New Developments in the Right To Discriminate

A new survey measures people's attitudes towards businesses discriminating against various types of customers -- gays and lesbians, transgender individuals, atheists Muslims, Jews, and African-Americans. There are some really interesting takeaways.

• Republicans are -- across the board -- more likely to favor permitting discrimination than Democrats or Independents. This is true across all customer-identities.

• However, Republicans also exhibit considerably more variance across different groups -- tolerating discrimination against certain sorts far more than others. At the top end, circa 45% favor permitting discrimination against gay, lesbian, and trans individuals. At the bottom, only 18% favor it when it comes to African-Americans. Meanwhile, Democrats never stray out of a tight 14% - 19% band for any group -- suggesting a cadre that (perhaps for some libertarian freedom-of-contract reason) supports the "right to discriminate" on principle.

• Given the recent high-profile controversies about businesses serving gay customers and the extent to which GOP politicians have sought to make it into a culture war front (ex: Indiana, Masterpiece Cakeshop), I wonder if the commitment to the right to discriminate against LGBT individuals is having the effect of "dragging up" GOP support for a similar right as against other groups -- people believing that if they don't support a "right to discriminate" against Jews, then there can't be a right to discriminate against gays either. This hypothesis, however, clashes with the willingness of many Republicans (noted above) to just happily accept the double-standard.

• That said, again given the degree to which the GOP has sought to put the right to discriminate against LGBT customers into the news, I'm actually shocked that the figures here are so low. Again, we're talking (slightly) less than half of Republican voters, and less than a third of Americans total. There's actually a pretty strong bipartisan consensus against the position GOP politicians have been staking out.

• In the religion-bowl, Atheists are disliked more than Muslims are disliked more than Jews. The difference is very stark among Republicans (37% support a "right to discriminate" against Atheists, 32% against Muslims, 24% against Jews) but much narrower among the population writ large (24/22/19, respectively).

The Tide Never Goes Out Roundup

I've been relying on roundups more than I'd like recently, but that's the way it goes sometimes.

* * *

Potential blockbuster lawsuit by a former top staffer accuses ZOA chieftain Mort Klein of massive financial improprieties. I don't think I can even cover this story I want it to be true so badly.

Chris LeBron reviews Charles Mills on American liberalism and race.

Robin DiAngelo's article on "White Fragility" has been making the rounds forever (and nearly from the moment I've read it I've wanted to write about "Gentile Fragility"), but now she's turned it into a book.

First explicitly joint Jewish-Arab pride event in Israel held in the city of Lod.

Labour continues its aggressive campaign against antisemitism .... reporters. Meanwhile, another Labour Councilor suggests that the entire antisemitism controversy is a Mossad plot to undermine Corbyn, while Corbyn himself (in 2012 comments) went on Iranian State TV to suggest that a terrorist attack on Egyptian police was actually an Israeli false flag ("I suspect the hand of Israel in this whole process of destabilisation" could, at this point, be Labour's motto). But they did suspend their "Jews are blood-drinkers and should be executed" Councilor, so there's that.

Any time I read one of these "I'm a conservative professor and my students refuse to read any White Male author" screeds, all I think is "Really? Because my students never give me a fuss about reading those same authors you listed. Maybe you're just terrible at teaching?"

A Message on Internalized (and Externalized) Antisemitism from 1982

Evelyn Torton Beck's Nice Jewish Girls: A Lesbian Anthology arrived in the mail today. Originally published in 1982, it remains both wonderfully and infuriatingly relevant today.

Here is an excerpt from Irena Klepfisz's "Anti-Semitism in the Lesbian/Feminist Movement," offering a serious of questions that "both Jewish and non-Jewish women might consider asking in trying to identify in themselves sources of shame, conflict, doubt, and anti-Semitism." (pp. 49-51)

1. Do I have to check with other Jewish women in order to verify whether something is anti-Semitic? Do I distrust my own judgment on this issue?
2. When I am certain, am I afraid to speak out?
3. Am I afraid that by focusing on anti-Semitism I am being divisive?
4. Do I feel that by asking other women to deal with anti-Semitism I am draining the movement of precious energy that would be better used elsewhere?
5. Do I feel that anti-Semitism has been discussed too much already and feel embarrassed to bring it up?
6. Do I feel that the commercial presses and the media are covering the issue of anti-Semitism adequately and that it is unnecessary to bring it up also in the movement? Am I embarrassed by the way anti-Semitism/the Holocaust is presented in the media? Why?
7. Do I have strong disagreements with and/or am ashamed of Israeli policies and, as a result, don't feel that I can defend Jews whole-heartedly against anti-Semitism? Is it possible for me to disagree with Israeli policy and still oppose anti-Semitism?
8. Do I feel guilty and/or ashamed of Jewish racism in this country and, as a result, feel I can't defend Jews whole-heartedly against anti-Semitism? Is it possible for me to  acknowledge Jewish racism, struggle against it, and still feel Jewish pride? And still oppose anti-Semitism?
9. Do I feel that Jews have done well in this country and, therefore, should not complain?
10. Do I feel that historically, sociologically, and/or psychologically, anti-Semitism is "justified" or "understandable," and  that I am, therefore, willing to tolerate it?
11. Do I feel that anti-Semitism exists but it is "not so bad" or "not so important"? Why?
12. Do I believe that by focusing on the problems of anti-Semitism I will make it worse? Why?
13. Do I feel that Jews draw too much attention to themselves? How?
14. Do I associate the struggle against anti-Semitism with conservativism? Why?
15. What Jewish stereotypes am I afraid of being identified with? What do I repress in myself in order to prevent such identification?

Not Knowing "Zio" is a Slur is an Indictment, Not a Defense

The Chicago Dyke March, an alternative to Chicago Pride that is meant to have a more "social justice" orientation, caught a heap of bad press when it expelled several Jewish marchers for carrying rainbow Jewish pride flags featuring a Star of David on them. The march has defiantly resisted any and all calls to apologize, and insisted that it was only being "critical of Israel" (isn't everything?).

Yesterday, it popped back into the antisemitism news beat by posting a tweet: "Zio tears replenish my electrolytes!" "Zio" is an antisemitic slur popularized by David Duke; even the milquetoast Chakrabarti Inquiry into antisemitism in Labour agreed it was a racist term (and St. Jeremy Corbyn himself agreed: "'Zio' is a vile epithet that follows in a long line of earlier such terms that have no place whatsoever in our party.").

The March is defending itself from renewed antisemitism allegations by saying it "Definitely didn't know the violent history of the term."

They mean this as a defense. It's actually an indictment. Let me explain why.

I'll accept, for sake of argument, that the Chicago Dyke March did not "know" the term "Zio" was antisemitic. Nonetheless, the March almost certainly did not stumble across the term "Zio" by accident. It got it from somewhere, from sources it felt confident enough in that it felt comfortable emulating. In other words, one of the ways the Chicago Dyke March learned to speak about matters of Jewish concern was from people who think it is okay to toss around terms like "Zio." The odds that everything else it learned about those matters from this same social network was magically uninfected by this obvious antisemitism is incredibly scant. It's the thirteenth (or in this case fourteenth, or fifteenth, or seventieth) chime that calls into question the other twelve.

There are many places in this country where people grow up hearing racial slurs that they don't "know" are derogatory -- they're "just what people say." When they move into the wider world and use such terms, they sometimes claim ignorance -- and in some sense, they might be right. But the implication of their apologia is that not that they are free from racism -- far from it. It's that they grew up in an environment where racism was so normalized that they didn't even know how to recognize it. Such a situation demands some very hard work of unlearning, of radically questioning one's own presuppositions and acknowledging that one needs to acquire substantial new information before one can feel confident in one's ability to relate to the other group in an ethical manner.

But let's give the Dyke March even further benefit of the doubt. Suppose they somehow magically stumbled upon "Zio" through entirely innocent means -- nobody in their social network was using it, they came up with it all by their creative selves. Even still, all that would demonstrate is that they don't know crucial information about a subject they nonetheless feel fully confident to opine on. Put another way, if they didn't "know" that "Zio" was antisemitic, shouldn't the next question be "what else don't we know?"

I've long thought that the heart of oppression as a discursive practice is a perceived entitlement to talk about a group without knowing about the group. The Chicago Dyke March pleads ignorance about Jews and antisemitism, but that ignorance in no way dissipates their belief that they are absolutely entitled to talk about Jews and Jewish institutions however they want and be treated as credible and legitimate entrants to the discussion. It's not a valid move. If you don't know enough about Jews or antisemitism to know that "Zio" is an antisemitic term, then you don't know enough to be confident that any of your other opinions about Jews or antisemitism are worthwhile.

The Dyke March, in short, wants the innocence of ignorance without the responsibility. It wants to be able to say, on the one hand, "we didn't know that this term we used was a prominent antisemitic slur", while on the other hand it equally wants to say "we do know that in all other cases everything else we've said or done vis-a-vis Jews is entirely above-board and not antisemitic." They can only have the first if they're willing to disturb the second.

That's Funny, This Story About Anti-Semitism Keeps Repeating Itself

One more post on the expulsion of Jewish marchers carrying a rainbow flag with a Star of David on it from a "Dyke March" in Chicago. In a statement, the March organizers defended their actions, in part, by saying that the Jews in question "repeatedly expressed support for Zionism during conversations with Chicago Dyke March Collective members." On this, I could not agree more with Jaz Twersky:

It is not reasonable or fair to interrogate every Jew about their views on Israel just because they're Jewish https://t.co/9wpaSvo2Rv

— Jaz Twersky (@WordNerdKnitter) June 25, 2017

But this also made me think of a passage from Steve Cohen's seminal "That's Funny, You Don't Look Anti-Semitic." (this is from the 2005 introduction, recounting reactions to the original publication in 1984):

That's Funny You Don't Look Anti-Semitic did create ripples. It managed to split the JSG [Jewish Socialist Group] whose then dominant leadership thought it might offend the Socialist Workers Party. It resulted in some pretty dreadful correspondence over many weeks in journals like Searchlight and Peace News. A pamphlet was written denouncing me as a "criminal".  

There was a particular review—in Searchlight—one sentence of which I will never forget. Every Jew on the left will know that terrible syndrome whereby, whatever the context and wherever one is, we will be tested by being given the question "what is your position on Zionism?" Wanna support the miners—what's your position on Zionism? Against the bomb—what's your position on Zionism? And want to join our march against the eradication of Baghdad, in particular the eradication of Baghdad—what's your position on Zionism? And we all know what answer is expected in order to pass the test. It is a very strong form of anti-Semitism based on assumptions of collective responsibility. Denounce Zionism, crawl in the gutter, wear a yellow star and we'll let you in the club. Which is one reason why I call myself an Anti-Zionist Zionist—at least that should confuse the bastards.  

Anyhow this particular review, noting that my book actually did attack Zionism, said "It is not enough to trot out platitudes, as he does, about being against Zionism and in support of the Palestinian struggle". So I'm not allowed into the club even though I fulfil the entry requirements. I'm not allowed in because I recognise and oppose the existence of anti-Semitism on the Left—and this therefore renders all support for Palestinians a "platitude". Well it ain't me who's here confusing anti-Semitism and anti-Zionism.

Wanna support the miners--what's your position on Zionism? Want to be a gay person--what's your position on Zionism? There's nothing new under the sun here. The story didn't change from 1984 to 2005, and it didn't change from 2005 to 2017.

As should be obvious, I don't think one should have to "attack Zionism" to be part of the club (though I've always loved Cohen's "Anti-Zionist Zionist" descriptor -- "that should confuse the bastards" indeed!). The point, rather, is that the Zionism or anti-Zionism rarely is the point. The point is the tight regulation of Jewish political activities, under which Jewish access to progressive political spaces is always provisional. Having a Star of David shouldn't be a license for an interrogation on one's views about Zionism, and if the issue does come up Jews should not have to engage in ritual self-abasement to pass the test. When those requirements are in play -- and for Jews, they're always in play -- antisemitism is alive and well.

Who Could Have Known That Characterizing All Jewish Political Agency as a Conspiracy Could Lead To Antisemitism?

I briefly posted last night about the exclusion of queer Jews carrying a rainbow flag with a Star of David on it being excluded from a Chicago gay pride parade. The march was not the main Chicago Pride parade but a smaller "Dyke March" which claimed to be specifically interested in fostering greater inclusion and diversity.

The Windy City Times (a gay periodical in Chicago) now has some more information on the exclusion. While the march organizers have yet to issue a statement, defenders of the expulsion of Jewish marchers have unsurprisingly seized upon the "pinkwashing" claim as their best gambit. Given that one of the expelled marchers is an officer with the LGBT group A Wider Bridge -- an organization often unjustly accused of pinkwashing on the basis of little more evidence than "they work with queer Israelis" -- I expect we'll hear plenty more contentions that a rainbow flag with a Star of David is actually best thought of as a propaganda arm of the Israeli government seeking to downplay the occupation.

I've written quite a bit about why pinkwashing is an absurd charge, and one that is only intelligible through antisemitic notions of Jewish conspiracy whereby any actions Jews take is presumed to be part of some sort of plot. This shows the inevitable endpoint of that analysis: If you're a Jew, and you're open about it, the presumption is you must be an agent of Israeli hasbara unless you engage in public self-flagellation demonstrating the contrary. A Star of David suffices to show you're in on the plot. A Star of David with a rainbow is enough to infer your true objectives. What else could you possibly be doing at a gay pride parade other than serving as an agent of a foreign power?

Simply put, when you can't conceptualize Jewish political action but through the lens of some sort of conspiratorial effort to prop up Israeli policies in the West Bank and Gaza, it's utterly unsurprising that simply carrying a Star of David will become sufficient proof of "pinkwashing". "Pinkwashing", as a concept, merges entirely into a politics of antisemitic exclusion precisely because it is predicated on being unable to hold multiple thoughts in one's head at the same time -- the Star of David is a Jewish symbol and it's on the Israeli flag! Jews may be proud of Israel's relative protections of LGBT rights and sharply critical of its policies towards Palestinians!

One final thing. On twitter, some people questioned if the expulsion of these marchers might be unlawful as a form of anti-Jewish discrimination. I believe that the answer is clearly no, under the precedent set by Hurley v. Irish-American Gay, Lesbian and Bisexual Group of Boston. But there is some irony: Hurley allowed an Irish pride parade to exclude gay marchers from the proceedings insofar as the parade organizers disagreed with the "message" of their would-be co-marchers (the message, apparently, being that there were Irish-American gay people who were proud of that identity). And the same rule that permits an Irish pride parade to be homophobic, allows a Gay pride parade to be anti-Semitic.

UPDATE: I've finally seen a statement by a march organizer, Iliana Figueroa:

"Yesterday during the rally we saw three individuals carrying Israeli flags super imposed on rainbow flags. Some folks say they are Jewish Pride flags. But as a Collective we are very much pro-Palestine, and when we see these flags we know a lot of folks who are under attack by Israel see the visuals of the flag as a threat, so we don't want anything in the [Dyke March] space that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism," she said. "So we asked the folks to please leave. We told them people in the space were feeling threatened."

First of all, these flags were not "Israeli flags super imposed on rainbow flags." They had a Star of David on a Rainbow background. This is an "everything is critical of Israel" move, where an antisemitic action is reformulated as anti-Israel expression, which then will be lobbed back at Jews accused of being unable to tolerate "criticism of Israel" and/or (ironically enough) unwilling to cease "conflating" Israel and Jewishness.

Second, the "we don't want anything in the space that can inadvertently or advertently express Zionism" -- as applied against a visible Star of David -- couldn't illustrate my above points better if I had written it. The point of "pinkwashing", as an accusation, is to render any organized act of queer Jewish agency that is not torch-and-pitchfork anti-Zionist into the equivalent of an Israeli governmental press release. Once that's the standard, it is unsurprising and predictable that basic expressions of Jewish identity will become illicit as "inadvertently express[ing] Zionism," and the upshot is that Jews are excluded virtually in toto.

Figueroa said that a full statement will be forthcoming "after it finishes crafting one, and that members have asked pro-Palestinian organizations and others to release statements of solidarity with Dyke March as well." Again, note how the easiest move for many groups, when faced with Jewish claims of marginalization, is to shift as quickly as possible onto the "Israel" terrain as a means of delegitimizing the Jewish narrative. This response doesn't remedy the anti-Semitism (indeed, it scarcely seeks to address it) -- it doubles-down on it.

UPDATE 2x: Statement is out, and as predicted "A Wider Bridge" gets exactly the treatment I anticipated. On the other hand, the Human Rights Campaign issued a statement of condemnation.

UPDATE 3x: I wrote a follow-up post: "That's Funny, This Story About Anti-Semitism Keeps Repeating Itself."

Stiff Competition in the Gross Sweepstakes

Which is grosser? Ha'aretz saying the Maccabi Games "make 1936 Berlin Olympics seem liberal"?

Or a Chicago gay pride parade that was specifically presented as being extra-concerned with inclusion kicking out Jewish marchers for having a Rainbow flag adorned with a Star of David?

Man, tough call.

Things People Blame the Jews For, Volume XXVI: Stabbings in Bangladesh

A simmering human rights tragedy has been unfolding over the past few years in Bangladesh, where Islamist militants have taken to brazen public attacks against secularists, atheists, religious minorities, gay rights activists, and other liberal public figures. Many of the targets have been hacked to death in their homes or on the street. And Bangladeshi police have had virtually no luck in tracking down culprits (critics accuse them of not being particularly interested in tracking down culprits).

But perhaps we can cut them some slack. Local police are no match for a coordinated campaign of terrorism launched by you-know-who:

Bangladesh Home Minister Asaduzzaman Khan has suggested an Israeli link to the recent killings of secular bloggers and minorities. 

He said an opposition politician had met an Israeli intelligence agent and there was evidence of an "international conspiracy" against Bangladesh. 

He gave no more evidence. Israel says the claim is nonsense. 

Critics say the government is in denial about the killings, most of which have been blamed on or claimed by Islamists. 

The "meeting" referred occurred when a Bangladeshi politician met an Israeli diplomat in India. The Bangladeshi was quickly arrested and charged with sedition.

BBC's Dhaka correspondent predicted that Khan's unsubstantiated conspiracy-mongering will play well in Bangladesh because most of the country is sympathetic to the Palestinians.

If I didn't know better, I'd almost think that anti-Israel and anti-Jewish scapegoating are a tool used by political elites to deflect from their own failings.

I Would Have Liked To Tell Her....

Scout Bratt, who was apparently among the protesters who shut down the "Creating Change" conference event hosted by A Wider Bridge and featuring Jerusalem Open House, defends the "disruption" in the Forward. As an argument, it isn't worth much. It does provide a good example of what I termed the "conspiratorial edge" in rhetoric about Pinkwashing. Bratt asserts that Israel has a "branding" campaign seeking to designate itself as LGBT friendly, which may well be true. But she does not provide any evidence that A Wider Bridge (much less Jerusalem Open House, which is not mentioned in her article at all) has any connection to that effort. Here's the extent of Bratt's case for linking the two up:

It’s because of this interconnected struggle that we can’t sit quietly and watch pinkwashing organizations like A Wider Bridge paper over Israel’s harmful policies toward Palestinians — policies that harm gay Palestinians in Haifa as well as in Ramallah. This pinkwashing is an integral part of Israel’s “Brand Israel” public relations strategy, which appeals to racist ideas of Palestinians, Arabs and Muslims as backward and intolerant in contrast to the supposedly enlightened Western liberalism of Israel.

Well those certainly are two sentences next to one another. How is A Wider Bridge part of the governmental "Brand Israel" strategy? Does the fact that Israel seeks to promote its LGBT policies necessarily make all queer Israelis mouthpieces for the government? What, exactly, does A Wider Bridge do that constructs Palestinians and Arabs as backwards? If A Wider Bridge seeks only to "paper over" Israeli governmental policies, why is it hosting avowedly left-wing organizations like Jerusalem Open House who regularly and openly criticize the Israeli government? Apropos my recent Tablet article, how does A Wider Bridge emphasize Israel's "Western liberal[]" character when it is among the few North American organizations to devote significant attention to Mizrahi and Sephardic Jewish narratives?

One searches in vain for answers which are not forthcoming. And they need not be forthcoming, because the meta-answer is that "whenever queer Israelis are present, they're in on the Zionist plot." What more needs to be said? Two Jews are an argument, three are a conspiracy.

It is perhaps unsurprising, then, that the heart of Bratt's column does not focus on seriously arguing for why the sort of exclusion she promotes is justified. The heart of it, rather, is an ode to how good it feels to be part of this protesting community. I'll quote her at length:

So often, calls for dialogue or critiques of protest rhetoric are invoked to mask the deep need for self-reflection and critique. Rather than listening to and grappling with the urgent cry for justice expressed at Creating Change, many commentators have reverted to the usual accusations. 

Yes, banning an organization from a conference or protesting the reception it hosted may have been disruptive. But why are we so afraid of disruption? 

At our alternative Shabbat service, hosted by Jewish Voice for Peace-Chicago and Coalition for a Just Peace in Israel-Palestine, I saw a community united by a shared sense of what it will take to bring about the world we want to see. Sometimes, that will include disruption. As we read from the weekly Torah portion about the splitting of the Red Sea, we asked one another, “What does it mean to divide and conquer? How can my true liberation be bound up in your drowning, your oppression, your suffering?” What we were welcoming that Shabbat was not rest, but action. Not comfort, but empowerment. The sea parting for all of us, or none. The world that is on its way, not the world as it is. 

As the space filled with yearning and energy, we drank up the feeling of being surrounded by those who shared our commitment to building community in the name of justice for all.

The ecstatic, almost messianic zeal one reads in these words is meant to be uplifting. It is actually terrifying. When I read this passage, I immediately turned to Milan Kundera's thoughts on the matter:

She would have liked to tell them that behind Communism, Fascism, behind all occupations and invasions lurks a more basic, pervasive evil and that the image of that evil was a parade of people marching by with raised fists and shouting identical syllables in unison.

And so we get the earnest question about why anyone should be concerned about "banning an organization from a conference or protesting the reception it hosted." What could possibly go wrong, when it feels so right to be "surrounding by those who shared our commitments," and off they went with fists raised and march slogans (of "from the river to the sea, Palestine will be free") chanted in unison?

Bratt concludes with what has to be a sick joke: lamenting the "increasingly personal attacks on activists [in Israel], legislating against human rights organizations, and escalating state and vigilante violence that goes unchecked." To write that even as her cohort precipitated just such an attack, even as it drove off such an Israeli human rights organization, even as it used its coercive power and implied threat of violence against progressive Israelis secure in the knowledge that they would go unpunished, is an outright mockery.

But it did crystallize one further thought in my mind. A few days earlier, Maya Haber put out a call urging progressive Jews to invest in liberal and progressive infrastructure in Israel. Through the 1990s, conservative Jews dedicated vast sums of money funding think tanks and NGOs and programming and institutes, which paid dividends in prompting the nation's right-wing drift post Oslo. The left should respond in kind; building its own civic society network to revive Israel's dormant progressive base. And I agree with her. whole-heartedly! That is one of the most important things that progressive Jews and non-Jews can do to help precipitate a just peace wherein both Jewish and Palestinian self-determination rights are actualized on equal terms.

But the problem Haber overlooked is that a considerable element of the left doesn't want to see a reinvgorated Israeli left. Certainly, they claim to be appalled by efforts to marginalize Israeli peace organizations; groups like Breaking the Silence or B'tselem. Yet it turns out that when such groups try to present their message to the world, they're targeted with the same exclusionary zeal as all other Israelis. Ami Ayalon is among the highest-ranking Israeli security officials to support "Breaking the Silence". But when he came to speak at Kings College London, it was at the invitation of the Israel Society, and it was anti-Israel protesters throwing chairs and smashing windows in a bid to drown him out. Likewise with Moshe Halbertal at Minnesota, preparing to explain why military forces (Israelis included) are obligated to put their own troops at risk in order to protect civilian populations.  And likewise with Jerusalem Open House. JOH has to be counted among the human rights organizations Bratt claims to care so much about. Yet when the chips were down, she was among those demanding they be silenced, and A Wider Bridge was the organization that had their backs.

The reason for this incongruity is that, once you're deep enough down the rabbit hole, the prospect of a "Zionist left" is more threatening to them than a Zionist right. The latter only confirms their prejudgments about what Zionism is and inevitably must be. The former, by contrast, challenges these preconceptions, it would force them to reckon with alternate possibilities and consider richer narratives. Jerusalem Open House, A Wider Bridge, Ami Ayalon -- they aren't protested because they're going to say something outrageous to progressive ears. They're protested because they'll say something that, if truly considered as part of an egalitarian commitment to deliberation, would probably have resonance.

It wouldn't, to be sure, be the sort of resonance that leads to raised fists and chanted slogans. It would not be the sort of feeling Bratt would want to "drink up". But it would provide the foundations for a genuine progressive step forward. And with regard to that ambition, Bratt is not an ally. She's a saboteur.

LGBT Conference: Hearing from LGBT Jews Would Be Too "Divisive", Not "Safe"

The National LGBTQ Task Force canceled an event from its "Creating Change" conference, apparently due to the host groups' ties to Israel. The event, which would have been on Friday, featured A Wider Bridge, a  group that seeks to present the stories of queer Israelis to the North American American LGBTQ community, and Jerusalem Open House, a prominent Israeli LGBT advocacy and activist organization. While initial reports cited "safety" concerns as the rationale, there were no reports of any incipient violence. A statement from National LGBTQ Task Force Executive Director Rea Carey confirmed that the cancellation was instead due to the "divisive" nature of hearing Jews and Israelis speak about their experiences:

“Last week, we decided to cancel a Friday night reception at the Creating Change Conference entitled ‘Beyond the Bridge.’ We cancelled the reception when it became clear to us it would be intensely divisive rather than the community-building, social atmosphere which is the norm for Friday night at the conference. While we welcome robust discourse and political action, given the complexity and deep passions on all sides, we concluded the event wouldn’t be productive or meet the stated goals of its organizers. We also have the overarching responsibility to ensure that Creating Change is a safe space for attendees. Since the cancellation, we have been accused of being many things including being anti-Jewish, or anti-Semitic — which are wrong and deeply painful to those of us in the National LGBTQ Task Force family. We believe in the self-determination of all people, no matter where they call home, the right of LGBTQ people to live in peace and safety, and in constructive dialogue that moves the work for social justice forward. We are an organization dedicated to LGBTQ freedom, justice and equality for all.”

The cancellation is particularly painful given Jerusalem Open House's efforts to recover from the horrific stabbing attack perpetuated by an ultra-Orthodox Jewish extremist at the Jerusalem gay pride parade. That attack deeply traumatized the gay rights community in Israel, and one of the goals of international conferences like these is to let vulnerable queer communities know that the rest of the world has their back. But, of course, Jews can never count on the rest of the world to have our backs, or fronts, or sides. It's a very "divisive" thing to do, after all.

To be most generous to the conference organizers, one suspects that they knew that various anti-Israel radicals would try to disrupt the event, knew that they would not be able to stop them, and knew that this occurrence would distract from the "community-building, social atmosphere" image the conference wanted to display. But let's be clear: that rationale is a tacit acknowledgement of just how deep that prejudice runs. It is a capitulation; an admission that they don't have the resources to tackle it and so certain LGBT persons are outside its protective purview.

I also have to note how, as is so frequently the case, the bald rejection of being labeled "anti-Semitic" is not coupled with any argument why (let alone any consideration of the possibility their interlocutors have a point). Indeed, while they transition straight into universal formulations of their organizational values, they can't spare a word to confirm that they apply to Jews specifically. Do Jews have the right to "self-determination" (do they count as a "people"? It's hardly a closed question). Do they think Jews have the right to organize social justice oriented dialogue on their own terms (evidently not). Perhaps they think it is self-evident that refusing to even listen to Jewish and Israeli LGBT voices describe their own experiences is not anti-Semitic. It doesn't seem self-evident to me, nor to the prominent voices in that community who have blasted the decision. But as is too frequently the case, the spectre of anti-Semitism doesn't prompt introspection, only defensive complaints of how "hurtful" it is.

Finally, the invocation of "safe space" here finely demonstrates my intuition that this concept is a check Jews are not entitled to cash. Here, "safety" is being deployed as a weapon; as a narrative tool to cast Jewish and Israeli groups as inherently putting the lives of others at risk. Jews are hardly the only minority group whose mere presence is taken by some to constitute a threat. When the National LGBTQ Task Force endorses that narrative, it is inscribing violence, not combating it.

The event will be hosted instead at a hotel across the street from the main conference venue. One hopes that the publicity, at least, will give them more attendees. But one also hopes that the remaining participants in the conference will take their owns steps to ensure that LGBT spaces are open to the voices of all.

UPDATE: The Task Force has reversed its decision and reinvited A Wider Bridge. Kudos.

It All Hangs Together

I'm not going to say you shouldn't read Liel Leibovitz's latest Tablet Mag column "We Are All Racists Now." But maybe you don't have time. You're a busy guy. So I'll do you a favor and summarize the argument. Ready?

The White House just opened a gender-neutral bathroom, probably because it thinks trans-bias is more dangerous than Iran because presidential administrations should only do one thing at a time. And that one thing obviously shouldn't be transgender rights, because gay marriage is becoming more popular. The administration claims it has something to do with "safety", which shares a root with the word "safe", as in "safe spaces", man aren't those ridiculous? Kids these days. Anyway, by announcing support for transgender rights, he's just taking the easy way out by riding the wave of popular support for gay marriage, rather than doing something hard like taking on banks. Or doing a different foreign policy. You see, transgender rights are part of the culture war, and Obama wants to call anyone who disagrees with him a gay basher or a racist. Oppose his Iran plan, and he'll point to his unisex bathroom and say you hate ... gays? What would have happened if congressional Democrats systematically tried to undermine Reagan's foreign policy? We don't know because they didn't try! I guess that settles that.

Yet despite this cunning and perfectly comprehensible retort, some people still think some attacks on Obama are racist. Once upon a time liberals favored open discourse, but now they use that discourse to call things racist that I don't think are racist, and that's offensive triggering silencing censorship for some reason, rather than just counterspeech that makes me sad. All of this will be bad for the Jews, because if there's one group that would benefit from "-ism" claims being preemptively dismissed as a form of censorship, it's the Jews. In conclusion, "we're all racists now." The end.

Seriously, it's like if someone promised Liel that they'd take a shot for every inane trope he was able to string together without a segue. Please, go ahead and read the column and tell me where I'm being remotely unfair.

Pinkwashing Machine

I don't get "pinkwashing." As a concept, I mean. I don't get the supposed logic behind it. It is, as best I can tell, the only movement explicitly predicated on its adherents being morons -- at least if you take it at face value. If you don't take it at face value, it gets more pernicious still. But I race ahead of myself.

"Pinkwashing" is the supposed phenomenon whereby Israel uses its relatively good record on gay rights to distract people's attention away from the occupation. As supervillain strategies go, this seems relatively benign. Moreover, I can't imagine this is Israel's actual thought process. Picture the scene: The elders of Zion are meeting. They have the banks, the media, Hollywood -- all the tools of the global Zionist network -- at their disposal, and are trying to figure out how to keep Palestinians immiserated for as long as possible. The conclave is completely stumped until suddenly, Shmuel hits on a solution: Be nice to gays! It's to progressives like cat videos are to the rest of the world -- once they see it, they won't be able to think about anything else! Boom, problem solved -- until those meddling activists saw through the cunning plot and cried "pinkwashing."

This is a joke. For "pinkwashing" to make sense in the manner its proponents claim that it does, one basically is admitting that holding onto two thoughts is one too many. It's a claim that you are entirely incapable of walking and chewing gum at the same time. This doesn't happen in other contexts. If I wax lyrical about something I like about the United States -- our First Amendment right to free speech, for example -- I have yet to be accused of "washing away" the plight of the homeless. Our political discourse patterns regularly manage to hold multiple thoughts about the United States at the same time -- things we like, and things we dislike, and things we're ambivalent about. Amazing, I know. And I can do the same thing about Israel too -- I can like some of its characteristics, be ambivalent towards others, and outright oppose some more. It's really not that difficult.

Unsurprisingly, there is something more going on here, and that something is the "delegitimization" debate. Pinkwashing activists, I have to believe, aren't so delusional as to seriously believe that celebrating Israel's gay rights record actually prevents us from thinking critical thoughts about Israel's treatment of Palestinians. What they do think -- accurately -- is that viewing Israel positively in even a single dimension prevents us from holding onto the viewpoint of Israel as an inherently evil and fundamentally irredeemable state. Israel is fundamentally different from other states in that it is a paragon of wrongdoing -- it is rotten to the bone and must therefore be eradicated. Remember how the Church of Scotland viewed the liberal elements of Israel's declaration of independence? Seemingly proof that Zionism can encompass positive liberal elements, the Church instead dismissed them as external to and in tension with the Zionist project. Pinkwashing is the same thing. If Israel seems to be doing good, it's a trick or a distraction.

If one views Israel as of the same class as other countries -- a mixture of right and wrong, good and bad, then Israel's positive gay rights record poses no threat (what a strange reaction, incidentally, to instinctively recoil when a country does good!). Normal politics is not like a PGA Tour event where countries try to move up the leaderboard in the search for "best". In normal politics, we try to encourage the good and fix the bad, and recognize that no matter what field we work in we will invariably see a mix of both.

But the anti-pinkwashers don't view Israel as normal politics. The idea that Israel can do good really is a threat, because when it comes right down to it they really do have a problem with thinking two thoughts at once. Israel only allows for one thought: "evildoer." There's no room for engagement, no room for discussion, no room to consider the angles. Israel is evil, and anything that complicates that picture must be ruthlessly suppressed until the cancer can be eradicated. Even if individual "pinkwashing" activists don't hold that as their politics, that's the tenor of their discourse.

Is it any wonder, then, that most Jews react with such hostility to the pinkwashing charge? It's hardly because they want a world in which there are no critical thoughts about Israel -- Jews are perfectly capable of criticizing Israel, and again, I can't imagine anyone is dumb enough to think that "pinkwashing" would actually succeed in this endeavor even if that was the goal. Rather, the reason this politics is rejected is because it is fundamentally eliminationist in character. They understand that the conceit of "pinkwashing" really relies on a view of Israel as a wholly and purely demonic entity that must be dismantled and destroyed.

To the extent we care about what the Jewish community thinks about Israel (and many people -- pinkwashers generally included -- really don't), that discussion isn't going to go anywhere until it's accepted that Jewish views don't stem from a place of ignorance, delusion, or mass communal psychosis. When we perceive a discourse or a politics as a threat to us, that understanding should be accorded deference. Not unlimited deference, and not unthinking deference, but deference none the less. Jews reject the pinkwashing narrative because Jews understand that the pinkwashing narrative comes from a fundamentally malignant place; one that views Jewish communal projects not as flawed but as a flaw, not as having done wrong but as simply being wrong. There's no reason for us to view it as anything other than bigotry. And that's how I see it too.