Monday, January 21, 2019
Elder of Ziyon
By now, the rise and decline of the Women’s March – once
hailed as the most important mass political movement in a generation – is well
documented.
Interestingly, it was a piece of investigative
journalism by the online publication Tablet that pulled the thread
which began the unraveling. Rumors of
anti-Semitism within the national leadership of the March had been a staple of
criticism of the organization’s leadership, as were questions regarding how
those leaders were dealing with the millions of dollars earned through
sponsorship, product sales and donations. But the detailed Tablet story added
the names, dates and quotes needed to create a groundswell that couldn’t be
swatted away as the work of racist critics by the March’s flawed and corrupt leadership.
I’m guessing most readers are aware of the sponsor
withdrawals (some public, some quiet), failed attempts at explanations and
apologies, too-weird-too-late shots at adding Jews back into the leadership
fold, that led to movement’s main event (a March on Washington) declining
precipitously this year. But I’d like to
focus on a dynamic that Divest This readers are well aware of: how the
infiltration of a high-profile, fast-moving, progressive organization by
anti-Israel activists always leads that the host’s corruption and ultimate
demise.
I wish I could find the quote where one of the women who
began the March talked about how the organization’s openness to new blood and
eagerness to include diverse names and faces left them vulnerable to
predators. For if you look at the three
women who have become the flashpoint of controversy regarding the March, you
can see that their agenda was not to move the fight for women’s rights forward,
but to channel the momentum created by others towards their own political ends.
Phyllis
Chesler highlights how little the agenda of the March has to do
with issues specific to women. Women
obviously make up half the planet’s population, so a focus on immigration,
economic justice (whatever that means), and international affairs is going to
impact women as well as men. But the
point Chesler is making is that the concept of intersectionality (which links
every injustice with every other) is so broad and amorphous that it allows
anyone to claim the mantle of feminist leadership regardless of which issues
they are actually fighting for.
Similar infiltration of progressive groups by anti-Israel
activists is so well documented as to almost be a cliché. When the Occupy Wall
Street project popped up a few years ago, one of its most well-known
features was lack of leadership and direction.
This was intentional, given that Occupy wanted to avoid hierarchy,
relying on consensus to decide what would happen next (even if that turned out
to never end in a decision).
The Israel haters would have none of this. As usual, their involvement in consensus
building involved insisting that any consensus that did not embrace their
agenda represented treason to the progressive cause (defined – by them – as an
unquestioning embrace of the anti-Israel project). And so an organization that could barely
rouse itself from camp somehow managed to march on a single consulate – guess
which one – increasing suspicion of the entire project (which eventually made
it easier to shut the whole thing down).
Infiltration of other people’s institutions can be seen
wherever progressive politics is ascendant, notably college campuses where
intersectional coalitions somehow always include support for BDS. BDS champions insist that this is simply a
matter of justice, but as I’ve noted before, intersectionality seems to have
ended up a one-way street where feminists and gay rights activists (to pick a
couple of examples) must embrace an assault on Israel while shutting up about
the abominable plight of women and gays everywhere else in the Middle East save
Israel.
Why must everyone in a college intersectional coalition –
including feminists and gay activists – submit to the will of mostly male,
mostly straight BDS leaders far from campus?
Because the boycotters are ready to do anything, including destroying any
organization they join, in order to get their way.
Within the Women’s March you are seeing a similar drama play
out as predators who have taken over a project they did not start seem ready to
see it go down in flames rather than free it from enslavement to issues of
their choice.
I suppose it is good news that so many women are voting with
their feet by abandoning the national organization and either running events of
their own or exploring other ways to make womens’ rights a higher priority in
the US and around the world. But if any
of these other groups find themselves taking off, best they learn a lesson on
how to protect any institution they build from those who are ready to join it
for the sole purpose of turning it towards different ends.
