What Sand and Shumsky Share in Common–And Why It’s Important

It’s open season on Prof. Shlomo Sand of Tel Aviv University in the pages of Haaretz, following the publication of his latest book, How and Why I Stopped Being a Jew. The thesis of the book is that there is no such thing as secular Jewish experience (although he grants that there are people who have fashioned for themselves a secular Jewish identity), that being Jewish is fundamentally and foundationally a religious category. He certainly is right about that in the case of Israel, where the secular founders insisted on preserving a religious criterion for determining who is a Jew, and hence who is a member of the nation represented by the state.  In the eyes of Israeli law, one can only become a member of the Jewish people through birth or through religious conversion, and this has practical implications, such as the pressure placed on the religious courts to facilitate the conversion of Israeli citizens from the Former Soviet Union, so that they can be members of the Jewish nation and hence the recipients of rights and privileges accorded in Israel to Jews alone. Of course, saying that Jewish people is exclusively a religious category does not imply that only religious  Jews are Jewish. Pork-eating atheists are considered Jews even by the orthodox,  but only if they became a Jew through birth or through religious conversion.

But that’s not what I wish to talk about in this post. Rather I wish to discuss the recent exchange in Haaretz by Dimitri Shumsky and Shlomo Sand, in which the former argues for a Jewish/Palestinian binational state, and the latter for a civic Israeli nationalism  Both Shumsky and Sand go at each other with the passion of Leninists and Trotskyites, but lost in the battle is how much they share in common. Neither Shumsky’s Jewish-Palestinian binationalism nor Sand’s Israeli nationalism is palatable to the old guard of Jewish nationalist/liberal Zionists in Haaretz’s' stable, like Shlomo Avineri, Alexander Yakobson, or Yehuda Bauer.

Let’s start with Shumsky’s pat on Sand’s back:

Sands’ …declared political intentions − undermining the exclusive reservation of sovereignty in Israel for one group of its citizens and endeavoring to transfer sovereignty to all the state’s citizens − are very admirable.

What Sand doesn’t get, says Shumsky, is the depth of Jewish and Palestinian national identity that most Israelis, Jews and Palestinians, feel.  Their concrete experience  is of belonging to a group that extends beyond the State of Israel.  To substitute an “Israeli nationalism” (maybe experienced by Sand and a few other progressive universalists like him) for this reality is a fantasy .  It is akin to the 20th century Canaanite movement. The only way Israel can truly be a state of all its citizens is not by divorcing an Israeli national identity from its Jewish and  Palestinian constituents but by negotiating rights for both national groups in an Israeli federation.

Shumsky ends,

Will this [binationalism] put an end to the “Jewish state?” Absolutely not, if only because the idea of “Israeliness” carries with it the baggage of clear Jewish ethnic-religiousness. It is clear that the Palestinian citizens of the state, who join together in a covenant with the Jewish citizens within the framework of the “Israeli federation,” will be required to yield a much larger emotional concession than the Jews.

Sand’s response is basically to deny Shumsky’s concept of membership in a  nation, both with respect to the Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs, respectively.  Merely identifying with other members of a group, its history, language, etc., is not a sufficient basis for nationalism, and in the case of so-called Jewish nationalism, the problem is worse because of the religious element mentioned above.

Where Shumsky calls Israeli nationalism an “illusion”, Sand calls Jewish and Palestinian nationalism (in  the sense that all Jews and Palestinians are members of common nations) “fictitious”.  Shumsky accuses Sand of “Canaanism”; Sand accuses Shumsky of the benighted and outdated binationalism of Brit Shalom and the Shomer ha-Tzair, which was already detached from the everyday experience of Jews and Arabs under the British mandate.

What do they agree upon, besides the illegitimacy of the current state of affairs, in which the state is goverend within an an illiberal religious-ethnic exclusivist nationalist framework?

Both make the important point that there is an Israeliness that is more than a concomitant feature of citizenship. From the standpoint of Israeli citizenship there is no difference between M.K. Ahmed Tibi, a Russian Christian from the former Soviet Union, an Ethiopian Israeli, and an American Israeli like myself.  Yet there is no doubt in my mind that Tibi is much more Israeli than any of us, and, for that matter, much more Israeli than almost any American Israeli I know, including Dore Gold and Michael Oren.  So Israeliness is not merely a function of citizenship, since some citizens have much more of it than others. Tibi likes to say that he is an Israeli by citizenship but a Palestinian by nationality. He says this for nationalistic reason, and he is entitled to his self-definition. But in my opinion, he is not an Israeli merely through the fact of citizenship. He has a Palestinian Israeli identity that is largely the product of his Palestinian Israeli experiences.

That there is Israeliness, and that it is not coextensive with citizenship, suggests that it could be the bases for a shared national civic identity, were there a will to foster such an identity, e.g., in the educational system, in civics classes, etc.    Not every Israeli citizen may buy into that shared national identity in the way that Shlomo Sand (or I) would; maybe most would not.

The problem is that the reigning Zionist ethos sees the formation of an Israeli national identity as a threat to the very existence of the State of Israel as a Jewish state. (Never mind that “Israel” means “the Jewish people.”)

And this is the liberal paradox.On the one hand, many liberal Israeli Jews are proud that Israel has Palestinian writers like Emile Habibi, Anton Shammas, and Sayed Kashua. But their pride in them is not one of national pride as fellow Israelis but rather as the pride of Jews who have created a state where non-Jewish minority writers can win recognition writing in Hebrew.  To me, that’s like an enlightened Christian in eighteenth-century Prussia being proud that his culture could produce a Mendelssohn, not because he saw him as an equal Prussian, but rather in a paternalistic, pat-on-his-enlightened-back way.

For Sand’s Israeli nationalistic vision to become reality it is not enough to for Israelis to live a shared experience, although that is a necessary and inevitable condition. The vision needs to be accepted as a desirable goal, at least by the liberal members of the society, and fostered by the state and other institutions. There will always be Jewish and Palestinians nationalists opposed to the vision, but liberals should embrace it. Whereas for Shumsky’s vision to become reality, one needs a much thinner view of Jewish and Palestinian nationalism than both leaderships have been advocating; I would prefer something like trans-national communitarianism. The Law of Return would have to be scrapped altogether, or modified to give limited priority in immigration to persecuted Jews and Palestinians (I prefer the former alternative.) Shumsky’s view is thicker than mine – he wants to retain the Law of Return – but moves like that are entirely unnecessary, certainly to preserve the Jewish cultural heritage. Multinational states don’t need sweeping citizenship laws like the Law of Return for the preservation of their ethnic nationalities.

The Law of Return was a bad law from its inception; the only good thing to say about is that it is practically irrelevant today.

I am sure that Shlomo Sand wouldn’t be happy with an Israel as a Jewish state in the weak sense, any more than most American liberals would be happy with the United States as a Christian state in the weak sense in which it is seen today by millions of conservative Christian Americans.  But I am also sure he would be much happier with that kind of “Jewish” state, a state in which Jews and Palestinians felt comfortable and at home because those are the dominant cultures, than with the current religio-ethnic exclusivist state that is a throwback to the early nineteenth century states with their established religions. Sand actually would like to see two republics, one Israeli and the other Palestinian, and it is clear that in the former the Jewish element would be preponderant. And surely Shumsky could live with that because whether there is a constitutional nod to Jewish and Palestinian national identities or not, the facts on the ground would bolster group identities, and hence group identifications beyond Israel’s borders. These facts on the ground don’t need a lot of the heavy baggage that Ben Gurion and his associates  saddled the state with.

The possibility for common ground between Shumsky and Sand is greater than may appear from their vituperative attacks on each other.

And that common ground is the Promised Land.

Why Jerry Haber is Not Hershel Goldwasser

On Friday it was revealed that Rabbi Dr. Michael Broyde -- according to Haaretz, “arguably the single most prominent young Orthodox rabbi in America” -- had created an electronic “sock-puppet” known as Rabbi Herschel Goldwasser.  Goldwasser (a persona initially shared with a friend whose identity Rabbi Broyde does not wish to divulge)  had written pieces, commented on other's’ pieces, and at times offered praise for Rabbi Broyde. He had even joined the forum of a rival rabbinical organization.

Rabbi Broyde has expressed regret for the clandestine forum membership but doesn’t see what’s wrong with “writing under a pseudonym”.  According to the interview in Haaretz

[R. Broyde] defended the practice of adopting a false name under which to publish articles or books, citing examples as varied as Orthodox rabbis, Lewis Carroll and Stephen King.

“Presenting an idea independent of the author is not a deep problem. Sometimes you want people to examine ideas independent of the person who said them,” Broyde said. “It’s not unethical to use a different name.”

Asked if he considered it lying, Broyde said, “I don’t view writing under the name Hershel Goldwasser as lying. It’s a technical untruth, so I guess you can call it lying. But it’s a well-accepted social convention.”

Rabbi Broyde is not guilty of lying; but he is guilty of geneivat da’at/ deception, which is not a “well-accepted social convention.”  “Hershel Goldwasser” is not really a nom de plume because  nobody could know that it was a nom de plume.  Compare this with Samuel Clemens and Asher Ginzberg, who never concealed the fact that they wrote as  Mark Twain and Ahad-Haam, respectively. They wrote under a pen name, but they made it clear that it was a pen name. That’s the social convention

Had Rabbi Broyde chosen a user name like “Rabbi Akiva” or “Moshe Rabbenu” or “Moses Isserles,” the other readers would know that there is something afoot. And so he deceived the readers with a sock puppet.  Even though some of the deception may have have been harmless and merely puerile or in poor taste, it hardly becomes a prominent cleric.

Had Rabbi Broyde said, “Only under a pen name can I articulate positions that would seem heretical in my community,” I would be a bit more understanding. But he has given those of us who write under bona fide pen names an undeserved bad name.

Since my first post on the Magnes Zionist blog six years ago, I have written as “Jerry Haber” (without the quotation marks), and now I am publishing in print under that name. If you want to understand why I publish under a pen name, just read my profile. I never concealed that “Jeremiah Haber” was a pen name, and while some people had problems figuring out the real guy behind the invented persona  (much to my astonishment), at least they knew that Jerry was invented. Until recently, you had to click to find out the real guy; now he has his picture and name up there.

There are good and bad reasons for writing under a nom de plume, but it’s only deception when nobody knows that it’s a nom de plume. Rabbi Broyde should have called a spade a spade: he wrote under an invented alias to throw his readers off the scent.      

Who Is a Liberal Zionist?

Readers, this piece appeared today on Open Zion here.

When I appealed to liberal Zionists to support the global BDS movement, I assumed that the movement called for ending Israeli control over the West Bank and Gaza and Israeli discrimination against non-Jewish citizens, primarily Palestinians, within Israel. I also thought that liberal Zionists accepted these goals (see Mira Sucharov here), and that the central disagreement between liberal Zionists and the global BDS movement was over the third goal, the right of return of Palestinians to Palestine in accordance with U.N. Resolution 194.

My assumptions appear to have been unwarranted. Peter Beinart, answering in the name of liberal Zionists, has problems with the language of the BDS movement’s first goal to “end Israel’s occupation and colonization of all Arab lands,” for the language could include the Golan Heights, and anything over the Green Line, including the settlement blocs that the Palestinian Authority has, under duress, agreed in principle to cede to Israel. Beinart also has a problem with the language of its second goal, the “fundamental right of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality,” since that could mean an end to the Law of Return.

It’s funny how people read… When I read the global BDS statement, I was surprised to learn that it implied the recognition of the continuing existence, indeed, legitimacy, of the State of Israel. After all, the call for Israel to end its occupation and colonization of all Arab lands presupposes that there are Arab lands that Israel is not occupying and colonizing—otherwise where would Israel be? And the call for the fundamental right of the Arab-Palestinian citizens of Israel to full equality presupposes that they are citizens of the state of Israel, i.e., the state of the Jewish people, since “Israel” and the “Jewish People” are synonyms. Imagine a similar call in which the black citizens of an ethnic nationalist country called “Afrikaaner Land “ are not urged to rise up and replace the settler-state with something else, but rather to become equal Afrikaaners.

The truth is that both his reading and my reading are pilpulistic, as are the attempts by two-staters like Mira Sucharov and Norman Finkelstein to view the global BDS movement as essentially a one-state movement. One-staters in the global BDS movement, like Omar Barghouti and Abu Abunimah, are not reticent about saying they are one-staters. But the language they have chosen to endorse indicates that they wish to build a broad base coalition among nationalists and post-nationalists and anti-nationalists to stop the continuing violation of fundamental Palestinian human and civil rights. And that language recognizes the strong continuing support for two states among the Palestinian people, as well as among some of the organizations that make up the BDS National Committee (BNC), the Palestinian committee that guides the global BDS movement.

I am afraid that this is what many liberal Zionists miss. The real dispute is not between the one-staters and the two-staters, but between those who hold that the collective right of a settler people to self-determination trumps the human and civil rights of the indigenous natives, and those who do not. According to the former, the only hope for Palestinian self-determination is to accept Israel’s generous offer of a “state”, and to rely for its security on strangers (s.v. the Geneva Initiative’s multi-national force) and the kindness of the Israelis who have treated them, to put it mildly, rather shabbily over the last 65 years.

One would have expected a liberal Zionist opponent of the global BDS movement to argue about the dangers of BDS to the State of Israel or to the prospects of peace, as did Gil Troy, for example. But Beinart is troubled by the implications of the statement for the Golan Heights and the Law of Return. This strikes me as odd. If Israeli negotiators were to offer to return the Golan Heights and amend the Law of Return, would he break ranks with them? It’s one thing for a liberal Zionist to accord Israel’s Declaration of Independence the status of sacred scripture; it’s quite another to do so with the Clinton Parameters.

Beinart presents a viewpoint that is typical among Israeli writers of an older Zionist generation. He mentions Alexander Yakobson and Amnon Rubenstein; one could also include Ruth Gavison, Shlomo Avineri, and others. Such liberal Zionists either see no tension between their liberal principles and Zionism, or, recognizing a tension, compromise their liberal values in the name of Zionism, provided they can justify such a compromise with superficial comparisons to other states, and “X-does-it-so-why-not-us?” arguments.

A case in point is the uncompromising acceptance of the Law of Return, a citizenship eligibility law that is unparalleled in its illiberality because it views members of a religious group as potential returning citizens to a state that never existed, by virtue of their, or their grandparent’s, religious affiliation. Add to this the 1952 Nationality Law, and it turns out that a seventh-generation Palestinian Arab honeymooning in Paris at the time of the declaration of Israel’s independence is legally barred from citizenship unless she performs a religious conversion to Judaism. Any similarities between such laws and laws that “provide preferential immigration policies for a certain ethnic group” are completely coincidental. You don’t become eligible for citizenship anywhere else in the world but Israel solely by virtue of religious conversion.

Ditto for much of Israel’s illiberal relationship between religion and state, despite the far-fetched comparisons offered by the old guard of liberal Zionists. My favorite is Shlomo Avineri’s penchant for pointing out that some European countries have crosses on their flags and that the Queen of England is the head of the Anglican Church. I, for one, would eagerly crown the President of Israel “King of Judaism” if that meant that Israel, like Great Britain, could have civil marriage.

Can anyone call herself “liberal” and support Israel’s annexation of the Golan Heights, which in addition to being a contravention of international law and the Fourth Geneva convention involved the expulsion of many of its inhabitants, and the continual exploitation of its resources? (Like all illegal annexationists, Israel doesn’t consider its annexation illegal.) Here Beinart implies that it would be morally problematic to return the Golan to the “monstrous regime of Bashar Assad, or the chaos that may follow him,” not suggesting that there may be another alternative, such as handing over administration of the Golan to the Arab league or even the U.N. or NATO or the U.S. temporarily, or, for that matter, for Israel to act like a temporary occupier and not an annexationist. Israel may be in possession of the Golan Heights, but it is hardly in possession of the moral high ground to know where the occupied would be better off, especially when Israel has exploited the resources of the territory, moved its citizens there, and expelled many of the 7,000 Palestinian refugees from 1948 who were living there in 1967, making them refugees who are now being shelled by the “monstrous regime of Bashar Assad.”

Many liberal Zionists support a so-called “two-state” solution that doesn’t provide the Palestinians with anything remotely resembling a state, certainly not one whose mandate is to provide security to its inhabitants. Ask any Israeli, no, ask any Zionist, no, ask most human beings whether they would accept a state on 22 percent of their homeland, in land patches connected by bridges and tunnels, without the means to protect themselves from a militarily powerful state on its border with powerful and proven irredentist tendencies.

But who, then, was my call intended for, if not for such liberal Zionists? Actually, it was intended for the liberal Zionists who believe that Israelis and Palestinians deserve their own states, but who refuse to make one subservient to the other, who believe that the Palestinian people have no less a right to live as free people in their homeland of Palestine than do the Jews. Such liberal Zionists hold that Palestine should be divided into two states, but they want the division to be equitable, or close to equitable, with some sort of parity of power between the sides. They believe the wellbeing and security of the Palestinians is as important a value as the wellbeing and security of the Israelis. Such liberal Zionists refuse to take advantage of the power differential in negotiations, but negotiate with the good of both parties in mind. Such liberal Zionists support the State of Israel but are willing to take responsibility for changing the Zionist mentality that to this very day prevents Israelis from seeing the responsibilities that they have as conquering settlers to a native population whose country was quite literally wiped off the map. Are there liberal Zionists like that? You bet there are. Some of them are at the forefront of the fight for Palestinian rights within Israel and within the Occupied Territories.

My call is intended to appeal to those liberal Zionists who understand that some of the principles guiding the Eastern European founders of Israel do not pass muster in what today (or then) is considered a liberal state. Real liberal Zionists in Israel are dissatisfied with Israel’s ethnic exclusivism, just as real liberals in America were dissatisfied with slavery, segregation, and institutionalized discrimination.

Of course, there will be disagreements between liberals on what laws and institutions are inherently illiberal. I for one can easily envision a state of Israel that has amended the Law of Return in ways suggested by Chaim Gans in his book, A Just Zionism, e.g., that would give preference in immigration to both homeland groups, Jew and Palestinian, as well as victims of persecution. I can envision a two-state solution in which Israel would remain a Jewish state but would shed its ethnic exclusivist ethos in favor of a state of all its citizens and would foster the culture and shared Israeli identity of its homeland minority. I could live in such a state and even take pride in it, despite the fact that I, personally, may not find it to be the optimal solution for both Palestinians and Israelis.

At the end of the day, my post was not about ideology as much as it was about tactics. Given Beinart’s reservations, I am willing to alter my call as follows: Will liberal Zionists and Palestinian activists join hands in a BDS campaign against Israel as long as they can find common ground?

Heck, they can even have parallel, coordinated campaigns or organizations, if they like. That’s not “normalization”—that’s coordinated struggle.

Or will they use their ideological differences to thwart the prospect of joint or coordinated action, like firefighters arguing over what extinguisher to buy as the house burns to the ground?

Liberal Zionists Should Support BDS

Readers, this post appeared last week in Open Zion here and was answered by Peter Beinart here. I plan to respond to his response later. 

Liberal Zionists want to end Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza, abolish institutional discrimination between the Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of Israel, and witness the establishment of a Palestinian state that will allow Palestinians to live as a free and secure people in their own homeland. As liberals, they insist on preserving the civil and human rights of both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. These objectives are virtually identical with two of the three aims of the Palestinian BDS National Committee. The sticking point is the third, which is “respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in U.N. resolution 194.”

I don’t agree with Mira Sucharov that an endorsement of the Palestinian right of return is incompatible with the State of Israel having a Jewish character or that such an endorsement will lead to millions of Palestinians returning to their homes and properties. Conjuring up that scenario (which has zero likelihood of coming about) allows Zionists to justify the demographic cap of “only 20 percent Arab” that they consider necessary for the continued existence of a Jewish ethnic state.

Still, I realize that the right of return is a red flag for the vast majority of liberal Zionists, who use it to explain why they won’t endorse the Palestinian BDS movement. So let me argue why I think this is the wrong approach for them to take.

Liberal Zionists have three options, as I see it:

1. They can continue to oppose BDS and support liberal organizations as effective as J Street, shaking their heads at reports in the New York Times about the latest Israeli settlement expansions, and placing their faith in a U.S. administration that has done nothing to stem Israel’s inexorable march toward a state that is Jewish and democratic and apartheid: Jewish for the Palestinian Israelis, democratic for the Jewish Israelis, and apartheid for the Palestinians living under the control of the military and the settlers. They can continue to defer for generations the moral scandal of the Palestinian refugees, a problem created when Israel unilaterally barred their return to their homes, populated its state with Jewish immigrants, and made use of their Palestinian property in defiance of international law and U.N. resolutions (not to mention the Balfour Declaration).

2. Or, publicly eschewing the Palestinian BDS movement, they can practice their own “targeted BDS” or “Zionist BDS,” focusing their efforts on boycotting products produced in the Occupied Territories, like SodaStream and Ahava beauty products, or supporting divestment from companies like Caterpillar that benefit from the Occupation. (Some of them may extend this to Israeli agricultural companies.)

3. Or they can express solidarity with the global BDS movement as a non-violent protest movement emerging from Palestinian civil society, while at the same time making known their reservations about endorsing the right of return. In other words, they can join hands with the global BDS movement in its efforts to end the occupation and institutional discrimination against Palestinians, while agreeing to disagree about the right of return. Two out of three aims is basis enough for joint action.

In a post written three years ago, I tried to persuade liberal Zionists to offer support, if only qualified, to the BDS movement. As I anticipated, my “bridge proposal” was criticized by both sides for conceding too much to the other. The liberal Zionists gave the standard arguments: BDS will harden the Israelis, strengthen the right wing, and hurt the peace camp. Adopting the tactics of the “demonizers” will only make the Israeli left less relevant (if that’s possible). Some called the BDS movement potentially dangerous to Israel. Others called it weak and ineffectual, a minor annoyance. I was told that liberal Zionists can only have influence if they stay within the tribe, ally themselves with “moderate Palestinians” like Salam Fayyad (who has endorsed BDS in the territories) and distance themselves from the Palestinian one-staters. And then there is Eric Alterman’s view that the Palestinians’ “only hope can come by convincing Jewish Israelis that the risks and benefits of peace outweigh the risks and benefits of continued conflict.” That’s going to be a tough sell when Israelis are doing quite well without peace. They have shown that they can handle the occasional intifada, and they know that the benefits of occupation outweigh the risks of ending it—especially when there’s no external pressure to do so.  

Neither segregation in the South nor apartheid in South Africa ended when blacks convinced the majority of whites to end it. Concerted action, including but not limited to boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, were instrumental in convincing a few white people in power that the status quo was untenable. It took an intifada to convince Yitzhak Rabin that the occupation was untenable.

The BDS movement is currently the only game “out of town,” i.e., outside of human rights activism and political organization within Israel and the territories. And it has been partly effective. Israelis, except for the hard-core settlers and the ultra-Orthodox, care deeply about their image. Every cancellation of a concert by a fading rock star, or of a lecture by a protesting academic, is front-page news. The artistic boycott of theaters in the settlements, the European supermarket boycott, the various divestment campaigns—all have tremendous psychological value. We are now at the stage when major Christian denominations, European supermarkets, andTIAA-CREF are contemplating some form of BDS. Even those individuals who boycott shitake mushrooms from Tekoa make a statement.

BDS, in fact, may be the best hope for liberal Zionists who haven’t given in entirely to ethnic loyalties or to a blind faith in an illusory and never ending “peace process” that serves only one side, the powerful one.

Traditional Jews are familiar with the problem of the agunah, the “chained wife” whose husband refuses to divorce her unless it is on his terms. Both sides may have legitimate grievances. But according to Jewish law, the power of divorce lies entirely with the husband; the wife is powerless to effect anything on her own. If the husband refuses until he is able to extort his terms from the other side, Jewish law empowers the court to force him to “voluntarily” divorce his wife. In the old days, recalcitrant husbands would be flogged. Today, communities publicly shame them, and in Israel they are jailed. (Just yesterday my shul rabbi publicly shamed a recalcitrant husband, and community protests have been organized against the offender.)

In the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, both sides have legitimate grievances. But in terms of the power equation, Israel is the recalcitrant husband and the Palestinian people, the agunah. Shame and ostracism are not guaranteed to be effective; like the recalcitrant husband, Israel may indeed dig in. But as an Israeli I have more faith in my country than that. As I wrote above, Israel is acutely sensitive to its public image, and most Israelis want to be part of the community of nations. A broad coalition between Palestinians and Jews, occasionally acting together, occasionally acting in parallel, may be the best hope for allowing the divorce that liberal Zionists feel is important for both sides.

At the very least, by endorsing the BDS movement, albeit with reservations, liberal Zionists will have publicly declared their moral priorities and will have importantly set limits to their ethnic loyalties.

What's So Wrong with BDS

Readers, this appeared in Open Zion here last week.

Controversial speakers appearing on campus are as American as apple pie. So why are critics riled up about an event organized by the Brooklyn College chapter of Students for Justice for Palestine, where Prof. Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti are explaining and defending the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement against Israel?

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz complains that the event is co-sponsored by the political science department, which is inappropriate for an academic unit, unless it sponsors all sides of a controversial issue. For him the co-sponsorship implies an endorsement of a political view that may have a chilling effect—indeed, an adverse career effect—on opponents of that view within the department.

I can sympathize with the claim that academic units should not co-sponsor events with student groups, although many universities, including Harvard, permit it, and I am not aware that Prof. Dershowitz has spoken out against this practice on other issues besides the Middle East. As the director of a Jewish Studies program that houses Israel Studies, I have instituted a policy against co-sponsorships with student groups (although we occasionally contribute modest sums for refreshments, which is what student groups are often looking for anyway).

But forget the co-sponsorship issue: What if the political science department had on its own initiative invited Butler and Barghouti to explain the aims of the BDS movement to its faculty and students? Prof. Dershowitz doesn’t just object apparently to a department “endorsing” a controversial speaker. He also objects to a department even sponsoring a controversial speaker unless opposing views are presented—an unusual and impossible demand for departments.

I suspect that the real reason for the Brooklyn College brouhaha is the belief among mainstream Israel supporters that those who support BDS belong to the extremist, loony fringe of Israel-haters. Free speech may require that they be allowed to speak on campus when invited by student groups, and, indeed, they appear regularly not only at colleges like Berkeley and San Francisco State, and but also at Penn and Harvard. But a respectable institution should publicly disavow their positions and relegate the event to a room in the crowded Student Union.

The real issue here is not freedom of speech for controversial ideas but rather the presentation of the BDS movement as beyond the pale.

I have written elsewhere about why liberal Zionists should consider supporting the global BDS movement. To the claim that the BDS movement is anti-Israeli I pose the question, “Was the BDS movement in South Africa anti-South African?” For many whites and most Afrikaaners, and the South African government at the time, the answer would have been yes. For them, apartheid was an essential part of the South African regime. Dismantle apartheid, and the country, no matter what its name, would never be the same. Yet it was possible for those who opposed apartheid to contemplate a better place for all South Africans, blacks, whites, and colored. For them the BDS movement against apartheid was not directed against the South African people but against the policies of its government.

The global BDS movement has adopted three goals (rarely mentioned by its critics): ending the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the separation barrier; granting full civil rights and equality to the Arab minority within Israel; and respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in U.N. resolution 194. The three goals correspond to the three main sectors of the Palestinian people today. There is no goal of the abolition of the State of Israel, or even its transformation into one secular democratic state. In fact, those who support BDS against Israel have somewhat similar aims as those who supported BDS in South Africa. Both groups wanted and want to bring about fundamental changes in their respective societies in a non-violent manner.

One can disagree with the desirability or the consequences of some of these goals. Certainly one can disagree about the utility or efficacy of BDS as a tactic. But there is nothing odious or despicable about the goals or the tactic.

Some opponents of BDS will object, “We have no problem with criticism of Israel, as long as it is constructive and recognizes Israel’s legitimate security needs. But BDS aims not only to weaken the state, itself an immoral goal, but also to delegitimize its very existence. Indeed, many who endorse the BDS movement are in favor of replacing the Jewish state with a secular Palestinian state. That’s what places it beyond the pale of respectable discourse at universities, and what makes it deeply offensive to some students, even if it is protected by free speech.”

Arguing in this manner is troubling for two reasons. For one thing, it insinuates that the supporters of BDS hide their real agenda, the destruction of the State of Israel and the subjugation or exile of its Jewish inhabitants, under the cloak of human rights and international law. Second, it reads the desire to see a better regime or regimes for both Israelis and Palestinians as the wish to relegate the Jews to a second-class citizenship in a secular Palestine.

The question at stake here is not whether extreme positions should be allowed to be heard but rather whether BDS or One State advocacy are extreme positions. Prof. Dershowitz opposes the BDS advocate on one extreme and the radical settler zealot on the other. But the settler’s opposite counterpart is not the advocate of BDS, nor even the advocate of one state for Palestinians and Israelis, but rather one who would deny Israeli Jews any place in Palestine—just as the opposite extreme from the white supremacist in South Africa was not those South African blacks who wished to replace the apartheid ethos with the belief that blacks and whites should have equal rights in a shared society. In the Israeli-Palestinan conflict, the “middle” is not the domain of the two-staters but rather of all those who see both sides as entitled to control over their own security, lives and liberty, whatever the political arrangement, one state or two. “Neither to rule, nor to be ruled” as the old socialist Zionist slogan went.

This is why it is important that discussions and debates over BDS go mainstream and are not marginalized by the self-appointed arbiters of the acceptable and the unacceptable. The boundaries of discussion on Israel/Palestine are changing, albeit slowly. The longer the Palestinian people are deprived of their rights, the harder it will be to justify the current boundaries of discourse. The New York Times correctly complains that “the sad truth is that there is more honest discussion about American-Israeli policy in Israel than in this country.” But the terms of reference for such a discussion should not be limited to what is acceptable discourse in Israel. The diverse voices of the Palestinian people and their supporters, not to mention the supporters of the civil rights of both Israelis and Palestinians, should be heard in this country—not just in alternative media but in the public sphere.

How Jews Should Relate to Palestine

Yesterday I was speaking with a young graduate student in Islamic studies, an orthodox Jew,  who told me that the question arose in one of his courses, "Where is Safed?" to which the professor replied, "In Palestine."

His story reminded me of the one told by the Palestinian-American, Ahmed Moor, who, when telling a fellow undergrad that he and his family  were from Palestine, met with the reaction,  "Palestine doesn't exist."

Well, Palestine, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river, does exist and will continue to exist, even if the State of Israel is recognized by the entire world -- including the Palestinians themselves -- as a legitimate and sovereign state. And the first people to understand this should be the Jews. For Jews have called the same land that the Palestinians call "Palestine" Eretz Yisrael/the Land of Israel, even  when their communities in Palestine were tiny. For  homeland and political sovereignty are two distinct concepts.

For the Palestinians, the State of Israel will always be at best a political entity whose founding ideology was foreign to Palestine, whose founders conquered Palestine and expelled most its inhabitants, and who allowed the remaining inhabitants to remain as second-class citizens under a military government while their lands were taken away. Israeli Jews at best will be legitimated as Jews of Palestine. And there is historical precedent. Poland remained Poland for the Poles, despite disappearing after it was partitioned  by Austria, Prussia, and Russia. I am not referring merely to the Kingdom of Poland, I am referring to the homeland of the Poles, "the sacred landscape," to use Meron Benveniste's term.

People of good will on both sides recognize that their narrative is not shared by the other. But that does not mean that each should be compelled to give up their narrative. As an Israeli Jew, one sympathetic and supportive of the Palestinian cause, I recognize the continuing existence of Palestine, not on some truncated spots of the West Bank and Gaza, but on the entire land of Palestine. LIke Benveniste, I feel saddened by the Israelis who don't know what they have lost by attempting to wipe this Palestine off the map. Fortunately, that attempt is doomed to fail, as long as Palestine continues to be remembered.

From a purely visceral standpoint, it is sometimes difficult for me to hear references to Palestine, because I was raised to believe that anybody who talked about "Palestine" wanted to drive my people into the sea. That, of course, is rubbish. I don't thing it is wrong or not politicallly correct to talk about Eretz Yisrael, or to treat it as the promised land of the Jews. That has nothing to do with the regime that governs the Holy Land.

As a religious Jew, I believe that the Jew qua Jew has three homes: the state of which she is a citizen; the Jewish community of which she is a participant, and the land of Israel. Jews do not need political sovereignty in an exclusivist ethnic state in order to feel at home in that land. In fact, increasingly I am feeling less at home in the State of Israel, then in the United States.

But I do feel at home in my home in Jerusalem in Eretz Yisrael, and I would like to be welcomed by Palestinians as a Jews, and, yes, as an Israeli, living in Palestine. In fact, I would like both homelands to be shared homelands.

Recognizing the State of Israel, and recognizing the rights of Israeli citizens of that state, does not mean -- should not mean -- relinquishing the notion that the State of Israel occupies part of the historic homeland of the Palestinians. As an orthodox Jew I believe that the West Bank is part of Eretz Yisrael, as is southern Lebanon and parts of Syria and Jordan.But that means nothing with regard to the question of the best political regime(s) for Eretz Yisrael and Palestine.

As for the Zionists, despite all their efforts to wipe all traces of Palestine off the map, and to replace it with the State of Israel, they were successful only in getting rid of mandatory Palestine. Palestine as homeland remains as long as the Palestinians and others honor it in their collective memory.

And Now, the Projections.....

Update: As of 6 am, with 99% of the votes counted,  some of the numbers have changed.

Lapid is up to 19!

Labour is down to 15. And it is now officially one of the losers of this election. Shelly Yachimovich is one of the disappointments, if those numbers hold. Some people looked at her position on the Palestinians and voted Meretz.. Others on the moderate right, looking at the loonies in the Likud list, preferred Lapid to her.

Shas will sit with Netanyahu and Lapid. So will the United Torah list. Bennett may be outside the coalition. That's up to Lapid. A center right coalition will be a boon to Bibi on the international front. But Bibi won't be able to put his economic policies into place.

The "consistent left" is up to 18 seats. Ram Tal has 5 seats! Another winner.

Some thoughts about the winners and losers from the Israeli Knesset election projections.

Biggest Losers: Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, hand's down. Bibi didn't need this election. And now he got hit in the face by the social protests of two summers ago and general dissatisfaction with the old guard. He saw the Likud shrink. And he is going to have a heckuva time putting together a coalition. What was he thinking when he dissolved parliament? What bubble does he live in? And is his advisor Arthur Finkelstein the new Karl Rove?

Biggest Winner: Yair Lapid, who is now projected to have the second largest party in the Knesset. He is anti-haredi, pro middle class, against the cartels and tycoons and the flavor of the month. Just as his father's party, Shinuy, was the first time Bibi was prime minister. 

Other winners include:

Shelly Yachimovich, who saw her Labor party go from 8 to 17. She may have lost a few seats to Meretz by pretending that the Palestinians are  not a pressing issue. But look at what she gained by jumping on the social-protest bandwagon.

The post-Oslo generation.  This was the election that threw a lot of old bums out and voted a lot of young bums, and not such bums, in.  That includes Naftali Bennett, and a lot of new faces. Even the older faces like Shelly Yachimovich (Labour) and Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) are not so old. 

The consistent left and the consistent right.

Other losers include:

The Palestinians: Don't believe the spin you will hear that the center-left did really well. The Palestinian issue was not on the ballot; the majority of the country voted on economic and social issues. Most of the  Israeli public could care less about peace and could care less about the Palestinians. And why should they? There is no terrorism, and they don't even see the Palestinians who are behind walls or living in Gaza.

The ultra-orthodox parties.  They didn't like Tommy Lapid. They sure aren't going to like his son, Yair.

Some Predictions and Recommendations for the Israeli Elections

[Update: After writing below about my blogger colleague Yossi Gurevitz's explanation why he will vote for Meretz and not  for Hadash, I see that he has basically endorsed voting for any party that is not Netanyahu from Labor to its left.  He does not mention the Arab parties Balad or Ram Tal, which he may think too sectorial, or not sufficiently socialist. Here is his post in Hebrew.]

In less than a day Israeli citizens residing in Israel will get to vote for the Knesset. I am an Israeli citizen who left Israel a few days ago for the US so it's tough luck on me. I remember the days when thousands of dead people in Brooklyn were resurrected by the ultra-orthodox to "vote" for their parties (well, that was the rumor, anyway. It probably happened in a handful of cases.)

If the polls are correct -- and they are notoriously inaccurate in Israel -- there will be three headlines the day after tomorrow.

1. The collapse of the "center-left" in Israel (in Israel the "center-left " is what elsewhere would be the center, the "center" is what elsewhere would be the moderate right; the "moderate right" is what elsewhere would be called the right; and the "right" is what would be far right. As for the Israeli "far right" I would call that the "fascist rightwing" (e.g., "The Jewish Home" of Nafatli Bennett) or the "Judaeo-Nazi"  (of settlers to his right, and, yes, there are those.)

2. The inevitability of the  super-right wing government. If the polls are correct, I can't envision Bibi making a coalition without Naftali Bennett's party, unless Shelly Yachimovich goes back on her promise and joins a government coalition. And Naftali Bennett makes Avigdor Lieberman look like a moderate rightwinger! So we will have the most rightwing government in the history of the State of Israel, following an extremely rightwing government before that. 

3. The rise in strength of the "consistent left". In the current government the genuine Left has 14 seats; the polls show that going up to 18 seats. I fear that the polls are a bit optimistic. Meretz is taking mostly from Labor and somewhat from Hadash. And, of course, the Arab turnout is a big question. Contrary to Jewish misconception, many Israeli Palestinians are not boycotting the elections because they are dissatisfied with their own parties (whom the Jews see as being overly nationalistic - hah!) but because they realize, quite rightly, that Israeli democracy is a sham. And yet, strengthening the "consistent left" (Haim Baram's felicitous phrase) won't hurt, and will at least help preserve the democratic crumbs that the Jews threw at them in 1948 and have been trying  to take away recently. 

So that will be the good news of the election. I don't just mean point 3., I also mean  points 1. and points 2. Don't get me wrong. I genuinely feel for my liberal Zionist friends who see their old "liberal" Israel being snatched away from them by nationalist Russians and converts to religious Zionism. I think they are self-deluded, but that doesn't make their pain, or my sympathy for them, any less.  The death of the two-state solution -- and, pace Assaf Sharon in this week's piece by David Remnick in the New Yorker, the notion that a genuine two-state solution remains possible in the actual world, is to use his term, "bullshit" -- will help hasten the pariah-status of the 1947 regime among moral people, although the regime itself could certainly hold on for at least a few generations. And here's another encouraging statistic: the number of Jews and Palestinians worldwide are roughly equivalent. And which group as a whole is becoming less nationalist, do you think?

Given the rise of the left in Israel -- and the death of the so-called "center-left" -- what party should a supporter of the "consistent left" vote for? My first answer is any of them -- the important thing is to vote for one of them, since they will all be in the opposition. 

My second answer is that I see no convincing reason to change my vote from Hadash to Meretz. I like Meretz, and I like Zahava Gal-on. But I don't see myself as a liberal Zionist, and Meretz is still a Zionistic party that supports a state that deludes itself and the world in thinking that it is both Jewish and democratic. So, yes, for ideological reasons I don't support Meretz, even though on a personal and parliamentary basis, the list is top-rate.

My blogger colleague Yossi Gurevitz has given several reasons why not to support Hadash. They are still a communist party; they voted overwhelmingly against reserving a seat for a woman in the top three; they talk to Jews and Arabs differently; they support. Assad. With all due respect to a blogger with whom I agree 90% of the time, these are not sufficient reasons to abandon a party whose ideology is Arab-Jewish partnership and social justice. The communist business is a "red" herring. They did not as a party support Assad. They rarely talk in two different voices to their constituencies, and most political parties tailor the message to the audience (ask Mitt Romney and Barack Obama about that). I would have liked more affirmative action in that party, but the answer is to join the party and try to influence it from within. (Full disclosure: I am actually a card-carrying member of Meretz. Long story....) 

My main reservation with Hadash is that it is officially -- and fundamentally -- two-statist. Oy! But since there is no possibility of the two-state solution in the actual world, I won't that stand in my way for support of them.

Balad and Ram Tal, are also worthy parties. I have always liked Dr. Ahmed Tibi ,who is infinitely more Israeli than most of my Anglo-American Israeli friends, and I admire Haneen Zoabi, who, while representing an Arab party with relatively few Jewish members, realizes the importance of forging coalitions with the Jewish left. Were I in Israel and were I to have more time to look at the parties platforms, records, and personalities, I could see myself voting for either of these parties.

So that's my recommendation. Vote for any of the consistent left. But go out and vote.

In a better world I would endorse voting for the truly integrated and progressive party, Da'am Workers Party. But at the moment that party doesn't look like it will make it, and that means throwing away your vote. And yes, I vote strategically, ever since I threw away my vote for Lova Eliav back in 1984 (?)

And, finally, I cannot endorse voting for Labour, despite the fact that some of the members of the list are excellent, and I wish them well.  Merav Michaeli and Stav Shaffir will get into the Knesset no matter if none of the "consistent left" votes for them. And I hope that none does -- simply because their votes are needed to make a more powerful statement elsewhere.

Shas Ad: A True Jew Won't Kiss a Russian Shikseh

Here's the gist of this election ad.  A wedding is taking place between two Israelis, one clearly Russian and one clearly of Mizarahi (a.k.a. Sephardi) extraction. It turns out that the Russian is waiting for her conversion to Judaism to come through on the fax machine. She reassures the bridegroom that she got her quickie conversion through Avigdor Lieberman's party, Israel Beiteinu The message of the ad is that if you don't vote for the religious Mizrahi party Shas, "shikses" like Marina will be marrying your children with these bogus conversions.

I learned of this ad from an article by Yair Ettinger in today's Haaretz, which noted the hatred of Russians and hypocrisy in the ad (Shas has itself been criticized for lax -- not fax -- conversion standards). But what the paper didn't note is the absurdity of religious conversion being taken up by political parties in the first place. Why should any state control religious conversion? Well, that's simple -- if the state is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and a sizable number of its population are religious fundamentalists, then those fundamentalists are going to insist that religious criteria determine who is a Jew for personal status issues If Shas had its way, it would determine citizenship also on that basis, but it lost that fight in court.

Shas and Israeli Beiteinu are two sides of the right-wing Zionist coin, and they are equally bigoted.
The problem is with the liberals, like Haaretz writer, Yair Ettinger, who concludes his article saying:

One good thing could come out of the controversy: perhaps the conversion crisis, which continues to deepen in the Netanyahu-Shas era, will finally make its way to the national agenda.

The conversion issue is only on the national agenda because the state interferes with religion. If some folks don't think that some rabbis' conversions are kosher, what business is that of the state? Let the religious communities decide who they accept and who they don't, and leave the state out of it.

Ah, but this is Israel, where religious affiliation makes you automatically into a returning citizen

The only country in the world, by the way. And that includes the Muslim world.

Why Chuck Hagel's Confirmation is a Slam-Dunk

Chuck Hagel is going to be the next Secretary of Defense, unless there are surprises or skeletons in his closet.  Already his "opposition" has defectors, such as Barney Frank, who initially expressed reservations. There will be grandstanding at the Senate confirmation hearings by Lindsay Graham and others -- folks have to play to their base -- but the real players will not challenge the president on this one. (I am betting Chuck Shumer will vote for him after his "concerns" have been allayed.)

Jeff Goldberg says what I have been thinking -- and that doesn't happen very often -- that AIPAC is not going to mount a significant opposition here. Not only do they know that this is a lost cause, but they also know that Hagel can be managed on Israel. For one thing, the mlitary-industrial complexes of Israel and the US are so tied together that even Jimmy Carter -- heck, even Ali Abunimah -- couldn't render them asunder. For another,  AIPAC's strength has always been in Congress and not in the cabinet or the administration.

Again, all this could change if AIPAC smells blood, but it is never in AIPAC's interest to lose a battle; that was the famous lesson they learned when they saw they would lose the AWACS battle under President Reagan. They will keep a low profile. If you don't fight, you can't lose.

That doesn't meant to say that AIPAC, like the NRA, won't go after those Republican supporters of Hagel when election time comes around. So I wouldn't rule out some caving for fear of the Israel Lobby's money.

Oh sure, the Republican tea-party types (thank God, it's not the House that confirms cabinet appointments) will make a lot of noise in the confirmation hearings, and the media is whipping up the enthusiasm before the big Senate fight for its ratings. But when Joe Scarbourough backs Hagel, you know that Obama has once again succeeded in pitting  Republican against Republican. I can't wait to see Charles Krauthammer grind his teeth over "The Return of the Real Obama" -- Part Two. After all, there are a heck of a lot of Republicans out there who want to send William Kristol to Alaska for good. And, frankly, there is no danger to Kristol, either. After all, he will never have problem raising money for his various think-tank projects. If there was ever a better example of the well-fed dog barking while the caravan moves on, I can't think of one

Whether President Obama has grown a spine, or some other part of his anatomy, he has hit his stride. Who knows? He may actually do something one day that Paul Krugman likes.

I write this from Jerusalem, where the news is unbelievably bad and gets worse daily.  Now religious"settlements" are being built not only on the West Bank but in Arab neighborhoods Lod/Lydda, Jaffa, and Acco/Acre. And the tactics used to expel Arabs from their homes are sickening. See the article in Haaretz today.

So at least I get a little naches from somebody like Chuck Hagel, who is willing to treat the Palestinians as human beings.

Why Obama Should Nominate Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense

The White House's trial balloon of former Republican senator Chuck Hagel  as Secretary of Defense has not yet burst, despite rocks thrown at it by the pro-Israel lobby, the anti-Iran lobby, and some members of the gay community. But there is no question that to date there have been fewer defenders than detractors. And now there is Michael Hirsh saying that the White House is "considering others for the job." (Weren't they considering others beforehand? Isn't that what a "leading candidate" means?) So given the likelihood of tough confirmation hearings, wouldn't it make political sense for Obama to drop this ball now?

Perhaps. But the president should go forward with the nomination.  Here's why:

Let's analyze the opposition. The usual gang of vocal neocons and "Israel-firsters" like the Emergency Committee for Israel, can be ignored. These are the people who did their best to defeat Obama and to plunge the US into foreign wars, convincing themselves that there is no daylight between Israel's interests and those of America in order to absolve themselves of dual-loyalties. Do you really think Barack Obama gives a  fig about folks like William Kristol and his ilk? 

True,  the group is doing its best to whip up senators against the nomination. But we are not talking about AIPAC getting Congress to pass one of its pro-Israel resolutions. We are talking about defeating a president's nomination for secretary of defense. Such a defeat is rare; it occurred only  once in the last fifty years when George H. W. Bush's nominee John G. Tower was rejected because of allegations about his private conduct and possible conflict of interest. Some cabinet nominees withdrew their candidacy in recent years, but because of possible legal infractions (employing illegal immigrants, etc.) 

Then we have the Democrat liberal hawks, and while they are not openly supporting Hagel, they aren't saying no either. Chuck Schumer, whose base is very pro-Israel (and some of it quite rightwing) says that he will have to study Hagel's record. Significantly, Jeffrey Goldberg gives Hagel a clean bill of goods on the Israel question. Unfortunately, Goldberg has to strut his pro-Israel creds by taking a false and libelous shot against Stephen Walt, but the bottom line is that he supports Hagel's tough stand on the settlements. 

If the nomination goes through, then Hagel could be facing tough confirmation hearings. I don't think Obama would lose this one,  but even if he did, the confirmation hearings would bring to the center some of the major concerns of the Obama administration -- the criticism of the settlements while at the same backing a democratic Israel, the disinclination to act unilaterally in the Mideast, the desire to eliminate waste at the Pentagon. Win or lose, this would be a powerful teaching moment for the rest of the country. And it could help revitalize the grand tradition of Republican realism that was sidelined when the neocons took over the party and got us into mess after mess.

Still, if past performance is any indication of future results, the administration may pop its own balloon. I am not just referring to the Susan Rice affair. I heard Jim Jones speak at the first J Street Convention a few years ago, as as a representative from a cautious administration. The next year there was no representative.  True, the president doesn't have to get reelected now. But "no-drama-Obama" doesn't like this sort of fight. 

Which would be a pity. Chuck Hagel may be Israel's last chance for survival as a Jewish democracy. That's why liberal hawks like Goldberg are partial to him.  Given my positions, I should be supporting a secretary of state that assists Israel in going over the cliff (like Hillary). 

But this is one cliff I prefer avoiding.

Some Arguments for the Illegitimacy of Anti-Communism (c. 1950)

For Phil Weiss

1. Communism represents the will of the Soviet peoples, and ipso facto it must be respected.

2. The morality of communism could be debated before the October Revolution, but once the Soviet Union has been established, and the people have made their choice, the subject is closed.

3. The singling out of the communism of the Soviet regime for criticism, especially on the part of dissident Russians and those peoples most affected by the regime's actions, can only be explained as indicative of prejudice and bigotry towards the Soviet people.

4. Those who argue for regime change in the case of the Soviet Union, but not in more tyrannical regimes, are deeply anti-Soviet.

5. To question the legitimacy of the communist regime in the Soviet Union is tantamount to wishing the destruction of millions of Soviet citizens -- although the anti-communists may not say so explicitly.

And a P.S. from a reader

6.  The suffering of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War entitles them to have great concern about the anti-communist delegitimizers.

Boycott the Occupation, Not the Settlers

Readers, this post appeared today on Open Zion here.

Samuel Lebens cites some familiar arguments against boycotting Israel in general, and boycotting settlers in particular: Boycotts against Israel won’t bring about positive change, he says, but will only harden positions; constructive engagement has a better chance of winning hearts and minds; effective economic boycotts may actually constitute collective punishment; it is wrong to boycott settles who are two-staters, etc.

I would like to make five points about these arguments.

First, their empirical basis is thin. Do boycotts harden existing positions? Are they  counterproductive? Do they harm progressive elements in oppressive societies? One would expect Leben to adduce evidence from other cases of state sanctions. This he does not do, substituting for data his own take on the Israeli situation. He does not respond to familiar arguments in support of boycotting Israel, as,  for example, the argument that boycotts have a better chance of influencing policy in Israel than, say, in Iran, precisely because Israelis care deeply about their image as a Western style democracy, and the Israeli electorate can and occasionally does influence policy. In Israel even the most trivial artistic boycott is front page news and is used by progressive elements to make their case in the public sphere.

Second, his arguments seem to be directed against boycotts and sanctions in general. After all, it is hard to find a society that doesn’t have some decent people.  Would he have opposed sanctions against Germany in the 1930s on the grounds that such sanctions would be counterproductive -- that they would harden German attitudes, harm progressives, and constitute collective punishment of the German people? If he believes that boycotts are justifiable in some cases, he has to convince us why they are not justifiable in the specific case of Israel. And given his own position as a settler, his arguments cannot appear to be self-serving.

In fact, Lebens allows that some cases of collective punishment may be justified in order to avert a greater catastrophe (“World War III,” in the case of sanctions against Iran). He implies that the suffering of Palestinians under a long and often brutal occupation does not justify collective punishment of the Israelis, or of the settlers, despite the fact that most countries and legal authorities consider the settlements to be  illegal and recognize Palestinian suffering. One comes away with the impression that Lebens is more concerned with the potential suffering of the settlers than with the actual suffering of the Palestinian natives caused by the presence of the settlements That’s his right, but some arguments are needed.

Third, his arguments are what philosophers call “consequentialist,” i.e., they focus on evaluating the morality of acts in light of their consequences. But some acts may be required, or at least commendable, regardless of their results. Boycotts and sanctions can be merely symbolic, and in the case of Israel, they generally have been. The message underlying the call of the global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, endorsed by elements of Palestinian civil society, is that Israel cannot be considered a decent society as long as it discriminates against Palestinians and deny them civil rights. The boycotters wish to deny Israel a place in the company of decent nations until civil equality for the Palestinian people is achieved, and even if they fail in their endeavor, indeed, even if they make things worse in the short term for the Palestinians living on the West Bank and in Gaza, many see this as a required moral stance regardless of the consequences. None of Lebens’ consequentialist arguments pertain to non-consequentialist arguments in support of boycotts.

Fourth, Lebens’ claim that the boycotters are “underpinned by an almost unconscious anti-Semitism” because they rarely boycott any other country involves a leap of logic that I have examined elsewhere. The boycotters may have good reasons for singling out Israel for moral opprobrium – especially if they are Palestinian, who are directly affected by Israeli actions, or their supporters. There is no need for them to be concerned for all, or even more egregious, cases of injustice After all, isn’t Lebens principally concerned with what affects him as an Israeli settler?

And this brings me to my fifth point. Lebens seems to think that the settler boycott is wrong inter alia because it affects settlers like him who are decent two-staters and not “racist colonialists.” This is a familiar argument against boycotts and sanctions in general, and indeed, the argument was used by those who opposed sanctions in South Africa, which caused economic hardship not only to anti-apartheid whites but also to many blacks. Yet the reply to this is also well-known: The boycott is not directed against settlers as individuals, but against an oppressive Israeli occupation. Boycotts and sanctions, like workers’ strikes, make all sorts of people suffer. But that suffering may be justifiable in certain circumstances, and, in the long run, may actually benefit both Israelis and Palestinians, including settlers.

A final comment on boycott and engagement: the one need not exclude the other. People are complex, and winning people’s hearts and minds requires various strategies. I endorse the global BDS initiative as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people, although I personally purchase items from Israel (when I live there, it’s hard not to) and generally oppose academic boycotts. How and when to implement a BDS strategy – where should there be boycotts, which companies should be divested from – are tactical issues that need to be discussed and weighed in light of competing principles. Unlike Israel, Palestinians have very few means by which they can advance their cause. If the goal is to win concessions from a hard-line Israeli government, boycotts may be a less effective tactic than firing rockets or waging an intifada. But it is a nonviolent one. 

And the Winner Is...Justice Richard Goldstone

There is now a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, thank God. The senseless military operation initiated by a blundering Israeli overreaction, and resulting in death, destruction, and fear in civilian populations, was only the latest in a series of such operations. And an examination of the cease-fire "understandings," virtually identical with those after Cast Lead, shows that Israel's over-arching strategy in assassinating Chief of Staff  Jabari.was of the "We've-got-to-DO-something" variety. It is unlikely that the cease-fire will hold, but it is sufficient to worry later about future troubles, as the saying goes.

Who won? Ask the Israelis, most of whom opposed the cease-fire, and they will tell you that the other side won. Ask the Gazans, and they will tell you that their side won.  My view is that the real winner was Justice Richard Goldstone, whose report changed the way Israel waged war against the Gazans.

How did Pillar of Cloud differ from Cast Lead? Less indiscriminate shelling; no press blackout; the leaflets to the Gazans telling them to leave their homes about to be destroyed gave routes to the nearest shelter. Of course, this was cold comfort, seeing as the nearest shelter was already overcrowded. In fact, CNN allowed us to see one family moving from school shelter to school shelter until they get could find a classroom for their clan. No white phosphorous, either.Without the Goldstone Report, the civilian casualties and the destruction of property "for the sake of deterrence" would have been higher.

This is not to say that war crimes were not committed by both sides, and I hope that the human rights agencies will investigate these  and issue their reports.

Judge Richard Goldstone was vilified, first by the Israelis and their supporters, and then by the supporters of the Palestinians, who misread his so-called "retraction". No person is above criticism, of course, and reasonable people often disagree. But Judge Goldstone, and those who worked with him, and above all, the Israeli human rights organizations that provided him with data, both directly or indirectly, and who were also vilified by the Israeli government, should take satisfaction in the numbers of lives they saved.

Israel's Turkey Shoot and Hamas' Weapons of Minimal Destruction

There is no "war" in Gaza. There is a military operation by one of the most advanced militaries in the world against a cadre of militants that can't shoot straight because their weapons are relatively primitive and cannot be aimed well.

So much for offense. As for defense, one side has the most advanced shield in the world; the other has...well, no defense at all.

For illustrating the disparity, here is a convenient article and graphic.

So let's talk about civilian suffering.  For tribalistic reasons, the Jewish community in the US has been bombarded  with pictures of Israelis sitting in shelters and safe rooms. We are being told that hundreds and thousands of rockets have been fired into Israel, and that Israelis are being held hostage to Muslim terrorists.

I don't want to minimize the trauma that the Israelis have suffered. On the contrary, I know it is huge, and I fear for the long-term effects. But because I understand how much Israelis who are in harm's way are suffering, I also understand how that suffering, as great as it is, pales in comparison to the suffering of the Gazans. And yes, making discriminations in the amount and depth of suffering does matter.

Name your critirion: Fatality statistics? Death and injury of civilians? Destruction of property? Fear and trauma? Deafening explosives? Feelings of utter helplessness? Of being utterly exposed? On every possible metric, the Gazans suffer more than the Israelis. And after there is another cease fire, and things get back to "normal," the Gazans suffering because of the blockade and the restrictions in movement, not to mention the occupation, will continue


Israelis get this. Ask anybody in Sderot where they would prefer to be now -- Sderot or Gaza City -- and they will look at you as if you are crazy.

On NPR this morning there was a report of Israeli wedding guests who, when they heard the air raid siren, skipped the shelters and went outside to watch the Iron Dome intercept its missiles.Picture that in Gaza.

IDF rockets and missiles have killed more innocent civilians in the last three days than all the Hamas rockets combined in the last eight years!

When you say this to Israelis, they get very huffy. Some will say that it is sheer luck that rockets don't killl hundreds or thousands. But that's an uneducated argument. In fact, they don't kill that many, and Hamas soldeirs knows they won't kill that many. They know that they are just shooting off steam and hoping to beat the house odds that are stacked against them. . In the First Intifada, the Palestinians threw thousands of rocks against the IDF soldiers, and Menachem Begin justified the use of lethal force against them saying, "A rock can kill." But rocks usually don't kill, and we now have abundant evidence that Hamas rockets rarely do the same. That cannot be said for IDF bombardments.

I realize that statistics don't mean anything to most people; if they did, people wouldn't waste their money on lottery tickets. It is indeed scary to hear a rocket exploding, even if explosion was in an open area.

But how much more scary would it be if the rocket were launched by the most technologically sophisticated weaponry in the world? Who would you rather fight? David or Goliath?

Bombs fired discriminately that kill  large number of civilians are worse than rockets fired indiscriminately that have little chance of hitting anybody.

I suppose Hamas is learning this from the Israelis. When a missile was fired towards Jerusalem on Friday, the Hamas leadership said that they were aiming for the Knesset, which according to Israeli military ethics, is a legitimate target.

Instead, the missle landed miles away on the West Bank. Had it killed civilians, Hamas could have done what Israel does in such circumstances.

Express regret and set up an investigation.