Here’s a concept: Take the prodigious left-leaning political energies of the Bay Area and point them toward combating anti-Semitism and knee-jerk anti-Israelism.
It’s not a pipe dream. It’s happening later this month at an Oakland seminar titled “Facing a Challenge Within: A Progressive Scholars’ and Activists’ Conference on Anti-Semitism and the Left.”
Interviewed in this week’s j., seminar organizer Judy Andreas, a liberal non-Jew, says she has had enough of the unfair demonizing of Israel and the insidious anti-Semitic undertones that characterize much of the au courant criticism of the Jewish state.
“I’m simply applying the same principles of caring toward an oppressed community,” she tells j. Much of the agenda of the Aug. 21-23 event will center on “unlearning racism,” as she calls it.
We heartily support efforts like those of Andreas, and they come not a minute too soon. The Israel-bashing positions of far-left organizations like International ANSWER and the International Solidarity Movement are well known. But now, ominously, even some mainstream organizations have echoed the sentiments of Israel’s most vocal detractors.
Just recently, the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) voted to divest itself from companies that do business with Israel. Of all the countries in the world — including such bastions of liberty as China, Iran and Russia — the Presbyterian Church has singled out Israel for this kind of one-sided censure.
The church also calls for the “right of return” for Palestinian refugees, which, as most observers have noted, would spell the end of the Jewish state.
Somehow, the absurdity of these moves eluded church leaders, and certainly eludes many of Israel’s harshest critics.
No nation is above reproach. When Israeli government policies deserve criticism, they should be criticized. That’s what democracy is all about.
But as we have seen, too many critics of Israel, particularly on the far left, remain blind to history, give a pass to Palestinian atrocities and, worst of all, blur the line between anti-Israeli fervor and thinly disguised hatred. It’s simply unacceptable.
That’s why we are cheered by Andreas. Surely, as a progressive, she finds much to criticize about the official policies of Israel and the United States. That is her right. But she also knows the dangers of conflating legitimate criticism and the dark poison of anti-Semitism. As she says in j., “I wanted to do something to create change right now.”
We say, “From her lips to God’s ears.”