Is Violence Inevitable?

This post was written as an assignment in the Certificate of Nonviolence Studies program I am enrolled in at the Metta Center. It was supposed to be written as a conversation, but I did it as a blog post, so I thought I would also post it here. It's a very important area of thought and study so if you have any comments please feel free to share them. MR. 

Our questioner asks, as it has often been asked, that while nonviolence is a good idea, is it not, (alas!) in contradiction with hard-wired human behavior – the predilection toward solving problems with violence? The reason there has always been war, this argument goes, is that “mankind” is warlike; that we manipulate others to protect and advance ourselves and, at best, a small group of our closest relatives; or, to put a Lockeian spin on it, that human civilization is a battle of all against all.

I want to counter this argument by moving through, as it were, the range of science, from the so-called harder sciences, to the softer.

First, the “hard” science of human biology. In the popular understanding, Darwin's theory of evolution supported the Lockeian version of individualism sampled above: that the goal of life is to win, to survive and reproduce, and that because cooperation doesn't advance these goals it is against human hard-wiring – that is, evolution.

This understanding has been put to political purposes virtually since it was promulgated, to support a “social Darwinism” that, conveniently, jibed very well with the prevailing paradigm of private property and income inequality.

Yet it leaves a key question unanswered: how does altruism – which undoubtedly exists in human relationships – arise and continue to exist in a system that rewards only selfishness? In the absence of a moral reasoning, why should evolution work this way? This has been a great question of sociobiology.

In 1980, sociobiologist Robert Axelrod developed a game that would test how people would do if they cooperated, or if they acted selfishly. The full explanation can be found here https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Evolution_of_Cooperation but the upshot is that those pursuing the “nice” strategy – working cooperatively and rather trustfully – did better than those who attempted to take advantage. To be brief in the extreme, at the end of the process Axelrod delineated the following strategy for maximum success in the game:

• Be nice: cooperate, never be the first to defect.
• Be provocable: return defection for defection, cooperation for cooperation.
• Don't be envious: focus on maximizing your own 'score', as opposed to ensuring your score is higher than your 'partner's'.
• Don't try to be tricky.

This sounds a lot like Gandhi's strategy! He may not have known anything about evolutionary biology, but apparently he was onto something.

The question of “provocability” leads us into the question of “mirror neurons.” V.S. Ramachandran, a distinguished professor of neuroscience at the University of California, San Diego, conducted early research on mirror neurons, and calls them “the basis of civilization.”

Briefly, there are motor command neurons that fire when I take a particular action, such as waving my hand or picking up something. Apparently, when you watch me doing such an action, a certain subset (about 10-20%) of the neurons in you that it would take to perform the same action, called mirror neurons, also fire in you. When you see me in pain, these motor neurons fire in you and you feel a certain amount of my pain. This, Ramachandran and others hypothesize, forms the biological foundation of empathy.

So here we have the biological basis of empathy and cooperation – that is, nonviolent means of achieving what Darwinism claimed could only be achieved by manipulation and selfishness.

On the “softer” scientific, sociological level, we turn to the research of Erica Chenoweth and Maria J. Stephan. In their groundbreaking work, Why Civil Resistance Works, they charted the success and failure of over 300 nonviolent and violent campaigns between 1900 and 2006. They found that nonviolent campaigns proved twice as likely to achieve full or partial success as those that resorted to armed insurgency. This was the case regardless of the nature of the regime and its readiness to resort to repression. (http://peacenews.info/node/6874/erica-chenoweth-maria-j-stephan-why-civil-resistance-works-strategic-logic-nonviolent-conf) As time has gone on, and the sophistication of nonviolent organiation has improved, the rates of success of nonviolent strategies have continued to improve, while the rates of success of armed insurgency have declined. The main varying factor seems to be mass participation, which is higher in nonviolent struggles and has significant subsequent advantages, including strategic flexibility and diverse and resilient leadership.

Significantly, this disproves the popular adage, attributed to Chairman Mao, that “all political power comes from the barrel of a gun.” This truism is of a piece with the “people are violent, only violence works” theory we are discussing here.

The question will inevitably arise as to whether nonviolent strategies could work against a indiscriminate user of violence, such as ISIS. Leaving aside the fact that it was violence – that is, the invasion of Iraq – that led to the rise of ISIS in the first place, we have seen in places like Iraq, Syria, Libya, and Afghanistan that continued application of violent methods have not come close to solving the issues in those countries. The question then becomes, do we continue to apply the same failed methods, or do we try to apply methods of nonviolent action that have proven effective in domestic situations? Eventually – perhaps when all other options have been thoroughly exhausted – we will try this.

And the third form of “science” I want to bring into the discussion is the humanities – the human moral voice. Despite the fact that much of the violence in the world today comes from people identifying with one or another religious teaching, in fact both the teachings of the various religions, and their practices, lead to the pursuit of peace as both the means and the end of human existence.

In terms of teachings, virtually every spiritual tradition in the world has a version of the teaching to “love your neighbor as yourself.” In my own Jewish tradition, this is based on the idea that each human being, whatever their “race”, nation, or creed, is created btzelem elohim – in the image of God – and that their life and freedom, and justice itself, are based on this basic, not similarity, but sameness, between us.

It is the application of the moral voice to the scientific method that gave both power and his strategic acumen to the greatest nonviolent strategists, from Gandhi and King through Soo Chi and the Serbian activists of Otpor!. While their opponents were convinced, as our questioner is, that only violence can work in human struggles, they were utilizing the “force more powerful” - nonviolence – and it is the secret to their success – and, potentially, to our own. 

Review of Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel.

The period from the 1967 war to the first Lebanon War in the early 1980s can fairly be said to have been a halcyon era in the American Jewish community's relationship with Israel. During that period – and during that period alone -- American Jewry spoke in one voice about Israel: in solid support of the actions of the elected Israeli government. Ever since, things have been a little more complicated.

The fissures in the American Jewish community over Israel are examined in detail in Dov Waxman's new book, Trouble in the Tribe: The American Jewish Conflict Over Israel. Waxman, a professor of political science and Israel studies at Northwestern University, uses survey data and contemporary records to trace the development of the American Jewish “conversation” (more recently, “argument”) over Israel from the early 70s through today. He finds that, although the opinions of American Jews on Israel's actions, particularly around its treatment of the Palestinians under its control, have changed, their emotional connection to Israel (consistently at 60-75% over the years) has not.

Much of this story is in tracing the development of what the pro-Israel left in this country. In the 1970s, the first of these organizations, Breira (“choice”), was made up of Jewish professionals and called for a Palestinian state and talks with the PLO – almost two decades before Oslo. But the Jewish community then was dedicated to uni-vocal support of Israel, and Breira was outside those lines, so it was destroyed, its participants blacklisted from communal employment.

Since then, numerous other such organizations have arisen. The most successful of these, J Street, describes itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace,” supporting a two-state solution and – here's the innovation - American pressure on the Israeli government to help convince it to come to such a political deal with the Palestinians. A more radical organization, Jewish Voice for Peace, advocates boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS) against Israel; this, Waxman notes, puts it “beyond the pale” for a Jewish organization, and thus JVP is not included in the American Jewish “tent,” and Waxman pays little attention to it.

The question of whether the more moderate J Street belongs “in the tent” is a vexing one; in 2014, the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations voted not to allow J-Street to become a member, with the vote going according to the usual fissures these days: the bigger, more liberal organizations – the Reform and Conservative denominations, the Anti-Defamation League and National Council of Jewish Women voted to include J-Street, while the more small, more politically conservative and Orthodox organizations – such as the National Council of Young Israel and the Zionist Organization of America, voted against.

Which brings up an interesting point: criticism of Israeli policy does not only emanate from the left. The rightist organizations are often quite vocal in opposition to certain Israeli policies, particularly accommodation with the Palestinians and territorial compromise. Yet while whether leftists are allowed in the tent or not remains ever-controversial, rarely are rightists, no matter how extreme, prohibited from speaking at a synagogue or Hillel.

Concurrently with all this, Waxman traces the growth and development of the mainstream Israel advocacy organizations, AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents. The question of who, exactly, these organizations represent is an important one. The answer, according to Waxman, is that they represent the people in the room. AIPAC draws over 14,000 people to its yearly conferences, and it has activists in virtually every congressional district in the country. However, its membership skews older and more politically conservative, than the Jewish community as a whole. And as with Jewish Federations, the focus on financial support means that the “target audience” is a smaller group of wealthy people, rather than the larger body of Jews.

We're in a time when younger Jews, when they choose to be Jewishly active, prefer to affiliate with organizations that they develop and that reflect their priorities – social justice, environmental, participatory spirituality – rather than join mainstream organizations with huge infrastructure and a particularistic vision, such as fear of antisemitism or uncritical support of an Israel.

We are also in a time when an entire generation of Jews from intermarried households are coming of age and, as Waxman points out, such young people are less committed to religious practice, institutional membership, and political support of Israel. If the community doesn't meet their needs, they are as likely to drop out as to put in the time and effort to change it. Meanwhile, the rates of birth and affiliation within the Orthodox community are higher, and rates of intermarriage are virtually non-existent. While the Orthodox currently comprise around 10% of the American Jewish community, another 50 years of the current demographic trends might show another story.

Waxman's sympathies are clearly with the Zionist left. He thinks it is foolish for mainstream communal organizations to oppose groups like J-Street, which want to be part of the conversation and which, while small in comparison with AIPAC, represent significant numbers of (particularly younger) Jews.

The most challenging part of all of this is how difficult it has become for people to have conversations with each other beyond the boundaries of their various camps. Invective flows freely – typical in this internet age. Progressive rabbis and other communal professionals are so fearful of triggering a negative reaction that they choose not to discuss Israel at all. Thus, as Waxman convincingly demonstrates in this valuable and important book, the very thing that once united the American Jewish community – Israel – now is the thing that divides us most of all.

Guns, Guns, Guns

I've had an aversion to guns all my life. One of my first quasi-memories is of Robert Kennedy lying on the floor of the kitchen of the LA hotel. I've never owned a gun, or even (I'm pretty sure) fired one. My first letter to the editor was on this subject in the New York Post, I must have been 12 or 13. And one of the formative experiences of my youth was the shooting death of John Lennon, when I was a senior in high school.

This is an area that is unquestionably worse now than it ever before. After Reagan was shot there was a flurry of gun control activity, and during the Clinton Administration semi-automatic weapons were banned. Yet today we are awash with more guns than ever.

Of course, the fact that I live in Kansas is significant also. Kansas is a "guns everywhere" state; a person no longer has to have any kind of permit or even training to own or carry a gun. The politics of the issue are horrible – the legislature passes another gun-loosening law every year and the margins are huge. I once criticized one of the Democratic representatives on Twitter for co-sponsoring a guns-everywhere bills, and I was upbraided immediately by one of my Democratic activist friends, who told me that this particular representative would lose his next election if he was on the wrong side of this issue. I have another friend, an electrical-lineman who is active in his union, who tells me that, no matter what the impact of the economic or social policies of any particular candidate on his co-workers, if they perceive the Dem to be anti-gun, they'll vote against him. So that's the context.

When the biggest guns-everywhere bill was passed, some of the pastors I know were pretty upset. As of now houses of worship are allowed to ban guns from the premises, and they wanted some assurances that that would continue to be the case. The Lawrence representative told them not to say anything, because if the legislative leadership figured out that they had exempted churches they were more likely to remove the exemption than to codify it.

When we started Interfaith Action, we saw two particular niches we could fill on any particular issue: a) as the faith component of a larger coalition, or b) as the prophetic voice speaking out when the politics don't allow anyone else to speak out. (I had previously filled both these roles, at different times, when discussing climate change.) So we were perfectly comfortable serving as the voice in the wilderness on the gun issue.

As it turns out, the approach that's most promising is "campus carry", which has already passed here and will go into effect in June of 2017. It has elicited a pretty strong backlash. We're working with a number of groups on this issue, which you can follow over on the KIFA page.
But this is my personal blog, so I'm talking about how this affects me personally. I've been spending more time working on and thinking about this issue, because of meetings we've had about campus carry and because we're having an event on Sunday (Mother's Day March Against Gun Violence). I also happen to be taking a course in nonviolence studies through the Metta Center.

To me, the proliferation of guns is represents the very antithesis of the kind of nonviolent, caring, concern-for-the-other world that I would like to live in, and help to build. I mean, you can't get much less nonviolent than a gun.

The other piece that comes up for me is the horrible level of political discourse in the country right now. The presidential campaign is particularly disheartening; but even leaving that aside, people are coming at each other from such polarized points of view that it's hard to even hear what each other is saying.

This applies especially to the gun issue. If you have ever used social media to comment on this issue you know any mention immediately elicits a horde of nameless, faceless gun advocates (I will try not to call them "gun nuts"). It's very disconcerting.

There is also the sometime-implicit, sometimes-explicit threat that if we made any progress on this issue the other side would resort to force of arms. And with 300 million guns in this country, and only (at most) about 40% of the country owning any at all, that means the other side is quite heavily armed, which can't help but impact on the discourse, which is one of the reasons we don't want so many guns in circulation in the first place!

Like most radical right-wing political positions, there is an unmistakable racist subtext here too.
So we've got an issue which is the antithesis of the world we're trying to build, where the other side has all the political power and all the guns and are violently disinclined to accept or hear the arguments of those who don't think having guns everywhere, carried by anyone, is any kind of problem at all.

Care to give me a pep talk, or talk me through the nonviolent approach to this?

Sanders

The first time I voted in a presidential primary was for Jesse Jackson in 1984. I voted as a “Democrat Abroad” because I was doing a junior year abroad in England at the time. My reasoning, as best as I can remember it, was that we always vote for the lesser of two evils, so this time I wanted to vote for someone who holds policy positions I agree with. This vote, by the way, led to me being called a “self-hating Jew” for the very first time, by the rabbi of my parents' synagogue.

Since that time there haven't been many Democratic candidates, even in primaries, as progressive as Jackson. One of the few is running this year – Bernie Sanders. His policy positions surely hew closer to mine than do Hillary Clinton's, yet I am mostly staying neutral in the primaries, determined to vote for whoever the winner is. I have many friends who are fervently “feeling the Bern”, yet I am not.

Why? A few reasons:

First, I live in Kansas, which has as much impact on a presidential election as a flea has on an elephant. It's a blood red state, and will go for Donald Trump if he's the nominee. Unless I want to travel to another state (or make a lot of phone calls) getting all worked up about it would have almost zero impact even in the primaries. Meanwhile, our state is a political Superfund site, with a governor and legislative supermajority seemingly determined to seek out and snuff any hint of a Good Thing that might happen in this state. I'd rather focus my energies on that.

Second, I have serious doubts about Sanders' electability in a national campaign. His fans are always touting the polls showing him beating Trump by 20 points, but Hillary has run a rather passive campaign against him, and I'm not at all sure those numbers will hold up after the Republicans throw slime at him for six months. I don't think the word “socialist” will be seen positively in a fall election. By the time the slimers are done with him, I'm afraid, Bernie Sanders will be indistinguishable in wide swaths of the public mind from Hugo Chavez.

Meanwhile, Hillary Clinton, for all her negatives, is by resume the most qualified presidential candidate in my lifetime. What she loses in enthusiasm from the millennial left she will regain from moderate Republicans who can't bring themselves to vote for Trump but consider Clinton moderate enough. Sanders won't get those votes.

And in this election, where the alternative isn't Bob Dole or George Bush Sr. but Donald Trump or Ted Cruz, we can't afford to lose. I have thought all along, and I still think, that Hillary will win in a landslide against either. I'm not at all sure of that with Sanders.

But the main reason is that I see the Bernienauts making the same mistake that we all made with Obama in 2008 – the myth of the miracle worker, or putting all our eggs in the candidate's basket. There is only so much a president can do in the absence of a left infrastructure that hasn't existed in this country for a long time. Even if Bernie won, he would still have a recalcitrant House that would oppose his every move. Clinton will have that too, but I just feel that she could maneuver that better than he could. She's used to making policy, while he's used to being a ideologically pure backbencher; the skills are very different.

Obama has done a lot of good things. He's done some bad things too. But let's not forget that his strong action on climate in the second term coincides with (I would argue, results from) a strong climate movement. Clinton has shown over the past couple of years that she is open to pressure from the grassroots. I don't assume she will have the same positions that she had in 1994, because this isn't 1994. Then, we were coming out of 12 years of Reaganism. Now, we've had 8 years of Obama after 8 years of the disastrous W. The situations are very different, and she will adjust. 

I think Bernie's role is to pull Hillary to the left, which he's done, and to mobilize the left grassroots, which he's also done.

But this whole “if Bernie isn't the candidate I won't vote” bullshit is what I'm afraid of. What kind of “revolution” is it if you disengage as soon as you don't get what you want?

We have a lot of infrastructure to build in this country, a left that's independent of any particular candidate and can both turn out voters for elections and pressure incumbents in between. (What Van Jones called the "inside and outside games.") The right has this, paid for by the Kochs et all; the left does not. An full auditorium, no matter how enthusiastic, is no substitute. If anything lasting is going to come out of Bernie's campaign, it has to be that.

We're going to need it, if we're to expect the left to be stronger during and after Hillary Clinton's presidency than it has been before it.

An Important Announcement

Announcing Kansas Interfaith Action/Kansas IPL 

Dear Friends -

For the past 4+ years, I have served as the Director of Kansas Interfaith Power & Light, the statewide organization that serves as “the religious response to climate change.” I have been blessed to meet many of you through this work. Kansas IPL has managed to carve out an important space as an advocate for climate care both in the faith community and in the legislature, despite the (shall we say) lack of sympathy in much of the state toward this issue.

This work continues. We have spent the summer working on the Westar rate case, which stood to put punitive charges on to rooftop solar, and building support for Pope Francis' powerful encyclical on the environment, Laudato Si'. Currently we are advocating for Kansas to develop the strongest possible state plan under the federal Clean Power Plan, is the most significant commitment this country has ever made to lowering our carbon emissions. I am also traveling and sponsoring programming this fall and winter, continuing to make connections in communities around the state.

Organizationally, early last year Kansas IPL came to a fork in the road, when we split off from our previous fiscal sponsor and applied for, and received, our own 501c3 non-profit designation. This led to the board and me thinking deeply about what kind of organization we were going to be.

In my conversations with clergy and lay leaders around the state, and in my work in the legislature, it has become clear that Kansas IPL is filling a unique role in Kansas – not only on climate change, but in general. You see, up till now there has been no statewide organization working with clergy and congregations to develop positive positions on important policy issues from the faith perspective – at least, from the moderate to progressive point of view. Some states have National Council of Churches, some states have state “Impact” organizations – multi-faith, multi-issue advocacy organizations that develop and deliver responses from the faith community on issues of importance. But we done have anything like that in Kansas.

And this absence is particularly felt today, for – as I'm sure you're painfully aware – our state is moving farther and farther every day from the vision of the “beloved community.” In Kansas, taxes on the wealthy are cut while services deteriorate; consumption taxes go up to pay for those tax cuts, causing the poor, working people and the middle class to bear the burden for the more affluent; public schools are underfunded and our teachers berated; Medicaid is privatized and – out of political pique – not expanded; welfare recipients are vilified; guns are allowed everywhere and anywhere; and much more.

And again, while many of us – as individuals, as clergy – speak out on some or many of these issues, there has been as yet no organized effort to bring faith leaders together to lend a moral voice to these questions – all the more frustrating because of the self-righteousness of many of those who propound these harmful policies. It feels to many of us that our religions' teachings are being purposely twisted, virtually taken away from us by who are doing actual harm by their misreading of these teachings.

Well, my friends, the time has come to stand up, get together, and be counted – with love, with moral suasion, with faith. That is why we are announcing the formation of Kansas Interfaith Action/Kansas IPL.

Kansas Interfaith Action/Kansas IPL is an organization that will bring faith voices from around the state together around issues of economic, social, and environmental justice. In our pulpits, in our communities, in the public square, and in the halls of state government, we will envision and advocate for a society that taxes fairly, that cares for those who need it, that educates its young, that cares for its sick, that welcomes the immigrant, that treats all equally, that takes seriously its responsibility to care for Creation, that does not live in fear.

Our first step is putting together a “Clergy Advisory Committee” to help develop and implement a process to decide what our priority issues are going to be for the next year. Please contact me if you are interested in being part of this effort.

Kansas Interfaith Action/Kansas IPL welcomes you, we need you, to help bring Kansas back from the brink, to make it once again the state that we have always loved. As faith leaders we may be reluctant to get involved in “politics”, but we believe things have gone too far for that. We have a unique role to play in articulating a vision of justice, equity and peace for all of our people. For in the famous words of Rabbi Hillel: “If I am not for myself, who will be for me? If I am only for myself, what am I? And if not now, when?”

Thoughts on BDS; or, What are You Doing to End the Occupation?

I want to start off with this quote from a post on the website Mondoweiss 

There are actually two types of liberal Zionists... One type is genuinely appalled by Israel’s behavior and criticize them almost as harshly as we do. They may even favor BDS or if their Zionism prevents that, they acknowledge that Israel reaps what it sows. The other type only cares about the two state solution as some abstract goal whose only purpose is to make them sound liberal. They downplay the cruelty of Israel as much as possible, never speak about Israeli atrocities though they do condemn Palestinian terror, and restrict their criticism to settlement building. That last bit is crucial– it is true that settlements are a crucial issue, but by reducing Israel’s crimes to settlement building they make Israeli misdeeds seem nonviolent and abstract, while the only violence ever condemned is Palestinian... The injustice to Palestinians isn’t something that should create any sort of rift between the US and Israel. Some people matter and some don’t.

I definitely fall into the first category (I'm going to label these LZ1s). As I have stated previously, i consider the  ongoing Occupation of the Palestinian people by Israel a crime, inexcusable both politically and morally. It can only be supported by Jews both in Israel and in America (that is, by LZ2s) by a combination of willful ignorance, hasbara, and an astonishing lack of empathy for the plight of the people that (need I remind you) we Jews are oppressing.

Israel's actions are protected by the US government both politically, by the use of its veto in the UN Security Council, and economically/militarily to the tune of $3 billion dollars per year, far in excess of both Israel's importance on the world stage and the military threats it faces from its neighbors. As as been amply demonstrated during the current presidency, any attempt to put pressure on Israel to limit its settlement activities or to negotiate in good faith with the Palestinians is met with massive of political pressure within the United States, from a Congress that marches in lockstep with AIPAC and from a political echelon (in both parties) who fear "the Israel Lobby" electorally.

Thus, no progress.

So what options are there? One response has been the development of the so-called Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS). Supposedly called for by "Palestinian civil society” (whatever that is), BDS calls for economic and cultural sanctions against Israel, including boycotting Israeli products, encouraging public figures and entertainers not to visit Israel, and dis-including academic and cultural figures from international forums such as conferences etc.

This approach has been criticized as being over-broad and borderline (at least) antisemitic. However, a small but significant and growing number of Jews (usually, but not only, those who don't identify much with Jewish community) do support BDS. The main example of this amongst those who do consider themselves active Jews is Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), the Jewish wing of the BDS movement. BDS, and therefore JVP, are considered anathema by the mainstream Jewish communal structures, so much so that it has led to an ancillary conflict on college campuses between those who want to exclude BDS supporters from participation in forums hosted by Jewish institutions such as Hillel, and those who consider this an unacceptable suppression of free speech and expression. But that's a topic for another day.

Amongst those who, like me, are fed up with Israel's intransigence and want to exert some kind of pressure, or at least make our opinions known, the options (aside from all-out BDS) include J Street, the “pro-peace, pro-Israel” alternative to AIPAC, which focuses on supporting more moderate Congressional representation; and a kind of modified boycott of products that come from the Occupied Palestinian Territories (OPT), proposed with much attention by columnist Peter Beinart a couple of years ago.

Those of us on the left do not consider the OPT part of Israel, and we are at pains to make sure that all institutions continue to maintain that distinction (such as, for instance, maintaining the so-called "Green Line", that, prior to 1967, separated Israel from what afterward became the OPT, in religious school textbooks). In this we act against the will of the Israeli government, which is at great pains to erase the Green Line. 

That is to say, there is a purposeful confusion promulgated by the Israeli government and its international supporters between the boycott of the OPT and the boycott of Israel itself – if there's no distinction between the two, then boycotting the territories is boycotting Israel. This confusion is abated by LZ2s, who may wish for peace but consider off-limits any actions that might influence Israel to pursue it. Those of us who are LZ1s hold onto the distinction, probably well past the point where it actually exists.

Many former LZ1s, through heartache and frustration with Israel's behavior, have become supporters of BDS. I count many of my friends among them - people whose Zionist upbringing and bona fides are beyond question, yet who now serve on JVP's rabbinic council,.A recent “conversion”story was published in the Washington Post by Steven Levitsky, a professor of government at Harvard, and Glen Weyl, an assistant professor of economics and law at the University of Chicago. It was called “We are lifelong Zionists. Here’s why we’ve chosen to boycott Israel,” and it's well worth a read if you haven't seen it already.

I can strongly identify with their level of frustration. Between the assault on Gaza last year, the reelection of the Netanyahu government (even more rightwing than the last “most rightwing ever” Israeli government), the ongoing and expanding settlement project (another 454 new units in East Jerusalem this week) and the increasing violence and racism of Israeli society, the humanist values that many of us thought Israel represented have turned into either, “Criticism of Israel isn't necessarily antisemitic, but we can't think of a single example that isn't,” or “Why are you complaining about Israel? Isn't Syria (or Iran, or Isis, or North Korea) worse?”

So, what is to be done?

I have not taken the step of joining JVP or otherwise announcing support for full-on BDS, for a number of reasons:

a) Israelis don't see BDS and say, We better change our approach. They see BDS and think, the whole world is against us.

I don't remember where I saw this, but an article recently articulated a major difference between South Africa and Israel: white South Africans maintained their identities as Europeans, maintained cultural and familial connections with family in Europe and thus felt they had someplace to go if they felt that they needed to after apartheid fell. Israel, on the other hand, is the product of the idea that the Jewish people have no place else in the world to go, that all the options had been tried and had proven to have failed. This idea – that “we have no place else to go” - whether it's literally true or not, is psychologically very strong. 

b) The mainstream Jewish community rejects BDS, and - despite my, shall we say, checkered history within it – I still hope to retain some influence there. Or at least not have my opinions rejected out of hand.

c) As a human rights advocate and a civil libertarian, I am in principle opposed to cultural and academic boycotts. To this I would add two codicils:

1. This does not require anyone to go to Israel for cultural events or academic conferences, and

2. What is sauce for the goose is sauce for the gander: pushing Steven Salaita out of his post at University of Illinois because of his political opinions, or objecting to pro-Palestinian speakers or activism on college campuses, are every bit as objectionable an infringement on academic or cultural freedom as boycotting an Israeli academic or speaker.

d) A lot of BDSers are against the existence of the state of Israel, and JVP itself is agnostic on the subject, but for me, the alternatives are bleak. It's hard to imagine a binational state working after everything that's happened, when even the Czechs and the Slovaks don't want to be in a state together. Maybe some kind of federal arrangement could work, I don't know. I'm rather a Utopia, so i don't want to say it's impossible. But while the time for the two-state solution may well have passed, any final status arrangements will have to include some mechanism where the Jewish community can control the borders, cultural and policies of whatever territory it is left with. In the end, I'm still a liberal (post-)Zionist, lame as that may be at this stage.

So if a full economic, academic and cultural boycott of Israel is not the answer, but yet the status quo is intolerable, something must be done – but what?

a) Support J-Street. The Iran deal contretemps exposed fissures in the bipartisan support of the political echelon for Israel's policies. (Note that I don't say, “Support for Israel.”) In particular, the grassroots of the Democratic party doesn’t seem to feel that Netanyahu deserves unquestioning American protection and support. Hillary Clinton’s recent love letter to Netanyahu is a throwback to an earlier era, when AIPAC was invulnerable and Democrats feared being seen as unfriendly. There may be billionaires who will decide how to spend based on Bibi-friendliness, but Jews don't vote that way and the oligarchs weren't going to give that money to Democrats anyway.

J-Street has its problems, being at once too moderate, too inside-the-Beltway, and too autocratic. But given where the politics on this issue are, it has an crucial role to play.

b) Support New Israel Fund. One of the most scary aspects of Israel's tumble down the right-wing rabbit hole has been the vilification of vital human rights NGOs such as B'Tzelem or the Association for Civil Rights in Israel (ACRI). There is even a current proposal that their representatives wear distinctive markings when they visit the Knesset, which is unfortunately not the only way Israel has become like that which it hates. (This dynamic exists in American Jewish precincts as well, primarily in the case of Human Rights Watch, which apparently doesn't continue its name with “except when it comes to Israel's treatment of the Palestinians.”)

New Israel Fund (itself similarly vilified) is the main overseas fund-raiser of these irreplaceable organizations.

c) Stay informed. Ignorance is not an excuse. There is plenty of information out there, even excluding people who don't want Israel to exist. Read the webpages of the human rights organizations I mentioned earlier. Read Gideon Levy and Amira Hass (both in Haaretz). Read Juan Cole and +972 Magazine, especially Dahlia Scheindlin and Noam Sheizaf. Read Daoud Kuttab and Rami Khouri. If you're really brave, read Rania Khalek and Max Blumenthal. (These last don't want Israel to exist, at least as it is now. But it's worth reading what they have to say anyway. Don't be afraid to look the truth in the face.) (Most or all of these also have Twitter feeds, so they're easy to find and follow.

d) Stop denying and justifying. People are so eager to see plausible (-ish) justifications for positions they desperately want to agree with. Israel has a ton of people doing hasbara (propaganda) for it, some of it paid for by the Israeli government, some of it by American philanthropists. It has as much value as any other propaganda, which is to say, not much. The idea that the IDF or the Israeli government is somehow more credible than other sources, in situations  where their interests are in making themselves look blameless, is implausible, to say the least. The phrases, “They deserved it,” or “they use human shields” or any variation of Golda Meir's ugly and tiresome, “We'll never forgive them for making us kill them” should be treated with an entire shaker of salt, not just a grain. And Stand with Us, Emergency Committee for Israel, Free Beacon, or their ilk should not be treated as any more than the propaganda outlets they are.

e) Support economic sanctions that are targeted at the Israeli occupation. Several years ago, when I was a Jewish Federation director, our major communal relations initiative was to fend off church-based economic sanctions against Caterpillar and other companies whose products are used to support the Occupation. My language in those interactions was focused on Israelis and Palestinians understanding each other's narratives, the long history of Christian antisemitism, and the importance of not usurping negotiations. Since then it has become apparent to me that international quiet only leads to more Israeli intransigence. So – the European labeling of settlement products? Go for it. The Episcopal Church wants to divest from Caterpillar because of the use of its products in human rights violations? I'm completely supportive.

Either the Occupation is not Israel, and actions targeted against it are not against Israel's “right to exist,” or the Occupation is Israel, and Israel’s existence depends entirely on the forced suppression of Palestinian identity and nationhood. In the latter case, we would have to rethink the entire Zionist project, which I suppose is what BDS does. I'm not there, but you can't have it both ways.

Oh, and feel free to academically and culturally boycott anyone who lives or works in the Occupied Territories as well.

f) Grow your compassion. This is a personal, or I guess communal, spiritual practice. Need I remind you, that the Torah time and again instructs us to “love the stranger, for you yourself were strangers in the land of Egypt"? The greatest contribution of contemporary Judaism is the idea that human beings have a responsibility to partner with God to repair the world. Dedication to human rights, economic justice, and tikkun olam are, in my opinion, core Jewish values. Israel is currently, tragically, on the wrong side of these issues. Saving the remnant is important, but not at the cost of our souls.

Here's a question to ask your synagogue or rabbi, your Federation, your JCRC, your local Jewish newspaper. It's a simple question, very clear and concise. It deserves to be considered, and it needs to be answered. It is this:

What are you doing to end the Occupation?

The oppression of the Palestinians is inexcusable. It is not “Jewish” in any way that makes any sense to me.

BDS is a response to Occupation, and is not, in its origin and motivation, an expression of antisemitism (although antisemites may well find common cause there). If Israel wants to deal with it, and to be a full and fully accepted member of the international community, even in the eyes of its coreligionists, then the Occupation must end. It's really as simple as that.

Three Thoughts about the Royals

Before this amazing season fades into memory, I want to get on paper (metaphorically) three thoughts I've been having about the Royals.

1- How I became a Royals fan

I grew up a hardcore Mets fan. I can still remember who wore various numbers in the 70s and 80s.

In the 90s two things happened. First, I lived in Israel for four years, when the internet was just getting started, and I kind of lost the thread. Second, I met and married a girl from Kansas City. I started following the Royals so I would have something to talk about with her father. I used to call her brother during the All Star Game when the one Royal representative made an appearance. I traveled to Baltimore from Philadelphia  a couple of times to see the Royals play the Orioles. Over the course of time we moved here, and it's become more of a hometown to me than my real hometown.

I had the misfortune of picking up the Royals just as they were entering the hell years. They were usually out of contention by Memorial Day. The Mets had also often sucked when I was a kid, so I was used to it. And the band of Royals fans in those years (now linked by Twitter) were a hardy bunch.

But everyone, including me, has now rewarded in spades for our fortitude by what's happened over these past couple of years. Speaking of which...

2 – Bandwagon Fans

When I was back east the hardcore fans used to resent it when the team got good and people who usually had no interest started following along. Metsie-come-latelies, we called them. They made it harder to get tickets and in two weeks when the fun was over they would go right back to arbitraging their derivatives or whatever it was they did the rest of the time.

You never hear anything like that here. The city got behind this team in an amazing way, especially

over the last couple of months. They broke their record for home attendance; the TV ratings were through the roof; and of course yesterday hundreds of thousands of people descended on downtown KC for a Royal celebration.

Most of those people were not among the 15,000 die hards who attended games during the hell years, but who cares? The Royals' run through the playoffs brought the city together in a way probably nothing else could have. I drive Uber on the weekends, and there were people in my car who you know didn't know a bunt from a sac fly, but they knew the score of the game and exited the cab with a “Go Royals!” It was like a mood elevator for the city – municipal Prozac. I wasn't resentful, I was excited, and I guarantee you every long-time Royal fan felt the same way.

Actually, the concept of “bandwagon fan” was brought up by one person in my car. I asked him where he was from, and he said, “St. Louis.”

3 – Shut up.

But that doesn't mean there aren't killjoys, both in and out of town.

My father wrote me to say that I should be more concerned about economic concerns in Kansas than about the Royals.

A number of people posted on Facebook that if as many people voted as went downtown yesterday it would make a big difference.

One of my environmental colleagues asked why 1% of those who attended yesterday can't come to a climate change rally, to be heard on an issue that 'really matters.”

One of the rabbis in town had a letter in the paper today decrying the fact that the schools closed yesterday to allow teachers and students to attend the parade.

To all I say – shut up.

It's not just that you're trying to be buzzkills when everyone is in a state of happy reverie. It's that you're wrong. This is not simply some frivolity that has captured the attention of the community to the detriment of other issues. Civil engagement is important. Feeling like a community is important. Feeling good about the city you live in is important. People who attend such an event may now feel that they have an emotional investment in the city and the area that they didn't feel before. They may realize, if they hadn't already, that in many ways - more than just in baseball - Kansas City is, indeed, a major league city.

And as far as school is concerned – every kid who went yesterday, or watched on TV, will remember this a lot longer than they'll remember another lesson in multiplication tables or sentence diagramming. And they'll add the day to the end anyway, like a snow day. So double shut up to you.

Go Royals!