Harvard professor and plagiarist Alan Dershowitz has a reputation for unfairly suggesting that Israel’s critics are antisemites. In response, Dershowitz says:
I have challenged anyone who claims that mere criticism of Israel is often labeled anti-Semitism to document that serious charge by providing actual quotations, in context, with the sources of the statements identified. No one has responded to my challenge.
Howard Friel’s lengthy article about Dershowitz shows that Dershowitz — a lawyer — does in fact manage to avoid calling critics of Israel antisemites… while nonetheless leaving the strong impression that he’s calling them antisemites. Friel’s whole article is worth reading, but here are a few examples:
About former President Jimmy Carter, Dershowitz wrote: “Whatever the reason or reasons for Jimmy Carter’s recent descent into the gutter of bigotry, history will not judge him kindly.”[3] In an interview on Shalom TV in Israel, Dershowitz said: “Jimmy Carter has literally become such an anti-Israel bigot, that there’s a kind of special place in hell reserved for somebody like that.”
So according to Dershowitz, Carter’s descended into “the gutter of bigotry” and is damned to hell because he’s “such an anti-Israel-bigot” — but Dershowitz didn’t call Carter an antisemite!
Because Amnesty International and Human Rights Watch—both of which are on Dershowitz’s enemies list—issued reports that were critical of Israel’s conduct in the Gaza Strip and Lebanon in summer 2006, Dershowitz referred to them as “so-called human rights groups,” and described their reports as “bigotry—pure and simple.”
See? Didn’t call them antisemites!
The desire to destroy Jews has been reconfigured as the desire to destroy or dismantle the Jewish State. Boycotters may have Jewish friends, they may be Jews themselves but in supporting a boycott they have put themselves in anti-Semitism’s camp.
See? Didn’t call them antisemites!
Similarly, he calls Noam Chomsky a “Holocaust denier” — a charge that is not true — but he didn’t call him an antisemite!1
If Dershowitz wasn’t a powerful man, willing to go to great lengths to bully, intimidate and harass anyone he disagrees with (in the comments following Friel’s article, a Hampshire student — where students have recently run a high-profile divestment campaign — alleged that Dershowitz has been “personally calling students and threatening them over the phone,” which if true is grossly inappropriate behavior), he’d be funny.
Curtsy: Muzzlewatch.
- Ironically, Chomsky himself, as a matter of logic, has argued that Holocaust denial and antisemitism are logically distinct — “if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite.” I don’t think that argument could be credibly applied to the Dershowitz’s critique of Chomsky, however. [↩]
Good points. Just what kind of bigotry does Dershowitz think he’s accusing people of, if not anti-Semitism?
“if a person ignorant of modern history were told of the Holocaust and refused to believe that humans are capable of such monstrous acts, we would not conclude that he is an anti-Semite.”
But if that were the only monstrous act of which he was disbelieving and he could credit that ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, Darfur and Rwanda occurred, I’m going to wonder just what it is about the Holocaust that creates an exception. This goes back to the “And do you feel this way about all countries created by British fiat, or just Israel?” discussion — if you treat the matters pertaining to Jews differently (and less favorably) than you treat those pertaining to non-Jews, it’s reasonable to wonder if the difference is attributable to anti-Semitism. (If you treat issues pertaining to Jews differently and MORE favorably, that’s presumably bias in favor of rather than against Jews, but ideally we treat everyone the same as much as possible.)
PG, I agree. I wrote a bit more about Chomsky’s comment here.
But if that were the only monstrous act of which he was disbelieving and he could credit that ethnic cleansing in the Balkans, Darfur and Rwanda occurred, I’m going to wonder just what it is about the Holocaust that creates an exception.
I thought that Chomsky’s premise was that this was a person ignorant of modern history who was just told of the Holocaust. He/she wouldn’t disbelieve the Balkans, etc because s/he didn’t know about them. If s/he were told and thought those atrocities believable but not the Holocaust then you might have a case…but not a perfect one. The Holocaust is usually said to be uniquely evil historically, worse than the “usual” acts of genocide that have occurred throughout history. So a person might deny that people were capable of attempting to round up every last person in a certain group and kill them slowly over a number of years after careful planning and debate on how to do it but still believe that one group might genocidally attack another. (And, yes, I know I’m stretching the point pretty far here. I have trouble imagining a real, currently living person who could be both a Holocaust denier and not an anti-semite.)
The Holocaust is usually said to be uniquely evil historically, worse than the “usual” acts of genocide that have occurred throughout history.
Depends on your evil metrics. Lots of conservatives are annoyed that Stalin and Mao aren’t treated as evil on par with Hitler, on the grounds that Stalin’s and Mao’s policies killed more of their own civilian populations. (If one assumes Hitler started WWII in Europe, he’d still win on body count due to casualties of war.) And Stalin and Mao had a similar planning aspect, as opposed to less government- directed genocides such as that in Rwanda (or the half million deaths that occurred during India’s Partition).
If one assumes Hitler started WWII in Europe, he’d still win on body count due to casualties of war.)
Is there any question about that point? I’d never heard of any claim that WWII being started any way other than Hitler getting aggressive.
It seems like Dershowitz is walking the other way down a two-way street. He is doing the inverse of what critics of Israel say when they argue that they’re not anti-Semitic; that they criticize Zionism or the state of Israel without criticizing Jews. If it’s true that critics of Israel criticize nothing more than Israel, than it should also be true that calling someone anti-Israel is doing nothing more than that, calling them anti-Israel.
What’s good for the goose…
And Stalin and Mao had a similar planning aspect, as opposed to less government- directed genocides such as that in Rwanda (or the half million deaths that occurred during India’s Partition).
The genocide in Rwanda was government-directed.
Charlie, he’s emphatically not just calling people anti-Israel.
First, Harvard investigated the plagiarism charges and cleared Prof. Dershowitz of wrongdoing (your link concedes the point, but fumes that Harvard wasn’t forthcoming enough about the investigation). This isn’t pro forma — Harvard disciplined Charles Ogletree, another prominent law professor, when he was accused of plagiarism in 2004. Moreover, Prof. Dershowitz is correct (at least as I’ve been taught) that even when drawing from a secondary source’s citation of a primary source, you cite to the primary not the secondary (I think it is foolish not to independently verify the primary source, but it isn’t plagiarism). The charge smacks of a personal vendetta at this point.
But on the main, this post really reminds me of my How would you like me to raise anti-Semitism post I put up last year. I have yet to figure out when or in what fashion it is “appropriate” for me to say that I believe someone is acting in an anti-Semitic fashion or formulating an anti-Semitic belief or policy. Now, apparently, the restriction is even tighter: Not only am I presumptively prohibited from calling someone an anti-Semite (or an idea, practice or policy), but I also can’t use any expression connoting bias or bigotry against Israel, because that’s just a sneaky, manipulative, lawyerly, way of saying “anti-Semite.”
Which means my corresponding question gets broader to: how, exactly, am I supposed to state a belief that a given body or actor is behaving in a prejudiced manner vis-a-vis Israel? I knew I could never say anti-Semite; I now know that I also can’t use the word “bigotry”, and I can’t say someone is working with people (“in the camp of”) people who are anti-Semites? Are there any other restrictions I should know about? Can I have a positive example of what would be an appropriate critique?
Because I’m feeling a little boxed in right now.
chingona,
The genocide in Rwanda was government-directed.
Yes, that’s why I used the word less; relative to the amount of state action involved in the Holocaust or the deaths in Stalin’s USSR and Mao’s China, there was less state action in the Rwandan genocide. The Holocaust was carried out almost entirely through the machinery of the state, allowing the “average German” (and Austrian, and Pole…) to avoid ever seeing a murdered Jew, much less have to do the murdering himself. The gulags were wholly government-run. These were totalitarian states.
In contrast, there’s no single actor who was in charge of the Rwandan genocide the way Hitler, Stalin and Mao are the faces of those atrocities. After all, the Rwandan genocide started when the president of Rwanda and the Chief of Staff for the military died in a plane crash and Prime Minister Uwilingiyimana was assassinated, as were many other government officials at the same time. Most of the Rwandan murders were committed by private militias, people not in official government employ but armed with government-purchased weapons.
I think widespread sexual violence also marks out the particular character of civilian-performed genocides; it doesn’t seem to be as characteristic of modern genocides that are purely state action.
Most of the Rwandan murders were committed by private militias, people not in official government employ but armed with government-purchased weapons.
The decades leading up the Rwandan genocide were marked by increasingly deadly pograms, sometimes with explicit encouragement from the government, against the Tutsi population, as well as an escalation in dehumanizing rhetoric from the government against the Tutsi population as well as increasing restrictions on the civil rights of Tutsis. The plans for the genocide were put into action by members of the government upon the death of the president, government radio directed the killing and the government provided lists of Tutsis for murder to militias. It may have been government-directed in a different way than the Final Solution, but it was not “less” government directed. The individuals doing the killing were acting on orders from and with logistical support from the government.
I think we’ll just have to agree to disagree on this one. To me, if private civilian Rwandans were engaged in the killing, that means there was quantifiably less state action than if government employees were doing all the killing, especially if they were doing it in their role as employees. The distinction between a government’s encouraging and even orchestrating a campaign of murders against private citizens, and the government’s carrying it out itself, is one I find significant. In the Gujarat massacre in 2002, according to Human Rights Watch, the private citizens who committed the crimes were guided by information given by local government agencies — including voter and property-owner lists — and were encouraged and abetted by some police officers (though other police officers died trying to stem the violence). But that to me is still different than a stable, coherently-constituted government’s actually sending its employees out to commit the murders. (Rwanda’s government after the assassinations of the president and prime minister was in a quasi-coup situation.)
That’s fine. It’s just a big pet peeve of mine the way people in this country treat Rwanda like an overblown race riot. While the government was in a quasi-coup situation, it still was marshalling all the resources of the state, such as it existed at that time, toward carrying out the killing. That it didn’t have the resources to maintain a standing army of the size and reach that Nazi Germany had and therefore had to rely upon private citizens to actually wield the machetes doesn’t mean, to my mind, that there was less government direction. But yes, this is semantic, and we can agree to disagree.
What you were taught was wrong, both ethically and as regards the rules at Harvard specifically.
Ethically, it’s wrong because finding relevant sources and quotes is work. If I do the work of researching “Themes of Death in Calvin and Hobbes,” and if I find the perfect quote from Bill Watterson to illustrate my point, then that work counts. If someone takes advantage of the research I did, doesn’t do the research themselves, and doesn’t credit the work I did — how is that not plagiarism?
And according to the Harvard Crimson:
Since you seemingly concede that Dershowitz did not, in fact, return to the original source, I think you have to concede that Dershowitz did plagerize, according to Harvard’s rules. (Unless the Crimson article got it wrong, of course.)
If you want to suggest that people or their acts are anti-Semitic, then you should do so. I’ve more than once said that such-and-such a cartoon or statement or act was antisemitic, and I’m sure I’ll have occasion to do so again in the future. No one is censoring you; no one is suggesting that you be prohibited from calling out antisemitism (or at least, no one I know of).
What you’re doing is taking people criticizing the way accusations of antisemitism are used, and discussing it as if criticism equals prohibition. But of course, it doesn’t.
The practical upshot of Dershowitz’s statements is that people will understand Dershowitz to be accusing his various targets of antisemitism. Dershowitz is not naive; he knows the effect of his words, and that’s why he chooses them. For him to respond to concerns about unfair charges of antisemitism by saying that he never used the specific word “antisemitism” is disingenuous.
I don’t think it’s obvious that if person A quotes Mark Twain and cuts it in a way I like, and so I provide the same quote and attribute to Twain rather than A, I am “passing off a source’s information, ideas, or words as your own by omitting to cite them.” Suffice to say, though, that I suspect Harvard has a better understanding than either of us on the matter, and we should thus defer to their judgment (it would be different if Harvard shielded its star profs in these inquiries, but they don’t, as Ogletree and Laurence Tribe can attest to).
I was using “prohibited” a bit loosely. But the basic point, my curiousity as to when it is legitimate to make the protestation of anti-Semitism, where people won’t claim (or at least, we’d agree they shouldn’t claim) I’m silencing debate or being a bully, still stands, and remains very unclear to me. What I want to know is, how could I make a point similar to Dershowitz’s (I probably wouldn’t be as harsh as he is on HRW/Amnesty or Carter, but on the boycotters I’m close enough) so you’d agree the charge should be addressed on merits, rather than being diverted into this meta-debate about whether I’m simply card-playing? And alternatively, is it possible for me to say “you’re treating Israel in an unfair fashion” without that being reinterpreted as “you’re being anti-Semitic” and thus also subject to this same diversion?
This is important to establish, because without some standard as to when we’re going to allow a claim of anti-Semitism to pass the threshold where it can demand consideration on merits, every charge can be indefinitely tabled while “we” (meaning, usually, the targets of the attack) determine which critiques are legitimate and which ones are not, and that makes any critical discourse on anti-Semitism absolutely impossible. When it happens every single time — even when the speaker isn’t uttering the magic phrase — it begins to smack of defensiveness rather than an honest effort to weed out the bad faith claims.
I also honestly, truly, don’t think that what Dershowitz is doing is in essence calling these groups anti-Semitic (except the boycotters).* I do think that the targets likely will perceive it that way. But whose fault is that? The best way to shunt aside any counter-critique of anti-Israel discourse is to whine about folks playing the anti-Semitism card (and a great way to avoid grappling with the idea that you are being unfair is to convince yourself you’re being persecuted). It is a self-serving interpretation, to say the least.
Of course, Dershowitz does want us to believe that Carter, HRW, Amnesty, etc., are acting in morally wrongful and pernicious ways with regards to Israel, but that’s totally legitimate analysis even when the target doesn’t come in the form of or rise to the level of anti-Semitism. To quote “anti-Zionist Zionist” Steve Cohen: “it ain’t me who’s here confusing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.”
* I also don’t think Dershowitz is saying “I never call people anti-Semitic” — I highly doubt that is true, and I don’t think there is any reason for it to be true. He’s responding to the idea that “mere criticism” earns that appellation. The call for direct quotes is a request for a debate: give me an example where I actually said something was anti-Semitic, and we can talk about whether I was right to do so or not. But this generalized “you’re silencing debate with illegitimate accusations” is impossible to defend against; it’s an ever-moving target.
I think the word “bigotry” is not appropriate to use in talking about a country, given its strong associations with invidious discrimination. One doesn’t generally say that people were “bigoted” against South Africa during apartheid; people were boycotting, disfavoring, even biased against South Africa. “Bigoted” carries too much baggage, and has religious associations: big·ot – n. One who is strongly partial to one’s own group, religion, race, or politics and is intolerant of those who differ. I don’t think Dershowitz is so stupid about rhetoric that he doesn’t realize this.
“Because I’m feeling a little boxed in right now.”
Yeah — although my complaint is… different…
What percentage of posts about the Israel/Palestine conflict, written by Barry on Alas, have focused on bogus charges of anti-semitism? It seems like a high percentage. I’m not criticizing Barry here; I think he’s responding to trhe way that the conversation about Israel/Palestine tends to get framed, where Jews end up with the burden of proving that they’re “good” American Jews, Jews who are responsible for the actions of other American Jews, and who will devote a substantial percentage of their time talking about Israel/Palestine to calling out the semantic missteps of other American Jews.
And yet even though I can think of several other examples of Barry having made posts dedicated to just that subject on this blog, when we recently had that flurry of posts about anti-semitism, STILL some commenters came into the conversation to say that they were angry we hadn’t talked about spurious charges of anti-semitism.
I’m starting to feel the whole issue is a frakking distraction.
Of course, Dershowitz does want us to believe that Carter, HRW, Amnesty, etc., are acting in morally wrongful and pernicious ways with regards to Israel, but that’s totally legitimate analysis
Saying someone is a “bigot” and that they have a “special place in hell” for not supporting Israel strongly enough is a legitimate analysis? There is certainly room for an analysis of Carter’s and others actions in the context of historic and current anti-semitism, whether or not Carter, Amnesty et al are motivated by anti-semitism or not, but I don’t see Dershowitz’s comments as contributing to that discussion.
I was going to respond to David, but PG and Dianne pretty much said what I was going to say. Speaking more broadly, it’s not a matter of just using the right or correct words. If someone is ranting about the World Zionist Conspiracy, I’m going to assume they’re an antisemite, and no amount of protestation that they’re criticizing Zionism, not Jews, is going to alleviate my suspicions. If someone is criticizing Zionism from a historically informed and accurate position, I’ll probably be okay with that. It’s not a matter of which words or phrases are okay and which aren’t – it’s about context and the overall argument being made. Similarly, just to take the first quote about Carter, the sentence wouldn’t even make sense if you were to substitute another country. We don’t, in our foreign policy discourse, talk about being anti- and pro- certain countries, except Israel, and we don’t talk about bigotry toward other countries. On the other hand, if you substitute “anti-Semite” for “anti-Israel bigot” the sentence makes perfect sense.
All that said, I think Mandolin has a valid point.
I think coming up with some objective standards as for what constitutes anti-semitism is a good step in this direction. The standards you suggested before are essentially subjective and non-falsifiable (as I think you said in an earlier thread), and in the case of a fairly damaging and non-falsifiable claim, I think it’s natural that we’ll see a lot of ‘is too/are not’ exchanges.
—Myca
I think that objective standards are probably not possible.
* * *
PG, Dianne, and Chingona pretty much said most of what I’d say in response, David, regarding if Dershowitz was implying antisemitism or not. And I think there is a lot of your answer;
But, regarding the plagiarism, could you clarify this for me:
I don’t know how to respond to this, David, because you don’t provide any argument to rebut; this is simply your opinion. Okay, that’s your opinion.
Is it your opinion that researching the quotation and extensively editing it, as Peters’ did, is no work at all; and therefore there was no work for Dershowitz to steal?
Is it your opinion that it is work, but to take that work without attribution isn’t plagiarism? If so, why?
Besides, why would Dershowitz find errors — like getting the page numbers wrong — something he liked aesthetically and so chose to take from Peters? That’s not a plausible claim, David.
I feel like I’m arguing with a freshman who thinks it’s okay to read an article in an encyclopedia which says what Shakespeare said, and then to cite Shakespeare as a source as if he had actually read Shakespeare. No, it’s not okay. If it were okay, the convention of saying “as quoted in” — an extremely common convention used by tens of thousands of scholars — wouldn’t exist. If it were okay, the Harvard manual wouldn’t tell Harvard students to put in “as quoted by” when they do secondary citations of that sort.
It’s not okay, David. It’s plagiarism.
The argument from authority? Really?
I accept that about matters too complex for me to understand — for instance, the intricate disputes between different scientists over modeling climate change. But I don’t think this is a case even remotely like that.
Also, as mentioned in the OP’s link, it’s not even clear that Harvard ever examined the evidence of plagiarism we’re discussing.
Dianne: Saying someone is a bigot and hell-worthy if you think they are acting in an extremely morally pernicious way is a legitimate statement, yes — albeit one open to critique on the merits. I don’t happen to think that HRW and Amnesty are operating at that degree of moral peril. But I don’t think Dershowitz would characterize his beef with them as “not supporting Israel strongly enough” either. Dershowitz claim isn’t “not supporting Israel strongly enough –> damnation”. It’s “being an anti-Israel bigot –> damnation.” The way to counter that is either a) HRW and Amnesty aren’t “anti-Israel bigots” (my choice) or b) “anti-Israel bigotry is not a hell-worthy sin.”
PG: I think the reason folks didn’t use “bigot” vis-a-vis South Africa is because they generally though South Africa was treated fairly. Bigotry doesn’t just imply partiality, it also implies unfairness — Dershowitz’s claim isn’t that Israel is treated differently, but differently in an unfair fashion (compare the literal versus casual use of “discriminate”). I think that “bigot” is a rather rhetorically intense word, and I agree that Dershowitz uses it with that effect in mind and thus if someone doesn’t rise to the level warranting the usage we should critique it, but I don’t have a problem with the use per se even when attached to countries.
Myca: The reason that I don’t like the objective standard is that I don’t think anti-Semitism is even a candidate for the type of entity which can be objectively ascertained. Anti-Semitism is in a lot of ways self-referential — the principles it uses as underlying pillars are often the precise questions under contestation. Someone said anti-Semitism should be that which actually marginalizes Jews. Great, but marginalized from what position? Where should they be instead? That’s precisely what we’re debating! The “objective” standard is necessarily going to involve fiating away the precise areas of contention that are causing the debate in the first place. What are Jews owed? What constitutes fair treatment? These aren’t the sorts of things one finds through a microscope, nor are they dissolvable through “rational” discourse. Ultimately,the standard will have to imposed (not found) from without, and somebody is going to feel jobbed. I don’t even know the mechanism by which one could assert an absolute truth-ness to a claim of anti-Semitism (is it by consensus? Majority vote? Majority vote of Jews? Expert analysis?). It seems like an absurdism to me.
And even if I’m wrong on the strong version of my claim (there is no such thing as “objective” anti-Semitism), I’ll fall back to a weaker version: We’ll never find the objective anti-Semitism with sufficient certainty so that it will actually be conceded by all parties, and in the meantime the search for it will take forever (particularly since many of the folks who are at the forefront of demanding we divide “real” and “fake” anti-Semitic claims as a threshold obligation before engagement are the same people who have never seen an example of that which they’d concede to be “real” anti-Semitism.).
By contrast, I think we should view the claim of anti-Semitism as the beginning, not the end, of discussion (and I recognize that imposes obligations on the person making the claim as well) — a statement that invites greater investigation, inquiry, and dialogue, rather than a conversation stopper or trump. Doing this through a good-faith standard allows us to proceed with dialogue recognizing that anti-Semitism has plural and contested meanings, rather than forestalling the debate while we go on this metaphysical easter egg hunt that I don’t think will go anywhere and has the effect of tabling the discussion forever. It also, I think, coheres better to an agreeable standard of human dignity: The fact that my statement genuinely is making another person feel like they’re less of a human being, or that I don’t view them as my equal, should be of inherent concern to me; I should want to know why that is and see if there is any way I can reconcile the positions and principles I hold with what they need to consider themselves equals. By contrast, it seems very churlish to dismiss their feelings of distress because I “know” (objectively!) that they’re “wrong”.
Do you think this is what Dershowitz is doing? Or is he dismissing the ideas of the people he’s critiquing as being unworthy of even engaging because they are so bigoted? Or something else?
Yeah, my response is very similar to Chingona’s.
I agree with your general position when it comes to what our response to charges of antisemitism ought to be, but we’re assuming both that the person taking the possibly-antisemitic position and the person making the contested charge of antisemitism are both acting in good faith . . . and that’s part of what’s under debate.
I do think that people use charges of antisemitism as a way of saying “we should not listen to people who criticize Israel’s foreign policy, for they are mere bigots.” I also think that people use charges of ‘false-accusation-of-antisemitism’ s a way of saying “when that person objected to my Holocaust denial, he was just trying to censor my free intellectual inquiry,” which is clearly bullshit. I think that your quote, “By contrast, it seems very churlish to dismiss their feelings of distress because I “know” (objectively!) that they’re “wrong”,” tends to apply to both of these possibilities.
I do understand your objection to objective standards, but my problem is that my understanding of calling a certain statement racist, sexist, homophobic, or antisemitic has been that it also implied false. I believe that that was part of how Dershowitz was using it. I have a hard time thinking of something as both antisemitic and true, and (as I describe here) I think that your standards include that possibility.
It may well be that you recognize that and it doesn’t bother you, and god knows there’s no reason to fiddle with your definitions on my behalf, but for me, the possibility of antisemitic-but-true isn’t one I like.
—Myca
I’m actually in a reasonably good position to find out Dershowitz’s intent, as (in one of those weird coincidences) one of my closest friends at law school is the good professor’s former research assistant. I think there is a fair possibility that Dershowitz does not see “anti-Semitism” as a conversation starter rather than stopper. But if that’s correct, that’s where we should be critiquing him from. Indeed, I think the best way to “critique” it is by engaging in the dialogue anyway. If you’re already responding to Dershowitz, it’s just as easy to do it by explicitly including anti-Semitism as something that ought be on the table, rather than ignoring it or summarily dismissing it.
“That Jewish asshole, Bernie Madoff, stole millions of dollars!”
“Jewish”? True. “Stole millions”? True. “Asshole”? True, at least as far as we can say such a thing is true. Anti-Semitic? Possibly, even likely, based on a) what does him being Jewish have to do with anything and b) the possibility that “Jew” is being used as a pejorative.
I take it you’re concerned with a situation more akin to “The IDF committed numerous war crimes in Gaza.” True? Almost definitely. Anti-Semitic? Generally not, but I can think of a few situations where it might be: if the speaker didn’t recognize the validity of war crimes laws in any other cases but when Israel does it, or if the statement is being shouted at random Jews as they walk down the street.
But here I think a clarification might be useful: my advocacy of the good-faith standard isn’t to say that’s what makes something actually truly “anti-Semitic”. I don’t believe that, because as mentioned before I don’t believe there is an objective reality to a concept like anti-Semitism. I’m using good faith as a metric for when the claim is legitimate, not “true”, i.e., when it is worth engaging with on face as something worth our time and attention. So hopefully this checks against the concern about the “true-but-anti-semitic” scenario. Worst case, what we’d see instead is “true, but still a statement where we have to talk about anti-Semitism,” and that worries me far less. Because in the many cases between a dry history textbook saying “some IDF solidiers committed war crimes in Gaza” and random Jews being shouted down in the street, there probably is a lot of mistrust and vulnerability and potential for miscommunication that would make it worth our while to put the issue of anti-Semitism on the table (which isn’t to say presume the speaker guilty).
But also, I think most of the questions of anti-Semitism aren’t of this form — aren’t of cases where we’re dealing with truth candidates. “Calling for the destruction of Israel is anti-Semitic.” That’s not even a candidate to be shown objectively true or not. It collapses back into the deeper (and fundamentally contested) discussion of what Jews are owed. Most of the big disputes around anti-Semitism aren’t about factual claims but normative ones, hence ones not amenable to being “true but” anything. “Israel receives more foreign aid from the US than any other country”: Factually true; also not generally a big point of debate. “…and we should dramatically reduce that aid”: Big point of debate, but not “objectively” true or false.
Awesome example, and gets me inside your head a bit more on this. Makes total sense. I guess what I would see there as antisemitic is the deliberate linking of “Jewish” with “asshole who stole a bunch of money,” which I would put in the category of ‘saying true thing in an antisemitic way.’
Well, but see, according to your stated standard, your second two clauses (which, of course, I agree would make the statement antisemitic) aren’t necessary at all in order for the statement to be antisemitic. All that’s necessary is for a listener to find it, “threatening or marginalizing to them as a Jew,” which doesn’t seem unlikely, even if it’s presented in a purely scholarly context.
My example from the other thread was, “I think that the only morally acceptable options for Israel are a two-state solution or full political rights for the Palestinians,” which, I mean, from the stuff of yours I’ve read, I think that that’s more or less your position too . . . and yet it seems likely to be considered antisemitic by a not inconsiderable number of people.
Yeah, as I read this, I immediately realized how true it was. I really really don’t want to pretend that that’s what’s going on most of the time or to address fringe cases as if they’re the mainstream, and if I’m sidetracking the conversation away from where you (edit: Or, er, Ampersand, whose thread it is) want it, I’ll totally stop.
—Myca
For definitions of bigot, which run the gamut and would include all uses people in this thread have suggested, look here.
Seems to me that, unless one has gone out of one’s way to define Israel as a multicultural nation that is, in its population, not exclusively Jewish, and to make clear that the policies of the Israeli government are, in fact, policies that govern all inhabitants of Israel, citizens or not, Jewish or not–and this despite the fact that Israel is the Jewish State–in other words, unless you have made sure that your audience understands what you mean by “Israel” in the phrase “anti-Israel bigot” is not merely synonymous with only the Jewish population/Jewish identity of Israel, then it’s pretty hard to avoid the implication in using that phrase that the one to whom it is applied is, or is also, an anti-Jewish bigot.
I don’t think that is right–or at least, that’s not what I have understood–so perhaps that is behind some of the miscommunication? Certain actions or words are considered by certain circles to be classified as ___ist irrespective of the motivations or intent, and also irrespective of the truth of the statement.
Plenty of things are true, but still offensive to some party, or true, but still serve to reinforce certain attitudes that are considered less than stellar.
[Double-post erased.]
It’s “being an anti-Israel bigot –> damnation.” The way to counter that is either a) HRW and Amnesty aren’t “anti-Israel bigots” (my choice) or b) “anti-Israel bigotry is not a hell-worthy sin.”
I agree with your assessment that a is probably correct. If Carter were an anti-Israeli bigot, Israel would no longer exist. He was the US president between 1976 and 1980 and I doubt Israel could have held out without active US support, much less against active US opposition during that period. Menachem Begin found Carter a reasonable person to work with and I’m sure Begin is no anti-Israeli bigot. It’s possible that Carter has gone round the bend and become a bigot since 1980, but I’d need stronger evidence than criticism of Israel’s behavior in the Palastinian territories which a number of Israelis also disagree with.
I’m not completely convinced that hating a country, even to the point of bigotry, is really a hell worthy sin either. If so, I’m probably heading for the abyss since I can’t think of a single good thing about Saudi Arabia, a statement that must reflect some level of bigotry. The situation is confused by Israel’s status as the only predominantly Jewish country in the world. Therefore, it’s hard for people to prove that they aren’t anti-semitic when they criticize Israel in the same way I could claim that my anti-Saudi prejudice isn’t anti-Islam because I really don’t see Egypt or Bangladesh as worse than average countries. I can’t think of any obvious solution to this dilemma.
I apologize for the inevitably smarmy sound of this question, but is there any criticism of Israel that you wouldn’t automatically suspect of anti-semitism? For example, do you think that a (ethnically and/or religiously) Jewish Israeli who criticizes Israel’s behavior in Gaza is probably acting from anti-semitic motives? How does one prove that one is not criticizing from an anti-semitic standpoint? I’m assuming that you’re not making a claim that Israel is so wonderful that no criticism of its government is legitimate.
Oops, accidently double posted. The first post is mildly incomplete. Amp or someone, could you erase #29? Apologies for my computer incompetence.
:
1) As you note, Carter’s views may well have changed in the 29 years since 1980. Though unlike you, I’d be surprised if they didn’t change in 29 years. It’s been a pretty unusual 29 years, don’t you think? His views may have changed for the better or they may have changed for the worse, but they are probably not what they were in 1980.
2) Carter’s presidential decision making w/r/t the middle east and Israel may have been controlled by issues other than his moral view of Israel, such as military, economic, etc. Now that Carter is freed from responsibility for and primary allegiance to American national interests, he may be allowing his personal views to come to the fore.
3) Begin, as noted in #2 w/r/t Carter, may not have had bigotry foremost in his mind when evaluating Carter’s reasonableness. Moreover, it’s not entirely clear that it makes sense to rely on anecdotes from 1980, when we have 29 years of real life to look at since then.
I agree: if Carter is to be branded as a bigot, then we should look at the evidence, just like for anyone else. But when you simply classify his speech simply as “criticism of Israel’s behavior” that’s a bit dishonest: it’s not that Carter criticizes Israel which has caused the dispute about his motivations, but how, and why, and on what apparent basis, and in what context he has criticized Israel.
It is doubly problematic if you simultaneously go on the assumption that Carter is starting from a ‘state of grace’; in which Carter is presumed not to be bigoted based on behavior from 1980; and in which his recent activities are classified as nonproblematic.
I do take some exception to the idea that I would “automatically” think any criticism of Israel is anti-Semitic, (a) because that assumes I make those determinations reflexively, without any sort of deliberation or rational thought, (b) because it’s not like I don’t write a publicly available blog where one can see that I have criticized Israel (and no, I’m not warring with inner demons about whether I’m being anti-Semitic or not) and (c) even if that wasn’t true and you couldn’t directly verify that I clearly am okay with criticism of Israel as a general principle, I don’t think vocally being opposed to anti-Semitism and (also vocally) noting its intersection with anti-Israel discourse should “automatically” trigger the charge that one can’t countenance criticism of Israel — it’s a particularly pernicious permutation of the Livingstone Formulation, and one I think is tremendously offensive.
In any event, my presumptions, if you will, are not tied merely to the statement but also to the stater. A comment, issued by someone whom I know and respect and know cares about Jews and truly views and treats them as equals (particularly if they themselves are Jewish because then it’s their body on the line) is going to meet more acceptance than the same comment by someone whom I know is an anti-Semite (and of course there is a continuum in between). So J Street won’t meet with charges of anti-Semitism from me even when I disagree with them, because I know they are committed to norms of fairness as well as the security of Israel and Jews. By contrast, default stance towards Sudanese President Omar al-Bashir is significantly more … skeptical.
The problem, of course, is that in the whole wide world I don’t know most people, and thus don’t have access (at least at first glance) as to whether they are people who truly view Jews as equal, understand Jewish history, value Jewish perspectives — in short, are allies. My default assumption is that they are not. I don’t think that’s unreasonable of me — it certainly accords to my experience with most non-Jews I’ve met who don’t really know that much about Jews qua Jews (this is true for pro- as well as anti-Israel folks out there).
That isn’t to say that I believe the average person is a Jew-hating Nazi; I don’t. I just don’t have any particular reason to believe that Joe Random Gentile either knows all that much about or cares all that much about Jews, beyond mainstream stereotypes. In a world where this is the default, I’ll admit to starting off mistrustful unless I see indications otherwise. Show me you value Jewish perspectives, show me that you think Jewish bodies matter, show me you take as seriously as human beings and not as caricatures or objects, and you’d be surprised how far I’m willing to walk with you.
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