20. The Last Taboo?
29th April 2006
Posting 20. to The Jewish-Israel Lobby, by Bill Templer
Robert Fisk’s article in the Independent (April 27, 2006) “Breaking the Last Taboo: The United States of Israel?” perpetuates the false notion that critique of Lobbytalk comes almost only from the pro-Zionist Jewish right in the states, or in Australia, where Fisk has faced the ‘Jewish lobby’ in Oz. Why cannot those extremely critical of vicious Israeli voelkisch policy at the same time be concerned about potentially racist anti-Jewish discourse inside Lobby analysis and its web of rhetoric and implication?
London-based sociologist David Hirsh critiques Fisk in an article “Slipping Standards” that is worth reading: http://commentisfree.guardian.co.uk/david_hirsh/2006/04/conspiracy_is_an_easy_way_out.htmlI I don’t agree with Hirsh on a number of points, but the initiative on the Left and website he has organized over the past year ENGAGE http://www.engageonline.org.uk brings together much thoughtful commentary about the dangers of this discourse. Hirsh like Avnery and Chomsky is highly critical of Israel, but Hirsh like Avnery thinks Israel should not be destroyed. And is a fierce enemy of what he perceives as anti-Jewish rhetoric disguised as ‘anti-Zionist’ in Britain and elsewhere, and now using the Lobbytalk as a ‘cocoon.’ I suggest you look at Engage: the journal, the articles. The arguments. Remember these are people on the Left, a whole spectrum. What Jeff Blankfort might inimically call the ‘Jewish Defense League within the Left.’
There you can also see the consciously offensive ‘stars and stripes’ cover of the Independent for April 27 that many Jews will find anti-Semitic in the classic sense. Of course there is more than one reading of the image:
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=391 What’s yours? I think some of you may be pretty unaware of anti-Semitic discourse and imagery over the decades. The new xenophobic far right anti-Roma / anti-Turk / anti-Jewish party ATAKA in Bulgaria uses imagery of a similar kind. Is this where the Anglo-American Left is wending?
Hirsh notes: “There is a real, current danger of the emergence of an anti-semitic movement in Europe and America - as well as elsewhere. This is not, at the moment, a battle on the streets. It is a battle on the level of discourse. And much of the careless discourse comes from the very anti-racists, liberals and socialists who ought to be the most sensitive to the danger of the emergence of this kind of racist movement. The left needs to get its act together on this. If the left can’t or won’t fight anti-semitism then we will all be in real trouble - because nobody else will.”
Sounds a bit similar to some of my own comments here a week ago. Hirsh and I differ regarding a ‘transformed’ Israel, because I’ve argued for a kind of radically de-Zionized version of Buber’s vision in the old Brit Shalom of a single unitary cooperative commonwealth, a ‘no-state’ solution. A Palestinian/Israeli zapatismo.
ITEM: Regarding blanket claims in Lobbytalk, take this one from Mearsheimer/Walt: “Anyone who criticises Israel’s actions or argues that pro-Israel groups have significant influence over US Middle East policy … stands a good chance of being labelled an anti-Semite. Indeed, anyone who merely claims that there is an Israeli lobby runs the risk of being charged with anti-Semitism.”
COUNTER-FACT: One of the most outspoken critics of Israel and an eminent Palestinian social scientist has just been granted a full professorship at a major US university, and at no time was there any attempt to ’smear’ him. Nor had he ever experienced any such interference in his work. He is feared in academic circles in Israel for his astute scientific analysis of land policy, and the workings of the Israeli ethnocracy. How many other Palestinian social scientists are teaching in American academe and not being targeted by campus-watch.org and similar rightwing initiatives? Worth examining. Sure, Juan Cole is being targeted. But the above is a pretty broadside salvo. A scholar probably more radical than Cole, and a Palestinian left-nationalist in his analysis, is not. Why? The campus-watch.org website has only a small number of US campuses on its hit list. Take a look for yourselves.
Writing in the LRB, Robert Pfaltzgraff of the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis in Cambridge/MA has some interesting comment: “The authors allege that ‘over the past 25 years, pro-Israel forces have established a commanding presence’ at US think-tanks, and give a list that includes the Institute for Foreign Policy Analysis. The basis on which the authors make this assertion escapes me. We have undertaken studies of US policy towards the Gulf States as well as Israel and other countries in and around the Middle East. To the extent that such studies support Israel or any other states in the region, this is the result of an independent analysis of US needs and interests. If Mearsheimer and Walt had taken the time to interview me or any of my colleagues, they could easily have discovered this.”
In any event, I suggest you look at ENGAGE as a tonic against the excesses of your own conviction in this discussion. I agree with its major thrust, not its defense of left-liberal Zionism. And not with its principled opposition to the idea of academic boycott, where I am much closer to Ilan Pappe.
But the same rage for justice that can attack the Israeli plutocracy can also criticize racist suggestion and innuendo about Jews and ‘Jewish power’ in America and what some of us think is now emerging, a kind of ‘Sozialismus des dummen Kerls,’ as August Bebel characterized anti-Semitism on the left in Germany some 130 years ago. Hirsh is a comrade in the struggle against that. As is the Alliance for Worker’s Liberty socialist tendency in the UK that Hirsh and ENGAGE seem near to: http://www.workersliberty.org/ (’Jewish-dominated’?) , a grouping itself in solidarity with the Alliance for Green Socialism http://www.greensocialist.org.uk/ags/
As Liz Burbank recently wrote: “Making an israeli ‘lobby’ the issue and making the terms of the terms of this set-up debate ‘either-or’, ‘yes-no’ takes U.S. imperialism off the hot-seat. […] Meanwhile this vicious deception must be exposed and opposed because it aids our real enemies and because this strata’s role and influence is critical, beyond its own academic circles, in general media propaganda, and in broad mass movements as well as revolutionary working class and anti-imperialist movements. […] By design or default, this timely sneak attack has all the earmarks –and intended effects –of a psyops job–soon to be translated undoubtedly via the capitalist media for broader consumption.” (“Cui Bono & Some Thoughts on “The Ferment Over the ‘Israel Lobby,’” 29 April 2006).
April 30th, 2006 at 4:52 pm
I am on the left and I support a Palestinian state next to an Israeli state.
I wonder how much longer I can remain on the left. As a Jew,I feel increasingly disappointd and betrayed by the left. I might be one the left, but that does not mean that I have to be a masochist.
I suppose that to many on the left, I am a perfect trifecta of evil. I am an American, a Jew, and a Zionist. For all of America’s problems there isn’t a single country in Europe, including the UK that I would want to live in.
April 30th, 2006 at 4:55 pm
Al Gore opposed the invasion of Iraq and he is one of the most pro-Israel politicians in either party. If the Jewish lobby is so powerful why did George W. Bush win?
April 30th, 2006 at 4:56 pm
Sorry, for the triple posting, but have you read Benny Morris’s article in the New Republic on www.tnr.com
May 1st, 2006 at 2:48 am
***Benny Morris’ article in TNR that Susan mentions is unfortunate and does not deal in any way with the Lobby, just the authors’ interpretation of Israeli historical fact. Morris (and his about-face) remains an enigma to many on the Israeli left, and to all Palestinians I know.
*** The alternate reading of the Independent flag graphic that has angered a lot of people is that it says: American foreign policy is controlled by Israeli interests (not ‘Jews control America’). Whether Fisk had anything to say about this graphic is questionable, but the editors at the Independent know what they are doing. Read the many many comments to David Hirsh’s article, at the URL above, quite incredible, a complex thread on the Lobby and anti-semitism in itself.
*** I’ve suggested it’s good to keep the eye on the ball. Here an article by Norm Finkelstein on economic boycott reprinted in the current SYNTHESIS/REGENERATION (journal of the Greens/GPUSA, the far smaller more left Green formation stateside, not the Green Party US): www.greens.org/s-r/40/40-14.html
I agree with and would emphasize his conclusion, and especially the last lines: “In a courageous initiative American-based Human Rights Watch recently called on the US government to reduce significantly its financial aid to Israel until Israel terminates its illegal policies in the West Bank. An economic boycott would seem to be an equally judicious undertaking. A nonviolent tactic the purpose of which is to achieve a just and lasting settlement of the Israel-Palestine conflict cannot legitimately be called anti-Semitic. Indeed, the real enemies of Jews are those who debase the memory of Jewish suffering by equating principled opposition to Israel’s illegal and immoral policies with anti-Semitism.” The ball is “principled opposition to Israel’s illegal and immoral policies.” Bill
May 1st, 2006 at 8:57 am
Bill, I have to wonder if are you interested in really ending the occupation or are you interested in moral posturing and self-congratulatory self-righteousness?
Israel has left Gaza and it wants to disengage from the West Bank. Poll after poll has shown that Israelis support a Palestinian state as long as their security can be guaranteed. Will a boycott help change the opinion of the average Israeli in the center? I doubt it.
A boycott has nothing to do with Fisk blaming the war in Iraq on Israel, or Fisk assuming that the US government puts Israel’s interests first.
An antisemitic stereotype is an antisemitic stereotype. It doesn’t matter if one is applying this stereotype to all Jews, Israelis, Zionists, or even just the Likud. It is just lying to say, “I’m only being critical of Israel.”
“American foreign policy is controlled by Israeli interests (not ‘Jews control America’).” Frankly, they are both equally antisemitic in different ways. They both employ classic antisemitic steretypes. This is not being critical of Israel, this is antisemitism. It is still accusing those who disagree with you of being more loyal to Israel than to America.
I might also remind you that Arab American organizations endorsed Bush in 2000. I am suggesting that we should blame Arab Americans for Bush? No, they have the same rights as other Americans to enter the democratic process.
May 1st, 2006 at 9:34 am
“the real enemies of Jews are those who debase the memory of Jewish suffering by equating principled opposition to Israel’s illegal and immoral policies with anti-Semitism.””
The people who are “crying antisemitism” genuinely believe it. They have over 2000 years of Jewish history to back them up. I may or may not agree with them, but I understand why they think the way they do. Where is your understanding and empathy? Does it only extend to Palestinians? It should be possible to debate the legality and morality of Israeli policy without calling those who disagree with you “enemies of the Jews”. It is just as bad, if not worse, than “crying antisemitism.
I would recommend that you read David Hirsh’s “I hate the Jews should know better argument.”