Heretics' almanac: Who does Michael Lerner fear most?

It may just be that there's a polarizing debate within the global Jewish community over Israel. It may be that Jimmy Carter started a meme with his book. Michael Lerner wrote a largely self-congratulatory piece titled "There is no new anti-Semitism," Alvin Rosenfeld makes rather the opposite point, and then there is the group of British Jews who launched Independent Jewish Voices in opposition to the "official" Jewish spokesorganizations in the UK.

There's a complaint and an issue at work here.

The complaint is this: "Accusations of antisemitism are stifling an honest debate on Israel."

The issue is where the boundary lies between criticizing Israel's policy and promoting (even inadvertently) antisemitism of the newish kind.

As for the complaint, there is very little evidence to support it. The volume and tone of anti-Israeli activism is remarkable by any standard, and I can see no sign of restraint.

As a matter of fact, those anti-Zionists who happen to be Jewish seem to be making a big point of their Jewishness in voicing their opinions. And their fellow anti-Zionists never hesitate to make hay of it, along the lines of "see, we must be right, since there are Jews who agree with us." This line of reasoning is apparently untroubling to the Jews who resent being branded as "self-hating."

I've never heard of any of these Jewish anti-Zionists being refused entry to a synagogue or disinvited to a bar mitzvah, or wedding, or funeral on account of their positions, a possible exception being the nutcase from Manchester who went to the Holocaust denial conference in Iran.

In short, there is no evidence that the debate on Israel's policy is the least bit stifled by accusations of antisemitism of one kind or another.

On the other hand, it is very difficult to start an intelligent discussion on emerging antisemitism. Aside from making general statements condemning antisemitism, anti-Zionists refuse to entertain the notion that their rhetoric contributes to prejudice against Jews.

And so it follows that the real issue remains unaddressed, namely at what point criticism of Israel loses its legitimacy and becomes something else.

I have a few things to say about this:

First, all criticism must stand to be criticized. Most of the criticism against Israel is flawed in that it relies on disputable premises and/or faulty logic. It has currency only because people prefer to believe it rather than because it has any inherent merit. There are many contentious issues to debate about Israel's policy, but all too often people try to hijack the premise by stating that Israel is, for example, engaged in a land-grab while ignoring the legitimate security concerns that drive Israeli policy.
Second, there is an overwhelming historical basis for paranoia about antisemitism. I am hard pressed to think of a single situation in which a minority of Jews cried "antisemitism" without good reason and were not (tragically) vindicated as events unfolded. Europeans should - out of shame and decency - take such worries seriously whether they think they're reasonable or not.
Third, it is interesting (to put it kindly) how anxious anti-Zionists are about drawing a line between themselves and Israel, on the one hand; and how lax they are about drawing a line between themselves and say Hamas, or Hizballah, or Iran's regime. I think it has to do with who they fear the most.

In the end, the debate that's being stifled is the one about antisemitism. The EU has made admirable efforts to make it clear that they will not countenance any act of antisemitism even as they oppose much of Israel's policies, but this has not trickled down to the chattering classes.

I may disagree with many of Michael Lerner's opinions on the Arab-Israeli conflict and even find many of them uninformed or even foolish. But that doesn't bother me. What does bother me is that he's much more alarmed about the few who accuse him of antisemitism than he is about actual antisemitism.

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