From Mondoweiss, the best in many weeks

November 17, 2007

'Dissent' Editor Smears Soul-Searching Over Jewish Identity and
Foreign Policy as 'Anti-Semitic'

More than five years ago, Adam Shatz, then the Nation magazine's
literary editor, wrote an important piece about the left's response to
9/11. One of Shatz's targets was Dissent magazine liberals who were
pushing for war in Iraq. For them, Shatz wrote, "America's struggle
against Al Qaeda and Israel's war with Palestinian suicide bombers are
one and the same." Then citing one of those liberals, he said:

The implication of [Paul] Berman's argument is that no change in
Middle East policy could stem the tide of Arab anger, directed as it
is not against specific American or Israeli policies but against "our"
way of life. Though rarely cited explicitly, Israel shapes and even
defines the foreign policy views of a small but influential group of
American liberals. It's one reason Berman and like-minded social
democrats at the journal Dissent may support a war against Iraq.
Saddam Hussein has not attacked us, but, as Ann Snitow, a member of
the Dissent editorial board, reminded me, "Who is 'us'? Is it New York
or Tel Aviv? The 'us' slides around."



The Forward picked up Shatz's comments in fall 2002--before our
country so disastrously invaded Iraq--and Mitchell Cohen, Dissent's co-
editor, called Shatz's assertion "a type of insinuation that reeks of
the worst of the left." But the Forward reminded Cohen that "many"
Dissent writers are staunch supporters of Israel. Cohen responded: "If
you look down the list of the editorial board you'll see a lot of
Jewish names, but none of them came to Dissent with a Jewish agenda."

Now Cohen, who supported the Iraq war, has gone further, saying that
anti-Zionism is antisemitism:

A determined offensive is underway. Its target is in the Middle East,
and it is an old target: the legitimacy of Israel....The offensive
comes from within parts of the liberal and left intelligentsia in the
United States and Europe.

When is criticism of Israel anti-semitic? Cohen suggests a smell test
that includes such criteria as "If you judge a Jewish state by
standards that you apply to no one else..." And who are these
antisemites? Cohen mentions only two intellectuals by name: Adam
Shatz, now at LRB, and Tony Judt. Both Jews, by the way. So Cohen is
following in the footsteps of the AJC, which smeared progressive Jews
who criticize Israel as anti-semites.

This is reckless and sad. Sad because Shatz was initiating an
important discussion five years ago that is still not happening, in
great measure because of slurs like Cohen's. What Shatz said was
plainly true. Paul Berman repeatedly cited Saddam's attacks on Israel
as a reason for us to go to war. He conflated American and Israeli
interests. The same error was made by war-supporter Thomas Friedman.
Other liberal hawks, such as Kenneth Pollack, insisted that the
Israeli occupation had nothing to do with our policy in Iraq, and that
the Arab street would welcome our presence in Baghdad. Delusion.

One of my themes on this site is that Jewishness played a role in the
prowar movement (just as Islam plays a role in jihadist radicalism).
Jewish neocons were aggressive about using American power to preserve
Israel's security, while liberal Jewish hawks asserted over and over
that Israel is the only democracy in the Middle East, and completely
neglected the apartheid road system that is talked about across the
Arab world. Until liberal Jews come to terms with this element of the
war support, Jewish intellectual life will remain in denial/crisis,
the left will be riven by unspoken suspicions on this score and will
remain ineffective, the neocons will remain unchallenged
intellectually, and our foreign policy will remain broken.

This is the conversation Shatz was initiating, notably with the
beautiful Snitow quote to the effect that for liberal Jews, the
definition of national interest and identity "slides around" between
the U.S. and Israel. This is a crucial conversation, and more than 5
years later, even in the wake of the greatest foreign policy disaster
since Vietnam, it is still not happening! American Jews who care about
Iraq owe it to themselves and the country to clarify these identity
issues, and their affinities. As it is, Cohen's shrill piece is a
continuation of his defensive claim to the Forward that Jewishness
played no role in Dissent contributors' views of the war. (The great
thing about his co-editor, Michael Walzer, is that Walzer openly
acknowledges his Jewishness in addressing such matters--and offers a
Jewish identity I find problematic).

Two other things about Cohen's piece. In dismissing Judt's view that
Zionism is anachronistic and must yield to ideas of a binational state
in Palestine, Cohen writes with typical bombast: "I suppose India can
save itself from being an unfortunate anachronism by a reintegration
with Pakistan..." The key error in this statement is that partition
actually worked 60 years ago in India: Pakistan became a state. The
Palestinians are stateless; the Israelis are expansionist. If the
Palestinians had been given a state when real opportunity arose, there
wouldn't now be a high concrete wall on their land, the hilltops
wouldn't be colonized by religious settlers, and Muslims would have
freedom to visit their holy sites.

Of course Cohen writes that he opposes the "settlements." He says this
in passing as an example of legitimate criticism of Israel. The
settlements. The issue here is how monstrous the Israeli policies in
the West Bank are to you. One line about the settlements is like an
American of 40 years ago saying, Of course I am opposed to those
whites-only lunch-counters and bathrooms. The issue then was:
segregation and the South were corrupting American society. We
couldn't make any claim to real democracy in the eyes of the world so
long as those conditions existed. This is Israel's situation today,
and the reason that progressive intellectuals are attacking Zionist
ideas.
.