PROTESTING ISRAEL; PROTECTING JEWS

 A personal note: I find it difficult to address the current conflict in the Middle East because it is not only extraordinarily complex and apparently intractable, but also emotionally and morally fraught.  Although unaffiliated and unobservant, I am a Jew committed to Judaism as an ethical monotheism; to its ethical principles, moral values, and historical mission; and to the survival of the Jewish people.  But I am no Zionist.  I am a Jew who empathizes equally with Israelis and Palestinians, struggles to appreciate their perspectives and positions, and tries to judge, when judgment is called for, fairly.  I do not write “as a Jew”—a phrase used by many Jews which presumes that all other Jews agree with their views.  I make no such presumption.

 

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The conflict in the Middle East has exacerbated strains in relationships between Israel and the United States, and between pro-Israeli and pro-Palestinian factions in America.  Many believe that the United States and Jewish Americans are friends of Israel in its current conflicts with Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon.  These beliefs are overstated.  Despite or perhaps because of US diplomatic and military support, Israel is losing, if it has not already lost, its moral standing in the international community, and America is losing its moral standing with many Muslim Americans.  I suspect that some significant number of Jewish Americans regard Israel as a Jewish state only by virtue of its majority population of Jews, not by virtue of its adherence to Jewish standards of behavior.

 

If the United States were a friend of Israel, it would do the duty of a friend: rebuke Israel for its conduct of hostilities.  It would demand much of the Netanyahu government, which is disgracing the country and discomfiting most Jews everywhere.  It would invoke international law which requires an acceptable ratio of allowable number of civilian casualties and an allowable amount of other collateral damage to the value of a military objective.  It would insist that nothing can justify the disparity between the havoc wreaked in Gaza—over 42,000 deaths (28,000 civilian), many more wounded and orphaned, and the devastation of residential and commercial areas—and the results of an unprovoked and barbaric attack—about 1200 dead and 250 captured citizens.  No law of proportionality can justify a 23-to-1 ratio of civilian deaths alone or the displacement and suffering of nearly two million people to neutralize an enemy.

 

If it were true to itself in its belief in the rule of law in international affairs, it would no longer tolerate—it should never have tolerated, much less become complicit in—Israel’s deviance from international law.  It would stress Israel’s interest in maintaining or restoring its standing in the international community.  It would support UN resolutions demanding the return of Israeli-occupied land in the West Bank and the establishment of a Palestinian state.  It would remove the American embassy from Jerusalem and urge international control and operation of the city.  It would invoke Jewish principles and values in demanding that Israel comply with international norms of warfare and support humanitarian efforts to relieve civilian suffering in Gaza and Lebanon.  It would not enable Israel’s offensive operations by supplying offensive weaponry (though it would still provide defensive assistance on an as-needed basis).  It would implement diverse sanctions to help enforce those UN resolutions.

 

If it were respectful of Jewish Americans, it would recognize that Jewish American opinion about current hostilities is not monolithic, and repudiate the angry, irrational view that Jewish Americans are blameworthy because of the conflict and its casualties.  It would respect that many Jewish Americans, some prominent on college campuses, are appalled by and protest Israel’s military operations and Netanyahu and his government’s policies and practices.  It would acknowledge that some are not appalled and support those operations, and that those represented by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which wields enormous political power in Washington, D.C., are, nevertheless, a minority.  It would act in accordance, not with one or the other side of this divided Jewish American populace, but in America’s interest in promoting Israel’s best interests.  However, given this divide among Jewish Americans about what it best for Israel, it would be careful about the policies which it adopts and implements.

 

If it were thus respectful of Jewish Americans on both sides of the issue, with their different opinions about the conflict, it would not intervene in support of one side or the other.  It would protect the Constitutional rights of Jewish Americans to protest Israeli conduct in these conflicts.  It would protect the institutions of higher education which protect the protesters from federal coercion by Republican threats to their accreditation or federal funding.  It would shield colleges and universities from AIPAC and its Republican and Christian fundamentalist allies, with their political or antisemitic agendas, who wish to punish colleges or universities which permit anti-war, anti-Israel, or pro-Palestinian (but not antisemitic, anti-Islamic, or anti-Muslim) protests.  It would also ensure that AIPAC’s rights are protected from those who oppose its positions.

 

America should be respectful of Jewish Americans—no more and no less than of Americans with other religious commitments—, yet aware that being respectful of this particular minority presents many dicey issues at all levels of government.  Conceptual confusions and conflicting political positions add to the difficulties.  For example, the definition of antisemitism by the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance has been widely criticized for including anti-Israel criticism.  Difficulties with the IHRA definition complicate an understanding of antisemitism and efforts to address it.

 

In their political actions, officials understand printed signs, shouted slogans, and social media messages with antisemitic words or images as antisemitic.  But, in their administrative actions, they often deny as antisemitic less obvious evidence of antisemitism.  Examples are decisions not to investigate complaints, investigations conducted perfunctorily, and investigative conclusions ignoring the evidence or avoiding explanations.

 

A local instance is the top-to-bottom dereliction of duty in response to a formal complaint involving antisemitism when an Animal Control Officer made five false allegations.  Three LCPD police chiefs and several ranking officers ignored a request for an explanation of the falsity of the allegations.  IA undertook no investigation of the complaint for six months.  The IA’s close-out report ignored the allegations in the complaint although its investigation found that they were unsupported.  A year later, the City Attorney even claimed that the allegations were true.  The LCPD refused to remove the notice of false allegations from its files.  While this complaint was active for five years, every member of City Council ignored it except to ensure its omission from review by the independent police auditor.  Indeed, one Councilor, after reviewing relevant documents, offered a sharp denial that they suggested antisemitism, without explanation.  City officials and LCPD officers who disregard due process, ignore bias-based policing in a case of antisemitism, and show themselves antisemitic are predisposed to comply with policies or practices which would constitute a potential threat to local minorities and protesters, and lead to violations of their civil rights.

 

For the commitments of the guardians of public order are suspect.  Police departments are staffed by many conservative-minded officers who share prevalent prejudices against minorities and who dislike liberal protesters.  They are riddled by officers prone to violence or tolerant of it by others in violating the rights of minorities and protesters; the “bad apples” spoil the barrel.  A change of leadership or political climate can affect their performance for the worse.  When such an incident involving the police occurs in Las Cruces, shocked protestations of innocence, that it does not represent “who we are,” by city officials and LCPD officers will be contradicted by those who know better.