Thank you for clarifying, though.

My point specifically, though, was how any given claim by a Jew that a criticism is anti-Semitic is treated by listeners. Do some folks automatically knee-jerk any critique as anti-Semitic? I suppose — I suspect folks of the Mort Klein persuasion tend to make that move. I, too, have family members whom I think can fall into this camp, at least sometimes.

But in general, I’m leery of the assumption that when a Jew says that something feels anti-Semitic, that statement is one made without any sort of critical thought or analysis — made completely out of blind ignorance or loyalty. I think our default assumption should be that when a Jew tells us that something in the current discourse makes them feel uncomfortable or unsafe as a Jew, that they are not behaving frivolously, but are saying something serious, meaningful, and often difficult, and we should respond accordingly.

There are lots of reasons why a given critique — even one you might facially agree with — might set off one’s anti-Semitism radar. The rhetoric might seem out of proportion to the alleged offense, or it might evoke tropes that have classically been used to justify violence and discrimination against Jews. The speaker might be linked with groups whose criticisms are more legitimately problematic — or the listener might simply be primed to associate them with that based on other experiences they’ve had. If the speaker doesn’t have a history of engagement with Jews, then there might be suspicion that even reasonable critiques are a facade for more radical attitudes (lack of trust). Or any other number of things in the presentation, rhetoric, framing, or posture of the speaker which causes the listener to question whether — in the course of their analysis — they are actually committed to making the world a safe and just place for Jews.

None of which is to say that the fact that X Jew has any of these thoughts means that we have to automatically defer to their evaluation. We shouldn’t. But we should take the claim seriously, and be very wary of grouping and dismissing a whole class of complaints as an irrational, instinctive response.* Hence, my language: “brushed aside so easily.” For the most part, I think that Jews are leveling these anti-Semitic charges for a reason — not just as a random discursive power-play.

* I’m not saying that’s what the poster was doing here. I’m merely expressing my belief that pressing too hard on the “criticizing Israel is not anti-Semitic” line risks making it impossible for people who genuinely feel that X criticism is actually anti-Semitic to bring the claim up without being summarily dismissed as “playing the anti-Semitism card”. We have to find a balance.

@chingona: Oh, I’m not criticizing someone for putting her Jewishness above her nationality if she so chooses (likewise any other religious or political or social belief or whatever). What I am criticizing is others thinking it’s their prerogative to do so because she is a Jew. Whether they’re anti-Semites or pro-Semites, as it were. Richard Jeffrey Newman put it quite well in a comment to another post: “I have to say that I find this highly presumptuous and almost objectionable…It is one thing for me to decide to claim Israel as ‘my’ Jewish homeland (which I don’t); but it is quite something else for Israel…to claim me in [that] way.”

Thank you very much for the link.

(I realize I was fatally ambiguous in my last comment to you; it is converts from Judaism who cannot avail themselves of the Law.)

@Ruchama, chingona: That is correct. Kach was banned under an amendment to the Elections Law which prohibited parties that denied Israel’s character as (1) a Jewish state or (2) a democracy, or (3) incited racism. They fell under #3. Unfortunately it’s increasingly difficult for a Israel to be both Jewish and democratic, and the existing governments seem to be erring on the side of Jewish. (I’d love to see if anyone files to ban Yisrael Beitenu, who are clearly racist. Unfortunately, they’re also looking to do really well in the election tomorrow.)

@Matt: I found David’s comment problematic just because it gives credence to attitudes like my mother’s, who supported wholeheartedly the invasion of Gaza and considered any other position anti-Semitic. “Israel shouldn’t exist” is another matter – maybe it should not have been founded the way it was founded, but one can’t erase that and start over; one can only build on that foundation and work to be better. (Jamal Zahalka of Balad, one of the parties recently unbanned, has said that he and his party will never recognize Zionism, but that of course they recognize the state of Israel.)

Aslo, I read David’s comment the same way chingona and Julie did. I think it’s important to say that “Israel shouldn’t exist” is not a critique of Israeli policy. I think David was responding to something more (though maybe not intended to be more) than just a criticism of policy.

As for the Arab parties, my understanding is that the law that was used to ban them – before the Supreme Court overturned that decision – was originally pushed through by leftists to ban the Kahanist parties. I think the question there has as much to do with limits on offensive speech/beliefs/actions in a democratic society as it does with the connection between an ethnically/religiously based state and democracy.

Yeah. IIRC, the Kahanist party is the only one that’s ever been successfully banned under that law. They’ve tried banning Arab parties and maybe a few others before, and the Supreme Court has always over turned it, except in the case of Kahan’s party.

Rather than Jews associating with each other being the cause, it’s an unwillingness to believe that a Jew can be a German. Which is one of the reasons that ethnic/religious nation-states are sketchy.

Okay. I agree with all of that. But I do get frustrated when, in discussion of the law of return, someone makes a comparison to another country with similar laws, and they are met with “But Jewish isn’t a nationality!” I think that response, while technically true if you define nationality as citizenship as opposed to ethnicity or race, is very dismissive of the sense that many Jewish people have of themselves as part of “a people.” It’s a weird thing for me because my own identity is very American. One, I think I’m very aware of being American from living in other countries for many years – it made my culture visible to me in a way I don’t think it always is to people who have never left the United States – and two, I think even my Jewish identity is a very American type of Jewish identity. But at the same time, I’m really hesitant to tell someone else who prioritizes their various identities in a different way than I do that they’re just wrong, that they shouldn’t put their Jewishness first.

Too, there’s the issue of Palestinian right of return – a Palestinian refugee surely has much more of a claim than any given Jew of my acquaintance whose family lived in Europe for the past thousand years, yet the latter can come to Israel and the former cannot.

Personally, I find this a much more persuasive argument against the law of return than arguments based on what Jewishness is and isn’t.

As for David, I think I saw his argument more the way Julie did, but I also understand why some people reacted very strongly against what he was saying.

# Rebecca says:
February 8th, 2009 at 2:05 pm – Edit

@Freddy: Not at all. Both are equally bad. But I’m referring to a particular specimen of bigotry, one which I have seen from Jews more often than from Arabs or Muslims: that of attributing bigotry to the other side and using it to dismiss them. The example I used in the post was of Jews speculating on why Palestinians elected Hamas – we know that many voted for Hamas because they provide basic social services and Fatah is thoroughly corrupt, but it’s so much simpler to think that they did so because they hate Jews.

this is an excellent post. But both of those explanations are overly simplistic.

It is certainly the case that people can and do vote for a person or party without therefore endorsing all of their platform. (my recent Democratic vote is a great example.) But generally speaking you have to endorse or at least be OK with the MAJOR aspects of their platform, and/or include them in your balancing act.

The unfortunate reality of palestinian politics is that there are not so many aspects of the platform, because so many major problems exist. Understandably “food” and “electricity” were big issues. So was, presumably, “war,” cprruption, etc. (the fact that we actually get to care about our candidate’s stance on the Kyoto accords is a luxury.

At the time of the hamas/fatah vote, Fatah was corrupt. Still is. That would be part of any balancing act. But Hamas’ existing and predicted future relationship with Israel was widely known. That would–should–be part of a balancing act as well.

So why only look at one? It may not be that folks who voted for Hamas did so with the destruction of israel as a priority. But every intelligent person who voted for hamas declined to veto hamas as an option, because at some level they declined to prioritize selecting a party without that in their charter. Generally speaking, you can probably conclude something from that, don’t you think?

It’s the exact same logic which applies to Democrats, Republicans, Likud members, and Labor members. It’s the same logic which gets applied here–correctly–to note that if people vote without giving much “negative weight” to anti-women views held by politicians, they can be presumed to have some sort of anti-women views. It’s the same logic that gets used to suggest that electing a really “green” KKK member to politics might not be a good idea.

As applied to israeli jews, for example, you could suggest that anyone who supports the parties that have announced a predisposition to return to war are in some way supportive of a war. Right? I don’t know why on earth you would classify that conclusion as bigotry so long as it is generally applied.