A demagogue and three syncopats walked into a bar…
The fake news debacle of the last week, a week in which thousands of people died in Gaza, the West Bank and Ukraine, was the confrontation in Congress between Representative Elaine Stefanik and the presidents of Harvard, the University of Pennsylvania and MIT.
Everyone knows what happened: Representative Stefanik asked each president in turn “Does calling for the genocide of Jews constitute bullying or harassment? Or violate Penn’s/Harvard’s/MIT’s code of conduct? Yes or no?“ Then Representative Stefanik claimed that calling for intifada or using from the language “from the river to the sea” was the same thing as calling for the genocide of Jews.
At that moment, the presidents of these fine institutions, where the finest minds of our democracy, the people who will become our senators and representatives, our business leaders, our judges, our doctors and our lawyers, and our journalists are trained, at that moment, these three presidents all blinked. In the words of the inimical Donald Trump, they choked. They tried to finesse their answers, and they sounded like politicians or lawyers, not intellectuals or academics with backbone and convictions. They sounded like the deep state. They became the swamp.
Understand, if you will, that I’m a product of institutions like the ones these presidents represent. A liberal intellectual, so-called. I think government is a good thing when it is run with integrity, that structure and rules matter, and that democracy matters most. Even more, I’m Jewish and a small “z” Zionist. I’m Jewish in my bones, which means I’m not just a culinary Jew and not just a cultural Jew – I show up at synagogue once a week, read the parsha (Torah portion) of the week and try to think seriously about Jewish values, Jewish ideas, and even Jewish epistemology, which means how Judaism teaches us to think about thinking itself. I’m a small “z” Zionist because I care deeply about Israel and don’t ever question its right to exist, but I disagree wholeheartedly with Israeli policy on the West Bank and Gaza and with many of my co-religionists who are proponents of a Greater Israel, the too-many people in the Jewish world who think the map of Israel should run, as it happens, from the river to the sea. There are some and perhaps many people in the Jewish world who believe that, and who include at least some of the 700,000 settlers on the West Bank, some of whom are friends, but who I think don’t belong there.
Which also means I think Palestinians are human beings, flesh and blood people who matter, with hopes, aspirations and dreams, people like me, in the sense they have hopes, aspirations and dreams. But that doesn’t mean I’m stupid, and doesn’t mean that I think all Palestinians are going to become liberal democrats and make peace tomorrow or even any time soon, just because some dingbat in Washington or Brussels thinks there is a viable two-state solution, and I don’t think we are going to get to kumbaya with a deal, a handshake, and signatures on a piece of paper, just because some people on both sides desperately want and even pray for peace. I understand that these communities are complex and are driven by complex emotions and I understand that this is a complicated world, with lots of people and nations, with lots of their own agendas, constantly pulling at them and us. I know we all have a complicated history, one in which we the major thing we share is heartbreak, exile, and way too much unnecessary death.
And I don’t discount antisemitism. Not for a single second. Ever.
But all four of the actors in the little play in Congress last week failed me, failed us, and failed democracy in the process.
Here is the right answer to Representative Stephanik’s question.
Question: Does calling for the genocide of Jews constitute bullying or harassment? Or violate Penn’s/Harvard’s/MIT’s code of conduct? Yes or no?
Answer: “Representative Stefanik, have you no decency? We are in a moment when too many people around the world are dying in war or are migrants, fleeing from their homes and communities, and when this nation itself is being torn apart by our differences, when our most treasured heritage, our democracy itself, is being questioned. No. The answer is no. I understand that slogans about an intifada or that say ‘from the river to the sea’ are objectionable to some, but they are protected speech. Freedom of speech is one of the four freedoms that we treasure most, along with the freedom to worship as we please, the freedom from want, and the freedom from fear.
“The world has been writhing in pain since October 7, from Hamas’ unfathomable brutality, which injured every single one of us with its unspeakable savagery, so that all our hearts cry out for the victims and to the survivors. All humanity has also been torn apart by the death of every civilian in Gaza, and by the victims of Russian aggression in Ukraine. We should have cried out or be crying out together to stop people from being murdered and displaced by war and violence in Syria and in Darfur and too many other places around the world.
“But we didn’t. And don’t. Instead, we argue about which Americans feel more unsafe on our college campuses.
“Nothing should stand between us and the protection of our free speech and of our democracy, which is what helps us resolve our differences here, and is our only hope to prevent similar tragedies from happening here. I am sorry if Jewish students feel threatened when someone calls for Palestinians to resist Israeli occupation of the West Bank and Gaza — but calls for resistance there are not the same as an actual genocide here. I am also sorry if Palestinian students and Muslims feel threatened when they see and feel the deaths and injuries of people who look like them in Gaza and the West Bank and see children and students who look like them shot or killed here. But Palestinians AND Muslims have a much better life here, in our democracy, than Palestinians and Muslims do in places that are not democracies. We need to protect every single member of all our communities. We also need to protect the freedom of speech and our democracy — and we need to leave no stone unturned to keep everyone safe.”
But passions are running too high, you might say. If a college president said something like that, surely they would have asked to resign or got fired because surely someone on either side would have been offended.
That’s exactly where those college presidents failed us and failed democracy. They didn’t stand up for our most cherished values.
They are resigning or being asked to resign or may be fired anyway. But if their institutions have any value, if all the money and time that went into getting all three of them where they are, if any of that had any meaning, their speaking up for free speech and democracy would have justified their roles and the existence or those institutions, instead of delegitimizing them.
Now we are left with our own questions for the three presidents: Have you no decency? Any of you? Have you no backbone? Have you no courage?
If democracy was a football game or a prize fight, we’d say the demagogue won, the presidents lost and democracy itself was tarnished.
Instead of thinking about the too many people dying in the Israel and Gaza and the almost impossible road to a meaningful durable peace, we are debating who is insufficiently anti-anti-Semitic. Instead of working urgently for a desperately needed peace in the Middle East, a very difficult peace to achieve indeed, we have a media circus that sheds only heat with no light.
Because one person grandstanded, and three other people choked.
Michael Fine, MD, is a writer, community organizer, and family physician. He is the chief health strategist for the City of Central Falls, RI, and a former Director of the Rhode Island Department of Health, 2011–2015. He is currently the Board Vice Chair and Co-Founder of the Scituate Health Alliance, and is the recipient of the Barbara Starfield Award, the John Cunningham Award, and the June Rockwell Levy Public Service Award. He is the author of several books, medical, novels and short stories, including On Medicine and Colonialism, Rhode Island Stories, and The Bull and Other Stories, You can learn more about Michael at www.michaelfinemd.com
