Bill Maher and Dana Bash had an interesting exchange on Real Time, one in which Maher edged surprisingly close to Trump’s position that Democrats are anti-Semitic, or that a Jewish person cannot reasonably support Democrats at all. For Maher, this issue and the broader question of political correctness seem to be the two matters that have pushed him outside the tent. Given how sensitive this generation of Republicans has become, rewriting media narratives, policing language, even revising history, it is hard to take the PC argument seriously.
But Israel does require serious engagement.
Maher’s argument is not literally that Israel can never be criticized. He has criticized Netanyahu himself. His contention seems to be that much of what now presents itself as criticism of Israel has crossed into something darker, and that the Democratic Party has become too tolerant of it.
That deserves consideration.
But the definition he sometimes employs seems to expand until perfectly ordinary objections to Israeli policy become evidence of something else.
Israel is a democracy, at least in theory, and its leaders can be questioned like any others. Domestic decisions, foreign policy, military strategy: all are complicated, all are subject to debate. We criticize our own country constantly. It is practically the default setting of American politics. When the United States goes to war or takes any consequential action, criticism follows immediately. No one assumes our leaders are righteous by virtue of holding office.
Why would our default position be that Israel is always right?
It might be.
But it must be analyzed, not assumed.
Do people criticize Israel who are also anti-Semitic? Of course. Anti-Zionism can provide convenient cover for people whose real objection is to Jews. Pretending otherwise would be naive.
But it is equally lazy to assume that disagreement with Israel establishes anti-Semitism.
Support for Gazans is perfectly reasonable. One can oppose Hamas and still believe Palestinians deserve rights, dignity, safety, and statehood. One can object to an Israeli military operation, criticize settlements, or question the conduct of Netanyahu’s government without harboring prejudice against Jews.
Calling Israel’s conduct in Gaza genocide may be wrong. But being wrong about Israel foreign policy is not evidence that someone hates Jews.
There is also a danger in expanding the definition too far. Anti-Semitism is real, ancient, and occasionally murderous. A term that must describe hatred of Jews should not be weakened by applying it reflexively to every objection to an Israeli military operation. If everything becomes anti-Semitism, we may become less capable of recognizing the real thing.
Are there anti-Semites among Democrats? Surely. Racists too. There are anti-Semites and racists among Republicans as well. The problem is not partisan. It is human.
None of this means accusations of anti-Semitism should be casually dismissed. Quite the opposite. They should be taken seriously enough to require evidence.
The challenge is distinguishing criticism of a government from prejudice against a people, and resisting the temptation to collapse the two whenever it is politically convenient.
Anti-Semitism is too serious a charge for its meaning to become blurred by our disagreements over Israel foreign policy.