From Kohenari: Israel First?

January 29, 2012

I debated with myself about whether or not to wade into the shark-infested waters of the on-going “Israel Firster” debate that’s been raging online for more than a month now. For those who haven’t been following it on the blogs and on Twitter, Spencer Ackerman provided a helpful recap a couple of days ago. Since I teach a class on the Israeli/Palestinian conflict, since I’ve been following along as bloggers launch one blistering ad hominem attack after another, and since I’ve written before about the way that casual anti-Semitism has crept into progressive discourse of late, I thought I might briefly weigh in.

Every year, after I’ve wrap up all of the grading for my Israel/Palestine class, I look through the course evaluations. And every year, it’s the same story: I get blasted by half of the class for being a rabid Zionist and I get blasted by the other half of the class for hating Israel. On the one hand, this sort of thing makes me sad because it means decidedly lower scores on my evaluations than I’d like and because it means that some students have spent an entire semester being angry rather than learning. On the other hand, it’s a good sign since it means that I’m presenting the information in a way that makes it impossible for students to accurately decide my own position on which side is right and which side is wrong.

Except that my position is, I think, pretty clear: As a human rights scholar, I try to make clear that both sides are sometimes right and sometimes wrong.

I criticize the Palestinians for rocket attacks, suicide bombings, prisoner abuse, and whatever happens to be in the news or in the readings I’ve assigned. And I criticize the Israeli government for violating the human rights of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza, for systemic discrimination against Arab citizens of Israel, and whatever happens to be in the news or in the readings I’ve assigned.

And, of course, I discuss the American position of support for Israel, which is the subject behind the arguments about whether or not it’s appropriate to call someone an “Israel Firster.” Having said that, though, I should note that I’m a little bit baffled by the entire concept of the “Israel Firster,” which is allegedly someone whose primary loyalty is to Israel and who thus routinely attempts to make a case for the strategic relationship between the America and Israel (which non-“Firsters” see as overwhelmingly detrimental to U.S. interests these days).

I’m puzzled because I don’t imagine that anyone is really criticizing anyone else for actually believing that Israel is always in the right or for believing that the U.S. government puts (or ought to put) Israel’s interests ahead of America’s. In other words, someone might tweet that “[Eli] Lake supports #Israel line 100% of the time, always Israel first over U.S.,” but what the tweeter probably means to say is that Lake holds a position on some particular issue that the tweeter finds incomprehensibly wrong. It’s possible, of course, that Lake or someone else holds the above positions but those positions just seem to me to be impossible to defend. So, my puzzlement really stems from my belief that the “Israel Firster” charge is wrong-headed; if Lake really held the position that Israel should be supported by America to America’s detriment, Lake’s argument would probably be pretty easy to take down. But rather than making an argument against Lake’s position on a particular issue, someone simply attacks Lake.

In doing so, of course, the attacker resorts to an unpleasant term or trope. The “Israel Firster” charge has a historical connection to anti-Semitic white supremacists and it’s a shame — but not a real surprise — to see it being used by the progressive Left to vilify opponents on the Right. I’ve actually written about this sort of thing before and I think it bears repeating now:

There is no doubt in my mind that I’m seeing more casual anti-Semitism, especially amongst American and European progressives under the age of thirty. This is a group that, by and large, will condemn racism, sexism, classism, ableism, homophobia, Islamophobia — and so on — but fails to offer any challenge to the casually anti-Semitic trope that, for example, the Jews control America’s foreign policy. It’s also a group that actively condemns the Israeli government for its treatment of Palestinians (in some of the most vitriolic language) while ignoring or even excusing abuses by Hamas — for example — against Palestinians.

In making use of this sort of casual anti-Semitism, members of the progressive Left really do themselves a disservice because they open themselves up to all sort of allegations that then move the conversation away from the one they really want to have in the first place. In other words, with everyone talking about whether or not “Israel Firster” is anti-Semitic, fewer people are actually talking about any particular policy or action of the Israeli or American government. If someone on the Left wants to criticize the Israeli or American government for some course of action, (s)he ought to do so and if someone on the Right wants to offer a defense, (s)he ought to do so. And then we can have a conversation about who made a good or a bad argument. But as soon as we stop making arguments and start issuing ad hominem attacks, then we’ve stopped talking about the right or wrong course of action and just started talking about ourselves.

At bottom, there has got to be a way to discuss the bad policies of the Israeli government without being labeled an anti-Semite and there have got to be ways to support Israel without being smeared as some sort of monster, moron, or stooge.

And, while it’s amazing to me that this even needs to be written down, it’s got to be possible to have these debates without resorting to language that people have found and continue to find offensive and harmful.