Assuming they are all true
One of those items that could be true or could just be something someone claimed. David Bernstein has an “o tempora o mores” piece at The Volokh Conspiracy at the Washington Post (too many levels already and I’m not even finished yet) which refers back to an earlier piece at the same place, both describing a thing that seems to be just a “she said” thing.
From the first one, the January 26 one:
Consider the following incidents described below that have reached my inbox or social media accounts over the past two weeks or so:
…
2. Anti-Israel sentiment at that most progressive of colleges, Oberlin, is bleeding into anti-Semitism (or maybe anti-Israel sentiment is simply providing a cover for latent anti-Semitism). Professor William Jacobson has the details here, but even if you don’t read the whole post, read the end of it, where he quotes a lengthy Facebook post from a recent alumna about anti-Semitic incidents she experienced or witnessed as a left-wing, but pro-Israel Jewish student there. I won’t endorse the claim that every one of these incidents was anti-Semitic, as such, but, assuming they are all true, they paint a very disturbing picture. I was particularly struck by her claim that multiple times she heard Oberlin students dismiss the Holocaust as “white on white violence.”
That is indeed a very striking thing to say, but did anyone say it? I hit the Google to try to confirm it and all I’ve found is people repeating Bernstein’s claim (which as I mentioned he repeated himself a few days later). What good is that? Especially now? When everything shows up on social media, surely if that were a commonplace thing to say it would turn up on social media?
I think if you’re going to talk about it – and more than once at that – in the Washington Post you need a better source than “someone on Facebook said.”
Given that Facebook has over 1.5 billion active users who spend an average of 20 minutes a day on the site, I should imagine that whatever political point you wanted to make you could find support for it from something “someone on Facebook” said.
In a talk/workshop I ran at the PFA Philosophy Festival on autsterity, somone quoted a bizzarely outlandish statistic about the effects of foreign aid. When I asked what the source was I was told “someone on Facebook!”
I’m reminded of why I stopped reading the Volokh Conspiracy. By the time they moved to the WaPo, I was only reading posts by Eugene Volokh and Orin Kerr; the others were either one-trick-ponies (Randy Barnett’s various attacks on Obamacare) or political hackery (why, hello there, David Bernstein!)
Bernstein’s post cites 6 incidents of supposed “Israel Derangement Syndrome” that have come across his email inbox or social media feed recently. I’ll give him credit for doubling the usual “three incidents supports a trend piece” rule of hack journalism.
#1 is a half-truth. The linked article documents the quote Bernstein complains about, but does not support his allegation that “Brauman also implied that because the kippah signifies such support, kippah-wearers are an understandable target”
#2 you’ve addressed in this post.
#3 complains about the acts of an “Israeli leftist activist” who belongs to an anti-occupation group. Since Bernstein elsewhere insists that he’s not complaining about mere opposition to the policies of the Israeli government, I’m not sure how this supports his case. It’s tantamount to saying that Edward Snowden has America Derangement Syndrome — it’s really just a contentless smear.
#4 sounds legitimately troubling, but the only supporting evidence is a link to a rather incoherently-written blog post by someone who has an obvious bias.
#5 complains that a student who allegedly misquoted a “pro-Israel” professor was given an award. There’s no indication that the award had anything to do with the incident in question. It’s also not clear how giving an award to a student who had misquoted a “pro-Israel” (by which Bernstein really means “pro-current-Israeli-government”) is evidence of “Israel Derangement Syndrome”
#6 is completely evidenceless. Bernstein claims that “many” Black Lives Matters groups exhibit “hostility to Israel.” No supporting evidence, and again, unclear how Bernstein is distinguishing between opposition to government policies and something more sinister or improper.
This reminds me of one of the reasons why, a decade ago, I stopped participating in certain “pro-Palestinian” events… it was automatically assumed that because of my ethnic background that I would be anti-Israel and it was just a short step from there to bald anti-semitism. That and hearing seemingly sane people shout “we are all Hezbollah”. I’d never heard the Holocaust referred to as “white-on-white” violence but it was frequently dismissed as being irrelevant, overblown or simply a case of Jews getting “what they deserved”… sometimes not even in the past tense. Particularly troubling in the aftermath of the Charlie Hebdo affair is how the “we are NOT Charlie” gang have managed to ignore – or, worse, “understand” – the murders of four Jews in the related attack on the kosher supermarket. And let’s see how Bernie Sanders’ ethnicity (he’s secular, if not atheist, thank heaven!) is handled when these people become aware of it (I’m now in Germany on a professional visit and it seems a tricky subject depending on the company)… or will he simply become the “good Jew”?
There’s certainly a tendency to seek out confirming examples without due caution (e.g. Rolling Stone managing to blow its coverage of campus rape-culture by promoting a false story) but the reflexive pro-Islamist stance on so much of the ‘left’ is definitely a ‘thing.’
Certainly some of it is anti Bush imperial adventuring, and some is opposition to Le Pen, the BNP etc. And surely the ongoing violence around the borders of Israel is worth considerable effort. But the examples around Charlie Hebdo, Salman Rushdie, Taslima Nasreen, Maryam Namazie, Hirsi Ali, Danish cartoons etc. demonstrate an appalling and downright sinister subversion of liberal, progressive, and radical values.
And blatant anti-Semitism is smeared all over it.
You didn’t google hard enough: https://twitter.com/gazikodzo/status/605052013924073472
I’m not sure why there would need to be proof on the internet of something that was said to someone face-to-face offline. Newspapers publish people’s eyewitness accounts without proof all the time. Dismissing the Holocaust as “white on white crime” would not be the most outrageous statement ever made by a Palestine activist (cf. Gilad Atzmon’s “Some brave people will say that Hitler was right after all” in an imagined future where Israel nukes Iran), so I have no problem believing it.
And, FWIW, googling does turn up references that are not related to that Facebook post. Aside from a 2014 Facebook post and some Tumblr accounts, I found this quote (via an article at Nizkor.org) from a speech at Howard University by Afrocentrist professor Leonard Jeffries (briefly famous in the 90s for his anti-Semitism, homophobia and adherence to “melanin theory”):
“That which occurred in Europe, the European Nazi Holocaust of the European Jew has to do with white on white crime,”
That speech was from 1994, so the phrase dates back at least that far.
@ Screechy Monkey
Bernstein’s #3 is about a man who bragged that he has Palestinians tortured and killed by the PLO for attempting to sell land to Jews. I’ll accept that that strikes you as mere “opposition to the policies of the Israeli government,” but others might see it as going a bit beyond that.
I didn’t say proof. I don’t use the word “proof” that way, ever, and all the more so here. I put it carefully. The problem was too many levels. It wasn’t “X told me” it was “X told me Y said on Facebook” – which is rather too flimsy to rest a Washington Post piece on. Yes I know newspapers run eyewitness accounts, but this wasn’t close to an eyewitness account – it was hearsay added to hearsay. That’s ok in conversation but it looks odd in a newspaper.
And I didn’t say it was too outrageous to be plausible. I agreed with Bernstein that it’s striking, but that’s not the same as implausible. I’m hardly unaware that people say striking things, including strikingly anti-Semitic things. I’ve been blogging about that for more than 13 years now.
All I’m saying is that “someone emailed me that someone said on Facebook” is not a very good source for anything.
The Great God Plan @6,
It strikes me as odious and reprehensible actions taken as part of opposition to government policies. I’m not defending it as legitimate political protest. But the motive is still opposition to a specific policy.
The problem is that the phrases like “Israel Derangement Syndrome” are bandied upon with the implication being that the alleged “sufferers” from this syndrome are opposed to even the existence of Israel, and/or are anti-Semitic. It’s part of a broader attempt to conflate any disagreement with the current government of Israel with being “anti-Israel.” See, e.g., pretty much all Republican criticism of Obama’s policies towards Israel.
Screechy Monkey @8,
What specific policy? Nawi tried to trick a Palestinian man into selling his property to a fictional Israeli so that he could then report the man to the Palestinian police… who would then torture the man and possibly have him executed. Utterly despicable. An incitement to murder. And you are defending this?!
Helene,
What part of “I’m not defending it” was unclear to you?
Since the Israeli government was not a party to or otherwise involved in the transaction in question, how was Nawi’s action “opposition to a specific policy?” It was opposition, to be sure, to Jews buying land in the West Bank.