The Shooting, Anti-Semitism and Blogging

I am preparing myself for the comments to this post and am not expecting to feel good about what I read. However, I welcome this exercise in free speech and will read and think about even the most hateful comments. I would hope that all who read this post will approach it in that same spirit.

The shooting at the Holocaust Museum, and killing of Stephen Tyrone Johns yesterday is a terrible event and a reminder that words do occasionally lead to deeds. It is good to see so many progressive voices, on the Huffington Post and elsewhere, condemning this bigoted and twisted act of violence. However, much of the analysis of this incident seems to skirt a more troubling and confounding question.

That question is whether or not it is possible to reconcile our anger and disgust about this incident with the constant drumbeat not so much of anti-Israel rhetoric, but of the suggestion of, for lack of a more delicate way of saying it, a Jewish cabal driving American foreign policy, that one often finds in the comment section of this and other "progressive" websites? I recognize that this is a confrontational, not very pleasant, and perhaps even rude, question, but the point should not be ignored. You can't have it both ways, expressing righteous indignation when a white supremacist attempts to shoot visitors to the Holocaust Museum, while no longer being startled by the suggestion that the Chief of Staff to the President of the United States as well as millions of hard working, tax paying and voting Americans somehow don't have America's best interest in mind and are disloyal to their country, because of their support for Israel. Nonetheless, these suggestions are made almost daily in the comments section of this website.

The notion that one can be critical of Israeli policy without being anti-Semitic is, of course, true. Many, if not most, American Jews are critical of various aspects of Israeli policy while being far from anti-Semitic. However, the logic of this must end somewhere because too often this truism is interpreted to mean that anti-Israel sentiment can never be anti-Semitic. When it is suggested that Jews are subverting or controlling American foreign policy, putting what is good for Israel ahead of what is good for the US, or hoodwinking good Christians into supporting Israel, the criticism is no longer targeted on Israel. While one can criticize Israel without being an anti-Semite, suggestions of Jewish conspiracies or that Jews are not loyal citizens cannot so easily be made without being anti-Semitic. Historically, these have been at the core of the very definition of anti-Semitism

It is not just criticism of Israel that is the issue here. It is the regularity with which, in these comments and elsewhere, virtually every foreign policy issue is related back to Israel and somehow the Jews are blamed. Some friends and I play a game with foreign policy blogs on the Huffington Post where we try to guess how long it will take before Israel or the Jews are mentioned. Usually this occurs by the tenth comment, regardless of the ostensible topic of the piece in question. This is an obsession that is not healthy and goes beyond simply garden variety criticism of Israel.

Obviously the people making those comments are not going out and trying to kill Jews, but it is both a symptom and a contributing cause of a climate which facilitates, and which will very possibly continue to facilitate, violence of the sort we saw Wednesday.

This is an issue which should be of concern to all of the readers, bloggers, commenters and others who consider ourselves part of the Huffington Post community. We are all guilty of something, possibly hypocrisy, neglect or moral cowardice when we let these comments go unanswered and then loudly condemn acts of violence targeted at Jews. The connection, while not direct, is real. Those of us who call ourselves progressives have a special responsibility to speak out against bigotry in all forms, even when it starts out as being against Israel and seeps into anti-Semitism.

I must confess that I have not been a profile in moral courage on this either. I am a professor of international politics who no longer writes on foreign affairs on the Huffington Post because I got tired of reading comments, on mine and other posts, which reduced so many issues to being about the Jews. For example, I am a prominent scholar who is broadly published and quoted on Georgia, but it was only after reading the comments section of my piece on this website about the Georgia-Russia war last August that I learned that conflict too was the fault of the Jews.

Criticism of Israel, as well as any other country, should be legitimate and important parts of our political dialog. Similarly, probing the value and nature of American relationships with all foreign countries is also important. Upon this we should all be able to agree. We should also all be able to agree that attempting to murder people for the crime of visiting a museum lies outside any notion of morality. Unfortunately, history has shown us that blaming Jews and imagining cabals and conspiracies has been a bridge between these kinds of things. Today, while we in the Huffington Post community may be relieved that the shooter was a right wing white supremacist, we should ask ourselves how we would feel if the shooter was a left-wing anti-Israel fanatic and then have the integrity and honesty to recognize the future possibility and danger of that happening.

Comments

[misaacm]

Thank you for giving voice to my concerns also. Anti-antisemitism is becoming as acceptable on the mainstream left as it is on the extreme right, This is seen in the comments in mainstream progressive sites such as Huff Post or Salon. This is a disturbing trend. Ms. Huffington should convene a task force to look into what can be done to stop this march of racism under the banner of progressive politics.

[Theou]

For a professor of "The Practiceof International Politics" to write a piece such as this one is the epitome of disingenuity.
Lincoln Mitchell should certainly, as part of his discipline, have read Mearsheimer and Walt's study of the influence of the Israeli Lobby on American Foreign Policy. Does he believe that these to scholars are the dupes of Conspiracy Theorists?
I am a Jew but I do not close my eyes or seek sanctuary in cries of "anti-semitism" when I hear non-Jews protest the palpable crimes of Jews.
As to the relevance of "The Holocaust Museum" to Jews and/or Israel, I ask you to look at the affiliations of most of its sponsors and at the sometimes voiced, sometimes denied connection between the events it memorialises and the founding of Israel.
As to Georgia, there was Israeli involvement in the arming and training of the Georgian Army and a connection [that might rise to the definition of conspiracy] between President Mikhail Saakashvili and those termed "New York Money Men" by Wesley Clark.
There is plenty of evidence that wealthy and influential Jews of the Zionist persuasion are very willing to put their wealth and influence at the service of Israel. A state of affairs that might cause justifiable angst when Israel defies International Law treads brutally on the rights of Palestinians and generally acts as a bully, even in relation via AIPAC , ADL et al. to the Congress and Executive of the USA.

[S1m0n]

There's no indication that Israel had anything to do with the recent shooting. The shooter's animus was directed at jews, apparrantly because of something to do with banking and the Navy. Not Israel.

[danielet]

I suppose, you heard of globalism and about Israel's global reach, particularly in how criticism of its Gaza massacre was suppressed on public orders in advance from FM Livni. Yet Prof Mitchell writes: "It is not just criticism of Israel that is the issue here. It is the regularity with which, in these comments and elsewhere, virtually every foreign policy issue is related back to Israel and somehow the Jews are blamed. Some friends and I play a game with foreign policy blogs on the Huffington Post where we try to guess how long it will take before Israel or the Jews are mentioned. " Very vague broad brush. It was not a game when Sharon insisted that any Jew who does not move to Israel by 2020 will "lose his Jewish soul." It is not a game that Israel calls on Jews all over the world to do its bidding. When Fukuyama-- a neocon-- asked how is it that neocons call for US imposing democracy through the barrel of a gun only in Mideast, he was called anti-Semite. There's fear of reverse aliyah as Israelis have had enough and move to LA. It may be that anti-Semitism is promoted so Jews, as American as apple pie, are freightened into moving to solve Israel's "Demographic problem." Critics of Israeli massacres all over the globe are shouted down as "anti-Semites" by Jews for whom Israel is a nice place to visit, but not to live.

[SanFernandoCurt]

So it's not enough an absudity to connect these tragedies, committed by troubled gunmen informed by their own demons, to conservatives in general. Now, you try to take advantage of the general outrage and passion these shootings have provoked to conflate them with... legitimate criticism of Israel?!! Oh, that'll shut down the debate. Or it would... if your analogies weren't so comically ridiculous.

[liberalOrgonian]

The Conservative of this country have a lot of the blame inciting hatred within this country. I have watched the repub repeat and repeat threats on a daily basis. They will take your guns, they will let terrorist loose in your neighborhood, their not real Americans, socialist, government takeover, bad big government. Again and again the repub make up things to inflame, exzagerate, and lie to anger Americans against themselves. They are ripping us apart spewing hatred and presenting some as not real Americans, out to get you, name calling, distorting reality. I watched palin at rallies incite hatred, now stating government will GET in there and get you.
This type of publicity is extremely harmful to all of us. Turning us on ourselves.
Let's hope some american nutcase doesn't go abroad and do acts of violence, leading to attacks on our soil. Like we did in Iraq.
There is so much intolerance within our boundaries. Surely, showing us how sick America is.
We finally have a chance to redeem ourselves of our violent ways to the world. Yet we can't make peace within. I do not believe GOD wants us to act this way towards our brothers and sisters, here and abroad.
The more Pres Obama tries to bring us together, the crazier the conservative republicans act. My moderate repub friends are fleeing the party like a fire storm.

[stephen c]

The healthiest approach for our country, and a chance to connect well with people of other opinions (so all our Republican friends run faster), is to take Mitchell's thesis about anti-Semitism (and not the articles veer over to Israel-politics) seriously. Hate can be practiced by left or right -- the Soviet revolution, we admit, was done wrong and led to terrible consequences (liberals should know that some conservatives are on this issue and it's effective to bring it up first.) There is some noisy anti-Semitism in the comments section -- but not the leadership.

We should deal with these problems, but we should also be proud: in arguments with a conservative friend she stretches back 80 years to find liberal hate politics, that efforts to root out hate in our movement focus on the comments, not the stage.

If Ann "we just want Jews to be perfected" Coulter was a progressive, she'd be writing stupid fringe comments on our blogs, rather than accepted into a leadership position. Meanwhile, honest conservatives need to figure out how to get people riled up by their rhetoric from shooting Jews and abortion doctors.

I wish debate this wasn't "progressives should feel ashamed" vs "progressives should do nothing about what hate there is in our ranks." Giving deep thought to where that hate comes from and how to engage it would make our movement both healthier and stronger, better able to engage the hate on a national level.

[Mycos]

Two things. On the article itself, I notice the author's bio reads much like a professional politician who is setting the groundwork for his own entrance. Cozying up to AIPAC makes a lot more sense than to try and explain the cognitive dissonance it requires to write such an article.

Second...People need to know more about the research going looking into politically motivated violence. Overwhelming evidence now exists that points to right-wing conservatism as less about ideology and a whole lot to do with personality deficits arising from having failed to make the transition from the highly authoritarian child who is dependent for virtually everything on the parent, and on to a more mature, socialized adult who has fully developed their empathic and intellectual skills. Their fondness for seeing things in black and white terms is a direct result of their cognitive simplicity and intellect. Okla. Corrections has a paper online that virtually equates conservatism/ authoritarians with criminality. Indeed, he title is "Change in the Conservative Personality Equals Change in the Offender with a Resultant Reduction in Recidivism"
http://www.doc.state.ok.us/offenders/ocjrc/95/950725C.HTM
The fact is, there's a lot of fear and aggression behind that disconnect, especially when mortality salience is high. What many of us think is partisan posturing by GOP politicians very often reflects their honest opinion!

The Authoritarians" (Altemeyer) is available online and must be read by anyone who thinks they know about people and politics.

[Lisa Solod Warren - Huffpost Blogger]

Please see my latest essay for opensalon.com
http://opensalon.com/blog/lisa_solod_warren/2009/06/11/funny_you_dont_look_jewish


Excellent column by the way. And thanks.

[jollyelle]

Hate crimes are horrendous, despicable, inexcusable and on and on and on.............. every PERSON deserves respect/life as a living, breathing, feeling person period.

The funny thing about respect is that it should be for EVERYONE.

It doesn't take much thought until the pesky occupation comes to mind, sure it isn't directly related but it's so, so blatantly ignored by many many American Jews who are intelligent, engaged and educated. That is the disturbing news and why so many people post so many posts about the occupation and the ironic oppression of the Palestinian people. Collective Punishment, lack of electricity, clean water or medical services, bulldozing, separate roads, taunting, bullying, checkpoints...... it's all happening, is it not? Most people really don't know the specifics of the occupation and that is the reason that the double standard always devolves into Anti-Israel rants.....­......resp­ect happens both ways and if it doesn't it is glaringly apparent. Then when the media, print and TV, does not report the truth, people get collectively irked and thus we have many many people irked and upset that the truth is not told about the policies of the Israeli govt. You and your friends can place bets and withhold your writings all you want but if what you all rant about is how anti- Israel people are, ask WHY? Respect should be for all people regardless of if they are Jewish or not.

[stephen c]

I don't think it's an accident that the shooter was a right-winger, but like the idea of getting out ahead of shortcomings in our community.

As Mitchell points out, most of the anti-Semitism and borderline comments is occurring in the comments. The hate-mongers and anti-Semitic comments I've heard that come from people who are recognized as media stars, whose names I recognize and who become popular with anger-politics, are all on the far-right.

Maybe as a community we're better at seeing racism inherent in the "Bell Curve" than anti-Semitism in certain thinking around Israel + religion.

But does pulling up issues around Israel in response to the murder of Stephen Tyrone Johns make sense? Instead: Give us an example of an anti-Semitic comment followed by an intelligent response: model the behavior you're looking for from the community. If you're going to write about dumb comments, you've got to tackle that and not just feed the trolls. Maybe as a community we need to re-explore non-violent communication techinques, get better at recognizing and tackling any of the -isms in effective ways. Plus, since you're asking other people to do it, I think you just volunteered to write a couple dozen carefully thought out comment-replies that try to help heal people who have gotten obsessed with the issues you're talking about. If you're effective I'd like to read that blog or training guide.

[courtb]

It makes sense considering how many posters brought the subject to Israel the day of the shooting. On a blog discussing the events and the holocaust museum, a blog that had no mention of Israel or Palestine, many of the comments were similar to: "When there is a Palestinian Museum, that looks at the crimes against humanity committed by the Israelis against the native inhabitants they stole the land from, THEN I will go see it."

So I asked: "Can someone please tell me what this has to do with Gaza? It doesn't...there is absolutely no link or connection. So can someone please tell me why there cannot be an article where the word "holocaust" or "Jew" are mentioned without someone bringing up Gaza?"

And the first response was: "It has to do with basic HUMAN RIGHTS and mutual RESPECT. It has to do with placing VALUE on each and every human life...and no group setting itself above the rule of international law - or having the rights to impose its WILL on fellow human beings based upon self-professed SINGULARITY or SUPERIORITY.

To the extent Gaza or the behavior/statements made by Jews in Jerusalem - via last week's Blumenthal video - imply/infer that the other six billion humans on this planet are somehow unworthy of life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness (the American Constitution from the Nation that funds Israeli actions) - then they are connected."

[stephen c]

Thank you! Your response of engaging a specific anti-Semitic comment is what we need to be doing.

I appreciated parts of Mitchell's article, what particularly caught my attention was the game they play of waiting to see how long till any subject is brought to any an Israel/Jews connection.

Connecting the Holocaust museum shooting to Gaza is rank anti-Semitism. Your example of engaging anti-Semitism -- including anti-Semitism hidden under the guise of critiques of Israel -- is exactly what we should be doing. Mitchell's article sometimes did this, but sometimes did an opposite: engaging anti-Israel opinions under the guise of engaging anti-Semitism.

The part of the article I disagreed with -- in terms of both internal-logic and effectiveness -- was that Mitchell connected the shooting to Israel politics himself. That's the thing we're against, isn't it? It was also strikingly counter-effective, because many people with honest disagreements about Israel's politics (or the US choice to fund them) were likely to get flustered by his opinion on Israel on an article about anti-Semitism. We want people who think that Israel's actions don't make it worthy of billions in foreign aid to be on the side of progressives rooting out the idiots making actual anti-Semitic comments, right?

[JanP]

Neo-Nazis aren't right wingers. They are for Dictatorships, just like Communists. They have no problem slaughtering people, just liek the Communists.

left and right are meaningless in this context. it is whter the person if for personal freedom or for government control of your life.

[pinkdot]

As a pro-Israel progressive, I find most of the comments depressing but predictable. Mitchell was addressing conspiracy theories where, yet again, Jews run the world, or at least American foreign policy. Jews were the cause of the Iraq war, despite the numerous other harebrained objectives that the Bush administration thought it would achieve. This theory has even received a vile veneer of academic support.

Most of the commentors here simply didn't address that point, a few reiterated that a Jewish cabal is in control. Yes, you have the right to say that, and I have the right to call you anti-Semitic when you do. You fail to explain why it's alright that there's a China lobby, an India lobby, a Britain lobby, but a pro-Israel lobby is illegitimate. This is a toxic, anti-Semitic belief system.

The questions among progressives aren't whether you're "allowed" to criticize Israel but whether 1)You can say anything positive about almost the only functioning multi-party democracy in the Middle East, 2) One may have any sense of proportion about the wrongs Israel has committed. Many of the commentors here apparently think only the United States and Israel ever do anything wrong. The Nation Magazine treats Israel as The Little Satan, and devotes more pages to endlessly dissecting Israel's misdeeds than it spends on China, Russia, India and Europe.

Kudos to Lincoln Mitchell for the piece, kudos to The Huffington Post for publishing a piece that they knew would anger its constiuency.

[Sentientbeing09]

Israel deserves all the criticism it gets and more.

Israels behavior towards Palestinian civilians is brutal, oppressive and outrageous.

There are many reasons to criticize Israel and it is unrelated to other countries behavior. Criticism of oppressive regimes isnt mutually exclusive.

[JanP]

What should Israel have done about 10,000 rockets and mortars launched at Israeli civilians after every last Jew left Gaza?

Did you know that months before operation "Cast lead", Israel and Egypt warned Hamas/Gaza that Israel would invade Gaza if the rocket attacks did not stop?

Did you know that Ftah/PLO was founded in 1964, 3 years before the Arabs instigated the 6-Day war? Did you know that Fatah/PLO said their aim was to replace israel with an Arab-Muslim country and that it would not incorporate Gaza (Egypt) or the West Bank (Jordan)?

Did you know that Israel gave up settlements and gave up 100% of the Sinai including airfields, army bases, settlements and the Ras tanur oil fields for peace with Egypt? Did you knwo that Jordan and Israel made peace?

Judging by the reactions of other people with your viewpoint, yu will not look up any of this, you will not read the Hamas or Fatah/PLO charters and you will not even consider that you might be wrong.

Can you understand why so manyu of us Jews thik that this is nothing but anti_Semitism? It is becuase so many things are ignored.

[XME]

Blaming an entire group of people, ANY group, is wrong, whether it comes from someone considered a "far right extremist" or a "far left extremists", and many forget that that are those dangerous, and hateful people on all sides, and to blame any group as a whole of being THE problem, IS THE PROBLEM.

As for our policies with Israel, anyone who blames "the Jews" or even "Jewish Americans" as being the problem, they are, like anyone who blames an entire group, missinformed, and unable to view people in these "groups" as individuals. If we "suck up" to Israel, the fault is with specific politicians who are afraid of upsetting their constituents or or ally nations. I for one am happy to see a president who is willing to be truthful with our ally when he disagrees with their policies, and who isn't afraid to say decent things about the people in nations with whom we do NOT get along. It's a clear sign of someone who's able to recognize that these are INDIVIDUALS, not just a group, and to hate an entire group for what you THINK they represent is nothing but hateful and wrong...and destructive.

[cbhillman]

Whoops - I totally MISREAD what Lincoln Mitchell was saying! While it might be possible that some anti-Israel criticism is also anti-Semitic, the bulk of this criticism is not! Hey - much of the criticism comes from Jews!!!

So please ignore my previous BRAVO; it was totally unwarranted!

[vim876]

I think there is a misunderstanding here about what people think is happening. To my knowledge, most liberals who believe that Jews affect US foreign policy towards Israel believe that they do so by way of their roles as voters and donors, in the same way that the Cuban emigre community has held up any change in policy towards Cuba. Obviously other groups and interests are also involved, but these are visible instances of communities impacting their homeland/country of origin. That isn't antisemitism; it's just common sense. The problem is that in the context of the historical significance of the belief that a Jewish cabal is in control of the world, saying you think Jews affect policy towards Israel takes on a different meaning to some people.

[JanP]

Let's not forget Saudi contributions to Carter, Clinton and Powell.

[HGMercury]

JanP:

I will stipulate that Israelis have the right to live in
peace and be secure from attack or threats from any of its
neighbors. The world has an obligation that the above be
assured.

Question:

Can you explain to me what enhancement to the Israeli
security is brought by the slow creeping of the expansion of
the settlements in the West Bank and Jerusalem?

For the life of me, the only purpose of that agenda that I
can see is to radicalize the Palestinians and is being
promoted by the extreme elements in Israel that have either
goofy religious motives or an expansionist mindset.

[drjj]

Excellent piece. As painful as these observations may be to the HP regulars, this conversation is long overdue. As a Christian, I have been repeatedly struck by the preponderance of anti-Israeli orientation of much of the commentary on this and other liberal sites.
And given the reality on the ground in the Middle East (and elsewhere around the world) of Islamic fundamenta­lism-drive­n hatred and violence, the knee-jerk liberal current trend of "blame Israel first" is hard to understand .
Whatever the historical antecedents, it's inarguable that there is much about current Arab and Islamic culture that would appear antithetical to traditional liberal thought, such as respect for human rights, equal treatment of women, respect for learning and culture,etc.
The widespread and often virulent treatment of this courageous little democracy Israel, which by comparison to any of its neighbors, appears as a beacon of civilized behavior in a very difficult environment and in spite of relentless attacks by those who only wish its destruction, to me can only be ascribed to deep-seated anti-Semitism.
It's time that HP and other "liberal" sites confronted this painful and ugly reality.

[Palspal2]

drjj - well if being a Christian means being in favor of ethnic cleansing, then I can understand why you call Israel a 'courageous little democracy.' Or maybe you were not aware that Israel attacked and occupied what little remains of Palestine 42 years ago. But now that I've let you in on that secret, maybe you can explain how it is that killing Palestinians and expropriating their land indicates respect for human rights.