You May Not Be a Racist, But Your Logic Needs Work

Dafydd (via) can prove he's not a racist:

To be a racist, one must, at the very least, believe in the concept of race -- where "race" means some discrete and self-perpetuating subgroup of humans, defined by skin color and a certain morphology, but that also affects behavior and (some argue) thought itself. Anybody who accuses (e.g.) Clarence Thomas of "acting white" passionately believes in race-determinism.

This seems accurate to most people; but I simply don't believe in different "races" of Man: The morphology is inconsistent and its connection with behavior and thought is utterly spurious.

It is absolutely true that skin color and morphology are not determinate of behavior or ideology. But it is absolutely false to say that one must hold a belief in such determinism in order to be racist.

[Before we go further, a warning: this is a long post. And it does not address the totality of Dafydd's post; I don't take on his (badly misguided) account of culture, for instance. It has a narrower focus: disproving that not believing in biologically determinate races necessarily makes one "not racist".]

It is notable that Dafydd doesn't provide a definition of racist -- something quite essential to the supposed proof that believing the above proposition (we'll call it proposition X) is a necessary condition for being racist. If "racist" was defined as "anyone who votes Republican" (what I imagine the frustrated GOPer seems to believe is the effective definition for many folks), then not believing X would be quite consistent with being racist. Of course, "voting Republican" is a bad definition of racist. But that just illustrates the need to give a solid definition of racism -- then we can figure out whether disbelief of X necessarily immunizes one to it.

So let's try and nail down what "racism" means. Dafydd doesn't seem to deny that there can be such thing as a racist, he just denies the existence of "races" as he defines them. This indicates that he believes there can be racists in a world where, as a matter of objective fact, there are no "races". The implication is that a "racist" is one who (falsely) believes that there are such things as biological races. This would complete Dafydd's syllogism nicely: Believing in the existence of "races" is not just necessary to be a racist, it is what it means to be racist. If X is necessary and sufficient to be racist, then not-X means not racist. Hurray!

So what's the problem? Well, several, but here's the first: Very few people define "racist" in this way. Racism is generally not thought to be an identifier of (even false) descriptive affiliations (akin to being a "flat-earther"). Rather, it is generally taken to involve certain normative commitments; namely, treating certain (other races) as inferior, or otherwise rejecting the rights and freedom of people on basis of their perceived racial affiliation. Of course, belief in innate behavioral differences between the races is plausibly taken to be highly correlated with such differential treatment. But they're not the same thing, and it is important to be clear about what the actual problem is. Presuming that Clarence Thomas has a normative obligation to hold certain beliefs because he is Black is racist. Presuming that Clarence Thomas washes his kinky hair less often than I do my straight hair is not (even if my supposition is incorrect).

Once we put that view of "racism" on the table, then the shortcomings of Dafydd's logic become quite apparent. We can imagine someone who cheerfully admits the following:

I fully accept that there are no inherent biological differences amongst the "races"; skin color and morphological differences have no bearing on either behavior or ideology. Nonetheless, I still do not believe that people with certain skin colors and/or morphological features, or their blood descendants, should have the right to vote. It's just a prejudice I have. Besides, restricting voting rights to persons with my skin color and morphology means my vote has proportionally more influence -- restricting voting rights along those lines is in my self-interest.

Would anybody hesitate to label this "racist"? Hopefully not, even though the espoused ideology is in no way dependent on racial biological determinism. At the end of the day, we are agnostic as to why a person believes that socio-political benefits should be distributed in ways that track morphology -- we just think it's bad, and criticize accordingly. A hint that this view is correct is how you reacted when you read the word "prejudice". Taking Dafydd's view for all its worth, "it's just a prejudice" would be an argument that what we're dealing with isn't racism, but simple insanity -- a normative stance completely devoid of rational reasons backing it up. But for most of us, "prejudice" is signal pointing towards racism, not its absence. Racism is the expressed normative view, not the putative factual accounts (or lack thereof) backing it up.

Seems like a small outlier? Alright, let's push it a step further. Presumably, part of what is driving Dafydd's intuition is that the only reason one would hold the above normative commitments is if one already has some account of "other races" to treat differently, the very premise Dafydd rejects. Yes, we can imagine someone who is cheerfully agnostic to this question, but surely by and large he's right.

Except not, or at least not necessarily. Now the problem comes in the restrictive definition Dafydd gives to "race" (biological determinants of behavior). I'd argue that most scholars wouldn't define "race" this way, at least not anymore. The general view on race nowadays is that it is a socially constructed form of categorization that has no biological basis, but which has historically and contemporaneously been used as a method for distributing socio-political benefits and burdens (by "socio-political" I mean to encompass both legal rights, like voting, and also social treatment, like stereotyping -- such as Justice Thomas being accused of "acting White" -- or suburban "White flight". I also include economic discrimination, like redlining and employment discrimination.). This definition is perfectly consistent with Dafydd's rejection of proposition X.

The history of race in America is one in which such benefits and burdens were so distributed. The category doesn't depend on whatever faux-biological rationales were originally given for it. A mistaken biological belief may have gotten the ball rolling, but now it has its own momentum. Indeed, while I'm willing to concede arguendo that race gained its original salience through bad scientific beliefs, I don't have to: We can imagine a situation where elites conspired to simply make up biological racial determinism and spread it amongst the people to justify enacting racist policies, never actually believing it themselves (highly unlikely), or where people deluded themselves into believing in biological racial determinism as an ex post facto way of rationalizing the creation of a state of affairs they'd otherwise consider to be unjust (far more likely). Both permutations demonstrate the unnecessary nature of a metaphysical underpinning for a race to have salience.

So if race doesn't correspond to a real biological thing, what is race? Simple: Race is race; that is, race is that which we have described as and made policy based upon its identification as race. There is nothing but the edifice. That it turns out there is no biology underlying the whole deal doesn't cause the schema to snap out of existence, it just emphasizes that there is nothing beneath the construct.

Race can be thought of as an building. Perhaps some unenlightened people would think that the building was a natural feature of the world; there from creation. As it turns out, we know that it was, quite literally, socially constructed. But that constructed quality (distinguished from being metaphysically grounded) doesn't make any less "real". Calling out the building as being "constructed" doesn't itself do anything; it doesn't cause the edifice to come crashing down, it has very little effect on whatever social or political arrangements have developed around the building. Same with concepts. Whether the categorization schema continues to have salience ("as a method for distributing socio-political benefits") is completely divorced from whether the belief that originally motivated its creation was ever factually correct, whether anyone still holds it today, indeed, whether anyone ever genuinely held the view at all. Call it a simulacrum, call it hyperreality -- big words for a not-actually-that-controversial position. Now let's be clear, it could be that the categorization system of race no longer does have salience. Buildings don't last forever; the point of the analogy is simply that you have to do work beyond a mere expression of disbelief to bring them down. Whether race continues to have salience in the distribution of socio-political benefits and burdens, as it had done for many, many years, is an empirical question.

That was a tragically long diversion: I apologize. So let's circle back to the supposed topic of the post: the possibility of being racist without believing in biological racial determinism. What we've accomplished is clarifying our terms. "Race" is not a descriptor mapping onto any brute biological race, race is a socially constructed categorization schema which at at least some historical point salience as a manner of distributing socio-political benefits and burdens, one that has no content but that which we've created for it (which doesn't mean we can simply declare, ala Santa Claus, our disbelief in it to make it disappear). Empirically, we then have to look to see if the system still is active -- if we still do, in fact, distribute benefits and burdens in way that tracks the lines the system draws. The evidence here is overwhelmingly that yes we do; this post is too long already for me to elaborate beyond that.

And what is a racist? I'd say a concept or argument or behavior is racist if it causes or reinforces unequal inegalitarian distribution of benefits and burdens on racial lines. It's not any descriptive beliefs, it's not the mere usage of race, it's not even the existence of the category -- it's the perpetuation of inequality on lines tracking the category. Calling a person racist probably means they have a normative commitment to such a state of affairs; the question, really, is at what level of knowledge we demand: to borrow from criminal law, is it intent, knowledge, recklessness, negligence, or absolute liability? I can't resolve that question.

I will say this: people, including people who believe themselves to be non-racist, act in ways that discriminate on basis of race -- they adhere to the categorization schema. The literature on subconscious racism is overwhelming in this respect. Regardless of whether we label them "racist" or not, what is clear is that the cognitive state of believing that race "doesn't exist", or believing oneself not to be racist, has very little to do with whether the categorization system of race maintains its salience; assuming that one has an obligation to be anti-racism, not just "not racist", this is a damning moral flaw. More likely, trying to restrict the field of racism so narrowly to outdated questions of biological determinism is generally a signal that one is unwilling to look at the question in its full breadth or depth, meaning that one is unlikely to have much of an effect on dissipating it.

So here are the conclusions:

(1) Logically, it is pretty much just wrong to say that a belief in biological racial determinism is necessary to be a racist, unless your definition of racist simply is "one who believes that";

(2) The likelihood that someone who does not hold that belief is a "racist" is highly dependent on our definition of racism; and

(3) There is virtually no reason to believe that not believing in racial biological determinism will do anything to break down the continued salience of race as a categorization schema, which to my mind is a far more pressing issue than whether we get to use the word "racist" or not.

Timmy, Please

Minnesota Governor Tim Pawlenty, widely viewed as a rising GOP star, has a plan for getting the budget back into balance:

Balancing the budget will require some tough decisions. Congress must reduce discretionary spending in real terms, with exceptions for key programs such as military, veterans, and public safety. The Congress must also reject costly new spending initiatives, like new health care entitlements.

There is, alas, a problem:

Someone needs to tell Pawlenty that discretionary spending except for "military, veterans, and public safety" is less than $400 billion a year. A real reduction of, say 10 percent (a ridiculous amount but use it for simplicity sake) would save a little more than $40 billion from the baseline and that doesn't come close to doing what needs to be done.

Finish us off, Matt Yglesias:

If I were planning on running for election, I might not be comfortable saying “to deal with the long-term federal budget deficit we need higher taxes and we need to slow the growth of Medicare spending.” But if you’re not willing to say “we need higher taxes and we need to slow the growth of Medicare spending” then you shouldn’t run around talking about the long-term federal budget deficit. There’s really nothing else to say about it.

Fictive Republican budget hawkery strikes again!

TNC on Senator Reid

Count me in the camp of folks who think Senator Reid's comments were clearly racially insensitive, but not a "racial slur". "Negro" as a referent to African-Americans is the sort of thing you say if you're totally out of touch with racial progress over the past, oh, 50 years. It's how you 75 year old great uncle from rural Kansas would put it -- he doesn't mean harm by it, he's just entirely clueless. Now, don't get me wrong, this is a bad thing -- we want our senators to have a better finger on the pulse of America's citizenry than that, and it's worrisome when they don't. But there is a qualitative difference between being that sort of person, and, say, endorsing White supremacy.

A point Ta-Nehisi Coates makes quite well:

Claiming that Harry Reid's comments are the same [as Lott's], is like claiming that referring to Jews as "Hebrews" is the same as endorsing Nazism. Whereas a reputable portion of black people still use the term Negro without a hint of irony, no black person thinks the guy yelling "Segregation Forever!" would have cured us of "all these problems."

Leaving aside political cynicism, this entire affair proves that the GOP is not simply still infected with the vestiges of white supremacy and racism, but is neither aware of the infection, nor understands the disease. Listening to Liz Cheney explain why Harry Reid's comments were racist, was like listening to me give lessons on the finer points of the comma splice. This a party, rightly or wrongly, regarded by significant portions of the country as a haven for racists. They aren't simply having a hard time re-branding, they don't actually understand how and why they got the tag.

These guys are lost. But Michael Steele's "off the hook" strategy will, presumably, point the way back. Not for nothing, I offer the wise and venerable words of my people: Negro, please.

As I've come to realize, they really believe this shit. They genuinely think that this is how racial politics work. And they are going to be woefully disappointed when the Black community doesn't respond they way the GOP expects them to.

Or perhaps alternatively, this isn't about Black people at all. This isn't about trying to level the playing field in terms of competing for Black voters. This is about blurring the line for White voters, relying on the widespread White misconception of what racism is and what is and is not racism to think that Democrats and Republicans are essentially the same (because canvassing the Black community on the matter is, of course, out of the question).

The Internets Do Not Welcome You, Mr. Schill

My University of Chicago spam filter just tagged a message from the new Dean of the Law School. Ouch.

Cheap Talk

Snarking at a Bob Herbert column which -- quite accurately -- frets that Americans are getting distracting from the critical issues facing our country by obsessive focus on a few issues (such as the would-be Detroit airline bomber), Jeffrey Goldberg titles his post "Easy for You To Say" and writes "Try telling this to the people on that plane."

What does that even mean? Anytime someone faces a serious threat to their life, that's going to be a big deal to them. I don't mean to be callous, but that fact does not mean it automatically is a big deal for us as a society.

The failed attack on the airliner obviously is not a minor issue. But neither is it worthy of the all-consuming focus that it risks morphing into.

Do People Really Deny This?

I can never figure out if I grew up and continue to exist in a totally unique environment, or I'm just totally disconnected from the broader Jewish psyche, or what, because I had no idea that it was a Jewish article of faith that al-Qaeda's actions and support are entirely unconnected to Israel.

Of course they are! Opposition to Israel is part and parcel of the package that al-Qaeda represents. And so it make sense that, as a high profile enemy of Israel, persons upset with Israel for a variety of legitimate or illegitimate reasons will be attracted to it.

I do think Ackerman is right that some Jews get nervous when this is expounded upon too vigorously, because it can lead to Michael Scheuer-esque positions basically advocating throwing Israel to the wolves to appease al-Qaeda. But there are separate issues.

Moreover, Ackerman is clearly right about this:

The answer for the U.S. is not to sever ties with Israel or turn hostile toward it. It’s to seek an end to the Israeli-Arab conflict and a stable Middle East. That will not stop Islamic extremism. Maybe I should say it again in capitol letters: A TWO-STATE SOLUTION WILL NOT STOP ISLAMIC EXTREMISM. Extremists are going to be extremists. They demagogue. They use pretexts. That’s what they do. You deal with that. The proper response is to reduce the circumstances under which their demagoguery resonates. And that’s why ending the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and midwifing a Palestinian state is so important. This is in our interests, it’s in Israel’s interests, it’s in the Palestinians interests, it’s in the Arab world’s interests, and it’s expressly against al-Qaeda’s interests. It’s in absolutely no way an “appeasement” of al-Qaeda unless you believe that Arabs and Muslims are naturally inclined to bandwagon with al-Qaeda. And that makes you a racist and safe to ignore.

Maybe not "safe to ignore", because such racism still has plenty of purchase in American life. But the general sentiments are right.

New Jersey Rejects Gay Marriage Bill

The state senate just voted it down, 20-14.

I wonder what went through the minds of the 20 nay votes? I hope, for their sakes, that theirs was a vote of conscience. They have to know that in 20-some years, they will be regarded as some of the great political villains of our time. That's a rather high price to pay for mere political expediency or populist demagoguery.

LOL....sob

Fun fact -- I actually have been on the phone with my health care provider over the past few weeks to settle some stuff (they have my birth date and gender wrong, and they are approaching Minnesota-levels of passive-aggressiveness in "attempting" to solve the problem).

ChaitBlog

Jonathan Chait gets a blog all his own on the TNR website. Nice!

UPDATE: Turns out it's replacing the old Plank blog, so that's bittersweet. Meanwhile, a nice sample of Chait's newest forum is his post on the transgender quota of one. "It's very odd to witness a part of the political discourse where one side understands that its actual views are so completely socially unacceptable that they can't be expressed, and must be replaced with nonsense terms."

Why Does Jennifer Rubin Hate American Jews?

When DougJ asked "why do so many right-wing Jewish Americans hate other Jewish Americans so much" in response to reading this Jennifer Rubin piece asking "Why Jews Hate Palin", I thought he might have been being a bit harsh. Then I read the Rubin article, and, geez, I'm eating my words. Rubin's piece simply drips with contempt towards the American Jewish community. They are just outraged that Jews are Jews. We saw the same thing when Norman Podhoertz published Why are Jews Liberal (Leon Wieseltier's evisceration of this was classic).

There are two things going on here. First is Rubin's befuddlement that Jews don't run like teen rock fans into the arms of anyone who is "vocally" pro-Israel. We're savvy enough to interrogate what that means, and not everyone who says (or even believes) they are pro-Israel actually qualifies in a manner consistent with how Jews understand the term. Palin's creepily maximalist positions on the conflict are way out of the Jewish mainstream -- her position here is a bug, not a feature! And no, it's not a manifestation of "stereotypes" against Christian evangelicals to say so. We're entitled to choose what constitutes being our friend.

Second, while Rubin at least doesn't succumb to the common misconception that Jews are single-issue Israel voters, she does brush all the other issues we care about aside with careless ease (how many brownie points is she supposed to earn because she didn't commit to pursuing an actively "creationist" agenda as Governor?). Sarah Palin inspires special animosity amongst Jews because Sarah Palin is currently the highest profile member of the purely anti-intellect, theocratic wing of the Republican Party that is an anathema to virtually all of the broadly held positions of the average American Jew. I doubt, say, Jim Inhofe would fare much better if he had been nominated for Vice President (I was trying to think of another politician who is not just as identified with the far right as Palin is, but at least approaches her positive vibration of hostility towards intellectual attainment).

And our other (supposed) attributes are met with nothing short of seething hatred. Jews are snobby elitists, Jews don't have respect for the working class, Jews look down on anyone who isn't sipping a latte at a Harvard bookstore, Jews would never stoop so low as to join the military or play hockey. It's amazing to me that it's a Jewish writer we're dealing with here -- this simply a litany of anti-Jewish stereotypes. Moreover, she even throws into the pile a bunch of supposed "problems" with Palin that had no linkage to the Jewish community whatsoever except through her amateur psychoanalysis. Jews don't like the "sexual" Palin because they like their female politicians frumpy. Jews don't like Palin having five kids because we're post-sexual revolution liberals who hold mothers in contempt (or something -- maybe it's because Jewish women are frigid? It was a bit more incoherent than usual here).

It is certainly true that Jews value education, intellect, and policy knowledge greatly. And we're perfectly willing to admire these traits when they manifest in persons of whatever background (Bill Clinton grew up dirt poor, and Joe Biden comes from decidedly working-class Scranton with degrees from not-exactly-elite Delaware and Syracuse). Governor Palin isn't just missing these qualities, she holds active contempt for them. She doesn't just govern on "instinct", she thinks wonks are worthy of scorn. She doesn't just come from a rural area, she thinks that city-dwellers aren't real Americans (I have continued concern about how the distinctive GOP trope rallying against "urban intellectual elites" is an anti-Semitic dogwhistle). She doesn't just lack basic awareness of important political issues, she actively seeds misinformation.

Of course we're going to dislike her. She is the culmination of every trend in the modern Republican Party that's led to its virtual abandonment by the Jewish community.

That's why Jews hate Sarah Palin. The question is, why does Jennifer Rubin hate us so much for it?

UPDATE: See also Ned Resnikoff, Capital J, and especially David Frum.

Another Organ Trafficking Case

As Harry's Place put it, "You won’t have seen this on Press TV".

In September, 11 Jordanians were extradited by Cairo and charged in Amman with trafficking in human organs, mainly kidneys, and selling them illegally in Egypt for up to 30,000 dollars each.
[...]
According to a recent government study of 130 cases in which kidneys were sold, nearly 80 percent of "donors" were Palestinians from Baqaa in northwest Amman, the largest refugee camp in the country.

Most were under the age of 31, lived in absolute poverty and had no criminal record.

The study said operations to remove the kidneys used to take place in Iraq, but since the 2003 US-led invasion, young men are now sent to Egypt, India and Pakistan.

I write this not to mirror the insane hellstorm that came along with the sensationalist "Israel organ theft" story (see my guide for the perplexed on that issue). The point is merely that crime happens; it happens worldwide. When it happens, it should be punished. But crime is not an example of a incurable sickness in an entire culture. One shouldn't take this story to say "Jordan should be destroyed" or "Jordan should be a pariah state". And I doubt anyone will.

Yikes

At least one Dakotan is upset by the announced retirement of Senator Byron Dorgan (D-ND). Real upset:

Fuck! I bet Pomeroy doesn’t even run.

In ND, a popular, well-liked Republican with a good track record will beat pretty much any Democrat. Dorgan won an open seat to get in. Conrad squeaked by an asshole (Mark Andrews) in a semi-upset. Never seen even a good D beat a decent R in an open election in my lifetime in either Dakota.

But, goddamit, once they get in they fucking stay in for life. That’s just part of the deal, D or R. Karl Mundt, Nixon’s right-hand man on the HUAC, was in a fucking coma for half of his last term after he got into the Senate. Quentin Burdick died in office, like a real man, after forty-fucking-two years in the Senate. Tim Johnson’s brain fucking exploded and he can barely talk, but he ran for re-election and won.

Dorgan has always been a prissy little bitch. He wasn’t man enough to run against Andrews, so Conrad went for it and won. Fucking Byron had to sit around and wait for Burdick to die before he could sack up and run.

He should have been making a smelly puddle in his Depends before he even thought of retirement. What a sorry excuse for a politician.

The Democrats should snatch that ridiculous fucking toupee off of his square farmboy knothead, burn it in the middle of the mall, bury the ashes and have the rest of the caucus piss on the spot.

Family lore is that my father is mortal enemies with Senator Dorgan. This is obviously an exaggeration -- I think they were on opposing sides of some matter years back, and it got somewhat acrimonious, but I suspect it's much like the supposed rivalry between my high school and Montgomery Blair HS -- all in the head of one side.* Dad did once beat Rudy Giuliani in court though.

* Blair thought they were our arch-rivals, but we didn't know, because as far as we were concerned our rival was Churchill. One day a bunch of Blair students came in the middle of the night and painted our school rock Blair colors -- but it took us the entire day to figure out it was them, because we had no idea what their colors were.

On Refusing to be a "Good Jew"

The "good Jew" is a common trope in Jewish history. A statement attributed to a variety of Nazi officials was that every German "knows one good Jew" -- the exceptions that belie the general rule of Jewish mendacity, parochialism, ruthlessness, avarice, and evil. We should not be distracted. Meanwhile, within the Jewish community, there are those who assume they can escape anti-Semitism by becoming "the good Jew" -- by assimilating into the gentile majority, by adopting the political and ideological convictions of the surrounding society, and often by publicly and viciously repudiating those signals and signs which represent the Jewish community in the public eye. Some anti-Semites offer the same deal: you can escape the wrath coming down on the Jews, if only you turn on your fellows. It's hardly a situation unique to the Jews -- Malcolm X's "house negro" is the obvious analogue -- it's just our particular iteration of a common problem facing oppressed groups in societies shot through with racism.

The American poet Alice Walker had quote attributed to her, one that I've always found meaningful: "No one is your friend who demands your silence."

Alice Walker also recently took a trip to Gaza along with Code Pink, and had some interesting things to say about Israel:

There are differing opinions about this, of course, but my belief is that when a country primarily instills fear in the minds and hearts of the people of the world, it is no longer useful in joining the dialogue we need for saving the planet.

Ms. Walker's post is about many things (many not relating to Israel at all), but the discussion about Israel and Jews is intriguing to me. Not, primarily, because of the tension between the quote I knew from Ms. Walker, and her demand that Israeli Jews be silenced in the debate over the future of their country (and those who, it must be said, would comprise roughly 50% of the combined population of Israel and Palestine). It is the sad truth that commitment to the liberation of some people is often paired with belief in the suppression of others; it no longer surprises me to find that people with unimpeachable anti-racism credentials in one field succumb to horrific bigotry in another.

Rather, it is her discourse on Jews that interested me. Ms. Walker's ex-husband was Jewish, and she relates how, "like so many Jews in America, my former husband could not tolerate criticism of Israel's behavior toward the Palestinians."

I gave her [an old Palestinian woman] a gift I had brought, and she thanked me. Looking into my eyes she said: May God protect you from the Jews. When the young Palestinian interpreter told me what she’d said, I responded: It’s too late, I already married one. I said this partly because, like so many Jews in America, my former husband could not tolerate criticism of Israel’s behavior toward the Palestinians. Our very different positions on what is happening now in Palestine/Israel and what has been happening for over fifty years, has been perhaps our most severe disagreement. It is a subject we have never been able to rationally discuss. He does not see the racist treatment of Palestinians as the same racist treatment of blacks and some Jews that he fought against so nobly in Mississippi.
[...]
This is one reason I understand the courage it takes for some Jews to speak out against Israeli brutality and against what they know are crimes against humanity. Most Jews who know their own history see how relentlessly the Israeli government is attempting to turn Palestinians into the “new Jews,” patterned on Jews of the holocaust era, as if someone must hold that place, in order for Jews to avoid it.

I hardly contest that many Jews have a blind-spot towards the sufferings of the Palestinian people -- it is a subject I have wrestled with deeply myself. But what strikes me here is the extraordinarily pronounced erasure of Jewish perspective and experience that Ms. Walker engages in. First, that she cannot even conceptualize the possibility that ingrained prejudice that Jews face worldwide, on a daily basis, is a relevant prism for viewing the Israeli/Palestinian conflict. Rebecca Lesses did a good job parsing all of this; I'd merely add that a woman who puts quotation marks around "holocaust" (lower-case as well) is unfortunately not an unlikely candidate for displaying this lack of empathy.

This, of course, goes back to her conviction that Israeli Jews (and, it seems, most Jews period) are not viable candidates to be discussants in questions of justice. It is a sentiment that makes sense only when one believes they have nothing to contribute. And that sentiment, in turn, relies on the larger claim that Jewish history and experience is effectively a null entity. Ultimately, that Jews themselves are unworthy of political equality. Perhaps this explains the "unholy glee", to quote Professor Lessee, Ms. Walker evinces "in the thought that Jews will once again be a minority in Palestine, as if this is really the correct state of affairs. Jews should know their place, which is not to be able to wield power by controlling their own independent state." The goal is the reinscription of domination over Jews. Equality is for equals. Jews are not equal. Jews must always exist, if they must at all, at the sufferance of others.

Second, one gets the clear feeling that Ms. Walker views the Jewish community in the same way that, well, Jews have most often been viewed throughout history: as diseased, as needing salvation by enlightened outsiders who come only to save us from ourselves. Ms. Walker laments that she was never able to "rationally discuss" the Israel/Palestine issue with her husband (who here is representative of the Jewish community). And why would she be expected to? In the context of Jewish rights, Jews are always taken to be irrational sociopaths, incapable of political communication, and worthy of social expulsion while our betters discuss our fate. Perhaps there is no tension after all between the views expressed here and her aforementioned quote -- one could hardly expect to be friends with such a creature. "Most Jews" don't take Ms. Walker's views on the conflict, but, she asserts, "Most Jews who know their own history" do. The beleaguered Jewish minority, those rare, special few who can transcend their provincial nature and see themselves for who they really are -- those are the saved, and the rest of us are the fallen. Ms. Walker wants to choose Jewish leaders for the Jews, because -- I can't stress this enough -- ultimately, Ms. Walker rejects the notion that Jews are deserving of autonomy and independent development. Jews don't have rights, Jews acceptable to Alice Walker have rights.

But let's talk about this claim about who knows what about Jewish history. I would have presumed I, being Jewish, would know my history quite well. I had forgotten the key clause -- being Jewish. Jews never have possessed the right to define the contours of what Judaism means. That right has always been appropriated by non-Jews like Ms. Walker. It goes without saying that her account of the history here is nearly unspeakably shallow. Jewish migration to what is now Israel predates the Holocaust, most Israeli Jews aren't of European descent (let alone resettled refugees from WWII -- the flatly racist erasure of the existence and history of Arab Jews continues apace here), the British opposed the partition plan, there are, in fact, quite few catastrophes post-dating WWII which would bear much resemblance to the Holocaust (although given the weak grasp Ms. Walker has on what the Holocaust -- excuse me, "holocaust" -- actually entailed, perhaps this is symptomatic of the greater flaw). None of this matters, though, because Ms. Walker possesses the trump card: She's not Jewish. You want to know the story of our "own history"? That's it in a nutshell.

"No one is your friend who demands your silence." The great thing about quotes such as this is that they transcend the author -- they become clarion calls for justice even when their progenitors stray from the path. I do not believe that mutual communication -- open ears and open hearts -- is a luxury in the quest for justice; I believe it is indispensable. As Iris Marion Young wrote, "Normative judgment is best understood as the product of dialogue under conditions of equality and mutual respect. Ideally, the outcome of such dialogue and judgment is just and legitimate only if all the affected perspectives have a voice." It is incumbent upon Jews and Israelis to listen and hear the claims and assertions of Arabs and Palestinians, and Christians and atheists and Europeans and non-Jewish people of color, because that is what political equality and mutual co-existence demand. But it is likewise incumbent upon non-Jews and non-Israelis to hear the narratives and stories of the Jewish people -- to accept that our narratives and stories and experiences and history have meaning and value and worth, and cannot be dismissed as they so often have simply because you're not Jewish and so you can. That way lies the route to oppression. That way is, indeed, the embodiment of the oppression that I as a Jew must struggle against on a daily basis. Ms. Walker, intentionally or not, is part of that oppressive structure which chokes off my life and contributes to the (frankly not unreasonable, given our history) belief amongst Jews that we will never be safe unless we are in a situation where outsiders aren't in a position to dominate us. By her own standards she is not my friend; she is not an ally I can rely upon in times of trouble, or injustice, or hate or violence or need. I don't think it is an expression of shrill Jewish craziness to believe that a discussion between Alice Walker and Ismail Haniyeh (but from which Jews (excepting, of course, the permissible "good Jews") are proactively excluded) is one unlikely to result in a just outcome vis-a-vis the Jews. And I do not see it as being either in my personal interests, or the interests of international justice, to buy into a framework in which I am pre-emptively labeled the enemy.

I noted once before my affinity for Christine Littleton's claim that the feminist method starts "with the very radical act of taking women seriously, believing that what we say about ourselves and our experience is important and valid, even when (or perhaps especially when) it has little or no relationship to what has been or is being said about us." I firmly believe that the route to all egalitarian treatment lies in the same prescription. I refuse to be a "good Jew", because I refuse to accept, as Ms. Walker would have me do, the notion that my experience as a Jew is worthless, that I must defer to the non-Jewish world in determining what it means to be Jewish and what constitutes Jewish authenticity, that it is the natural order of things that I be subject to the will and dominance of others, or that I be, in short, a second class citizen of the world. Such a refusal bears little relation to what is said about Jews -- by Ms. Walker or others. But that makes it even more important that we be the ones to start saying them. And that means we can't be "good Jews".

Malawi Gay Marriage Trial Set for January

Two Malawian men are scheduled to face trial on charges of gay sex (a holdover law from British colonial eras) after they attempted to marry each other in a traditional African ceremony. Police have also arrested prominent human rights defenders of the couple, on trumped up charges of distributing "pornography" (here, safer sex guides).

In somewhat related news, the American fundamentalists who traveled to Uganda preaching messages of hatred towards homosexuals are now embarrassed that their efforts bore fruit with the now-inamous "kill the gays" bill. I'd be more impressed with their contrition, of course, if they returned to the country and began preaching that the moral evil they've unleashed is far, far in excess of whatever beef they have with homosexuality. But that won't happen, so color me unimpressed.

Who are the Settlers?

The Israel Policy Forum has an excellent interview with Dr. Shlomo Fischer, the founding director of Yesodot-The Center for Torah and Democracy and a professor at The Hebrew University of Jerusalem on the topic. It makes for great background reading on one of Israel's most entrenched social problems.

Siege Mentalities

Jeffrey Goldberg signs on to Bradley Burston's declaration that the siege of Gaza is Israel's worst mistake of the past decade. Goldberg clarifies that the bigger problem was that the disengagement was unilateral, as opposed to negotiated:

For my money, the worst mistake Israel made was the mistake that led, ultimately, to the siege of Gaza: The 2005 unilateral withdrawal. Leaving Gaza wasn't the problem, of course -- you'd think the Jews would have learned sooner (see: Samson) that Gaza is no good for Jews, and Ariel Sharon was right to get out. But the method he used was tragic. By refusing to negotiate his exit from Gaza, he strengthened the hand of Hamas. If he had negotiated the withdrawal with the Palestinian Authority, he would have a) extracted concessions from the Palestinians, and b) strengthened the moderates. The moderates would have been credited by their people for coaxing Israel out of Gaza. Instead, Hamas won the round, and then won the election, and then won the coup, and then, in a way, won the most recent war against Israel, and certainly the public relations war, which is the sort of war that really matters in the Middle East, and which Israel almost never fails to lose.

Matt Yglesias thinks that analysis is descriptively spot on, but says it wasn't a "mistake", because many of the architects of the pull-out were trying to slow down the peace process and delay pressure for further change.

There's obviously truth to this, but I think this is overstated in the same way that general efforts to discern the "intent" behind legislative goals supported by a broad coalition of political actors are usually misguided. The hope that disengagement would delay the peace process may have motivated the more conservative members of Sharon's coalition, but it seems weird to say that the more liberal MKs had the same instinct. And most of the opposition in Israel to withdrawal came from the right, not the left. Meanwhile, while the chain of events identified by Goldberg certainly are not positive developments, I doubt that Sharon, were he to awake from his coma, would dispute that -- he wouldn't be proclaiming that his plan went according to playbook.

On the broader indictment of Israel's current policy on Gaza, one thing I've been meaning to say is that I'm not sure if there is anyway to get the supporters of the status quo to admit defeat. The stated goals of the current blockade are, of course, to break Hamas and end terrorism against Israelis. Of course, it is pretty clear that the policy is a failure in these respects -- Hamas remains firmly in control, and its capacity and desire for terrorist violence has waxed, not waned. And that very fact -- that Gaza still remains radicalized -- is then used to justify continuing the blockade. The fact of failure is the warrant for not amending the failed policy.

I don't want to push this too far -- I think this is part of the broader what do you do when nothing works problem -- but it is worth noting.

More to the Blogosphere

I'm pleased to add the comebacking Judeosphere to my blogroll, which returns to the 'tubes after a two year absence. He's already highlighted reasons to avoid alarmism about the "growing" BDS movement against Israel. Yes, the country is export-dependent -- but most of those exports are technology related that it is essentially impracticable to boycott (unless the boycotters want to dump their cellphones). I'd also note that the pro-peace community has begun to effectively mobilize against the BDS forces, which is above all the most important thing we can do to stop them from further sabotaging the prospects of a peaceful, just end to the conflict.

ALI Abandons the Death Penalty

The American Law Institute -- perhaps the most influential organization in shaping the contours of American criminal law -- has officially decided to cease giving guidance on the death penalty, "in light of the current intractable institutional and structural obstacles to ensuring a minimally adequate system for administering capital punishment."

This is roughly in line with my position on the topic, which is that I don't have a problem with capital punishment in the abstract, but in its day-to-day application (outside truly exceptional circumstances) I have no confidence in how it is carried out. I think it is pretty clear that the constitution contemplates capital punishment, and there isn't any particularly strong grounds to label it "cruel and unusual" as an abstract matter -- but as applied in this country it simply is not working in a way consistent with our ethical and constitutional commitments.

A study commissioned by the institute said that decades of experience have proved that the system cannot reconcile the twin goals of individualized decisions about who should be executed and systemic fairness. It added that capital punishment is plagued by racial disparities; is enormously expensive even as many defense lawyers are underpaid and some are incompetent; risks executing innocent people; and is undermined by the politics that come with judicial elections.

So yeah, that.

There is No Innocence in this Place

These words were actually spoken by an American governmental official to a detainee:

“There is nothing against you. But there is no innocent person here. So, you should confess to something so you can be charged and sentenced and serve your sentence and then go back to your family and country, because you will not leave this place innocent.”

This is how moral credibility dies. This is how morality itself dies.

New Year's Resolutions, 2010 Edition

As is custom, we first reflect on how I did last year:

Met: 1, 2, 3, 5, 6, 10, 12, 13, 14, 15

Failed: 4 (but that was the right call), 8, 9

Pick 'em: 7, 11

Not bad, I say!

Now, to this year's list:

1) Make law review board (Met);

2) Publish my comment (Met);

3) Continue to progress with "Sticky Slopes" (Met);

4) Land a clerkship (Met);

5) Work harder at treating Jill like the beautiful, delightful, love of my life that she is (Pick 'em -- I should never be fully satisfied on a resolution like this);

6) Get Gaston and Emily in a room together (Met -- but I overcooked it);

7) Don't blow my gainful summer employment (Met);

8) See a big chunk of my old high school and/or college friends (another wedding would help this) (Missed);

9) Take whatever steps possible this summer to see if I like and/or will be good at appellate litigation (Met);

10) Make sure the blog doesn't sputter out this summer (hopefully this doesn't conflict with #9) (Met -- barely);

11) Keep in touch with my Carleton professor-mentors (Met);

12) Solidify the Law & Society panel and, following that, rock it (Met);

13) Don't lose my green jacket (Missed);

14) Find some new albums to listen to (Pick 'em);

15) Beat Final Fantasy XIII (assuming it ever comes out) (Missed -- but it wasn't a very good game anyway).

For Me, Not You

This is one of those times when the quote of the day is entirely for my benefit (a way of preserving a quotation I'd otherwise lose):

"[I]n achieving equality for women . . . what matters (to a very large extent) is numbers--results--not abstract principles".

Mary E. Becker, Obscuring the Struggle: Sex Discrimination, Social Security, and Stone, Seidman, Sunstein and Tushnet's Constitutional Law, 89 Colum. L. Rev. 264, 274 (1989)

Greetings from Contested Kentucky!

I'm sitting in Louisville airport, waiting for a ride to take me to Madison, Indiana -- site of a much-anticipated wedding. Free wi-fi in the airport is a very nice thing (alas, it is a special, temporary offer). But I don't know if we'll have internet in our hotel in Madison (to be honest, I don't know if they have the internet in Madison, period) -- so I might be dark for a few more days yet.

We're Here!

Jill made it, albeit quite delayed, from Minnesota. So I've been busy. Also, this is a good post. That's all.

The TSA Game

Eric Posner explains TSA strategy, once we rule out impossible extremes:

Once you eliminate the implausible corner solutions—the TSA undertakes body cavity searches of every passenger, or security screenings are abolished—a number of consequences follow.

1. The TSA must randomize (play a “mixed strategy,” in game-theoretic parlance). Otherwise, terrorists can predict some of its precautions and evade them. The same principle explains why police vary patrol routes and road blocks. A NYT article today makes clear that the TSA is self-consciously randomizing to keep terrorists off guard.

2. At the social optimum, the number of successful terrorist attacks will be greater than zero. It might be argued that we have had too few successful terrorist attacks over the last few years rather than too many. The question is whether the implicit statistical valuation of life in TSA programs is too high. I suspect that the answer is yes, as is generally the case with airline safety.

3. Profiling is an effective strategy when, as here, terrorists come from a small group of (relatively) easily identifiable people. One suspects that this explains Israel’s success. But profiling places a large portion of the cost of deterrence on a small group, which makes some people morally uneasy.

4. Once the implausible corner-solutions are ruled out, any security policy or threshold will seem arbitrary because you have to draw the line somewhere, which means that it will be easy to point to some permitted activity that is only slightly different from what is forbidden (for example, carrying on 100 ml of liquid rather than 101 ml).

5. As for the “security theater” claim–

a. If ordinary people are fooled into thinking that the TSA is doing more than it is really doing, then at least some potential terrorists will be fooled as well, and so will be deterred from engaging in airplane-terrorism.

b. Ordinary people will also fly more often, which means that one of the goals of terrorists—to terrorize people so that they will pressure their government to make concessions to terrorists—will have failed.

How Chicago was that post? But he's right, though I'll note a tension between numbers 1 and 3. A profiling regime is by definition not random, so terrorists can construct an "anti-profile" to beat the system -- the so-called "carnival booth" (because it encourages terrorists to "step right up and see if they're a winner").

I also think that 5(a) is maybe overstated, as the point is that the facial security measures might fool us average rubes, but not anybody actually intent on breaching airport security. I suppose there might be some aspiring terrorist who is awestruck by the festival of it all, but I have to think that anybody who is intent on breaching TSA security won't give up that easily.

On the other hand, while I don't accept 2 whole-heartedly, I do think it is important to note that pretty much any feasible screening system we come up with will not be fail-proof. Terrorists might get through even if we do everything right. It's really annoying when people act as if pretty well random and unpredictable acts are examples of outrageous bureaucratic incompetence. The TSA isn't the Green Lantern -- it doesn't protect us just by willing it hard enough.

I Should Have Organized Better

I've written four squib posts today. A smarter blogger would have grouped them together and did a roundup. Instead, I'm now stuck with a few stray links still on my browser -- ones I don't want to lose, but not enough to create a true roundup. And I'm too embarrassed to push my short-game up to five and six. So -- to the internet I go, to try and find enough good material to make for a real roundup. My mistake is your gain.

* * *

The NYT reports on China's lock on the rare metals which are key to the technologies of the future. Via Chris Borgen, who writes: "Criminal gangs, geopolitics, and environmental collapse, make for a dangerous cocktail."

CNN: "Defying U.S. urging, Israel to build homes in Arab East Jerusalem." Well, to be fair, they're building in Jewish neighborhoods in East Jerusalem (contrary to seemingly popular belief, there were always Jewish neighborhoods in that quarter -- even prior to 1967). I agree with Jeffrey Goldberg that this is needless provocation on the part of the Israeli government, but the media could do a favor and not pour gasoline on it.

Also, I could have written Jeffrey Goldberg's response to Andrew Sullivan on the recent Hannah Rosenthal flap.

How much is the economy driving the Iranian protests?

California's initiative process is completely broken? You don't say!

There are worries that Islamic parties in Iraq are pushing to strip the Jewish heritage from Ezekiel's Shrine in Iraq, under the guise of restoring it.

It says something not-so-good that it took me quite some time to figure out they were talking about Georgia the country, not Georgia the state.

You want to know what's outrageous? Women voting for Barack Obama over Hillary Clinton. Jessica Valenti and Jillian Hewitt vivisect.

* * *

Hey, that wasn't so bad! I bet you can't even figure out which links were the ones I originally had up on the browser!

And better news yet: Jill is flying into DC tomorrow night! So I might be a bit busy for awhile.

We're So Dead

Spencer Ackerman reminds us:

Umar Farouk “When There’s Nothing Left To Burn, You Must Set Your Crotch On Fire” Abdulmutallab is currently detained in a federal prison in Michigan. For now! In a few days he’ll use his Muslim heat vision to escape and run amok in Ann Arbor, shortly after America is brought to its knees by the force of his oratory in open federal court.

To Guantanamo he must go!

Do They Notice it isn't Working?

The Institute of Terrorism Research and Response reports that jihadist chatter is pointing towards further kidnappings of Israeli and American soldiers in order to "free Gaza". This comes from the pretty far-right INN, so take it with some salt, but assuming it's true -- have these folks noticed that this tactic isn't working? One would think that decades upon decades of history would give some indication of what strategies are likely to lead to Palestinian independence and which ones are not. Yet, violent warfare remains the dogma.

Kidnappings of this sort have traditionally led to one of two outcomes for Palestinians:

1) Prisoner exchanges (which I imagine groups like Hamas like, but have little to do with "freeing Gaza"), and/or

2) Bruising Israeli military campaigns.

The one thing they've had virtually no positive impact towards is convincing Israel to withdraw from Palestinian territories.

Now, I'm being deliberately credulous here -- I'm acting as if the primary goal of Palestinian terrorist groups is "freeing Gaza" rather than inflicting pain on Israel. And we all know that isn't true -- these groups have always been willing to trade the former for the latter, and this would be yet another example.

Latin America Celebrates its First Gay Marriage

Congratulations to the happy couple, who were wed in southern Argentina yesterday.

Obama Condemns Iranian Crackdown

He's still got to walk that delicate line between buoying and discrediting the protesters, but this statement seems well-calibrated.

Blur to Black

I didn't comment on the mini-controversy where Sen. Lindsay Graham (R-SC) seemed to think only Black people are on medicaid. But it fit very nicely with a broader truism among scholars of American race relations, which is that programs which benefit the poor nearly invariably are seen in the public eye as programs benefiting Blacks (think welfare).

And that, in turn, connects with Victor Davis Hanson's interpretation of Obamism:

It works like this: The ghetto resident, the denizen of the barrio, the abandoned and divorced waitress with three young children, can all chart their poverty and unhappiness not to accident, fate, bad luck, bad decisions, poor judgment, illegality or drug use, or simple tragedy, but rather exclusively to a system that is rigged to ensure oppression on the basis of race, class, and gender—often insidious and unfathomable except to the sensitive and gifted academic or community organizer.

So Obama combines the age-old belief that the state is there to level the playing field (rather than protect the rights of the individual and secure the safety of the people from foreign threats), with the postmodern notion that government must recompensate those by fiat on the basis on their race or class or gender. Remember all that, and everything from the Professor Gates incident, to the dutiful attendance at the foot of Rev. Wright to Van Jones become logical rather than aberrant. Michelle Obama could make $300,000 and she will always be more a victim than the Appalachian coal miner who earns $30,000, by virtue of her race and gender.

The problem, as Matt Yglesias pointed out, is that this doesn't jive with any of Obama's actual policy initiatives -- virtually all of which would advantage Mr. Coal Miner over Mrs. Obama. The Obama administration's domestic policy agenda has been singular in its lack of focus on issues of race and racial division (or even, really, racial harmony). It has studiously ducked the issue.

But it doesn't matter, because it never was about what the country (or what Black people) did or didn't do. To a significant swath of the country, all Black political action is presumed to be partisan racial gerrymandering, and all political action geared towards the poor is also presumed to be race-based wealth redistribution. Combine the two prejudices together, and you have a powerful political hurricane.

UPDATE: Also.

The Day After Christmas

Instead of blogging today, I wrote emails! I was supposed to have a snowball fight, but Mother Nature conspired to melt all the snow. The sad.

The two, rather lengthy emails, were in response to this Andrew Sullivan post, and a query of Rabbi Lynn Gottlieb, leader of the Gaza Freedom March, regarding the possible participation of COSATU and Bongani Masuku.

Tonight, I'm heading off to a hockey game. My beloved New Jersey Devils face the Caps. It should be great -- Brodeur versus Ovechkin is a great matchup under any circumstances, and this year the Caps and Devils are two of the best teams in the league.

Chinese Food Roundup

It's that time of year. Whatever you're doing today or tomorrow, I hope it is restful and enjoyable.

* * *

The BDS movement continues to trudge along like the zombie it is -- the latest scandal was promoting a pro-BDS letter featuring signatories who claim to have never seen the petition (and aren't happy to see their name attached).

The Pope ends the year like he begun it -- apologizing to the Jews. Unsurprisingly, the apology is not paired with a modification in the decision which triggered Jewish ire in the first place. I'd say he's tone-deaf, but that assumes he cares all that much in the first place.

Iowa's resident nut, Rep. Steve King (R), isn't letting the complete absence of any proof of wrongdoing stop him from saying ACORN is a bigger scandal than Watergate ("a little break-in by a couple of guys," as King described it).

Blocking popular policies makes one unpopular, Hill journalists are stunned to learn.

An interesting article on the "Sex with the Rabbi" sex ed class taught at a New York Jewish school.

Meet the Rabbinical student leading the charge to get gay marriage passed in New Jersey.

Hannah Rosenthal, the top US official charged with combating anti-Semitism, is defending J Street against attacks from Israeli ambassador Michael Oren.

An Israeli man was killed in a West Bank terror attack, near the site of a recently removed roadblock.

A couple is suing two hospitals for deliberately ignoring them and declining emergency treatment. The result was the premature birth of a baby, who was then pronounced dead.

Is George Allen thinking about a rematch against the man who knocked him off in 2006, incumbent Senator Jim Webb (D)?

Right Down to the Racism

The Israeli government is locked in a battle with ultra-orthodox families at a religious academy who are defying orders to desegregate the program. The renegade parents are Ashkenazi Jews who object to having their daughters (it's an all-girls school) attend class with Mizrachi peers:

"No court ruling or Education Ministry decision can bring the two groups together," an Immanuel resident said Wednesday. "It's like putting Americans and Africans together. They can't study together with such huge mental differences," he said.
[...]
"It's a disgrace to this place, the ministry must intervene to stop the segregation once and for all," the father of one Mizrahi student said. "The Ashkenazis think they're more intelligent than we are, but what really bugs them is our skin color."

Yeah, that about spells it out. Kudos to the Israeli government for standing firm on this (they're threatening to prosecute the parents for violating mandatory school attendance laws if they don't send their daughters back to the now-integrated academy).

Billy Mays, RIP

House passes bill to curb the volume of TV ads. I guess he really is gone.

For the Rest of Us!

CNN explores how non-Christians handle the "holiday" season. Very interesting. Worth noting: "Compared with other non-Christians, many Jews have drawn a sharper line in the sand when it comes to observing Christmas, a stance informed by historic, theological and self-preservation reasons."

UPDATE: You thought the line was harsh now! Yeesh.

Strenger on Carter's Apology

Brilliant stuff:

I have no intention of psychoanalyzing Carter. His apology is of interest because it reflects a problem of many of Israel's critics. There are good reasons to criticize Israel, first and foremost for its settlement policy. There is absolutely no justification for the settlements in terms of security. The battlefield of the present, and even more of the future, is defined by rocket technologies, and nobody can conceivably argue that building settlements and appropriating Palestinian land provides any protections against rockets - whether from Iran, Hezbollah or Hamas.

The problem is the tone of the criticism. Israel's defenders often point out that Israel's human right abuses pale in significance compared to those of China, Iran or Sudan. The problem with many of Israel's critics is the sheer hatred they express. When Iran crushed the protests against election fraud this year with vicious cruelty, the world felt sympathy for the protesters. Few in the West felt hatred for Iran; at most they felt disdain for Iran's repressive regime. Britain's academics tried to impose a boycott on Israeli universities and researchers; they never initiated a boycott against Saddam Hussein's Iraq, or towards China after the Tiananmen massacre. This disproportion has been pointed out many times, and warrants an explanation.

Israel and the Christian world have been locked in a very complex relationship that has deep historical and theological roots. The theologically based hatred of Christianity towards Jews was transformed in the 19th century, and received its racial formulation from 1873 onwards, when the Austrian journalist Wilhelm Marr coined the term anti-Semitism. This form of hatred of Jews led to the horrors of the Holocaust, and the Western world has yet to come to terms with its refusal to do anything to stop the genocide.

Jews have been the bad conscience of the West for a long time - and even more so since the Holocaust. French philosopher Bernard-Henri Levy has pointed out that many in the West have never come to terms with the fact that Jews, the perpetual victims, now have a powerful army, and are no longer in the position of having to beg for protection and recognition. But most of all, for many there was relief: now that Jews had become the victimizers rather than the victims, the guilt of the history of persecution ending in the Holocaust could finally left behind. Many in the West used a ubiquitous defense mechanism: humans tend to hate those who induce guilt in them - and finally guilt against Jews could be transformed into hatred against Israel.

It looks like Jimmy Carter has realized that he had crossed the line between criticizing Israel and hating it; that there is a big difference between being critical and even exasperated with Israel's inability to end an occupation that should have ended in 1968, as David Ben-Gurion knew very well, and the self-righteous rage and hatred that many of Israel's Western critics express in their criticisms. Carter's apology is to be lauded: his stigmatization of Israel did not befit a man who has devoted life after the presidency to peace initiatives, and it tainted his critique of Israel's policy with a tone that was illegitimate.

My first blush reaction to Carter's apology was here.

An Address By Moishe Postone

"Another German Autumn", at a Demonstration against Antisemitism, December 13, 2009.

Carter's Contrition

I really don't know what to make of this:

Former U.S. president Jimmy Carter has apologized to the American Jewish community for 'stigmatizing Israel' and asked for forgiveness for his actions, the JTA reported on Monday.

"We must recognize Israel's achievements under difficult circumstances, even as we strive in a positive way to help Israel continue to improve its relations with its Arab populations, but we must not permit criticisms for improvement to stigmatize Israel," Carter wrote in a letter to the JTA.

"As I would have noted at Rosh Hashanah and Yom Kippur, but which is appropriate at any time of the year, I offer an Al Het for any words or deeds of mine that may have done so," Carter wrote, referring to the prayer said on Yom Kippur in which Jews ask God for forgiveness for any sins.

Canvassing the blogospheric, the reactions seem to be polarized between "not good enough, asshole" and "ZOMG THE ZIONISTS GOT TO HIM!"

I think I was appropriately circumspect in my discussions of President Carter on this issue, and I see no reason to abandon that position now.

Griffith Bolts to the GOP

Alabama Democratic Representative Parker Griffith is switching parties, citing differences with party leaders (particularly over health care) as the cause.

Obviously, Rep. Griffith has every right to do this (as did Senator James Jeffords, or Arlen Specter, or any other historical party switcher). Republican leaders, furthermore, are surely correct to trumpet the implications of a House member deciding to defect to the minority, which I imagine is a rarity. On the other hand, Matt Yglesias is also correct to note that Griffith came from a district whose Democratic control was essentially unsustainable over the long term. Rep. Griffith was the furthest thing from being a progressive while he was a Democrat; so progressives already understood that we would need to know how to push our agenda forward without him.

Martin Brodeur Breaks Shutout Record

Yet another record falls to the New Jersey netminder. He notched his 104th career shutout in a 4-0 victory against Pittsburgh tonight, breaking the all-time record held by Terry Sawchuk. Brodeur now holds the all-time records in, among other categories, most wins, most games played, and most shutouts.

"And Then My O-Line Disappeared!"

That trick play the Redskins tried to pull at the end of the first half is how Darth Vader punishes punters who displease him. "I know! We'll put in some 180 lbs dude who was a fourth-string QB in middle school, take away his entire offense line, and hope that he heaves the ball to safety before three men who outweigh him by a factor of 10 flatten him to the earth." And then it gets intercepted.

On the other hand, Todd Collins got to take a few snaps. I love that guy -- he plays in maybe one game every two years, throws a forty yard completion to set up what should be a field goal, and then goes back to the bench to wait another 18 months for a snap. All while being paid an annual salary which rivals the GDP of East Timor. It's the American dream.

Israel and Organs: A Guide for the Perplexed

When I first saw a report that Israel had admitted harvesting organs, I was confused and quite a bit worried. What exactly had happened? When was it (and was it ongoing)? Who was responsible? Who were the victims? Was their any punishment for the perpetrators? And so on.

As the story was picked up, I think I've mostly pieced together what happened. Hence, my guide for the perplexed reader, who wants to keep the story straight.

The latest iteration of this controversy came from a Swedish tabloid piece alleging that IDF troops were killing Palestinians in order to harvest their organs -- a charge bitterly denounced (including by me) as a new version of the "blood libel". The closest thing to evidence that the author had for his piece was the story of an illegal organ trade between an Israeli and a New Jersey Jewish man, apparently on the theory that any action by any Israeli or Jew anywhere is reflective of a broader hive mentality of the whole. The story exploded in the various anti-Semitic fever swamps that inhabit the globe, with Alison Weir alleging in Counterpunch that the original (medieval) blood libel was actually quite true, and Algerian officials spinning tales of transnational kidnapping operations of Arab children. Many other similar claims were raised at the same time.

In the wake of this controversy, an American academic released to an Israeli news station an interview she conducted in 2000 with an Israeli pathologist, Dr. Yehuda Hiss, who admitted in the 1990s that specialists at his hospitals did take corneas, heart valves, and skin from corpses (Israeli and Palestinian alike, but mostly Israelis, including soldiers) they were autopsying for the purpose of transplants. The practice, however, was discontinued by the end of the decade as new rules were written precisely to check these sorts of abuses.

Here's where things get a little murky. The CNN article on the story, which gives the fullest account I've seen yet, has some words to the effect that the doctors thought that the permission to do an autopsy implicitly granted them the right to take organs from the body -- though they conceded they never asked specific permission. This is belied, though, by other statements wherein the doctors indicate that they acted to cover up their offense (such as gluing eyelids shut to mask taken corneas) -- demonstrating that the doctors were at least aware that their actions may not have been entirely sanctioned by the families.

The other thing I am unclear about is the degree to which this scandal was already public knowledge. The CNN article indicates that these charges were indeed investigated, with Dr. Hiss losing his job as head of the institute in 2004 because of them (he still works at the institution).

The forensic institute at Abu Kabir, where Hiss still works, received complaints about improper practices regarding organ harvesting that culminated in an investigation and a change of management.

The current manager, Assaf Harofe Hospital, issued a statement saying, "The committee which examined the said matters have determined that there were purely managerial malfunctions, but as a result of their findings Professor Hiss lost his position as the manager of the institute." Managerial responsibility was changed and new procedures were put in place, the statement said.

What I'm not sure about is whether this investigation was known to the public at the time. Of course, it seems quite wrong at first glance that the doctors received the wrist slap of a "managerial malfunction" and demotion, but without knowing the particulars of the investigation I cannot say for sure (on the other hand, it seems quite right that a complaint was made, the practice was investigated, and then ceased after investigation). But what I'm getting at is that if a scandal that was already known to the public can be dredged up anew every five years as something shocking, horrible, and discrediting, simply by making up a seemingly connected but more extreme iteration, then nobody will ever move on from anything.

One thing that needs to be stressed, and was mentioned in both the CNN and Guardian articles, is that the original explosive allegations in the Swedish article -- that Israel was killing Palestinians for their organs -- was and remains untrue; it is, as CNN blithely put it, "a different allegation". Taking corneas from already dead patients (without regard to who the patients were -- the majority of the patients whose organs were taken appear to have been Israelis) is, of course, an entirely different animal from actively going out an killing people in order to harvest their organs. The distinction is important not to minimize the gravity of the former offense, but to prevent the revelation of the former from being blurred and merged into the latter.

Finally, as they put it at Harry's Place, "the truth is ugly, and deserved to come out no matter the consequences." But the truth remains the truth -- it is not free license to support falsehoods like the Swedish article, or feverish claims of Jewish bloodlust.

I would also ask that we resist the traps of the politics of respectability, which demand of otherized groups universal sainthood lest they all be tainted as corrupted and fallen. A federal building explodes in Oklahoma, and Timothy McVeigh is evil. A suicide bomb explodes in Tel Aviv, and Palestinians are evil. A Israeli doctor takes organs from corpses without permission, and Israelis are evil. No. Girls don't suck at math, that girl sucks at math. That doctor did wrong; that wrongdoing deserves investigation and punishment. But the hivemind doesn't exist.

Franken Anti-Rape Bill Makes It Into Law

Despite worries it would be stripped out in conference (as well as Republican whines that they were actually being held accountable for their nay votes), the Franken anti-rape amendment was part of the defense appropriations bill President Obama just signed into law.

Congratulations, Senator Franken -- an excellent holiday gift to our men and women serving abroad.

"Reform" Wasn't Happening Anyway

The AFTP's Hussein Ibish has a good post up on how the death of Grand Ayatollah Hosein Ali Montazeri will affect the burgeoning opposition movement to Iran's increasingly dictatorial regime. The short version is: less than you think. Montazeri was by far the most prominent and credible voice amongst the dissident clerics who believed that the Islamic Revolution had lost its way. Consequently, his death makes it that much harder to usher in a so-called velvet revolution which seeks to reform rather than revolutionize the system by casting it as a return to its roots, rather than a wholesale change. However, the steps taken by the ruling forces -- increasing reliance on outright dictatorship and brute authority -- were hastily closing the window on that option anyway. They were designed to give the populace a stark choice: either revolt outright, or accept the new order of things, with barely even a gesture anymore at showings of democracy or freedom.

Lie of the Year

PolitiFact (a project of the St. Petersburg Times) has selected their first annual "Lie of the Year". And the winner? Sarah Palin, natch, for her contribution of "death panels" to the health care debate.

Of all the falsehoods and distortions in the political discourse this year, one stood out from the rest.

"Death panels."

The claim set political debate afire when it was made in August, raising issues from the role of government in health care to the bounds of acceptable political discussion. In a nod to the way technology has transformed politics, the statement wasn't made in an interview or a television ad. Sarah Palin posted it on her Facebook page.

Her assertion — that the government would set up boards to determine whether seniors and the disabled were worthy of care — spread through newscasts, talk shows, blogs and town hall meetings. Opponents of health care legislation said it revealed the real goals of the Democratic proposals. Advocates for health reform said it showed the depths to which their opponents would sink. Still others scratched their heads and said, "Death panels? Really?"

The editors of PolitiFact.com, the fact-checking Web site of the St. Petersburg Times, have chosen it as our inaugural "Lie of the Year."

I can't think of a more deserving winner.

Big Capital

DC businesses expecting an economic windfall from gay marriage.

Israel Thinking of Banning Underweight or Photoshopped Models

Story here. The bill, which is being justified as a tool to combat childhood eating disorders, is being drafted by lawmakers from the centrist Kadima and right-wing Likud Party. A previous iteration of the bill, introduced by a member of the far-right secular nationalist Yisrael Beiteinu, failed last year due to concerns that the government shouldn't discriminate on basis of weight (in this case, by barring models below a certain BMI).

"Recommended"

Another blogging/scholarship landmark is passed, as "Sticky Slopes" receives a favorable mention and a "recommended" rating from Lawrence Solum's vaunted Legal Theory Blog.

I think the worst part about progressing in my academic career is that the giddiness of events like this will start to wear off. But for now, exciting!

...The University of Alberta Law School is cool too, I guess.

A Christmas Martyr

In what tragically doesn't surprise me in the slightest, the Washington Times and Han Van Spokavosky both pen pieces decrying the persecution of Joe "War on Law" Arpaio. (Via).

Go Sox

I love this piece, mostly because it is accompanied by the perfect photo of Professor Nussbaum. It's 100% "Oh yeah, I'm actually even more badass than you knew. Turns out, that is possible."

The Physics of Space Battles

One of the coolest sci-fi-esque articles I've read in a long time.

It's a Bird! It's a Plane! It's Superfederalist!

The compromise the Senate finally hammered out on Stupak's language was that states can impose the Stupak rules on their own exchanges, but the rules will not be imposed by the federal legislation (apparently, somehow, there will be at least one plan per state guaranteed to have abortion coverage).

But David Waldman says that isn't far enough: "I think states should leave the abortion question up to the counties. Then I think counties should leave the abortion question up to municipalities. Then the neighborhoods should leave the abortion question up to each block." And then each block, to the household, and household member.

"Travel" Day

I'm flying to Florida tomorrow.

Hahaha! Obviously, I'm kidding. What I'm really going to do is wake up at the crack of dawn, try to get to the airport through a hellicious snowstorm, sit in the terminal as my plane is delayed indefinitely, and then eventually go home once it is canceled.

UPDATE: Never even made it out of my bedroom. We made a judgment call that our flight wasn't going to ever get out. Right call: It was delayed until 2:00 before it was canceled (it was scheduled for 10:00 AM).

The Espino Carleton Connection

Miguel Espino (20-2-1, 9 KOs), the handpicked opponent for Kelly Pavlik's return from a hand injury, doesn't have much of chance to win his fight this weekend. But he does have a sibling who attended Carleton College. So now, he's automatically one of my favorite fighters.

(His sister apparently transferred out to CSU-Northridge to be closer to their legally blind mother. But once a Carl, always a Carl -- I've known a few people who transferred out who later transferred back in. We hold on to our own).

It's Tough Being Meek

I may have spoken too soon regarding the impact of Marco Rubio's recent surge in his Republican primary Senate race against Charlie Crist. Though the conventional wisdom held that Meek would had a better shot against the far-right Rubio than the centrist and popular Crist, a new poll has Rubio with a considerably wider lead over Meek than Crist does -- mostly because Rubio has nailed down the support of the right more effectively.

I still think in the context of a general election race, the conventional wisdom is right that Meek is better off against Rubio than Crist, but this does give one pause.

Traveler's Roundup

The writing just ain't happening, and for that I apologize. I'm packing today, flying home tomorrow morning (and pretty soon after that turning right around and flying out to Florida).

* * *

Cancel tax-exempt status for funders of the settlements. I had some pretty harsh words for the Hebron fundraiser mentioned in the post.

Doing some research, I stumbled across this old profile/interview with legendary organizer Saul Alinsky.

Good news for my summer employment: DC is leading the pack of cities seeing earlier-than-expected economic recovery.

It's hard to believe that Joe Arpaio is real, let alone popular. But if ever there was someone whose hubris is going to bring about his downfall, I'd tag him for the honor.

Lou Dobbs has been huffing glue (how's that for hyperbole?).

Marco Rubio has all the momentum in the Florida Senate Republican primary. Good news for Democrats -- Kendrick Meek was dead in the water against the popular government, but has a strong chance against the extreme-right Rubio.

Tim Starks has his nominees up for knockout of the year. There really is only one choice (Pacquaio KO2 Hatton), but they're still fun to watch (any other year, Randall).

Columbia introduces co-ed rooms. Fun quote: "I was shocked enough last year when we moved our son in and we saw that guys and girls shared a bathroom on the hall," said Laura Hannon, whose son, Michael, is a Columbia sophomore. "If it had been our daughter, we would have turned around and walked straight out." But since it's your son, happy hunting!

Come and Sing with Me!

Done with exams, done with exams, done-done-done-done-done with exams!

Wind Down Roundup

One more exam to go. Jill just left to go home for break (she'll be coming to DC for New Years), so I'm all alone.

* * *

Military engineers are pioneering so-called "guilty robots" -- robots with complex ethical programming designed to make them better at following the rules of war than humans.

The Nevada brothel industry is now open to men. It was actually just a technicality that had kept male prostitutes out (they can't get a "cervical exam"), but hey, gender equality!

A great profile in Tablet magazine about Salam Fayyad, Palestinian Prime Minister and the man Shimon Peres calls "the Palestinian Ben-Gurion".

Houston became the largest city in the US to elect an openly-gay mayor.

BRICUP may have invited a racist to speak before them, but don't worry, they were quite eager to justify it through dialogue and explanation.

The bill targeting ACORN grants was ruled an unconstitutional bill of attainder. Adam Serwer reminds us of why it is a bad thing for Congress to appoint itself a quasi-judiciary and make determinations of guilt and innocence in response to popular akrasia.

Obama doesn't have a Jewish problem. Rinse, wash, repeat, until it sinks in.

IDF Ordered to Cut Ties with Rejectionist Settler Yeshiva

Israeli Defense Minister Ehud Barak (Labor) ordered the IDF to sever its connections with a far-right Yeshiva which had been urging IDF soldiers to refuse orders to evacuate the settlements.

"The defense minister views with considerable gravity any instance of insubordination and he is not ready to accept any deviation from what he views as a red line," the statement read.

"The actions and statements of Rabbi Melamed undermine the foundations of Israeli democracy, actions which incited some of his students to refuse orders, take part in demonstrations, and harm the spirit of the IDF, [actions] which have no place in a properly functioning country."

MK Michael Ben-Ari, of the extremist right-wing party National Union, was displeased:

"Barak, in his belligerent manner, is harming the security of the state of Israel," Ben Ari said. "Canceling the arrangement with the heroes of the Har Bracha yeshiva is a heavy-handed move that is meant to inflate the ego of a politician who is at the end of his road."

"Those who will be harmed [by the move] are the IDF and the state of Israel," the MK said.

Because the IDF is stronger when it is populated by soldiers taught to disobey legal orders. That makes sense.

Fun fact: MK Ben-Ari is a Kahanist and the guy who, responding to the terrorist burning of a West Bank Mosque, stated that "those who wish to wipe out the Jewish people must not expect us to identify with their symbols and centers of incitement. I ran out of condemnations when the synagogues at Gush Katif were burned."

Expel the Darkness

A group of rabbis from the religious Zionist tradition are visiting the Mosque that was burned down by Jewish extremists earlier this week.

Dozens of rabbis and activists from the Religious Zionist camp will visit Sunday the West Bank Palestinian village of Yasuf to protest against the torching of the village's main mosque and to send a message of reconciliation to the Muslim population, Ynet has learned.

During their visit, they will lend a hand in the clean-up and refurbishing efforts at the mosque. They will also donate a number of Korans in place of those that were burned in the fire.
[...]
Rabbi Yehuda Gilad, who heads the yeshiva on the religious kibbutz Maale Gilboa, initiated the event together with Rabbi Avia Rosen from Ein Hanatziv and Rabbi Shmuel Reiner. Rabbi Gilad said, "We came to expel darkness, especially during the days of Hannukah. Light is not added by hurting our brothers, the Muslims, who are the servants of God just as we are. This is an important message to relay."

According to Rabbi Gilad, rabbis from across the spectrum of Religious Zionism and from areas throughout Israel are expected to partake in the event that was put together just Sunday morning. "This is not a political protest, but a humanitarian, moral, and religious issue. We have seen and heard condemnations (of the mosque arson) from both ends of the political spectrum," said Rabbi Gilad.

Rabbi Menachem Froman, the rabbi of the town of Tekoa who speaks with a lot Muslim religious figures, said that the response on the other side was considerable. He noted that the visit is being coordinated with the Palestinian military governor in the region.

"They are receiving us openly. We will drink coffee with them. We will speak about the halachic opposition to what happened there on Friday and just how harsh such an act is from its (halacha's) perspective. We will make a joint prayer for peace," said Rabbi Froman.

Rabbi Froman said that at the conclusion of the event, his son, who speaks Arabic, will sing an Arabic version of the Hannukah song "We Have Come to Expel Darkness" (Banu Hoshech Legaresh).

A good gesture, and a needed one.