JEWISH WORLD

By DANIEL GORDIS B arely three months have passed since the Harvey Weinstein sexual harass- ment allegations story exploded, and since the #MeToo campaign followed and went viral shortly thereafter. Since then, the number of men who have been fired or forced to resign—in the entertain- ment industry, the arts, academia and politics—has been nothing short of shocking. Quite likely, only the tip of the iceberg has been revealed; there are doubtless numerous other victims with sto- ries to tell and wrongs that still need to be righted. Even so, the conversation has begun to broaden beyond the obvi- ous cases which need to be exposed. In The New York Times, noted author and feminist Daphne Merkin wondered aloud whether we have gotten carried away. In an op-ed headlined “Publicly, We Say #MeToo. Privately, We Have Misgivings,” she expressed con- cern about “scattershot, life- destroying denunciations” and a climate in which “to be accused is to be convicted, [because] due process is nowhere to be found...There is an inquisitorial whiff in the air,” she said, so that “[some] women...have gone so far as to call it an outright witch hunt.” Merkin’s purpose is obviously not to diminish the importance of the #MeToo phenomenon. What motivates her is a desire not to return (in her words) to a “victi- mology paradigm for young women,” not to see them “as frail as Victorian housewives.” Not sur- prisingly, her piece elicited a tidal wave of response; what she has done, even at great personal risk and with great courage, is to add nuance to a critical conversation in a society in which nuance is tragi- cally rare. Merkin’s nuanced pushback needs to be compared to the responses of others who are seiz- ing on #MeToo precisely in order to expand the “victimology para- digm” far beyond women. Not sur- prisingly, when that happens, the named culprit is often Israel. Peter Beinart, who recently wrote a compelling mea culpa in The Atlantic , in which he acknowl- edged that he had “made a series of moral compromises in order to stay at The New Republic,” now wishes to apply the lessons learned to Israeli oppression. “As I watch the extraordinary reckoning between women and men,” he recently wrote in The Forward , “I sometimes wonder: Will there ever be such a reckoning between Palestinians and Jews?” Beinart’s argument is not new. Just as many men (including him- self, he honorably admits) looked the other way when confronted with sexual harassment in the workplace, so, too, American Jewish support for Israel fosters “a relationship of oppression and deliberate ignorance. American Jews help sustain America’s near- automatic support for the Israeli government. And that support makes possible Israel’s denial of basic rights...to millions of Palestinians.” Beinart and I have been dis- agreeing—and debating—about Israel’s foreign policy, American Jewish attitudes to Israel and more for years. We are not likely to agree anytime in the near future. But something about this new anal- ogy strikes me as particularly per- nicious, deeply unfair to both Israel and women. Beinart’s assertion that the #MeToo paradigm ought to be applied to Israel and the Palestinians is deeply unfair to Israel; it suggests that the relation- ship of Israel and the Palestinians is as cut and dry as the Weinstein or Lauer cases. But that, of course, is absurd. Whatever one wants to say about Israel’s conduct of the occupation, the Palestinians do not yet have a state largely because of decisions that they have made. It was Palestinian terrorism that killed the Oslo Accords. Yasser Arafat’s response to Ehud Barak’s offer at Camp David was the Second Intifada. The Palestinians’ response to Ehud Olmert’s offer was to ignore it. But mentioning that, Beinart says, is an “absurd rationalization.” B ut what is truly absurd is analogizing Israel to the moral reprehensibility of men abusing their power, when there are often no “two sides” to the story. In the most egregious cases, such as rape (we’ll ignore the controversy about explicit consent now sweeping across American campuses), blame must never be shared. Rape is a vicious violation of the very worst order. It is black and white; there are no grays, and we must never pretend there are. Does Beinart really think that the Israeli- Palestinian issue is equally clear, and that the Israelis are the rapists? Why must every moral conversa- tion in society end up dumped at the door of Israel’s “sins?” B einart’s analogy is equally unfair to women. For if female victims are analogized to Palestinians, then he is suggesting that they share some of the blame. But that is obviously not what he wishes to do. The drive to blame Israel ironically leads him to sully what should be a conversation about moral outrage and the treat- ment of women. “Intersectionality” in the Amer- ican progressive world, in which all liberal causes are intertwined and one has to buy into all in order to have a voice about any, is always intellectually nonsensical and almost invariably leads to Israel-bashing. That is unfortu- nately nothing new. What is new and sad is that to buttress their progressive credentials, even ostensible supporters of the Jewish state are willing to embrace that intellectual and moral shoddiness, doing both women and the Jewish people a heinous injustice. Daniel Gordis is the Koret Distinguished Fellow at Jeru- salem’s Shalem College. Don’t #MeToo About Israel Jewish State takes a bashing from some Jewish supporters PERSPECTIVE Beinart’s assertion that the #MeToo paradigm ought to be applied to Israel and the Palestinians is deeply unfair to Israel. A protestor holds a sign up during a #MeToo demonstration outside Trump International Hotel in New York City, December 2017. JEWISH WORLD • JANUARY 26 - FEBRUARY 1, 2018 11