Dana Goldstein

Why is the Sky Blue?

If you believe Jewish Americans are single-issue voters, and that issue is support for the Israeli occupation, then it makes sense to ask, as Norman Podhoretz does in a new book and Commentary symposium, "Why are Jews Liberal?"

But this is a fundamental misreading of the political commitments of American Jews, 92 percent of whom describe issues other than Israel as their primary concern. According to one election season poll, the top two issues for American Jews are the economy and the Iraq war.

In his Times Magazine profile of J-Street, a PAC seeking to advance progressive views on Israel, James Traub does a good job of describing the difficulty of representing the political opinions of "the dispassionate many" on Israel, as opposed to the "passionate few" represented by AIPAC. So in one sense, Jewish neo-cons will always have a voice louder than more typical Jews when it comes to Israel, because they simply care much more. That doesn't mean they represent the community.

Why are Jews actually liberal? In the the Commentary forum, only Rabbi David Wolpe states the obvious, attributing Jewish liberalism, as I do, to our deep identification with the marginalized and oppressed:

...I suspect until conservatism convinces most Jews that they have a sympathy and practical program for those who are real or putative outsiders, it will remain, among Jews at least, distinctly the minority movement.

Interestingly, this outlook -- the attachment to the Jewish history of oppression -- is responsible for both the liberal and conservative strands of contemporary Jewish politics. The liberal strand lends support to programs that help the poor, such as universal health care and immigration reform. The conservative strand uses the reality of anti-Semitism to justify Israel's inhumane policies toward Palestinians and Arab-Israeli citizens.

Read more from Sarah Posner and Jack Ross.

cross-posted at TAPPED

Will Hillary Put Muscle Behind Her Promise of a Feminist Foreign Policy?

On Sunday in New York, I saw the play "Ruined," by Lynn Nottage, which won the 2009 Pulitzer Prize for drama. The show takes place in a Congolese brothel, where rape victims, shunned by their families in a time of civil war, turn to prostitution as their only viable option. It is simultaneously devastating and uplifting , and I strongly recommend it.

In the real-life Congo, however, mass rape isn't set to a soundtrack of music and dance. A very important Washington Post story describes how sexual violence is a defining feature of the current, U.S.-backed military operation in the country, intended to quell rebel militias. Tens-of-thousands of newly-minted government soldiers -- many of whom were fighting as rebels until a recent peace agreement -- are raping and pillaging their way through Congolese villages, supported by American and United Nations dollars, helicopters, and trucks. Rape victims range in age from pre-pubescent girls to 70-year old women. In some villages, women are voluntarily adhering to a 6 p.m. curfew to avoid rape, hesitating to leave their padlocked bedrooms even to use the toilet.

As our own Michelle Goldberg has reported, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton has promised to make women's issues -- and sexual violence in particular -- a cornerstone of her foreign policy. Clinton appointed Melanne Verveer the first-ever ambassador-at-large for global women's issues. A test of their commitment will be how strongly they insist the Congolese authorities -- who are benefiting from U.S. support -- confront their military's rape culture. In Kinshasa, Congo yesterday, Clinton said of rape, "We have to speak out against the impunity of those in positions of authority who either commit these crimes or condone them. ... There are even some cases of these terrible crimes committed by members of the Congolese military."

But although a few human rights trainings are being held in the field, none of the five senior army officials accused of rape have been prosecuted. That negligence trickles down the ranks. A condition of U.S. support for the Congolese government should be a top-level commitment to fighting sexual violence, beginning with prosecutions of the highest-level offenders.

Read the whole report, by Stephanie McCrummen, at the Washington Post.

Update: Today in the Congo, Clinton committed $17 million in response to sexual violence. The money will fund gynecology training, video cameras for women's security, and anti-rape training for police. But still no word on pressuring the Congolese government to prosecute high-level rapists.

cross-posted at TAPPED

Photo from the play "Ruined," at the Manhattan Theater Club

Iran and the Veil

Photo from Tehran by Farhad Rajabali, via Flickr

The photos coming out of Tehran demonstrate, movingly and beautifully, that women are on the front lines of the protests taking place there, veils and all. The images reminded me of President Obama's focus on the hijab during his June 4 Middle East policy speech from Cairo. Obama chose the issue because it was one on which he could forge an alliance with moderate and conservative Islamists at the expense of our traditional allies in Western Europe. "I reject the view of some in the West that a woman who chooses to cover her hair is somehow less equal," he said.

Yet the photos show, quite clearly, that women are chafing against the limitations of the veil. Look how far back they push the scarves; under an "equal" system, is there any doubt these women would be ripping the veils from their heads? That's not to deny that many women do wear the hijab gladly, even in Iran. But by hailing the supposed "choice" involved, we provide cover for authoritarian regimes, like Iran's, that really don't want to provide women with any choice at all in the matter. If anything, the focus on the hijab has often served as a distraction from the underlying oppression the veil represents. As Iranian sociologist Fatemeh Sadeghi wrote in a widely circulated 2008 essay, “Why We Say No to Forced Hijab,” the veil has "nothing to do with morality and religion. It is all about power."

And the fact is that women have very little power under Iranian law. They cannot run for president. If they ask for a divorce, they are highly unlikely to win any subsequent custody battle. Polygamy is legal and was even encouraged by the Ahmadinejad regime as an antidote to female unemployment! Only 13 percent of women participate in the paid work force, compared to over 25 percent in Turkey and over 38 percent in Indonesia. With the permission of a court, fathers can even arrange marriages for daughters under age 13. And in the past year, feminist movement leaders have been arrested and jailed by the regime.

Neo-conservatives have often used women's rights as a justification for ill-conceived U.S. military interventions abroad. Yet in Iran this week, we are getting a look at what a real, homegrown feminist movement looks like. American policy-makers from both the left and right should be paying attention. We owe these women support and admiration -- not condescension.

For further reading: Sexual Politics in Modern Iran, by Janet Afary, and the latest issue of the Middle East Report

cross-posted at TAPPED

Who's Missing from the G-20 Photo Op?

The male spouses, that's who. Check out this photograph of the G-20 spouses. Conspicuously absent are Néstor Kirchner, the former president of Argentina and husband of that nation's current leader, Cristina Kirchner, as well as Joachim Sauer, the chemist who is married to German Chancellor Angela Merkel.

You know, it's perfectly okay if Kirchner and Sauer have better things to do than pose for silly pictures and be props for their politician wives. I wish more female political spouses had the same convictions, and that the public could accept that. But it would still be pretty rad to see some male faces at the spouse table from time to time. Things are changing -- but sometimes the world can't see it.

cross-posted at TAPPED

History and Crisis

It has long been Barack Obama's habit, here at home, to compare our current economic crisis to the Great Depression. Back in October, during a debate with John McCain, Obama said, "We are in the worst financial crisis since the Great Depression." Speaking at Columbia University last month, Paul Volcker, chair of the President's Economic Recovery Advisory Board, went further, saying, "I don't remember any time, maybe even the Great Depression, when things went down quite so fast."

So it's been interesting this week to hear how Obama's historical references change as he reaches out to Europeans at the London G-20 meeting. At his press conference with Gordon Brown yesterday, Obama compared the recession not to the 1930s but to the late 1940s. "All of us here in London have a responsibility to act with a sense of urgency," he said. "Make no mistake: We are facing the most severe economic crisis since World War II."

The comparison to World War II is both sensitive and strategic. It is sensitive because it acknowledges a key difference in the American and European experiences of the 20th century; Europe was left completely devastated, physically and emotionally, by the ravages of Nazism, while the United States soared to the height of its power. And strategic because the World War II example hearkens back to a time of internationally recognized American moral leadership, when the Marshall Plan and Berlin air lift demonstrated to the world the United States' commitment to human rights.

Could George W. Bush have pulled this off? It never would have occurred to him.

cross-posted at TAPPED

The Vatican's "Small Favors" on Abortion

Earlier this month, I highlighted the case of the 9-year old Brazilian girl who received an abortion after being raped by her stepfather. Cardinal Cardoso Sobrinho swiftly excommunicated the doctors who provided the abortion and the girl's mother, who approved it -- while maintaining that the rapist himself was worthy of forgiveness.

Last week the story got more complicated, with the Vatican’s top bioethics official, Archbishop Rino Fisichella, writing in the Vatican's newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, that the doctors did not, after all, deserve excommunication. Ross Douthat had some thoughtful words on the topic, writing:

...while the institutional Church is not a democracy, neither is it a monolith: Save on rare occasions, it will always speak with a multiplicity of voices, some of them wise and loving and some of them ignorant, or tone-deaf, or legalistic, or cruel. But for the Church to carry out its mission, and turn outward to the world rather than inward on itself, the latter sort of voices can't always be the ones that speak up first and loudest, and have their words carried halfway around the world before wisdom and charity have even gotten out of bed.

Now Frances Kissling, former president of Catholics for a Free Choice, has written an essay for Religion Dispatches analyzing the Church's mixed messages on this case. Fisichella has done nothing to fundamentally transform the Church's teachings on abortion, Kissling explains -- and indeed, he calls abortion an "intrinsically wicked act." But under some interpretations, Catholic teaching already allows abortion in cases -- such as the removal of a cancerous uterus -- in which the death of the fetus can be seen as a "byproduct" of some other life-saving medical procedure. In the Brazilian case, in which the physical and psychological life of a child were threatened by carrying a pregnancy to term after rape, Fisichella implies that moral Catholic doctors could reasonably disagree about whether abortion is a life-saving measure or simply a means to kill a fetus. Kissling's take-away? "[T]the fact that he acknowledges any moral discretion for physicians is extremely important," she writes. "You can bet that there will be an outcry from the ultra conservatives in the church, perhaps a clarification by the Archbishop, but the fact is that he has unlocked a door through which women, doctors and policy makers can creep. I am thankful for small favors."

cross-posted at TAPPED

On Gaza, Opinion Coalesces

As Spencer Ackerman points out, even the editors of Haaretz, Israel's premiere daily paper, are calling for an end to the ground war in Gaza.

Israel's justified rationale in acting against rocket launchers has been increasingly damaged over two weeks. The legitimacy and understanding extended to Israel melt away amid the pictures of killing and ruin. Accusations of war crimes are already being bandied about in Israel. This war needs to move immediately to the diplomatic track and agreements that will end the fantasies and delusions of both sides.

They must be self-hating Jews.

cross-posted at TAPPED

Post-Zionism

In the Canadian National Post, Jeet Heer writes a column about younger Jews being increasingly critical of Israel, mentioning the writing of Ezra, Matt Yglesias, Spencer Ackerman, and myself. Heer does something I like. While Philip Weiss has done some great work documenting younger Jews' skepticism toward Israel's recent actions, Weiss describes this nascent movement with two terms that discomfit me: "non-Zionism" and "anti-Zionism."

Heer calls us "post-Zionist," and that just sits better with me. "Anti-Zionism" is not always anti-Semitic, but it sometimes is. "Non-Zionism" implies a lack of support for Israel in any form. Post-Zionism, I think, acknowledges Zionism's place in modern Jewish history while urging a pretty radical rethinking of the Zionist project itself -- and whether the actions of today's Israeli government, and its Diaspora supporters, are really best suited to accomplish the original Zionist goal of making the world and the Promised Land safer for Jews.

Heer writes:

Events like the war in Gaza are likely to intensify the post-Zionism of young Jews. In the public debate in America, it is striking that the strongest supporters of Israel tend to be writers like Alan Dershowitz (age 70), Marty Peretz (also 70) and William Kristol (a sprightly 56). As against this Geritol brigade, a group of young Jewish writers, many of them working for progressive think-tanks that are helping to shape the Obama administration, have been admirably sharp-witted in attacking the Gaza offensive as a moral and strategic failure. ...

Why are young Jews so harsh in their criticism of Israel? The only honest answer is Israel's terrible human rights record. The wanton slaughter in Gaza is merely the latest in a long litany of Israeli atrocities, all of which help the Jewish state win some short-term victories while making long-term peace impossible. If Israel is to survive it needs to listen to these critical voices, rather than the false friends who urge a continuation of the cycle of violence and retribution.And if Israel doesn't listen to its critics in the Diaspora, then it will face a friendless future.

Read the whole thing.

cross-posted at TAPPED

The Idea of Israel

View of Tel Aviv from port city of Jaffa, Israel. Photo by the author, January 2006.

As a writer with the last name "Goldstein," I've often found my opinions filtered through other people's assumptions of what Jews think or should think. It happened in comment sections when I reported on the controversy over using circumcision as an HIV-prevention method. (The truth is, I'm a defender of Jewish parents' rights to choose not to circumcise their children -- without facing opprobrium from the community.) In 2007 I was the target of an email harassment campaign initiated by a white supremacist web site after I wrote this piece. And even though I rarely cover foreign policy, I have several times received emails and even letters accusing me of harboring Zionist, imperialist views and hoisting them upon the public.

Because I find all of this unpleasant, I never, as a rule, write about the Israel-Palestine conflict. I'm going to break that rule today. It's not just that military solutions have a poor track record of solving problems of terrorism in the Middle East -- or, really, anywhere. It's not just that a ground war leading to the deaths of over 400 people, many of them civilians, is a disproportionate response to the latest rag-tag rocket fire of Hamas, which has claimed the lives of four Israelis. It is not just that while Israel has every right to target those missile sites and the terrorists who perpetrated those attacks, it seems that through brutal, widespread violence, the Israeli government is doing little more than devastating an already impoverished society and planting seeds of hatred in a new generation of Palestinians.

It is that this latest incursion, and indeed, much of Israel's military history, seems manufactured in opposition to the founding idea of the Zionist project itself -- that the world should be made safe for Jews. And that if the larger world could not be safe, than at least one place -- the Promised Land -- should be. I needn't argue here that Israel is one of the most unsafe places on earth to be a Jew; with suicide bombings, missiles, and now full-fledged war, that much is apparent. Asking young Jews to fight and die in a ground war, one whose perpetration inflames anti-Semitic sentiments, is not the best way to make Israel, or the world at large, safe for the Jewish people. And sure enough, it is tragic to learn that due to the fighting in Gaza, Jews in France, Sweden, Belgium, and Denmark have suffered anti-Semitic violence and vandalism in recent days.

To be sure, Israel's military response is not dissimilar from that of other nations that have faced terrorist threats, and errantly believed they could quash the threat with brute force. But in a post-Holocaust world, Israel is simply not like any other country. It is special, and holds particular sway over the religious and cultural imagination. I don't need to be convinced that anti-Semitism is a world-historical force that would exist, sometimes virulently, with or without the existence of Israel. I majored in European History, for god's sake. And as I wrote above, I'm all too acquainted with the lunatic, nativist right here at home. It's just that I want to believe that the collective, historical experience of Jewishness and Zionism leads to something better -- something more humane -- than what we've witnessed in the Middle East this past week. Jews in Israel and the Diaspora who are similarly frustrated have the responsibility, I think, to raise their voices. We support Israel's right to protect itself. We just don't see how this will accomplish that in the long run. 

cross-posted at TAPPED

December in Finland

I spent last week in Helsinki, on a junket for American education writers to learn about the Finnish education system, which is ranked number on in the world by the OECD. What we found, in short, was that in a country where conservatives and social democrats agree that eduction should be a major, well-funded priority -- and that equality between students is a goal -- a lot is possible. Namely: a competitive teacher education process, the coexistence of strong unions and merit pay, a commitment to teacher autonomy, and a dislike for too much high-stakes testing. That's not to say Finnish schools are perfect; growing immigration is presenting cultural and academic challenges, and there were two school shootings in the last two years. Nevertheless, there's a lot to admire, not just inside schools, but politically, in terms of how the powers that be view education.

For more details on the Finnish system, check out my Prospect piece.