The Nation Institute sponsored a discussion this evening, at the New School in Greenwich Village, about the highly controversial Goldstone Report on the conduct of the war in Gaza. One of our local congressmen, Democrat Anthony Weiner, assailed the report as a highly biased document; former congressman Brian Baird, a Democrat from Washington state, said it was a fair and accurate presentation of the facts on the ground. (The “moderator,” Roger Cohen of the New York Times, made no effort to disguise the fact that he agreed with Baird.) I went into the event in general agreement with Weiner’s position, and heard nothing that made me reconsider. But three things did surprise me.
First, the rancorous crowd of a few hundred people was evenly divided on the issue. That New York liberalism is split down the middle on Gaza is mixed news: Just a few years ago, it would have been alarming that half questioned this particular form of Israeli self-defense; now, it was somewhat reassuring that half still don’t.
Second, the discussion offered refreshing evidence that civility does not entail the emasculation of discourse. The two traded heavy rhetorical body blows, but managed to make clear an underlying friendship and respect.
Third, and most important, I was impressed by the passion with which Weiner defended the notion of support for Israel as a liberal value. He was confronted with the apparent inconsistency of being a “progressive” and a strong backer of Israel, and he swatted the question out of the park, declaring that the solution for the Mideast is actually to have “many Israels”—many thriving communities in the Arab world that practice the Israeli progressive virtues of pluralism, openness, and self-criticism.