This morning’s Day ran a very curious column by Chris Powell, entitled Hatred of Jews Poisons Criticism of Lieberman.
The argument in a nutshell is as follows. Lieberman is indeed a slimy liar who, among other sins Powell enumerates, misled the electorate in the last campaign. However, many of those (but apparently not Powell) who attack him are motivated by anti-Semitism, because they attribute Lieberman’s positions to his support of Israel, which they don’t do to non-Jews. And besides, people who criticize Israel are hypocrites because the United States has done things just as bad as Israel, so who are we to criticize? The implied premise of the last point is that folks who lack standing to criticize Israel must be anti-Semitic if they criticize it anyway.
The column is odd for a number of reasons.
First, Powell offers no proof that anti-Semitism is, in fact, a significant factor in anti-Liebermanism. Here’s the sole evidence he provides in support of this theory;
But much of the criticism Lieberman is getting goes far beyond this now; it is plainly hatred of Lieberman for being a Jew.
Lieberman, it is often said now, is looking out for Israel and serving “Zionist expansionism” instead of his own country. Mocking Lieberman’s claim to be a political independent, critics are designating him not “I-Connecticut” but “I-Israel.”
That’s it. The quotes are not attributed. They may be real, or they may be meant as illustrative. Who, precisely is using the term “Zionist expansionism”? Who said Lieberman was “I-Israel”? We are not told. He provides not a single example. I don’t doubt that someone may have said both of these things, but the first, which he repeats several times, sounds like the phrasing of someone from a group or ideology so marginal that no one listens to them. Is this another example of a mainstream commentator attributing the statement of a lone commenter on a blog to a larger group? If much of the criticism aimed at Lieberman is fueled by anti-Semitism, it should be easy to provide specific examples of actual participants in the national discourse making such statements. Given the charge, it is incumbent upon Powell to do so. By the way, notice that Powell has left himself an out: the word “much” is fairly elastic in meaning; strictly speaking it means “a large quantity or amount”, but in common parlance it can be stretched (or contracted) to mean “more than a little”, or as Powell might say, “[more] than trivial”. It implies no percentages; see, contra, “most” which signifies at least 50%.
Another odd thing about this column is that it makes the very argument, while allegedly rebutting it, that Powell attributes to the anti-Semites: that Lieberman puts the interests of Israel ahead of those of the United States. Powell rebuts that argument not by denying it, but by pointing out that lots of non-Jewish politicians also cave to the Israel lobby. The sin of the alleged Lieberman bashers consists of the fact that they single Joe out for criticism on this score while giving a pass to other politicians for this very same sin. Of course, we can’t know that to be the case, since we don’t know who these people are. I suspect that anyone using the term “Zionist expansionism” would be ready to criticize their own mother for supporting Israel, but I can’t prove it in the case of the persons (if Powell knows who they are) to which he refers.
Powell also claims that none of us Americans have standing to criticize Israel because the United States is not without sin. And here we come to the unstated corollary of his argument. Criticism of Israel is wrong on the merits, so it follows that it must be rooted in anti-Semitism, a point made implicitly as Powell dispatches another straw man, his simplistic claim that opposition to Israeli policy is equivalent to opposition to “Zionist expansionism”:
Expansionism is far easier to identify with the United States itself, which, from a few settlements along the Atlantic coast, grew into an intercontinental empire hundreds of times larger without ever bothering to ask the opinion of the unoffending inhabitants when it acquired the territories of Louisiana, northern Mexico, Alaska, Hawaii, Puerto Rico, and so forth. In the history textbooks used without objection by the children of Americans who growl at “Zionist expansionism,” this growth is called “manifest destiny.” Indeed, compared to the growth of most nations, “Zionist expansionism” is less than trivial.
This paragraph is absurd for a number of reasons, but let’s confine ourselves to the main argument. Powell is asserting that given our history, we (presumably even those of us who don’t use loaded phrases like “Zionist expansionism”) can’t criticize Israel. Powell’s argument also implies a peculiar sort of collective multi-generational guilt-the same sort of multi-generational guilt Christians used to justify anti-Semitism in the first place. According to Powell, I’m not allowed to criticize Israel because my country (at a time when my actual ancestors were picking turnips in Poland and olives in Sicily) stole New Mexico, and I won’t give it back. If we concede a sort of surface legitimacy to this argument, we must ask if Powell would expand it to every international issue with which we are faced. We have a history replete with genocide, slavery, imperialism (economic and territorial), and now torture, to name just a few. Does that mean we, as individuals, must stand silent whenever others engage in these acts, or is Israel a special case? If so, why?
Powell is right that anyone who criticizes Saint Joe because of “Jew hatred” is disgraceful, but its equally disgraceful, without offering some substantial evidence, to attribute anti-Semitism to those who oppose Lieberman or disagree with the Israeli government or its most hard line supporters here in the United States.
Postscript: I make mention of the Israel lobby above. I should point out that the Israel lobby is not synonymous either with the Israeli government, Jewish Americans or the Israeli people. It represents instead a conglomeration of interests here in America (read section 3 at the link. Unfortunately this article at the New York Review of Books website is now available only for a fee.) that pushes for an American foreign policy toward Israel and its foes that is often far more hard line than that of the Israeli government, not to mention the Israeli people or most American Jews. Much like the NRA or the pharmaceutical interests, the Israel lobby is able to have its way on its issues despite the fact that its positions do not have majority support (even among American Jews) and despite the fact that its positions are not good from a policy standpoint. Like the NRA and big Pharma, it is able to exert substantial pressure on politicians that incur its displeasure and able to richly reward those that do its bidding.