January 27, 2011
To the Editor,
Thanks for running the Dershowitz piece on the J Street double standard. I think it’s an important issue and I’m happy to see prominent liberals speaking up on it. As a right-leaning gentile who regards himself as a gharqad tree I’m heartened by Liberal Jews who show this kind of balance.
Dershowitz made many good points and I’m happy to give his piece the thumbs up. I don’t mean to sound any sour notes, as I really appreciated it, but I feel the need to say that I think he missed a few key turns of thought on this issue.
First, the term "blood libel", unlike "Holocaust", is generic. It does not qualify, in all instances, as a reference to (say) the Protocols. Yes, for many that is the primary instance, but in general it is not the first thing that comes to mind. The Protocols, to the general public, is not a household word while the Holocaust is, and probably far less than 50% of the public would have connected Palin’s comments to the antisemitism issue without the elucidation of prominent persons who repeatedly and explicitly made the connection. It is quite possible that Palin herself was not even aware of the association of the term with the Protocols, and even if she was, it is very probable that the connection did not enter her mind at the time she made the comment.
Further, while the principal meaning of the term refers to accusations of ritualized religious murder, esp. of children, it is common for the pro-choice movement to accuse the pro-life movement of "blood libel" in their discussion of abortion clinics, so the term has weight in a more secular, generic setting in so-called liberal discourse. Indeed, it strikes me that perhaps we need a new term to describe this phenomenon, something like "blood libel libel", in which someone is
unfairly accused of blood libel. Perhaps Palin is being accused of blood libel libel. One could argue that this accusation against her is unfair by saying that it is "blood libel libel libel" (etc. 🙂 )
Second, Palin is the wrong person to charge with injecting the term "blood libel" into this discussion. No less a media powerhouse than the Wall Street Journal used the term to make exactly the same point two days before Palin recorded her statement. I regard Palin’s appropriation of the term as a paraphrase of the WSJ piece. It is patently unfair to pin that term on her as if she was uniquely responsible for heightened levels of this kind of rhetoric. She was injecting comment into an existing public discourse, long after the major players had already said their piece. Her statement contained nothing new, and it registered far down the scale of "inflammatory comment" compared to prior statements by her critics. The charges leveled against her to this effect are a clear instance of projection.
Third, the reason Palin is targeted can have a finer point put on it than even Dershowitz makes: When Palin was announced as a VP candidate the response of the electorate was electric. Since Obama’s primary momentum in the election was founded on his star appeal, and the democratic media/lobby/political machine was relying so strongly on his personal charisma to carry the day, Palin was immediately seen as a lethal threat. This perception is clearly seen in the response of the left. Never in American politics have we seen such a vicious, sustained and personal campaign to delegitimize a politician, and on such flimsy bases. One eventually loses track of the number of "ethics violations" she was charged wtih after entering the federal campaign, all of which were eventually thrown out, and almost all of which were obvious nuisance suits whose purpose was to colour short-term public discourse more than to establish any factual violations. Not satisfied with assassination of Palin herself, the machine went after her family with a vengeance. It is generally understood in American political discourse that such attacks on a candidate’s family are beyond the pale, but the liberal media and para-political collectives like J Street showed little restraint in this regard, and I’ve yet to see a Liberal of Dershowitz’ stature call them out publicly on this (some minor Liberal voices have done so, including a few well-known feminists, I’m happy to say).
So it was quite natural for them to leap to try to make the stain from this tragedy stick to Palin — it was simply another episode in their ongoing attempt to undermine her public support. Judging by the sudden slide in her approval ratings, in seems that they have finally managed to have the desired effect.
Fourth, I’m surprised that a smart commentator like Dershowitz would publicly profess to criticize Palin’s use of "crosshairs" on a map. He is surely familiar with the instances of similar maps produced for years in American electoral campaigns of all political stripes. The only thing noteworthy about the "offending" poster of the Palin campaign is its ordinariness — it fits comfortably into a well-established genre. The language on the poster compares very favourably against some Democrat campaign posters from prior years in which targets are placed on Republican seats and considerably more militant imagery is invoked.
So, as long as Dershowitz is pointing out J Street’s double standard he might have the presence of mind to include a mea culpa about this.
Finally, as you may perceive I’m no fan of Obama, but I have to say that his handling of the issue was excellent, and spoke well for his character. He was one of the few Liberal principals who not only kept out of the fray, but called for their people to tone it down. That won him some points with me, and apparently with the American public as well, because his approval ratings also took a small upward turn right then. He has come off much better than many of the cogs in his support engine.
Robert Craigen