The recent outrage against Jewish participants
at Chicago’s “Dyke March” got me thinking back to this quote from Robin Sheperd’s State Beyond the Pale that clearly spells out the totalizing
awfulness represented by the anti-Israel agenda of which BDS is a part:
“Whatever it touches, the anti-Israel agenda
always brings out the worst. It brings out the worst in journalists who
cast aside their principles of balance and objectivity. It brings out the
worst in seasoned commentators who substitute hysteria and foot stomping for
calm analysis and enlightened discussion.
It brings out the worst in trade unions which
put a hateful agenda above the interest of their members. It brings out
the worst in diplomats who debase themselves by pandering to tyrannies against
a democracy. It brings out the worst in artists and writers who submerge
their commitment to beauty and truth in ugliness and lies. It brings out
the worst of the great traditions of Left and Right which default back to their
shabbiest instincts and their darkest prejudices.”
Focusing
on the last few months when gay supporters of Israel have been subjected to harassment
and threats, can we determine why the fight for gay rights is becoming the
latest sacrificial victim to the all-devouring Moloch of anti-Israel animus?
Starting
with the obvious, the yawning chasm between Israel’s and her foes (including
the Palestinians) with regard to gay rights is so vast that BDSers claiming
dominion over the entire Left end of the political spectrum must do something
to neutralize the threat of someone pointing it out.
While
their usual tactic of ignoring any virtue of the
Jewish state and just hammering incessantly on its flaws (real or imagined) might
work with some audiences, the shocking contrast between Gay Pride Parade in Tel
Aviv and gays being thrown off tall buildings in Egypt and Iran is too gigantic
to ignore out of existence.
And so
they moved onto their next tactic to obscure reality, concocting a fake
phenomenon called “Pinkwashing” which claims that any pro-gay policies of the
Jewish state (and, more importantly, any mention of those policies by Israel’s
supporters) is just a nefarious scheme to mask the true invidious nature of
“The Occupation,” the only subject anyone is allowed to discuss (but only on
the boycotter’s terms).
Creating
such a distraction and getting people to embrace it, however, are two different
things. So the current strategy of
harassing and ostracizing Jews (regardless of their level of support for
Israel) from “the movement” has become the enforcement mechanism to ensure the
pointing finger never swerves from the Jewish state and the plight of gay
people in the rest of the Middle East remains off the table for discussion.
Enforcement
of ideological conformity requires ruthlessness on the part of those trying to
create barricades around what can be legitimately discussed. It also requires that the community being taken
over (in this case, the politically active gay community) be too weak or
confused to do anything about it.
The
means the ruthless use to achieve these ends involve creating or infiltrating a
subset of the community being targeted (by creating “Queers for Palestine”
style front groups) or infiltrating existing organizations and moving into
positions of leadership with the sole purpose of subverting them towards the
anti-Israel agenda. Once established, these forces can commit outrages like the
one at the Chicago Dyke March, then defend their bigotry in the name of the
entire community they claim to represent.
Much has
been made about the language of “intersectionality” and “triggering” used to
frame demands that Jews (and only Jews) leave the parade, but this simply shows
how those amorphous concepts (presuming they ever meant much) are now simply
tools for the ruthless to bully the reasonable.
Keep in
mind that such a strategy can only work if the bulk of the people within the
community being subverted do nothing. In
fact, the boycotters count on majorities remaining indifferent, or at least not
coming to the defense of Jewish members out of fear that they too will be swept
up in a purge.
Fortunately, we have seen other communities
(such as food coops and academic associations) where resoluteness by the rank
and file immunized a group from being turned into yet another tool for
anti-Israel propaganda. The health of
those communities vs. the rot that accompanies those that succumb to the BDS
virus demonstrates – once again – that willingness to fight on behalf of a tiny
minority (Jews) is what separates a genuine movement for justice from one that
subverts the language of justice for their own shabby instincts and dark
prejudices.