‘Choose Your Fighter’–Which Petition Side Are You On?

“Choose your fighter,” said the smug tweet from Dan Sheehan, a novelist and an editor at Lit Hub. On the left side, his side, you had a list of writers who have signed an open letter “pledging not to work with Israeli cultural institutions that are complicit or have remained silent observers of the overwhelming oppression of Palestinians.” On the right side, my side, given that I have signed this letter, is a list of writers and other cultural figures who consider that stance dangerous, reductive, and antisemitic. I don’t need to list the “fighters,” as you can see them below.

Choose your fighter pic.twitter.com/PJQgWp8mI1

— Dan Sheehan (@danpjsheehan) October 30, 2024

On the one hand, Sheehan has a point. The anti-Israel list includes some impressive writers. No one is going to say that, say, Mayim Bialik is a better writer than Rachel Kushner or that Peter Carey and Mary Gaitskill are inferior authors to Adam Gopnik, a person I’ve always found incredibly annoying but whom I agree with on this very important issue.

On the other hand, his comment drips with snobbery. Your pro-Israel and anti-antisemitism list includes two Nobel laureates, the preeminent historian of the French Revolution, and David Mamet, who, whether or not he turned “right-wing” in recent years, still created Glengarry Glen Ross wrote the screenplay to The Untouchables, one of the greatest movies ever made. Lee Child and Harlan Coben may not have written ‘Motherless Brooklyn,’ but Costco sells their books by the millions, while Jonathan Lethem remains the definition of an off-Broadway author.

The anti-Israel (or pro-Palestinian) group of writers does have an impressive starting lineup. But the pro-Israel group is competitive enough. If you look at the entire list of signatories, the right side might just have a deeper bench. There are plenty of excellent writers as well, if not necessarily Park Slope-approved ones. On the one hand, it kind of looks like the masthead of an issue of The New Republic circa 1990–Leon Weiseltier, Jacob Weisberg, David Greenberg, Paul Berman–but there are also some refreshing and unexpected names among the list.

Signatories include songwriter Diane Warren, Jenji Kohan, creator of Orange is the New Black, and Amy Sherman-Palladino, creator of The Marvelous Mrs. Maisel and Gilmore Girls. Those shows aren’t right-wing cultural documents; they certainly don’t stream on the Netflix recommended lists of followers of Hamas or Hezbollah. Those signatories are, like myself, what Commentary Magazine referred to as “October 8th Jews,” for whom the Hamas attacks were a huge red pill moment. And they, like me, don’t appreciate that many prominent cultural figures seem so willing to condemn Israel in this incredibly fraught historical moment.

But beyond the literary snobbery–”we have Leslie Jamison” shouldn’t be a major point of pride–the lists, if you read through them both, have one major difference. The “literary” people who are calling for boycotting Israeli institutions are much more multicultural and diverse. There are many Asian, Hispanic, and Arabic surnames. I assume that just reflects the current makeup of grad schools and MFA programs, and it also might mean that the letter got some international circulation.

The other side seems to contain a lot of entertainment-industry professionals like Sherry Lansing, so it probably circulated through different channels. Most importantly, though, almost everyone who signed it is a Jew. There are a lot of Cohens and Goldbergs and Horowitzes. Everyone who signed it who I know personally is Jewish, except one free-speech loving friend who I forwarded it to. A Jewish writer I know sent it to me. We understand the threat, and we’re responding.

A lot of these Jews aren’t even that pro-Israel. Lee Child, the source of much snobbery from the “other” side, has criticized Israel’s attacks on Palestinians, and continues to tout a two-state solution. Most of the Jews I know aren’t bloodthirsty warmongers. They’re just deeply concerned at how anti-Jewish cultural rhetoric has become. As for the Jews like Lethem and Ben Lerner who continue to call for anti-Israel boycotts, well, I hope the panel invitation to the Brooklyn Book Festival is worth it.

Once again, Jews stand alone, at least culturally. No one is backing us up, except for, well, Ozzy Ozbourne. Better watch that “choose your fighter” rhetoric. He bites off heads.