In this post, I identify some general trends in recent controversies over remarks by left-wing figures in the U.K and the U.S.A. I focus on Rashida Tlaib's recent interview with Skullduggery as a representative example.
The Big Picture:
In Western countries, many members of the political left, especially its "progressive" wing, have taken an increasingly openly critical and sometimes even hostile stance concerning Israel in recent years. (The even-more-radical left has long been vociferously critical of Israel, so that's not new.) For their part, both supporters of Israel and right wing politicians and commentators have been quick to find anti-Semitism in this new leftist discourse. Leftists often reply that the accusations of anti-Semitism are not made in good faith but rather are disingenuous, politically motivated smear-attempts, sometimes smacking of Orientalism or Islamophobia. Furthermore, they accuse right-wing commentators of hypocrisy for accusing figures on the left of anti-Semitism, while ignoring right-wing anti-Semitism. Such back-and-forth has become a familiar pattern, characterizing the discourse around various incidents involving Jeremy Corbyn, Linda Sarsour, Ilhan Omar, and Rashida Tlaib. A few reactions:
I started this post as a way to express my reactions to the latest firestorm about Tlaib, but Andrew Silo-Carroll beat me to the punch. His piece articulates very nicely a lot of what I wanted to say: http://www.timesofisrael.com/what-did-rashida-tlaib-say-about-the-holocaust-its-probably-not-what-you-think/ Two highlights from that piece:
Commentary: Below in purple are some interesting reactions from a colleague, which I'll respond to in black: You mention that even though there's a big overlap between anti-Zionism and anti-Semitism, some critics of the former are disingenuous in accusing their opponents of the latter. I agree. On the other hand, obviously a lot of left-wing criticism of Israel is disingenuous too. This raises the question of whether Zionists should be disingenuous when responding to such criticisms. And I think the answer is not easy: as rational truth seekers they of course shouldn't be; but in the political/moral sense, I think it's perfectly fine do play dirty if your opponent is already playing dirty. I agree with you that the answer isn't easy. Here's the challenge for me:
Complications:
Something I strongly believe is that the very conceptual framework the progressive left is using to discuss Israel is such that it encourages disingenuous arguments. I'll note a few of these.
Hm. I suppose I don't disagree. One reaction that I keep having here is, it matters a lot to whom one is speaking, and who is listening in. Perhaps what you're describing is, unfortunately, a reasonable default strategy for most public venues, where the debate is unsophisticated and people engage in all kinds of propaganda.
A few things to unpack here.
Still, I think we need to be very realistic and modest about what we can expect from Palestinians and their supporters in the current situation. Even though her remarks contain anti-Semitic elements, Tlaib still concedes more than the vast majority of Palestinians in the Middle East would. For a Palestinian to acknowledge that there was some good in the creation of Israel, in that it provided a safe haven for Jews, even though (as things played out) it came at a terrible price for Palestinians-- surely this is at least some small measure of progress. Of course, it still goes without saying that we need to criticize the anti-Semitism and try to correct it. My above remarks connect to another recurring theme. I don't like echo chambers, even when they are filled with agreeable sounds. If we refuse to engage in rational debate with anyone who says anti-Semitic things, then we're refusing to engage in rational debate with the pro-Palestinian mainstream. It does little good to have a really great conversation with someone, if that person is concessive to the point of placing herself outside her own community. Rather, for practical reasons I think we need to be willing to engage rationally with the more moderate elements of the opposing camp, as blameworthy and objectionable as their views might be. One has to "meet people where they're at", so to speak.
All good points.
Yes, I have to say I think you're right about this. Though if asked, many of them probably would *say* that they'd support a 2/3 Jewish, 1/3 Palestinian state. Given that that's not what would happen, saying this comes at little cost. 3. I noted above that the progressive anti-Israel left is systematically dishonest when they engage in this debate. And it's very important, I think, that their dishonesty doesn't merely consist in misdescribing Israel or their Zionist opponents. I think they are also misdescribing their own positions by using loaded concepts that make it impossible to conduct a rational debate and by employing a kind of conceptual bait-and-switch when it comes to several key issues about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. I surmise that the reason for this dishonesty is that this way they can draw in well-meaning left-wingers who are less knowledgeable about the conflict or aren't as reflective about the relevant conceptual distinctions. (BDS is not very successful in economically crippling Israel, but it's more successful in its attempt to misrepresent its own positions as less extreme than they really are.) This is one of the things that drives me berserk-- seeing well-meaning friends, especially those with an artsy or literary bent, get seduced into what are actually quite extreme positions, because they don't know enough about the conflict and don't get to hear the mainstream Jewish perspective. This leads me to my final point. Here's my *honest* position about the relation between anti-Zionism and antisemitism. I'm not 100% convinced that the former entails the latter. Specifically, I can imagine someone who thinks that there shouldn't be national states at all, and for this reason there shouldn't be a Jewish nation state either. (I doubt this is what the Israelophobe left thinks, since they are often loud proponents of Kurdish and Catalonian independence.) At any rate, I'm willing to grant that anti-Zionism is not always automatically anti-Semitism even when it doesn't come in a package deal with a general rejection of nation states. I just don't care; I think anti-Zionism belongs to the same group of horrible, bigoted and illegitimate position as anti-Semitism, white supremacism or mysogyny, which should have no place in polite society. I see the question of whether anti-Zionism is a form of anti-Semitism the same way a progressive leftie would see the question of whether Islamophobia is a form of racism: yes (because most Muslims are not "white") or no (because Islam is a religion). I think many left-wingers would think that at best this is an interesting semantic question, but that the Islamophobia/racism distinction doesn't carve at the joints even if it's real. I think the same about anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism: I'm willing to grant the distinction, I just don't think it has the kind of normative consequences that both parties to the debate often seem to attribute to it. No objections here. But then again, this is what I say as a rational thinker. As a political animal, I think supporters of Israel should use any and all tools they have to push back. And they would be suckers if they agreed to play honestly so long as the anti-Zionist left doesn't. So as long as I recognize that a lot of people think that the anti-Zionism / anti-Semitism distinction is significant, I'll do my best to squeeze out evidence for antisemitism from anti-Zionist utterances as often as possible.
1 Comment
Horazio
5/31/2019 01:11:41 pm
I just noticed the commentary. Thanks for this! It seems like there's little we disagree on, but I wanted to make one small remark:
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