Israel as Refuge for the Jews

Peter Beinart is the most recent of those who have claimed that  a Jewish state is necessary as a refuge for Jews fleeing anti-Semitism. “I am old enough to remember the plight of Soviet and Ethiopian Jews,” he recently said. As long as there is anti-Semitism, there is a need to ensure that Jewish lives will be safe. But not just physically safe – for Jewish culture to flourish, indeed, for Jews around the world to feel proud to be Jewish, there must be a Jewish state that provides these things. After a look at the revival of Hebrew culture, for which, he claims, the state is responsible.

That the Jewish state serves as a necessary refuge for Jews fleeing anti-Semitism and a guarantor of the survival of Jewish culture  is a deeply-held belief by many. So is the conviction that the Jews were exiled from Palestine by the Romans over two thousand years ago. Both convictions have been fostered by Zionism itself. But as the latter belief is a myth, so is the former.

Let’s begin by repeating the obvious fact that the revival of Hebrew language and literature and its being placed on a sure footing long antedated the founding of Israel. I am not referring merely to the literary achievements of the nineteenth and early twentieth century maskilim, though they are proof enough. No, what was responsible for the great institutions and spread of Hebrew language, literature, and culture, was the Zionist and the Hebraist movements, not the State of Israel, and most of the chief institutions of Hebrew culture were established well-before  the State.  The Hebrew University in Jerusalem, the Hebrew Language Committee (later, renamed the Israeli Academy of Hebrew Language), Hebrew novelists like Brenner and Agnon, Hebrew cultural institutions like the Palestine Orchestra (later the Israeli Philharmonic Orchestra), the Bezalel Art School, the Habimah theater, and more and more – all these were the products of Jewish nationalism and their existence was neither due to nor ultimately guaranteed by  the State founded in 1948. True, the state has supported such endeavors (and recently has threatened to cut support from those institutions that would not perform in what Beinart calls “non-democratic Israel.”)

One may wish to argue that Israel provides a cultural center that has inspired a flourishing of Jewish culture outside of its borders. But that involves a Zionist reading of center and periphery that may not be even true. There was more of a Hebrew literary culture in the United States before the establishment of the state of Israel than afterwards, and while it would be wrong to blame territorial Zionism for that culture’s demise, it and the State of Israel bear some responsibility – just as the State of Israel has to bear some responsibility for the demise of Jewish communities in Arab lands, especially since it did everything within its power to bring those communities to Israel, and when they arrived, to melt them in the Israeli melting pot. To this day, official Israel looks askance at the growth of Jewish communities outside its because according to mainstream Zionism, one can only be fully Jewish in the Jewish State.

Which  brings me to the “place of refuge” dogma:  If Israel exists as a physical refuge to ensure the survival of the Jewish people, then it has failed miserably in that respect.  We are told by Israel’s leaders that the Jewish state is, or soon will be, under an existential threat from Iran, or from terrorism. If this is true, then will some one please tell me how Israel is a safer refuge for the Jews than, say, the United States, or even, Europe? More Jews have died because of the Israel-Arab conflict since 1945 than as a result of all other anti-Jewish behavior combined since 1945. And since much of the new anti-Semitism is correlated to Israel’s actions, not only is Israel a dangerous place for Jews living within its borders, it isn’t so good for the physical safety of Jews outside it either.

Beinart mentions the Jews of the Soviet Union and the Ethiopians. Those Soviet Jews who emigrated to Israel did so either because they were Zionist and wanted to live in Israel, or because they wished to live outside the Soviet Union,  and Israel was the only place available.  There was discrimination against Jews in the Soviet Union, and certainly it was difficult for Zionist Jews to live there after Israel had defeated Arab armies supplied with Soviet weaponry. But we are not talking about Jews who fled Russia, or were expelled from it,  because of persecution, and who were forced to seek refuge in Israel. Especially in the 1970s we are talking about mostly Jews who already were Zionist-inclined, and who wanted to emigrate to Israel. In the 1990s fewer were Zionistically inclined; they were mostly taking advantage of the Gorbachev’s liberal policy.

As for the Ethiopian Beta Israel community, they only began to immigrate to Israel as refugees after Israel decided that they were Jewish and encouraged them. Had the decision gone the other way – and it is important to remember that it could have, since there was opposition to Ethiopian aliyah – many would have remained in Africa or made their way elsewhere. For them to come to Israel, there had to be Zionists initially convincing them that this was where they should be; there was no consciousness among them of the State of Israel as their homeland (unless they were Zionists.)

Having written the above, the Ethiopian aliyah still strikes me as closer to the intent of those who use the “refuge” argument to justify Israel’s existence. But that argument seems to say that unless there is a Jewish state of refuge, some Jews may die or suffer anti-Semitism. But with a Jewish state some Jews may die or suffer anti-Semitism. The real question is or should be, “Can Judaism and the Jewish people survive without a Jewish state.” And the answer is, so far, yes. In fact several thousand years of Jewish survival teaches us that.

The answer to the fate of Jewish refugees is not to insist that there be an ethnic state to which they can return, but to insist on an international policy that is concerned the rights of all refugees, regardless of race, gender, color, religion, etc. Neither solution is fail-safe, but so what?.

All of the above is valid had the State of Israel been located on the North Pole or the Moon. But even I am completely wrong, and a Jewish state is necessary to ensure the survival and thriving of the Jews and Judaism, that is not an argument for making room for that state in somebody else’s country. And let’s face it – the Zionists decided that in order to accept Jewish refugees in Palestine, they had to expel and denaturalize natives of Palestine. No country or people has that right.

How many times have the same people who say,  “If there was no Jewish state, where would the Jewish refugees of Hitler go?” also say, “The world should force the Arab states to accept the Palestinian refugees?”  Let me say this here loud and clear – the Postwar states had a responsibility to receive the World War II refugees, and that responsibility was first and foremost that of their native countries. But where repatriation was not possible, the refugees should have been allowed to go to countries where there settlement would not adversely affect the rights of the native population. The settlement of Jewish refugees in Palestine – of which they were not native – was not morally justified insofar as that settlement furthered the designs of Jewish statehood, since the majority of the Palestinians were opposed to Jewish statehood, and Jewish statehood would have adversely affected their rights. As it turns out, it adversely affected their rights in ways in which they would not have dreamed, since that settlement was coupled with the effective expulsion of the majority of the Palestinians.

But where would the Jews have gone? Many of them didn’t go to Palestine anyway, and many of those who did left Palestine when they could, much to the dismay of the Zionists.

I repeat – there is a moral distinction between settling refugees in lands in which they desire to live, and repatriating refugees to their own land. In the case of the Palestinian refugees, they have a right to return to their homeland, even if it adversely affects the rights of the Israeli Jews, because they were barred from returning to their homes – despite the calls of the UN. Had the Zionists said, prior to the founding of the state, that the only way a Jewish State can survive is through the forced transfer of most of its native Palestinians, nobody would have recognized the legitimacy of the state. And if somebody had, then that person, or state, would be wrong.

My position is that of the Zionist Ichud Association, which said that the Palestinians refugees should be given the choice where they wish to live, and that ways should be found to accommodate those choices, balancing the needs and rights of all concerned – but with the clear recognition that their return to their native surroundings carries great weight, even when what they are returning to is an imagined landscape, because of the crime done against them.

Are Extra-judicial Killings a Form of Tikkun Olam?

In an op-ed published today by Rabbi Donniel Hartman, we learn that killing “known terrorist leaders” who have “blood on their hands,” and who have expressed a desire to continue their killing, is not only permitted under Jewish law, is not only commanded as a form of self-defense, but should be  praised as an act of tikkun olam, of repairing the world.

Before I criticize this position, I would like to go on record that I know Rabbi Hartman, and I admire his leadership of the Hartman Institute in Jerusalem, where I have been invited annually to be part of  a “philosophers’ group.” So I am glad that his op-ed gives me the opportunity to commend his work, as well as to disagree vehemently with his position. Our dispute is “for the sake of heaven.” I also want to acknowledge that the point of the op-ed was actually to restrain the natural feelings of hatred and demonization for the other that people feel when under attack.

Let me start by saying that, contrary to what Rabbi Hartman writes,  the morality of extra-judicial killings is highly debated and not at all clear. On just war theory, as I wrote below, a pre-emptive strike against an enemy is permissible only when a) the enemy’s attack is imminent; b) the response is proportionate to the threat, and c) no other recourse is possible. I mention, as an aside, that it is possible to find parallels for these three conditions in the Jewish law of self-defense. In initially justifying Israel’s decision to assassinate Zuhir al-Qaisi, Rabbi Hartman assumes that all these conditions obtained. This in itself is a good sign. (Note that American’s assassination of Osama Bin Laden was not justified through an appeal to knowledge of an imminent attack he was planning. So if an attack wasn’t imminent, Rabbi Hartman could not consistently approve even Osama bin Laden’s assassination.) By declaring the necessity of the “imminence” requirement Rabbi Hartman distances himself from many of his fellow Israelis, to judge from the press reports.

But later on in the op-ed, Rabbi Hartman drops the “imminent attack” requirement

Targeted killings of known terrorist leaders, those with blood on their hands and the self-expressed desire and capacity to spill more blood, are not morally ambiguous

On the contrary, as is well known, there is a great deal of moral ambiguity here. Substitute, for example, “serial murderer” for “terrorist leaders”. Would Rabbi Hartman consider extra-judicial killings of such people “not morally ambiguous”? Remember, we are not talking about a ticking bomb, or somebody on the way to commit a heinous act, but rather somebody with the self-expressed desire and capacity to spill more blood. There are Israeli generals with blood on their hands who have the desire to bomb Gaza. Would Rabbi Hartman think it legitimate for Palestinian drones to take out those IDF generals?

Classical just war theory  may be wrong in assuming the equality of combatants. But it does. And if al-Qaisi is judged as a combatant, then he has the same rights, on just war theory, that an Israeli general has, with or without the uniform. There are many like Dick Cheney who claim that al-Qaisi doesn’t have the rights of a serial killer OR the rights of an SS army officer. But this claim is disputed, which makes his killing hardly “not morally ambiguous.”

But what is most disturbing to me – before I get to the ‘Jewish angle” – is the complete faith placed by Rabbi Hartman in the IDF army spokesman. After all, how does he know that al-Qaisi was preparing an imminent attack and that other recourses were not available? This is one of the problems of appealing to just war theory to provide you with moral cover. The slippery slope of moral righteousness is that it becomes self-righteousness:  each side accepts the version of events prepared by its side as Torah min ha-shamayim, the word of God. One side’s  legitimate army is another side’s terrorist gang, to paraphrase Michael Walzer. Where certain conventions have been observed by both sides – and in the case of Israel and Hamas, for example, cease-fires and conventions have held up over time, until one side (usually Israel) unilaterally breaks them – both sides assume the rights and responsibilities of legal combatants. Now it is true that al-Qaisi is not a member of Hamas, and so may not benefit from that consideration. But Rabbi Hartman seems to make his principle a universal one that would justify taking out all  legal enemies of Israel, from Ismail Haniyeh, to Nasrallah, to Ahmadinejad,

In short, Rabbi Hartman slides pretty quickly down the slippery slope that he himself cautions against – contra the dictates of international convention and just war morality.

So far I have been assuming a philosophy-class scenario in which killing a ticking-bomb ends the story. But it never ends the story. Is the assassination of al-Qaisi justified if it leads, inevitably, to the cycle of violence that we have seen? For consequentialists, at least, that is relevant to the morality of the issue. But if not to its morality, then at least to its prudentiality, and to its supposed lack of moral ambiguity. When I read

I hate to see 20% of Israel living under the threat of missiles. I am pained by the fact that they must bear the brunt of our actions. I am thankful that the Iron Dome missile defense system is able to mitigate somewhat the price that is demanded of them.

I ask myself, “What of the 25 Palestinians who lost their lives because of the cycle of violence?” What of the humiliating nature of all targeted killings of a people held under the control of the occupier for over forty years? After all, only one side, the occupier, has the power and control over the other side. I know this matters to Rabbi Hartman, since I know the man. My fear is that he doesn’t mention in his op-ed the Palestinians killed because he knows that most of his audience don’t really care about them, and that his “moderate” message will be rejected as too “bleeding-heart liberal” if he mentions them.

As for the “Jewish angle” of tikkun olam and extrajudicial killings. Even had I agreed with his analysis, which I do not, I would have preferred that Rabbi Hartman appeal to the principle of wiping out the seed of Amalek, which Maimonides sees as wiping out evil. Seeing extrajudicial killings within the framework of tikkun olam is wrong for two reasons. First, the phrase nowadays is used by many liberal Jews to denote social action in the service of liberal causes, often outside the Jewish community. So these Jews cannot but be offended by extending it to morally controversial issues such as extra judicial killing.  Second, in its original intent in the Jewish code of law, the Mishnah, the phrase tikkun olam was used to justify new edicts that provide for harmonious social relations where existing rabbinic law failed to do so. States that engage in practices that violate conventions and norms such as the law of war do not repair society but rip it apart. They provide justification for other states, and non-state actors, to do the same. Such practices place a state outside of the olam, the “world” it is purporting to repair – and, lowers it to the status of an outlaw state, a rogue state, a terrorist-state.

Finally, I appreciate Rabbi Hartman’s desire to restrain the all-too-human impulse for revenge and destruction and demonization of the enemy that Israelis – like all peoples –feel when they are threatened. Rabbi Hartman is following in the footsteps of Aaron, “who loved peace and pursued peace” among Jews. But we should also remember that Aaron desired Jewish peace so much that he was willing to help the Jews forge the Golden Calf. In doing so, he channeled their destructive impulses into something less destructive and bought time until Moses could return.  But that well-intentioned move also led to their rejection of God’s messenger for the sake of an idol. 

Is Israel A Rational Actor?

In a seminal 2004 article in Philosophy and Public Affairs, David Luban argued that a state can justifiably launch a preventive war against a rogue state, provided that there is a high probability  for that state being attacked by the rogue state. This was a departure from classical just war theory, which only justifies preemptive war, that is, war to preempt an attack that is not only probable but imminent.

What constitutes a ‘rogue state’?

For purposes of preventive war doctrine, the most important characteristics are militarism, an ideology favoring violence, a track-record of violence to back it up, and a buildup in capacity to pose a genuine threat.

One could argue that, if Prof. Luban is correct,  Iran would be justified in launching a preventive war against Israel, since the latter is considered by many to be a militaristic society, refuses to engage with Iran in even indirect diplomacy, and has threatened repeatedly to attack Iran if it achieves nuclear weapons break-out capacity. It certainly has a track-record of unilateral violence to back up its threats. And Israel cooperates with the inspectors of the IAEE even less than does Iran.

Note that Prof. Luban does not allow preventive (or, for that matter, preemptive) war when a state merely feels threatened; on the contrary, he requires that the threat is probable (preventive war) or imminent (preemptive). Since Iran has never threatened to launch an unprovoked war against Israel, nor is it clear that it would take steps to act aggressively against Israel (If you don’t believe me, read here), I see no grounds for a preventive war against Iran. Moreover, it doesn’t fit the above definition of a rogue state. (For the record,  I hope that Iran won’t launch a preventive war against Israel.)

Is it so outlandish to consider Israel a rogue state, according to the above definition? Consider the recent Gaza violence. It began when Israel broke the cease-fire by assassinating Zuhair al-Qaissi, the commander of the armed wing of the Popular Resistance Committee. Israel alleged that al-Qaissi was planning a strike against civilians; but given the IDF’s track record of telling the truth, you will pardon my skepticism. Or to put it another way – if Israel saw the opportunity to kill al-Qaissi as revenge for, say, the kidnapping of Gilad Shalit, wouldn’t it make better sense for the IDF to lie about its motives. After all, it all boil downs to whether you accept the IDF at its word. And, from Israel’s perspective, why shouldn’t it take revenge for the sake of deterrence and be disingenuous about the motive?

Now, I ask you: Is Israel a rational actor? After all, it knowingly plunged the southern half of the country into chaos, disrupted and risked the lives of hundreds of thousands of Israelis, sent many of them into bomb shelters, spent millions of shekels, etc., engaged in a “pissing match” with an armed group of insurgents – and for what? Not to stop a cell of terrorists on the way to carry out an attack, which would have been a preemptive strike, but to take out a military leader who may or may not have been “plotting” an attack.

Is this rational? Under some scenarios, it would be.

First, suppose that the real motive of the Israelis was not to stop the planning of a terrorist mission, but to test the effectiveness of the Iron Dome missile defense. What better way to gauge the success of that defense than to provoke rocket retaliations? What better way to judge the military capability of the insurgent groups? What better way to draw Hamas into a cycle of violence, so it could point fingers at Hamas? (Unfortunately, the Israelis failed; Hamas didn’t take up the bait.)

Under this scenario, the Israelis did not continue the drone attacks as reprisals for the missiles but, on the contrary, in order to provoke more missile attacks to test the strengths and weaknesses of the system. After all, Israel knows that its drone attacks inevitably will call forth retaliation, just as drone attacks against Tel-Avivans would also call forth retaliations. Assuming Israel is a rational actor, one has to ask what would Israel stand to gain by placing so many of its citizens in harm wa? The only answer I can think of is that it was vital for them to test and to improve the Iron Dome. The “unintended consequences” were the death of over two dozen Palestinians, from the very young to the very old, But while I am sure Israel will say that it sincerely regrets the loss of life, is it not justified to prolong the fighting in order to make a thorough test of the strengths and weaknesses of the lives its missile system certainly saved? Given the value of Gazan life for the Israelis, doesn’t it make sense that they are used as guinea pigs for such testing?

Of course, it may just be that Israel is not a rational actor.

Selling Purim to Progressives Again

It has been my custom to reproduce this “Selling Purim to Progressives” Purim post occasionally, with some modifications.  The last time was in 2012. But when I read yesterday what I wrote then, I realized that little had changed in the last three years.  There was Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu with his annual Purim message: present-day Iran is Persia, its leader is the wicked Haman, they want to destroy us; if the US doesn’t come through, “there will be salvation from another place,” in other words, Israel will get the job done, i.e., unilaterally attack Iran without provocation (and no, tweeting that Israel should disappear is not a provocation, much less a casus belli). In 2015 Bibi told the US congress  “I can promise you one more thing: Even if Israel has to stand alone, Israel will stand.” Now that’s a provocation, although not as explicit as the constant threats Israel has issued against Iran.

So without further ado, here is what I wrote in 2012:

This year [I present my post]  a day after Prime Minister Netanyahu gave  a megillah/Scroll of Esther to President Obama.The scroll, read twice on the holiday of Purim, relates the victory of the Jews over Haman the Agagite, his sons, and a whole bunch of people inside and outside the Persian capital of Shushan who had it in for the Jews. Jeffrey Goldberg explains the point of Bibi’s gift:

The prime minister of Israel is many things, but subtle is not one of them. The message of Purim is: When the Jews see a murderous conspiracy forming against them, they will act to disrupt the plot. A further refinement of the message is: When the Jews see a plot forming against them in Persia, they will act to disrupt the plot, even if Barack Obama wishes that they would wait for permission.

Goldberg reads Bibi right, but Bibi reads the megillah wrong.  In the story, the Jews are saved only because the Jewish Queen Esther convinces the Persian king to execute the wicked Haman, after which the king  authorizes the Jews to defend themselves against their attackers.

The real message of the megillah for Bibi should be:  Diplomacy works; self-defense is the last resort; and one should act  only with the consent of the legitimate authority. In other words, Jewish unilateralism and aggression are dumb and counterproductive.

Why don’t progressives like Purim? Oh, that’s easy.  It's not just the Scroll of Esther; it's the Amalek thing; it's the Barukh Goldstein thing (Goldstein was the settler who on Purim murdered Palestinians in prayer); it's the Hanan Porat "Purim Sameah" ("Happy Purim") thing (That's what the Gush Emunim leader allegedly said when he heard about the Goldstein massacre, though he claims that he was not celebrating Goldstein, but urging people to continue with the holiday, despite the horrible thing that had happened.) And mature adults don’t like the primitive customs associated with reading the megillah and Purim, like making deafening noise when the villain Haman's name is mentioned, or getting stone drunk. “A holiday for little children and idiots,” one person recently summed up Purim for me.

Well, that’s true to an extent. But Purim doesn’t have to be that way.  And the Scroll of Esther can be read to teach an important moral lesson. But we’ll get to that.

Consider the following:

As Marsha B. Cohen points out in her excellent post here, the Scroll of Esther is not history. I mean, there probably never was an Esther or a Mordecai or Haman. The story of Purim is part of the Jewish collective memory, which means that it never happened. So don't worry about innocents being killed, because according to the story, no innocents were killed. According to the story, the victims were guilty, or the offspring of those who were guilty, and in the ancient world, the offspring are generally considered extensions of their parent.  Is that a primitive, tribalistic morality? Of course! But it helps a bit to realize that we are in the realm of fantasy. I can't shed tears over the death of Orcs either. 

Once the book is understood as a fable written two thousand years ago, there are two possible ways of responding to it: by reading it literally as representing a morality that gets a B-(after all, Haman is indeed a villain that turns a personal slight into a call for genocide, and the Jews are indeed set upon), or by reading into it, against the grain of the story, our own moral imperatives.

I adopt both responses, but I prefer the latter. For one thing, I am doing what my medieval Jewish culture heroes, the rationalist philosophers like Maimonides, always did -- providing non-literal interpretations of scripture that were in tune with their own views.

James Kugel has argued persuasively that if you detach the Bible from its classical interpreters -- which is what Protestant Christianity and modern Biblical criticism attempts to do -- then the book you are left with is mediocre as literature, and only partly agreeable as ethics. The Bible has always undergone a process of interpretation, of mediation, even in its very text, because none of the classic readers could relate to it as a document produced in a certain time and place, but as timeless. 

So for me to relate to the Scroll of Esther, and to the Purim holiday in general, I emphasize (and distort) those points that are congenial to my ethics and worldview, and just dismiss the rest as pap for members of the family with a tribal morality.   I read the story of Esther as a fictional fantasy about how my people, through political wisdom and without religious fanaticism, or the help of a Deus ex machina, triumphed over the enemies who wished to destroy them because they were different.  

And that is a message which I will apply not only to my people, but to all beleaguered peoples who are in danger of having their identity and culture -- and physical welfare-- destroyed by forced assimilation, in the name of a superior culture and/or ethnic homogeneity. Because if what Haman wanted to do the Jews was wrong, then it is also wrong when anybody wishes to do this to any group.

After all, think of a contemporary leader who, because of slights to his national honor, and unwillingness to genuflect to his country’s power, punishes an entire people by  withholding their tax revenues, or turning off their electricity.

Pretty scary guy – and not just on Twitter.

Spinoza and the Heresy Hunter from Harvard

Theater J, which operates out of the DC Jewish Community Center, is currently producing David Ives’ play,  New Jerusalem: The Interrogation of Baruch de Spinoza. This is a reimagining and dramatization of Spinoza’s interrogation for which there are no records. Over four hundred years later, we still don’t know why Spinoza was “excommunicated,” or to be precise, ostracized by the Spanish-Portuguese community of Amsterdam. We do have the writ of excommunication, which speaks of  “wrong opinions,” “horrible heresies,” and “monstrous actions.”  Scholars have speculated that some of the more controversial doctrines taught in his Theological-Political Treatise, written years after the event, may have been responsible. They include the denial of the Mosaic origin of the Torah, the naturalistic interpretation of miracles, and the claim that scripture is not a repository of philosophical wisdom.

Spinoza was not the only person to be excommunicated by the Spanish-Portuguese community of Amsterdam but he may have been one of only a handful ostracized for his heterodoxical opinions .

Whenever I teach Spinoza, I  call his excommunication a  win for both sides. The Jewish community got rid of a heretic; and the heretic, free of  communal pressures, flourished as a philosopher. But it would not have been a win for Spinoza had he wanted to remain a Jew. Fortunately for him, he did not. There is no indication that Spinoza was terribly stung by his excommunication. Before he was booted out he was little more than a perfunctory member of the community; in fact, he was in arrears in paying his dues.  Nothing in his subsequent writings and correspondence suggest that he still considered himself a Jew after he left the community  (The notion that Spinoza was “the first secular Jew” is an offense against Spinoza and secular Jews.)

We are told by his early biographers that he prepared a defense. Why, if he didn’t care about his standing in the community, did he do that? I think that he believed  that what he taught was not harmful for religion per se, but only for a certain kind of religion,  the religion of the theologians, who had subordinated philosophy and rational inquiry to religion.  I can imagine that he wished to convince the Amsterdam rabbis, who were well-versed in philosophy, that what he taught was actually good for promoting piety among the non-philosophical.

How far we have come since then! When once rabbis pronounced the ban of excommunication, now we have Prof. Alan Dershowitz, the heresy hunter from Harvard, who not only decides what is admissible and what is beyond the pale in discourse about Israel, but also quite literally hounds his Jewish opponents with the zeal of a Torquemada.  Look at the man’s attacks on Norman Finkelstein, Rachel Giora, Anat Matar, Shlomo Sand, and Richard Goldstone (and these are only the Jews I know about; readers are invited to remind me of others.) Finkelstein, to be sure, had accused Dershowitz of plagiarism, which would naturally arouse the anger of any professor. But instead of merely rebutting the charges,  Dershowitz went after Finkelstein at every opportunity, threatening Finkelstein’s publisher, University of California Press, not to publish his book,  and then attempting to influence Finkelstein’s tenure decision. In the case of Giora, Matar, and Sand, none of whom had gone after him, Dershowitz “accused them of hurting students and harming the resilience of the State of Israel,” according to a letter of protest signed by Tel-Aviv university faculty members.

As for Judge Richard Goldstone --  well, read what I  have written here and here, and weep for Harvard.

I want to make something absolutely clear. Alan Dershowitz is not only allowed his free speech and academic freedom; he has the moral obligation to speak the truth as he sees it. But whereas others speak truth to power, Dershowitz seems to go after  people who lack real power and standing in the organized Jewish community. He doesn’t just speak out against his weaker opponents; he tries to destroy them – especially if he feels personally affronted.

His latest target is M. J. Rosenberg of Media Matters. Dershowitz was offended by M. J.’s use of the term “Israel-Firster,” and by some of his tweets. So he had the right to make his views known in the public domain, even in a forceful manner. But that is not the way of Prof. Dershowitz:

Not only will [the Media Matters controversy] be an election matter, I will personally make it an election matter…I will speak to every Jewish group that invites me, and I think it’s fair to say I speak to more Jewish groups than probably any other person in the world. I spoke to over a million Jews over the years,,,You know, just last Thursday I spoke to 1,200;  just in the next weeks alone I’ll be speaking — and in the past weeks — to thousands of American Jews. And believe me, I will not let them ignore this issue.

And lest you think Rosenberg will escape his ire, Dershowitz says

I don’t know whether President Obama has any idea that Media Matters has turned the corner against Israel in this way…I can tell you this, he will know very shortly because I am beginning a serious campaign on this issue and I will not let it drop until and unless Rosenberg is fired from Media Matters, or Media Matters changes its policy or the White House disassociates itself from Media Matters.

For years I have been waiting for Alan Dershowitz to meet his Edward R. Murrow, and I believe that he has met him in M. J. Let me tell you something about M. J. Rosenberg – to call him “anti-Israel” is as absurd as calling the New Israel Fund, J Street, the Meretz party, B’Tselem, anti-Israel – which, of course, is done everyday by the New Zealots, those self-appointed guardians of the Jewish state.  M. J has is a life-long liberal Zionist and supporter of the State of Israel, even when – especially when -- he has criticized its government.

M. J. accused AIPAC of being an Israel-firster organization, and that aroused the ire of Dershowitz? M. J. worked for AIPAC for years, and he knows whereof he speaks. I can tell you that many  AIPAC people I know, including relatives and friends, not only place Israel’s interests above American’s interest, they delude themselves into thinking that Israel’s interests are by definition identical with America’s interests.

M J allegedly tweeted in response to Dershowitz’s threats that he can go to hell. Dershowitz has responded by going nuclear.  Because of his fury at Rosenberg, he is willing to attempt to cost Obama the election if the White House doesn’t publicly distance itself from Media Matters, or if Media Matters doesn’t fire Rosenberg, such is his fervor of the heresy hunter scorned. This time he has set the bar high, and, optimist that I am, I trust that he will fail.

Liberal Zionists, I am talking to you! Stand up for M. J. and you are standing up for your own against the like of those who delude themselves into thinking they are liberal Zionists. Otherwise you will end up by saying

I was silent when Dershowitz went after Norman Finkelstein because I am not Norman Finkelstein. I was silent when he came for Matar, Giora, and Sand because, well, I had never heard of them. I was silent when he came for a liberal Zionist like M. J. Rosenberg because I don’t tweet. Then when he went after me, nobody was there to help me….

[Update, March 8:  Perhaps the Forward’s J. J. Goldberg’s heard this call, but whether he did or not, he has written a beautiful defense of M. J. here.]

Perhaps there is a ray of light in all this. The Israeli Reut Institute last year outlined an Israel advocacy  strategy of driving a wedge between the liberal Zionist and the extreme left in Israel and abroad. For the most part, it hasn’t worked.  There is indeed a gap, but it is between the real liberal Zionists like M.J., Peter Beinart, Naomi Hazan, Larry Derfner, Michael Lerner, Leibel Fein, David Grossman, Amos Oz, as well as the activist groups in Israel like B’Tselem, Rabbis for Human Rights, Breaking the Silence, on the one hand, and the faux liberal Zionists like Dershowitz, Abe Foxman, Benny Morris, Ari Shavit, and all those members of the so-called “disappointed left” in Israel, on the other.

How do you distinguish between the genuine and the fake liberal Zionist? After all, both kinds say that they are for two states, oppose settlements and settlers, support  territorial compromise, etc. It’s very simple: if they publicly criticize Israel’s human rights violations; if they support groups that expose such violations; if they call out Israel’s elected leaders on matters of policy and morality --  in short, if they adopt the stance of moral critic because that is deep in their Jewish and mentshlich soul – then they are true liberal Zionists. All the others are deluded into thinking they are.

And no one is more deluded into thinking he is a liberal Zionist than Alan Dershowitz, who never ceases to remind his readers that  he opposes the settlements and supports the two-state solution. Sorry, Professor, that is not enough to qualify. You also have to support harsh measures against the state if the settlements continue. You can’t be a liberal Zionist and support Binyamin Netanyahu, the arch-enemy of liberal Zionists.If you care about Israel as Jewish and democratic, to borrow the language of the liberal Zionists, you will – like M. J. and the others – have to fight against those Israeli government policies that are destroying the democratic nature of the state. You will join hands with human right activists, Jewish and Palestinian, who are fighting for justice. You will support, like M.J., Peter Beinart, David Grossman, and Amos Oz, boycotts against the settlers and the settlements. You will support pressure from the Americans and the European states to stop Israel’s slide into a Putin-style democracy,

If, Prof. Dershowitz, you are all about carrots but refuse to use  sticks – no, even twigs – in dealings with Israel, then your “liberal Zionism” is humbug and self-delusion that is designed for one thing – to allow you to face yourself in the mirror next time you read of some outrage in Haaretz, and say,

‘Hey, I’m a liberal Zionist. I am against the Occupation.”

The bullying has to stop.

Let Iran Go Nuclear, Ribono shel Olam

Jewish law (and common sense morality) allows one to act in self-defense. It allows preemptive measures to be taken in the case of an imminent danger. It does not allow a person, or people, to attack others because they feel threatened – especially when that feeling is born of neuroses and prejudice.

Iran is an enemy of the State of Israel, but it is not an existential threat to Israel, nor has it threatened Israel with nuclear destruction. But even it had, that would not be a legal or moral justification for an act of aggression against Iran – unless the possibility of an Iranian attack was imminent, and other non-violent diplomatic options had run their course. By diplomatic options, I do not mean sanctions, I mean negotiations, including multilateral negotiations that include Israel and Iranian pledges not to build nuclear weapons or to eliminate current stockpiles. 

Hence, an attack against Iran either by the US or Israel or those in the West is utterly unjustified from a legal or a moral standpoint. It would constitute naked aggression, and Iran would be perfectly justified to retaliate in self-defense.

I am aware that Iran is a violator of certain international agreements, and I am certainly aware that the Iranian regime is a horrible one.  Sanctions can, and should be, used against human rights violators, even if those violators are addressing their own citizens (and that is a tricky issue.) But those sanctions cannot be crippling, especially in a situation such as the present, where one country is doing what many other countries have done in the past – develop nuclear energy, and even a nuclear weapon capability. Why should there be one law for North Korea and Pakistan, and another for Iran? Why should Israel reserve the right to prevent any Arab country from going nuclear, or from joining a nuclear-free zone?

The Jews I know seem to be divided between those who support sanctions and those who support military action. Maybe I hang out with the wrong crowd. I support neither. The drums of war have started again, and the madness should be stopped now. If either Israel (or its proxy, the US) attacks Iran, it will be difficult for any moral person to defend the right of such a rogue state to exist.

MJ Rosenberg on Targeted BDS

The indispensable MJ Rosenberg has written a nice piece railing against those politicians who are progressive except for Palestine.He then endorses what I have called “Targeted BDS,” i. e., boycott, divestment, and sanctions that focus on the Occupied Territories.

But he goes on to criticize those who wish to extend BDS to all of Israel with some of the strangest arguments that I have heard.

Here’s one: “Boycotting Israel, all Israel, only makes sense if one wants Israel itself to go away.” Substitute for “Israel” in that sentence “Iran” or ‘South Africa”  and you see how bizarre this claim is.  If a rock star cancels a concert in Tel Aviv because she wishes to send a message about Israel’s discriminatory policies against its Arab citizens or its legislation against human rights NGOs,  that means she wants to annihilate the state? If I boycott produce from Arizona because of its immigration laws, I want Arizona to be destroyed? Or produce from Israel because of its discrimination of Palestinians on both sides of the green line and the refugees outside  its ever shifting borders?

All strikes, boycotts, sanctions, etc., ultimately affect people who are not involved or responsible.  A boycott of settler products may affect settlers who are not responsible for Israel’s policy on settlements. The point of all these boycotts is to draw attention to the fact that Israel is a massive violator of human rights and to get them to correct that. That’s all.  (Norman Finkelstein disagrees, but he’s wrong on this one.)

There are many who endorse the Solidarity/Global BDS movement’s three calls – ending the occupation, equal citizenship for all Israeli Arabs, and a just resolution of the refugee problem -- but who do not boycott, divest, or sanction everything Israeli with any consistency.  I am not a fan of academic boycotts, although I may be changing my mind about targeted academic boycotts. I once heard Hilary Rose  press her case for a boycott of Israeli academics in front of Israeli and Palestinian academics.  The Israeli Boycott from Within movement supports Global BDS but that doesn’t mean they boycott their colleagues (or themselves). They do so out of a sense of solidarity with the worldwide movement. It is not only the settlers who are responsible for the settlements – the Israeli government and Israeli society shares responsibility.

Here’s another argument, which sounds like something I have heard before.

It is particularly maddening to see Americans join in those boycotts. Did they boycott themselves when we, the United States, illegally invaded Iraq and proceeded to destroy the country? How about when we overthrew Allende, supported fascist death squads in El Salvador and Guatemala, and backed blood-drenched juntas in Argentina and throughout Latin America?

MJ should explain why,  if it is wrong for Americans to boycott  Israel  because they didn’t boycott themselves when America acted abominably,  is it right  for them to boycott the settlers?  Who has the right to boycott the settlers? The Israelis who live in the Tel-Aviv bubble who benefit, directly and indirectly, from the Occupation, as do all Israelis?

As for that favorite question of apologists for human rights violations everywhere, “Why boycott here rather than in other places?” that question is conclusively  answered by Peter Beinart in his new book, The Crisis of Zionism, and I doubt that MJ will disagree with it.

MJ concedes that

To be honest, I would have supported a boycott against my own country in those days if it was targeted against the people responsible for those atrocities. I would have welcomed it as a way to make those responsible for these atrocities pay a price. But I would not have supported a boycott that targeted all Americans.

MJ doesn’t tell us whether he supported the global boycott of South African sportspeople or other artists during apartheid, those who were not directly responsible for apartheid. That’s the last time I heard a similar argument, and it has some merit. Perhaps he is unaware that the last iteration of the British academic boycott of Israel targeted only those institutions – within the Green Line -- that are most involved with the Israeli military or the occupation and exempted others. Anyway, I haven’t seen anywhere that the BDS movement targets all Israelis for the sake of targeting Israelis. As I said, the goals of the movement are very clear. 

I  agree that  innocent people shouldn’t suffer greatly for the sins of their government, even the ones they democratically elected, and whose policies they support. Those who think otherwise accept  the Bin Laden justification for  9/11.  But how much suffering has the BDS movement afflicted on Israel? With all due respect, a cancellation of a Tel-Aviv concert, or a boycott of Sabra Humus,  doesn’t hurt the Israelis at all, except, perhaps, emotionally. Such boycotts send a clear message, get front page coverage in all the press, and are used by Israelis as proof that Israel is an international pariah. We are not talking about crippling sanctions here.

Let’s face it: whatever steam the BDS movement has is because of the  Occupation. Nobody has cancelled a concert because the Palestinian refugee problem is unresolved, or because Israeli Arabs suffer discrimination. Maybe they should, but they haven’t. The three calls of the Global BDS movement should remind liberal Zionists (among others) that while the Occupation is the most egregious injustice perpetrated by Israel, it is not the only thing rotten in the state of Israel.

Endorsing targeted BDS and disagreeing with global BDS is fine for liberal Zionists. I am glad that MJ is on that bandwagon.  But dissing the global BDS movement, with its three eminently reasonable calls is not. Or rather, it is consistent with the tribal attitude of many liberal Zionists I know who are quick to throw stones against the settlers from their glass houses in Tel Aviv – or their stone Arab houses in South Jerusalem.

Pro-Israel and Pro-BDS

Students at the University of Pennsylvania are hosting this weekend the BDS (Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions) Movement’s National Convention. May I take this occasion to wish the speakers and organizers a good conference, with a healthy debate on issues surrounding BDS. This is a wonderful opportunity for the speakers to explain more about global BDS, a non-violent Palestinian movement that includes  Israeli Jews, non-Israeli Jews, and non-Jews.

I have written here and here about the global BDS movement. I have expressed solidarity with that movement, and I have argued that liberal Zionists should boycott the settlements and their products, and companies that make money off the Occupation.  But I do want to consider two  questions that have been raised in conjunction with the Penn conference.

Question One: Is the BDS movement anti-Israel?

Is the BDS movement anti-Israel? Jews are said to like answering questions with questions, and so I ask, “Was the BDS movement against apartheid anti-South African?” The answer to that question depends on whom you ask. For many whites and most Afrikaners, and the South African government at the time, the answer was a resounding yes.  For them, apartheid was an essential part of the South African regime. Dismantle apartheid, and the country, no matter what it’s name, would never be the same. Yet it was possible for those who opposed apartheid to contemplate a better place for all South Africans, blacks, whites, and colored. For them the BDS movement against apartheid was not anti-South African.

The global BDS movement today has adopted three tenets: a) “ending the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling” the separation barrier; b) granting full civil rights and equality to the Arab minority within Israel, and c)  “respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in UN resolution 194.  The three tenets correspond to the three main population sectors of the Palestinians. Since there is no tenet calling for the abolition of the State of Israel, or its transformation into one state, I conclude that supporters of BDS are as anti-Israel as supporters of BDS in South Africa were anti-South African. Both groups wanted to bring about fundamental changes in their respective societies. To be sure, there are differences; the Palestinians in the occupied territories and the Palestinian diaspora don’t view themselves as Israelis. But no  matter – what is at stake in these three tenets is not the existence of the State of Israel, but its compliance with international law and UN resolutions.

Question Two: Doesn’t BDS hurt Palestinians? 

The Palestinian economy is inextricably linked to the Israeli economy, and for good reason. Israel’s aim has always been to control the Palestinians economically and to use them as cheap labor (when possible) and as markets for their products. The Israelis  have done their best to prevent true economic Palestinian independence so as to thwart the possibility of real competition. But they have also been interested in improving the conditions of Palestinians in Areas A and B (not in Area C, where they are interested in restricting their development) on the reasonable ground that that is in Israel’s best interest – so that the Palestinians will have something to lose from fighting for the independence. And also because Israelis don’t have any particular animus against the Palestinians; they just want control of their land and resources.

From time immemorial, Imperialism has argued that empires bring civilization and economic prosperity to the natives, and that the latter is more important than freedom and independence. One of the most stunning examples of the imperialist mentality appeared a few days ago in the Daily Pennsylvanian by a Mr. Dov Hoch, the president of the Penn club in Israel.  In Mr. Hoch’s article, “Why We Should Invest and not Divest” , Mr. Hoch urged BDS supporters not to “burn your neighbor’s house despite the fact that you live in connected structures.” He did not explain why disinvestment in, say, Caterpillar, would cripple the Palestinian economy.

In fact, Mr. Hoch apparently knows nothing about the BDS movement, which targets companies that benefit from the Occupation. He also doesn’t know, or doesn’t wish to mention,  that the much praised (in the West) nation-builder, Palestinian Prime Minister, Salam Fayyad, supports the boycott of the settlement goods. From the perspective of the typified Anglo colony in Ra’anana, Mr. Hoch can urge Palestinian American Penn Students to

Come and live in the West Bank and Gaza, joining the 5000 Ivy League alumni living in Israel and the tens of thousands of U.S.-educated Americans who moved to Israel and contribute richly to the economy.

One of the speakers at the BDS conference is the Palestinian American Penn alumnus, Ahmed Moor. The last time I saw Ahmed, he was being tear-gassed at a protest at Bil’in. Perhaps Mr. Hoch, with his powerful contacts in the PA, can arrange for Ahmed to purchase a villa in Efrat. Or he can join former Yale professor, Mazin Qumsiyeh, in Walajeh, the village that Israel has turned into a ghetto.

Despite the mixture of genuine good will and condescension that typifies the enlightened colonialist, it would be wrong to dismiss Mr. Hoch or his point. For one thing, it is important to find serious investors in the Palestinian economy. For another, sanctions against Israel will hurt the Palestinians, and it will hurt them more than the Israelis.

In 1990, when the question of divestment from South African raged at MIT, a student wrote a letter to The Tech arguing against divestment:

Assume, for argument's sake, that MIT divestment did not result in a transfer of ownership but instead was an impetus for the disinvestment of the affected companies. Ignoring, for the moment, the effects on the US and world economy, what would happen in South Africa? Unfortunately, the black population would be the hardest hit. They would lose employment that offers them integrated facilities, equal pay for equal work, extensive training programs, housing assistance and education. Unlike their South African counterparts, American corporations address the single most important need for all South African blacks -- a quality education….

I should hasten to point out that this student was an opponent of apartheid. She simply felt that the tactic was too harsh and would hurt South African blacks. And, indeed, she had a good point. Factories closed, putting black people out of work.

And yet Nelson Mandela supported divestment. And while the role of the divestment campaign in the ultimate dismantling of apartheid has been debated, nobody questions that the international focus on South Africa ultimately helped lead to change.

I am not in favor of sanctions that will constitute severe collective punishment against Israeli public, just as I am not in favor of sanctions against the people of Iran,The Global BDS movement’s attempt to bring sanctions against a serial violator of human rights is of a different order altogether. But, as an Israeli, I am indeed prepare to suffer such sanctions if the price to pay for them is the end of the Occupation and Palestinian independence. Of course, I cannot speak to how much suffering Palestinians are willing to endure.  Were sanctions against Israel to bite, I am sure that Palestinians, being human, would disagree on these issues.

But what I would ask Mr. Hoch and others is – how much suffering are they willing to endure for the political and economic independence of Israel? In his article he advises BDS-ers to “throw out their IPhones – Apple just bought an Israeli company?”

Would he throw out his IPhone to end a sixty-year occupation of the State of Israel? Would he be prepared to endure more serious economic hardship?

Would he be prepared to take up arms against the occupiers?

Oy, Those “Anti-Semitic Tropes”!

A few weeks I wrote a post in which I claimed that using terms like “Israel-Firster” or “Israeli Apartheid” does not make you anti-Semitic. Those who think otherwise are trivializing anti-Semitism and/or trying to delegitimize the views of their opponents.

The discussion has now shifted from the question of the attitudes of the person using the terms to the terms themselves. Granted that you can use the term “Israel-Firster” without being an anti-Semite – but is it appropriate to use a term that has been used by anti-Semites, or which is reminiscent of anti-Semites, etc., or which was popularized by anti-Semites – I am told?  

Let’s look at this carefully. There may be tactical reasons to avoid using certain terms. You may think that what Israel is doing on the West Bank is sufficiently close to apartheid to call it just that. But you may not wish to use the term in a debate, because that is an invitation to a theoretical exploration of how similar or dissimilar it is. Or not. I am just saying that you may not find it a helpful term, and “Israel-firster” may be one of those.

People should also be careful about using terms that have a history of bigotry associated with them, even if they don’t intend to use them in a bigoted manner. That’s my viewpoint, anyway. I don’t mean to be issue a blanket prohibition, just an admonition to be careful. “Israel-firster” is a pejorative term. That’s no reason not to use it, but it clearly assumes that this is not something good. And so, again, it may not be helpful to use it.

Yet there may be good reasons to use a term despite its being considered offensive by some. Many Americans, mostly Christian, are squeamish about using the word “Jew” or “Jews”; they prefer to say “Jewish” or “Jewish people”. In the famous “anti-Dentite”  Seinfeld episode, the priest asks Jerry, “And that offends you as a Jewish person?” and not “And that offends you as a Jew.” This preference of “Jewish person” for “Jew” is due, ultimately, to pejorative associations of the word in the English language (“to jew down a price”), and excessive (and barely conscious) sensitivity of the negative associations.

I use this example because “Jew”, unlike the N-word, is not commonly felt today to be offensive. Likewise, most people who hear “Israel-firster” are entirely ignorant of its pedigree (if indeed that pedigree is not cherry-picked from websites.)

It seems to me that those people who believe that certain Americans, Jews and non-Jews, who see everything through the prism of, “Is it good for Israel” can be legitimately called ‘Israel-firsters.”  It doesn’t matter to me that these people view as a given  the convergence of Israeli and American interests.  So, like my colleague and friend, Phil Weiss, I have no problem.

Again, I may eschew the term for tactical reasons, but I am more interested in the phenomenon than in the label for it. Many Jews argued against the founding of a Jewish state precisely because of the problem of dual loyalty. It is not as if this was invented by anti-Semites.

To imply that somebody is an anti-Semite today is a far greater sin than calling somebody an “Israel-firster,” even if you find the latter offensive. Why? Because bigotry against Jews is considered a greater vice than excessive loyalty to your tribe. So I would expect somebody who decries “Israel-firster” on the grounds of its insensitivity and offensiveness would be sensitive towards throwing the anti-Semite accusation around.

Enter Spencer Ackerman, who, after castigating his fellow leftwing Jews for using “Israel firster,” writes.

By all means, get into it with people who interpret every disagreement Washington has with Tel Aviv as hostility to the Jewish state. But if you can’t do it without sounding like Pat Buchanan, who has nothing but antipathy and contempt for Jews, then you’ve lost the debate.

That last sentence implies, quite clearly, that Pat Buchanan is an anti-Semite. Ackerman, who peppers his post with links, doesn’t even seem to be bothered by the fact that he doesn’t provide a source for the accusation.

Sorry, my own hyper-sensitivity here reads Ackerman as saying, “Leftwing Jews shouldn’t use terms that notorious anti-Semites like Buchanan would use.” And I find that patronizing and offensive: first, because of the implicit ingroup/outgroup distinction on a relatively benign term like “Israel-Firster” (we are not talking about “Zionist scum”); and second, because I have no reason to believe that Pat Buchanan is anti-Semitic. Surely nothing that the ADL cherry-picks here would lead inexorably to that conclusion. I am open to being convinced otherwise, but I have it on very good authority that the accusation is baseless – unless you adopt the ADL’s Zionist interpretation of anti-Semitism

Here is another definition. An "anti-Semite" is somebody who protested the Israel Lobby before it became fashionable to do so.

I am being ironic.

Adam Kirsch’s Fantasia on the Impact of the “Israel Lobby”

Adam Kirsch has written a fantastic piece arguing  that Stephen Walt and John Mearsheimer’s The Israel Lobby, though universally rejected, has nonetheless had a significant  impact on political discourse. By “fantastic” I mean that his account of the book’s thesis, its reception, and its impact, appears to be the products of his imagination. Here’s why I think so.

1. The Invented Thesis

Kirsch formulates the central thesis of the book as follows

[An] all-powerful “Israel lobby” had hijacked American foreign policy using illegitimate means, and…a small but committed group of American Jews was steering the country into disaster to satisfy their parochial interests

This misrepresents the book on several counts, as Stephen Walt has pointed out already here. According to the book, the Israel Lobby is not composed entirely,  or even mainly, of a “small but committed group of American Jews,” but rather of a broad coalition of organizations and interests. Moreover,  the Lobby’s means are expressly stated by the authors to be legitimate, and it is not considered to be all-powerful, though it is indeed powerful.

But in the fantasy that Kirsch concocts, the Israel Lobby is not composed of a broad spectrum of Jewish and gentile Israel supporters, but rather is a Jewish lobby, despite the pains that the authors take to distance themselves from that pernicious reading.  So gripped is Kirsch in the throes of an imagined anti-Semitic fantasy that he considers the cover of the book, the American flag rendered in the blue and white of the Israeli flag – as “an unmistakable visual shorthand for Jewish domination.” Really! And not being able to associate the book’s thesis with anti-Semitism, what he can do is to associate it with the comment sections of anti-Semitic websites.Really!    

2. The Invented Reception History

In order to make his case that the thesis of this discredited book has continued to have pernicious influence, Kirsch has to invent a reception history of the book that once again is a fantasy, albeit with some elements of truth (George Washington did have to sleep somewhere, didn’t he?)

To look back on The Israel Lobby’s reception today is to see a remarkable unanimity of rejection, from the New York Times (“mostly wrong … dangerously misleading”) and Foreign Affairs (“written in haste, the book will be repented at leisure”) to The Nation (“serious methodological deficiencies … a mess”).

Unanimity of rejection? Here, from a fairly balanced Wikipedia article, are names of those American readers who praised the book: Former Ambassador Edward Peck, Tony Judt, Juan Cole, terrorist expert Michael Scheur, and Zbigniew Brzezinski. Others gave it a mixed review, such as Daniel Levy, Christopher Hitchens (who wrote that the original Harvard paper “contains much that is true and a little that is original”) Joseph Massad, Michelle Goldberg, Michael Massing. Some that rejected the thesis didn’t think it went far enough. Others, on the left, thought that the Israel Lobby thesis took too much of the blame off the US government. .

And now let’s look at the sources to which Kirsch refers, and some of his cherry-picking from their reviews. He doesn’t provide links and for good reasons. In the Times review, Leslie Gelb, a life-long supporter of Israel, writes that “Most unbiased students of the matter would probably agree that the lobby is the single most influential force on American policy toward Israel.”  Walter Russell Mead, writing in Foreign Affairs, does not deny the existence of a lobby but attributes the US’s support of Israel to much a deeper American identification with Israel, an identification that has been changing since 1967 and could indeed change further (See here: “A Palestinian and Arab leadership more sensitive to the values and political priorities of the American political culture could develop new and more effective tactics designed to weaken, rather than strengthen, American support for the Jewish state”. This, I believe, is already happening)  And Daniel Lazare’s critical piece in the Nation includes this statement:  “So, yes, there is a pro-Israel lobby in Washington. Yes, it is powerful. And yes, critics like Mearsheimer and Walt are hardly out of bounds in asking if the lobby, which they go to great pains to demonstrate is composed of both Jews and gentiles, is truly serving what the authors consider to be the American national interest.” Hardly a unanimous rejection of the sort Kirsch implies

What Kirsch doesn’t say is that although the criticisms of the book were varied and came from different quarters, almost all of them – including the three reviews cited above -- rejected outright insinuations of anti-Semitism  Of course, all of them rejected the imagined thesis put forward by Kirsch himself (see above) – but then, again, so do Walt and Mearsheimer.

And this brings us to the biggest fantasy of the rezeptionsgeschichte invented by Kirsch

There was also a general recognition that in their insinuations about secret Jewish power, Mearsheimer and Walt—professors at the University of Chicago and Harvard’s Kennedy School of Government, respectively—had given a respectable imprimatur to old and sinister anti-Semitic tropes.

Kirsch’s source for the “general recognition”? None. Oh, he cites Michael Gerson, whom he describes as an evangelical conservative Christian. Why didn’t he cite Alan Dershowitz or Elliot Cohen?  That would show that this canard was representative of a broad spectrum of views on Israel, running the entire gamut from Zionist liberal hawk to Zionist neocon!

3. The Invention of the “Influence of the Bad Idea.”

Long before Walt and Mearsheimer wrote their book, there was a powerful lobby in Washington called AIPAC that prided itself on being a powerful lobby in Washington. That lobby has been most successful in the Congress. Whether the Congress matters in foreign policy or not, it is at least arguable that the standing ovations for Netanyahu were due in large member to the constant work of AIPAC. Tom Friedman may be upset about that success, but what’s wrong with his calling attention to it? Shouldn’t AIPAC be justly proud of its success?

In his op-ed, cited as an influence of Walt and Mearsheimer’s discredited thesis, Friedman used the term the “Israel Lobby” in its least controversial form, as referring to the influence, mostly of AIPAC, on the Congress. If there was any influence in Walt and Mearsheimer’s book on Friedman, it was terminological. 

That, of course, is nothing to sneer at. Many of Walt and Mearsheimer’s sharpest critics nonetheless praised the two for opening up the conversation of the Israel Lobby, while offering other causal factors besides domestic politics and the influence of the Lobby for the overwhelmingly pro-Israel position in Washington and the country.  The Israel Lobby has had a role  in getting the Zionist narrative, liberal and conservative, accepted among mainstream Americans, but there are many more important factors, to my mind. For example, without the Holocaust, it would have been impossible to get most Americans – and for that matter, American Jews – to support the establishment of the State of Israel, and Zionism would have remained a Utopian scheme, or at least one to be postponed. As mentioned above, Walter Russell Mead suggests that support for Israel is widespread in the US, but that can change, and indeed, in many cases, it has changed (many evangelicals are now more committed Zionists, and don’t need the reinforcement of AIPAC; liberals are less supportive of Israel’s policies than they were thirty years ago)  With the continuing occupation of Palestinian lands, the unresolved issue of the Palestinian refugees, the growing awareness of the flaws of Israeli democracy (and the decline of that democracy), the coming-to-age of Palestinian-Americans who can articulate their narrative (the Zionists had a big head start) – together with the drop in terrorism, etc., etc. –  the vaunted American identification with Israel, though, broad, may show itself to be shallow. Nobody will support the death or destruction of innocent Israelis, or innocent Palestinians, who have died in far greater number --  but that leaves a wide range of political options open.

“What Does It Mean to Be Pro Israel Today”

The current issue of Moment Magazine features a symposium on the subject, “What does it mean to be pro Israel today?”  To its credit, the Jewish magazine asked for responses from a wide range of people, including critics of Israel, Jewish and non-Jewish,  who are not Zionist.  But there was no traditional religious respondent, either Muslim or Jewish, and as anybody knows, traditional religion is in the driver’s seat in the Middle East today. 

[Update: A representative of Moment pointed me to a different page where various rabbis’ opinions were solicited. Look here. Needless to say, all or almost all the rabbis were in the Zionist consensus.]

So here is my response to the Moment symposium, although I am hardly your typical modern orthodox Jew, if there is such a creature.

When people ask me whether I am pro-Israel, I unhesitatingly and unabashedly say yes. I am for Israel, which is the classical name for the Jewish people, I believe in and practice, to the best of my limited capacities, the love of the Jewish people, ahavat Yisrael. But what does that phrase mean? Hannah Arendt pleaded guilty to  Gershom Scholem’s charge that she lacked ahavat Yisrael, stating that she loves people, not “the people”, not an abstraction. But even if “Israel” is not taken to represent an abstract collective but rather each and every individual Jew, it is arguably impossible, not to mention undesirable, to love people you have never met, or worse, whose ideology or character revolts you, simply because you are a member of their tribe. (Do you love everybody in your family?)

And yet, for me, ahavat Yisrael means to accord members of the Jewish people a special place in my heart, because I view them as extended family. And that is why as a member of the family I feel worse  when some of family act atrociously.

(On another occasion I will write against the wrong sort of ahavat Yisrael, the sort exemplified by Meir Kahane’s remark, “I don’t hate Arabs; I just love Jews.” That sort of ahavat Yisrael is rampant in the State of Israel, and produces the same sort of inequity that racism produces, even though it professes, with some justification, that it is not racist in motivation.)

Of course, the Moment symposium question understood “Israel” as referring to the “State of Israel,” which itself means, the “State of the Jewish People.”  And so what they were asking is what does it mean to support the state of Israel today? To me, this is an academic question; I am not interested in supporting states or the well-being of states per se; my concern is for the well-being of the people of those states. As a liberal nationalist, I believe that the well-being of people requires some sort of political framework, and that framework is generally a state. But states are only important in what they can furnish their peoples. And so we are back to the level of people and not states.

Many of the symposiasts assume that the well-being of the Jewish people requires the existence of not just of a state, not just even of a Jewish state but of the State of Israel. I feel that this too strong. I require a framework that will provide the maximum opportunity for the peoples of Israel and Palestine, and, in an extended sense, their extended families in their respective diasporas, to flourish. I have come to the conclusion that the State of Israel, as it is currently constituted, is not that framework, although there are many elements of it that are worth preserving. No state is perfect, but some states are too imperfect, and Israel is one of them. Maybe I am oversensitive on this point, but I am a citizen of the state of Israel, and hence a member of the Israeli family.

Since I focus on people and not states, the response that resonated with me most was George Bisharat’s:

Being pro-Israel means supporting peace and stability for Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, and upholding principles that will ensure that peace and stability over the long term. That means supporting the rights of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and equal rights in Israel-Palestine.

I started out by saying that I believe in and practice ahavat Yisrael  because I view Jews as extended family. When I read such sentiments from Prof. Bisharat, I also view him as extended family, but in a different sense. The Torah says, “Do not hate your brother in your heart,” and the commentator Rashi writes ,”’Your brother’ in mitzvot/ commandments.” Prof. Bisharat and I are equally commanded in pursuing peace and justice; that is why I consider him by brother, or if you like, a fellow traveler. The same God who commanded me to love my fellow Jews commanded me to pursue peace and justice for all peoples. No state  built on unjust foundations is worth preserving, but many states are worth transforming into more just polities, even at the expense of transforming their identities. Israel is one of these.

Israeli “Democracy” Descends Lower into Hell

Yesterday, the State of Israel became the first western state whose High Court ruled that some citizens have fewer fundamental rights than other citizens based on their ethnicity. Actually, it had done so before, but yesterday it rejected  the most sustained challenge to the “Citizenship Law,” which bars the non-Israeli spouses of Israeli Palestinians from becoming citizens. So while an Israeli Jew from Brooklyn has the right of marrying anybody she likes, and having her spouse naturalized, a native Palestinian Israeli citizen cannot marry  a distant relative who lives in a town five minutes from her house – unless that relative was a Palestinian collaborator, working for the Israelis, and then, only by special approval of the Minister of Interior.

Haaretz’s English version, shortened and summarized for now, doesn’t do justice to the original article. But it will give you the basic facts. What it doesn’t tell you is that the decision was a split one, 6-5, and that the some of the minority judges were either retired or soon-to-retired. Four new judges are coming on board, one of them the rightwing settler judge,  Noam Sohlberg, notorious for acquiting a Border policeman who killed an innocent Palestinian when fleeing. (The soldier said he felt “threatened”; Sohlberg accepted the argument, after he recognized that the victim was innocent and that a “terrible mistake” had been made.)  The  conservative Asher Grunis is a candidate to replace Dorit Beinisch. Unlike the American system, supreme court justices are selected by a Judicial Appointment Committee,  composed of legal experts and politicians. The four candidates recently selected reflected an ideological compromise. But there is no question that this is, and will be, a predominantly conservative court. Justices have mandatory retirement at 70, but as long as the right are in power, the court will be, in matters of human rights and “national security,” predictably rightwing.

It’s a bitter pill to swallow, but, as the brilliantly funny Israeli journalist B. Michael wrote yesterday, it will have beneficial effects – for the world should know the true face of Israeli “democracy,” and that in almost all cases having to do with Palestinians, the occupation of the court is to support the occupation. Now it will do so without the facade of an Aharon Barak or a Dorit Beinisch.. As Michael writes.

And the State of Israel no longer deserves a Supreme Court without Sohlberg. It deserves a court in its own image. Someone "representative," as the MK Zeev Elkin types are loudly demanding. We should do as they wish. Because from now on, the court really is far more representative of the State of Israel. It suits the state far better.

And Sohlberg - along with his rulings and the land on which he lives (which on June 5, 1969, was seized for "military purposes" ) - will also make it somewhat more difficult for the High Court of Justice to continue to boast of statesmanlike behavior and to hide behind judicial robes, as it seeks to free itself of the threat of intervention from a foreign court.

And all of that is good and right and worthy, because evil - just like justice - must be seen, not just done.

The Only (Russian) Democracy in the Middle East

Subscribers: please click here to see this video, if you can't get to it from your mail.

If you are in a hurry, fast-forward to 1:25.

UPDATE: The Ethics Knesset sanctioned MK Michaeli by banned her from the Knesset for a month. After she expressed pride over the incident, she formally apologized last night. What got her so riled? If you look at tape, you see it was MK Majadele shouting "You shut up!" when she interrupted him. This deeply offended her, and she responded by saying that one doesn't talk in this manner to a female MK, and that she would take it up with Ethics Committee -- the same Ethics committee that subsequently banned her. Of course Majadele yelled, "You shut up!" because he was deeply offended; he saw her remarks not simply as a typical Knesset interruption, but as an affront to all Israeli Arabs, who have been silenced, or not listened to.

How true Maimonides' statement, "One should be offended rather than give offense."

This incident today in the Knesset parliamentary Education Committee probably won't make the mainstream media outside of Israel, or hasn't yet.  Will it be shown in America? Sometimes MSNBC's nightly line-up needs some relief from talking heads on Mitt Romney, and they show parliaments from the Far East, or the Former Soviet Union, engaging in fist-fights. It's cute, and it reminds us in America how far we are from that.

So we have MK Anastasia Michaeli, a blond Russian-born settler in Israel, a gentile who became eligible to become a citizen of a modern state after a religious conversion, and is now a member of the ultra-nationalist Russian Jewish party, Yisrael Beitienu, who stands up,  calmly pours a glass or water, and then throws it at Palestinian Israeli  MK Raleb Majadele, a member of Labor, no less. There had been the usual heated words before that, as the Russian settler kept on interrupting the Palestinian Israeli's speach, while the chairperson  of the Parliamentary committee, a fellow Russian-born ultra-nationalist, Alex Miller, looked on.

Folks, this is Israel today. Were there to be a two-state solution next week, were there to be a viable Palestinian state tomorrow, were the problems of the Palestinian refugees solved, the fundamental problem of Israel would not be solved. And what is that problem?

Simply put: A religio-ethnic-exclusivist Zionism that privileges, inter alia,  ultra-Russian nationalist religious converts to Judaism, with automatic rights to citizenship, over native Palestinians. And it was always like this.  Look at the first four prime ministers of the State of Israel: David Grun, Moshe Shertock, Levi Shkolnik, and Golda Meyerson -- all natives of the Russian Empire. They certainly had better manners than some of the Yisrael Beiteinu members of parliament today -- but the former weren't any less Russian and ultra-nationalistic than the latter.

Ah, the beauty of Israeli democracy,,,the indigenous natives are given the vote, and the political power to have water thrown at them.

The news cycle for this story in Israel lasted a few hours. That's all.

And yet...look at the dignity and restraint with which Majadale responds:

"Mr. Chairman, that says everything. It’s a pity that she is in your faction. I am certain that you do not agree with such wild, audacious, fascistic behavior. But I tell you, I am not even upset. It’s predicatable. I tell you. We will go to the Ethics Committee, and we shall call her to order."

Reminds me of another civil rights movement....but that wasn't played out in the US House of Representatives.

Here's some of the background, courtesy of Haaretz


MK Anastassia Michaeli (Yisrael Beiteinu) poured a cup of water on her colleague MK Raleb Majadele (Labor) during an argument that ensued between the two at a heated Knesset Education Committee debate on Monday morning.

The argument erupted after MK Danny Danon (Likud) called for the retrenchment of the principal of a school in the Negev town of Arara, who took students on a human rights march held in Tel Aviv last month. The Knesset discussion was held following a Haaretz report that the Education Ministry reprimanded the Israeli-Arab high school.

"You are marching against the state," Michaeli shouted at Majadele, who answered back, "shut up." He then added that, "She won't shut me up. This is not Yisrael Beiteinu. The issue of fascism won't stop here – I intend on taking this debate to other Muslims who will serve as an example for the State of Israel… Fascism will not be allowed to take over the house." Michaeli replied that "It is disrespectful to the status of women in the Knesset. We will discuss the matter in the Ethics Committee."

At a certain point in the argument, as it appeared that Michaeli was about to leave the room to calm down, she poured a cup of water and threw the contents at Majadele. Following that, she left the room with fury.

Majadele turned to Committee Chairperson, MK Alex Miller (Yisrael Beiteinu), and said, "That says it all. I'm sure you wouldn't condone such wild and fascist behavior. I'm telling you, I'm excited. This is predictable.

We'll take this matter to the Ethics Committee and we'll call her to order."

Alexander Yakobson’s “Generous” Peace Offer

The op-ed in last Friday’s Haaretz by historian Alexander Yakobson offers a wonderful insight into the mind of the secular Israeli who considers himself a liberal Zionist.  In fact, I consider it must-reading for anybody who wishes to understand the sort of mentality that  has effectively killed the two-state solution from 1948 to the present. (I haven’t founded it translated yet into English; if somebody has a link, please send it to me.)

Yakobson’s piece was in response to an op-ed in the previous Friday’s Haaretz by writer A. B. Yehoshua, who was beginning to despair of a real two-state solution because of the difficulty involved in moving so many settlers. Yakobson responded with an idea that he had floated before, namely, that as part of a peace agreement, the army would withdraw to the 67 border, and the settlers would be allowed to decide if they wanted to stay in Palestine as Palestinian citizens.  After all, if the Jewish state has an Arab minority, why shouldn’t the Palestinian state have a Jewish minority? Yakobson didn’t repeat what he had written earlier, namely that  that most settlers would return after receiving some modest compensation “beyond the letter of the law.” –and that since the Arabs are known for making life impossible for the Jews in their midst, even the nuts who stay will end up coming back eventually under the law of return.

For a secular Israeli like Yakobson it’s all good:  The Palestinians get their land and get off the Israelis’ back; the crazy religious settlers can settle in Eretz Yisrael if they like, and if they don’t, they come back for only a fistful of shekels. Just think of the money we save!

The secular Israeli liberal  offers the Palestinian nothing that he himself wants and everything he can’t abide – the West Bank, which he never visits; the Palestinians, whom he would prefer not to worry about; and the religious settlers, whom he is ecstatic to part with. Which of his own interests does he sacrifice in the spirit of compromise? None..

And what about the Palestinians? Well after being powerless to stop their land from being expropriated and developed into illegal bedroom communities and cities for settlers who wish  them dead and gone, or at least, permanently subservient, they now are obligated by a treaty with the regional superpower to keep the settlements and settlers, who, presumably according to Yakobson, will turn into loyal Palestinian citizens without any irredentist tendencies.

Note that this “generous proposal” is from a man who opposes the return of any more than a handful of Palestinian refugees to Israel because of the threat to the security of the Jewish state.  He sees no security threat to the Palestinian state by  the religious fanatics he is so eager to get rid of. Not his problem, is it?

Can his proposal be made serious? Consider the following friendly amendments:

Settlers can remain as citizens of the Palestinian state, after they give up their Israeli citizenship, of course. But since they do not own the land they live on anyway, but rather lease it from the Israeli government, the Palestinian government  could move them to other places on the West Bank, after offering proper compensation.

In exchange for the Palestinians being forced to received hundreds of thousand Jewish “immigrants”, the Israelis would be forced to receive hundreds of thousand Palestinian “immigrants”, i.e., returning refugees. How many hundreds of thousands? Well, if a bit over half a million Israeli Jews are offered the opportunity to stay in the West Bank, and there are a bit over 3.5 million Palestinians living there now, then that works out to about 16% – and 16% of 5.5 million Israeli Jewish living within the Green Line would work out to 880,000 Palestinian refugees. Of course, you will immediately say that this isn’t fair – after all, the Jewish state starts out with 20% of its population Arab. Good point. Let’s assume, then, that the Arabs had not driven thousands of Jewish settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem in 1948, and they constituted around – what – 5% of the total? So, you know, we’ll compromise on resettling 3/4 of a million Palestinian refugees in exchange for allowing the Jewish settlers to remain where they are. And half a million of them will be settled West of Jerusalem, the rest in the Galilee and the Negev.

I find that the problem folks like Prof. Yakobson is that they are pretty good negotiators when negotiating with themselves. They know how to figure out what is in their own best interests – a secular Israel which is culturally Jewish, with a few Rabbis and Arabs to give it some flavor. That’s why whenever they come up  with a plan, they are  always trying to sell it to the Jews. They never mention  the possible down-side for the Palestinians.

That’s what liberal Zionists have been doing from time immemorial.

Hasn’t the Anti-Semitism Charge Been Trivialized Enough?

Is calling somebody an “Israel Firster” anti-Semitic? Is accusing somebody of “dual loyalty” anti-Semitic? Does it smack of anti-Semitism.to refer to Israeli “apartheid”? 

Of course not, unless you want to trivialize anti-Semitism beyond belief, or unless you want to put very reasonable and widely held beliefs beyond the pale of discussion. Heck, I know personally  a lot of supporters of Israel who are “Israel first”-ers. I know them; I pray with them;  I have them in my classes. In fact, I know a lot of “Israel only”-ers,” I certainly have had students who are US citizens, who would never consider volunteering for the US army, but who have served in the Israel army, even without being an Israeli citizen. (Full disclosure: I have dual loyalty to the US and to Israel because I have dual-citizenship.) I have prayed  in modern orthodox synagogues where the prayer for the welfare of the State of Israel has been said, but not the prayer for the welfare of the United States;  or where congregants stand for the former and sit for (or mumble) the latter. I don’t agree with this practice, and I criticize such synagogues, but pointing that out doesn’t make you an anti-Semite. And by the way, if you ask people why they are more concerned with Israel than with America, they often answer that Israel is more threatened than America. Or that they love Israel more because they are Jewish. Is it anti-Semitic to point that out?

If you think that using these terms make somebody an anti-Semite or a bigot – a charge that  Zionist-leaning organizations like the ADL or the AJC or members of the Zionist rightwing blogosphere (for links, see here) have recently leveled against some bloggers at the Center for American Progress, then perhaps you yourself are an anti-Semite – or at least a bigot.

You see, when somebody says what a Jew can or cannot say, when somebody says that certain discourse is considered to be hateful or insensitive and, as a result, censors or chills that speech – and when that speech is not conceptually connected with anti-Semitism -- then the person who is making that discrimination is anti-Semitic, if a Jew is involved, and bigoted if a non-Jew is involved. Because the same terms said with the same intent cannot be considered anti-Semitic only when a non-Jew says them. I don’t deny that certain terms are more inappropriately said by outsider groups – the N-word comes to mind. But “inappropriately said” is a far cry from anti-Semitic.

Who decides what speech is anti-Semitic? Is there a Pope of anti-Semitism? Who are the experts? According to Commentary’s Alana Goodman, the Anti-Defamation League is “considered by many media outlets to be the final word in all things anti-Semitism” – which, by the way, is the sort of grandiose and unsubstantiated assertion that readers of Commentary may be used to, but I certainly am not. Who appointed the ADL? And do they consider Ehud Olmert and Ehud Barak, and a host of Israeli commentators anti-Semitic, when they refer to Israeli apartheid? Perhaps Israeli politicians are allowed to be bigoted? And even if the term is inaccurate, what does that have to do with anti-Semitism?

Nobody can beat Prof. Robert Wistrich’s credentials, both as a rightwing student of the so-called “new anti-Semitism,”  and as a Zionist historian of anti-Semitism.I mean, I can adduce other scholars of anti-Semitism who are not as rightwing as he is, such as the  most careful writer  on anti-Semitism and its various shades of meaning today, the philosopher Brian Klug of Oxford. Klug runs rings around not only the ADL but most of the rightwing historians of anti-Semitism because, as an analytically-trained philosopher, he zeroes in on the nuances of conceptual distinctions much better than most historians. But let’s leave Klug aside – even Wistrich admits that anti-Zionism is not the same as anti-Semitism, although he goes on argue for  “continuity” or “convergence” between radical anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism (using arguments that I believe Klug and others have answered quite well.) According to Wistrich,

…[A]nti-Zionism and anti-Semitism are two distinct ideologies that over time (especially since 1948) have tended to converge, generally without undergoing a full merger. There have always been Bundists, Jewish communists, Reform Jews, and ultra-Orthodox Jews who strongly opposed Zionism without being Judeophobes. So, too, there are conservatives, liberals, and leftists in the West today who are pro-Palestinian, antagonistic toward Israel, and deeply distrustful of Zionism without crossing the line into anti- Semitism. There are also Israeli "post-Zionists" who object to the definition of Israel as an exclusively or even a predominantly "Jewish" state without feeling hostile toward Jews as such. There are others, too, who question whether Jews are really a nation; or who reject Zionism because they believe its accomplishment inevitably resulted in uprooting many Palestinians. None of these positions is intrinsically anti-Semitic in the sense of expressing opposition or hatred toward Jews as Jews.

(By the way, there were many Jewish opponents of Zionism who did not fit the categories above, not to mention the majority of Jews outside of Eastern Europe who were neither anti-Zionists nor Zionists.)

But of course, the CAP bloggers did not write anti-Zionist tracts. Let’s face it. The anti-Semitism charge is the first refuge of rightwing Zionists today – many of whom are themselves “Israel firsters” -- who want to squelch debate over Israel’s policies by demonizing and delegitimizing their opponents’s discourse. It is nauseating, and it is past time to call them on it.

Goodman, who criticizes the Truman Project for cutting ties with the lobbyist Josh Block who first raised the “anti-Semitic” canard against the CAP bloggers, ends her article by asking, what would President Truman think? The question is a good one. May  I frame it slightly differently: what would the the author of the quote below say of  somebody who plays the “anti-Semitic” card when criticizing a critic of Israel?

The Jews, I find are very, very selfish. They care not how many Estonians, Latvians, Finns, Poles, Yugoslavs or Greeks get murdered or mistreated as D[isplaced] P[ersons] as long as the Jews get special treatment. Yet when they have power, physical, financial or political neither Hitler nor Stalin has anything on them for cruelty or mistreatment to the under dog. Put an underdog on top and it makes no difference whether his name is Russian, Jewish, Negro, Management, Labor, Mormon, Baptist he goes haywire. I've found very, very few who remember their past condition when prosperity comes.

I don’t know whether Goodman considers the author of the quote, President Harry Truman, to be an anti-Semite or not. I do know that Abe Foxman did:

While President Truman's personal thoughts about Jews are in some sense a reflection of those times, it is shocking to learn that this great American leader and statesman was afflicted with the same disease of anti-Semitism that was mirrored by larger society

But what I find more shocking is Foxman’s next paragraph:

Nothing in his statements, however, changes Truman's steadfast resolve to aid in the resettlement of Jews and other refugees in the aftermath of the war and the Holocaust. Regardless of his personal beliefs, President Truman will be remembered for his support and recognition of the homeland of the Jews, the State of Israel.

For Abe Foxman, one can forgive or overlook – or not remember – Truman’s anti-Semitism because of what he did for the State of Israel. So an anti-Semite who helps the State of Israel is better than a decent person who is a critic of the State of Israel and calls its policies on the West Bank apartheid.

Should we add another sin to the Israel-right-or-wrongers the trivialization of anti-Semitism?

Thank goodness that Nahum Barnea, Israel’s most popular commentator, has criticized Elliot Abrams on his reckless and pernicious use of the “A-word” against Joe Klein and Tom Friedman.