Further Thoughts on the Bernie Sanders Anti-Semitism Oped

Bernie Sanders’ oped on “How to Fight Anti-Semitism has been republished in the British newspaper The Guardian, with only one minor change from the original version published in Jewish Currents. Re-reading the essay, however, has caused me to re-think some of my own views about the piece (posted here) with, I hope, a little more nuance.

As I initially wrote, Bernie deserves credit for his unequivocal insistence that progressives acknowledge “the enormous achievement of establishing a democratic homeland for the Jewish people after centuries of displacement and persecution.” And even more importantly, he recognizes that “criticism of Israel can cross the line into antisemitism, especially when it denies the right of self-determination to Jews.”

Reading the British version, however, made me think harder about this sentence: “I will always call out antisemitism when I see it.”

But as far as I can tell, Bernie has said exactly nothing about the anti-Semitism currently ripping apart the British Labour Party. This is quite remarkable, given that numerous Jewish and non-Jewish members have recently resigned from the Labour Party, and called on voters to abandon it, because of Jeremy Corbyn’s long history of associating with anti-Semites and tolerating their involvement in the Labour Party.

Just within the past few days, a group of prominent British literary, artistic, academic, and social figures published an open letter – in The Guardian, as it happens – announcing that they could not vote for the Labour Party in the upcoming election due to Corbyn’s tolerance of anti-Semitism. The signatories – Christians, Jews, and Muslims -- include John le Carre, Fay Weldon, Ghanem Nuseibeh, Simon Callow, Antony Beevor, and Jimmy Wales. They wrote:

The coming election is momentous for every voter, but for British Jews it contains a particular anguish: the prospect of a prime minister steeped in association with antisemitism. . . . Mr Corbyn has a long record of embracing antisemites as comrades.

[W]e cannot in all conscience urge others to support a political party we ourselves will not. We refuse to vote Labour on 12 December.

As an American presidential candidate, Bernie Sanders could certainly choose to stay out of the British election. But it is contradictory, to put it as mildly as possible, for him to publish an oped in British newspaper promising always to “call out anti-Semitism” while simultaneously keeping mum about the glaring instances of anti-Semitism now rocking British politics.

It is tempting to wonder whether Bernie’s reticence about the Labour Party is rooted in political affinity for fellow Democratic Socialists. In the U.S., his commitment to calling out anti-Semitism has mostly been in response to right-wing attacks on Jews and Jewish institutions. Has he ever condemned specific incidents of anti-Semitism on the left?

For example, a 2017 meeting of the Democratic Socialists of America (DSA) overwhelmingly passed an Israel boycott resolution, followed by raucous chants of “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” In Bernie’s own terms, the chant was anti-Semitic. A call for Israel’s destruction obviously “denies the right of self-determination to Jews.”

Bernie Sanders is the most prominent member in the history of the DSA, yet I can find no record of him condemning the anti-Semitic outburst at his own organization's convention.

It is admirable that Sanders has warned his fellow progressives about the drift from Israel criticism into anti-Semitism. It would be more admirable if he would ever say something when it happens on his own turf.

Comments

[Mona]

https://twitter.com/simonerzim/status/1068514217345507330

[PaulB]

Steve, fifty years ago Marty Peretz was a left winger who had to decide whether to ignore the anti-Semitism that swirled around the progressive left even then. He chose to leave that world and stand with Israel (albeit with occasional criticisms of it) and become a mainstream liberal, with pretty conservative views on foreign policy. Maybe it's time for you to decide just where you stand, rather than ignoring the "it's not anti-Semitism, it's anti-Zionism" or "it's not Israel, it's Netanyahu" excuses that enable too many people who are both left of center and pro-Israel to ignore the reality staring them in their face.

[Douglas B. Levene]

I showed up to college in the fall of 1969, burning with radical fervor. At one of the first meetings of campus radicals I was informed that the correct political line was that Israel was a colonial usurper and that the Palestinians were its victims. Thus began my journey away from the left.