Except for Palestine: The Limits of Progressive Politics

by Marc Lamont Hill

The conditions mentioned here should be profoundly disturbing to American liberals and progressives, as they are clearly out of step with the values they claim to hold most dear. Yet year after year, Israel is by far the leading recipient of U.S. foreign aid, with little resistance from progressive voices. The United States repeatedly isolates itself on the world stage in order to shield Israel as much as possible from any consequences that it might face as a result of its policies and actions. Questioning this lockstep support in any but the mildest terms has long been seen as a political third rail and is often greeted by charges of bias against the world’s only Jewish state, or even allegations of outright anti-Semitism. Against the backdrop of these realities, the American political left has normalized a world in which it is acceptable, through words and policies, to embrace the ethical and political contradiction of being “progressive except for Palestine.”