Melanie Phillips
Clive Davis (no, not the rock impresario; he's a "London Times" writer) muses in "One Subject Publishers in Britain will not Touch" on a collection of essays, "A New Antisemitism? Debating Judeophobia in 21st Century Britain."
I get a sense of how bad it is over there whenever I read thoughtful pieces like Davis's, because they so often break out into a confession of former membership in the Israel-bashing majority, and an account of the fear and ostracism that accompanied apostacy from it. The writers have the unconcealable aspect of people who have been brow-beaten so hard and long they flinch whenever they write the word "Jews."
And so forth. One wonders what sort of marks those essays earned, and whether that is one reason things stand as they do in Britain today. Along the way Davis introduces the poster child for this beleaguered minority, Melanie Phillips. She is one of the contributors to the essay collection, and he interviews her as part of the article.
Of course, there is a legitimate difference between opposing the specific policies of the nation of Israel and being an anti-Semite. But at times it takes a powerful bullshit detector to disentangle the fibers of an argument and find the one or two tell-tales. As the British pacifist movement discovered in the 1930s, the old hatred of the Jews is an addictive brew that can taint even people of high intelligence and moral probity.
I'm willing to work to distinguish an anti-Israeli argument from an anti-Semitic one. Just like I'm willing to wait out an article on the Confederate battle-flag to discover whether the writer is concerned with historical heritage and the legitimate honors of a certain patch of the American quilt, or whether this is just a rhetorical shift of an old segregationist mentality. That's what I call a liberal view of the situation.
Melanie Philips also has her own Web site. I highly recommend it. There you can read some of her work, such as "Why I am a Progressive", from the "New Statesman," January 2000. It definitely struck a chord with me. Like her, but in a much more modest way, I'm baffled to find myself still holding on to the values I had as a progressive but abandoned, if not shunned, by the people I used to think I shared them with.
Pessimists point to more troubling signs, including an increase in racially motivated attacks, not to mention a new pan-European survey which suggests that 60 percent of British people believe, somewhat bizarrely, that Israel is the prime threat to peace in the world. (It comes almost as a relief to learn that the figure was even higher in Germany, Austria and Holland.)
There have been suggestions that the survey relied on too small a pool of respondents to be reliable. To me, though, the figures have the ring of truth. I have lost count of the number of Palestinian sympathizers I have stumbled across in the last few years. To find a person who is willing to voice sympathy for Israel is a genuine event. Most of the time I am on my own.
I get a sense of how bad it is over there whenever I read thoughtful pieces like Davis's, because they so often break out into a confession of former membership in the Israel-bashing majority, and an account of the fear and ostracism that accompanied apostacy from it. The writers have the unconcealable aspect of people who have been brow-beaten so hard and long they flinch whenever they write the word "Jews."
Until 20 years ago I was very much on the other side of the argument. As a left-wing teenager in the Seventies, I was so committed to the anti-Zionist cause that I would send off for pamphlets from the Arab League offices in London and then quote from them at length in my school history essays. In my youthful ignorance, I had bought into the standard line that Tel Aviv was an outpost of American imperialism.
And so forth. One wonders what sort of marks those essays earned, and whether that is one reason things stand as they do in Britain today. Along the way Davis introduces the poster child for this beleaguered minority, Melanie Phillips. She is one of the contributors to the essay collection, and he interviews her as part of the article.
Now in her early fifties, Miss Phillips used to subscribe to the bien pensant view of Israel as a regional bully, partly because, as a domestic policy specialist, she paid relatively little attention to foreign affairs. Her own epiphany came during the 1982 invasion of Lebanon, when media criticism of the Israelis went, she felt, beyond the bounds of reasonable comment.
At the Guardian, where she later served as news editor, she found herself increasingly at odds with the conventional wisdom. "I used to have this argument at the Guardian, which amazed and horrified me. I used to say, 'Why do we make a front page splash when the Israelis kill five Palestinians, when the murder of thousands of Muslims by Muslims is a nib on page seven? It's a double standard.' And they would say, 'Of course it's a double standard because we hold Jews to account by Western standards. We can't judge the Third World by our standards.' When I first heard this argument I was gobsmacked [stunned], because to me it was racist. It's moral and cultural relativism."
Of course, there is a legitimate difference between opposing the specific policies of the nation of Israel and being an anti-Semite. But at times it takes a powerful bullshit detector to disentangle the fibers of an argument and find the one or two tell-tales. As the British pacifist movement discovered in the 1930s, the old hatred of the Jews is an addictive brew that can taint even people of high intelligence and moral probity.
I'm willing to work to distinguish an anti-Israeli argument from an anti-Semitic one. Just like I'm willing to wait out an article on the Confederate battle-flag to discover whether the writer is concerned with historical heritage and the legitimate honors of a certain patch of the American quilt, or whether this is just a rhetorical shift of an old segregationist mentality. That's what I call a liberal view of the situation.
Melanie Philips also has her own Web site. I highly recommend it. There you can read some of her work, such as "Why I am a Progressive", from the "New Statesman," January 2000. It definitely struck a chord with me. Like her, but in a much more modest way, I'm baffled to find myself still holding on to the values I had as a progressive but abandoned, if not shunned, by the people I used to think I shared them with.
The idea that all pre-existing traditions or values are by definition just so much unprogressive baggage is as philistine as it is risible. Values dismissed as conservative are actually universal: attachment, commitment to individuals and institutions, ties of duty, trust and fidelity, the distinction between constructive and destructive behaviour. Without these things freedom cannot flourish and society cannot exist. The paradox is that only by conserving such values can progress occur. Small, incremental steps are the most secure way of bringing about beneficial change. Radicalism or revolution are likely to implode and leave us worse off than before.
In other words, we have to rescue progress from the so-called progressives. We need a liberal, not a libertarian, social order with deeper values than contract and other criteria for progress than material advances. Moral restraint is the glue that provides social cohesion. Liberty is not achieved but threatened by the relativistic pursuit of autonomy and rights. The task for progressives is to defend liberal democracy. That means, paradoxically, using conservative weapons. The old enemy which brought liberalism into being remains. There is still the danger of fanaticism, authoritarianism, abuse of power, exploitation or abuse of the old and the young, corruption, rigged elections and harm to minorities. In our confused discourse, some people who embody these very threats have disguised themselves as liberals. Their deep intolerance and intimidatory techniques in pursuit of licence and power must be resisted in the interests of preserving a decent, fair and free society.
That is why I am a progressive.
