Editor’s Note: The following letter to editor was sent in response to Phil Weiss’s article ‘The Nation’ lifts up Jewish fears over Palestinian realities in a Zionist tract.
It probably won’t surprise you to learn that I don’t share your view of Alexis Grenell’s piece for the Nation—either in general or on the specific accusation that she, and we, “lifts up Jewish fears over Palestinian realities in a Zionist tract.” First of all, her article was about Jews and the Left, not—at least primarily—about Israel or Palestine. Rather as a seasoned observer of New York politics—and someone who knows very well what an enormous difference it makes having Jamaal Bowman in a seat that used to be occupied by Eliot Engel—she was commenting (trenchantly in my view) on the futile spectacle of DSA presuming to discipline Bowman over his failure to meet that group’s litmus test of progressive virtue on BDS. While you and DSA and indeed many of us at the Nation might wish that the argument over BDS had been firmly settled long ago, anyone who spends much time outside the DSA/academic bubble could tell you that is not yet the case—in part for some of the very reasons that Grenell outlines in her piece.
Secondly while you and other of our readers may feel her reference to “the oppression of the Palestinian people” comes rather late in the piece, it still ought to give one pause before accusing her of “denial of the Palestinian experience.” Might it not be instead that she is simply speaking out of her own lived experience, as a Jew on the left who is constantly expected to either deny the existence of a longstanding historical connection to the land, or to grin and bear it while her responses are patronizingly dismissed as merely “the historical Jewish id talking”—a position I doubt you’d take in response to a woman from any other minority who was expressing her fear of erasure or persecution.
Finally you should be ashamed of yourself for suggesting that our publishing Alexis’s column had anything to do with The Nation’s donor base. Like Elie Mystal, Kali Holloway, Katha Pollitt, David Bromwich and Jeet Heer, Alexis Grennell is a Nation columnist, which means that so long as she doesn’t commit libel or slander or use her platform to promote a concealed agenda or a commercial product she has complete freedom to write about whatever she wants—with the confidence that we will publish what she writes. That’s why writers like Alexander Cockburn and Christopher Hitchens and Edward Said and Patricia Williams have always written for us. None of them have ever done it for the money.
I hired Alexis because I thought she was one of the smartest American political strategists and thinkers I’d come across—not for her expertise on the Middle East. For that—and specifically to ensure that Nation readers get first hand reporting on the Palestinian experience in all its complexity—I hired Mohammed El-Kurd. Portions of our readership may not be happy with either of them. But flattering our readers—or our donor base—isn’t what has kept the Nation in business for 156 years.
Dear Phil,
You have always been a principled person and have allowed others the platform to speak, even when they attack you.
I respect you always for this.
I think The Nation editor makes some good points, but I think his line ‘you should be ashamed of yourself’ was a bit much.
I appreciate that MW and Phil exist. I am long dreading when we lose Chomsky or Finkelstein.
But we still have Phil and Mondoweiss as the light in this dark world.
I reread the Grenell piece and it seems like the problem is that there is some tiny fraction of the American political spectrum that isn’t Zionist. Republicans have basically embraced the openly pro- settlement faction, while the Democrats are “ liberal Zionist” which translates into lip service to a 2ss along the 67 lines which nobody actually believes is possible. They agree with the Republicans that we should fork over billions per year, adding a bit more for Iron Dome ( which everyone knows is baloney since Israel can fund it so it amounts to just more money for Israel). Everyone is happy. The Democrats get to pretend to care about Palestinian rights without upsetting Israel and the Republicans get to satisfy their base and Israel is happy because they can keep stealing Palestinian land and pay no consequences— in fact, American politicians give them money, praise their democracy and have temper tantrums whenever Omar or Tlaib use the A word.
So everything would be great if it weren’t for those pesky DSA members trying to use their tiny bit of influence to support those awful Palestinians with their BDS movement. It’s—let’s see, what’s the word— hateful and — give me a moment, oh yes— antisemitic to act as though Palestinians have any right to use the traditional nonviolent methods of protest. I mean, golly, once the Nazis used a boycott it means anyone who uses a boycott is a Nazi. That’s just logic.
There is an obvious solution and I don’t know why the Palestinians haven’t thought of it—they should put Alexis Grenell in charge of their whole liberation movement. But if she’s too busy doing stuff like, I don’t know, writing essays about how liberal Zionists should have veto power over what is said and done on this subject in decent society, maybe hand it all over to J Street. It’s hard to see how anyone could object to that. Well, okay, Palestinians might Palestinian- splain about why they should be able to speak for themselves, but surely we don’t have to listen to them on this subject.
“a longstanding historical connection to the land”- utterly ridiculous.
A century of genocide can’t compare to the actual history that the legitimate Palestinian inhabitants have with the land.
Given D.D. Guttenplan’s participation in the smearing of Jeremy Corbyn as an anti-semite, it is not surprising that he rushes to the (rather weak) defense of Alexis Grenell’s attack on leftist support for the rights of Palestinians. He relies on evasions, i.e. ‘her article was about Jews and the Left, not—at least primarily—about Israel or Palestine” when in fact the issue between sections of US Jews and the Left arise primarily as a result of the ‘Jewish supremacist’ policies the state of Israel implements in the parts historical Palestine it controls. It’s a form of what-aboutism – let’s talk about anything, but the ugly, underlying facts.
Of course, this is exactly what Ms.Grenell herself does, and (Mr. Guttenplan’s protestations to the contrary) it surely is bound to please certain donors, though, judging from the comments to her article, it does not please the majority of The Nation’s readers.
Mr. Guttenplan also states correctly, but irrelevantly, that the argument over BDS is not ‘finally settled.’ Most likely, it never will be, but that this is not a matter of great consequence. Boycotting is a basic right in any country that pretends to be democratic. Some will be offended, or even threatened by such movements, but will just have to live with it.
Finally, Mr. Guttenplan, tells us he hired Alexis Grenell for her strategic expertise in US politics and Mohammed El-Kurd to report on the Palestinian experience. By implication, this is therefore not just more of the ‘balance’ that the US papers-of-record supposedly stand for, which by itself would be an astonishing admission for a supposedly progressive publication. But more important is that these subject matters overlap, and that as she wades into a topic that is not her primary expertise, Ms. Grenell relies on hasbara talking points, thus giving an Apartheid regime an additional platform, which as Phil Weiss righly observed, is most disappointing.
It was like a breath of fresh air to watch Ali Velshi on MSNBC give a commentary about the brutal treatment and death of a Palestinian Shepard, with strong mention of illegal settlements and the criticism of the illegal settlers and the cruelty of the Israeli government. Worthwhile watch.
Bravo.