The Left and Anti-Semitism

Leo Casey has an extended survey of this issue. Leo is one of the sharpest knives in the drawer, and his overview is even-handed by my lights. Still I try to take things an inch deeper here. Perhaps what follows will strike you as arcane or hair-splitting, or worse. At any rate, into the breach:

My basic point is that there is no connection between socialism and anti-Semitism, on the most fundamental ideological level. Socialism (or Marx) is above identitarian beefs, and anti-Semitism, or anti-anti-Semitism, is fundamentally a matter of identity. It’s a sign of the degeneration of political dialog that Judaism or Israeli nationalism have been centers of leftish political argument.

The identity obsessions prevail on both the left and the right. Left anti-Semitism accounts usually downplay the pervasiveness of anti-Semitism elsewhere. This is intrinsic to Casey’s account, which headlines anti-Semitism and “the Left.” We could say when anti-Semitism becomes visibly connected to left voices, the novelty of it, or maybe the implied scandal, makes it more noticeable and newsworthy. But it’s always been there on the right. Donald Trump and followers have made no small effort in revving it up. Trump brain-truster Steve Bannon, was quoted as warning U.S. Jews to form “a hard weld” to Christian nationalism, or else.

The undeniable threads of anti-Semitism in left-identified college protests spring not from any plausible socialist ideology but from support for an undeniably wronged underdog ethnicity. That’s why there is so little interest in the ideology of Hamas, a rabidly reactionary political formation. This is an old story in leftist agitation: support for victims of imperialism in ethnic terms, which brings along with it indulgence of the chauvinist, political perversities of indigenous anti-colonial leaders, movements, and governments.

There is some chatter about traditional left support for national self-determination. One can find this in ancient Soviet and communist doctrine. I would argue that in that context it was always opportunist, starting with the transitory needs of the Bolshevik revolution. In contemporary terms it is just blather. This also holds for defenders of the Israeli state on grounds of its purported right to “self-determination.”

There is a simpler matter at issue. Israel isn’t going anywhere. It’s not a question of its rights as a state, since no such rights exist, nor for Palestinians. In the basic interests of world peace, existing national borders notwithstanding their possibly criminal origins usually ought to be respected. In the case of Palestine, a viable state that protects its citizens needs to be carved out of the West Bank. That Israel’s current borders (if one includes the occupied territories, which for all practical purposes have been annexed) are founded on ongoing ethnic cleansing, in real time, presents a special problem, but there is no political future in contesting the original boundaries of the country. Two states is the only way to go, distant as it seems.

In the same vein, talk of Israel’s legitimacy as a “colonial settler state” is not useful. Of course Israel is a colonial settler state! So what? So is the good old U.S.A. What nation in South America is not a settler state that oppresses its indigenous peoples? Over the millenia, Britain was ravaged by Danes, Normans, and other Vikings. American Indian tribes slaughtered each other. Population movements resulting in the disenfranchisement of previous inhabitants are ubiquitous in world history. The difference now with Palestine is the real time factor. We can’t unwind the settlement and despoilation of the Americas, but the Palestine situation is fluid. The West Bank is still contested territory, and Gaza can be rebuilt.

We could have a week-long symposium on Marx’s essay on Judaism, which is why I centered socialist ideology and the campus action at my start. Truth is, I don’t see much Marxism-slinging on the Left, even inside Democratic Socialists of America. I would say there is zero evidence of leftist ideology, properly speaking, in the campus agitation. What we have are moralistic appeals, which is all well and good, but it ain’t Marxism.

Marx did speak of the priority of defending the democratic interests of the working class. From that we could infer the interest of a people in forming a state to defend its national interests. That underlies the problem of colonialism. It’s still a good ways from there to the urgent priorities of the moment — for a ceasefire, prisoner exchange (Israel has oodles of hostages too), and relief for Gaza.

You could argue that if socialist or Marxist ideology has nothing in common with anti-Semitism, left organizing on the ground does. I’ve acknowledged problems in this vein in the campus actions. In the broader Left, however, there is nothing comparable. There are microscopic ultra-lefts like the demented “Party for Socialism and Liberation,” and there are pockets of the young and the restless in DSA, but in the major left efforts that really count, there is nothing worth lengthy features in The New Republic. Harping on the campus excesses is the pastime of uncritical pro-Israeli interests. This is a campus problem elevated by understandably anguished Arab students. As above, an identity issue, not an ideological one.