Some Kings?

 

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I couldn't go to No Kings this weekend. I was singing in a concert in a suburb outside DC and somehow there was no traffic on the way and a full audience in the seats. Multiple singers I spoke to felt weird not being there. I felt weird too. Then I realized that being there would feel weird too.

I don't like protests. I usually don't see the point to them. Effective protests have incredibly specific points. Every detail is planned and what seems like chaos is completely orchestrated order. That's what the SLC protests were during the Civil Rights movement. That's what the Solidarity rallies were in Poland. And that's why they eventually proved successful. But at most rallies, the agenda is extremely undirected, and the point of the protest is usually coopted by issues which have nothing to do with the stated reason.

What happened on Saturday was extraordinary: an eruption of six month's fear and rage into a prayer for hope. The attendance was an absolute triumph and held Trump's barely concealed effort at a despot's birthday parade up to ridicule. It will be that much harder for Trump to rule us as a dictator now, but at the end of it Donald Trump is still mandated to be President for the next three and a half years, he has basic control over all three branches of government, and holds the loyalty of hundreds of important state officials who live to make him a three term President. Part of me desperately wanted to be at a No Kings protest, but being there would have probably depressed me.

Because the point that usually coopts the stated reason for every protest is Israel. It happened at Occupy Wall Street, it happened at Black Lives Matter, it happened at the International Women's March, Slutwalk, Pride Festivals, Dyke Marches: all of them have instances of excluding Jews because of potential connections to Israel.

I've so often told the story of being at the counterinaugural protest when W. was first elected in 2001. We found ourselves amid the protest at a spontaneous rally for the New Black Panthers as they spoke about pardoning Mumia Abu-Jamal. They said that in his final presidential hours, Bill Clinton should 'rise above his cracker background' and rise above 'the evil control of the Zionist Jews.'

No matter how pure the progressive intentions, all of them are tainted by a faint smell of antisemitism, and even if you can't smell it, most Jews can. It's not outright aggression, in many ways the shadowbanning of Israel prevents further aggression. But progressive circles idealize zero tolerance for microaggressions against any other minority, yet somehow, all this is still permissible against Jews. Is it because of antisemitism? Is it because the whole concept of microaggressions is flawed? Or is it because Zionism is really so nefarious? I've written about the first answer many times and doubtless will many times again. But if you think it's the last of the three, do a thought experiment: how many justifications do you have to make for Zionist exclusion before it sounds to the average person like you believe in banning the vast majority of American Jews? And if it still doesn't sound that way to you, how many justifications do you have to make before it sounds to the average person like you think the vast majority of American Jews have uniquely evil beliefs among the American population?

As I said, I wasn't at the No Kings protests, so I have no sense of how much Israel/Palestine permeated it. But in the past, this issue that only has a figleaf's worth to do with the issues at hand becomes of enormous consequence on the platform of every unrelated progressive cause and can only distract from pushing through a societal change that is colossally difficult to effect. If it happened this many times already, it's going to happen all the moreso now.

Why does Israel always seem to win the battle for American policy? Just go to an Israel rally. Not a street protest, not a public demonstration on the Capitol Lawn, but an actual rally. There isn't even the appearance of chaos: no slogans, not even any marching. It's usually at a synagogue, the attendees dress nicely and sit in perfect silence until it's time to applaud each speaker. Everybody knows why they're there, so the stirring of righteous indignation is usually confined to a keynote speaker and an eyewitness testimonial to the most traumatic events. The rest? Speakers for how to take political action, how to raise money, which organizations to give money to, which politicians to pressure, which politicians to thank and give money to, which businesses to patronize, and yes, which businesses to boycott..., which organizations to volunteer their time to, and how to persuade the undecided on this issue (they exist...). Their success is not about anything that goes on on the streets, and it's not about any conspiracy of lobbying that goes on in deep cover. There is an Israel lobby, but there's no mendacious conspiracy. AIPAC's tactics are in plain sight and they could be imitated by anyone who cared enough to be effective. Those whose sympathies lean toward Palestine could easily beat the Israeli side if they imitated AIPAC's tactics. But they never have, usually because they think these tactics wreak of the same moral compromises that infect everything about the State of Israel.

Many Zionists hate Trump and Netanyahu with as much feeling as you do, maybe most of them. And just one of the many reasons we hate them is because they've caused so many fissures in our friendships. Until all this is over, we all wonder continually if there's a certain level of trust between friends that can't help going missing.

I can't believe I feel the need to say this, but I want Trump gone so bad. He is everything both loathsome and dangerous about America, authoritarianism, and the future. One of the many things I hate about them is that he deliberately forced Jews into Republican protection. The chances that future Democrats will advocate for Jewish security are very slim, because whether or not they realize it, many people see Jewish security as coming at the expense of other peoples, and therefore decide it's better to put Jews back to their eternal position as wanderers so they might enable other peoples their chance at thriving.

From the river to the sea, they think we're kings too.