Neturei Karta is a fun group. They make Jesse Helms look like an avatar of modernity. Let's face it, they are the Jewish equivalent of Pat Robertson. No, that's too hip. More like Oral Roberts. The affection for them which I share in my own perverse way lies in their unremitting hostility to the State of Israel, and the impossibility of describing said hostility as anti-semitic. [Later in his post, Lerner makes fun of the kabbalah, itself an intrinsic part of NK religious faith.]
If you heard a white man tell blacks to go back to Africa, you would consider such a statement racist. Nevertheless, everyone knows that at one time there was a black-led back to Africa movement in the U.S. The adherence of NK to a position voiced by someone else has no bearing on the nature of the alternative source for such a view.
Brenner's other resort is to claim common ground with Jews who no longer want to be jewish. Neither is this much of a testament to anti-anti-semitism.
Indulgence to NK is not equivalent to allowance for the views of those who support a two-state solution. After all the flaunting of NK support, somewhere later Brenner acknowledges the need for this in an anti-war movement.
Now a right of return equals denial of a Jewish state. Let's be real. There are arguments for such a position. Noam Chomsky had it once, but he discarded it eons ago. Such a position has NO PLACE in the platform of a broad anti-war coalition. It has no place not because of its jewish constituency, but because of its broader American liberal constituency. If you want to stop the war, you don't embed such a gratuitous position in your platform. It is not inherently racist. It is context that determines racism or its lack.
I'm talking about what an anti-war coalition should uphold. If ANSWER is trying to sneak a right-of-return line into the movement, that does not constitute anti-semitism, but it does deserve political criticism. Is Lerner an principled critic? No. But the issue isn't Lerner or ANSWER, it is which way for the movement. I still think Lerner's stink bomb is a useful corrective. It's not exactly surgical, more like a two-by-four upside the head.
Anyone with some knowledge of the left knows that Brenner's DSA millstone just doesn't work when you look at the list of signatures. What should really give pause to those taking umbrage at the petition is that LEO CASEY and NOAM CHOMSKY both signed it. From what I could see, it was DSA types who did the most to instigate it. But you really need to reevaluate your position if you find yourself outside of a statement of agreement between Casey & Chomsky. Basically you're in woo-woo land.
Hey I worked in a type shop in Manhattan! I'm a proletarian too! Right.
mbs
>Michael Lerner and the Workers World Party
>The Ranting Rabbi Doesn't Speak for All Anti-War Jews
>by LENNI BRENNER
>