The "permission structures" to turn Jews anti-Israel - and how to turn it around ~ Elder Of Ziyon

Sunday, January 05, 2025

The "permission structures" to turn Jews anti-Israel - and how to turn it around

Tablet magazine recently published a lengthy but important article about how Barack Obama built a formidable infrastructure to mold people's opinions towards the Democratic Party and his positions.

Key to the initiative was an idea called "permission structures" which was in large part what got him elected to begin with:

[W]hile most political consultants worked to make their guy look good or the other guy look bad by appealing to voters’ existing values, [David] Axelrod’s strategy required convincing voters to act against their own prior beliefs. In fact, it required replacing those beliefs, by appealing to “the type of person” that voters wanted to be in the eyes of others. While the academic social science and psychology literature on permission structures is surprisingly thin, given the real-world significance of Axelrod’s success and everything that has followed, it is most commonly defined as a means of providing “scaffolding for someone to embrace change they might otherwise reject.” This “scaffolding” is said to consist of providing “social proof” (“most people in your situation are now deciding to”) “new information,” “changed circumstances,” “compromise.” As one author put it, “with many applications to politics, one could argue that effective Permission Structures will shift the Overton Window, introducing new conversations into the mainstream that might previously have been considered marginal or fringe.”

As Model Thinkers describes it, "the main point is to find a pathway for the person to change their opinion and/or action in a way that leaves their pride and integrity intact."

It is clear that this was the method they used to turn a large portion of the Democratic Party against Israel.

J-Street, which was heavily promoted by the Obama administration, is entirely a permission structure organization.

It pretends to be Jewish. It pretends to be "pro-Israel." It uses that hook to get Jewish people to become....anti-Israel.

Once you realize that permission structure is a method that could either be described charitably as advertising, or more bluntly as brainwashing, you can see how it has been used extensively by anti-Israel forces over the past decade or so.

Obama used it to push the Iran nuclear deal. But others have been using it as well, most specifically "Jewish Voice for Peace" and "IfNotNow," by using the trappings of Judaism to make it appear like you can be a committed Jew and still be against the Jewish state. Like J-Street, these organizations are giving Jews "permission" to hate Israel and still feel ostensibly Jewish, not feel like the traitors to their own people that they are.

Other examples abound.

Have you noticed the tsunami of open letters that get written by "Jewish" academics or artists, that then get outsized publicity by the media? The entire point is to give permission for Jews, already inundated with anti-Israel messaging, to publicly join the other side and not feel guilty about it.

Even when Zionist groups create their own counter-letters, and even if they get more signatures, they don't have any real effect - because the initial letters aren't meant to show that a majority of Jews support their position, but that it is possible to be Jewish and anti-Zionist. The permission is given by any respected Jews on that list, not the quantity.

"Breaking the Silence" and "Haaretz" act as permission structures to show that Israelis, too, can be anti-Zionist. So does Neturei Karta. This is how they are used and how they view themselves.

So what can be done?

The solution is for proud Jews and proud Zionists to be more proud. And unapologetically so.

Peter Beinart is releasing a book this month titled "Being Jewish After the Destruction of Gaza: A Reckoning." The entire point of the book is permission structure to hate Israel as a Jew. Perhaps this permission structure can be seen in a tweet Beinart posted on January 1, "Our children will ask their children will ask their children what we did while Israel obliterated Gaza. From generation to generation to generation, l'dor v'dor."

My answer would be that Israel has tried to make peace with its Arab neighbors and with Palestinians since Zionism started. That the 1929 pogroms, the 1936-39 massacres, the 1947-1948 war, the 1967 war, the 1973 war, were not started by Israeli actions but by those who wanted to destroy Israel. That Israel tried to make peace with Palestinians during Oslo only to have the Palestinians respond with a horrific terror spree aimed at Jewish civilians. That things were getting better in Gaza in the years before 2023 when Hamas seemed to act as if calm was a good policy, but it was all a scam meant to set the stage for the largest massacre of Jews since Auschwitz. That even during the war Israel did more than any army in history to avoid civilian casualties and to bring aid into a war zone, while Hamas did everything possible to maximize civilian casualties and steal the aid. That even though Israel can say screw them all, we should act like they falsely claim we act - we never will. Because Jewish morality is not subject to the whims of popularity or social media or this year's new interpretation of international law, but on concepts that are timeless.

I would tell them that true bravery is to stand up for what is right when the entire world tells you you are wrong.

Moreover, I would tell my children and grandchildren that the Jewish people are a family, a tribe, a people and a nation. The top priority of every family is to defend themselves first, to save their own lives first. Everyone else's lives are important too - but not as important. Anyone who pretends that the lives of their family is no more important than the lives of those trying to kill them and those cheering on the murderers is either a liar or immensely immoral.

And while families stick together, those who choose to betray the family are outcasts. They can claim to remain part of the family but they know, and the family knows, the truth.

However, the family would welcome them back when they come to their senses and recognize that they made a grievous error.

Being zealous in defending your people is admirable, moral, and right. When the Peter Beinarts of the world want to spread the slander that Israel is committing genocide, that shows their immorality, not Israel's. Jews have always had their Korahs, their Dathan and Avirams. Hiding hate behind the veneer of morality and righteous outrage is nothing new.

The mantra of the permission structure crowd is that they are on the "right side of history." Declaring it does not make it so. People whose entire raison d'être is to attack Jews and assume the worst possible explanation for anything a Jew does are nothing but antisemites, and antisemites are never on the right side of history.