity -- that capital punishment does not license dehumanization. We're already locking them in a cage and then killing them, visiting further indignities upon them seems gratuitous. So whenever I see rabble-rousers start targeting "last meals", or a prisoner's few hours of "recreation time" because they're prisoners, they're the worst of the worst, I blanch. Such minor nods towards the continued humanity of the condemned are deeply rooted in our nation's history and tradition; they are part of what separates a justice system from unchannelled and unconstrained vengeance.
It should be needless to say that allowing a man facing execution whatever comfort and support he might get from a pastor of his faith is also part of that tradition: it is cruel -- obviously and needlessly -- to deny him even that much. Indeed, the obviousness of this point is why Alabama has a (Christian) chaplain on staff and available to begin with. So to deny that small comfort to an inmate because of his Muslim faith represents such a striking departure from tradition and practice that it is hard not to see it as motivated by religious animus -- that Muslims don't deserve whatever comfort and pastoral care they might receive from their false clerics. Particularly in the wake of the Muslim ban decision, one could forgive those who now seriously wonder if the basic human equality of the Muslim community is acknowledged at the highest court in our land.
This decision is not a "great" decision. It sets no sweeping precedent, it's (nominal) basis on the alleged "delay" in filing means it doesn't even constrain future cases brought under similar facts. But in a way, its insignificance makes it worse rather than better. This was not a great case. It was a petty case. And the Court's pettiness in interceding is, in its way, far more indicting of its character than many far more jurisprudentially consequential rulings.
Friday, February 08, 2019
Wednesday, February 06, 2019
Fraud Squad! Roundup
In a meeting, I got a phone call from my bank about potentially fraudulent transactions on my credit card. Had I recently ordered $50 worth of fast food pizza? No, I hadn't -- and so the account is frozen, and presumably the charges will be reversed.
An hour later, upon returning to my desk, I had the bizarre joy of seeing a confirmation from Domino's promising me that my "pizza is on the way [to Houston, Texas]!"
Anyway, long story short: I'm getting pizza for dinner tonight.
* * *
Jenny Singer of the Forward interviews Young Gravy, a Black Jewish rapper (and GW student). It's a really interesting and worth your time (I'm saying that not just because I think I played a role in putting the interview together!).
I think I missed this when it came out, but a Texas court struck down the Indian Child Welfare Act's adoption rules this past fall, saying that act's preferences for Indian children to stay with Indian families was racially discriminatory against non-Indians. The Judge, incidentally, was Reed O'Connor -- the same guy who just struck down Obamacare. He's certainly setting himself up as the go-to-guy for tip-of-the-spear conservative judicial activism.
Alabama was all set to execute a Muslim inmate -- but refused to allow a Muslim chaplain to be present with him during the execution (they did offer a Christian chaplain, which unsurprisingly the inmate did not consider to be a satisfactory substitute). 11th Circuit stays the execution due to the "powerful Establishment Clause claim" (and plausible RLUIPA claim). Alabama is appealing to the Supreme Court.
A new poll finds that over half of Israeli Jews agree that the controversial "nation-state" law must be either abandoned outright or fixed to confirm the state's commitment to democratic equality for all citizens.
A Cameroonian official has apologized for threatening an ethnic minority group by comparing them to Jews in pre-WWII Germany, namely: "In Germany, there was a very rich community who wielded all economic power .... They (the Jews) were so arrogant that the German people were frustrated. Then one day, a certain Hitler came to power and put them in the gas chambers."
I have no takeaways from the Likud primaries except celebrating Oren Hazan's imminent departure from the Knesset. Goooood riddance.
Iraqi Jews commemorate family members who were "disappeared" by state secret police.
An hour later, upon returning to my desk, I had the bizarre joy of seeing a confirmation from Domino's promising me that my "pizza is on the way [to Houston, Texas]!"
Anyway, long story short: I'm getting pizza for dinner tonight.
* * *
Jenny Singer of the Forward interviews Young Gravy, a Black Jewish rapper (and GW student). It's a really interesting and worth your time (I'm saying that not just because I think I played a role in putting the interview together!).
I think I missed this when it came out, but a Texas court struck down the Indian Child Welfare Act's adoption rules this past fall, saying that act's preferences for Indian children to stay with Indian families was racially discriminatory against non-Indians. The Judge, incidentally, was Reed O'Connor -- the same guy who just struck down Obamacare. He's certainly setting himself up as the go-to-guy for tip-of-the-spear conservative judicial activism.
Alabama was all set to execute a Muslim inmate -- but refused to allow a Muslim chaplain to be present with him during the execution (they did offer a Christian chaplain, which unsurprisingly the inmate did not consider to be a satisfactory substitute). 11th Circuit stays the execution due to the "powerful Establishment Clause claim" (and plausible RLUIPA claim). Alabama is appealing to the Supreme Court.
A new poll finds that over half of Israeli Jews agree that the controversial "nation-state" law must be either abandoned outright or fixed to confirm the state's commitment to democratic equality for all citizens.
A Cameroonian official has apologized for threatening an ethnic minority group by comparing them to Jews in pre-WWII Germany, namely: "In Germany, there was a very rich community who wielded all economic power .... They (the Jews) were so arrogant that the German people were frustrated. Then one day, a certain Hitler came to power and put them in the gas chambers."
I have no takeaways from the Likud primaries except celebrating Oren Hazan's imminent departure from the Knesset. Goooood riddance.
Iraqi Jews commemorate family members who were "disappeared" by state secret police.
Tuesday, February 05, 2019
What We Like About Each Other
Daniel Gordis has an interesting piece in Bloomberg about a co-existence program that brings together Palestinian and Israeli teenagers in the Gush Etzion area (which is inside the West Bank, just south of Jerusalem).
Aside from the substantive content of the piece, there were two tertiary elements that stood out. One is the notation that Gush Etzion had Jewish residents prior to Israel's establishment -- these Jews were expelled when Jordan took over the territory in the wake of Israel's independence war. Many of the current settlers in that territory descend from families which were forced to flee.
That sort of story is rarely raised. And to be clear, in a large sense for me it doesn't matter -- I've long maintained that part of a permanent settlement between Israel and Palestine will likely include a proviso that not everyone gets to live on the precise patch of land they'd most prefer, and that applies to Jewish families whose roots in Gush Etzion go deep as much as the descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled pre-67 Israel during the Nakba. But it is nonetheless a complicating narrative in a region where simplicity is too often craved, and I think that's important.
The other interesting portion came at the very end:
Anyway, as I said, these are tertiary points. The article is pretty light, all told, but worth a read nonetheless.
Aside from the substantive content of the piece, there were two tertiary elements that stood out. One is the notation that Gush Etzion had Jewish residents prior to Israel's establishment -- these Jews were expelled when Jordan took over the territory in the wake of Israel's independence war. Many of the current settlers in that territory descend from families which were forced to flee.
That sort of story is rarely raised. And to be clear, in a large sense for me it doesn't matter -- I've long maintained that part of a permanent settlement between Israel and Palestine will likely include a proviso that not everyone gets to live on the precise patch of land they'd most prefer, and that applies to Jewish families whose roots in Gush Etzion go deep as much as the descendants of Palestinian refugees who fled pre-67 Israel during the Nakba. But it is nonetheless a complicating narrative in a region where simplicity is too often craved, and I think that's important.
The other interesting portion came at the very end:
“I have another question,” an Israeli teenager asked her Palestinian counterparts at a recent meeting. “Is there anything about our culture that you actually like?”
The Palestinian kids were quiet for a moment, and then they laughed. “We love your music,” they said. Specifically Eyal Golan, an Israeli rock star who sings in Hebrew, but in a Middle Eastern, almost Arabic-sounding style. “We don’t understand the Hebrew; but we listen to him all the time; we know all the words by heart.”The way this is framed by Gordis, one might think Golan -- an Israeli who sings "in a Middle Eastern, almost Arabic-sounding style" -- is appropriating culture that isn't his (think of consternation regarding Israeli Jews selling hummus, or wearing a keffiyeh). Yet as one might have suspected, Golan is himself a Middle Eastern Jew -- his family hails from Morocco and Yemen. So when he sings in a "Middle Eastern" or "Arabic-sounding" style -- that's his style. He has equal claim to as compared to any other person from Yemen or Morocco.
Anyway, as I said, these are tertiary points. The article is pretty light, all told, but worth a read nonetheless.
Monday, February 04, 2019
The Ballad of a Black Republican
Thomas Farr was a Trump nominee for a North Carolina district court judgeship.
Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), the sole Black Republican in the Senate, opposed his nomination, citing concerns about Farr's racial history. This isn't something Scott does on the regular; indeed, he's been a consistent supporter of President Trump's judicial nominees.
Now, as we know, the Republican position on racism has long been to angrily deny that they're okay with racism, while at the same time insisting that any alleged instance of racism that inconveniences them in any way is a left-wing smear that (sadly!) distracts attention from the "real" racism. In the event "real" racism does rear its head, the Republicans insist, they will be its most uncompromising foes.
So one might think, then, that if one of the few Black Republicans in Congress, who has not made a habit of accusing Trump nominees of racism, says "hey -- this guy presents a problem", that they might take that claim seriously and abandon Farr for a different Trump nominee whose legal views are almost certain to be materially identical to Farr in virtually all respects. After all, surely nobody could accuse Tim Scott of only leveling a racism claim reflexively, against any and all Republicans, to benefit a left-wing political agenda?
Alas:
That's the sad ballad of the Black Republican. Tim Scott might genuinely think that the reason that racism claims are discredited by Republicans is that so many of them are, in his view, made by bad actors acting in bad faith. But he'll find that, in truth, all it takes to become viewed as a bad actor is to be a Black actor who speaks of racism in a way that inconveniences Republican. Push comes to shove, they don't trust him any more than any other African-American public figure
Senator Tim Scott (R-SC), the sole Black Republican in the Senate, opposed his nomination, citing concerns about Farr's racial history. This isn't something Scott does on the regular; indeed, he's been a consistent supporter of President Trump's judicial nominees.
Now, as we know, the Republican position on racism has long been to angrily deny that they're okay with racism, while at the same time insisting that any alleged instance of racism that inconveniences them in any way is a left-wing smear that (sadly!) distracts attention from the "real" racism. In the event "real" racism does rear its head, the Republicans insist, they will be its most uncompromising foes.
So one might think, then, that if one of the few Black Republicans in Congress, who has not made a habit of accusing Trump nominees of racism, says "hey -- this guy presents a problem", that they might take that claim seriously and abandon Farr for a different Trump nominee whose legal views are almost certain to be materially identical to Farr in virtually all respects. After all, surely nobody could accuse Tim Scott of only leveling a racism claim reflexively, against any and all Republicans, to benefit a left-wing political agenda?
Alas:
In the three-page memo [signed by 31 conservative leaders], they urged Scott to reconsider his position, arguing a smear campaign was launched by “unprincipled left-wing activists who hate Tom” and suggesting Scott was complicit in the partisan attack.
“In these difficult days, when allegations of racism are carelessly, and all too often deliberately, thrown about without foundation, the result is not racial healing, but greater racial polarization,” they wrote. “Joining with those who taunt every political opponent a ‘racist’ as a partisan political tactic to destroy their reputations is not helpful to the cause of reconciliation.”Scott, to his credit, remains unbowed:
“For some reason the authors of this letter choose to ignore ... facts, and instead implicate that I have been co-opted by the left and am incapable of my own decision making,” Scott said in a statement to McClatchy, adding he votes for Republican judicial nominees “99 percent of the time.”
“Why they have chosen to expend so much energy on this particular nomination I do not know, but what I do know is they have not spent anywhere near as much time on true racial reconciliation efforts, decrying comments by those like (Republican U.S. Rep.) Steve King, or working to move our party together towards a stronger, more unified future,” Scott continued, referring to the Iowa congressman who recently suggested he was sympathetic to white supremacists in a New York Times interview.But you'll note -- and this is not Scott's fault -- that whatever credit Scott might have thought he'd earn as a good Republican soldier was unable to be cashed at the conservative bank. Much like the anti-Zionist Jew who finally sees an attack on Israel he actually thinks is antisemitic, the Black Republican who finally sees a case of conservative racism will find that he is viewed no differently than any other Black person who levels a charge of racism -- untrustworthy, unthoughtful, probably a tool, definitely a liar. That he generally buys into the conservative view on politics -- it doesn't matter. That he's more often ran cover for conservatives on questions of racism -- it doesn't matter.
That's the sad ballad of the Black Republican. Tim Scott might genuinely think that the reason that racism claims are discredited by Republicans is that so many of them are, in his view, made by bad actors acting in bad faith. But he'll find that, in truth, all it takes to become viewed as a bad actor is to be a Black actor who speaks of racism in a way that inconveniences Republican. Push comes to shove, they don't trust him any more than any other African-American public figure
Sunday, February 03, 2019
How the NFL Was Integrated
Apparently, the NFL was integrated a year before Major League Baseball, when the LA Rams signed former UCLA college standouts Kenny Washington and Woodrow Strode. It's never had the same cultural resonance as Jackie Robinson breaking baseball's color barrier -- probably because the NFL wasn't that big a deal in the 1940s.
But there's also a key difference in the narrative. In baseball, Branch Rickey looms large, and he represents White America's favorite civil rights story: White people, more or less out of the goodness of their hearts, deciding of their own initiative to do the right thing.
Yet the story of the Rams is different. The team leadership had no real interest in integration. Rather:
But there's also a key difference in the narrative. In baseball, Branch Rickey looms large, and he represents White America's favorite civil rights story: White people, more or less out of the goodness of their hearts, deciding of their own initiative to do the right thing.
Yet the story of the Rams is different. The team leadership had no real interest in integration. Rather:
The Rams had just moved to Los Angeles from Cleveland, after smelling dollar signs on the West Coast. They needed a home and wanted to play at the L.A. Coliseum. But the stadium was publicly funded — owned by taxpayers black and white alike — and black sportswriters in Los Angeles successfully hammered local officials into requiring the team to integrate if the Rams were to play there.This is the story where Black political power and influence moves the needle -- a different story, one with much more in common with the Black Power tradition than the sometimes overly moralized normative civil rights story associated (a bit unfairly) with Martin Luther King. The NFL was integrated because Black people in Los Angeles had sufficient clout to force it to happen. This isn't to say that there were no White players who were receptive audiences -- I have no doubt that the community had at least some allies among White movers and shakers in LA. But the central part of the story isn't White people choosing to the right thing, it's Black people being in a position so that it didn't much matter if White people wanted to do the right thing or not.
Friday, February 01, 2019
Rep. Omar Says Something Very Important on Antisemitism
I don't mean to make today Ilhan Omar day, but while doing reading for my last post I came across an incredible passage where Omar addresses how she responded to criticism of her infamous "hypnosis" tweet. It might be one of the most important remarks from a non-Jewish speaker talking about antisemitism, and being accused of antisemitism, I've ever seen:
But the biggest deal is the explicit comparison of the reflexive defensiveness she felt upon being accused of antisemitism to the reflexive defensiveness many White people have (especially those Whites who are marginalized along other dimensions) to being told they have "White privilege". This is an analogy I've been trying to promote for years -- I think there is a very clear parallel between "White fragility" and what I might term "Gentile fragility", wherein even the invocation of potential complicity in discriminatory structures is taken as a sort of nuclear weapon -- but this might be the first time I've seen a non-Jewish speaker draw the connection.
This call to "take a deep breath" in response to these concerns is such good advice -- it is the actual payoff demanded from calls to show deference when you're accused of engaging in discriminatory conduct, rather than the caricatured "immediately scream out your capitulation, plead guilty to all charges and throw yourself down at the mercy of the Gods" -- and it led her in the absolute right direction.
At root, this relates to the worries I expressed regarding the antisemitism that keeps me up at night -- namely, the possibility that antisemitism, or defying or standing up to the Jews, will become seen as a positive rather than a negative. There's a clear overlap with how White privilege operates: one cannot even count the number of cases where White people confronted with allegations of racism turtle up, cry victim, furiously fulminate about how abused they were by charges of racism and then make a huge scene of defying the PC police -- and in doing so, they gain political traction and authority rather than lose it. One reason why people respond to the "White privilege" discourse the way that they do is that it generates political capital. It is a productive move.
And indeed, my earlier post specifically explored this as a path open to Omar -- she could very easily have cried victim, double-down, made a big show about how she wouldn't be cowed by those oversensitive PC Jews who are always trying to stifle debate and police language -- and the sad fact is many people would love her for it. That's part of the reality of antisemitism today. You can gain power and authority and credence by being seen as the sort of person who stands up to the Jews.
Which makes it all the more praiseworthy that Omar took that breath and chose not to go down that path. Perhaps a bit belatedly, perhaps after a bit of prodding, she nonetheless decided to model in her own case how she wants others to react in parallel cases. The model is important. The recognition that Jews and antisemitism are a valid case of the model is still more important. For that, Ilhan Omar deserves serious praise. Kudos.
On Thursday, when [Trevor] Noah broached the subject, Omar compared her defensiveness about her tweet — denying that she was anti-Semitic — to the way poor white people react when some say they still possess “white privilege.”
“With that tweet, what I finally realized is the realization that I hope that people come to when we’re having a conversation about white privilege,” she told Noah. "You know, people would be like, ‘I grew up in a poor neighborhood. I can’t be privileged. Can you stop saying that? I haven’t benefited from my whiteness!’ And it’s like, ‘No, we’re talking about systematic, right?’ And so for me, that happened for me.
“I was like, ‘Do not call me that [anti-Semitic]. ... And it was like, ‘Oh, I see what you’re saying now.’ And so I had to take a deep breath and understand where people were coming from and what point they were trying to make, which is what I expect people to do when I’m talking to them, right, about things that impact me or offend me.”Damn, there's a lot of right in here. For starters, she identifies antisemitism as "systematic", rather than something that you can avoid being implicated in if you inhabit other marginal identities (I am sure 94,000 people are busy prepping their "take that Linda 'antisemitism isn't systemic' Sarsour!" hot takes, and I'm over it even before I hear the first one).
But the biggest deal is the explicit comparison of the reflexive defensiveness she felt upon being accused of antisemitism to the reflexive defensiveness many White people have (especially those Whites who are marginalized along other dimensions) to being told they have "White privilege". This is an analogy I've been trying to promote for years -- I think there is a very clear parallel between "White fragility" and what I might term "Gentile fragility", wherein even the invocation of potential complicity in discriminatory structures is taken as a sort of nuclear weapon -- but this might be the first time I've seen a non-Jewish speaker draw the connection.
This call to "take a deep breath" in response to these concerns is such good advice -- it is the actual payoff demanded from calls to show deference when you're accused of engaging in discriminatory conduct, rather than the caricatured "immediately scream out your capitulation, plead guilty to all charges and throw yourself down at the mercy of the Gods" -- and it led her in the absolute right direction.
At root, this relates to the worries I expressed regarding the antisemitism that keeps me up at night -- namely, the possibility that antisemitism, or defying or standing up to the Jews, will become seen as a positive rather than a negative. There's a clear overlap with how White privilege operates: one cannot even count the number of cases where White people confronted with allegations of racism turtle up, cry victim, furiously fulminate about how abused they were by charges of racism and then make a huge scene of defying the PC police -- and in doing so, they gain political traction and authority rather than lose it. One reason why people respond to the "White privilege" discourse the way that they do is that it generates political capital. It is a productive move.
And indeed, my earlier post specifically explored this as a path open to Omar -- she could very easily have cried victim, double-down, made a big show about how she wouldn't be cowed by those oversensitive PC Jews who are always trying to stifle debate and police language -- and the sad fact is many people would love her for it. That's part of the reality of antisemitism today. You can gain power and authority and credence by being seen as the sort of person who stands up to the Jews.
Which makes it all the more praiseworthy that Omar took that breath and chose not to go down that path. Perhaps a bit belatedly, perhaps after a bit of prodding, she nonetheless decided to model in her own case how she wants others to react in parallel cases. The model is important. The recognition that Jews and antisemitism are a valid case of the model is still more important. For that, Ilhan Omar deserves serious praise. Kudos.
That NEVER Happ--Oh, Wait, a Congressman Just Did It
Last month, I wrote a post that got some traction in the Jewish blogosphere, about how we sometimes seem to just randomly demand Black people "denounce antisemitism" among this or that Black speaker even in contexts where they have no real relationship to the particular antisemitic speaker other than shared racial background.
A lot of people responded favorably. But a vocal minority thought I was making the phenomenon up. "Nobody demands Black people condemn antisemitism at random! Where those demands are made, it's only in cases like Tamika Mallory and Louis Farrakhan -- where she's specifically praised the known antisemitic speaker!"
Yes, what an absurd thought? Who would ever do such a th--oh look, here's Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-NY):
If you listen to the voicemail Zeldin posts, one thing stands out very clearly: it's horribly, grotesquely antisemitic.
You want to know what doesn't stand out? Any mention, reference, or connection to Ilhan Omar. Because it's not there. Yet Zeldin just decided he was going to randomly call her out (they were in a larger war of words at the time) and ask "what part" of this antisemitic screed she "disagrees with". The caller doesn't talk about Omar, doesn't quote Omar, doesn't give any indication that there is any relationship to Omar other than presumed shared race (much of the call is about accusing Jews of harming Black people) -- but no matter: Omar apparently can be cold-called to deliver a denunciation.
Rep. Omar actually responded with a lot of grace, condemning the message as "heinous and hateful" and empathizing with Zeldin given that (unsurprisingly) she too gets a flood of bigoted hate mail. Does Zeldin take "yes" for an answer to his unsolicited call out? Of course not! He doubles down, asking her again "Are you saying you disagree w/everything said in that voicemail?"
So, yeah, this happens.
(Incidentally, while my critical readers generally thought my original post was a sub rosa defense of Mallory, she wasn't the case I had in mind -- which is why I wrote about "Black people who really do apologize for Louis Farrakhan's antisemitism" and clarified that "[t]his post isn't about them." The motivating case for me, other than the Charlie Rangel case I cite in the post, was actually Mercy Morganfield's expressed frustration about what happened after she condemned Farrakhan and antisemitism in the Women's March -- namely, that she was demanded to do so over and over and over again.)
A lot of people responded favorably. But a vocal minority thought I was making the phenomenon up. "Nobody demands Black people condemn antisemitism at random! Where those demands are made, it's only in cases like Tamika Mallory and Louis Farrakhan -- where she's specifically praised the known antisemitic speaker!"
Yes, what an absurd thought? Who would ever do such a th--oh look, here's Congressman Lee Zeldin (R-NY):
This new VM just came into my office. @IlhanMN, this is just another day in my world as an American Jew in Congress. Would love to know what part of this hate filled, anti-Semitic rant you disagree with? I disagree with all of it. Do you? pic.twitter.com/4WoJqiATCf— Lee Zeldin (@RepLeeZeldin) January 31, 2019
If you listen to the voicemail Zeldin posts, one thing stands out very clearly: it's horribly, grotesquely antisemitic.
You want to know what doesn't stand out? Any mention, reference, or connection to Ilhan Omar. Because it's not there. Yet Zeldin just decided he was going to randomly call her out (they were in a larger war of words at the time) and ask "what part" of this antisemitic screed she "disagrees with". The caller doesn't talk about Omar, doesn't quote Omar, doesn't give any indication that there is any relationship to Omar other than presumed shared race (much of the call is about accusing Jews of harming Black people) -- but no matter: Omar apparently can be cold-called to deliver a denunciation.
Rep. Omar actually responded with a lot of grace, condemning the message as "heinous and hateful" and empathizing with Zeldin given that (unsurprisingly) she too gets a flood of bigoted hate mail. Does Zeldin take "yes" for an answer to his unsolicited call out? Of course not! He doubles down, asking her again "Are you saying you disagree w/everything said in that voicemail?"
So, yeah, this happens.
(Incidentally, while my critical readers generally thought my original post was a sub rosa defense of Mallory, she wasn't the case I had in mind -- which is why I wrote about "Black people who really do apologize for Louis Farrakhan's antisemitism" and clarified that "[t]his post isn't about them." The motivating case for me, other than the Charlie Rangel case I cite in the post, was actually Mercy Morganfield's expressed frustration about what happened after she condemned Farrakhan and antisemitism in the Women's March -- namely, that she was demanded to do so over and over and over again.)
Thursday, January 31, 2019
New Data on BDS, "Apartheid", and Antisemitism
A new report from the Institute for Jewish Policy Research explores who and how many in the UK that Israel is an "apartheid" state, how many think we should boycott Israeli goods, and the relationship of both beliefs to antisemitism. It's fascinating just as a treasure trove of data (though I'm not 100% sold on the methodology the authors use to draw inferences from that data). But even just looking at face value, there's quite a lot I find interesting:
First, lots of people in the UK just don't have an opinion on these questions. On the "apartheid" question, for example, the plurality winner was "I don't know" at 37% (only a minority -- 21% -- endorsed the apartheid label, but that was still slightly larger than the 19% who affirmatively rejected it. The remaining 22% neither agreed nor disagreed). Obviously, from a Jewish vantage these are very pressing questions and are occupying a lot of our attention with respect to British politics, but it's useful to remember that a great many people simply don't care about this issue. It isn't as big for everyone else as it is for us.
Second, respondents were far more likely to call Israel an "apartheid" state than to support boycotting it, which surprised me greatly. I figured that those who endorse the "apartheid" label are those who think Israel is the worst-of-the-worst, whereas boycotters would include that cadre but also some number of people with more moderate views who support boycotts for tactical or contingent reason. Instead, boycotting was pretty roundly rejected (9% support, 46% reject, the remainder split along "don't know" or "neither agree/disagree"), which means presumably there's a solid chunk of Brits who think Israel is an apartheid state but don't back boycotting it. I'm not really sure what to make of that.
Third, Labour doesn't stand out in these surveys quite to the degree one might think. Labour voters seem comparatively more supportive of both the "apartheid" label and boycotting Israel compared to Tories, LibDems, or UKIPers, but it's hardly a consensus view and there's far more expression of uncertainty than one would expect given current press coverage. On the apartheid label the breakdown is 27/16, with the rest undecided; and on boycotting Labour voters are opposed by a 16/40 margin (the rest, again, are undecided).
Finally, the study authors explore the connection between believing Israel is an apartheid state or supporting boycotts and more "traditional" antisemitic beliefs. They survey a battery of non-Israel related statements (e.g.: "Jews think they are better than other people" or "Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes"), and see how many people endorse zero, one, two, all the way up to six or more of these statements. Then they plot that against supporting BDS or the "apartheid" label.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they find a pretty solid correlation. People who subscribed to none of the antisemitic statements are the least likely to support either boycotts (6%) or the apartheid label (16%). As people support more of the antisemitic statements, the likelihood that they back to the two anti-Israel questions correspondingly rises -- of those who endorse six or more of the antisemitic statements, 47% back the apartheid label and 52% back boycotting Israel.
(Note that I've seen media reports which appear to get this backwards, saying that 52% of boycott supporters also endorse 6+ antisemitic statements. That doesn't appear to be correct, and there is a very large difference between 52% of those who endorse 6+ antisemitic statements back boycotts, and 52% of those who back boycotts endorsing 6+ antisemitic statements. The Jewish Chronicle already issued a correction here -- it seems like this confusion was originally in the actual report as well -- and hopefully others will follow suit).
One thing that's immediately striking about this is, oddly enough, how low the support is for boycotting Israel/calling it an apartheid state is among the "extreme" antisemites (endorsing 6+ antisemitic statements). Intuitively, I'd suspect that someone who dislikes Jews that much would search out any and every possible means for striking out against Jewish-identified institutions. And to be sure, the fact that support for boycotts and the "apartheid" label increases significantly as one endorses more and more antisemitic statements is compatible with that story. But for the pretty sizaable chunk of extreme antisemites who don't seem to endorse anti-Israel practices, I wonder if we're picking up on the existence of significant "pro-Israel" antisemitism (or if another factor is in play).
Even with that caveat though, it's probably not that surprising that antisemites are more drawn to anti-Israel sentiment than are people who possess no antisemitic beliefs. Still, as is often rightly pointed out, correlation doesn't equal causation. For any correlation between A and B, there are three possible causation stories: A causes B, B causes A, or neither causes the other and there is a some other unstated variable that happens to cause both (the classic example of the last case is the correlation between ice cream consumption and crime. Ice cream consumption doesn't cause crime, and crime doesn't cause ice cream consumption. Rather, warm weather causes ice cream consumption and, by causing more people to spend more time outside, also causes increases in crime).
So what causal story can we tell about the correlation between antisemitic attitudes and support for (among other things) BDS? One possibility, of course, is that the correlation is spurious -- there's a confounding variable that explains both (the "warm weather" case). I'm open to that possibility, but I confess I'm not sure what likely candidate is. For example, imagine it was the case (and the data actually doesn't support this) that old people were more likely to be antisemitic and more likely to support BDS. Even if that were true, it seems highly unlikely that their antisemitism and their BDS advocacy were unrelated to one another (compare if there had been a correlation between BDS support and having "blue" as one's favorite color. If that was explained by old people being most likely to support BDS and most likely to favor the color blue, then it'd be very implausible that there was any causal story linking blue and BDS to one another).
Again, I'm open to the confounding variable explanation, but I'd need to hear the story. So let's leave that aside, and explore the other two possibilities.
BDS proponents usually seem most invested in falsifying the causal story whereby BDS support is caused by antisemitism. The reason that's so important is because, in popular argot, BDS is antisemitic if and only if it is motivated (caused) by antisemitic sentiment. This actually strikes me as too great of a concession -- I'm don't think the antisemitism of a given policy position can only be established via the existence of antecedent antisemitic beliefs that motivate it -- but I might be in a minority there.
In any event, the idea here is that if someone arrives at BDS without harboring any antisemitic sentiment, then their support of BDS is not antisemitic (and consequently BDS is not antisemitic at least so far as it is endorsed by that sort of person). Proponents of this view generally might concede that antisemites are attracted to BDS, but maintain that many people support BDS without harboring any antisemitic impulses whatsoever. Or put differently, antisemitism is a cause of BDS, but not the only cause, and it's unfair to tar the whole movement by focusing solely on that one cause.
Though it doesn't directly speak to this question, the JPR dataset does raise questions about this apologia, since only 6% of people who harbored no antisemitic beliefs backed BDS. That doesn't itself show that most people who back BDS harbor antisemitic beliefs -- we'd need to know more about the base rates to establish that. But it does raise the question of what causal force is operating on that 6% that doesn't apply to the 94% of their non-antisemitic peers who don't back BDS?
If that's what we can say about "antisemitism causes BDS", what is there to say about the flip causal story: "BDS causes antisemitism"? Though it gets less attention, for me that's the story that's more interesting (and more worrisome). If this causal story is true, then people might arrive at BDS without any antisemitic ideology whatsoever, but the time spent in the "waters" of BDS would actually cause them to develop more systematically negative views about Jews qua Jews. And that would I think be a far more damning indictment. It's one thing -- arguably a trivial thing -- to say that antisemites will be attracted to any movement which seems to be sticking it to the Jews, and BDS happens to be one such movement. There might not be all that much the BDS movement could do about that. It's another thing to say that people who aren't antisemitic are more likely to become so the more interaction and engagement they have with BDS.
Put differently: it strikes me as likely that antisemites would be more likely to want to punish Bernie Madoff extremely harshly compared to the population writ large. It also seems likely that there are plenty of people who want to punish Bernie Madoff extremely harshly who are not motivated by antisemitism. But it strikes me as relatively unlikely that non-antisemites who want to punish Madoff harshly will emerge "out the other side" of that campaign as antisemitic. If BDS is different -- if people come in without antisemitic attitudes and come out with them -- that would be extremely worrying, and it would suggest that there is something fundamentally rotten going on inside the movement, such that it is actually generating of antisemitism.
That claim requires a lot more research to establish. But if that causal story is plausible, then we have to be able to talk about BDS as potentially antisemitic notwithstanding the fact that many of its arrivees don't start off as motivated by antisemitism. A movement which converts non-antisemites into antisemites is antisemitic even if the recruits don't come in with any particular desire to disparage Jews. This alternative causal story demands a different way of thinking about antisemitism beyond the question of antecedent motivations.
First, lots of people in the UK just don't have an opinion on these questions. On the "apartheid" question, for example, the plurality winner was "I don't know" at 37% (only a minority -- 21% -- endorsed the apartheid label, but that was still slightly larger than the 19% who affirmatively rejected it. The remaining 22% neither agreed nor disagreed). Obviously, from a Jewish vantage these are very pressing questions and are occupying a lot of our attention with respect to British politics, but it's useful to remember that a great many people simply don't care about this issue. It isn't as big for everyone else as it is for us.
Second, respondents were far more likely to call Israel an "apartheid" state than to support boycotting it, which surprised me greatly. I figured that those who endorse the "apartheid" label are those who think Israel is the worst-of-the-worst, whereas boycotters would include that cadre but also some number of people with more moderate views who support boycotts for tactical or contingent reason. Instead, boycotting was pretty roundly rejected (9% support, 46% reject, the remainder split along "don't know" or "neither agree/disagree"), which means presumably there's a solid chunk of Brits who think Israel is an apartheid state but don't back boycotting it. I'm not really sure what to make of that.
Third, Labour doesn't stand out in these surveys quite to the degree one might think. Labour voters seem comparatively more supportive of both the "apartheid" label and boycotting Israel compared to Tories, LibDems, or UKIPers, but it's hardly a consensus view and there's far more expression of uncertainty than one would expect given current press coverage. On the apartheid label the breakdown is 27/16, with the rest undecided; and on boycotting Labour voters are opposed by a 16/40 margin (the rest, again, are undecided).
Finally, the study authors explore the connection between believing Israel is an apartheid state or supporting boycotts and more "traditional" antisemitic beliefs. They survey a battery of non-Israel related statements (e.g.: "Jews think they are better than other people" or "Jews exploit Holocaust victimhood for their own purposes"), and see how many people endorse zero, one, two, all the way up to six or more of these statements. Then they plot that against supporting BDS or the "apartheid" label.
Perhaps unsurprisingly, they find a pretty solid correlation. People who subscribed to none of the antisemitic statements are the least likely to support either boycotts (6%) or the apartheid label (16%). As people support more of the antisemitic statements, the likelihood that they back to the two anti-Israel questions correspondingly rises -- of those who endorse six or more of the antisemitic statements, 47% back the apartheid label and 52% back boycotting Israel.
(Note that I've seen media reports which appear to get this backwards, saying that 52% of boycott supporters also endorse 6+ antisemitic statements. That doesn't appear to be correct, and there is a very large difference between 52% of those who endorse 6+ antisemitic statements back boycotts, and 52% of those who back boycotts endorsing 6+ antisemitic statements. The Jewish Chronicle already issued a correction here -- it seems like this confusion was originally in the actual report as well -- and hopefully others will follow suit).
One thing that's immediately striking about this is, oddly enough, how low the support is for boycotting Israel/calling it an apartheid state is among the "extreme" antisemites (endorsing 6+ antisemitic statements). Intuitively, I'd suspect that someone who dislikes Jews that much would search out any and every possible means for striking out against Jewish-identified institutions. And to be sure, the fact that support for boycotts and the "apartheid" label increases significantly as one endorses more and more antisemitic statements is compatible with that story. But for the pretty sizaable chunk of extreme antisemites who don't seem to endorse anti-Israel practices, I wonder if we're picking up on the existence of significant "pro-Israel" antisemitism (or if another factor is in play).
Even with that caveat though, it's probably not that surprising that antisemites are more drawn to anti-Israel sentiment than are people who possess no antisemitic beliefs. Still, as is often rightly pointed out, correlation doesn't equal causation. For any correlation between A and B, there are three possible causation stories: A causes B, B causes A, or neither causes the other and there is a some other unstated variable that happens to cause both (the classic example of the last case is the correlation between ice cream consumption and crime. Ice cream consumption doesn't cause crime, and crime doesn't cause ice cream consumption. Rather, warm weather causes ice cream consumption and, by causing more people to spend more time outside, also causes increases in crime).
So what causal story can we tell about the correlation between antisemitic attitudes and support for (among other things) BDS? One possibility, of course, is that the correlation is spurious -- there's a confounding variable that explains both (the "warm weather" case). I'm open to that possibility, but I confess I'm not sure what likely candidate is. For example, imagine it was the case (and the data actually doesn't support this) that old people were more likely to be antisemitic and more likely to support BDS. Even if that were true, it seems highly unlikely that their antisemitism and their BDS advocacy were unrelated to one another (compare if there had been a correlation between BDS support and having "blue" as one's favorite color. If that was explained by old people being most likely to support BDS and most likely to favor the color blue, then it'd be very implausible that there was any causal story linking blue and BDS to one another).
Again, I'm open to the confounding variable explanation, but I'd need to hear the story. So let's leave that aside, and explore the other two possibilities.
BDS proponents usually seem most invested in falsifying the causal story whereby BDS support is caused by antisemitism. The reason that's so important is because, in popular argot, BDS is antisemitic if and only if it is motivated (caused) by antisemitic sentiment. This actually strikes me as too great of a concession -- I'm don't think the antisemitism of a given policy position can only be established via the existence of antecedent antisemitic beliefs that motivate it -- but I might be in a minority there.
In any event, the idea here is that if someone arrives at BDS without harboring any antisemitic sentiment, then their support of BDS is not antisemitic (and consequently BDS is not antisemitic at least so far as it is endorsed by that sort of person). Proponents of this view generally might concede that antisemites are attracted to BDS, but maintain that many people support BDS without harboring any antisemitic impulses whatsoever. Or put differently, antisemitism is a cause of BDS, but not the only cause, and it's unfair to tar the whole movement by focusing solely on that one cause.
Though it doesn't directly speak to this question, the JPR dataset does raise questions about this apologia, since only 6% of people who harbored no antisemitic beliefs backed BDS. That doesn't itself show that most people who back BDS harbor antisemitic beliefs -- we'd need to know more about the base rates to establish that. But it does raise the question of what causal force is operating on that 6% that doesn't apply to the 94% of their non-antisemitic peers who don't back BDS?
If that's what we can say about "antisemitism causes BDS", what is there to say about the flip causal story: "BDS causes antisemitism"? Though it gets less attention, for me that's the story that's more interesting (and more worrisome). If this causal story is true, then people might arrive at BDS without any antisemitic ideology whatsoever, but the time spent in the "waters" of BDS would actually cause them to develop more systematically negative views about Jews qua Jews. And that would I think be a far more damning indictment. It's one thing -- arguably a trivial thing -- to say that antisemites will be attracted to any movement which seems to be sticking it to the Jews, and BDS happens to be one such movement. There might not be all that much the BDS movement could do about that. It's another thing to say that people who aren't antisemitic are more likely to become so the more interaction and engagement they have with BDS.
Put differently: it strikes me as likely that antisemites would be more likely to want to punish Bernie Madoff extremely harshly compared to the population writ large. It also seems likely that there are plenty of people who want to punish Bernie Madoff extremely harshly who are not motivated by antisemitism. But it strikes me as relatively unlikely that non-antisemites who want to punish Madoff harshly will emerge "out the other side" of that campaign as antisemitic. If BDS is different -- if people come in without antisemitic attitudes and come out with them -- that would be extremely worrying, and it would suggest that there is something fundamentally rotten going on inside the movement, such that it is actually generating of antisemitism.
That claim requires a lot more research to establish. But if that causal story is plausible, then we have to be able to talk about BDS as potentially antisemitic notwithstanding the fact that many of its arrivees don't start off as motivated by antisemitism. A movement which converts non-antisemites into antisemites is antisemitic even if the recruits don't come in with any particular desire to disparage Jews. This alternative causal story demands a different way of thinking about antisemitism beyond the question of antecedent motivations.
If Benny Gantz Becomes PM, It Will/Will Not Be a Big Deal
Benny Gantz is getting people whispering about an impossible possibility:
Bibi Netanyahu might not win reelection as Israel's Prime Minister. Gantz's new party is surging in the polls, and he's pulled even with Netanyahu in the "who should be prime minister question" -- an area where Bibi has reigned unchallenged for years (except for the always popular "someone else").
Is that a big deal? Well, yes. And no. It depends on your vantage.
On the one hand, if Gantz does take over the top spot, you can be prepared for the usual leftist voices to dismiss it as utterly meaningless. Since for them, Israel can never improve, only decay, they will immediately call Gantz a war criminal and indicate that he's not materially different than Bibi anyway. Since for them, the idea that Israeli society can meaningfully change via normal democratic processes is an anathema to the more fundamental proposition that Israeli society is rotted through and through, they need to deny the possibility that Gantz could possibly represent meaningful change.
But while the more uncompromising version of the "it's no big deal" take can be dismissed, it would likewise be wrong to view Gantz as the harbinger of some sort of resurgent Israeli left. Gantz is not a leftist. His roots are on the center-right, he's very much the consummate "good soldier" -- competent, effective, patriotic, and a good executor, but without much of an internal ideological drive.
Yet that doesn't mean his election would be no big deal.
First, Gantz is part of the "soft center-right", generally comprised of political or military officials who, precisely because their main focus has been on military and security affairs, have concluded that the uncompromising Israeli right poses a long-term danger to Israel's security and survival. Given the complete disarray that currently characterizes the Israeli left, Israeli politics these days basically is a debate between "right-wingers who are marching full out towards annexation" and "ex-right-wingers who see the writing on the wall."
But while that might sound like a cynical way of putting it, the fact is that "security-minded ex-right winger who pivots to the center" includes several figures who have taken some of the most prominent steps towards Israeli/Arab peace. Ariel Sharon is the obvious name, but Tzipi Livni also comes from these roots. And more broadly, if there's one trend in Israeli politics that's seemingly remained stable over its existence, it's that the Israeli public is more willing to cut deals when they know that the dealmaker carries a big boomstick in case things go wrong. That applied to Sharon, obviously, but also Begin and Rabin.
Second, it is almost certain that Gantz's coalition will be well to the left of the status quo -- there's even been murmurs that some Israeli Arab parties will break their longstanding suspicion of joining a coalition. A coalition with Gantz at the head, needing to satisfy demands coming from his left, is going to be leaps-and-bounds different than a coalition with Bibi at the head, needing to satisfy demands coming from his right.
And finally, Gantz winning means Bibi loses. That's a huge deal on its own. Netanyahu has been seemingly untouchable for a long time -- even the prospect of a criminal indictment hardly seemed like it would be a bump in his political road. Just dislodging the man on the throne is a legitimate shake-up in its own right. And it offers hope that things can change, that Israel can get out of the rut it's been stuck in and move in a different direction. Just the possibility of energizing a different cohort of voters beyond the settler right has the potential to be a game-changer.
So go Benny! You wouldn't be my first choice as Prime Minister, but if you can take down Netanyahu, I wish you the best of luck.
Bibi Netanyahu might not win reelection as Israel's Prime Minister. Gantz's new party is surging in the polls, and he's pulled even with Netanyahu in the "who should be prime minister question" -- an area where Bibi has reigned unchallenged for years (except for the always popular "someone else").
Is that a big deal? Well, yes. And no. It depends on your vantage.
On the one hand, if Gantz does take over the top spot, you can be prepared for the usual leftist voices to dismiss it as utterly meaningless. Since for them, Israel can never improve, only decay, they will immediately call Gantz a war criminal and indicate that he's not materially different than Bibi anyway. Since for them, the idea that Israeli society can meaningfully change via normal democratic processes is an anathema to the more fundamental proposition that Israeli society is rotted through and through, they need to deny the possibility that Gantz could possibly represent meaningful change.
But while the more uncompromising version of the "it's no big deal" take can be dismissed, it would likewise be wrong to view Gantz as the harbinger of some sort of resurgent Israeli left. Gantz is not a leftist. His roots are on the center-right, he's very much the consummate "good soldier" -- competent, effective, patriotic, and a good executor, but without much of an internal ideological drive.
Yet that doesn't mean his election would be no big deal.
First, Gantz is part of the "soft center-right", generally comprised of political or military officials who, precisely because their main focus has been on military and security affairs, have concluded that the uncompromising Israeli right poses a long-term danger to Israel's security and survival. Given the complete disarray that currently characterizes the Israeli left, Israeli politics these days basically is a debate between "right-wingers who are marching full out towards annexation" and "ex-right-wingers who see the writing on the wall."
But while that might sound like a cynical way of putting it, the fact is that "security-minded ex-right winger who pivots to the center" includes several figures who have taken some of the most prominent steps towards Israeli/Arab peace. Ariel Sharon is the obvious name, but Tzipi Livni also comes from these roots. And more broadly, if there's one trend in Israeli politics that's seemingly remained stable over its existence, it's that the Israeli public is more willing to cut deals when they know that the dealmaker carries a big boomstick in case things go wrong. That applied to Sharon, obviously, but also Begin and Rabin.
Second, it is almost certain that Gantz's coalition will be well to the left of the status quo -- there's even been murmurs that some Israeli Arab parties will break their longstanding suspicion of joining a coalition. A coalition with Gantz at the head, needing to satisfy demands coming from his left, is going to be leaps-and-bounds different than a coalition with Bibi at the head, needing to satisfy demands coming from his right.
And finally, Gantz winning means Bibi loses. That's a huge deal on its own. Netanyahu has been seemingly untouchable for a long time -- even the prospect of a criminal indictment hardly seemed like it would be a bump in his political road. Just dislodging the man on the throne is a legitimate shake-up in its own right. And it offers hope that things can change, that Israel can get out of the rut it's been stuck in and move in a different direction. Just the possibility of energizing a different cohort of voters beyond the settler right has the potential to be a game-changer.
So go Benny! You wouldn't be my first choice as Prime Minister, but if you can take down Netanyahu, I wish you the best of luck.
Wednesday, January 30, 2019
Ethiopian Jews Stage Massive Protest Against Police Violence in Israel
The story is here. The immediate spark of the protest was the fatal shooting of 24-year old Yehuda Biadga (he allegedly charged police with a knife; his family says he suffered from PTSD and claims the police used excessive force), but as one of the protest organizers put it that particular event was "the last straw" for a community that has long alleged it has been victimized by violent policing practices and other forms of discrimination in Israeli society.
In terms of demands:
In any event, though, the Ethiopian Israeli community deserves our full support. Racism exists in Israeli society just as it exists across the world, and we cannot be in denial about it. All this talk about how "a Jew is a Jew is a Jew" just isn't reflecting the reality of Jewish experience -- if it was, we wouldn't be seeing protests like this. And I hope that Jewish organizations around the world -- inside Israel and out -- rally in support of our Ethiopian compatriots, standing with them as they define their ambitions, not imposing whatever narrative we wish they might be speaking of.
In terms of demands:
The demonstrators are calling for a judge to look into Biadga’s death rather than the Justice Ministry department responsible for investigating police incidents. They are also calling for an emergency Cabinet meeting on police violence, beefing up a government task force on racism and the full implementation of the recommendations of the Palmor Committee on ending discrimination against Ethiopian Israelis.Online, there's an interesting divergence going on among lefty-ish commenters who caught wind of the protest -- half of whom seem to think the march is against Zionism (it isn't) and are accordingly all for it, the other half of whom recognize that the marchers do not identify as anti-Zionist and accordingly think they deserve whatever they get. It's charming.
In any event, though, the Ethiopian Israeli community deserves our full support. Racism exists in Israeli society just as it exists across the world, and we cannot be in denial about it. All this talk about how "a Jew is a Jew is a Jew" just isn't reflecting the reality of Jewish experience -- if it was, we wouldn't be seeing protests like this. And I hope that Jewish organizations around the world -- inside Israel and out -- rally in support of our Ethiopian compatriots, standing with them as they define their ambitions, not imposing whatever narrative we wish they might be speaking of.
Tuesday, January 29, 2019
When is a Boycott Not a Boycott?
When I go to Las Vegas, I don't stay at the Venetian.
It's a lovely hotel, don't get me wrong -- strikingly beautiful, in its way.
But Sheldon Adelson is a schmuck, and I don't want to give him my money, so I stay elsewhere.
Am I boycotting the Venetian?
I don't think so. In my mind's eye, I've never thought of myself as "boycotting the Venetian". But why not?
Some might say I am boycotting the Venetian, I just don't want to admit to myself that's what I'm doing because I don't like thinking of myself as a boycotting sort.
Perhaps. But there are some other potential distinctions. First, I don't position what I'm doing as part of any broader expressive mobilization campaign against Sheldon Adelson. I don't publicly announce "I don't stay at the Venetian" (other than the context of this post, of course), I don't link up with other "boycotters" to amplify my voice or try to convince others not to stay at the Venetian either. If boycotting feels inherently like collective action, my choice is personal and private, and I have no interest in extending it beyond that.
Second, my "boycott" -- if it is that -- is extremely lightly held. I've walked through the Venetian, taken pictures at the Venetian, shopped at the Venetian, ate at restaurants at the Venetian. There's no real coherency to it. And more than that, if (say) a friend was hosting a bachelor party in Vegas and booked us a suite at the Venetian, I'd attend without concern. It's not where I'd pick, but I wouldn't view it as violating any ethical commitments on my part. Boycotts seem to me like they have to positions of principle; at most my avoidance of the Venetian expresses a ceteris paribus distaste (one could characterize what I'm doing is drawing a line in the sand -- I'll patronize the Venetian to this extent, but no further -- but that's certainly not how I think of what I'm doing. In all honesty, I have a mild preference against staying at the Venetian, which can be overriden by any number of relatively mundane circumstances).
That raises a third issue, which is that people decide not to buy certain products or patronize certain businesses all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Surely, if I don't go to a restaurant because I think the food is gross, it'd be weird to characterize me as "boycotting the restaurant" (even though one could say that my refusal to patronize is an attempt to pressure them to improve their menu quality). And that logic doesn't seem to change if my decision is based on the owner being rude, or the spokesperson annoying me, or any number of other reasons.
"Boycott" places a collective ethical imperative on decisions that ordinarily would simply fall under the ambit of private choice. There's no problem with that, except when the term colonizes actions that the actor doesn't intend to portray in that fashion. I know people who don't buy wines from the West Bank. They wouldn't say they're boycotting Israel, or even boycotting the settlements. And they generally don't view their decision as a means of exerting "pressure" on Israel (even to end the occupation). All it is that, for whatever reason, wine from the West Bank makes them squicky, and so they don't purchase it. I think a lot of people would characterize their conduct as a "boycott", even as I'm confident they don't see their action in those terms.
My gut instinct is that there is a real distinction here and it's one we should honor. I don't think boycotts are necessarily illegitimate -- their moral propriety depends on a host of questions including their scope, criteria for inclusion, and goals -- but I also don't think they conceptually cover any individual consumer's choice to abstain from purchasing a particular product. To boycott, to me, involves a self-conscious decision to join in collective action for purpose of publicly expressing a critical view with the goal of inducing a change in behavior.
If I decide to stay at Caesars rather than the Venetian, I don't self-consciously view myself as boycotting the Venetian, I don't locate what I'm doing into any sort of collective action, I don't publicly declare it as representing a critical or political view, and I don't view myself as trying to induce Sheldon Adelson to behave better.
I just think Adelson's sort of a schmuck. And so, all else being equal, I'd rather not give him my money.
It's a lovely hotel, don't get me wrong -- strikingly beautiful, in its way.
But Sheldon Adelson is a schmuck, and I don't want to give him my money, so I stay elsewhere.
Am I boycotting the Venetian?
I don't think so. In my mind's eye, I've never thought of myself as "boycotting the Venetian". But why not?
Some might say I am boycotting the Venetian, I just don't want to admit to myself that's what I'm doing because I don't like thinking of myself as a boycotting sort.
Perhaps. But there are some other potential distinctions. First, I don't position what I'm doing as part of any broader expressive mobilization campaign against Sheldon Adelson. I don't publicly announce "I don't stay at the Venetian" (other than the context of this post, of course), I don't link up with other "boycotters" to amplify my voice or try to convince others not to stay at the Venetian either. If boycotting feels inherently like collective action, my choice is personal and private, and I have no interest in extending it beyond that.
Second, my "boycott" -- if it is that -- is extremely lightly held. I've walked through the Venetian, taken pictures at the Venetian, shopped at the Venetian, ate at restaurants at the Venetian. There's no real coherency to it. And more than that, if (say) a friend was hosting a bachelor party in Vegas and booked us a suite at the Venetian, I'd attend without concern. It's not where I'd pick, but I wouldn't view it as violating any ethical commitments on my part. Boycotts seem to me like they have to positions of principle; at most my avoidance of the Venetian expresses a ceteris paribus distaste (one could characterize what I'm doing is drawing a line in the sand -- I'll patronize the Venetian to this extent, but no further -- but that's certainly not how I think of what I'm doing. In all honesty, I have a mild preference against staying at the Venetian, which can be overriden by any number of relatively mundane circumstances).
That raises a third issue, which is that people decide not to buy certain products or patronize certain businesses all the time, for all sorts of reasons. Surely, if I don't go to a restaurant because I think the food is gross, it'd be weird to characterize me as "boycotting the restaurant" (even though one could say that my refusal to patronize is an attempt to pressure them to improve their menu quality). And that logic doesn't seem to change if my decision is based on the owner being rude, or the spokesperson annoying me, or any number of other reasons.
"Boycott" places a collective ethical imperative on decisions that ordinarily would simply fall under the ambit of private choice. There's no problem with that, except when the term colonizes actions that the actor doesn't intend to portray in that fashion. I know people who don't buy wines from the West Bank. They wouldn't say they're boycotting Israel, or even boycotting the settlements. And they generally don't view their decision as a means of exerting "pressure" on Israel (even to end the occupation). All it is that, for whatever reason, wine from the West Bank makes them squicky, and so they don't purchase it. I think a lot of people would characterize their conduct as a "boycott", even as I'm confident they don't see their action in those terms.
My gut instinct is that there is a real distinction here and it's one we should honor. I don't think boycotts are necessarily illegitimate -- their moral propriety depends on a host of questions including their scope, criteria for inclusion, and goals -- but I also don't think they conceptually cover any individual consumer's choice to abstain from purchasing a particular product. To boycott, to me, involves a self-conscious decision to join in collective action for purpose of publicly expressing a critical view with the goal of inducing a change in behavior.
If I decide to stay at Caesars rather than the Venetian, I don't self-consciously view myself as boycotting the Venetian, I don't locate what I'm doing into any sort of collective action, I don't publicly declare it as representing a critical or political view, and I don't view myself as trying to induce Sheldon Adelson to behave better.
I just think Adelson's sort of a schmuck. And so, all else being equal, I'd rather not give him my money.
Monday, January 28, 2019
My Thoughts on Jewish Organizations
There are a lot of Jewish organizations out there. And I have thoughts on them. Some I like a lot. Some I like less. I'm a progressive Zionist with more of an academic than a political bent, which means I don't like anti-Zionist or right-wing groups, and all else equal I prefer groups who are "wonkish" or "scholarly" to "political" or "activist". But the former part matters more than the latter -- I understand the importance of political organizing, even if it isn't my style; whereas groups which actively back settlements or BDS go a ways beyond "not my style".
Anyway, these are just my opinions -- do with them what you will (and yes, I know I forgot your absolute fave/mortal nemesis. It's not comprehensive).
* * *
AIPAC: Kind of an old, creaky battleship at this point. I actually think AIPAC probably does see the threats to its core mission -- namely, the growing partisanization of Israel as an issue -- but is too large and unwieldy to actually do anything about it. For all its supposed power, it's actually not that effective anymore (though it's very effective at being a boogeyman for "the all-powerful Israel Lobby").
Ameinu: I like them a lot. The former Labor Zionist Alliance has the right political orientation and tends to take a careful approach to things, which I appreciate. Its "Third Narrative" initiative is definitely my cup of tea.
American Jewish Committee: Deeply uneven. Sometimes stands out in front on human rights. Sometimes falls over itself to praise Jair Bolsonaro. Definitely not adjusting with the times, and definitely needs to fire whoever is running its Twitter account.
American Jewish Congress: Are they still a thing?
Americans for Peace Now: Of the true "left" groups, definitely my favorite. That's probably because its the only one that's still okay with Zionism, but also because it does genuinely important and substantive work and provides a much needed critical progressive voice inside Jewish communal structures.
Anti-Defamation League: My favorite of the major "mainline" groups. Does it bat 1.000? No. But it's right more often than it isn't, and it takes a lot more flak than it deserves. The effort by conservative voices to place it in the pocket of the left is ludicrous.
A Wider Bridge: In late 2015/early 2016, I started looking up which Jewish organizations not specifically focused on Mizrahi/Sephardic issues nonetheless mentioned Mizrahi/Sephardic Jews. My methodology was pretty basic and the bar was pretty low: do a google site search for "Mizrahi" or "Sephardic". The results were ... disappointing. A Wider Bridge was an exception. Generally does very good work, and the fact that it does good work is probably why its opponents are so desperate to smear it with the "pinkwashing" label.
Be'chol Lashon: Can't rave about them enough. They deserve infinitely more attention, resources, and support from the rest of the Jewish community. I dare say the future of the vitality of diaspora Judaism depends on the success or failure of Be'chol Lashon's work.
Bend the Arc: Another group I'm generally positively disposed towards, though I have little to say on them specifically.
Conference of Presidents: More of an umbrella group, but it needs mention because for too long it's been far too solicitous of its right-wing members (see ZOA). American Jews vote for the Democratic Party at the same proportion as Idahoans vote Republican -- our conservatives should have exactly as much communal power as an Idaho Democrat.
HIAS: If you don't like HIAS, you're a monster.
Hillel: Desperately needs a dose of democracy. They're still the center of Jewish life on many campuses, and that's important in its own right. They're not the evil leviathan Open Hillel makes them out to be, but because they're not accountable to the student population they serve, they constantly fall into easily avoidable pitfalls. They certainly can't be trusted with something as sensitive as a partnership guideline. In my dream world, they become the bureaucratic arm of the American Union of Jewish Students.
IfNotNow: Everything you don't like about BernieBros, but trying to rip apart the Jewish community instead of the Democratic Party. Sanctimonious, smug, hackish, theatrical, and almost unfathomably self-righteous. For them, sparking a civil war within the Jewish community isn't a risk they hope to avoid; it's the point of the movement. "Some people have never met a forest fire they didn't ache to pour gasoline on." I went from "cautious optimism" to "deep disdain" in a hurry.
Israel Policy Forum: Somehow I'm always overlooking them. Don't know why -- they do really good work. Overall, I take a positive view.
Jewish Community Relations Councils/Jewish Federations: Depends on the federation, naturally. As always, I worry about the democracy deficit. Are they responsive to genuine community sentiment, or are they responsive to their donor base?
Jewish Voice for Peace: Ugh.
JFREJ: Everytime I read something from JFREJ, my reaction is always "meh". It's never particularly bad. It's never particularly good. It's meh. I'm if anything impressed by how consistently they make me shrug.
JIMENA: Sometimes takes a more conservative line than I would like, but overall an important voice for the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish community. When I've worked with them, I've had no trouble integrating my progressive Zionist positions into what we've done together.
J Street: Overall I like J Street (I definitely like this statement it just released on its commitment to Israel's future). It's a political lobbying shop, which means it makes certain compromises I wouldn't (less on issues, and more on using rhetoric that is mobilizing more than it is precise), but that comes with the territory -- a classic "not my style, but someone needs to do it" case. And, far and away, no group is maligned further out of proportion to its actual sins than J Street. It's not even close.
OneVoice: Not exclusively a Jewish organization, but it's so important I'll give them a pass. You want durable and just peace in Israel and Palestine? Do the hard work of building grassroots support and political infrastructure for non-extremism and co-existence. That's what OneVoice does.
Partners for Progressive Israel: I don't end up citing them a lot -- Ameinu ends up filling their niche -- but I'm generally positively inclined.
T'ruah: Another very good progressive organization. Their commentary on the UN resolutions criticizing Israeli settlements is one of my favorite statements by a prominent Jewish organizations on any Israel-related topic, ever. Definitely endorse.
Zioness: Came in deeply suspicious of them. Current posture is cautiously okay. They've filed off some of the rougher edges, and they haven't done what some groups in its niche love to do -- spend 90% of their time wailing about how mean people treat Israel before "proving" their progressive bona fides by writing a post about how terribly Saudi Arabia treats women (*cough* Women's March For All). They actually spend most of their time advocating for progressive ends that have no clear relation to Israel. Good on them! Still think they need to confirm that their progressivism extends to Israel itself, though.
Zionist Organization of America: It's tough competition, but Mort Klein might be the worst. And since ZOA has become almost exclusively a vehicle for his hard-right, racist, xenophobic, anti-Palestinian politics, they're the worst too. The only difference between them and JVP is that ZOA gets to be the worst from inside the communal tent -- which goes to show how systematically biased the Jewish community in favor of our fringe right-wing voices.
Anyway, these are just my opinions -- do with them what you will (and yes, I know I forgot your absolute fave/mortal nemesis. It's not comprehensive).
* * *
AIPAC: Kind of an old, creaky battleship at this point. I actually think AIPAC probably does see the threats to its core mission -- namely, the growing partisanization of Israel as an issue -- but is too large and unwieldy to actually do anything about it. For all its supposed power, it's actually not that effective anymore (though it's very effective at being a boogeyman for "the all-powerful Israel Lobby").
Ameinu: I like them a lot. The former Labor Zionist Alliance has the right political orientation and tends to take a careful approach to things, which I appreciate. Its "Third Narrative" initiative is definitely my cup of tea.
American Jewish Committee: Deeply uneven. Sometimes stands out in front on human rights. Sometimes falls over itself to praise Jair Bolsonaro. Definitely not adjusting with the times, and definitely needs to fire whoever is running its Twitter account.
American Jewish Congress: Are they still a thing?
Americans for Peace Now: Of the true "left" groups, definitely my favorite. That's probably because its the only one that's still okay with Zionism, but also because it does genuinely important and substantive work and provides a much needed critical progressive voice inside Jewish communal structures.
Anti-Defamation League: My favorite of the major "mainline" groups. Does it bat 1.000? No. But it's right more often than it isn't, and it takes a lot more flak than it deserves. The effort by conservative voices to place it in the pocket of the left is ludicrous.
A Wider Bridge: In late 2015/early 2016, I started looking up which Jewish organizations not specifically focused on Mizrahi/Sephardic issues nonetheless mentioned Mizrahi/Sephardic Jews. My methodology was pretty basic and the bar was pretty low: do a google site search for "Mizrahi" or "Sephardic". The results were ... disappointing. A Wider Bridge was an exception. Generally does very good work, and the fact that it does good work is probably why its opponents are so desperate to smear it with the "pinkwashing" label.
Be'chol Lashon: Can't rave about them enough. They deserve infinitely more attention, resources, and support from the rest of the Jewish community. I dare say the future of the vitality of diaspora Judaism depends on the success or failure of Be'chol Lashon's work.
Bend the Arc: Another group I'm generally positively disposed towards, though I have little to say on them specifically.
Conference of Presidents: More of an umbrella group, but it needs mention because for too long it's been far too solicitous of its right-wing members (see ZOA). American Jews vote for the Democratic Party at the same proportion as Idahoans vote Republican -- our conservatives should have exactly as much communal power as an Idaho Democrat.
HIAS: If you don't like HIAS, you're a monster.
Hillel: Desperately needs a dose of democracy. They're still the center of Jewish life on many campuses, and that's important in its own right. They're not the evil leviathan Open Hillel makes them out to be, but because they're not accountable to the student population they serve, they constantly fall into easily avoidable pitfalls. They certainly can't be trusted with something as sensitive as a partnership guideline. In my dream world, they become the bureaucratic arm of the American Union of Jewish Students.
IfNotNow: Everything you don't like about BernieBros, but trying to rip apart the Jewish community instead of the Democratic Party. Sanctimonious, smug, hackish, theatrical, and almost unfathomably self-righteous. For them, sparking a civil war within the Jewish community isn't a risk they hope to avoid; it's the point of the movement. "Some people have never met a forest fire they didn't ache to pour gasoline on." I went from "cautious optimism" to "deep disdain" in a hurry.
Israel Policy Forum: Somehow I'm always overlooking them. Don't know why -- they do really good work. Overall, I take a positive view.
Jewish Community Relations Councils/Jewish Federations: Depends on the federation, naturally. As always, I worry about the democracy deficit. Are they responsive to genuine community sentiment, or are they responsive to their donor base?
Jewish Voice for Peace: Ugh.
JFREJ: Everytime I read something from JFREJ, my reaction is always "meh". It's never particularly bad. It's never particularly good. It's meh. I'm if anything impressed by how consistently they make me shrug.
JIMENA: Sometimes takes a more conservative line than I would like, but overall an important voice for the Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish community. When I've worked with them, I've had no trouble integrating my progressive Zionist positions into what we've done together.
J Street: Overall I like J Street (I definitely like this statement it just released on its commitment to Israel's future). It's a political lobbying shop, which means it makes certain compromises I wouldn't (less on issues, and more on using rhetoric that is mobilizing more than it is precise), but that comes with the territory -- a classic "not my style, but someone needs to do it" case. And, far and away, no group is maligned further out of proportion to its actual sins than J Street. It's not even close.
OneVoice: Not exclusively a Jewish organization, but it's so important I'll give them a pass. You want durable and just peace in Israel and Palestine? Do the hard work of building grassroots support and political infrastructure for non-extremism and co-existence. That's what OneVoice does.
Partners for Progressive Israel: I don't end up citing them a lot -- Ameinu ends up filling their niche -- but I'm generally positively inclined.
T'ruah: Another very good progressive organization. Their commentary on the UN resolutions criticizing Israeli settlements is one of my favorite statements by a prominent Jewish organizations on any Israel-related topic, ever. Definitely endorse.
Zioness: Came in deeply suspicious of them. Current posture is cautiously okay. They've filed off some of the rougher edges, and they haven't done what some groups in its niche love to do -- spend 90% of their time wailing about how mean people treat Israel before "proving" their progressive bona fides by writing a post about how terribly Saudi Arabia treats women (*cough* Women's March For All). They actually spend most of their time advocating for progressive ends that have no clear relation to Israel. Good on them! Still think they need to confirm that their progressivism extends to Israel itself, though.
Zionist Organization of America: It's tough competition, but Mort Klein might be the worst. And since ZOA has become almost exclusively a vehicle for his hard-right, racist, xenophobic, anti-Palestinian politics, they're the worst too. The only difference between them and JVP is that ZOA gets to be the worst from inside the communal tent -- which goes to show how systematically biased the Jewish community in favor of our fringe right-wing voices.
Saturday, January 26, 2019
Should We Retire "Hasbara" From Our Vocabulary?
If you ask someone on the street "What does 'hasbara' mean?", they will stare at you blankly.
That's because, contrary to what the internet might have you believe, random people on the street do not know the ends and outs of rhetorical tropes involving Israel or Israeli society.
But if you ask someone somewhat more engaged "What does 'hasbara' mean?", they'll probably give an answer that is something like "propaganda". Hasbara is Israeli propaganda.
Of course, that's not actually accurate. The Hebrew word "Hasbara" translates to "explanation", not propaganda. Now to be sure, it's a particular type of explanation -- a justificatory explanation. Explaining to someone the physical processes by which the moon revolves around the Earth is not hasbara. Explaining to your skeptical spouse why your cable bill is so much higher this month (you bought a big boxing pay-per-view), that would be hasbara.
But right from the get go, this mistranslation should alarm us. There's something very revealing, after all, about a world where Jewish "explanations" are literally heard as "propaganda". All this time we've talking about antisemitic tropes where Jews deceive, manipulate, or hypnotize the world -- and "hasbara" fits right into that.
When people talk about how this argument is "hasbara" or how back in the day they had been subjected to a ton of "hasbara", they're saying more than that they disagree with an argument or that their views have evolved. They're saying that the argument was dishonest or manipulative, that they've learned to recognize the string-pulling. Even when it's Jews doing it, the rhetorical power of dismissing something as hasbara stems almost entirely from antisemitic roots: these Jews are the bad Jews, the manipulators and spin-doctors; I'm an honest Jew who not only sees through the lies, but recognizes the Jewish pattern when I see it.
Ultimately, the way "hasbara" is used is almost always an effort to degrade Jewish claim-making. It relies on tropes of Jewish manipulation and insincerity; it literally collapses, in the Jewish case, the distinction between explanation and propaganda.
For those reasons, I don't really use "hasbara" much myself (at least not unironically), even when speaking of right-wing arguments defending various Israeli actions that I find utterly ridiculous. I've made an effort (not wholly successful) to remove it from my vocabulary. And so if you go through my archives, I mostly use it either (a) ironically, to refer to people dismissing Jews as "hasbara shills" or (b) in literal reference to Hasbara Fellows on campus.
The existence of Hasbara Fellows offers up a new dimension on this discussion. Most obviously, Israel is not the Empire from Star Wars; it does not give its own actors self-consciously evil names like "Death Star" or "Avarice". So the fact that it uses the term "Hasbara Fellow" is a pretty strong hint that the word itself does not have an intrinsically malicious meaning. It'd be like sending off "Deception Fellows" to campus -- who would do that?
On the other side, promoters of calling out "hasbara" might contend that they are referring to something specific -- official Israeli governmental efforts to cast Israel in a good light and foment positive dispositions towards the country. That's hasbara (and that's, literally, what Hasbara Fellows are for). So it can't be wrong to call it by its name.
One problem with this is that the term hasbara is not limited in application only to Israeli government speakers. Pretty much any Jew who speaks in a remotely apologetic tone for Israel -- no matter their capacity or connection to Israeli governmental actors -- can and will be accused of engaging in hasbara at one point or another. If anything, the government linkage serves more to expand the scope than to limit it: Jews who sound "hasbara-ish" will typically be accused of being outright Israeli governmental agents -- because who else would spout hasbara other than someone on the Israeli payroll?
But the larger problem is that we already have a term for states seeking to present themselves in a good light and make people feel positively towards the country: public diplomacy. Now, to be sure, public diplomacy is motivated -- the "explanations" it will give regarding questionable state conduct are in service of a diplomatic end; they aren't the pure dispassionate appraisal one might get from a wholly disinterested scholar. Obviously, anyone who is listening to acts of public diplomacy should listen with a critical ear.
But there's nothing wrong with public diplomacy per se, it's an unremarkable fact of everyday statecraft. And so the real function of "hasbara", as its used in public discourse, is to take something normal and mundane and delegitimate it by slapping a scary-sounding foreign word onto it.
Public diplomacy is a fact of life, you handle it by not shutting down your critical facilities. Hasbara is something undefineably more nefarious -- we don't know exactly what it is (the fact that the average person probably has no idea what the words means helps, rather than hurts), but it sure sounds scary. Any country can engage in public diplomacy (hell, any country can engage in propaganda), but only Israel can do hasbara. It's another way of exceptionalizing Israel and suggesting that nothing it does can be analyzed through "normal" processes -- we need new and special words, new and special concepts, new and special standards to accurately assess anything it does. And, I'd suggest, it's implicitly orientalist as well. It is the foreignness, the mysterious impenetrability of the word hasbara, that gives it such power.
Is it fair to say that there are arguments made by Israeli government defenders which strike me as ludicrous, bad-faith, or just impossible to take seriously? Of course -- I can think of a half-dozen examples instantaneously. And so I can understand the desire to have a pithy word which just puts those arguments in their place. "Hasbara" can fill that niche nicely.
But really, what we do get by keeping "hasbara" in our vocabulary that we wouldn't otherwise have? When Rep. Ilhan Omar apologized for her "hypnotize" tweet -- and I give her credit for that -- it was striking to see how many people rushed in to condemn her for the apology. They were insistent that Israel really does "hypnotize" the world, that hypnosis is the best way to describe how it is that Israel ever persuades anyone of anything. In effect, they really do believe that all Jewish "explanations" for Israel are naught but propaganda.
In this way, the main utility of "hasbara", as a term, isn't to enable us to call out bad-faith arguments when they appear. The main function is to suggest that the entire sweep of the discourse is bad-faith, manipulative or hypnotic. It's not that this argument is a bad argument; the entire discursive sphere about Israel (or more specifically, the Jewish and non-explicitly anti-Zionist contribution to it) is defined by manipulation and deceit. Hasbara, we might say, is a structure, not an event -- it's not a discrete set of bad arguments we reject as failing the smell test, it's the entire state of the world where Jews endeavor to bend reality into unreality.
That sort of outlook just can't be sustained -- at least, not in a way that is compatible with the fair inclusion of Jewish voices in deliberative arenas. The fact is that there are certain words and terms which have genuine usefulness but which do far more damage than good, and whose use is consequently not justified. For me, "self-hating Jew" is one such term -- I understand the desire to put down Jews whose public persona seems entirely dedicated to slamming other Jews, but the degrading, marginalizing character of "self-hating Jews" is just too harmful to justify its usage -- and so I don't use the term.
The more I think about it, the more I think "hasbara" falls into the same boat. And so I think it's time that it gets retired as well.
That's because, contrary to what the internet might have you believe, random people on the street do not know the ends and outs of rhetorical tropes involving Israel or Israeli society.
But if you ask someone somewhat more engaged "What does 'hasbara' mean?", they'll probably give an answer that is something like "propaganda". Hasbara is Israeli propaganda.
Of course, that's not actually accurate. The Hebrew word "Hasbara" translates to "explanation", not propaganda. Now to be sure, it's a particular type of explanation -- a justificatory explanation. Explaining to someone the physical processes by which the moon revolves around the Earth is not hasbara. Explaining to your skeptical spouse why your cable bill is so much higher this month (you bought a big boxing pay-per-view), that would be hasbara.
But right from the get go, this mistranslation should alarm us. There's something very revealing, after all, about a world where Jewish "explanations" are literally heard as "propaganda". All this time we've talking about antisemitic tropes where Jews deceive, manipulate, or hypnotize the world -- and "hasbara" fits right into that.
When people talk about how this argument is "hasbara" or how back in the day they had been subjected to a ton of "hasbara", they're saying more than that they disagree with an argument or that their views have evolved. They're saying that the argument was dishonest or manipulative, that they've learned to recognize the string-pulling. Even when it's Jews doing it, the rhetorical power of dismissing something as hasbara stems almost entirely from antisemitic roots: these Jews are the bad Jews, the manipulators and spin-doctors; I'm an honest Jew who not only sees through the lies, but recognizes the Jewish pattern when I see it.
Ultimately, the way "hasbara" is used is almost always an effort to degrade Jewish claim-making. It relies on tropes of Jewish manipulation and insincerity; it literally collapses, in the Jewish case, the distinction between explanation and propaganda.
For those reasons, I don't really use "hasbara" much myself (at least not unironically), even when speaking of right-wing arguments defending various Israeli actions that I find utterly ridiculous. I've made an effort (not wholly successful) to remove it from my vocabulary. And so if you go through my archives, I mostly use it either (a) ironically, to refer to people dismissing Jews as "hasbara shills" or (b) in literal reference to Hasbara Fellows on campus.
The existence of Hasbara Fellows offers up a new dimension on this discussion. Most obviously, Israel is not the Empire from Star Wars; it does not give its own actors self-consciously evil names like "Death Star" or "Avarice". So the fact that it uses the term "Hasbara Fellow" is a pretty strong hint that the word itself does not have an intrinsically malicious meaning. It'd be like sending off "Deception Fellows" to campus -- who would do that?
On the other side, promoters of calling out "hasbara" might contend that they are referring to something specific -- official Israeli governmental efforts to cast Israel in a good light and foment positive dispositions towards the country. That's hasbara (and that's, literally, what Hasbara Fellows are for). So it can't be wrong to call it by its name.
One problem with this is that the term hasbara is not limited in application only to Israeli government speakers. Pretty much any Jew who speaks in a remotely apologetic tone for Israel -- no matter their capacity or connection to Israeli governmental actors -- can and will be accused of engaging in hasbara at one point or another. If anything, the government linkage serves more to expand the scope than to limit it: Jews who sound "hasbara-ish" will typically be accused of being outright Israeli governmental agents -- because who else would spout hasbara other than someone on the Israeli payroll?
But the larger problem is that we already have a term for states seeking to present themselves in a good light and make people feel positively towards the country: public diplomacy. Now, to be sure, public diplomacy is motivated -- the "explanations" it will give regarding questionable state conduct are in service of a diplomatic end; they aren't the pure dispassionate appraisal one might get from a wholly disinterested scholar. Obviously, anyone who is listening to acts of public diplomacy should listen with a critical ear.
But there's nothing wrong with public diplomacy per se, it's an unremarkable fact of everyday statecraft. And so the real function of "hasbara", as its used in public discourse, is to take something normal and mundane and delegitimate it by slapping a scary-sounding foreign word onto it.
Public diplomacy is a fact of life, you handle it by not shutting down your critical facilities. Hasbara is something undefineably more nefarious -- we don't know exactly what it is (the fact that the average person probably has no idea what the words means helps, rather than hurts), but it sure sounds scary. Any country can engage in public diplomacy (hell, any country can engage in propaganda), but only Israel can do hasbara. It's another way of exceptionalizing Israel and suggesting that nothing it does can be analyzed through "normal" processes -- we need new and special words, new and special concepts, new and special standards to accurately assess anything it does. And, I'd suggest, it's implicitly orientalist as well. It is the foreignness, the mysterious impenetrability of the word hasbara, that gives it such power.
Is it fair to say that there are arguments made by Israeli government defenders which strike me as ludicrous, bad-faith, or just impossible to take seriously? Of course -- I can think of a half-dozen examples instantaneously. And so I can understand the desire to have a pithy word which just puts those arguments in their place. "Hasbara" can fill that niche nicely.
But really, what we do get by keeping "hasbara" in our vocabulary that we wouldn't otherwise have? When Rep. Ilhan Omar apologized for her "hypnotize" tweet -- and I give her credit for that -- it was striking to see how many people rushed in to condemn her for the apology. They were insistent that Israel really does "hypnotize" the world, that hypnosis is the best way to describe how it is that Israel ever persuades anyone of anything. In effect, they really do believe that all Jewish "explanations" for Israel are naught but propaganda.
In this way, the main utility of "hasbara", as a term, isn't to enable us to call out bad-faith arguments when they appear. The main function is to suggest that the entire sweep of the discourse is bad-faith, manipulative or hypnotic. It's not that this argument is a bad argument; the entire discursive sphere about Israel (or more specifically, the Jewish and non-explicitly anti-Zionist contribution to it) is defined by manipulation and deceit. Hasbara, we might say, is a structure, not an event -- it's not a discrete set of bad arguments we reject as failing the smell test, it's the entire state of the world where Jews endeavor to bend reality into unreality.
That sort of outlook just can't be sustained -- at least, not in a way that is compatible with the fair inclusion of Jewish voices in deliberative arenas. The fact is that there are certain words and terms which have genuine usefulness but which do far more damage than good, and whose use is consequently not justified. For me, "self-hating Jew" is one such term -- I understand the desire to put down Jews whose public persona seems entirely dedicated to slamming other Jews, but the degrading, marginalizing character of "self-hating Jews" is just too harmful to justify its usage -- and so I don't use the term.
The more I think about it, the more I think "hasbara" falls into the same boat. And so I think it's time that it gets retired as well.
Friday, January 25, 2019
What's the Difference Between Impeachment and Faithless Electors?
One of the first plot points on the TV series The Americans occurs in the aftermath of the attempted assassination of President Reagan, and Secretary of State Alexander Haig's famous declaration "I am in control here" while the President was in the hospital.
Among Americans, this statement was roundly mocked as Haig being overzealous and ill-informed. But -- while there certainly was anxiety around the assassination attempt regarding who was behind it, whether it was a military move, etc. -- there wasn't really any concern among the American public that Haig was actually launching a coup.
But (in the show, at least) the Russians don't know that. From their vantage point, a top government official had just seized on the chaos of the assassination attempt to declare himself head of state. Without a sort of deep enmeshment in American law, culture, and society, it could be hard to tell -- from afar -- why Haig's statement wouldn't be seen as really worrisome, and what distinguished it from a "real" coup attempt.
I was thinking about this with respect to two ways the ticket that wins the presidential election (as understood in the conventional sense) could nonetheless be blocked or removed from office. One way is, immediately after election day but before he is inaugurated, "faithless electors" deciding en masse to vote for someone else. So even though Trump and Pence won most electoral votes, they could just decide to vote for Nancy Pelosi and some other Vice President. The other way is, after the President Vice President are inaugurated and seated, Congress impeaches and removes them.
To any American observer, though, these are two very different things. Congress impeaching and convicting Donald Trump would be controversial, no doubt, and high profile. But it is still basically recognized as a valid "move"; it isn't an illicit seizure of power. By contrast, the faithless elector route would not be seen that way. It'd be seen as, more or less, a coup.
But why? Both are formally legal. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution allows for the President and Vice President's removal by impeachment (and, under the law, the next person in the Line of Succession is the Speaker of the House). And under the 12th Amendment Electors have the authority to vote for whomever they like for President (I leave aside the issue of "faithless elector" statutes and their applicability -- we can assume that all the faithless electors come from states which do not prohibit such acts).
And it's not a matter of some established tradition either. Sure, we've never had a case where faithless electors have altered the victor of an election. But we've also never impeached and removed a President (two Presidents -- Johnson and Clinton -- were impeached but not removed; Nixon resigned before he could be impeached).
So suppose Congress does impeach Trump and Pence. Your friend from abroad hears the news and worries -- has Nancy Pelosi just announced a coup? How do you explain that that isn't really an accurate description of what happened, in a way that distinguishes the "faithless elector" case?
(As you might imagine, what's really prompted this line of thinking is the "legal" arguments for Juan Guaido claiming the presidency in Venezuela. Even assuming he's obeying the letter of the law -- is this more like an impeachment, or more like a faithless elector? Of course, I think the actual answer is that the "legitimate" legal structures in Venezuela have decayed so severely that trying to think in terms of legitimated legal pathways is just a misfire completely -- we're talking about a country where the Supreme Court, stacked with Maduro loyalists, just outright dissolved the national assembly, after all)
Among Americans, this statement was roundly mocked as Haig being overzealous and ill-informed. But -- while there certainly was anxiety around the assassination attempt regarding who was behind it, whether it was a military move, etc. -- there wasn't really any concern among the American public that Haig was actually launching a coup.
But (in the show, at least) the Russians don't know that. From their vantage point, a top government official had just seized on the chaos of the assassination attempt to declare himself head of state. Without a sort of deep enmeshment in American law, culture, and society, it could be hard to tell -- from afar -- why Haig's statement wouldn't be seen as really worrisome, and what distinguished it from a "real" coup attempt.
I was thinking about this with respect to two ways the ticket that wins the presidential election (as understood in the conventional sense) could nonetheless be blocked or removed from office. One way is, immediately after election day but before he is inaugurated, "faithless electors" deciding en masse to vote for someone else. So even though Trump and Pence won most electoral votes, they could just decide to vote for Nancy Pelosi and some other Vice President. The other way is, after the President Vice President are inaugurated and seated, Congress impeaches and removes them.
To any American observer, though, these are two very different things. Congress impeaching and convicting Donald Trump would be controversial, no doubt, and high profile. But it is still basically recognized as a valid "move"; it isn't an illicit seizure of power. By contrast, the faithless elector route would not be seen that way. It'd be seen as, more or less, a coup.
But why? Both are formally legal. Article II, Section 4 of the Constitution allows for the President and Vice President's removal by impeachment (and, under the law, the next person in the Line of Succession is the Speaker of the House). And under the 12th Amendment Electors have the authority to vote for whomever they like for President (I leave aside the issue of "faithless elector" statutes and their applicability -- we can assume that all the faithless electors come from states which do not prohibit such acts).
And it's not a matter of some established tradition either. Sure, we've never had a case where faithless electors have altered the victor of an election. But we've also never impeached and removed a President (two Presidents -- Johnson and Clinton -- were impeached but not removed; Nixon resigned before he could be impeached).
So suppose Congress does impeach Trump and Pence. Your friend from abroad hears the news and worries -- has Nancy Pelosi just announced a coup? How do you explain that that isn't really an accurate description of what happened, in a way that distinguishes the "faithless elector" case?
(As you might imagine, what's really prompted this line of thinking is the "legal" arguments for Juan Guaido claiming the presidency in Venezuela. Even assuming he's obeying the letter of the law -- is this more like an impeachment, or more like a faithless elector? Of course, I think the actual answer is that the "legitimate" legal structures in Venezuela have decayed so severely that trying to think in terms of legitimated legal pathways is just a misfire completely -- we're talking about a country where the Supreme Court, stacked with Maduro loyalists, just outright dissolved the national assembly, after all)
Thursday, January 24, 2019
Informed Uninformed Thoughts on Venezuela
I am not particularly uninformed on Venezuela. But I feel decently informed about what I don't know about Venezuela and, more importantly, what that uninformedness should yield (hint: not sweeping confident endorsement of any particular move or action). So here are my informed, uninformed thoughts:
1) Nicolas Maduro is an authoritarian thug. Nobody should pretend like he's anything else.
2) I don't really know anything about Juan Guaido. I suspect I'd like him more than Maduro because, well, how could I not? But I've been burned before.
3) Coups are bad. They don't become good just because I think I'll like the incoming leader more than the deposed one.
4) I don't know if this is a coup, because I don't know enough (read: anything) about Venezuelan legal structures to know if Guaido's actions track valid legal pathways available to the General Assembly. Put differently, is this "coup" the equivalent of Trump/Pence getting impeached (a perfectly legally-validated pathway for changing America's head of state) and that being labeled a "coup" by Pelosi?
5) Just as a lawyer, I am well aware that pretty much any position can be justified to an uninformed lay person via too-cute formalist arguments that nobody who actually knows anything about the law would swallow. But -- since discerning if that's what's happening here requires that sort of deep enmeshment in the Venezuelan legal tradition that I don't have and can't realistically get -- there's no way for me to know which side, if any, is being cute like this.
6) It's very likely that Maduro was fraudulently elected. That doesn't mean his ouster can't be a coup -- non-democratically elected leaders can be targeted for coups too, and there are good reasons to still oppose such coups -- but it does take the steam out of the "but democracy!" objections a bit.
7) Elections, at their core, are ways of compelling leaders to give up power even when they'd rather stay in office. Which raises the question: by what method, other than a coup, can a non-democratic leader be compelled to give up power even when they'd rather stay in office?
8) The U.S. shouldn't intervene, in the sense of, say, a military incursion. At the same time, at some level the U.S. can't fully stay out -- we have to recognize someone's government after all. And it begs the question to say "Venezuela's government should be decided by the Venezuelan people" -- true, obviously, but the entire locus of the dispute in Venezuela is which government actually has been chosen by the people.
9) I am deeply cynical that this is going to play out in a manner that even remotely approximates "good". I suspect Maduro will remain in power (regardless of whether Guaido was acting "legally" or not), and I suspect we will see a further clampdown on the political rights and liberties in Venezuela in its wake.
1) Nicolas Maduro is an authoritarian thug. Nobody should pretend like he's anything else.
2) I don't really know anything about Juan Guaido. I suspect I'd like him more than Maduro because, well, how could I not? But I've been burned before.
3) Coups are bad. They don't become good just because I think I'll like the incoming leader more than the deposed one.
4) I don't know if this is a coup, because I don't know enough (read: anything) about Venezuelan legal structures to know if Guaido's actions track valid legal pathways available to the General Assembly. Put differently, is this "coup" the equivalent of Trump/Pence getting impeached (a perfectly legally-validated pathway for changing America's head of state) and that being labeled a "coup" by Pelosi?
5) Just as a lawyer, I am well aware that pretty much any position can be justified to an uninformed lay person via too-cute formalist arguments that nobody who actually knows anything about the law would swallow. But -- since discerning if that's what's happening here requires that sort of deep enmeshment in the Venezuelan legal tradition that I don't have and can't realistically get -- there's no way for me to know which side, if any, is being cute like this.
6) It's very likely that Maduro was fraudulently elected. That doesn't mean his ouster can't be a coup -- non-democratically elected leaders can be targeted for coups too, and there are good reasons to still oppose such coups -- but it does take the steam out of the "but democracy!" objections a bit.
7) Elections, at their core, are ways of compelling leaders to give up power even when they'd rather stay in office. Which raises the question: by what method, other than a coup, can a non-democratic leader be compelled to give up power even when they'd rather stay in office?
8) The U.S. shouldn't intervene, in the sense of, say, a military incursion. At the same time, at some level the U.S. can't fully stay out -- we have to recognize someone's government after all. And it begs the question to say "Venezuela's government should be decided by the Venezuelan people" -- true, obviously, but the entire locus of the dispute in Venezuela is which government actually has been chosen by the people.
9) I am deeply cynical that this is going to play out in a manner that even remotely approximates "good". I suspect Maduro will remain in power (regardless of whether Guaido was acting "legally" or not), and I suspect we will see a further clampdown on the political rights and liberties in Venezuela in its wake.
Wednesday, January 23, 2019
Let's Analyze Maryland's Anti-BDS Executive Order!
Back in 2017, Maryland Governor Larry Hogan (R) promulgated an executive order barring state contracts with companies which boycott Israel. Now, a former Maryland State Delegate, Saqib Ali, is suing, claiming the order violates the First Amendment.
I actually knew Saqib, back in the day (we used to be Facebook friends). He was elected to the House of Delegates in 2006, served for four years before unsuccessfully mounting a primary challenge to incumbent State Senator Nancy King, and hasn't returned to politics since. He was also an ally of then-Rep. Albert Wynn, back when he was trying to fend off an (ultimately successful) primary challenge from Donna Edwards.
But enough reminiscing. You don't come here for trips down memory lane, you come here for my cutting-edge analysis of anti-BDS enactments -- e.g., my guide for writing anti-BDS laws without making a "constitutional and PR mess". So how does this one fare?
Honestly? Better than many, albeit not perfect.
What's interesting about this particular EO is that it is actually quite narrowly written -- indeed, it is one of the closest to my preferred "just write a damned anti-discrimination provision" formulation that I've seen. The EO's definition of boycotting Israel covers only actions taken "because of [an entity's] Israeli national origin, or residence and incorporation in Israel or its territories."
Moreover, it expressly does not cover non-commercial actions, boycotts of the Israeli government or other "public" entities, and, most importantly, boycotts taken "because of the specific conduct of the person or entity."
So, in effect, the Maryland EO would preclude a contractor from saying, flatly, "I won't work with any Israeli entity, because they're Israeli." But if one had a specified objection to a given company -- "I won't work with this Israeli company, because they engage in this objectionable practice" -- that would be fine.
It's worth juxtaposing this order against the Rubio bill being debated in the Senate. To be sure, the latter is awkward to talk about because its really an anti-preemption bill and doesn't actually change any positive law regarding BDS. But the way Rubio formulates anti-BDS laws is quite different from how Hogan did it.
Rubio's bill purports to encompass boycotts taken "for purposes of coercing political action by, or imposing policy positions on, the Government of Israel." The at least quasi-expressive character of the boycott is built in; indeed, as I observed, Rubio's bill actually doesn't cover straightforward discrimination cases ("I won't work with Israelis because they're Israeli"), but would cover even boycotts of certain American companies if the goal was to "coerce" Israeli political action (e.g., boycotting Caterpillar to try and get Israel to change its housing demolition practices). The more expressive the boycott is, the more vulnerable it is under Rubio's proposed law.
By contrast, the Maryland EO runs in the opposite direction: where one acts for specified, expressive reasons -- i.e., due to particular choices that company or entity has made -- the boycott is protected. It is only the raw act of refusing to work with someone based on their nationality that is proscribed. And while one could characterize even that as "expressive", we have very good reasons not to go down the road of "my refusal to do business with people based on their nationality is protected expression!"
So those are some of things I like about the EO. What don't I like? Well, there's the failure to differentiate between Israel proper and the territories, to begin with. And more importantly, I continue to think we'd be better off just writing a general anti-discrimination requirement, rather than an Israel-only one-off. Why not just say state contractors must certify that do not boycott any company "because of [its] national origin, or residence and incorporation in a particular nation or territory"? So much aggravation could be avoided this way! (Which suggests that, maybe, the aggravation is the point).
The inclusion only of Israel also creates a needless viewpoint discrimination opening that otherwise wouldn't exist. On the one hand, it seems to me that the Maryland EO only prohibits conduct targeting Israeli national origin that could already be proscribed by a general anti-nationality discrimination rule. But there is obviously something askance in only prohibiting national origin discrimination against one nation (just as I'm fine with prohibiting discrimination on basis of a contractor's "religion", but I'm much less fine prohibiting discrimination on basis of a contractor being "Protestant" or "Buddhist". No, I don't think you should be able to discriminate against Buddhists -- but what message does it send when it's only that religion that's protected?).
I also observed that my preference is for these laws to only regulate contractors as contractors, not in their "off-the-clock" decisions, and that they probably should exempt sole proprietorships. The "off-the-clock" issue is vague here -- while the EO on face seems to also cover anti-Israel discrimination that is unrelated to the contractor's work for the state, the implementation of the EO seems to narrow its ambit. A bidder or contractor is asked to certify that it
But the EO definitely does apply to sole proprietors. That gives us a chance to mention Ali's specific suit, since he is suing as a sole proprietor who wants to apply for certain state software development contracts.
The thing is -- I think it's an open question whether Ali even has standing to sue, because I'm not sure he successfully pleads that his conduct actually conflicts with what's proscribed under the EO. For one, David Bernstein has argued that there is a difference between regulating a "sole proprietorship" and the individual who is a "sole proprietor" in their personal capacity -- only the former is precluded from boycotting Israel, but the individual-qua-individual is free to do whatever he wants. The complaint Ali filed does not, to my knowledge, ever say that Ali-the-software-engineer engages in any boycotting activity. Indeed, if anything it indicates the opposite -- it's a personal stand he takes personally:
If we go back to how Maryland appears to be implementing the law -- asking the bidder whether it has refused to contract with an Israeli-qua-Israeli "in the solicitation, selection, or commercial treatment of any subcontractor, vendor, or supplier" -- this problem comes into sharper focus: has Ali, at any point, had even the occasion to reject Sabra or Sodastream as a "vendor" for one of his software engineering projects? I'm dubious.
Now to be fair, the whole point of sole proprietorships is that the border between the "company" and the individual is blurry and doesn't really need to be kept firmly separate. If Ali works out of a home office and decides he's not going to keep Sabra Hummus as a snack in the minifridge, is he boycotting or is the proprietorship? So there remains some uncertainties in such a case -- which is one reason why I think states need to be very careful in applying these laws to sole proprietorships.
But there's a bigger problem lurking Ali's case: His complaint doesn't actually say he boycotts Israeli companies on basis of their nationality. It says that he boycotts Sabra Hummus and SodaStream -- but it doesn't say why in any real detail ("which have ties to Israel and its occupation of Palestine"). The indication is that he chose those companies "because of the specific conduct" they've engaged in with respect to Palestinians -- conduct which Ali objects to. But such decisions are expressly not covered by the Executive Order. It seems to me that to establish an actual clash with the law, Ali would have to aver that he boycotts those companies because of their "Israeli national origin" or their "incorporation and residence" in Israel or Israeli-occupied territories. And so while he says he can't sign the certification "in good faith", I actually think it's likely that he hasn't done anything that would foreclose him from doing so.
Indeed, I kind of suspect that Ali's problem isn't that he actually engages in conduct proscribed by the EO. It's that he doesn't want to say he doesn't boycott Israel -- even if, for purposes of the rules of the EO, he doesn't. This isn't as uncommon as you'd think -- there's a long history of government compelling corporations to engage in certain speech (e.g., being forced to label that their product is "Made in China"), and an equally long history of corporations trying to allege that such compulsions violate the First Amendment. I tend to be skeptical of those claims, particularly in the context of a certification submitted to a contracting officer -- hardly an activity typically thought of as "expressive". And here, where Ali could sign the certification and would nonetheless be free to state -- as loudly as he wants -- that he's still boycotting SodaStream and he's doing it because of this that and the other malign conduct SodaStream has engaged in, the restriction on his expressive capacities is minimal.
The law here remains unsettled, and the Maryland order is certainly not perfect -- in particular, I just really wish states would get off the "anti-BDS" kick entirely and just pass consistent rules governing nationality-based discrimination if that's what they care about. That said, the Maryland EO is considerably better than many of its peers -- mostly because it contains itself to cases of straightforward discrimination and, unlike Rubio's bill, doesn't target expressive conduct. And because it's so narrowly focused, it might not even be the case that Ali actually has standing to challenge it -- I think there's a very viable motion to dismiss here for the state's attorney general's office. I suppose we'll see soon enough.
I actually knew Saqib, back in the day (we used to be Facebook friends). He was elected to the House of Delegates in 2006, served for four years before unsuccessfully mounting a primary challenge to incumbent State Senator Nancy King, and hasn't returned to politics since. He was also an ally of then-Rep. Albert Wynn, back when he was trying to fend off an (ultimately successful) primary challenge from Donna Edwards.
But enough reminiscing. You don't come here for trips down memory lane, you come here for my cutting-edge analysis of anti-BDS enactments -- e.g., my guide for writing anti-BDS laws without making a "constitutional and PR mess". So how does this one fare?
Honestly? Better than many, albeit not perfect.
What's interesting about this particular EO is that it is actually quite narrowly written -- indeed, it is one of the closest to my preferred "just write a damned anti-discrimination provision" formulation that I've seen. The EO's definition of boycotting Israel covers only actions taken "because of [an entity's] Israeli national origin, or residence and incorporation in Israel or its territories."
Moreover, it expressly does not cover non-commercial actions, boycotts of the Israeli government or other "public" entities, and, most importantly, boycotts taken "because of the specific conduct of the person or entity."
So, in effect, the Maryland EO would preclude a contractor from saying, flatly, "I won't work with any Israeli entity, because they're Israeli." But if one had a specified objection to a given company -- "I won't work with this Israeli company, because they engage in this objectionable practice" -- that would be fine.
It's worth juxtaposing this order against the Rubio bill being debated in the Senate. To be sure, the latter is awkward to talk about because its really an anti-preemption bill and doesn't actually change any positive law regarding BDS. But the way Rubio formulates anti-BDS laws is quite different from how Hogan did it.
Rubio's bill purports to encompass boycotts taken "for purposes of coercing political action by, or imposing policy positions on, the Government of Israel." The at least quasi-expressive character of the boycott is built in; indeed, as I observed, Rubio's bill actually doesn't cover straightforward discrimination cases ("I won't work with Israelis because they're Israeli"), but would cover even boycotts of certain American companies if the goal was to "coerce" Israeli political action (e.g., boycotting Caterpillar to try and get Israel to change its housing demolition practices). The more expressive the boycott is, the more vulnerable it is under Rubio's proposed law.
By contrast, the Maryland EO runs in the opposite direction: where one acts for specified, expressive reasons -- i.e., due to particular choices that company or entity has made -- the boycott is protected. It is only the raw act of refusing to work with someone based on their nationality that is proscribed. And while one could characterize even that as "expressive", we have very good reasons not to go down the road of "my refusal to do business with people based on their nationality is protected expression!"
So those are some of things I like about the EO. What don't I like? Well, there's the failure to differentiate between Israel proper and the territories, to begin with. And more importantly, I continue to think we'd be better off just writing a general anti-discrimination requirement, rather than an Israel-only one-off. Why not just say state contractors must certify that do not boycott any company "because of [its] national origin, or residence and incorporation in a particular nation or territory"? So much aggravation could be avoided this way! (Which suggests that, maybe, the aggravation is the point).
The inclusion only of Israel also creates a needless viewpoint discrimination opening that otherwise wouldn't exist. On the one hand, it seems to me that the Maryland EO only prohibits conduct targeting Israeli national origin that could already be proscribed by a general anti-nationality discrimination rule. But there is obviously something askance in only prohibiting national origin discrimination against one nation (just as I'm fine with prohibiting discrimination on basis of a contractor's "religion", but I'm much less fine prohibiting discrimination on basis of a contractor being "Protestant" or "Buddhist". No, I don't think you should be able to discriminate against Buddhists -- but what message does it send when it's only that religion that's protected?).
I also observed that my preference is for these laws to only regulate contractors as contractors, not in their "off-the-clock" decisions, and that they probably should exempt sole proprietorships. The "off-the-clock" issue is vague here -- while the EO on face seems to also cover anti-Israel discrimination that is unrelated to the contractor's work for the state, the implementation of the EO seems to narrow its ambit. A bidder or contractor is asked to certify that it
has considered all bid/proposals submitted from qualified, potential subcontractors and suppliers, and has not, in the solicitation, selection, or commercial treatment of any subcontractor, vendor, or supplier, refused to transact or terminated business activities, or taken other actions intended to limit commercial relations, with a person or entity on the basis of Israeli national origin, or residence or incorporation in Israel and its territories. The Bidder/Offeror also has not retaliated against any person or other entity for reporting such refusal, termination, or commercially limiting actions.That, to me, asks only about their conduct with respect to subcontractors, vendors, or suppliers for the contract they're bidding on -- a case where Maryland's interest in the conduct of the potential contractor is at its apex. Obviously, Maryland has an interest in ensuring that its contractors pick their subcontractors, vendors, etc., based on their merits and not winnowed the field via political litmus tests.
But the EO definitely does apply to sole proprietors. That gives us a chance to mention Ali's specific suit, since he is suing as a sole proprietor who wants to apply for certain state software development contracts.
The thing is -- I think it's an open question whether Ali even has standing to sue, because I'm not sure he successfully pleads that his conduct actually conflicts with what's proscribed under the EO. For one, David Bernstein has argued that there is a difference between regulating a "sole proprietorship" and the individual who is a "sole proprietor" in their personal capacity -- only the former is precluded from boycotting Israel, but the individual-qua-individual is free to do whatever he wants. The complaint Ali filed does not, to my knowledge, ever say that Ali-the-software-engineer engages in any boycotting activity. Indeed, if anything it indicates the opposite -- it's a personal stand he takes personally:
Personally, Saqib Ali refuses to purchase Sabra hummus or SodaStream products, which have ties to Israel and its occupation of Palestine. He also advocates for others to join the BDS movement, and monitors current events in order to identify and promote specific BDS actions (Para. 35).This is the only place in the complaint where Ali alleges any conduct or practice by him which supposedly clashes with the EO, and it speaks of what he does personally, not professionally (it should be, though almost certainly isn't, needless to say that Ali's expressive advocacy to promote the BDS movement is not covered by the EO and isn't germane to the complaint).
If we go back to how Maryland appears to be implementing the law -- asking the bidder whether it has refused to contract with an Israeli-qua-Israeli "in the solicitation, selection, or commercial treatment of any subcontractor, vendor, or supplier" -- this problem comes into sharper focus: has Ali, at any point, had even the occasion to reject Sabra or Sodastream as a "vendor" for one of his software engineering projects? I'm dubious.
Now to be fair, the whole point of sole proprietorships is that the border between the "company" and the individual is blurry and doesn't really need to be kept firmly separate. If Ali works out of a home office and decides he's not going to keep Sabra Hummus as a snack in the minifridge, is he boycotting or is the proprietorship? So there remains some uncertainties in such a case -- which is one reason why I think states need to be very careful in applying these laws to sole proprietorships.
But there's a bigger problem lurking Ali's case: His complaint doesn't actually say he boycotts Israeli companies on basis of their nationality. It says that he boycotts Sabra Hummus and SodaStream -- but it doesn't say why in any real detail ("which have ties to Israel and its occupation of Palestine"). The indication is that he chose those companies "because of the specific conduct" they've engaged in with respect to Palestinians -- conduct which Ali objects to. But such decisions are expressly not covered by the Executive Order. It seems to me that to establish an actual clash with the law, Ali would have to aver that he boycotts those companies because of their "Israeli national origin" or their "incorporation and residence" in Israel or Israeli-occupied territories. And so while he says he can't sign the certification "in good faith", I actually think it's likely that he hasn't done anything that would foreclose him from doing so.
Indeed, I kind of suspect that Ali's problem isn't that he actually engages in conduct proscribed by the EO. It's that he doesn't want to say he doesn't boycott Israel -- even if, for purposes of the rules of the EO, he doesn't. This isn't as uncommon as you'd think -- there's a long history of government compelling corporations to engage in certain speech (e.g., being forced to label that their product is "Made in China"), and an equally long history of corporations trying to allege that such compulsions violate the First Amendment. I tend to be skeptical of those claims, particularly in the context of a certification submitted to a contracting officer -- hardly an activity typically thought of as "expressive". And here, where Ali could sign the certification and would nonetheless be free to state -- as loudly as he wants -- that he's still boycotting SodaStream and he's doing it because of this that and the other malign conduct SodaStream has engaged in, the restriction on his expressive capacities is minimal.
The law here remains unsettled, and the Maryland order is certainly not perfect -- in particular, I just really wish states would get off the "anti-BDS" kick entirely and just pass consistent rules governing nationality-based discrimination if that's what they care about. That said, the Maryland EO is considerably better than many of its peers -- mostly because it contains itself to cases of straightforward discrimination and, unlike Rubio's bill, doesn't target expressive conduct. And because it's so narrowly focused, it might not even be the case that Ali actually has standing to challenge it -- I think there's a very viable motion to dismiss here for the state's attorney general's office. I suppose we'll see soon enough.
Tuesday, January 22, 2019
Meeting Day Roundup
Today was a big meeting day for me (I was basically continuously talking with people from 10 AM to 3:45 PM -- lunch included). But it was fun! The conversations were nice and very productive. I met somebody new, got mentored by my adviser and mentored two undergraduate advisees. All in all, a good day.
* * *
My friend Sarah Levin explains why, as a Mizrahi Jewish women, she did not feel comfortable marching with the Women's March this year. Particularly given how the debate over the Women's March has often been perceived to break down as "White Jewish women" versus "Middle Eastern/POC women", Sarah's perspective regarding Mizrahi erasure is an important one that needs consideration.
In the course of defending excluding all Israelis from the country, the Malaysian Prime Minister also explains why he so frequently indulges in naked antisemitism: "when I say only the 'Zionists,' people don’t understand. What they do understand is the word 'yahudi' or 'Jews.'" Oh, I bet they do.
Orin Kerr flags a Third Circuit which raises an interesting qualified immunity question: how long after the release of an opinion does the legal holding of that opinion become "clearly established". My instinctive view is "immediately" (or, at least, immediately after the mandate issues). But that may well be colored by my view that qualified immunity is basically a set of special privileges given to government officials to break the law that aren't extended to everyday citizens.
Buzzfeed publishes a report (apparently originally printed in a Swiss magazine) claiming that two Jewish political operatives were originally behind the campaign to vilify George Soros; a JTA article expresses skepticism about the timeline.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) apologizes for a 2012 tweet where she accused Israel having "hypnotized the world" to blind global actors to the Jewish state's "evil". The apology was proximately prompted by this column from Bari Weiss, explaining the antisemitic provenance behind the "hypnotized" language; Weiss thanked Omar for her apology and extended an open invitation to her to write on the issue in the New York Times op-ed section.
* * *
My friend Sarah Levin explains why, as a Mizrahi Jewish women, she did not feel comfortable marching with the Women's March this year. Particularly given how the debate over the Women's March has often been perceived to break down as "White Jewish women" versus "Middle Eastern/POC women", Sarah's perspective regarding Mizrahi erasure is an important one that needs consideration.
In the course of defending excluding all Israelis from the country, the Malaysian Prime Minister also explains why he so frequently indulges in naked antisemitism: "when I say only the 'Zionists,' people don’t understand. What they do understand is the word 'yahudi' or 'Jews.'" Oh, I bet they do.
Orin Kerr flags a Third Circuit which raises an interesting qualified immunity question: how long after the release of an opinion does the legal holding of that opinion become "clearly established". My instinctive view is "immediately" (or, at least, immediately after the mandate issues). But that may well be colored by my view that qualified immunity is basically a set of special privileges given to government officials to break the law that aren't extended to everyday citizens.
Buzzfeed publishes a report (apparently originally printed in a Swiss magazine) claiming that two Jewish political operatives were originally behind the campaign to vilify George Soros; a JTA article expresses skepticism about the timeline.
Rep. Ilhan Omar (D-MN) apologizes for a 2012 tweet where she accused Israel having "hypnotized the world" to blind global actors to the Jewish state's "evil". The apology was proximately prompted by this column from Bari Weiss, explaining the antisemitic provenance behind the "hypnotized" language; Weiss thanked Omar for her apology and extended an open invitation to her to write on the issue in the New York Times op-ed section.
Monday, January 21, 2019
Happy MLK Day!
Whether you march, or write, or sit in or stand up or speak out, here's wishing a great MLK day to all those putting in the work to making our society more fair, more just, more equitable, and more egalitarian than it was yesterday.
Friday, January 18, 2019
In Relating to our Black Allies, Jews Need To Stop Being Babies
Every toy for babies is basically the same.
There is a button to be pressed, or some other simple action -- a bop or a shake or a slap.
The toy emits a sound, squeak, or noise.
The baby is happy beyond belief, and presses the button again. The sound repeats, and the baby is (somehow) just as ecstatic as the first time. Rinse, wash, repeat forever.
Sometimes I feel like, in our relationship with the Black community, the Jewish community remains in infancy. Because we are constantly behaving like babies, and we need to cut it out.
Here's the play: we find a Black person. We ask them to condemn antisemitism (Farrakhan is always a good target). They comply. We are delighted. We press the button again. They make the condemnatory noise again. *clap clap clap*. Oh, what could be more fun? And again and again and again we go, pressing the button on our fabulous condemn-antisemitism toy.
Until eventually, our partner doesn't want to play anymore. Maybe they're concerned at the disproportionate attention Black antisemitism seems to receive. Maybe they want to talk about something other than antisemitism. Maybe they just don't like being used as a toy. So we press the button, expecting to hear the delightful sound of a condemnation of antisemitism, and ... it doesn't come.
And then, like a baby, the tantrum begins.
"How could you not condemn a monster like Farrakhan?" "Don't you care about Jews?" "If anyone asked me to condemn a racist in my community, I wouldn't hesitate!" Bawl bawl bawl.
A moment's reflection shows how juvenile these demands are. There are plenty of actions by the Israeli government I oppose as wrongful or even (in some cases) prejudicial. And I condemn them, often. But I would not accept anyone's entitlement to have me do so "on demand", like a speak-and-spell, any and every time I wished to present myself in a public space. That sort of behavior -- and it does happen (remember Matisyahu in Spain?) -- is rightfully deemed antisemitic. So we should understand how our parallel demands in the Black community are rightfully understood as racist.
In Faces at the Bottom of the Well, Derrick Bell recounts an incident where Rep. Charlie Rangel was asked on television to condemn some antisemitic remark by Farrakhan. He did so, while also expressing frustration at the sense that Black Americans "have to carry around their last statement condemning Farrakhan" like a passbook in order to be accepted into civil society. Yet this is the effect of our infantile mode of relating to our Black peers. Whenever they swing into our orbit, we reach out and press the button, waiting for them to say those magic words for us.
I'm not saying that there is no antisemitism in the Black community, and I'm not saying there aren't Black people who really do apologize for Louis Farrakhan's antisemitism. This post isn't about them. This post is about people who know full well that Farrakhan is an antisemite, and have never given any indication they think otherwise, but just resent being asked to say so over and over and over again.
So to be clear: What makes a Black person an ally to the Jewish community is not that they stand ready to be pressed as a button whenever a Jewish person needs to hear the comforting sound "Louis Farrakhan is an antisemite." That's an unreasonable, frankly infantile demand. But too often it seems characteristic of how Jews relate to those in the Black community we wish to see "allyship" from.
There's one other element of this analogy that I think it's important to bring forward. The reason babies love these toys is not just because they appreciate the sounds that they make. That's part of it, but just as important is the toy's testament to the baby's ability to manipulate the world around them. They can tell that when they push this button, that results -- and for an infant who generally can't really cause things to happen in the world (no matter how much they might want to), that's a really nice feeling.
When it comes to antisemitism and eliciting a response to it, Jews are in a similar boat. We very much want people to respond to our calls; to condemn antisemitism when we ask them to. But for the most part, the world doesn't listen to us. When we, say, ask Mike Huckabee to not make gratuitous Holocaust comparisons, he flatly rejects the demand and snarls that "Israel and Jewish people need to make friends, not insult the ones they have." Like infants, Jews are constantly made quite aware that we are for the most part sitting at the mercy of people bigger and stronger than we are.
So, when there is a spot in the world where, when we say "condemn antisemitism!", something actually happens, there is something understandably exciting and delightful about it. It is an exercise of power by people who typically feel powerless.
A similar dynamic explains why sometimes there might seem to be outsized attention to Jewish racism. For the most part, condemnations by communities of color of racism instigated by White Americans fall on deaf ears, for it is a feature of Whiteness in America that they are if they wish impervious to such demands. And likewise, it is a feature of Jewish vulnerability that we are not so impervious and that therefore at least sometimes, in some spaces, we can be compelled to answer. That, I imagine, is a delightful rarity. So perhaps it's understandable why those attacking racism so often seem to draw from the Jewish well.
But if it still feels like an exploitation of Jewish marginal status, that's because it is. And likewise, the reason we're able to get some Black leaders, some of the time, to condemn antisemitism on cue is because of racism. The comparative vulnerability of a Black American versus a, say, Mike Huckabee means that they have to be responsive to these sorts of demands in circumstances where others don't. The constant call to "condemn antisemitism" exploits that vulnerability -- which is to say, it exploits Black marginalization. And that exploitation is reasonably resented.
If the only way we relate to our Black allies is by asking them, again and again, to condemn antisemitism, we don't actually have a relationship as allies. We have a relationship that could be fulfilled by a tape recorder. True allyship is bidirectional. It involves giving as well as taking, and it involves learning new things, not just repeating the same homilies over and over again. Most importantly, a genuine allyship involves trust -- trust to know that one's partners oppose antisemitism even when they're not saying out loud. Trust that they've got your back even when they're operating in precarious circumstances, where sensitivities are on edge and tensions run highest.
And unfortunately, right now, it seems that trust is lacking. Can that lack be laid entirely at the feet of the Jewish community? No, it can't. But do we have our share of the blame? Yes, most certainly.
I get, obviously, why it feels good to hear Black people condemn antisemitism. And I get the social conditions which make it easier to focus on Black people who do or don't criticize Louis Farrakhan compared to tackling the far more entrenched, but far more dangerous, iterations of antisemitism in Congress, in churches, among Soros-conspiracymongers and White supremacist murderers.
But such pleasures are cheap, and we are not babies. It's time for the Jewish community to grow up.
There is a button to be pressed, or some other simple action -- a bop or a shake or a slap.
The toy emits a sound, squeak, or noise.
The baby is happy beyond belief, and presses the button again. The sound repeats, and the baby is (somehow) just as ecstatic as the first time. Rinse, wash, repeat forever.
Sometimes I feel like, in our relationship with the Black community, the Jewish community remains in infancy. Because we are constantly behaving like babies, and we need to cut it out.
Here's the play: we find a Black person. We ask them to condemn antisemitism (Farrakhan is always a good target). They comply. We are delighted. We press the button again. They make the condemnatory noise again. *clap clap clap*. Oh, what could be more fun? And again and again and again we go, pressing the button on our fabulous condemn-antisemitism toy.
Until eventually, our partner doesn't want to play anymore. Maybe they're concerned at the disproportionate attention Black antisemitism seems to receive. Maybe they want to talk about something other than antisemitism. Maybe they just don't like being used as a toy. So we press the button, expecting to hear the delightful sound of a condemnation of antisemitism, and ... it doesn't come.
And then, like a baby, the tantrum begins.
"How could you not condemn a monster like Farrakhan?" "Don't you care about Jews?" "If anyone asked me to condemn a racist in my community, I wouldn't hesitate!" Bawl bawl bawl.
A moment's reflection shows how juvenile these demands are. There are plenty of actions by the Israeli government I oppose as wrongful or even (in some cases) prejudicial. And I condemn them, often. But I would not accept anyone's entitlement to have me do so "on demand", like a speak-and-spell, any and every time I wished to present myself in a public space. That sort of behavior -- and it does happen (remember Matisyahu in Spain?) -- is rightfully deemed antisemitic. So we should understand how our parallel demands in the Black community are rightfully understood as racist.
In Faces at the Bottom of the Well, Derrick Bell recounts an incident where Rep. Charlie Rangel was asked on television to condemn some antisemitic remark by Farrakhan. He did so, while also expressing frustration at the sense that Black Americans "have to carry around their last statement condemning Farrakhan" like a passbook in order to be accepted into civil society. Yet this is the effect of our infantile mode of relating to our Black peers. Whenever they swing into our orbit, we reach out and press the button, waiting for them to say those magic words for us.
I'm not saying that there is no antisemitism in the Black community, and I'm not saying there aren't Black people who really do apologize for Louis Farrakhan's antisemitism. This post isn't about them. This post is about people who know full well that Farrakhan is an antisemite, and have never given any indication they think otherwise, but just resent being asked to say so over and over and over again.
So to be clear: What makes a Black person an ally to the Jewish community is not that they stand ready to be pressed as a button whenever a Jewish person needs to hear the comforting sound "Louis Farrakhan is an antisemite." That's an unreasonable, frankly infantile demand. But too often it seems characteristic of how Jews relate to those in the Black community we wish to see "allyship" from.
There's one other element of this analogy that I think it's important to bring forward. The reason babies love these toys is not just because they appreciate the sounds that they make. That's part of it, but just as important is the toy's testament to the baby's ability to manipulate the world around them. They can tell that when they push this button, that results -- and for an infant who generally can't really cause things to happen in the world (no matter how much they might want to), that's a really nice feeling.
When it comes to antisemitism and eliciting a response to it, Jews are in a similar boat. We very much want people to respond to our calls; to condemn antisemitism when we ask them to. But for the most part, the world doesn't listen to us. When we, say, ask Mike Huckabee to not make gratuitous Holocaust comparisons, he flatly rejects the demand and snarls that "Israel and Jewish people need to make friends, not insult the ones they have." Like infants, Jews are constantly made quite aware that we are for the most part sitting at the mercy of people bigger and stronger than we are.
So, when there is a spot in the world where, when we say "condemn antisemitism!", something actually happens, there is something understandably exciting and delightful about it. It is an exercise of power by people who typically feel powerless.
A similar dynamic explains why sometimes there might seem to be outsized attention to Jewish racism. For the most part, condemnations by communities of color of racism instigated by White Americans fall on deaf ears, for it is a feature of Whiteness in America that they are if they wish impervious to such demands. And likewise, it is a feature of Jewish vulnerability that we are not so impervious and that therefore at least sometimes, in some spaces, we can be compelled to answer. That, I imagine, is a delightful rarity. So perhaps it's understandable why those attacking racism so often seem to draw from the Jewish well.
But if it still feels like an exploitation of Jewish marginal status, that's because it is. And likewise, the reason we're able to get some Black leaders, some of the time, to condemn antisemitism on cue is because of racism. The comparative vulnerability of a Black American versus a, say, Mike Huckabee means that they have to be responsive to these sorts of demands in circumstances where others don't. The constant call to "condemn antisemitism" exploits that vulnerability -- which is to say, it exploits Black marginalization. And that exploitation is reasonably resented.
If the only way we relate to our Black allies is by asking them, again and again, to condemn antisemitism, we don't actually have a relationship as allies. We have a relationship that could be fulfilled by a tape recorder. True allyship is bidirectional. It involves giving as well as taking, and it involves learning new things, not just repeating the same homilies over and over again. Most importantly, a genuine allyship involves trust -- trust to know that one's partners oppose antisemitism even when they're not saying out loud. Trust that they've got your back even when they're operating in precarious circumstances, where sensitivities are on edge and tensions run highest.
And unfortunately, right now, it seems that trust is lacking. Can that lack be laid entirely at the feet of the Jewish community? No, it can't. But do we have our share of the blame? Yes, most certainly.
I get, obviously, why it feels good to hear Black people condemn antisemitism. And I get the social conditions which make it easier to focus on Black people who do or don't criticize Louis Farrakhan compared to tackling the far more entrenched, but far more dangerous, iterations of antisemitism in Congress, in churches, among Soros-conspiracymongers and White supremacist murderers.
But such pleasures are cheap, and we are not babies. It's time for the Jewish community to grow up.
Wednesday, January 16, 2019
Any Institutionalist Non-Joiners About?
Here's an interesting contradiction about myself that I've long been aware of:
Politically, I'm very liberal. Temperamentally, I'm extremely conservative. I hate change, I love routine, and I'm so loss-averse it borders on being actually debilitating.
I don't think that combination is necessarily rare, but I always found it an interesting juxtaposition.
But there's another internal tension within myself that I only just realized, and I'm curious if anyone else identifies with it:
I'm very much an institutionalist (that is, I believe in "working inside the system" and think that our major social institutions, even when deeply problematic, can be reformed rather that needing to be burnt to the ground and rebuilt anew). But I'm very much not a joiner.
For example, while my college didn't have a Hillel, it did have a Jewish Students Club (and interest house), which I had relatively minimal contact with. I wasn't averse to it, and I'd go to events and stuff, but I had no formal affiliation with it. I never joined CarlDems, or any of the other political-activist groups on campus (then, as now, my political engagement was done almost exclusively by writing -- I was a columnist for our campus liberal magazine, the Carleton Progressive).
As an adult, I've never really been interested in becoming a "Jewish Professional" (working for the ADL or whatnot). I'm extremely reticent to sign petitions or campaigns, and I've never wanted to run for office. That said, I'm at root a defender of the major liberal institutions in America and in the Jewish community -- the ADLs, the Democratic Party, and so on. I don't always agree with them. But I basically think their problems can be reformed from the inside -- and accordingly I'm generally skeptical of organizations and movements I see as "insurgent" in nature.
Note that I'm not saying that this particular combination -- institutionalist non-joiner -- is a healthy or productive one. Indeed, now that I think about it it seems pretty quiescent (though it's weird to think of myself as politically non-engaged). But I'm more curious if this basic standpoint is one other people relate to.
Politically, I'm very liberal. Temperamentally, I'm extremely conservative. I hate change, I love routine, and I'm so loss-averse it borders on being actually debilitating.
I don't think that combination is necessarily rare, but I always found it an interesting juxtaposition.
But there's another internal tension within myself that I only just realized, and I'm curious if anyone else identifies with it:
I'm very much an institutionalist (that is, I believe in "working inside the system" and think that our major social institutions, even when deeply problematic, can be reformed rather that needing to be burnt to the ground and rebuilt anew). But I'm very much not a joiner.
For example, while my college didn't have a Hillel, it did have a Jewish Students Club (and interest house), which I had relatively minimal contact with. I wasn't averse to it, and I'd go to events and stuff, but I had no formal affiliation with it. I never joined CarlDems, or any of the other political-activist groups on campus (then, as now, my political engagement was done almost exclusively by writing -- I was a columnist for our campus liberal magazine, the Carleton Progressive).
As an adult, I've never really been interested in becoming a "Jewish Professional" (working for the ADL or whatnot). I'm extremely reticent to sign petitions or campaigns, and I've never wanted to run for office. That said, I'm at root a defender of the major liberal institutions in America and in the Jewish community -- the ADLs, the Democratic Party, and so on. I don't always agree with them. But I basically think their problems can be reformed from the inside -- and accordingly I'm generally skeptical of organizations and movements I see as "insurgent" in nature.
Note that I'm not saying that this particular combination -- institutionalist non-joiner -- is a healthy or productive one. Indeed, now that I think about it it seems pretty quiescent (though it's weird to think of myself as politically non-engaged). But I'm more curious if this basic standpoint is one other people relate to.
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