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When the J Street smear video broke (see my last post), CiF Watch tweeted a link to it, saying I was pro-BDS (I’m not).  I replied, and over the next hour or so, we had a conversation about anti-semitism and anti-Zionism.  I committed to writing a post exploring what I believe to be substantive differences between the two.  I think an understanding of those differences is key for Zionists (or anyone who’s not an anti-Zionist) – crying wolf at false cases of anti-semitism is not only incredibly damaging to those accused, which in and of itself should be enough of a reason not to do it, but ultimately counterproductive in actually identifying real cases of anti-semitism.

I’m planning to write that post tomorrow or early next week, but here’s the conversation that @CiFWatch and I had on Twitter.  CiF Watch deleted their initial tweet claiming I was pro-BDS after I corrected them, so you won’t see that one here. Also note that the conversation goes on beyond the excerpt here – hit the “view more” button at the bottom to see the whole thing.

I was interviewed for the deceptively-title video “2011 J Street Conference.”  I’m the guy in the beginning and then later on, with the orange striped shirt.

I left a comment on the video explaining that I was one of the subjects, and objected to the way in which my interview was used.  Comments were subsequently disabled, so mine doesn’t show up anymore.  I feel that the video is deceptively edited, not true to my opinions, and is being used as a smear against J Street, not as part of a “research project,” which is how the interviewer described it to me.  I’ve learned my lesson, and will not agree to such interviews in the future without getting the contact info of the interviewer.

It’s worth dissecting the many messages contained in the video to understand the complexity of what’s going on here.  I’ll therefore present a line-by-line transcript of the video (taken from the subtitles) and offer my opinion on each component.  Obviously, I can’t speculate on the intentions of the other interviewees, but I’ll explain my positions in the two clips of my interview.

To begin with, the video is set to “Puff the Magic Dragon.”  WTF?  Is the implication that J Street’s leftist constituents are all stoners or pie-in-the-sky idealists?  Either way, I’m pretty offended.

Me: “There is an oppressor and there is an oppressed.  Israel is the oppressor and Gazans are being oppressed.”

This requires no justification.  I’ve yet to hear a sensible argument against the proposition that Gazans are suffering at the hands of Israelis.  Clearly Hamas is part of the picture, a largely corrupt organization with violent tactics that do not serve the Gazan civilian population.  Nevertheless, Israel has choices in how to respond, and turning Gaza into a 1.5 million person open-air ghetto through a land and sea blockade and control of resources, airspace, and communications amounts to oppression, plain and simple.

“I support the Palestinians creating their Palestinian state and if need be declaring it unilaterally if there’s no negotiations on it and creating a fait accompli that Israel will have to live with.”

J Street’s official position remains that Palestine should be created through direct negotiations.  However, it’s far from radical to propose alternate methods of statehood.  In fact, a panel at the conference reflected this reality, discussing the implications of Palestinian statehood mechanisms.  Confining discussion of Palestinian statehood to the negotiation-based peace process ignores the growing likelihood that this process will fail.  Believe me, I have no desire to see that occur (I’m an optimist), but ignoring its likelihood would change me from an optimist to a denialist.

Q: “Do you think Hamas is a terrorist organization?” A: “Not any more than the IDF is.”

This one I disagree with.  It’s a drastic oversimplification to say that the IDF is a terrorist organization, or at least that it’s more so than any other army.  I believe this interviewee is wrong.  That said, it’s also an oversimplification to label Hamas either terrorists or not terrorists.  Do they use abominable tactics of killing, injuring, and frightening Israeli civilians?  Yes.  That, as the Goldstone report noted, makes them guilty of war crimes.  But they came to power in a context where Palestinians were deeply unsatisfied with the slow progress of Fatah.  Hamas provides legitimate social services and has, internally, done many important things for Gazans.  Arguably, those are outweighed by the damage they do in helping provide a justification for the blockade.  Furthermore, nothing excuses war crimes.  But the fact remains: Hamas is a lot more complicated than just a bunch of guys with rockets.  The question lends itself to oversimplification.  When it was asked of me, I felt that that was the idea.

“Something is going to need to be done to force Israel’s hand one way or the other.”

This is pretty vague, and also fairly non-controversial.  Hardcore Israel apologists will take issue with the characterization of “forcing Israel’s hand,” but that’s what diplomacy and international relations is – aligning a nation’s self-interest with a desired outcome.  As a peacenik, I have no illusions that Israel will suddenly decide the peace process is morally “right” until they are forced to realize it’s in their interest to do so.  The same is true, for example, of the American occupation of Afghanistan.

“I think if you look around and you talk to people and you listen to who’s applauding and how loud and… you’ll find that people’s… people’s priorities are more with the activists for peace and justice and less interested in coddling the sort of centrist Zionists.”

Aside from the problems with judging an organization’s political alignment by applause, it’s ironic that this is used here, because I wish it was more true than it actually is.  That said, I do understand J Street’s reasons for wooing centrists in the way it does.  It’s just frustrating sometimes (welcome to politics).  Whatever the case, this really isn’t very good smear material.

“Hamas is… there’s no one Hamas.”

Obviously there is in fact a political organization called Hamas, so this comment is a bit off, but the notion that Hamas is not some unified organization acting with well-defined strategy to destroy Israel is at least as off-base, if not more.  I don’t entirely agree with this guy, but what he’s saying isn’t that outrageous.

Q: “Do you think the Israel lobby in the United states has prevented the United States from –” A: “Yes!” Q (cont.): “…from succeeding in the peace process?” A: “Yes, I do.  And I am so glad for J Street actually.”

This is actually a good question, and I fully disagree with the answer.  The Israel lobby is one of many factors in US inaction, but to blame it for the failure of negotiations is a drastic oversimplification.

“I do support the boycott of Israeli settlements and settlement products.”

There’s a legitimate argument to be made against such boycotts (I strongly support them), but it should be totally obvious that people specifically targeting settlements in a boycott are, even more clearly than those who don’t boycott at all, asserting the “legitimacy” of Israel as a state.  If they didn’t, they’d be boycotting the whole thing.  This is not to say that anyone engaged in a larger boycott of Israel is opposed to it conceptually, but someone who intentionally singles out settlements likely does so because they believe settlements specifically to be illegitimate.

Me: “Personally, I think I would like to see J Street embrace some of the language that is typically associated with the ‘Radical Left.’”

This is where the editing really gets to me.  The point I’d been making here was that J Street’s opposition to what’s generally considered the political left (mainly the BDS movement,) while logically and politically sound, has led to some of J Street’s supporters and allies instinctually dismissing the language that BDS proponents often use to describe the conflict.  Language like “oppression” (this is where the first clip of me came from).  That language is, in many cases, accurate (as I noted before), and may be tactically useful in helping reclaim the feeling of a moral imperative for the work J Street does, an imperative usually confined to BDS supporters or the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd.  I’d like to see J Street assert the validity of our work in a moral sense.  The video makes it seem like I want J Street to start getting angry and vitriolic, which I don’t (and for the record, I think leftists do this far less frequently than they’re accused of).

Q: “Do you support the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanction movement?” A: “More now than I did!”

Providing thought-provoking information – yet another example of the dangerous tactics J Street employs.  G&d forbid an organization permit its activists to change their opinions!

 

That’s about all.  If the interviewer or others involved in the creation of the video want to respond, I welcome discussion.  Please pass this along to them if you know who they are.

Last Wednesday, J Street Western MA held a panel discussion following a screening of Budrus (which you should see) at a local movie theater.  Almost 130 people stayed after the film for the discussion – overall, quite a successful night.  The discussion was moderated by Stephanie Levin, a member of the J Street Western MA steering committee, and the panelists were Melanie Harris and Ira Stup.  A wide range of opinions were represented in the audience, including a sizeable number of HSJP and WMCP activists.  I stuck around after the discussion and had an excellent conversation with some of them, which prompted me to do some serious thinking, both on the spot and afterwards.

One of the primary justifications for the BDS movement is the call by numerous Palestinian civil institutions for its use as a tactic to force the end of the occupation, the disassembly of the separation barrier, and the right of return for Palestinian refugees.  The unanimity of this appeal is impressive and grants a great deal of legitimacy to the tactic and its supporters.  It also has the effect of forcing opponents, or at least those who don’t fully embrace it (such as myself), to seriously consider the justification for their position.  In other words, how can one engage in non-BDS-centered activism while still truly supporting Palestinian self-determination?

This is an important question, one that people like me need to pose to ourselves quite seriously.  I thank the HSJP and WMCP folks who opened my eyes to a new standard by which I have to measure my own activism, and I hope that our continued efforts and dialogue push others to do the same.  After a good deal of thought, I feel a renewed belief in J Street’s work, and although that probably wasn’t what the WMCPers had in mind, they should still be proud for pushing me to grapple with the topic.  Here are my (now newly updated) thoughts on how J Street’s actions are consistent with the cause of Palestinian self-determination.

First, a working definition.  Wikipedia defines self-determination as “…the principle in international law, that nations have the right to freely choose their sovereignty and international political status with no external compulsion or external interference.”  I’m going to assume we all agree that there’s no way Palestinians can be said to possess the right of self-determination currently.  Therefore, the question remaining is: how do we deliver it to them as speedily and sustainably as possible?  Here’s where the BDS movement and J Street differ (I generalize – a wide range of opinion exists within both of these camps, often overlapping, but we’ll work with BDS’ core principals and J Street’s official position on BDS).

The BDS movement is based around the concept that standing in solidarity with Palestinians directly affirms their inherent right to self-determination.  On this, I agree.  The nonviolent resistance movement has gained legitimacy and power through the involvement of non-Palestinians, and we who believe in it should continue to raise our voices.

But ultimately, our mission is to create a political framework that will become a real and lasting State of Palestine, a state which by definition will be the exemplification of real and lasting Palestinian self-determination.  By choosing not to take a position on borders, security, one state vs. two states, or a host of other issues that are the building blocks of Middle East peace, the BDS movement sacrifices the ability to aid in accomplishing that mission.  I’m not claiming that a movement must support a two-state solution in order to support Palestinian self-determination, just that it must articulate some political mechanism by which that self-determination is to be preserved.

I too stand in solidarity with the Palestinians, but I struggle for a future where they don’t need my solidarity, a future where they can exercise their democratic rights without the help of international witnesses and activists, in a state of their own, in peace.

I’m on FIRE today!  Check out my Jewschool post on the Forward/BJPA survey on Jewish attitudes towards Israel and Park51 (two great tastes that taste great together!), as well as my more substantive New Voices post criticizing the traditional form of Jewish campus opposition to BDS.

More on this blog coming soon – I’m on a roll with the local zoning stuff…

Haven’t heard of ambi-Zionism?  You’re not alone.  I just came up with it (I think).  Here’s my Jewschool post explaining.

While fisking Evan Krasner’s New Voices post yesterday, I came across this gem of an article by Sam Green.  I quickly posted it to Twitter, along with some suitably snarky comments, and a lively conversation ensued.  KFJ posted his own fisking, and I’m going to do the same.  I definitely recommend that you read his; it’s very good, and I’ll be hitting some different points, so if you see something I appear to have missed, it may just be because he already covered it.

Right off the bat, Sam’s got a pretty questionable statement:

…when we speak of Jewish anti-Zionism today, we refer to a growing number of secular, disaffected Jews…

In what world does Sam live in where the only anti-Zionists are secular and disaffected?  There are all sorts of reasons for opposing Israel as a religious state.  Many are valid.  Many are not.  Lumping them all together under the categories of “secular” (implying “not Jewish enough”) and “disaffected” (implying “lacking in proper Jewish education”) does a great disservice to the diversity of opinions on the nature of Israel.

But these students, like one who said—at a Shabbat dinner, no less—that she believes that Israel “shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state,” maintain a confused ideology.

First of all, note the derision towards a student expressing anti-Zionist sentiments at a Shabbat dinner, as if the notion of Shabbat (in its capacity as a ritual of Jewish observance) is antithetical to a certain political opinion on Israel.  Second of all, the fact that Sam falls back on “confused” is a good demonstration of the fact that there isn’t a substantive flaw in the anti-Zionist argument.  That doesn’t mean by any stretch that you can’t disagree with it, only that it’s not an inherently invalid argument.  Sam fails to give it the consideration it merits.

Advocacy for Palestinian human rights and self-determination must come alongside equal support of the same rights for Israelis. Eliminating Israel as a Jewish state will not achieve these goals for either people. The death of Israel will hurt the lives of the former Israelis and will not improve the lives of the oppressed Palestinians, whose leadership is proving unable to run a democratic government.

I tend to agree with Sam on this one on a purely practical level; dissolving Israel would lead to more violence in the region given the current political and economic situation.  But it’s wrong of Sam to lump together those who question or oppose the existence of Israel as a religious state with those that actually want to wake up the next morning and have it no longer exist.  To be clear: I harbor serious moral problems with the idea of a Jewish state, but I don’t advocate for dissolution.  Given a peaceful two-state resolution to the conflict, we’ll have space to deal with more fundamental questions of Israel’s cultural and religious identity.  For now, those have to wait until people aren’t dying anymore.  Sam’s argument doesn’t account for a position like mine, which, while questioning Israel’s nature (as many Jews do), recognizes the functional problems associated with its dissolution.

I also seriously question the assertion that the Palestinian leadership “is proving unable to run a democratic government”.  Have you ever tried governing in an occupied territory?  It’s a bit difficult.  We should recognize that the circumstances under which the Palestinians are attempting to govern are far less than ideal, to put it quite rosily.  It’s unfair to hold them to the same standards that we hold, for example, Israel or the US.

Whether or not these anti-Zionist Jews choose to recognize it, the state of Israel exists for their benefit and has made significant efforts toward peace with the Palestinians.

Good to know that Big Brother is watching out for me.  This is honestly some of the most condescending nonsense I’ve read in a long time.  There are absolutely Diaspora Jews who feel that the existence of Israel is vital to their identity as religious and cultural Jews.  I’m not one of them, but I’ve learned to deeply respect that feeling.  I resent Sam’s implication that all Diaspora Jews should take on the same feeling about Israel that he clearly possesses.  Sam, kudos to you for understanding and being proud of your strong connection to Israel.  Don’t imply that I or anyone else is obligated to feel the same way.

I agree with Sam that Israel has made significant efforts toward peace with the Palestinians, but it’s not a terribly convincing argument when you’re actually trying to determine why there still isn’t peace.  Rather than saying “look how much they’ve already done”, Sam should be arguing why the existence of Israel is crucial to the peace process.  As it is, his argument is that since Israel is trying to make peace, it should exist.  Not very convincing.

Many liberal Israelis, such as the members of the leftist Zionist group Peace Now, support human rights and self-determination for Palestinians under a two-state solution. But such a voice is weak in the leadership of the Palestinian side and some leading Palestinian groups are dedicated to Israel’s destruction.  Screaming to high heaven in the name of human rights, therefore, every time the Israeli government is required to conduct a military operation against these groups is about as confused an action as a liberal political activist can take.

Since when does Palestinian leadership not endorse a two-state solution?  When last I checked, Abbas was busy actually building one.  As to the inflammatory claim that some Palestinian groups are dedicated to Israel’s destruction, this depends on how you define “leading.”  If you’re going with “whoever gets the most media attention”, then sure.  The guys in masks with rocket launchers always get more airtime than the ones in suits building the economic infrastructure for Palestinian self-sovereignty.  It’s also notable that there are plenty of hard-right Israeli groups that would be just as happy to see Palestine disappear.  Sam applies a double standard in judging Palestinians by their most extreme elements but giving Israel the benefit of the doubt.  In reality, we should be listening to the reasonable people on both sides, not the ones with guns and bombs.

Furthermore, decrying an Israeli military operation that you believe is doing something wrong is not a “confused” point of view, nor is it inherently incongruous with being “a liberal political activist”.  Sam, you can either discuss the nuanced merits and faults of Israeli military policy and the actions of the IDF, or you can just say that people are confused when they disagree with you.  Your choice.

Supporting Israel may not be attractive to young, disaffected Jews because they think of the pro-Israel community in terms of guys wearing large Israeli-flag kippot in synagogue to cover their bald spots. The reality, however, has changed: J Street and its campus subsidiary J Street U are new “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organizations that support, according to their website, “Israel as a democratic home for the Jewish people, the full and equal rights of Arab and other non-Jewish citizens of Israel and the right of the Palestinian people to a state of their own.”

Sam’s description of the pro-Israel community is pretty accurate as far as I’m concerned, but his description of the perceptions of anti-Zionists is decidedly not.  Has he even considered that perhaps anti-Zionists hold their beliefs not because they’re confused, disaffected, or tired of Israeli-flag kippot, but because of legitimate political and moral disagreements with the pro-Israel community?  Nope.  Sam again refuses to take on the structure and substance of anti-Zionism, preferring instead to ignore it with an offensive mixture of disdain and pity.

…at my college, where radical-chic is most definitely in.  I suspect that the motivation of the Jew who claims that Israel should not exist as a Jewish state is really a strong desire to break with the past, advocate for radical change and be different from the previous generation.

Wow, “radical-chic”?  Congratulations, Sam, on one of the most condescending phrases I’ve ever heard to describe an entire class of ideas.  And your suspicions about the motivations of Jewish anti-Zionists?  They’re just that: suspicions.

…anti-Zionist Jews may be raising valid protests, but they are taking it too far.

According to you.

No matter how disconnected a Jew may feel from the Jewish people or Jewish culture and religion, she should strive to retain some semblance of group identity and belonging.

Hey Sam, ever wonder why Jewish anti-Zionists feel disconnected?  It’s because of people like you.  People who hold standards for what counts as an “acceptable” Jewish opinion.  People willing to marginalize, condescend, and ignore those who they disagree with (incidentally, the exact same tactics I decry when used by some anti-Zionists).  Maybe if the Jewish community were willing to perceive a vigorous, respectful, and honest debate about the nature of Israel as something other than a threat to the community’s existence and identity, Jewish anti-Zionists would feel a bit more connected.

Israel needs the Diaspora, and the Diaspora needs Israel.

Again Sam, maybe you need Israel, and I’m not trying to minimize that.  I have absolutely no problem with Diaspora Jews who feel a strong connection to Israel, but you have no right to apply that connection to others and claim that if they don’t have it, they should.

Maybe the whole “I’m a Jew and I oppose Israel” thing is just a phase.

It isn’t.  But next time, could you be a little more condescending?

Hopefully such folks are a small enough minority to pose little threat to solid American Jewish support of Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state.

Read: hopefully the mainstream Jewish community will be effective enough in shutting down debate so that the other side never gets heard.

All the same, the Jews who advocate Israel’s end are on a slippery slope toward a break with their Jewish identity and Jewish civilization.

Wrong again.  The real break with Jewish identity is in the stifling of discourse, the marginalizing of those with whom you disagree.  Sam is almost threatening Jewish anti-Zionists with intellectual exile, saying “if you don’t watch out, you’ll be so far gone that we won’t consider you Jews any more.”  This shows Jewish anti-Zionists how disinterested in their opinions the Jewish community is, driving them further away.  If Sam really wants to prevent Jewish anti-Zionists from being totally separated from the rest of the Jewish community, he should welcome their opinions, and look for ways to engage them, instead of deriding their motivations, ignoring their arguments, and marginalizing their existence.

I’m disappointed in the lack of depth Sam’s article shows, especially for someone who is clearly so committed to peace.  The challenge ahead for the Jewish community is to recognize that divergent and oppositional opinions on Israel are vital to furthering the debate and advancing understanding.  If we can learn to accept them, we can move forward.  If not, we’re dead in the water.  Let’s get this one right.

Too often in conflicts we don’t hear stories.  We don’t know what other people have experienced.  This, I believe, is the root of many social problems.

Political realities are ultimately inseparable from the individual experiences that give rise to them.  We can make generalizations about societal states of understanding, political theories, and large social constructs, but these must ultimately be grounded in a deep understanding of the individual, human nature of the issue.

At its heart, the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is a failure of understanding.  Yes, we can and do identify policies, tactics, and manners of thought that continue it, but we cannot forget their inalienably human attributes.  Applying the analytical tools of anthropology and other social sciences can tell us much about why the conflict has evolved the way it has.  Why, for instance, does the Israeli government continue to lend tacit, if not explicit, support in most cases, to settlers who are actively violating international law and soiling Israel’s credibility?  Why have Palestinian civilians been so easily represented by the few who decide to blow themselves up?

These are questions of understanding.  I have strong disagreements with many people involved in the conflict, but there comes a time when I have to admit that I just don’t understand their point of view.  I haven’t been to Israel or Palestine, I haven’t sat down across the table with these people and tried to understand what makes them tick.

I don’t think this makes me less capable of making strong and accurate judgments on the issue, but it does impart on me a responsibility to seek out such stories and incorporate them into my thought.  In fact, I would argue that no one is exempt from this responsibility.  Divorced as I am from the on-the-ground realities of the conflict, it’s easy for me to say that my priority is understanding.  For an Israeli in Sderot who’s lived through rocket attacks and seen their children traumatized and suffering from PTSD, or for a Palestinian in Gaza who’s lived through massive Israeli air raids, destruction of vital infrastructure, and a continuing blockade, it must be incredibly hard to understand the other.

But there are those who do.  There are those who put aside their own experiences, and, given the opportunity to do so without sacrificing basic needs, seek out the other’s perspective.  And the fact that those people exist means that we should not just expect others to do the same, but we should strive for circumstances where they can.

Both in his attempts to understand and his attempts to empower others to do the same, Avi Schaefer was one of those people dedicated to understanding.  After graduating high school in Santa Barbara, he joined the IDF and spent several years as a counterterrorism instructor.  To a naive American Jewish boy like me who’s never held a gun, it’s hard to comprehend his motivations.  But it was crystal clear to me from the moment I met him up until the last conversation I had with him that he wanted me to, and he wanted to comprehend mine.  Avi was in many ways extremely oxymoronic; but then, he existed almost for the purpose of defying those same oxymorons.  Before I met him, I would never have guessed that an American Jew who became an Israeli citizen in order to join the IDF would be more dedicated to peace than arguably any other person I have ever met.  But what Avi has taught me was that that doesn’t have to be a contradiction.  That the only thing standing between us and a deeper personal understanding of the other is our assumptions.  If we come to a discussion with an open mind and no assumptions, we inevitably walk away stronger and smarter.

Avi Schaefer was killed in the early morning of February 12th by a drunk driver on the streets of Providence.  Who Avi was doesn’t make his death more tragic than if it had been someone else, but the people he touched, the good he did in his short time with us, and the taste that is left on our tongues, will linger.  In Avi, a man of incredible virtue and dignity walked among us.

“An enemy is someone whose story we have not yet heard.”  Avi attributed this quote to his father, Rabbi Arthur Gross-Schaefer.

Avi Schaefer, 1988-2010.  Z”L.  May his memory be for a blessing.