A non-Jewish leftist has taken it upon herself to address the anti-Semitism she sees as a problem in her political community. Judy Andreas is in her middle 50s, divorced and of white Christian background; originally from Ohio, she has been living for many years within the radical-left milieu of the San Francisco Bay Area as an out lesbian. She argues that her concern for Jews is “simply applying the same principles of caring toward an oppressed community” that the left applies routinely toward other embattled minority groups.

Reinforcing the surprise one feels at the level of her passion and commitment for this cause is that she is of the hard left, not a mere liberal. For example, she not only opposes US policy in Iraq but also condemns the invasion of Afghanistan. Likewise, she is a practitioner of the “identity politics” that has characterized the left since as far back as the 1970s.

On Israel, however, she does not follow the far-left line. For a dovish Zionist like myself, her protective view of Israel is both a comfort and a perspective that I occasionally disagree with, depending upon the exact aspect of the conflict discussed.

More than 300 people, almost all left-wing activists, were drawn to the conference she organized
in Oakland, California, August 2004 — “Facing A Challenge Within.” There was sharp contention between pro- and anti-Israel participants two years ago, and it carried on into a post-conference e-mail discussion group, marred by expressions of mutual animosity. But this split was much less evident in Andreas’s follow-up conference at the Double Tree Hotel in Elizabeth, March 25-27 2006.

What leftist Jews complain about bitterly, regardless of their views on Israel, is the “litmus test” demanded of them by gentile comrades on how they regard “Zionism” or the “occupation.” There is a bottomline rhetorical position against the occupation and one-sided US support for Israel, that even these attendees generally agree upon; but this formulation that the mere fact of Palestinian suffering gives them a moral advantage over Israel, insulates the Palestinians from their failings — such as Arafat’s failure to conclude peace with Barak in 2000 and ensuing terrorist attacks on civilians — which have prompted most of this suffering. Such evidences of complexity generally elicit the charge of “blaming the victim”; questions of cause and effect and moral responsibility are thereby either blurred or ignored in left-wing discourse.

With this in mind, I was pleasantly surprised to attend a session in which writers Esther Kaplan and Chip Berlet critically picked apart the Mearsheimer-Walt screed on the alleged omnipotence of the US Israel lobby. Berlet, an entertaining speaker of genuine erudition and insight, provided historical background on the anti-Semitic roots of conspiratorial thinking, even preceding the bogus “Protocols of the Elders of Zion.”

Advocating a professional standard of evidence, Kaplan argued how Mearsheimer-Walt failed on this basis. Yet she shares with most leftists an overly broad and automatic critique of AIPAC and Israel. Leftists — as opposed to most liberals — possess preconceptions that lend themselves to conspiratorial thinking, radically dividing the world between “them” (the right) and “us” (self-proclaimed progressives).

I would like to see the far left confronted with the limitations of its overly abstract, formulaic way of thinking. Are all of the world’s troubles really reducible to “isms”: capitalism, imperialism, racism, sexism, hetero-sexism, anti-Semitism? This tendency to neatly bundle facts into articles of faith on how the world works, isolates the far left into a small corner of the political map.

Keynoter Cherie Brown argued that being “progressive” necessitates regarding both Palestinians and Jews with compassion, as victims of larger global forces (“imperialism”). Although I look less darkly at the world than she, I agree with her compassionate thrust. More clearly than she, however, I disdain a left that reduces Israelis and Jews to a dehumanized and scorned ideological category called “Zionist.”

Still, it might be legitimately asked if Jews belong in a coalition of the oppressed, as Andreas and Brown contend. Jews are a relatively privileged group in the US, largely prosperous and well connected in both major political parties, and Israel today is widely regarded (and derided) as possessing the fourth most powerful military in the world, oppressing the Palestinians and holding the Arab world at bay.

The Jewish condition is not easily categorized. The Jews’ current status is mostly good, but potentially very bad. Israel remains small and vulnerable, and Jews constitute a tiny proportion of the world’s population, still at risk of catastrophe because of the oversized hatreds of their numerous enemies. It’s not easy to explain this to many activists for “social justice,” who may only view Jews and Israel as powerful agents of oppression.



Ralph Seliger is editor of Israel Horizons, the publication of Meretz USA.
He blogs regularly at www.MeretzUSA.blogspot.com