Harvard President Larry Summers weighs in against the anti-Semitic menace of divestment. According to The Harvard Crimson (via Meryl Yourish):
A petition that circulated last spring advocating that the University divest from Israel, Summers said, is an example of anti-Semitism’s spread. While aspects of Israel’s foreign policy “should be vigorously challenged,” the calls for divestment seek to unfairly “single out Israel,” he said.
How is advocating divestment from Israel anti-Semitic?
Summers suggests that it’s anti-Semitic because Israel is being "singled out." This is a common argument from those who see anti-Semitism behind every criticism of Israel; why else, they implore, could Israel be criticized? Here, for example, is perennial bigmouth Alan Dershowitz (who says he’ll resign from Harvard’s faculty if Harvard divests – another argument in divestment’s favor):
Why don’t they say anything about Cuba’s chilling of dissent or China’s occupation of Tibet? Why don’t they feel a personal stake in getting Jordan, Egypt, and the Philippines to stop torturing people? The only reason they feel so strongly about Israel is because it is the Jewish nation.
Despite Dershowitz’s claim, there are legitimate reasons to "single out" Israel.
- Israel is the leading beneficiary of US foreign and military aid.
When I shop, I consider the ingredients of the groceries I buy – I don’t want to be swilling dolphin along with my tuna, and so forth. I don’t waste my time peering at the ingredients of Spam (enlightening as they doubtless are), because I’m not paying for Spam. The fact that Spam is worse than tuna is irrelevant. Similarly, I’m bothered more by what Israel does than by what Zimbabwe does, because I ain’t paying for Robert Mugabe’s guns.
Presumably Summers, when he visits the A&P, reads each and every label, to avoid "singling out" the groceries he’s paying for by treating them differently from those he isn’t paying for. But not all of us go so far overboard when attempting to be evenhanded.
- Israel was created in a mostly nonwhite, nonwestern region by a white, western government (England). Israel’s government is dominated by white westerners, who use American-manufactured weapons to rule over non-white-westerners in the West Bank and Gaza. Given how concerned student leftism is with white, western imperialism, is there any reason to doubt that many student protesters would be protesting even if the average Israeli were Christian?
It’s really funny. For decades, right-wingers have been complaining that campus leftists protest anything white and western (dead white men, California egg farms, whatever). But when it comes to Israel, they imply the campus left objects to Israel out of anti-Semitism, as if campus leftists would be fine with white-westy-dominated Israel if only it weren’t Jewish. Do conservatives even attempt to be consistent? (I know Summers isn’t right-wing – but some of the folks applauding him are.)
(Some will object that Israel’s actions are justified self-defense. But that’s a separate issue; it goes to the question of whether the protesters are right. The question at hand is whether a "divest from Israel" campaign is anti-Semitic; even if you say the protesters are wrong, that doesn’t show they’re anti-Semitic)
- Here’s a head’s up: nobody can protest everything. (Not that everything doesn’t deserve it, dammit!) It’s called "specialization" – to be effective, activists must "single out" particular concerns, and that’s the way it’ll be until God curses us with a 3000-hour day. Dershowitz understands this perfectly well, which is why he’s not slamming pro-Israel activists for ignoring the human rights situations in Tajikistan, Togo and Tibet. Yet when the divestment campaign does the same thing, it’s accused of anti-Semitism.
- A lot of protesters are either Palestinian or Jewish. All Palestinians and Jews have (like it or not) a connection to Israel/Palestine; our connection makes it legitimate for us to "single out" the region for special concern.
(You know, when I was a kid, I was taught to think of Israel as something special in the world. Now I’m told that if I hold Israel to standards higher than the most dismal tin-pot third-world dictatorial human-rights-abusing nation on the globe, I’m a self-hating Jew. Ironic how times change.)
- Finally, Israel and Palestine get so much attention from protesters simply because it’s a popular media issue. It’s rare to go a week without seeing TV stories, front-page news, and editorials about Israel and Palestine, most of which is written and narrated by professional shallowists who don’t give a crap about Israel or Palestine, so long as ratings are strong. Probably it’s silly to pay more attention to whatever drivel the media is feeding us, but hey, that’s the way things work – and it’s not anti-Semitic
Why do I care? Well, as others have written, the use of false accusations of anti-Semitism to silence dissenting voices is disturbing. But primarily, it bothers me because anti-Semitism is not a joke.
Let me repeat that: Anti-Semitism is not a joke. It’s a serious problem about real harms caused by real bigots. That so many of Israel’s supporters seek to cheapen the term and make it meaningless, by accusing everyone who criticizes Israel of anti-Semitism, disgusts me. It harms Jews to have the idea of "anti-Semitism" become yet another empty partisan label.
Summers knows better – or he did, in the past. It’s disappointing to see him join the chorus of Israeli advocates determined to leech all meaning from the term "anti-Semitic"
Here’s a few related links I’ve seen today (many via Instapundit).
The writers of the petition commented on this issue – quite a while ago, in fact.
Third, why do we single out Israel and ignore violations of human rights committed by other countries? This is a strange sort of criticism: Social, political, and human rights problems are normally tackled one by one, as they arise. No one asked the protesters against the Vietnam War why they singled out that U.S. action rather than others; no one asked protesters against South Africa in the apartheid era why they were choosing to protest that issue. Protests are initiated when some threshold of concern is reached; in our case, it was the combination of the suicide bombings, the massive invasion of the West Bank, and the increase of settlement activity that propelled us to take action.Raising the question, Why Israel? appears to be linked to the question of anti-Semitism, with which we close.
Some of our critics have claimed or implied that our focus on Israel’s policies is the result of anti-Semitism. Accusations of anti-Semitism have been used for decades to stifle criticism of Israeli policy, and they have been extremely effective. The world has been astonishingly silent during decades of Israeli occupation, and much of America still does not dare to raise any criticism of Israel. When criticisms of Israel are expressed, the charge of anti-Semitism serves to deflect attention away from the Israeli governmental actions that prompted the criticisms. We want the petition to open up discussion of these issues in our academic communities and beyond. We hope that Israel’s supporters will join us in an open debate, not try to stifle discussion by questioning our motives. We firmly believe that an open exchange of ideas, free from personal attacks, offers the best hope of progress in breaking the current deadlock and moving toward a resolution of the conflict that respects the human rights of Palestinians and Israelis alike.
Hub Blog (permalinks not there, so scroll around for it) weighs in with this:
But the significant line in Summers’ screed was that he thought ”serious and thoughtful people are advocating and taking actions that are anti- Semitic in their effect if not their intent.” The words “effect” and “intent” are key. The “effect” might loosely apply to the majority of the divestment supporters who don’t see themselves as anti-Semitic The “intent” applies to the minority of divestment supporters who, in Hub Blog’s opinion, have a history of blatant anti-Semitic/anti-Zionist/anti-Israel rhetoric and logic stretching back years. The entire Middle East debate has anti-Semitism oozing from almost every crevice. OK, maybe Summers is guilty of tarring the divestment movement with too broad a brush. But it’s simply naive to say that anti-Semitism isn’t part of the overall equation.
Who, exactly, has said that anti-Semitism isn’t part of the overall equation? No one I’ve read.
I think the "effect/intent" distinction (which isn’t in the Crimson story, but is in the full speech) is in this case a bunch of hooey. The "effect" of divestment won’t be to wipe out Israel’s existence, which is what anti-Semites want; it would be to pressure Israel to leave the occupied territories and end legal torture (as the petition demands), neither of which are distinctly anti-Semitic goals. To be "anti-Semitic in effect," the petition would need to achieve, or at least strive for, some distinctly anti-Semitic goal; it does not.
Hub Blog takes, I think, a slightly different stance than Summers’ intended. He argues that "the minority of divestments supporters" who are anti-Semitic justify calling divestment itself "anti-Semitic" in effect if not in intent. But if a minority of bigoted supporters deligitimize an entire moment, what movement is legitimate? I can’t think of any that couldn’t be said to have a minority of bigoted supporters.
For example: although most Israelis and pro-Israeli advocates aren’t anti-Arab racists, some are; would Hub Blog therefore agree that the pro-Israel movement is racist "in their effect if not their intent?" That’s where his logic leads.
Finally, check out this excellent and very balanced critique of "Campus Watch" by Jacob Levy. You may have to hunt around a bit, since blogspot’s permalinking is permastinking lately..
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The United States is so blind when it comes to Middle Eastern politics and I am disgusted by Israel’s actions upon the Palestinians, not that Palestinian fighters are any better. There is a saying that goes ‘the bullied becomes the bully’ this can still be applied to Israel and the Nazis. It is a shameful fact that whosoever criticises Israel is anti-Semitic– I am so sick and tired in regards to Israeli politics and I fear that nothing any good will ever come out of it!!! Thank you America for siding with the wrong country, funding the Israeli war machine each year with 3 billion dollars worth of weapons technology which are consequently sold on to China and Russia further endangering the country. letting Israel drive and send your children into their wars and using the free weapons technology . One day this sick relationship will be crushed and the war criminals will be punished.
@Dr.Zoo
letting Israel drive and send your children into their wars
I wonder how people could call you antisemitic? Surely it has nothing to do with your adherence to baseless conspiracy theories about Israel being responsible for American wars.
BTW, Israel is not a white country. Mizrahi and Sephardic Jews make up about 50% of the population and Israel is home to about 75% of the world’s non-white Jews.