On Crises, Bailouts, and Prosperity

In order to understand what is meant when élites speak of a “crisis”, the rational observer will naturally ask a few basic questions. A first enquiry would concern the situation before the current crisis: what was happening in society before the crisis was declared? By examining the status quo ante, we can gain valuable insight into what does and does not constitute a “crisis” in the minds of ruling élites. Another, related, question concerns the measures proposed and taken by government to respond to the crisis: what is done directly, and what is done indirectly? What is guaranteed, and what is left to chance? It seems entirely reasonable to assume that those things considered by a person or institution to be of crucial importance are the ones least likely to be treated as a hoped-for byproduct of that person’s or institution’s actions. One does not generally leave one’s true priorities up to chance. Further, it is instructive to ask who the principal beneficiaries of the measures taken are, and at whose expense they are taken. The fact that these questions are at best peripheral to the public debate, if they are asked at all, is instructive in and of itself.

The “Non-Crisis”

The years preceding the current crisis were characterised by two key features: increasing poverty, unemployment, and underemployment with stagnating or declining real wages, and sharp cuts in social benefits on the one side, and ever-increasing record profits and massive concentration of wealth on the other. Over 30 million Americans suffered from hunger, 12 million children were so undernourished as to severely impair their physical and mental development, 49 million Americans lacked health insurance coverage, those who did have insurance could only be sure that their “insurers” would spare no expense to deny them necessary treatment, while ever more Americans were forced to depend on various forms of predatory lending to survive. Meanwhile, corporations such as AIG benefited from the dismantlement of the regulatory framework in the form of steadily increasing profits. Economists estimate that between 1980 and 2005, approximately 20 trillion dollars were redistributed upward to the top 10% of the population by income.

This, it bears repeating, was not a “crisis”. This is what was called “prosperity”.

The “crisis” did not begin until the speculation bubble, built as it was on poorly understood, “exotic financial instruments” backed by virtually nothing, predictably popped, causing “record losses” for those who had been celebrating “record profits” for over a decade earlier.

Crisis Management

Based on the above analysis of what is and is not a “crisis” for policymakers, it is not hard to predict the official response to the current crisis. Indeed, the engineers of the crisis (including some, such as Lawrence Summers, Robert Rubin, Henry Paulson, and Timothy Geithner, who went on to become the US government's crisis managers-in-chief) were so certain of the governmental response – which has been repeated many times over the past several decades – that they took risks that would otherwise have been suicidal.

Given that the “crisis” lies not in the impoverishment of the population but in the entirely predictable consequences for the financial sector of its irresponsible (and highly profitable) conduct, the response to the crisis should come as no surprise. The immediate response has, predictably, been to pump trillions of dollars, with no conditions and no oversight, into the pockets of those largely responsible for the crisis. While the public justification for these infusions of cash has been the need to restart the flow of credit, there is no such requirement attached to the funds. While this measure has led to jubilation on the stock market, it has not – surprise, surprise – led to any significant increase in the availability of credit. While the recipients of the bailout funds have generally refused to account for their use – understandably, as they are not required to do so – it has become clear that they have generally found other places to spend their free tax money, ranging from bonuses, dividends, and mergers and acquisitions to lobbying efforts to defeat the Employee Free Choice Act, which, if passed, would be a first step toward restoring workers’ right to organise.

While one might be moved to ask how badly these companies could possibly be doing if they can afford to spend their public assistance on such things, the media and government have dedicated their energies to concentrating public attention and outrage on the executive bonuses, which make out a minuscule portion of the funds, while the Treasury Department woos investors with the offer to buy up “toxic assets” jointly with hedge funds, while guaranteeing government absorption of any losses incurred. The profitability of the speculative “investment” banks that caused the crisis, then, cannot be left up to chance.

Though the focus of the crisis management might suggest otherwise, the majority of the population has problems of its own, to which the financial sector has added rapidly increasing homelessness and unemployment. This is not to say that the problem has been entirely ignored in Washington, of course, where the Obama administration intends to spend up to $75 billion – less than half of what was paid out to AIG alone (so far!) – to help those of the millions of homeowners facing homelessness who the administration feels have bought their homes in a responsible fashion. Similarly, the administration is acting to protect US auto executives from early retirement by forcing auto industry workers – one of the few groups of workers to have even marginally effective union representation – to accept substantial cuts in pay and contribution-based health care and retirement benefits. It is, of course, only fair that those enjoying continued prosperity should make sacrifices to aid those in crisis.

The hierarchy of bailouts is telling. The speculators who are responsible for the crisis receive taxpayer funds unconditionally and without limitation. When the funds run out, as they tend to do rather quickly, they can always get more. The government protects them from the risks inherent in the highly profitable “toxic assets” they created. The only apparent criterion for receiving these funds is that recipients must be partially at fault for the crisis. When auto executives need assistance, the government is rather less forthcoming. The major auto companies must first submit a plan for the use of the government funds, and be accountable for their proper use. Of course, this is not too onerous a burden for the auto executives, as the “recovery plan” required imposes the bulk of the burdens on the auto workers (the only people whose pay and benefits have been cut as a result of this crisis). Though this is certainly not as good a deal as was offered to the principal architects of the crisis, it isn’t all that bad, either. All that is required is a plan for the future that imposes the burdens squarely on the workers.

For the millions of homeowners facing homelessness due to fraudulent loans offered by shady subsidiaries of “reputable” financial institutions, on the other hand, the situation is rather less rosy. In order to get a piece of the much smaller pie theoretically available to them, homeowners must prove – how is anyone’s guess – that they were not irresponsible in buying their homes. While it may seem a bit odd at first glance to impose such a condition on the main victims of the crisis and not on the architects of the crisis, it actually makes perfect sense: no financial institution or investment banker could possibly meet the burden imposed on homeowners by the Obama administration. If a homeowner facing foreclosure cannot satisfy the government that her past conduct was responsible, her only recourse is to find space in America’s growing tent cities. No plan for the future use of government funds is good enough.

As harsh as the administration’s treatment of soon-to-be-former homeowners is, the rest of the population can expect even less. At best, the Obama administration’s stimulus package will replace the underpaid, non-union, and generally shitty jobs they lost with new underpaid, non-union, generally shitty jobs. For those lucky enough to get one. As much as the Obama campaign talked about passing the Employee Free Choice Act, the Obama administration has been at pains to make it clear that EFCA is not currently on the agenda. This means that union organisation, one of the few effective ways in which workers can improve their wages and working conditions, will remain beyond the reach of most of the population. Similarly, the millions (insured and uninsured) nearing bankruptcy under the weight of health care expenses, can be sure that the one reform that they almost unanimously demand – single-payer health care – is, in the words of one Obama spokesperson, “off the table”. Nor, in our current era of “Billion? Trillion? Who’s counting anymore?” is the subject of student loan and consumer debt forgiveness, which would substantially increase the buying power of the average American and provide a powerful demand-based stimulus to the economy, even mentioned.

To put it in the language of our Orwellian times, then, most Americans will continue to experience unabated prosperity, undisturbed by government interference.

If we were to assume that the crisis consisted of something other than a mere predictable drop in profitability on the part of an industry that produces nothing but profits for itself, a completely different crisis management strategy would emerge. The first priority would be to ensure that no one loses their home or income, or has their utilities shut off, as a result of the conduct of unaccountable institutions that have been allowed to gain control of the economy. FDR did this in the 1930s simply by decreeing a moratorium on foreclosures, evictions, and utility shutoffs. The second priority would be to conduct a massive investigation into the activities that led to this mess, including mortgage-trail audits of all mortgages involved and a full-scale SEC audit of the institutions involved, steps that have thus far been assiduously avoided by the Bush and Obama administrations. Simultaneously, the state could acquire controlling shares in the relevant institutions and use those controlling shares to save the viable and useful segments of the institutions (if any), while letting the remainder go bankrupt (a tactic that would also neatly resolve the bonus issue). Once the situation has been stabilised, the viable portions of the banks could be broken down into small, manageable, locally accountable units, and regulations could be (re-)enacted to ensure that no financial institution ever becomes “too big to fail”.

It all depends on what one considers a crisis.

"An Open Letter To A Citizen Of Gaza : I Am the Soldier Who Slept In Your Home " (Parody)

Today, I happened upon this gem, which I sincerely hope is not what it purports to be. In it, the author, an IDF soldier who, by his own admission, used the home of a Gazan civilian as a military position, brings new meaning to the phrase "adding insult to injury". This is not, as one might hope, an apology for the appalling state in which the attacking Israeli army left the civilian homes it requisitioned (racist graffiti and other vandalism are the norm), but rather a truly nauseating exercise in self-pity and self-righteousness, in which this (probably) teenage soldier presumes to lecture an entire people about proper behaviour and who their "real enemy" is. After barely managing to prevent every meal I have eaten in the past month from coming up at once, I wrote this:

-------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Hello,

Perhaps you don’t remember me. I’m the nice young man who kicked down your bedroom door and ordered you to “Get the fuck outta here!”, but faces are hard to remember, I understand, and you seemed much more interested in the barrel of my Galil assault rifle. You Arabs and your weapons fetish!

I thought you might not remember me, so I decided during my off hours to leave you a little memento, as a contribution to understanding between my innocent, noble people, and your almost human people. I really mean that, too! You really are just THIS close to humanity. To the left of the living room window that I expanded for you, I drew a little self-portrait, just so you’d remember me. It’s the one right over the line saying “Arabs into the ovens!” , the stick figure taking a shit on a Palestinian flag. I noticed that you have – or should I say, had – a very nice collection of paintings hanging on your wall. I love art, too! It’s so nice to know that we can connect on these little things.

I just want you to know that I really don’t have anything personal against you people. I think that with a little evolution and a little culling of the herd, you might even be acceptable for continued existence on Earth! My CO always tells me I’m a “rosy-eyed optimist”, but I don’t think that “subhuman” means “subhuman forever”. But I really can’t get past the great resentment I feel at having had to blow up that school where those people were taking refuge. If only you loved your children as much as you hate ours…or whatever it was that Golda Meir once said.

I know, I know: you’re thinking “If you’re such a great guy, why did you shit all over my living room?” How typical of you people not to notice that I put it all together in a neat pile and even put a little piece of paper over it saying “WATCH YOUR STEP”! And in case that isn’t enough to make you appreciate the agony I went through during our latest heart-wrenching exercise of our right to self-defence, I just want you to know that I didn’t shoot your cat for fun. I love cats. No, I shot it out of peer pressure. The guys and I were bored one afternoon when we were almost certain there wasn’t another living being left in your neighbourhood, and they dared me to do it. It seems sad now, I know, but just think of all the cats that have now been freed of their previous families. You’ll find a new one in no time!

I like to think that I have a special sort of empathy for your people. My great-grandfather was in the Warsaw Ghetto Uprising. Of course, the situation is totally different. His desire to resist being slaughtered made him a hero, while yours makes you terrorists.

Ahh, I would love to just muse with you on the ironies of history someday, maybe over coffee and that shisha crap you Arabs like so much, but I have a feeling you won’t accept my olive branch. In fact, I have a distinct feeling that right now you’re thinking “Who does this inarticulate teenager think he is lecturing someone 30 years his senior on good behaviour and gratitude?”

But let’s face it: if you people had gone just a little bit farther away back in 1948 and 1967, we wouldn’t be having all these troubles. We’d have left you alone long ago if you’d just left. You had the chance to be free of our “oppression” just by running as far as you possibly could. You people really never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity! But since you’re here, we’ve felt a need to care for you. You seemed to be developing an obesity problem in Gaza (3 out of 5 adults with a triple-digit weight in pounds!), so we put you on a diet. When your complete lack of self-control caused you to start digging tunnels to smuggle things in that we were keeping away from you in your best interest, we helped you understand that that was the wrong thing to do. And what did you do in response? You lobbed makeshift explosives at areas near where our people lived! The nerve of you people, the gall! If you’re going to lob explosives at us, make sure the fucking things are name-brand and actually work! Anything less is an insult. All we want is peace and to be rid of you peace, and we will be happy to make peace with you the minute your culture evolves to the point where you are capable of it.

Please, try to keep a sense of proportion in your indignity. You may have lost over 1,300 friends, family members, and neighbours because of us, but I lost my INNOCENCE because of you!

Sincerely,

Anonymous soldier who spent an agonising week in your flat.

PS. I really didn’t enjoy leaving your refrigerator open, dropping a lit cigarette on that lovely rug you had, tearing holes in every cushion and pillow in your house, and leaving several pairs of dirty underwear on your dinner table. It was just the necessity of war. I will be in therapy for years over the things I was honour- and duty-bound to do to you, your family, and your people. So often, I wished I could just disappear from the whole thing. But then a pedestrian would come into my sights, and I would wipe away a tear and blow his head off. If you only knew how painful my lot in life is!

Israeli Super-Emetics, Part II

If last week’s “pro-Israel” demonstration was not a powerful enough demonstration of Israel’s latest-generation emetics, Elizabeth Wurtzel has graced the pages of Britain’s Guardian newspaper with an embarrassing display guaranteed to propel your most recent meal out of you at speeds approaching the sound barrier.

It appears that the Guardian, which once appeared to be a quality paper – has deemed it appropriate to offset the attack on the defenceless civilian population of Gaza with one of the more mawkish expressions of American Jewish self-pity in our young millennium.

The headline to Wurtzel’s piece reads: “It is not Israel's action, but the vitriolic reaction to it that has been disproportionate. There's only one explanation: antisemitism [sic]”. Certainly, writers do not always have the last word on the headlines that accompany their work, so it would be unfair to assume that Wurtzel herself feels that this is an accurate summary of either the situation or of her piece (or, come to that, that she is unable to spell anti-Semitism correctly). It is neither. Wurtzel’s piece is long on emoting, but short on anything else, and does not even attempt to show that the worldwide response to Israel’s attack on Gaza is due to anti-Semitism.

Her argument, to the extent that one is discernable, is as follows: It is “artificial” to distinguish between opposition to Zionism and anti-Semitism:

[W]hen there is more than one Jewish state, the world's hatred of Israel might become no different from its exasperation with any other country, but since Israel is the only homeland, and really it is nothing more than six million Jews living together in an area the size of New Jersey, I can't pretend that the problem with Israel is that it's a poorly located country that happens to be at odds with its neighbours and only coincidentally happens to be Jewish. The trouble with Israel is the trouble with Jews. (emphasis supplied)

Never mind that Zionism, as an ideology, has never garnered unanimous Jewish support (which would seem to me a reasonable prerequisite for equating Zionism with Jewry). Never mind that one does not even need to be anti-Zionist to oppose the idea of a Jewish state (a matter that remains contentious amongst the various political tendencies that make up what we know collectively as Zionism). Never mind that (as Wurtzel herself points out later on) it is in fact entirely possible to be Jewish and Zionist and be utterly disgusted with Israel’s policies toward the indigenous Palestinian population. Never mind that Israel is indeed more than “six million Jews living together in an area the size of New Jersey” – 20% more, to be precise, as fully one fifth of Israel’s citizens are not Jewish. Israel is the only state that defines itself as Jewish, and thus “the trouble with Israel is the trouble with Jews”. QED.

Iceland is the only Icelandic state. I think Iceland’s policy of requiring naturalised Icelandic citizens to adopt Icelandic names is absurd. Therefore, I must have a problem with the entire Icelandic people, rather than merely with a law made by people claiming to represent them.

Lest one think this novel idiocy, it is worth recalling that Wurtzel is essentially reiterating the positions taken by both Hitler and Stalin. (1) There is no distinction between the people and the state, (2) National Socialism/Stalinist “Communism” is the national will of the people, as expressed by the policy of the state, (3) THEREFORE, criticism of Nazi/Stalinist policies is an attack on the people. Dr. Freisler would approve.

Wurtzel, it turns out, is “profoundly uncomfortable”. Any attempt to discuss the issue of Israel with anyone “rightminded (and left-leaning)”, we are told, lays bare “the purest antisemitism [sic] since the Nazi era”. Instead of providing examples of such interactions, she goes on to lament that comparisons of Israeli policy with (often strikingly similar) Nazi policies are “de rigueur” (she might add that they are quite commonplace in Israel, particularly amongst proponents of those very Israeli policies).

She is also quite upset that Europeans see “the experience of the Palestinians as a form of ethnic cleansing”. She might have added that the Europeans might have got the idea that the Palestinians are being ethnically cleansed from the fact that leading Israeli historians and policymakers throughout the political spectrum say so quite openly, with Benny Morris, for example, lamenting only that the ethnic cleansing was not seen through to the end.

“Hamas and Hezbollah”, she continues, shunning any supporting evidence, “are thought by the French and British to be social welfare organisations, and Israel is viewed as a terrorist state.” While it would be nice to see some actual figures on how many of “the French” and “the British” hold these views, it is worth noting that those who do see Hamas and Hezbollah as social welfare organisations likely do so because both Hamas and Hezbollah are known for providing schools, sanitation, health care, social assistance, nursing homes, and other much needed social services. Nor would she need to go as far as Europe to hear people say that Israel is a terrorist state. Thomas Friedman just recently praised Israel for using what constitute terrorist tactics under the standard legal definitions (attacks directed at the civilian population in order to achieve political goals). If a terrorist state is a state that routinely engages in terrorism (as defined by applicable law), then Israel certainly qualifies, and the assault on the people of Gaza is a perfect example.

Credulity is further stretched by her bizarre pronouncement that “Here, we honor the linguistic discoveries of Noam Chomsky and otherwise experience him as a quaintly brilliant crank, but in the bookstores in London there are entire sections devoted to his political thought – and he is read as if the distinctions between Leninist and Trotskyite philosophy had genuine consequence in today's world.” There are two possible explanations. Either she has never read Chomsky’s work, and is too lazy to read even a synopsis of one or two of his recent works, in which case she is at best unqualified to comment, or, she is sufficiently familiar with Chomsky’s work to know that most of it concerns US foreign policy and the US corporate media and intellectual culture, with scarcely a single word devoted to distinguishing between Leninism and Trotskyism, in which case she is a liar. In any case, it is interesting to note that she considers political ideologies that were at the centre of much of the history of the twentieth century to be of no contemporary interest.

For those who remain only mildly queasy after the shameful display Wurtzel has treated us to thus far, she decides to shift into high-gear, transitioning seamlessly from American Jewish self-pity to American Jewish self-adulation:

But I think it is this very fact – my attempt to understand both sides – that disturbs me the most. Because trying to see all sides, such an instinct is particularly Jewish. The most vehement critics of Israel and champions of the Palestinians – hello, Professor Chomsky; greetings, Norman Finkelstein – are always Jews: we are always trying in our even, level, thoughtful way to see reason in the behaviour of those who are lobbing rocket grenades at us. As a people, we are hopeless Talmudists, we examine all the arguments and try to sort out an answer. What is both strange and difficult for Jews to watch in the case of Israel is that, as a nation surrounded by enemies, it does not make such calculations; it does not have the luxury of rationality that is eventually irrational. Israel fights back, which is very much at odds with the Jewish instinct to discuss and deconstruct everything until action itself seems senseless. Israel, hell-bent on survival, has learned to shoot first – or, at least, second – and blow away the consequences. Whereas it actually hurts my feelings when someone says something nasty about Israel, or even the United States, for Israelis, this is just the way of the world: they probably manufacture their flags to be flammable. (emphasis supplied)

One might note that there is little evidence in Wurtzel’s piece of any “attempt to understand both sides”, and that, after her shamefully dishonest non-treatment of the assault on Gaza, she attempts to take credit for Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein, one of whom she has already completely misrepresented, and both of whom have written things that she has already called “the purest form of antisemitism [sic] since the Nazi era”. One might also note that Israel’s survival has not been in question for decades. The only true danger to Israel’s survival is the lethal combination of Israeli militarism and U.S. enablement. The Palestinians, on the other hand, have been pushed ever closer to the brink of subsistence, in hopes that they might realize, in the words of Moshe Dayan, that “we have no solution. You will live like dogs, and those who wish to leave, can leave.” We are no longer, as the old Jewish partisan song goes, a volk zwischn falendige wend (a people standing between walls caving in); the Palestinians are.

I recently mused that the most anti-Semitic slogan in the world today would have to be “Israel is the state of the Jewish people”. Wurtzel’s piece, which seeks to erode justifiable distinctions between our people and those who commit crimes in our name, is a strong runner-up.

Don't be ashamed you're Jewish - Be ashamed THEY are!

Concert pianist Anton Kuerti recently said that “Israel’s behaviour makes me ashamed of being a Jew.”

I personally don’t think much of being proud (or, come to that, ashamed) of being something that one is by birth. I am neither proud nor ashamed of being Jewish or a U.S. citizen; neither fact is due to any achievement or failure of my own. Both are merely accidents of birth.

But Kuerti’s comment reminded me of an oft-quoted line from Wallace Markfield’s novel You Could Live if They Let You: “Never, never, never be ashamed you’re Jewish, because it’s enough if I’m ashamed you’re Jewish.” The behaviour – which I personally had as little to do with as with the fact of my being Jewish – does not make me ashamed that I am Jewish; it does, however, make me ashamed, or perhaps rather disgusted, that I share that background with the likes of Tzipi Livni, Ehud Barak, Ehud Olmert, Alan Dershowitz, Joe Lieberman, Thomas Friedman, and the rest of Israel’s criminals and their apologists in the media and academia.

It is hard to escape the fact that we Jews - though certainly not only us - are in some pretty unenviable company. We’re reminded of it every time we turn on the TV to see ourselves represented by yet another another thug (Peres, Olmert, Livni, Sharon, Kissinger), sycophant (Friedman), goniff (Madoff), liar (Foxman), or all-round schmuck (Dershowitz, Lieberman). Let’s admit – even if it’s just to ourselves – that it is not a pretty sight. In fact, it’s damned depressing to see some of the most prominent products of the culture that once brought forth (to name just a few) Viktor Frankl, Hannah Arendt, Kurt Tucholsky, Heinrich Heine, Albert Einstein, Maimonides, and Noam Chomsky (even if - alas! – it will take some of us another fifty years to realise why he belongs on the list). Anyone wishing to theorise about vast anti-Semitic conspiracies could have a field day just looking at the people who claim to speak for us all!

And yet, for the most part, we put up with being represented by these people. Some of us even go so far as to jump down the throat of anyone who criticises them even mildly. The rest of us hear the likes of Foxman and Dershowitz and the Israeli government claiming to be our representatives – even going so far as to claim occasionally that it is anti-Semitic to distinguish between us and our purported representatives – and wonder why we always end up being held responsible for what Israel and our other avowed representatives say and do.

In response to criticisms that his many brilliant essays on the German judiciary took the worst judges as representative of the entire group, the Weimar-era essayist and satirist Kurt Tucholsky had the following to say:

My work does not say that the basest member of a group is its representative; he is no more a representative of the group than the most elevated member that the gentlemen would want to have mentioned to their credit. I said that the basest member is characteristic for the standard of a group: the member that the group just barely tolerates. For example:

If a German physician rapes an under-age female patient, and these facts and the perpetrator’s criminal liability are proven beyond doubt, the entire medical profession will distance itself from the man. Even more – they will remove him from their ranks. Thus, the group cannot be judged based on this member. The group cannot help that he was once one of them. They do not tolerate him, they throw him out.

If a German judge takes a bribe, the group will react immediately – all members will want the man kicked out; the ethics hearing would be a mere formality in this case. Thus, the judge who takes bribes is not a prototype of the German judge.

[…]

And as long as the group of judges do not demonstrate against this type of judge, even if it is merely in the form of serious opposition, as long „the“ judiciary, out of a false sense of collegiality, takes the side of the overrated expert against the “layman” – I will continue to call a German judge a German judge. And I would like that to be understood in the way that a proletarian would understand it – remembering the reports of the Nazi trials [here: trials of Nazis in the 20s and early 30s for political murders and coup attempts, for which they were either acquitted or received absurdly lenient sentences] – when he stands before these judges.

Put differently, as long as members of a group do not clearly shun fellow group members for engaging in a particular sort of conduct, it is reasonable for a person standing on the outside to assume that the group as a whole condones - or, at the very least, does not condemn - that conduct. Unless followed by immediate and public condemnation, a Palestinian might reasonably assume, for example, that Alan Dershowitz is speaking for us all when he calls the ethnic cleansing of the Palestinians "a fifth-rate moral issue", or that Tzipi Livni speaks with our overall approval when she threatens Palestinian citizens of Israel with expulsion ("You should seek your future elsewhere."). Nor can the hypothetical Palestinian be blamed for assuming group approval when he sees Abe Foxman and the Anti-Defamation League launch a campaign on behalf of the Turkish government to deny the Armenian genocide, eliciting no condemnation (or even notice). Unless we truly wish such behaviour to be taken as representative of our community, we must act immediately to make it clear that the offending party is acting on his or her own and does not speak for us.

Recent events suggest that at least some of us have begun taking Tucholsky’s words to heart. We are not eternally bound and indebted to the Israeli government and its apologists, nor should we, in a false sense of “ethnic solidarity”, feel obliged to waste our breath defending the indefensible. When we defend – or deny – Israeli crimes and Palestinian suffering, we are doing ourselves no favours. Ultimately, we are merely telling the world that this – be it the assault on the defenceless population of Gaza, the ethnic cleansing of 1948, the use of torture, the various attacks on Lebanon and other countries – is the sort of behaviour we tolerate in members of our community. By defending such crimes, we are in reality telling the world that they meet our minimum standards of acceptable conduct.

Open repudiation of the indefensible conduct of our avowed representatives is the only way to avoid being held personally responsible for it. It is also the only way that justice – without which any “peace” is merely violence by other means – will ever be achieved in the Middle East.

"Pro-"Israel demonstrators demonstrate the latest weapon in the Israeli arsenal - the ability to cause vomiting on command

Jewish demonstrators in New York at a rally in favour of Israel’s eventual self-destruction (what is known, absurdly, as the “pro-Israel” camp) were interviewed for today’s edition of Democracy Now by journalist Max Blumenthal. The views expressed by the demonstrators are nothing short of nauseating.

In my Jewish education as a child, I remember hearing quite a bit about the values held dear by Jewish tradition, among them justice (tsedek) and acts of kindness (gemilut hasadim). As far as I can recall, mindless, proto-fascist jingoism was not amongst them. Alas, this latter value was quite heavily on display at this week’s “pro-Israel” demonstration, which was awash in bluster about Israel’s (US-provided) arsenal and considered declarations of principle such as “Jews kick butt”.

If this had been the only view expressed by the demonstrators, dayenu. Sadly, there was more. One woman described Palestinians as a “cancer” to be excised, while another declared that “the fighting must go on until we’ve wiped them all out.” Others expressed agreement with these re-cast Nazi slogans; if any of the participants dissented, they kept quiet about it. Clearly, "Never Again" means different things to different people.

Another, younger, demonstrator opined that we are witnessing a “repeat of the Holocaust” (I should note, for clarity’s sake, that she was calling the actions of the Palestinians a new holocaust). While I have studied the Nazi holocaust in great detail, I seem to have missed the part where the ZOB fighters in the Warsaw Ghetto were armed with white phosphorus, cluster bombs, Apache attack helicopters, tanks, and F-16 fighters and the SS fought desperately with nothing but ineffectual improvised explosive devices. I’m sure the likes of David Irving and Ernst Zündel will happily sign on to such a declaration.

Our young friend was not given pause, in her invocation of the Nazi holocaust, by the openly genocidal rantings of her comrades. The capacity to recognise irony, it would seem, is not equally distributed throughout the population.

If this is a remake of the Nazi holocaust, it would seem that Central Casting has decided to switch up the roles a bit.

Fortunately, these are no longer the only Jewish voices being heard on the matter. There appears to be a rebellion of sorts afoot in the Jewish community in Israel and throughout the world. Statements are appearing on almost a daily basis, from the US to South Africa, from Jews who are no longer willing to let “Jewish” organisations that have become little more than Israeli PR agencies create the false impression that all Jews are united, Kim Il Sung-style, in support of every atrocity the Israeli government has committed in our name.

More on the Gaza attacks:

Highlights include Israel's unilateral violation of the cease-fire in preparation for the Gaza attacks and the exploitation of the ceasefire to lay the groundwork for the assault. From the major Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

"Disinformation, secrecy and lies: How the Gaza offensive came about"

"Delusions of victory in Gaza"
("Six months ago Israel asked and received a cease-fire from Hamas. It unilaterally violated it when it blew up a tunnel, while still asking Egypt to get the Islamic group to hold its fire.")

"Little Baghdad in Gaza - bombs, fear and rage"

"The Neighborhood Bully Strikes Again"
("Within the span of a few hours on a Saturday afternoon, the IDF sowed death and destruction on a scale that the Qassam rockets never approached in all their years, and Operation "Cast Lead" is only in its infancy."; "Once again, Israel's violent responses, even if there is justification for them, exceed all proportion and cross every red line of humaneness, morality, international law and wisdom.")

Response to the statement of the Cincinnati Jewish Community Relations Council

Cincinnati’s Jewish Community Relations Council issued a public statement today condoning the ongoing Israeli attacks on the civilian population of Gaza. Framing Israel’s most recent attacks as Israel’s “military response”, the JCRC goes on to claim that “a record number of more then 2,900 rockets and mortar shells [were] aimed at Israeli civilians” in 2008. Alas, readers will search in vain for an accounting of the number of Israeli bullets, bombs, rockets, mortar shells and other munitions fired at the population of Gaza in the past few days, not to mention over the entire year of 2008. Similarly, readers will find no discussion whatsoever of the recent history of Gaza, apart from a vague reference to the “Disengagement” (the standard euphemism for the seige of Gaza) and the peculiar claim that

Despite the ongoing threat from Hamas, Israel has demonstrated ample willingness to help avoid a humanitarian crisis in Gaza. Over the past several months Israel has risked the opening of key border crossings – which have often come under attack – to allow shipments of food and medical supplies to the residents of Gaza.

The reader is left to infer what the JCRC prefers to omit: namely, that Israel has, with few and minor exceptions, systematically blocked the entry of food and medicine to Gaza, thus creating the humanitarian crisis that Israel is supposedly “ampl[y] willing[]” to help avoid. Likewise, the JCRC wastes no words on the widespread condemnation of Israel’s economic strangulation of Gaza, including by the United Nations, to which Israel has responded by imprisoning and expelling UN Special Rapporteur on Human Rights Prof. Richard Falk in order to prevent him visiting Gaza in order to be able to report in detail on the conditions there. The UNRWA, the UN agency in charge of ensuring that the population of Gaza and the rest of the Occupied Palestinian Territories, has been forced by the Israeli blockade to stop providing food and medicine to Gaza, but, again, not a word from the JCRC.

The JCRC does, however, see fit to boast that Israel’s attacks have received the seal of approval of the Bush Administration. As Boston Legal’s Alan Shore once quipped: “When such an obvious straight line is lobbed at me, I cannot be held responsible for my actions.”

Much of the remainder of the JCRC statement is a litany of the standard, long-discredited clichés. No such litany would be complete without a few bars of Hamas’ avowed goal of Israel’s destruction, or that oldie-but-a-goodie: Whenever Israel’s military is called into action, it consistently seeks to minimize civilian casualties. Those of us who prefer a sentimental tune will be happy to hear Israel is still committed to peace, but there can be no peace while an entire population is subject to terrorist attacks. For the grand finale, we are treated to Israel’s right to exist.

This charming medley is not spoiled by pointing out such inconvenient facts as Hamas’s formal recognition of the two-state settlement based on the international consensus as the basis for negotiations. Similarly, the authors of the statement do not point out that even Alan Dershowitz has tacitly admitted that the only way one can speak with a straight face of the IDF’s efforts to minimize civilian casualties is to redefine the term civilian (by concocting a “continuum of civilianality [sic]”). The invocation of “Israel’s commitment to peace” could stand to be qualified by reference to Israel’s consistent record of rejecting diplomatic settlements in favour of expanding illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories, or its consistent use of violence to avoid the danger of serious negotiations. And when even Ehud Olmert is forced to describe settler violence (with near-complete impunity) against Palestinian civilians as a “pogrom”, one might be forgiven for asking which “entire population” is subject to terrorist attacks (at least if we accept standard legal definitions of terrorism). Furthermore, it just wouldn’t do to point out that no state has a right to exist, apart from the right to exist in peace within recognised borders, a right that also applies to the Palestinians, who have repeatedly offered over the past few decades to recognise just that right for Israel.

One wonders why the JCRC bothered to issue such a statement at all when the virtually identical press releases of the Israeli government would fully suffice!

In a time when Jewish opinion is increasingly moving in the direction of disgust at the behaviour of the Israeli government, statements like these by mainstream Jewish organisations raise an uncomfortable, but urgent, question: Do these organisations see themselves as representatives of the interests of our Jewish community in the US, or those of the Israeli government? Some might think that those interests are one and the same. Certainly, this is what we are led to believe by such groups as the Antidefamation League.

However, if there ever was a time in which the interests of Jews here coincided with those of the Israeli government, that time is long since past. By issuing uncritical statements of support for criminal Israeli policies whilst claiming to represent the Jewish community, groups like the JCRC paint us all as advocates of and accessories to criminal actions that more and more of us condemn. It cannot be in our interest for Jews to be portrayed in the media as unquestioning supporters of some of the worst international thuggery of our time.

This certainly is in the interest of the Israeli government, which depends on the appearance of international (and especially US) Jewish support to insulate its conduct from criticism. However, it is most certainly not in the interests of the Jewish community as a whole. As long as mainstream Jewish organisations such as the JCRC seek to create the impression of unity between Jews in the US and the Israeli government, they virtually guarantee that Israel’s crimes will result in an increase in anti-Semitic sentiment (which Israel then uses to encourage immigration in order to solve the “demographic problem”).

As long as “our” organisations continue to blur the line between Israeli conduct and Jewish opinion, it is incumbent upon us to make it clear that these organisations do not represent us. If groups like the ADL and JCRC will not clearly and unmistakably draw the line, it is up to us to draw it ourselves by unequivocally and publicly stating that we do not condone the crimes that Israel commits in our name.