Trivializing the anti-Semitism charge

Abraham Foxman

Recently we picked up Netanyahu’s refusal to write an Op-Ed for the New York Times– his aide Ron Dermer said the paper’s columnists “cavalierly defame our country.” Well, the Anti-Defamation League has said that Netanyahu has made the wrong call, the Times is too important to ignore, though Abraham Foxman of the ADL all but accuses the New York Times of anti-Semitism:

Dermer was on to something. There has been an increasingly troubling imbalance in the way that The Times presents stories and opinions on the Middle East conflict. And, contrary to [Nahum] Barnea, who argued that being critical of Mr. Netanyahu’s policies does not make one anti-Israel, let alone anti-Semitic, some of The Times’ commentary goes beyond mere criticism.

Oh my god. So the New York Times is anti-Semitic? The charge of anti-Semitism is a vital political tool in the American discourse over Israel/Palestine. It stops debate. It was used to slow down the advance of Walt and Mearsheimer’s argument.

And note that this same smear has been the theme of the recent rightwing attacks on the Center for American Progress and Media Matters, two thinktanks associated with the Democratic Party. A former AIPAC official has accused writers at the thinktanks of being anti-Semites. He landed on, among other terms, MJ Rosenberg’s use of the phrase “Israel firster.”

Here is a brilliant response from Jerry Haber, “Hasn’t the anti-Semitic charge been trivialized enough?” Read the whole post. This is the start, dealing with the Israel firster business.

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?

Wonderful. I keep meaning to do a post on Hannah Arendt’s and Theodor Herzl’s acknowledgment of the problem of dual loyalty, or accusations thereof. I’ll get to that in a day or so.