The AJC, the Brookings Institute of the American Jewish community, has recently published a controversial new report by Alvin H. Rosenfeld, "Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism", which essentially charges certain left-wing Jewish thinkers with giving "aid and comfort" to the anti-Semites. The targets of the reports range from explicit Jewish anti-Zionists such as Noam Chomsky and NYU professor Tony Judt to progressive Jewish writers such as Douglass Rushkoff and Daniel Boyarin, whose relationship with Israel is far more ambivalent.
Mobius, the creator of the progressive Jewish blog Jewschool, attacked the report in one of his trademark blistering blog posts and again in a radio interview on the show "Beyond the Pale".
At one level, Mobius is correct. The goal of the AJC report is precisely to ensure that certain views about Israel that are prominent among progressives remain marginal in American Jewish discourse. Rosenfeld does so by linking these views to anti-Semitism. Mobius, however, muddies the water a bit in his attack. Surely, anti-Zionists such as Chomsky and Judt are not merely "questioning Israeli policies." They are questioning the very existence of the state of Israel.
It is precisely this blurring of the line between Jewish anti-Zionism and other progressive Jewish criticism of Israel that is most serious problem with the Rosenfeld report. The report notes the dangers of hyberbolic rhetoric by Jews criticizing Israel; yet certainly some of this rhetoric comes from Progressive Zionists, who are seeking to reform the Jewish State rather than erase it. Similarly, a writer like Douglass Rushkoff, who finds difficultly idenitifying with Israel and finds meaning in univeraslist elements of the Jewish tradition, is best characterized as a-Zionist or ambi-Zionist. Rosenfeld paints with too broad a brush.
This lack of clarity, however, is not at the heart of Mobius' problem with the AJC and mainstream American Jewish community. Rather Mobius' main issue is that "opposing Jewish statehood for ethical, moral or religious reasons, or criticizing Israel for those reasons, is defined as antisemitic." In other words, Mobius objects to the effort to marginalize all progressive Jewish voices critical of Israel, including the anti-Zionists.
The question, therefore, is should anti-Zionism be mainstreamed in American Jewish discourse, invited back from the sidelines, where it has been banished since the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel. I believe it should not, for two reasons.
First, there is some merit to Rosenfeld's claim that Jewish anti-Zionism feeds into and abets anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism. There are certainly non anti-Semitic variants of anti-Zionism. Tony Judt, for example, appears to be motivated by a genuine post-nationalism prevalent in many European intellectuals. Similarly, there are academic arguments to be as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the "Jewish Question" in the 20th Century; but what is done is done, the overwhelming majority of the world's Jews outside North America have been gathered into the historic Jewish homeland. The idea of peaceful, stable, binational state given the current state of the Arab world is farcical. There is no end to a Jewish state in Israel that will not lead to tremendous Jewish suffering. Even those progressives who are ambivalent with the idea of Israel need to honestly address the reality of Israel.
Moreover, the "new anti-Semitism" described by the AJC is not a Zionist propaganda construction. There is a virulent rise in Jew-hatred, most significantly from radical Islam, that uses opposition to Israel as a front. The careful academic parsing of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism pales in the face of the blood libels played on Arab state television or the cartoons that pass for "political commentary" in Arab or Iranian newspapers. This is true engine of anti-Zionism in the world today, in which arguments against nationalism, ethnocentrism, and human right violations are focused solely on one nation - which is not coincidentally the Jewish nation.
Second, progresisve Jewish support and even tolerance of anti-Zionism is a disaster for Progressive Zionism. It blurs the line between criticism of Israeli policies and Israel itself.
It plays right into right-wing Zionists who dismiss all criticism of Israel as masking an agenda to destroy Israel. It saps energy away from those Diaspora Jews such as the New Israel Fund whose vision of Israel as a "light unto nations" runs counter to the American Jews who support the competing visions of the settlers and the haredim. Progressive Zionism acknowledges that Israel is imperfect, that Jewish nationalism - like all nationalism - is problematic, that there is a moral cost to assuring the security and freedom of the Jewish people.
Given the reality of the world today, anti-Zionism remains a dangerous idea, one that is rightly marginalized in the American Jewish community. However, considering the major problems facing Israel, external and internal, physical, moral and spiritual, the need for a vigorous Progressive Zionism has never been greater.
Mobius, the creator of the progressive Jewish blog Jewschool, attacked the report in one of his trademark blistering blog posts and again in a radio interview on the show "Beyond the Pale".
...[T]here is no safe space for legitimate criticism of Israel within the Jewish community itself. Those who question Israeli policies are hastily isolated, demonized, marginalized and excluded. The resentment of this treatment frequently results in movement towards the farthest fringes of the discourse and the adoption of a tarnished impression of the Jewish community.
At one level, Mobius is correct. The goal of the AJC report is precisely to ensure that certain views about Israel that are prominent among progressives remain marginal in American Jewish discourse. Rosenfeld does so by linking these views to anti-Semitism. Mobius, however, muddies the water a bit in his attack. Surely, anti-Zionists such as Chomsky and Judt are not merely "questioning Israeli policies." They are questioning the very existence of the state of Israel.
It is precisely this blurring of the line between Jewish anti-Zionism and other progressive Jewish criticism of Israel that is most serious problem with the Rosenfeld report. The report notes the dangers of hyberbolic rhetoric by Jews criticizing Israel; yet certainly some of this rhetoric comes from Progressive Zionists, who are seeking to reform the Jewish State rather than erase it. Similarly, a writer like Douglass Rushkoff, who finds difficultly idenitifying with Israel and finds meaning in univeraslist elements of the Jewish tradition, is best characterized as a-Zionist or ambi-Zionist. Rosenfeld paints with too broad a brush.
This lack of clarity, however, is not at the heart of Mobius' problem with the AJC and mainstream American Jewish community. Rather Mobius' main issue is that "opposing Jewish statehood for ethical, moral or religious reasons, or criticizing Israel for those reasons, is defined as antisemitic." In other words, Mobius objects to the effort to marginalize all progressive Jewish voices critical of Israel, including the anti-Zionists.
The question, therefore, is should anti-Zionism be mainstreamed in American Jewish discourse, invited back from the sidelines, where it has been banished since the Holocaust and the establishment of the state of Israel. I believe it should not, for two reasons.
First, there is some merit to Rosenfeld's claim that Jewish anti-Zionism feeds into and abets anti-Semitism masquerading as anti-Zionism. There are certainly non anti-Semitic variants of anti-Zionism. Tony Judt, for example, appears to be motivated by a genuine post-nationalism prevalent in many European intellectuals. Similarly, there are academic arguments to be as to whether Zionism was the best solution to the "Jewish Question" in the 20th Century; but what is done is done, the overwhelming majority of the world's Jews outside North America have been gathered into the historic Jewish homeland. The idea of peaceful, stable, binational state given the current state of the Arab world is farcical. There is no end to a Jewish state in Israel that will not lead to tremendous Jewish suffering. Even those progressives who are ambivalent with the idea of Israel need to honestly address the reality of Israel.
Moreover, the "new anti-Semitism" described by the AJC is not a Zionist propaganda construction. There is a virulent rise in Jew-hatred, most significantly from radical Islam, that uses opposition to Israel as a front. The careful academic parsing of anti-Semitism with anti-Zionism pales in the face of the blood libels played on Arab state television or the cartoons that pass for "political commentary" in Arab or Iranian newspapers. This is true engine of anti-Zionism in the world today, in which arguments against nationalism, ethnocentrism, and human right violations are focused solely on one nation - which is not coincidentally the Jewish nation.
Second, progresisve Jewish support and even tolerance of anti-Zionism is a disaster for Progressive Zionism. It blurs the line between criticism of Israeli policies and Israel itself.
It plays right into right-wing Zionists who dismiss all criticism of Israel as masking an agenda to destroy Israel. It saps energy away from those Diaspora Jews such as the New Israel Fund whose vision of Israel as a "light unto nations" runs counter to the American Jews who support the competing visions of the settlers and the haredim. Progressive Zionism acknowledges that Israel is imperfect, that Jewish nationalism - like all nationalism - is problematic, that there is a moral cost to assuring the security and freedom of the Jewish people.
Given the reality of the world today, anti-Zionism remains a dangerous idea, one that is rightly marginalized in the American Jewish community. However, considering the major problems facing Israel, external and internal, physical, moral and spiritual, the need for a vigorous Progressive Zionism has never been greater.
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