Author:Ralph Seliger
I'm currently editor of this website. I was the final editor of "Israel Horizons" in its incarnation as a print magazine from 2003 until 2011 and I edited the Meretz USA (now Partners for Progressive Israel) Blog from its inception in 2006 until 2015. I've been an active supporter of the Zionist peace camp since 1982. Among other print and online platforms which I've written for: The Forward, Tikkun, The Daily Beast, In These Times, Jewish Week, New Jersey Jewish News, Jewish Currents, Huffington Post, Dissent.
My issue is that the progressives usually define oppression broadly but they want to define anti-Semitism narrowly. When Jews complain that Israel is being singled out unfairly or that Jewish nationalism is decried while other forms of nationalism are celebrated, we are often told that the people in question have no bias against Jews or against our “religion”.
Conservatives have no bias against immigrants or black people and they will tell you so openly — they just want everyone to follow the same rules and to speak the same language.
They just want to protect our police, they just want crime to be taken seriously. To understand why conservatives call something “fair” while progressives call it “racist” you have to look at what it means to ask everyone to follow the same rules when the rules are unfairly written or unfairly applied. In other words, you need context.
The charge of racism means different things to progressives and conservatives. For conservatives, it means animus. For progressives, it means upholding the status quo given the history that came before it. Progressives understand this about race, they understand this about colonialism, but they fail to understand it about Jews. When they defend themselves against charges of anti-Semitism, they proclaim that they have no animus. But when Jews talk about anti-Semitism — we define it broadly, just like everyone else. We apply that label to things we find threatening, things that lack context, things that we find unfair.
In theory, you can be against affirmative action, against immigration, against black lives matter, in favor of confederate statues, in favor of stand your ground, nostalgic for the “good things” about the Old South, and tough on crime and not be racist. In theory. In practice, your commitments fail to impress anyone who is looking at racism in context.
Likewise, if you oppose ethno-religious states but you support the existence of Pakistan … you oppose white settler colonialism but you can’t explain which colonial state the Jews of Iraq are advancing … you support voting rights and first freedoms but have no problem with states like China, Egypt, Iran, Libya Cuba, and Saudi … I’m confused. What is the Left position on Liberia? South Sudan? What about returning all the refugees who took over Taiwan to mainland China, where they belong? Does anyone care about Tibet anymore? Or is that for hippies, while hard Leftists have better things to do with their time? Do a million Muslims in China matter? What about the Muslims in Burma? Where is the left on these issues? Where are the signs at demonstrations? Where are the boycotts? Don’t these conflicts get to the heart of what it means to be a state? Of what it means to say that a state has a religion? That it represents the aspirations of some people but not all?
In theory, you can hold a consistent position about how states should come into being and then behave. In practice, I don’t see any of this consistency on the left. Instead, what I see is that the left is happy to support people who are targeted and victimized, including Jews. They are also happy to justify all of the many problems that come with holding power, as long as the people holding power were historically oppressed. If two historically oppressed people (India/Pakistan, Africa) are in a conflict, the left shuts up and talks about something else. Except Israel.
What *is* that, if not animus? Like any other oppressed group, we do not care about intent. I”m sure anti-Zionists are very nice people, they recycle, they save puppies, they want a more just and verdant world. But if they are lying about me and they refuse to see my context, I don’t care about their intent. Tell them to get an analysis that makes some kind of sense. Then let’s talk.