by Dr. Asaf Romirowsky
Twenty-five years after the Oslo peace accords, the progressive Left, which now loudly dominates the Democratic Party, is walking around “with dead eyes, following orders” when it comes to the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Sen. Cory Booker with attendee at Netroots Nation 2018 conference in New Orleans, August 2018, photo via @RealJamesWoods
BESA Center Perspectives Paper No. 974, October 12, 2018
EXECUTIVE SUMMARY: Anti-Semitism is
growing increasingly normalized in American society, particularly in
progressive circles. Today’s progressive Left, led by Bernie Sanders and
others like him, is even further removed from the facts than the
Democratic Party was under Clinton. One of the most pernicious effects
of this normalization relates to the discourse on Israel.
In his 1940 film The Ghost Breakers, Bob
Hope finds himself in Cuba facing a strange menace – zombies. An
acquaintance explains, “A zombie has no will of his own. You see them
sometimes walking around blindly with dead eyes, following orders, not
knowing what they do, not caring,” to which Hope famously replies, “You
mean like Democrats?”
Twenty-five years after the Oslo peace accords,
the progressive Left, which now loudly dominates the Democratic Party,
is walking around “with dead eyes, following orders” when it comes to
the Middle East and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Upstart Democratic congressional candidate
Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez decried the “occupation of Palestine” during a
television interview but was at a loss when pressed to explain what she
actually meant.
Even a moderate Democrat like Cory Booker, previously close to the Jewish community, saw fit to pose with BDS representatives as
a means of flaunting his progressive credentials. In general, the
progressive view sees Jews not only as “white” but as racists and
victimizers because of their presumed power. All this exemplifies the
slow erosion of Israel’s status in American culture.
But the disconnect runs even deeper. Like Cortez,
the children of the Oslo era don’t remember the negotiations in the
1990s, or then-PLO Chairman Yasser Arafat for that matter, and have
grown up on slogans with buzzwords like “occupation” and “intifada.” On
the other hand, this generation, both in the Middle East and outside it,
is extremely active online. In fact, 63% of Palestinian kids have
access to the internet on a computer and 51% report they own a
smartphone. The internet is already playing a significant role in their
lives and what they are seeing is the Palestinian “resistance” against
Israel, not Palestinian society suffering under Hamas or Palestinian
Authority oppression.
The most ostentatious confrontations take place on
Twitter and Facebook, where Palestinians sow allegations of destroyed
villages and war crimes, going as far as claiming that Tel Aviv was
founded on the ruins of invented villages. Instant gratification, yes.
Honesty, not so much.
The same trends are evident in higher education,
where there has been a notable increase in online classes. In such a
setting, there is less opportunity for debate and discussion.
Our growing collective dependence on technology
and social media is undeniable, but these trends – and the general tone
of politics – reduce complex issues into sound bites and thereby drive
polarization.
One of the major themes of Oslo was to generate
trust through confidence-building measures. New mechanisms were put in
place to ensure equal rights in employment and policing, and militia
weapons were decommissioned under international supervision. The hope
was to build a high level of trust through face-to-face interaction.
Today’s social media-driven politics achieves the exact opposite of
those confidence-building steps. We are left only with the option of
parsing online discussions and debates in order to understand the
general attitudes. The hard work of building trust is gone and in its
place we are left with zombies blindly following slogans.
When Arafat rejected the Camp David II accord back
in 2000, it devastated the liberal left-wing camp. They couldn’t
understand how Arafat could reject the prospect of a real Palestinian
state. Today’s progressive Left, led by Bernie Sanders and others like
him, is further removed from the facts than the Democratic Party was
under Clinton. They don’t understand that Palestinian nationalism never
saw the conflict as one between two national groups with legitimate
claims and aspirations. They fail to recognize that Arafat and his
successors professed support for a two-state solution as a means of
appeasing the West.
All of this has led to a steady normalization of
anti-Semitism in American society, particularly in progressive circles.
One of the most pernicious effects of this normalization relates to the
discourse on Israel. A relentless misrepresentation of human rights
violations, slanderous talk of Israeli “ethnic cleansing” and “genocide”
and bitter attacks on Israelis, their international supporters, and the
peace process itself have taken a massive toll on American civil
discourse.
This article was published by Israel Hayom on September 18, 2018.
BESA Center Perspectives Papers are published through the generosity of the Greg Rosshandler Family
Dr. Asaf Romirowsky is the executive director of Scholars for Peace in the Middle East and a fellow at the Middle East Forum.
Source: https://besacenter.org/perspectives-papers/antisemitism-united-states/
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