The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) has a proud history of fighting anti-Semitic hate, which is increasing in the U.S. (where it is embedded in parts of the so-called alt-right movement, and emerges as hostility toward Israel among parts of the left), in Europe (in large measure as a consequence of Islamic immigration) and worldwide.
Now, NPR reports, the ADL is trying to broaden its mission:
In subsequent years, mostly under the leadership of ADL President Abraham Foxman, the League was focused primarily on fighting anti-Semitism, but the League’s new president, Jonathan Greenblatt, wants the ADL to renew its old civil rights activism and move the work forward. …
There is just one complication. For many current civil rights activists, solidarity with Palestinians is taking precedence over the old solidarity with American Jews. …
And it’s not just the Black Lives Matter movement that is drawn to the Palestinian struggle. Earlier this year, a group of pro-Palestinian gay-rights activists disrupted a meeting in Chicago of the National LGBTQ Task force…. About 200 marched through the meeting site, shouting, “Hey, hey, ho, ho, occupation has got to go!” and “From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free!”
It’s good to reach out and build alliances, as long as you don’t subordinate your core mission to outside agendas. So I’m fine with ADL working with civil rights groups to combat hate and defamation, and hopeful that doing so might help address anti-Semitism among African-American progressives and campus social justice warriors, many of whom believe a tiny Jewish state, surrounded by large theocratic dictatorships that ethically cleansed their Jewish populations during and after World War II, is nevertheless uniquely evil among nations.
But if the ADL follows the ACLU down the road of becoming just another left-umbrella group, that would be a pity.
[No, not just me. Ira Glasser, ACLU executive director from 1978 to 2001, has lamented “the transformation of the ACLU from a civil liberties organization to a liberal bandwagon organization.” Most recently, it has defended using the state to force bakers to design wedding cakes celebrating same-sex marriage. What matters freedom of expression and religion when government-induced equality is on the agenda?]
More. George Will looks at “leftists eager to meld their radicalism with radical Islam,” and “to mend their threadbare socialism with something borrowed from National Socialism.”
23 Comments for “Cautious on Coalitions”
posted by Jorge on
“Increasingly, we’ve seen folks on campuses say, [with regard to] this intersectionality … ‘If we believe black lives matter, we therefore also must be anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian,’ ” he says. ” ‘Because we are for, you know, reproductive rights, we are against Israel.’ I mean, generally speaking, I find that specious. I think we need to look at each issue on its own and consider it on its own.”
That sounds like something Rev. Al Sharpton once said when he actually praised the mayor during the last years of the Giuliani administration. He said something to the effect of we have to be willing to ally with people we often disagree with on specific issues when we can.
Speaking of Sharpton, there was also that one time when he got arrested protesting in Vieques, Puerto Rico, when he was running for president.
Al Sharpton is infamous for his activism’s absence of intersectionality. I have also never, ever heard of him making a diversity misstep at any time since the Freddy’s Fashion Mart incident.
I think we should consider the possibility that who we are and what we stand for should determine which path to take. A gay activist organization should stand for the interests of gays first and foremost. Organizations that seek to promote or support the best interests of all people should immerse themselves in intersectionality.
More and more we are seeing organizations follow the latter path. To me it seems they often confuse their mission in the process, and I think that’s because they pursue political access (why is the union that represents me taking sides in the Iraq War and Trayvon Martin’s death?).
There is a tradeoff between power and moral purity in activism.
posted by Jorge on
I have also never, ever heard of him making a diversity misstep at any time since the Freddy’s Fashion Mart incident.
(Wow. Why don’t you come right out and say “I hate white people”, Mr. Jorge?)
You know what I mean.
posted by TJ on
it is hard to say if anti-Jewish bigotry is rising or getting reported more or the “reality TV” nature of our press and elected officials is making overt bigotry more “newsworthy”
posted by TJ on
Al Sharpton has done good work at the community-local level. When he moved into statewide or national causes, he was less effective.
Part of the problem is that broad based coalition building gets harder to do when you move up the political ladder, and its got harder (overall) with Fox News, talk radio and messy rules with campaign funding.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
But if the ADL follows the ACLU down the road of becoming just another left-umbrella group, that would be a pity.
LOL, Stephen. The ACLU probably wins more Constitutional cases on behalf of conservatives than the entire cluster-fuck of right-wing legal groups combined. Notwithstanding, the ACLU has long been anathema for right-wingers because it opposes right-wing attempts to violate the Constitutional rights of individuals, such the anti-marriage amendments, and does not confine itself to protecting the Constitutional rights of right-wingers. The right-wing is very strong on civil liberties, so long as it is their civil liberties, and their civil liberties alone, and has condemned the ACLU for years and years.
With respect to the ADL, not to worry. The group has historic ties to the African-American civil rights movement (it is no accident that Andrew Goodman and Michael Schwerner were Jews), and, in a sense, Jonathan Greenblatt is doing nothing more than returning the ADL to its roots. I think that he’s right to do so — most Jews have long understood that American anti-Semitism grows from the same rootstock as discrimination against other minority groups (with the added twist of two millenia of Christian anti-Judiasm), and have done so despite slings and arrows (remember Jesse Jackson’s “Hymietown” ejaculation?) and tensions between Jews and African-Americans.
I suspect that what worries you is that the ADL is not toeing the neoconservative line, and you are probably right about that. The ADL reflects the composition of American Jewry, which has disparate and oft-debated views on the current political situation in Israel. American Jews, like Israeli Jews, are not all as single-mindedly and slavishly devoted to the Netanyahu government’s policies as neoconservatives and conservative Christians seem to be, and the “Netanyahu right or wrong” crowd attacks at any sign that American Jews are not toeing the line.
Don’t fall for it, but if you must, there is always the JDL to lend you comfort.
posted by Jorge on
Notwithstanding, the ACLU has long been anathema for right-wingers because it opposes right-wing attempts to violate the Constitutional rights of individuals, such the anti-marriage amendments, and does not confine itself to protecting the Constitutional rights of right-wingers.
The ACLU is one of only many “left-wing umbrella groups” that attracts “right-wing scorn”, but speaking of neoconservatism (noble man!) one thing stands out about its infamy: its constant, reactionary, extremely hard-hearted opposition to virtually every single national security initiative of the Bush administration. At every step of the way, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized without offering a single solution to the dangers facing this country, a single method for addressing this country’s dangers that might be constitutional.
I cannot think of a single other activist organization this dense, this diametrically opposed to good government. The Tea Party movements at least have opposition platforms. Even PETA pretended to be moderate after the latest animal story. Anonymous is a criminal enterprise, that’s the closest you get.
In retrospect, given how little I’ve heard of the ACLU in relation to the war on terror in recent years and how little things have changed in this country’s policies, it seems their preferred solution was the election of a democrat. That hypocrisy really pisses me off.
(Check: Is Anthony Romero still its executive director? Answer: Yes.)
posted by Tom Scharbach on
At every step of the way, the American Civil Liberties Union criticized without offering a single solution to the dangers facing this country, a single method for addressing this country’s dangers that might be constitutional.
The ACLU doesn’t govern. The government governs. The ACLU brings lawsuits in state and federal courts to help ensure that the government doesn’t violate the constitutional rights of our citizens. The ACLU doesn’t decide the cases. The courts decide the cases.
You may not like it, and you certainly don’t like the fact that the ACLU defends American citizens against the government’s arsenal in the “War on Terror” — indefinite detention, violation of due process, trial by military commission, pervasive warrantless surveillance, racial/religious profiling, and so on — but that’s how it is.
The constitutional rights of unpopular, feared and hated citizens are as deserving defense as the rights of “good citizens” are. The ACLU has fought for those rights since before the McCarthy era — another period when fear ran rampant and constitutional guarantees were at risk — and has been hated for it.
Tough.
posted by Jorge on
The ACLU doesn’t govern. The government governs. The ACLU brings lawsuits in state and federal courts to help ensure that the government doesn’t violate the constitutional rights of our citizens. The ACLU doesn’t decide the cases. The courts decide the cases.
I might be more sympathetic to that argument if its Executive Director didn’t have such a big mouth.
Stop making excuses for the inexcusable.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
Stop making excuses for the inexcusable.
It is not inexcusable for the ACLU to defend the constitutional rights of citizens. You don’t like that. Tough. Trump on, Jorge.
posted by Jorge on
It is inexcusable for the ACLU to take a position of national advocacy on a serious issue in which it does nothing but knock down solutions without giving any hint of what it believes an appropriate solution would be.
If you want me to believe you think it’s a good idea for the ACLU to confine itself to issues affecting individual citizens rather than take part in a debate on policy and politics, you’d act the part a little better by agreeing that ACLU should get off the bully pulpit.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
It is inexcusable for the ACLU to take a position of national advocacy on a serious issue in which it does nothing but knock down solutions without giving any hint of what it believes an appropriate solution would be.
I understand that you don’t like the ACLU’s lawsuits or advocacy against the government’s use of indefinite detention, violation of due process, trial by military commission, pervasive warrantless surveillance, racial/religious profiling, and so on, as weapons in the “War on Terror”, but sometimes the only constitutional response is “Just Say No!”
Frightened people all too readily sacrifice freedom for safety.
posted by Jorge on
I understand that you don’t like the ACLU’s lawsuits or advocacy against the government’s use of indefinite detention, violation of due process, trial by military commission, pervasive warrantless surveillance, racial/religious profiling, and so on, as weapons in the “War on Terror”
I do not like the ACLU’s unwillingness to draw a line about what is and is not constitutional.
You are trying to identify my political position based on information you do not have. You’re not doing a good job and I think I can do better than you:
I do not like that the ACLU tries to hide that in truth, it opposes the War on Terror outright.
And I really don’t like that the main reason it has been opposed to the War on Terror is because it was waged by a Republican.
posted by Tom Scharbach on
You are trying to identify my political position based on information you do not have.
You are giving me the information I have, and you’ve now made it crystal clear that your opposition to the ACLU is political, not constitutional. You’ve expressed consistent support for the Patriot Act over a number of years, you singled out ACLU issues with the “War on Terror” in your initial comment, and you have followed on now with the assertion that the ACLU opposes the “War on Terror” outright, and is motivated to do so because Bush II was the President who initiated the Patriot Act.
I’d say that your position is very clear. You support the Patriot Act and the other similar tools used by the government.
I do not like that the ACLU tries to hide that in truth, it opposes the War on Terror outright. And I really don’t like that the main reason it has been opposed to the War on Terror is because it was waged by a Republican.
I would suggest that you take a deeper look at the ACLU lawsuits and statements about The Patriot Act and other government constitutional overreach in the “War on Terror”.
Neither assertion is supported by the evidence. The ACLU’s response has been to the some (not all) of the weapons used to fight the “war”, and not to the “war” itself. And the ACLU’s response has been consistent for at least 15 years now, through Republican and Democratic administrations alike.
posted by TJ on
In America, Jewish voters tend to be center-left or progressive on many political issues (i.e. civil rights, church/state, abortion, environment)
I dont know if any research has been done on the voting pattern of Jewish people in Europe.
posted by TJ on
Historically, black/Jewish relations have tied to civil rights goals, but also been complicated by economics and mutual cases of prejudice
you had class conflict; i.e. situations were urban, working class blacks had to deal with middle class, Jewish small business owners, like small conveniance stores, apartments, etc.
It shifted somewhat, so that more of these businesses were owned by Asian Americans, but their is certainly a economic part to the racial, ethnic and religious prejudice
posted by Houndentenor on
This is all a direct result of our current oversimplified binary political mess. Since the right is pro-Israel, the left has automatically decided to be pro-Palestinian. Never mind what good or bad either the Israelis or the Palestinians might do, they must be defended or condemned. It’s madness. Both the right and the left have become toxic. Fortunately the left doesn’t control anything in the US except a few academic chairs where they churn out nonsense only read by far right media types to quote mine. But in Europe the left does often have real power and this is creating some real problems.
posted by TJ on
European Greens – the few that I know – have talked about the rights and dignity of both Israelis and Palestinians. Im not sure if the Greens are “left”.
posted by tj on
The ADL probably realizes that cases of anti-Semitism in America are increasingly rare, at least the sort of cases that a civil rights group can actually do something about. So, their practical — as well as moral reasons — why the ADL wants to build some coalitions.
Blind (often binary) loyalty to being “pro-Israeli” or “pro-Palestinian” is probably not going to actually help bring about a just and peaceful settlement (to say nothing of dealing with things such as infrastructure, poverty, etc.)
Many Jewish people grew up with a certain level of prejudice against. Just as many Christians and Muslims grew up with a certain level of prejudice against Jewish people.
posted by Lori Heine on
I think what we are running up against is what might be called “cootie politics.” The ACLU has “leftist cooties.” So many right-wing-identifying people are simply going to line up against it no matter what.
The ACLU has such a long record of standing up for civil liberties on both sides of the divide that logically speaking, it ought to be “cootie-proof.” But then again, cootie politics are never logical.
posted by Jorge on
That logic only makes sense if the ACLU has a low error rate.
posted by TJ on
The ACLU was attacked by the far right in the 1950s. It was not until the far right took over the GOP and started pumping out its message via talk radio and Fox News, that the ACLU was given full blown “cooties”.
BTW, Im not a ACLU member. I dont agree with some of their legal theories and the like.
However, the demonization of the ACLU was fairly limited until the GOP became run by the New Right.
posted by Jorge on
I wouldn’t mind an approximate year of when the new right took over (or which faction of the right you’re talking about) and when the ACLU started being demonized.
posted by TJ on
Jorge;
The American far-right has always demonized the ACLU. Yet, the far right has not always dominated the Republican Party.
Political Groups like the John Bircher Society or the American Independent party believed it, but the general public, Democrats and Republicans alike generally dismissed it.
You can certainly see the New Right — another name for the far right — takeover of the Republican party in the 1970s and 1980s.