{"id":2937,"date":"2002-10-09T10:41:34","date_gmt":"2002-10-09T10:41:34","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/staging.armedliberal.com\/?p=335"},"modified":"2002-10-09T10:41:34","modified_gmt":"2002-10-09T10:41:34","slug":"blogger-tennis","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/?p=2937","title":{"rendered":"BLOGGER TENNIS"},"content":{"rendered":"

In a valiant effort to keep from becoming the perpetual \u0091Gun Channel\u0092 of the Blogoverse, I went to Barry\u0092s reply<\/a> to my post<\/a> on calling Jews \u0091Nazis\u0092.
\nMy points included:<\/p>\n

The issue is that insult derives from context and intention.
\nTo call me a \u0091Nazi\u0092 because I\u0092m obsessed with and rigid about safety, or a women a \u0091Nazi\u0092 because she is obsessed with or rigid about feminism, or an ecologist a \u0091Nazi\u0092 because they are obsessed with or rigid about ecology is a different thing than to call someone by the name of the enemy who specifically targeted them out and attempted to exterminate them.<\/I><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

and: <\/p>\n

The issue in criticizing Israel\u0092s sometimes misguided policies is to distinguish one key fact: do you support Israel\u0092s right to exist? As a Western and predominantly Jewish state? Because while I have been and will continue to be critical of many of their loonier policies, their right to exist trumps a whole range of other issues for me, and their opponents refusal to meaningfully agree to their right to exist and to take concrete steps to back up that agreement devalue their claims almost to zero. <\/I><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

In reply, Barry takes me to task for being dismissive of \u0091feminazi\u0092 as an insult, giving it roots in Rush Limbaugh\u0092s overheated prose and pointing out in addition it is more hurtful in that most feminists are Jewish. I\u0092ve never listened to Rush (really!), and the term may have a more overtly political history than I\u0092ve granted it; I\u0092ll take that under advisement.
\nBut then he jumps the shark, as we say here in L.A. He explains that I missed his main point:<\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Unfortunately, none of the folks who responded to me explained how someone saying “I favor divestment from Israel to pressure the Israeli government to remove settlements” is anti-Semitism. Instead, people responded to me about the word “feminazi.”<\/i><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

I thought my second point address this, but he goes on. I\u0092d like to collapse his argument, but it\u0092s tough to do, so I\u0092ll just quote extensively:<\/p>\n

It’s not Cathy Young’s opinion; it’s not Larry Summers’ opinion; and I presume it’s not the opinion of anyone who agreed with Summers’ speech. Why? Because Summers’s speech presented a radical new idea of anti-Semitism: anti-Semitism in effect<\/u>, even when there isn’t anti-Semitic intent<\/u>. In this new version of anti-Semitism, an anti-Semitic action is one that hurts Jews, whether or not prejudice against Jews – “intent” – is involved. (Say, if an earthquake levels a Jewish neighborhood in Brooklyn, is that anti-Semitism?).
\nBut here’s my problem with Israel’s paritsans – they want to have it both ways. When it comes to criticizing liberals<\/u>, they use the broadest definition of anti-Semitism imaginable, so that even a purely political action against the government of Israel, conducted by folks who have never shown any sign of anti-Jewish prejudice, is
\nanti-Semitism.<\/I><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

Here he makes the leap from Point A: I\u0092m dismissive of a (potentially insulting) term that he argues is anti-Semitic (\u0091feminazi\u0092); to Point B: I\u0092m opposed to divestment and while divestment may harm the State of Israel, it has nothing to do with Jews \u0096 and therefore I\u0092m a hypocrite, because I embrace a \u0091tight\u0092 standard in one case, and a \u0091loose\u0092 standard in another.
\nFirst, let me plant a flag on the hypocrisy issue. Lacking other values, it seems that the only meaningful criticism available to Bad Philosophers is internal inconsistency. The reality is that human thought and behavior is complex and ambiguous. Consistency is valued, but it isn\u0092t the only value, nor, in my mind, the highest. I\u0092m sure we\u0092ll be talking about this later.
\nNext, in my original post, I concluded with the demand that Israel\u0092s critics take a clear position on the survival of Israel, and it\u0092s survival \u0091as a Western and predominantly Jewish state\u0092<\/I>. My issue with Barry\u0092s defense of the divestment petition and other criticisms of Israel\u0092s actions \u0096 or one criticism, because as Meryl<\/a> points out there are a host of others \u0096 is that they fail to either a) take a stand that says \u0091Israel is an illegitimate country and needs to be dismantled,\u0092 or b) \u0091Israel has a right to exist in the face of outside attacks and here is a plan whereby it can do so.\u0092
\nBecause last time I looked, \u0091Palestine from the river to the sea\u0092<\/a> was still the rallying cry.
\nWhen \u0091peace\u0092 activists propose a plan in which they act as human shields in Israeli restaurants and schools, instead of for terrorist leaders, I\u0092ll take the quotes off their label.
\nMeanwhile, I\u0092m unconvinced, and I\u0092m afraid Barry and I will have to agree to disagree for a while. I\u0092ll think about the feminazi thing though (although it\u0092s never been a term I\u0092ve used, it has been one I\u0092ve tolerated use of in my presence\u0085I\u0092ll think about that).
\nThere\u0092s more, and some of it even includes criticism of Israeli politics that have helped create the situation, and an interesting questions raised by correspondent Evan Weisberg:<\/p>\n

Third — although this is less a point than a question — what does it mean for Israel to have a “right” to remain a “Western” state? What does it mean for it to have a “right” to remain a “predominantly Jewish” state? Does Australia have a right to remain Western? Does Armenia have a right to remain predominantly Christian?<\/I><\/p><\/blockquote>\n

This will serve as fodder for some interesting talk later, I\u0092ll bet.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

In a valiant effort to keep from becoming the perpetual \u0091Gun Channel\u0092 of the Blogoverse, I went to Barry\u0092s reply to my post on calling Jews \u0091Nazis\u0092. My points included: The issue is that insult derives from context and intention. To call me a \u0091Nazi\u0092 because I\u0092m obsessed with and rigid about safety, or a […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":8,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":[],"categories":[1],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/8"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2937"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2937\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2937"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2937"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/marcdanziger.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2937"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}