Yesterday, as I write, a federal court overthrew a Texas state law strongly supported by the Jewish community, notably AIPAC and the AJC. The law would have forbidden anyone who wants to do business with the state of Texas from supporting the Boycott, Divestiture, and Sanctions movement targeting Israeli businesses. The bill had strong bipartisan support, meaning in Texas strong support from the Christian community.
Well not me, and I shared my concerns with Jewish leaders. From my perspective the BDS movement is unhelpful, even destructive in its broadest form. But I knew from the start that this bill was, as the court ruled, a clear violation of the First Amendment to the US Constitution. It was, and was intended to be, a law limiting freedom of expression by punishing any business that expressed support for boycotting, sanctioning, or divesting from businesses in Israel. Since this same legislation has been passed in many other states more court cases will follow, as indeed the plaintiffs in this case have promised. More laws will be struck down. More on Texas can be found here.
So why would Christians and Jews who have been strong supporters of the First Amendment seek to pass a law that is clearly a violation of the US Constitution?
The reason is simple. The Jewish community and its Christian allies regard the BDS movement as a direct attempt to destroy the state of Israel. And since most Jews regard the existence of the State of Israel as necessary to Jewish identity and the continuity of the Jewish community the BDS movement is an existential threat to their community.
They don't see the requiring those who contract with the state of Texas from joining the BDS movement as opposing freedom of speech or conscience. They see it as the Texas State Government refusing to do business with anyone seeking to destroy a whole people, a sovereign state, and ally of the United States.
But look further into the article. It isn't just Jewish leaders and their Christian allies who have an interest in a foreign state. The plaintiff at the center of the court case, Bahai Amawi, boycotts Israeli products because her people (in the Palestinian Territory) are being mistreated by Israel. One can see her point of view. Why wouldn't you, as a matter of principle, refuse to do business with companies you believe are hurting your people? And why shouldn't you be able to state those principles freely? This is America, right?
What we find at work here is a deep disjunction between American ideals and the reality of transnational ethnic loyalties. Someone like myself, whose family has been in the United States for many generations and is ethnically mixed, can hardly imagine what such loyalties are about. I have no idea what I am other than an American. And that fits with the ideals I was taught in school. The United States is a new world where the old world can be left behind. We are a melting pot where all those old loyalties and memories are supposed to be boiled off.
(An aside, Elvis Costello's beautiful "Green Song" looks at exactly this from an Irish perspective. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=AwjzJeAR8-I)
But it has never really been like that. New immigrants have always kept in touch with the "old country." As late as the 1970's the IRA was active among Irish immigrants in Boston. Here in Texas Mexican flags fly over car dealerships and sports bars. So why should it be any different for Jews and Palestinians?
Nor can we fail to remember those who because of their skin color or family name or both were denied an equal place, or maybe any place in the supposed melting pot. Jews and Muslims have both been, alongside African Americans and Latinos victims of that kind of bigotry. Segregation was a far more vicious attack on American ideals than any threat from Fascism or Communism and those who perpetuated it are alive and at work today.
It is both deeply human, and a natural reaction to the universalizing and reifying tendencies of the Enlightenment, to maintain family ties and an interest in a homeland; whether real or imagined. The ideal of the United States was to make us all rootless so we could become planted in new soil. But we can now see that for many people this American soil isn't yet deep enough to sustain a healthy identity. Organizations like Ancestor.com and 23andMe exist because a lot of us are feeling rootless.
So its not surprising that much of the 20th century, and now the 21st, has been the story of wars fought to establish ethnic homelands. The melting pot ideal embodied by the United States has only a shaky following even here, and has little currency outside our unique history and borders. What was imagined as the inevitable future of a global civilization now appears to quite possibly have been a step too far too fast for many.
Of all ethnic identities. Which is why the state, whether the State of Texas, a city government, or the Federal government, needs to stay out of supporting or undermining any ethnic identity. All Americans have a right to identify with some "old world" if they can find one. And none has the right to deny that right to others.
The judge in this case asked the Texas attorney general, "What is the interest of the State of Texas in this." And Ken Paxton, not surprisingly, had no answer. Neither did Governor Abbot. And neither do those legislators both Republican and Democratic who passed the now suspended law. Because the only interest of the state should be providing equal rights to all, in particular those rights guaranteed in the constitution. It may be hoped that Texas politicians will begin to focus on that ideal.
No comments:
Post a Comment