I don’t know that many Americans saw it, but one of my favorite television shows of the 2010s was the BBC’s Last Tango in Halifax. A delightful, poignant, very smart comedy-drama, the series featured a brilliant ensemble cast – headed by Derek Jacobi and Anne Reid as a pair of widowed seventy-somethings who meet by chance and fall in love. (You can find it on Netflix.)
One of the show’s running gags is that Alan (Jacobi) is an old lefty, a Labour Party supporter. Celia (Reid) is a staunch Tory, a woman of the right since her teens. The pair discover this about each other on their first romantic getaway, when Alan buys a copy of the Guardian (the most popular left-leaning paper in Britain.) Celia is horrified, but not as shocked as Alan is when his new love reveals that she prefers the conservative Telegraph.
Celia and Alan, not agreeing.
It is a gag, but the show is smart enough to recognize that political differences are not trivial. Alan and Celia have different views, yes, but they are alike in that each of them has cultivated those views over many years. Alan is Labour and Celia Conservative not just out of tribalism or habit, but out of real conviction. The shock of discovering that the other has “appalling” (and strongly held) beliefs is real, and the show’s writers (and the incredibly gifted actors) understand that this gulf can be both anguish-inducing and very, very funny.
The writers are also clever enough to point out that Alan and Celia are lucky to have only discovered their differences after they were emotionally invested in each other. Had they met on a dating app instead of by chance in a restaurant, they would have each “swiped left” (the action of rejecting a potential partner online). Most dating apps do ask political questions, and in our partisan age, many people consider it too great a compromise to consider going to dinner (or bed, or the chuppah) with someone who holds different views on gun control -- or Gaza.
I have written a little about Israel since the events of October 7. I strongly support Israel’s right to defend itself by any means necessary. I am very much a Zionist. I support the war effort, even as I understand that war is desperately brutal. This is not a Substack about Israel or the Palestinians. I simply note that I have made my views clear here, and on Facebook and Instagram. Many of the people I know and love hold very different views, and their social media postings are filled with support for the Palestinians. They often post memes and articles very hostile to Israel and Zionism. Meanwhile, I not only post my views, but I also publicly contribute to the Friends of the IDF, AIPAC, and Magen David Adom. I am doing my best to fund what some I love despise.
I have unfollowed people whom I previously followed because I find their views on this current conflict to be repugnant. I am aware that others have done the same to me. In many cases, these are old acquaintances, former students, or longtime co-workers. I wish them well, I assume they wish me well, and because of our different views on this war, we choose to no longer see photos of each other’s kids and vacations. In other cases, of course, the people who are posting in support of Palestine are folks whom I very much love. I am related to a few. I have long histories with others. Our different views on this very important issue must be weighed against the fact of blood ties – or happy memory.
In June 1964, Massachusetts Senator Ted Kennedy survived a small plane crash. The pilot and another passenger died; Kennedy was badly hurt. The passenger who pulled Teddy from the wreckage was a fellow Senate freshman, Birch Bayh of Indiana. Most people believed Bayh saved Kennedy’s life that day. Ted Kennedy certainly believed it. Years later, when Ted was one of the most liberal Democrats in the Senate and Bayh somewhat less so, they often found themselves on opposite sides of an issue. Teddy was a tough whip, willing to twist arms and use anything he had to get his fellow Senators on board with whatever it was he wanted to pass. He would, however, never pressure Birch Bayh. Their differences came to a head in 1980, when Bayh endorsed Jimmy Carter for reelection rather than supporting Teddy’s insurgent presidential campaign. Kennedy aides were furious with Bayh, whom they thought owed Teddy his support. Teddy would hear none of it: “Birch gets a pass,” Kennedy said, over and over again. The Senator from Massachusetts owed a debt to the one from Indiana, and he spent a lifetime repaying it.
“From the river to the sea, Palestine will be free.” I regard this as a slogan of genocidal intent. To me, its clear and unmistakable call is for the destruction of the state of Israel, the end of the Zionist project, and the death or deportation of every Jew between the Jordan and the Mediterranean. Again, I do not write to argue whether it actually means this or not – I take it as such, and I am far from alone in doing so. With some people, those whom I do not know well, or with whom I have only vague memories of happy laughs in the faculty lounge or at the TJ’s register, posting that vile phrase is grounds for an instant “block.”
People I love have also posted that same phrase. I sigh when I see that, scroll past it, and say what Teddy said about Birch: they get a pass. I do what Celia does on Last Tango, when Alan makes a “Bolshie joke” attacking Tories: she gives the man she adores a long look – and changes the subject. Alan and Celia offer each other “a pass,” even when it’s hard.
Part of what it means to be a human with opinions, passions, and memories is that we develop a system for deciding who gets a pass, and who doesn’t. When the issue is very fraught -- as this current war certainly is, with everyone and their pet llama using the “genocide” word every five seconds – the idea of giving anyone “a pass” is certainly tested. Some old friendships will not survive the strain. Some Thanksgiving invitations will be declined or withdrawn. Others will come with a plea: “You are welcome to join us, but with the understanding that we cannot discuss Israel.” Each of us will have to decide whether the love is so deep (or the pie so good) that such a request can be honored.
I do not know your personal system for deciding whom you keep, and whom you discard – or whom you pressure and whom you grant a pass. I suspect you do have such a system, or at least, I hope you do. Politics is not trivial, and the war in Israel and Gaza is certainly not trivial. There are people whose views are so infuriating, ill-informed, and dangerous that to sustain a relationship with them would do violence to your own moral system. Perhaps you would like to write to these people what the philosopher Bertrand Russell wrote to the British fascist Oswald Mosley, when the latter suggested meeting up for a debate:
I feel obliged to say that the emotional universes we inhabit are so distinct, and in deepest ways opposed, that nothing fruitful or sincere could ever emerge from association between us.
(I’ve always liked Russell’s generosity and humility: we inhabit different universes, Russell tells Mosley, without bothering to argue that the fascist universe is defective and morally abhorrent.)
This was not a hard call for Russell. He and Mosley knew each other by reputation, but had never been friends, or roommates, or colleagues. They weren’t related by blood or marriage. There was no earthly reason for Bertrand to give Oswald a pass, and so he didn’t.
It is not always that easy. Sometimes (as with the current crisis) you discover that the people who inhabit the same emotional universe as you -- people you love, people who did you a great service, people with whom you have shared the most meaningful moments of your life – inhabit a very different political universe. Perhaps you suddenly see this enormous moral gulf opening up between you. Do you give them a pass? Or do you say, anesthetizing yourself with self-righteous anger, “Too many are dying for me to rest on old affections and loyalties!”
I don’t know the specifics of how you handle this question of maintaining connection across this bitter divide. I only hope that you too have a “Birch” in your life, someone who, no matter what they say, always gets a pass. I hope this for you because I hope for you to be fully human, and as best I can tell, to be human is to have our certainties tempered by loyalty, our moral clarity shaded by affection, and our zeal for what is right softened by memory -- and by love.