On Criticizing Israel

Justin E. H. Smith

I would like to lead my life, with Spinoza, sub specie aeternitatis. I truly would. But every now and then my fellow men show themselves to be so brutish that I have no choice but to come back down to earthly reality and cry shame. Such a moment was the Israeli siege on Gaza that began at the end of last year, which prompted me to try to do what I could, with the low-grade weaponry of rhetoric, to convince the unconvinced that this was a thing to be harshly denounced. What did I do? Well, I wrote up my case, and I made it known through various low-voltage electronic media. Why did I not do more, like Jeff Halper? As I've said, I am hardly a philosophe engagé. I confess to doing as little as possible.

In any case, my minor foray into activism was also a learning experience. What did I learn? Among other things, I learned that, as one might fear, criticism of Israel really does draw the creeps out of the woodwork: there are indeed many out there who are far too eager to see in Israel's aggression the confirmation of their own fantastical, alternative accounts of the secret forces guiding world history. I also learned that there are many out there who take the opinions of these alienated, ill-informed bigots far too seriously, and who mistakenly suppose that any and all criticism of Israel must come from, or lead to, that same dark place.

Should one then refrain from criticizing Israel altogether? This is a privilege no one would dream of granting to any other state in the world, and one I certainly don't grant to my native country or to my adoptive one. Or should one instead insist that such delicacy around the question, such special treatment, is itself a manifestation of the same sort of unhistorical, unscientific Sonderweg-thinking that, under other circumstances, has been used not to hold Israel above all criticism, but rather to blame Jews for whatever goes wrong with the world? I know which of these two approaches I choose, and I insist that to say this is also a choice to stoke antisemitism is not only a fallacy, but also a smear.

Some who have written in response to my intervention have expressed concern that critics of Israel's aggression do not take sufficient pains to distance themselves from those who use this aggression opportunistically to advance their troglodytic world-view and their --how shall I put it?-- unscholarly conspiracy theories. Well, let us consider a parallel example. I for one would not think to preface the (patently true) observation that Robert Mugabe is a brute with the assurance, "I have nothing against black people, but..."

Now it is certain that there are some out there who believe that Mugabe's mess stems from an inherent incapacity among Africans for self-government, and who might mistake any criticism of an African dictator for agreement with their own view. But these are not my conversation partners, and I don't care what they think. The way to deal with these people is not to try to convince them of anything, but only to ensure that they remain estranged from any serious decision-making process. Let them have their AM talk radio and their barber-shop mutterings; we on the other hand have serious work to do. Similarly, antisemites who shroud their bigotry in criticism of Israeli policy are not of particular concern to me, and I don't see why I should be compelled to account for their presence among the critics of Israeli policy simply because I myself am a critic. Again, racists, for their own reasons, don't like Mugabe either, but that's not my business.

Unwavering defenders of Israel often observe that the critics seem disproportionately interested in this particular conflict, when there are numerous other conflicts in the world that appear to be of relatively little interest to them. This the defenders take as evidence of antisemitism. As one comparatively thoughtful antagonist demanded to know from me:

"[W]hy is there so much emotion among the anti-Zionist protest movement? What's at stake? Why do these protesters have such a visceral, angry feeling about a country 5000 miles away, and no comparable anger about far worse events/discrimination/bloodshed in equally distant Turkey/Kurdistan or Myanmar or Sudan or Tibet or you name it? When none of them affect the protesters' lives in any meaningful way? (we can exclude actual Jews or Palestinians from this question.)"

Where to begin? As an aside, I should say that I can't speak for the "anti-Zionist protest movement." Anti-Zionism seems to me as pointless as anti-Bonapartism, or opposition to the Agricultural Revolution. These are things that have already happened, and the only relevant question is how to deal with their legacies. We may, in a scholarly mood, question whether the best solution to Christian Europe's inability to realize the virtues of tolerance and cosmopolitanism espoused by Toland, Spinoza, Moses Mendelssohn, and others was to grant to the people that Christian Europe rejected a portion of a European colony in the Near East. But that is what happened, and no one who now lives there is going anywhere. So when we move from the amusing game of counterfactual history to serious proposals for solutions to current problems, rational minds must agree that good-faith commitment to a two-state solution is what is needed, not death to Israel, nor yet illegal settlements in Palestinian territory, collective punishment through home demolitions, and targeting of civilians in the name of security.    

That small correction out of the way, I should perhaps start responding to my questioner by noting that he has made an empirically false observation. Many of Israel's critics are veteran human-rights defenders, and are either serially or simultaneously engaged in campaigns for peace and justice elsewhere.  An observation such as his could only, I imagine, be made by a youngster with no living memory of the passion, and even the 'viscerality', of North American and European opposition to apartheid in South Africa or to dictatorship throughout Latin America. 

Second, and relatedly: in supposing that 'connection' to a place is what confers license to have an opinion about what goes on there, the lad unwittingly puts his finger right on the answer to the question as to why so many of us care about what happens on the eastern shore of the Mediterranean: that region is of tremendous importance for US foreign policy in a way that, for better or worse, Myanmar and Congo are not (at present). Even if it's "5000 miles away" (as if that made any difference in an age of jet travel and instantaneous long-distance communication, and as if non-Jewish, non-Palestinian critics were for that reason incapable of forging bonds of friendship and even love on both sides!), this conflict is in no small part America's conflict. This is to say, among other things, that it is my conflict, and I won't sit silently by just because I lack the correct ancestry. In many of the international campaigns against unjust political regimes in the past 50 years or so, about which the questioner appears to know nothing, those Americans (and often Western Europeans and Canadians) who were involved were so because their own country was directly implicated in supporting, or even creating, the far-away injustice. What myopia it would have taken to have shrugged and declared, as President Reagan arranged for the munition of death squads: Oh well, I'm not Nicaraguan!   

My questioner is at least right to notice that there is something arbitrary in the way in which causes become causes célèbres. I have been insisting for a long time that the Uighurs of the Xinjiang province of China deserve at least as much of our concern as the Tibetans do, even though Richard Gere has not yet noticed what a 'spiritual' people they are, and even though they do not have a P.R. man as smooth as the Dalai Lama speaking for them. But while the case of Tibet belies my questioner's claim that Israel has some special purchase on the Western activist's attention, the case of what would be Eastern Turkestan shows just how difficult it is for an activist to influence the course of events in a part of the world in which his or her own government plays no significant role in the creation of internal policy. China does whatever the hell it wants, and it is difficult to imagine any Western grass-roots campaign that might sway the Central Committee anytime in the near future. The case of Israel is very different in this regard. An American really does have reason to hope that grass-roots democracy might change US foreign policy. And a change in US foreign policy could, in turn, lead directly to a softening of Israel's brutish behavior.

Still another obvious reason why one might pick Israel out for particular criticism without, for that, being an antisemite, is that Israel, unlike, say, Sudan, purports to be a member of that abstract community of civilized nations that we call 'the West'. Israel is a product of the Enlightenment: it is a multiparty democracy; it has its own Rousseau Society; it produces books about multiculturalism; it sends contestants to the Eurovision song contest; etc. None of these things is true of Sudan. For better or for worse, this means that Israel is held up to different standards. My questioner wants to know why critics of Israel do not turn their attention to Myanmar or Sudan. I want to say: what a fine comparison class! One may indeed ask how much remains of the decent, liberal, humanist legacy of Israeli society when these are the countries that suggest themselves for comparison.

I don't doubt that in raw numbers the Sudanese government, or the warlords who have replaced it, are responsible for more deaths than Israel's government is. But you can be sure that if, say, England were to use phosphorus bombs in Belfast, or if Canada began demolishing homes and practicing targeted assassinations on unruly Mohawk reservations (and Gaza, whatever euphemisms might be proposed to describe its status, is a reservation), the outcry would be at least as great as it is against Israel, and this would not be because of some paranoid suspicion that 'the Jews' are behind the scenes pulling the strings, but only because --again, for better or worse-- we expect more of England and Canada. Some of us continue to expect more of Israel, in contrast to those who appear to believe that criticism of Israel is by definition enmity towards Israel, and from there, towards Jews.

My questioner was repeating talking points without substance, all of which I have heard with minor variations from dozens of people since I spoke out against the siege of Gaza. To repeat these talking points requires, at the very least, a good mix of logical fallacy and bad faith, and I prefer to believe that most of the people who repeat them are only unwitting participants in a smear campaign that has as its objective the complete silencing of critics of Israel through elision of all such criticism with antisemitism. The only fitting response is to call the smear campaign by its real name, and to kindly let them know that they are talking to the wrong person.

Comments

[matthew mausner]

[tried posting this to 3quarksdaily, it said 'we're sorry, we cannot accept this data']

Being the 'comparatively thoughtful' 'lad' 'antagonist' mentioned above, (in fact I'm a 35-year-old Yale-trained historian), I have a few things to say. First:

"...rational minds must agree that good-faith commitment to a two-state solution is what is needed...."

So, let's be rational and logical about the two-state solution, shall we? Let's suppose that Israel withdraws from ALL of the west bank, even the old city of Jerusalem except perhaps the jewish quarter and Wailing Wall. And a Palestinian state is established with its capital in Jerusalem. And violence and recidivism end on both sides: "Peace"! What then?

There are about 3 million Palestinians in Gaza and the West Bank and East Jerusalem, mostly overwhelmingly poor and at least a third currently living in refugee camps, dependent on the world's dole. There are somewhere between 3 and 5 million more Palestinian exiles living in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt, and elsewhere, mostly without citizenship or rights, many (at least 2 million) also living in refugee camps.

The day of a peace agreement and independence, millions of Palestinians would either move to the new 'Palestine', or want to. The 450,000 Pal's in Lebanon for sure would move instantly (Lebanon is de facto apartheid agst. Pal's), most in Syrian and Egyptian and Jordanian refugee camps as well. Perhaps many who have found jobs and lives would stay but almost all refugees would want and possibly be forced to move to the WB.

The end of the conflict would probably mean a rapid or gradual drying up of the world's generosity to the Palestinians (21% of the UN budget is devoted to supporting Palestinians, even though far larger numbers of refugees exist from other conflicts.). Even if some investment came in at first, Pal. civil society is in terrible shape and corrupt, so it's doubtful how much they could handle it.

Is it a 'viable state'? Overnight we're looking at a nascent state of 5 or 6 million Palestinians, in the West Bank and Gaza (even assuming a corridor), with no industry, perhaps a tiny trickle of tourism income, and surrounded by hostile neighbors who will limit their freedom of movement even under the best of circumstances. It's a population riven by terrible internal divisions and religious extremism, and traumatized by terrible conflicts both under Israeli rule and under the Arab regimes.

So is this two-state solution good for the Palestinians? It might theoretically be good for an Israel that could renounce holy sites in the West Bank like Shiloh, Hebron, and Jerusalem, as if such an entity existed. But I can't see any circumstances where it's a 'solution' to anything, and it seems primarily that it'd be a disaster for the Palestinians.

Is anything I said in this post not 'rational'? Can it be, I dare say, possible that not ALL 'rational' people agree that the two-state solution is a good idea? Or that it's even the right or moral thing to do?

To me, the only rational and viable direction for any real just and positive future for the Palestinians is genuine, pluralist democratic federalization of Jordan, Lebanon, and the West Bank and probably Gaza. With comprehensive resettlement plans for refugees to rebuild their lives in all those countries, and freedom of movement which includes Egypt and hopefully even to Europe.

This problem was created by the collective action of ALL European and Arab countries AGAINST BOTH Jews and Palestinians (as well as Jews and Palestinians against each other). It cannot be solved without real help and compensation, AND/or LAND given by BOTH Arab and European countries to ALL Jews and Palestinians dispossessed and expelled and mistreated over the last century.

That's Justice, that's rational, and that's right.

[Justin E. H. Smith]

Matthew, it may not have posted at 3qd because it's so long. You can try breaking it into two or three segments and posting it again. --Justin

[soopermouse]

I think your view of the situation is a bit simplistic, and it is obvious that you are disregarding some facts.

Much as it is popular to believe in some circles, the Israel/Palestine situation is not clear cut.

You claim that "good-faith commitment to a two-state solution is what is needed". I am afraid that I find your statement naive.

Like Matthew said, let us assume Israel withdraws from all those areas. What guarantees does Israel have that the attacks on her would stop? None whatsoever. On the contrary: when Israel unilaterally withdrew from Gaza in 2005( another fact you conveniently overlook), all it led to was an intensification of the attacks against the southern cities.

You call Gaza a reservation and you are overlooking this rather important fact: that Israel willingly withdrew in 2005, and that the Gaza war last year and the blockade before are a direct result of Hamas' constant attacks on Israel's southern cities.

It comes down to some simple questions: does Israel has the right to defend herself?

Before you start saying that Israel is provoking these attacks because it exists and blah blah blah, please remember that the attacks against Jews in Palestine started long before there was an Israeli state.

Would you ask the same things of any other country that is constantly under attack?

Do you believe it is fair to ask Israel to commit itself towards a 2 state solution when it is largely known that the Palestinians leaders aren't comitted to it?

Do you realize that if the Palestinian's alleged need for a country of their own was behind these attacks then they would have attacked every other occupying force in those lands, yet that doesn't happen, even in Jordan where 85% od the population is of Palestinian origin? (incidentally Jordan was created in 1923 for the purpose of giving the arabic population in the British Mandate of Palestine a country of their own , in the process of creating a Jewish National State as per the Balfour Act).

and finally: why do you think Israel should commit itself on a path that it has taken before- see 2005 Gaza withdrawal- and leads to more danger to Israel only?

You can't honestly discuss the Israeli/Palestinian conflict without answering these questions.

[Justin E. H. Smith]

"Before you start saying that Israel is provoking these attacks because it exists and blah blah blah..."

I am not opposed to the existence of Israel.

"Would you ask the same things of any other country that is constantly under attack?"

Yes.

"Do you believe it is fair to ask Israel to commit itself towards a 2 state solution when it is largely known that the Palestinians leaders aren't comitted to it?"

I believe it is fair to ask Israel to do what it can to bring this about, yes, or a one-state solution based on true and complete equality for Palestinian citizens of Israel. That would also be good, but as long as Israel is defined ethnically or religiously I don't see how that would be possible, so the two-state solution prevails by default. (I have exactly the same concerns about Hindu nationalism in India, Christian nativism in the US, and so on. In other words, the ethnic/religious criterion for full equality in Israeli society is not something I am picking out for particular scorn.)

I'm going to skip some of your other questions (though that's not to say I don't think they deserve an answer, just that I'm not the one who is going to be answering them). I do however want to clarify: I did not set out in this piece to solve the Israel/Palestine conflict, and I note that it is called "On Criticizing Israel," not "A Critique of Israel." Ever faithful to the title I chose, the only argument I go on to make in the article is that it is wrong to insinuate, or to announce explicitly, that anyone who criticizes Israel is consciously or unconsciously bolstering anti-Semitism. This is the part of the essay that you have not addressed at all, and neither did Matthew when he replied. In other words, you have changed the subject.

[rabbitrun]

This issue is a hamster wheel.

If they want to slaughter each other over a so-called sacrosanct patch of dirt, let them.

We're giving BILLIONS away to Israel - for what? Meanwhile, there are millions of under-employed, uninsured Americans sending their kids to failing public schools with failing lunch programs, in failing crappy little towns.

[soopermouse]

Untrue.
The aid the USA gives to Israel equals some less than 3 billion dollars a year. Some 0.5% of Israel's GDP. However, this aid is not, contrary to popular belief, in cash. Israel gets vouchers with which it can only buy weapons from a previously approved list of American manufacturers.
The aid to ISrael is in fact a hidden bonus to USA weapons manufacturers.
Incidentally, the USA gives a lot more than that to the terrorist organizations controlling Palestine.

[soopermouse]

"Ever faithful to the title I chose, the only argument I go on to make in the article is that it is wrong to insinuate, or to announce explicitly, that anyone who criticizes Israel is consciously or unconsciously bolstering anti-Semitism. This is the part of the essay that you have not addressed at all, and neither did Matthew when he replied. In other words, you have changed the subject."

I posted this before but it seems to be missing, so I will do it again

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1106605/Synagogue-set-ablaze-Anti-Semitic-assaults-soar-UK-following-Israels-invasion-Gaza.html

@The number of anti-Semitic attacks in London has risen sharply following
Israel's land assault on Gaza, Jewish community groups said today.
Their leaders have compiled a dossier of attacks against Jews which will be handed to seniors officers in the Metropolitan police.

The attacks include claims of:
An attempt to burn down a synagogue in north-west London.
An assault on a Jewish motorist who was pulled from his car and punched.
A gang of youths chanting anti-Semitic slogans as they tried to enter restaurants and shops in Golders Green.

The Community Security Trust, which is responsible for the safety of Jews in Britain, has also noted the emergence of anti-Semitic graffiti in Jewish areas across London.
Slogans sprayed on walls include: 'Kill Jews' and 'Jews are scumbags.' The trust has now logged 24 anti-Semitic incidents - most of them in London - in the past week. Police are said to be stepping up patrols in Jewish areas.

rise in the number of anti-Semitic incidents, especially when compared with
what is usually a very quiet time of year for racist, anti-Jewish attacks.
'It is a pattern with which we and police are now sadly familiar, whereby hysteria is whipped up against Israel: and British Jews then suffer a wave of anti-Semitism.'
@

QED

[Justin E. H. Smith]

I'll leave it to rabbitrun to respond to your penultimate comment. As for your ultimate one: no, this is not "what was to be demonstrated," soopermouse. I can tolerate differences of political opinion here, but not fallacious reasoning. That there are anti-Semites who criticize Israel does not mean that all criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic. In other words,

~[(Ex)(Cx ^ Bx) -> (Ax)(Cx -> Bx)],

where 'C' means 'critic of Israel' and 'B' means 'bigot'.

Do you understand this elementary point?

Now, I took you and Matthew to task for insinuating that everyone who criticizes Israel is an anti-Semite. Your first response was to change the subject, but when I insisted you did not change the subject, but only provided evidence that there are anti-Semites who criticize Israel. I already knew this. I read the very article you cite when it was first published, and I was as sickened as you are by it. What's more, I explicitly state in my own article that there are anti-Semites who criticize Israel, but that their existence is irrelevant to the question: should I, non-anti-Semite that I am, criticize Israel when I believe Israel is doing something wrong?

So, my question still stands: do you really think that all critics of Israel are anti-Semites? Are you willing to tell me directly that you think I myself am an anti-Semite, or do you prefer to just insinuate it in the hopes that no one will confront you in this way?

[soopermouse]

On the contrary
'It is a pattern with which we and police are now sadly familiar, whereby hysteria is whipped up against Israel: and British Jews then suffer a wave of anti-Semitism.'

I criticize Israel more than many people, BUT I also do it the courtesy of looking at her special situation. Criticism for the sake of criticism, wilfuly ignoring long established facts is in and by itself antisemitic- If you're willing to speak against Israel whilst not in possession of all facts- what does that make you?

You, and those like you, are setting a unprecedentedly high bar for ISrael's behaviour, but refuse to look at her enemies AND to look at all the data in the larger historical and geopolitical context- the positions you expressed on Israel show an incredible amount of ignorance.

You criticise Israel because it is fashionable to do so, although it is very obvious you don't look at all data and do not care enough to research what you don't know. You just hae to join the wave. Ask yourself what that makes you.

[Justin E. H. Smith]

Alright, I think our positions are clear now, so I'll stop this thread after I make a few final points. Just let me say that you really do not know what I am like, or what my motivations are. You have no idea of what my record of engagement has been in other issues in other parts of the world, and so absolutely no basis for the claim that I am only interested in Israel because it is fashionable. How could you possibly know that?

What's more, the suggestion that I, or others 'like me', are ignorant because we do not address every fact about Israel's history in every utterance about Israel sets up a sort of Zeno's paradox for conversation: anything one might want to say always has to be preceded by infinitely many other things, including a list of all the other instances of human cruelty that are just as bad as Israel's, in order not to be condemned as ignorant. And so one can never get started! Again, any article has to be circumscribed in scope, and what this article was about was the slur of anti-Semitism, not the history of Israel. For all you know, I agree with you about the history of Israel, but you have jumped right to the slurs rather than taking the time to learn whether this is so or not.

It is such a shame, too, that you choose to smear people who have serious political concerns with a hateful slur, rather than to engage them.

[seth edenbaum]

Since this is supposed to be up for some kind of award.

"Anti-Zionism seems to me as pointless as anti-Bonapartism, or opposition to the Agricultural Revolution."
Bizarre. The morality of Zionism is the foundation of all Israeli arguments.
But Zionism, defined by the expulsion of three quarters of a million people from their homes and land is self-evidently racist.

http://tonykaron.com/2008/05/08/israel-is-alive-zionism-is-dead-what-now/

http://justworldnews.org/archives/003712.html
Key Zionist pioneer renounces Zionism

"I, a 95 year old Sabra (native born Israeli Jew), who has plowed its fields, planted trees, built a house and fathered sons, grandsons and great-grandsons, and also shed his blood in the battle for the founding of the State of Israel,
Declare herewith that I renounce my belief in the Zionism which has failed, that I shall not be loyal to the Jewish fascist state and its mad visions, that I shall not sing anymore its nationalist anthem, that I shall stand at attention only on the days of mourning for those fallen on both sides in the wars, and that I look with a broken heart at an Israel that is committing suicide and at the three generations of offspring that I have bred and raised in it.

... for 42 years, Israel turned what should have been Palestine into a giant detention camp, and is holding a whole people captive under an oppressive and cruel regime, with the sole aim of taking away their country, come what may!!!

The IDF eagerly suppresses their efforts at rebellion, with the active assistance of the settlement thugs, by the brutal means of a sophisticated Apartheid and a choking blockade, inhuman harassment of the sick and of women in labor, the destruction of their economy and the theft of their best land and water.

Over all this there is waving the black flag of the frightening contempt for the life and blood of the Palestinians. Israel will never be forgiven for the terrible toll of blood spilt, and especially the blood of children, in hair-raising quantities... "

People are not their beliefs, and time is what it is. The descendants of immigrants to Palestine have as much right to live in peace in their homes as my Palestinian neighbors and I do on old Native American land in the US. But Zionism, the philosophy of the founders of Israel is a racist ideology without moral justification. And Israeli denial of that simple fact is the biggest impediment to peace.

Also of course, the two state solution is an acquiescence to racist logic.
Someone born in and living in a multi-ethnic state should know this without thinking. Acquiescence is sometimes necessary, but never desirable

Tariq Ali must be trying to cater to American liberals. I can't think of another reason.

[Justin E. H. Smith]

Well, I've been tarred as an anti-Semite and as an American liberal all in the same day. What's next, that I am a Zwinglian?

Seth, when I said that anti-Zionism is pointless, I was taking Zionism to be simply the settlement of Jews in Palestine from the late 19th century on, whatever the biblically-grounded stories may have been that some of the settlers were telling themselves. I certainly agree that there is no scriptural warrant to the land, but was only saying that what's done is done, or as you put it, that 'time is what it is'.

And finally, to be clear, Tariq Ali had nothing to do with the selection of this article, so you cannot possibly conclude anything about his catering plans from it.

[seth edenbaum]

"Well, I've been tarred as an anti-Semite and as an American liberal all in the same day."

Then you must be better than both?
Moderation is sometimes a good strategy, but the only valid principle is prudence. Not the same thing (except to moderates.)

"what's done is done," doesn't refer to the state, but to the people who live there. The philosophy is criminal and the moderates who defend it are neither moderate nor prudent.

"Tariq Ali had nothing to do with the selection of this article."
I'm relieved I guess.

[Daniel Arias]

I enjoyed the article, though, I'm sorry the commenters missed the point.

Good luck and I hope it wins.