The New York Times’ stunning piece last week about the American Jewish Committee’s effort to smear leftwing Jewish critics of Israel as antisemites did what 1000 blogs, 100 human rights reports, even 10 pieces by Tony Judt, could never do: It embarrassed the Jewish leadership, by exposing the retrograde methods it has resorted to to try and stop debate. More than that, the Times report took a scattered opposition and solidified it, by telling us what we didn’t understand: We’re having an impact.
Let’s declare what’s afoot right now: it’s a movement. Progressive Jews all over are denouncing the mainstream leadership’s staunch support of the hateful occupation, and some of them are linking it to the U.S.’s bloody occupation of Iraq. In England, Independent Jewish Voices, a group of anti-occupation Jews (including Harold Pinter and Eric Hobsbawm) is breaking away from the mainstream organizations to show how bankrupt their lobbying position is. In Australia, Antony Loewenstein sees “dissent growing.” His book My Israel Question, which I gather is even more off-the-hook than stuff I write, is to be published in the States this spring. And speaking of the States, Jewish Voice for Peace, an Oakland-based group with chapters nationwide, has lately launched a fabulous website, Muzzlewatch, dedicated to fighting the smears and threats that the lobby has always used against Jews who want to treat Palestinian Arabs with dignity. Meantime, the Union of Progressive Zionists, which brought Breaking the Silence to the U.S. last fall to describe real conditions in the West Bank to young Jews, is fighting to keep its membership on the Israel on Campus Coalition, and winning—a battle with the ZOA whose onset I reported on this blog two months back. Some Hillel groups have welcomed Breaking the Silence.
The one comment I’d add is that I give credit to progressive gentiles for helping to break open this discussion. Yes, Meretz-USA has been tireless. Norman Finkelstein has given hundreds of speeches. But Mearsheimer, Walt, and Jimmy Carter released this movement last year by embarrassing Jews with statements about the immorality of the treatment of Palestinians that were mainstreamed. They gave license to the media to write about this stuff, and have spurred progressive Jews to play their part and recover progressive voices going back to Hannah Arendt and Elmer Berger. 60 years before Walt and Mearsheimer, Rabbi Berger warned in The Jewish Dilemma about the Zionist “machine” and the ways it would transform Jewish identity and politics in the name of nationalism.
Hark! I hear the sound of the tumbrils, rumbling through the streets of northwest Washington, collecting neoconservatives.
Yes, I also have a sense that a dam has burst on these issues. (However, I sometimes tend towards excessive optimism.)
Still, these developments and the accompanying seeming crack-up among self-proclaimed pro-Israel organizations and partisans (like ADL, AJC and Peretz) are unprecedented in my experience.
The seeds of this began when extreme Israeli partisans formed alliances with fundamentalist Christians (who pray for Greater Israel so Israelis can then be converted or killed in fulfillment of Biblical prophecies in Revelations).
Now the ad-hominem attacks on honest and responsible critics like Judt, Walt, Mearsheimer, Carter, Kushner, etc. are so over-the-top and devoid of substantive argument that the evidence of a crack-up can't be ignored. It is a clear sign that these organizations and partisans are not sure of the validity of their positions (beyond their emotional attachment to them) on an intellectual or moral level.
Simone Weil once said that justice is a fugitive from the side of the conquerors so we must be willing to change sides with justice. A person's adherence to his or her principles of truth and justice (coupled with some humility about certainty) is a higher form of group loyalty (and humanity) than denying truth and injustice out of some sense of group loyalty.
The JVfP Muzzlewatch site is indeed quite good. But if there is a new movement afoot then Phil Weiss must be be given a lot of the credit for founding it. He's been a very lonely voice for quite a while now.
It would be interesting to hear from Phil on the mechanics of movement building. For example, is he in touch personally with many of the other players, or is it his blog articles that do most of his speaking? Has there been coordination, or has it been a spontaneous phenomenon?
I love your passion Philip! This is a good development.
On a more cautious note, I remember the academic boycott organized by some well meaning British Jews (Steven and Hilary Rose) back in 2002 and it backfired. Although it backfired in large part because some of the gentiles associated with it (Mona Baker) were very vulnerable to charges of anti-Semitism. Those charges of anti-Semitism were lead, in the academic realm at least, by the counter-boycott organization Engage.
Dave wrote "It would be interesting to hear from Phil on the mechanics of movement building."
I also think that strategy is key. But there is a wave of dissent right now. It may be that we are just entering into one of those critical periods in history where board assumptions and understandings reconfigure (in the spirit of applying the theory of punctuated equilibrium to history, which I think is roughly the case and its probably more precisely delineated somewhere that I haven't yet read.)
The key to having long-term impact is to copy the neoconservatives and construct an appealing long-term vision. This doesn't have to be done right away, but at some point a grand vision of an appealing future should be a component. One needs a new alternative for hope, not just a "push back" against the over use of the charges of anti-Semitism because that in itself will only be temporary.
I think a long-term vision must be more than just ending the occupation by withdrawing from the West Bank. More withdrawals by themselves are not a solution as the Gaza withdrawal demonstrates. Also, withdrawals from the West Bank are no longer controversial as even Dershowitz supports it in his book "The Case for Peace." I think that a binational solution may be a more optimal solution, or at least one worth serious exploration at multiple levels. For it to succeed one needs to get the Palestinians on board in creating a civil society in partnership with the Israelis — something that George Soros could help with as he has done a lot of similar civil society advocacy in Europe. Also one needs to show to the Jewish community at large that the Palestinians, once removed from the zero-sum nature of the current conflict, are able to forgive (as the South African blacks did during the period of reconciliation) and not seek genocidal retribution (as many on the right fear would be the result of an attempt at a binational solution.) I think that by engaging critics of the binational solution one can move towards addressing their issues and thus lead to a richer and more attractive and robust proposal for a binational solution.
All of this activity is definitely getting to the mainstream, pro-Israel groups. They are getting nervous.
I have an update on one of Phil's promising items. He wrote:"Meantime, the Union of Progressive Zionists, which brought Breaking the Silence to the U.S. last fall to describe real conditions in the West Bank to young Jews, is fighting to keep its membership on the Israel on Campus Coalition, and winninga battle with the ZOA whose onset I reported on this blog two months back. Some Hillel groups have welcomed Breaking the Silence."