This post was originally published in Jonathan Chait’s &c newsletter — sign up here.
This week, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in American history, urged Israelis to vote in a new government. On the left, the response to this historic development was that Schumer had buckled in the face of relentless protests by pro-Palestinian activists:
We’ve gone from “standing with Israel”, no debate, no ceasefire
to “there has to be a ceasefire” & Netanyahu has “lost his way”
PROTEST WORKS. KEEP PRESSING.
The hawkish right, dismayed by Schumer’s speech, had the same response. Schumer was “placating the anti-Israel left in his party,” complained the Wall Street Journal editorial page. He was “getting pushed around by pro-Hamas sentiment in their own party,” railed National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry.
These responses are a perfect case study in what I’ve called the political version of the fundamental attribution error. In case you’ve forgotten your intro-level Psychology, the fundamental attribution error is a tendency for people to assess their own actions within the context of their environment but assess the actions of other people as if they represent an innate character trait. I do things in response to circumstances, but they do things because that is just who they are.
The political version of this is that we can easily perceive how the other side’s extremists are radicalizing us but fail to see how our side’s extremists are radicalizing them.
Schumer’s speech attacking Benjamin Netanyahu is the product of two decades of liberal Zionist frustration with Netanyahu and his one-state project. Netanyahu not only fueled Palestinian despair by blocking any path to statehood; he deliberately aided Hamas in an attempt to box out the less radical Palestinian alternative. Hamas’s horrific pogrom united liberal Zionists with conservative ones — extremism creates a reaction — but over time, the bloody and unstrategic Israeli military campaign in Gaza has alienated liberal Zionists.
If you understand liberal analysis, this is a pretty familiar account. Extremism begets more extremism.
But this account of events does not appeal to extremists, who tend to believe in the efficacy of force over reason. On the right, Israel hawks have simply refused to accept that Israel’s refusal to take steps toward peace (the most obvious being to curtail West Bank settlements) has alienated its allies and spurred its enemies. On the left, there is a similar inability to grasp that the pro-Palestinian movement’s eliminationist tone has alienated liberals who are otherwise inclined to criticize Israel for its role in the conflict.
I’ve never met Schumer. But I am a liberal Zionist, and I’ve spent my entire life around liberals who broadly share both a sympathy for Israel and a desire for a two-state solution. Everybody I know who meets this description has been ping-ponging between revulsion at the Israeli right and revulsion at the anti-Israel left.
Since October 7, the liberal Zionist mood has been dominated by horror at the militancy of the pro-Palestinian movement. Every day seems to bring a fresh new instance of anti-Zionist fanaticism tipping over into antisemitism.
A glowing Washington Post profile of Michigan state representative Adam Abusalah, who is now campaigning to help Donald Trump defeat President Biden to punish the latter for supporting Israel, casually includes this musing by the article’s subject:
“Look, I know this is something people might not say,” he said, processing this news. “I personally don’t think Joe Biden’s running the show. I think Antony Blinken is making all the decisions and that — I know this is going to sound crazy, because he’s the president of the United States, but I just think that they let him know what they’re going to do.”
It’s obviously insane to believe that Joe Biden, who has been both deeply involved in foreign policy and an avid supporter of Israel for more than half a century, is not directing his own administration’s Middle East policy. Why would Abusalah believe Biden is simply a helpless puppet whose strings are being pulled by his (Jewish) secretary of State? I think the answer is pretty obvious, but the Post’s reporter does not press him on this or call any attention to the conspiratorial belief system it reflects. The story simply — to employ an overused term — normalizes antisemitic ravings.
In Chicago the other day, anti-Israel protesters “tried to block people from entering a Monday night screening of Nova, a documentary about the October 7 Hamas massacre at the Nova Music Festival that killed hundreds.” A Jewish attendee said he “was completely surrounded by maybe six or seven that started punching me in the head.”
The liberal Zionist world has been in despair at the cycle of violence and hate between the one-staters of the left and right. Schumer’s speech was an attempt to escape that cycle. The extremists looked at it and decided the conclusion is that militancy is working.
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Why Chuck Schumer’s Israel Speech Marks a Turning Point
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16.03.2024
This post was originally published in Jonathan Chait’s &c newsletter — sign up here.
This week, Senate Majority Leader Charles Schumer, the highest-ranking Jewish official in American history, urged Israelis to vote in a new government. On the left, the response to this historic development was that Schumer had buckled in the face of relentless protests by pro-Palestinian activists:
We’ve gone from “standing with Israel”, no debate, no ceasefire
to “there has to be a ceasefire” & Netanyahu has “lost his way”
PROTEST WORKS. KEEP PRESSING.
The hawkish right, dismayed by Schumer’s speech, had the same response. Schumer was “placating the anti-Israel left in his party,” complained the Wall Street Journal editorial page. He was “getting pushed around by pro-Hamas sentiment in their own party,” railed National Review editor-in-chief Rich Lowry.
These responses are a perfect case study in what I’ve called the political version of the fundamental attribution error. In case you’ve forgotten your intro-level Psychology, the fundamental attribution error is a tendency for people to assess their own actions within the context of their environment but assess the actions of other people as if they represent an........
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