Anti-Semitism and the Left that Doesn’t Learn

[Behind the Aegis]

A DETERMINED offensive is underway. Its target is in the Middle East, and it is an old target: the legitimacy of Israel. Hezbollah and Hamas are not the protagonists, the contested terrains are not the Galilee and southern Lebanon or southern Israel and Gaza. The means are not military. The offensive comes from within parts of the liberal and left intelligentsia in the United States and Europe. It has nothing to do with this or that negotiation between Israelis and Palestinians, and it has nothing to do with any particular Israeli policy. After all, this or that Israeli policy may be chastised, rightly or wrongly, without denying the legitimacy of the Jewish state, just as you can criticize an Israeli policy—again, rightly or wrongly—without being an anti-Semite. You can oppose all Israeli settlements in the occupied territories (as I do) and you can also recognize that Benjamin Netanyahu, not just Yasir Arafat, was responsible for undermining the Oslo peace process without being an anti-Semite or anti-Zionist. You don’t have to be an anti-Semite or anti-Zionist to think that some American Jewish organizations pander to American or Israeli right-wingers.

The assault today is another matter. It is shaped largely by political attitudes and arguments that recall the worst of the twentieth-century left. It is time to get beyond them. But let me be clear: I am “left.” I still have no problem when someone describes me with the “s” word—socialist—although I don’t much care if you call me a social democrat, left-liberal, or some other proximate term. My “leftism” comes from a commitment to—and an ethos of—democratic humanism and social egalitarianism.

What I care about is the reinvention of the best values of the historical left—legacies of British Labour, of the Swedish Social Democrats, of Jean Jaurès and Léon Blum in France, of Eduard Bernstein and Willy Brandt in Germany, of what has always been the relatively small (alas!) tribe in the U.S. associated with names like Eugene V. Debs, Norman Thomas, Michael Harrington, and Irving Howe. It’s not so much a matter of political programs, let alone labels, as it is of political sensibility. I care about finding a new basis for that old amalgam of liberty, equality, and solidarity, a basis that makes sense for our “globalizing age.” But I also want a left that draws real, not gestural, conclusions from the catastrophes done in the name of the left in the 20th century.

There is a left that learns and there is a left that doesn’t learn. I want the left that learns to inform our Western societies (a difficult task in George W. Bush’s America) and to help find ideas that actually address poverty in what used to be called the third world—rather than romanticizing it.

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[Cassandra]

1. The right wing doesn't run Israel...

any better than it runs America. It applies authoritarian solutions to situations that would be better resolved through negotiation. I used to think that their right wing was at least more competent that ours, but the last offensive in Lebanon disabused me of that notion.

[rpannier]

2. Very nice article...Thanks for sharing

I found much of his article very interesting.

Until now, I had never read, nor had I ever heard of, Dissent magazine.

I do think he makes some very valid points, especially in regards to posts by some in the leftist community who see the hand of Israel (and Aipac) behind everything that is wrong in the Middle East.

When you point out to these people about the ills committed by Hamas, Hizbollah, etc they are rife with excuses for their crimes.

BTW: Haven't seen you here in awhile. Good to see you again... :hi:

[nealmhughes]

3. Dissent is a wonderful small journal. Very intellectual, but readable!

My favorite combo! I would rank its readability up there with le Monde Diplomatique -- very serious but not unapproachable by any means.

[Peace Patriot]

4. What Cohen asks is that the Left separate anti-Zionism and anti-semitisim,

and beware of the similar tone and tactics that anti-Zionists use, that may encourage anti-semitism.

He says, basically, that anti-Zionism is okay--anti-Zionism being opposition to a Jewish state (Israel) as an anachronism, and it's also okay to criticize Israel and its policies and politicians.

"Anti-Zionism means, theoretically, opposition to the project of a Jewish state in response to the rise of anti-Semitism. Let’s be blunt: there have been anti-Zionists who are not anti-Semites,* just as there have been foes of affirmative action who are not racists. But the crucial question is prejudicial overlap, not intellectual niceties."--Cohen

However, his opening sentence paints anti-Zionism in an unfavorable light:

"A DETERMINED offensive is underway. Its target is in the Middle East, and it is an old target: the legitimacy of Israel. Hezbollah and Hamas are not the protagonists..... The means are not military. The offensive comes from within parts of the liberal and left intelligentsia in the United States and Europe.....// The assault today is another matter. It is shaped largely by political attitudes and arguments that recall the worst of the twentieth-century left."--Cohen

So, walk this tightrope when you are in Mr. Cohen's presence (or write something he may read): That being opposed to a Jewish state as an anachronism (and supporting a multicultural state), or discussing this matter even in theory, or criticizing Israel (as opposed to criticizing Israeli politicians), or questioning US support for Israel, come very close to crossing the line into anti-semitism--especially in certain social/political circles, and by use of certain verbal tactics--and, if you aren't careful, you may get blamed for being a bigot, or a supporter of pogroms, or as a Holocaust denier.

He says that anti-semitism (anti-Zionism that has crossed this line) is rampant in Europe and in some U.S. leftist circles.

My own tactic with myself is to compare Israel to Ireland. My background is Irish (among other things--but with a strong identification with Keltic culture). If I had been alive in the 1920s, I would have wanted the US to support the Republic of Ireland, and, during the period of the recent "troubles" in Northern Ireland, while I would never condone or support IRA violence, I did sympathize with the Irish Catholic side of the struggle. Most of us in the U.S. have ties to motherlands and to old struggles writ new, back in those lands, and here. And we want our government to understand our countries of origin, and to support democracy and social justice in those countries, in foreign policy now. The Irish Republic (southern Ireland) was founded in 1920. It is a new creation--somewhat older than Israel, but still a fresh, new, 20th century, carving out of territory by a people who seek self-determination.

Thus, to me, the "Jewish lobby" in Washington is not a problem, by its inherent nature. It is neither traitorous nor un-american--nor peculiar in any way--for American citizens who are Jews to hark back to the homeland, the place where the Jewish religion and the Jewish race were born, and to lobby our government to support Israel. I also happen to believe that the Middle East needs Israel, and that, if Israel could only get past this extremely defensive and armed medieval fortress mentality (for which I blame war profiteers, here and there, more than anybody), Israel has a crucial cultural and political role to play in liberalizing Middle Eastern culture.

I am neither anti-Israel nor anti-semitic, not even a little bit. And I worry a lot about Israel, because I think its alliance with the Bush Junta is very dangerous to the Israeli people, as well as being a threat to support for Israel among Americans, who are footing a rather large bill to keep Israel from being overrun by hostile neighbors. I have no illusions about Palestinians, or about un-democratic Arab states. I may have some illusions about the Persians (Iran) whom I think have a lot more potential as a progressive force in the Middle East than any of the Arab states (--if we would only stop threatening them, and installing horrible Shahs to rule over them).

But anyway, my point is that I monitor myself for anti-semitism, because it is such a horror. And we are most certainly living in a time when scape-goatism can arise again--and we've seen it in two forms already, in the Bush Junta era--against gays and against "illegal immigrants" (i.e., mostly indigenous workers, with brown skin, who are not recognized as belonging here, by our white European-created government).

I have STRONG criticisms of Israel as a society, of Israel's rightwing leaders and war profiteers, and of recent trends in American-Jewish lobbying group policy and influence within our government and corporate media--especially regarding the Iraq War, also regarding Israeli treatment of the Palestinians--but I also STRONGLY believe that the core problems in American democracy right now have little or nothing to do with Israel. Yes, Israel's rightwing wanted to pull the entire U.S. military into the Middle East, to make up for their defects of diplomacy and wrongful and unjust policies. But I don't for one minute believe that Israel's cause alone could have precipitated the Iraq War. I don't think the Bushites give a crap for Israel, or anybody else. They are into their own thing: greed and oil, and destroying American democracy as a "check and balance" on corporate power. They used Jewish-American supporters of Israel the way they used evangelical Christians, playing to prejudices and native fears and insecurities, and offering untoward power--power unjustified by these groups' numbers of citizens and voters.

I agree with Cohen that there is a great danger of anti-semitism and scapegoating, and I think it would be a huge mistake of blindness and projection for Americans to start blaming this whole debacle on Israel and the "Jewish Lobby." It will blind us to critical problems of our own democracy that are of our own doing--not Israel's. And it would be extremely unfair and unwise. Israel is a tiny little country fighting for its survival. It has no choice but to be allied with the U.S. It has no choice but to lobby for as much support as it can get. And its American supporters have no choice either. If you want the Jews to have a homeland, you have no choice. And even if you favor restructuring Israel as a multi-cultural state, you have to consider the fate of the Jews in that region in the meantime.

Levels of support, the nature of the support, and levels of influence on U.S. policy, are a different matter. And Israel's injustice to the Palestinians is also another matter. You don't abandon a country or a people, to what would certainly be a terrible fate without U.S. support, because they are unjust.

I didn't like Cohen's article very much. It's very wordy, and he has too many axes to grind among his leftist journalistic compadres. He comes across as a bit of a demagogue himself. And the first three quarters of it is so general that it's difficult to figure out what he is talking about. But, ultimately, his main worry is anti-semitism on the Left. And I would say that one of the best ways to head off anti-semitic scapegoatism in the U.S. is to help CHANGE Jewish-American lobbying policy on the Iraq War, on threats to Iran, on militarism in general and war profiteering, and on the Palestinians. Help Jewish-Americans, who have been alienated, RE-JOIN the Left, and stay true to their progressive roots. Jewish-Americans are one of the most powerful progressive forces in American society. Some have gone down a dark alley on this war. They need to disavow that path and help the rest of us repair this broken democracy.

Cohen describes himself as a "left hawk"--by which I think he means he supported the Iraq War. It's a rather elliptical reference. And it shouldn't be.

"Arguments made by the author of the words you now read, who was a left hawk (and is now an unhappy one), likewise had nothing to do with Israel...." --Cohen

He should confront this failure of judgment upfront. And I wonder if he is being completely honest about it. But whether he is or isn't being fully honest on this point (that his support of the Iraq War had nothing to do with Israel), he could be a powerful spokesman for the leftist Jewish-American position NOW. What do we do NOW--after this terrible mistake has been made, at the cost of so many lives, at the cost of our treasury, and possibly at the cost of our democracy? How do we prevent Israel and its American-Jewish supporters from being an easy and unfair and delusionary scapegoat? He wastes a lot of words arguing with his fellows, and very few on convincing readers that Israel is NOT the problem. What do we do NOW to restore American democracy and good government, and decency and lawfulness at home and abroad?

For instance, there is a brewing danger of the Bushites opening another front in their Corporate Resource War, in South America, with Bushites demonizing Hugo Chavez and the peaceful, democratic revolution that he is one leader of, with the Bushites now dreaming up Iranian influence and "terrorist" cells in the Andes oil fields of Venezuela, Bolivia and Ecuador. Donald Rumsfeld wrote an op-ed in WaPo last week, in which he virtually declares war on Venezuela. He wants to further weaken our own government's "balance of powers" so that the U.S. can "act swiftly" in support of more fascist juntas in South America. Why isn't this war criminal in jail? And what funds stolen from the American people is he plannning on using for his next war? And how are we going to fight anti-semitism here if Israel is involved in this new theater of war? Cohen should spend more time on how to restore the "balance of power" here, and democratic process here, and on helping to change Israeli policy (if it is headed the wrong way on this), than on accusing other leftists of anti-semitism. The latter is certainly worth worrying about, but the way to head it off is good, progressive policy.

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*(I believe that one anti-Zionist who was certainly not anti-semitic was Albert Einstein.)