L ifestyle /C ulture
Reviews: Failed Case, Compelling Treasure Hunt
B OOKS
JESSE BERNSTEIN | JE STAFF
Weak Argument
“Except for Palestine:
The Limits of Progressive
Politics” Marc Lamont Hill and Mitchell
Plitnick The New Press
“EXCEPT FOR PALESTINE”
is a muddled, confusing book.

Marc Lamont Hill, a
professor at Temple University,
and Mitchell Plitnick, co-
director of Jewish Voice for
Peace, seem to have written the
book before they knew exactly
what they wanted to accom-
plish. The book’s introduction
and conclusion both read as if
they were tacked on as an after-
thought, as the book’s chapters
often have no bearing on or
relevance to the main claim.

“Except for Palestine,” in its
promotional copy, promises to
be “a searing polemic and cri
de coeur for elected officials,
activists and everyday citizens
alike to align their beliefs and
politics with their values.” The
authors say they seek to explore
why mainstream American
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Courtesy of The New Press
liberals seem reluctant to apply
the humanistic values that
they claim to hold dear to the
plight of the Palestinians. They
wonder: Why would those
whose impulse is to support
the rights of the downtrodden
at home not take seriously the
rights of Palestinians abroad?
The problem is that the
authors don’t make a serious
attempt to answer these questions
or even substantiate the book’s
central claim: that progressives
exceptionalize Palestine. The
only evidence they present are
the actions of some Democrats
in Congress in recent years and a
few unsourced assertions about
apathy and silence.

There’s no attempt to grapple
with what made support for
Israel a rallying point for large
portions of the left for many
years. And there’s a long history
of the term “Progressive Except
Palestine” on the British left, an
exploration of which might have
provided some useful context;
this goes unmentioned.

The book, instead, is a
retelling of the story of contem-
porary Israel and U.S. support
for its ascendant right wing,
which makes for a weird disso-
nance between what the authors
claim to be arguing and the
actual words between the covers.

In the meat of the book,
the authors consistently dodge
chances to make the case for
specific points.

How can an argument
decrying the end of U.S. aid to
the United Nations Relief and
Works Agency for Palestine
Refugees in the Near East
interact so superficially with
the objections made to its
continued existence?
How can the authors argue
that the Israeli government
unfairly stonewalled Yasser
Arafat during negotiations
without saying why they
believe the government’s objec-
tions were incorrect?
How can they assert Hamas
“showed flexibility” following
its ascension to power in Gaza
without detailing this flexibility?
How can they make the
serious claim that Israel had a
hand in the creation of its “bad
neighborhood,” as the region
is often called, and devote only
one line to the government’s
treatment of the Palestinians?
This is all bad argumentation.

It’s not as if they’re not
capable of solid rhetoric. When
Hill and Plitnick discuss the
criminalization and stigma-
tization of the boycott,
divestment and sanctions
movement in this country, or
the despicable treatment of
Jews and non-Jews alike who
deviate from the received
JEWISH EXPONENT
wisdom on Israel and Palestine,
they use facts to back up their
arguments. Those are points with the
moral power to persuade. But
given their relatively small
place in the larger argument,
it’s hard to say that persuasion
was really the goal here.

One Man’s Treasure
“Plunder: A Memoir of
Family Property and Nazi
Treasure” Menachem Kaiser
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
What distinguishes memora-
bilia from curios, or either
category from treasure? What’s
the difference between plunder,
spoils and mementos? How do
we unpack something that is
at once fetish object, family
heirloom, sacred relic and
despicable artifact?
Menachem Kaiser does not
claim to have the answers to
these questions — one of the
many delightful things about
his new memoir, “Plunder” —
but he’s willing to ask them of
himself and of you.

Kaiser’s story about his
attempt to reclaim a Polish
apartment building that was
expropriated from his grand-
father prior to the Holocaust is
a fascinating tale. His commit-
ment to ambiguity, along with
a keen sense of story, genre
and the weight of expectations,
makes for a compelling read.

Kaiser, a magazine writer,
understands that the story he’s
written will be read by readers
who have encountered many
such variations before, and
that those readers have ideas
about how these stories should
go. So he’s weary of “dancing
my stupid nostalgia dance,”
of taking a “memory-safari”
where he’d treat readers to
some preordained emotional
journey that didn’t really
belong to him.

Though he never says it
Courtesy of Houghton Mifflin Harcourt
directly, Kaiser is writing an
“American-Jew-returns-to- the-old-country-for-family-
but-a lso-persona l-grow t h ”
story in the world that
Jonathan Safran Foer created,
and there’s a readership to be
won by sticking to the basics.

It’s easy to see why Kaiser
once felt inclined to write this
book as a novel: There’s his
pink velour tracksuit-wearing
Polish lawyer nicknamed The
Killer, bizarre and seemingly
anti-Semitic questions from
reactionary Polish judges, a
massive network of treasure-
hunting conspiracy theorists
with ideas about a secret under-
ground Nazi train, mistaken
identities and long-dormant
familial strife brought back
into the light.

But he went with a memoir,
which makes the absurdi-
ties, strange coincidences and
trajectory-changing twists
more compelling. Kaiser writes
as if he’s speaking aloud, like a
stranger telling you a surpris-
ingly interesting story on a
night you didn’t expect to be
out so late.

He builds his narrative with
reporting, memory, poetry, court
transcripts, legal documents
and memoir, and never fails to
treat the people he encounters
with humanity on the page,
even if he had contemplated
See Books, Page 23
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