There have been a lot of comments on my Michael Walzer post. I want to deal with one right off. Realistic Dove has taken me on, saying that the "far left" has a problem with Jewish identity, and accusing me of intolerance bordering on antisemitism, when I question the idea of Jews turning inward, toward religiosity.
My first defense is that I feel that I speak for a lot of liberals I know when I say that There is too damned much religion in the public space. That is an acceptable and conventional position when it’s secularized blue-staters , say the New York Times, blasting right-wing Christian evangelicals who want to stop abortion and stem-cell research. Or blasting Islamicists who stone adulterers and kidnap brothel owners. I’m with the seculars. I want all those religious people to back off and stick to their churches. But clearing religious visions from the public space also involves looking at Zionist ideology and understanding what a historical-mythological-biblical understanding of Jewish identity has done to the Holy Land, and Jerusalem.
Realistic dove would separate the Zionist crazies from the good liberal Zionists like himself. He may be more realistic in the end than I am. That is to say, the Saudi solution to the mess would have an end to the occupation and a tidy two-state solution along the ’49 armistice lines in Israel and Palestine. It is gaining adherents, and would seem to have its political moment, what with the Sunni-Shi’a tension, and the Sunnis wanting to make common cause with Israel. Ori Nir of Peace Now is excited; he says that Syria, Lebanon and Saudi Arabia are "almost enthusiastic to engage Israel."
The issue for me is whether such a 2-state solution is achievable, sustainable, or desirable. Israeli settlers have cherrypicked the best land in the West Bank; they will not go quietly. Arab nationalists are not pleased with a partition of historical Palestine that is 78-22 percent (compared to far more equitable divisions that they rejected years ago). There are powerful rejectionists on both sides. Of course anything is desirable that would achieve peace, but I am wary of these religious nationalists on both sides; in the long run the best solution is integrating Israel into its region, ending its delusion that it is a "western" country (500 miles east of Istanbul), causing it to rely on its neighbors not a distant superpower. Such integration ultimately will involve some federal solution of Palestine, with Arab and Jewish entitites. (Though I’m influenced by Elik Elhanan, who calls for separation for the time being…)
Anti-Zionist, integrationist Jews like myself, along with Zionists who opposed a Jewish state, said 60 years ago that creating a Jewish state would create endless violence in the Middle East. We were right about this, and we got rolled by the Israel lobby, back then. They were better at politics. That doesn’t make them right; and the contradictions of their position continue to roil the region.
Something else anti-Zionists said was that a Jewish commonwealth would create issues of dual loyalty in western society, and affect Jewish identity here. Prophetic. Which brings me to the second large point.
Realistic dove says I am being harshly judgmental (bordering on antisemitic) toward Jews who are merely turning to their own religion. Why? he asks. The fact is, I have no problem with people turning to religion. That’s their business. I’m a religious person myself, though exploring that has involved shedding a lot of the doctrine I grew up with. I recognize that I’m an assimilationist Jew in my personal choices. Who am I to proselytize the Walzer Jews to assimilate?
The problem here is that this new Jewishness has a strongly political component. As Walzer himself indicates, religion serves temporal, political purposes: Israel’s religiosity, he says, got dialed up in the last 30 years in order to serve the state.
I believe that the religiosity Walzer now extols has a strong political flavor too. It serves two larger corporate programs: Jewish population sustainability in the intermarrying U.S., and support for Israel. The first goal, sustaining Jewish population numbers in an assimilationist society, is an OK thing in my view–and none of my business in a sense, cause I’m going the other direction. The Orthodox do it beautifully. And they do it by self-separation, ala the separation of Jews throughout European history; and they do it by sacrificing certain worldly aims.
But that separation is problematic in my view when you are as integrated into the political and social structure as Jews are. You can’t be simultaneously calling for Jewish separation and Jewish high counselors at the White House on foreign policy. Michael Steinhardt is supporting institutions whose aim is to influence American foreign policy re the Middle East (Manhattan Institute, New York Sun) and also supporting Jewish day schools to keep Jewish kids apart from non-Jewish kids. Elliot Abrams writes that Jews must stand apart in all societies except Israel, and go to Jewish madrasas, sorry, day schools, and meanwhile he gets to help run American middle east policy. This is wrong. I feel that Walzer’s answer to these contradictions– hey guess what, we’re anomalous, get used to it, we’re citizens of two nations and that’s fine– is naive and politically inappropriate, especially at a time when America needs to sort out its own interests from Israel’s, and when the neocons helped to get us into Iraq with a hidden agenda. We need less confusion on this score, not more.
Let me plain about my emotional bias here. I am an assimilationist, and Jewish, and pluralist, and something in me bridles when I hear Jews calling for all the privileges of American society (economic, statuswise, political) and not wanting to mix in. I don’t think it’s sustainable in a democracy. Democracy can abide strong corporate minorities–absolutely. Utah is run by the Mormons, and we seem to abide by it (though the New Republic argues (and I’m prepared to agree) that Mitt Romney’s Mormon-corporate interest disqualifies him from high office). Monsey, N.Y., is run by the Hasidim and that also is tolerable. I think it’s great that Ruth Wisse is at Harvard and Michael Walzer at Princeton. But assuming high position in society and maintaining a program of separate corporate identity; that’s when it gets dicey. I wouldn’t want Walzer or Wisse as president of Harvard. Rightwing Christian evangelicals also should pay a price for their religiosity…
I feel that realistic dove and Walzer are both failing to understand this moment in Jewish history. Something new and astonishing is unfolding in the U.S. I say that privileged Jewish Americans should share their gifts with this great society, and accept some of the risks therein, that privileged Jewish writers should write for American readers. Walzer wants to reseparate, and be anomalous. O.K., you can do it, but I would say there’s a price to be paid in political power for such conduct.
Ahhh, that famous man of the left ToughDove pokes his head up again, always ready to defend universal principles of justice against narrow parochial interests.
If only America had more citizens like him! Preferably a whole lobby of them, promoting the "correct" view of Israel's best interests.
I thought "Realistic Dove" had some wonderful comments.
I think neo-conservative conclusions should be objected to on the merits of their conclusions solely, not on the basis of their ethnic or even ideological origination.
Your comment "But assuming high position in society and maintaining a program of separate corporate identity; that's when it gets dicey. I wouldn't want Walzer or Wisse as president of Harvard."
is more dicey still (dicier?).
If you are saying that someone without administrative experience is not qualified for an administrative position, or disqualified for other criteria directly related to the performance of the position, that is a different beast.
"Anti-Zionist, integrationist Jews like myself, along with Zionists who opposed a Jewish state, said 60 years ago that creating a Jewish state would create endless violence in the Middle East. We were right about this, and we got rolled by the Israel lobby, back then."
Israel came into existence as a big state (if New Jersey is a big state.), because of the historical persecution of Jews in Europe. (I don't say this as a neo-conservative invocation, but as a description of the actual context.)
As an original ideological movement, as a utopian immigration movement, as a haven from genocide.
Between 1945 and 1948, there were one million + refugees of genocide in Europe. In most locales they faced inhumane persecution in their prior home areas (Poland, Russia, Hungary, Rumania, even France) which were still viciously and consistently anti-semitic.
The US, Great Britain, Australia, South Africa each increased their quotas of allowable immigration from nill to insignificant. Noone invited refugee Jews en masse. Noone actively had the plan or means to facilitate reconstruction of Jewish community in Europe (assimilated or separated).
For objective reasons and for the yearning from their desparation, Israel was the needed refuge.
While the tragedy of the Palestinians is very real, to conclude at all that this was a creation of "the Israeli lobby" more than of a need, strikes me as cruel.
I believe that to form a progressive view of the history, and of prospects for the future, its necessary to study the history, and bear the apparent incompatabilities of the two +++ narratives simultaneously and happily.
There is no turning back history, turning back reality. There is no "I told you so. We were right, you were wrong." It amounts to a revisionism.
There is sensitivity to others' needs and goals in the present, and imaginatively and assertively working to realize those, including in the case of Jews and Israelis, making room and even helping.
I like the principles of the Saudi proposal. The proposal intentionally contains ambiguities that were necessarily ambiguous to pass the Arab League consent. Those ambiguities (the meaning of "just solution for refugees") will have to be sorted out and imaginatively constructed to form a mutually acceptable application.
Its good work to attempt to realize, for Israel, for Palestine, for the region. Including diplomacy at home, in one's community, Jewish and American.
"If you are saying that someone without administrative experience is not qualified for an administrative position … "
Oy vey.
Some commentators at Realistic Dove's disliked my "swarm" comment and tried to taint Phil with it. That comment was an angry reply to Mr. Witty here for his attempt to disenfranchise the word "apartheid" when used to describe Israel. It was a mischievously modified quote from mr. Witty's previous comments with the sole purpose of making him feel the taste of his own medicine. I'm an international reader without acquaitance with the reality of jews in America, therefore my comments (and my unskilled use of the language) should not to be regarded as a threat of any sort. Being a kind of green tasmanian devil sojourning at Phil's basement all I do is some biting in the hands of apologists, nothing more. So please stop this talk of me doing the work of Foxman. Your very heads do it better than me.
I also like the comment that Phil passed on by Elik, that the two-state solution is not the last political arrangement that will ever exist in the region, that some "federal" Palestine/Israel is possible, more resembling the United States in which New Hampshire and Vermont are both states in a larger entity, even as they are independant in some respects and have different law in the areas of state jurisdiction.
Ironically, one suggestion of some neo-cons is of a free-trade zone in the middle east, not all that different from the European Common Market that existed prior to its frost-heavey transition to European Union.
I would suggest if that is a goal, then the path to that goal is not unlike the path of driving the 160 miles to get from Boston to Provincetown when for birds (or planes) its only 50 miles.
You can't get there from here.
Better to actually enjoy the ride on the route that does exist, as irrational and with as many obstacles as there are.
How would one actually get to a federal solution? What conditions would need to be established?
Trust-building:
Cessation of terror on civilians as a means, by ALL parties including states and militias (in process of negotiation among Palestinian factions, not yet confident policy and practise, both are confused as to what is actually defense)
Establishment of a permanently unified Palestinian government and military/police under a permanent single command (in process of negotiation, not yet confident policy and practise)
Development of all the institutions of self-governance and self-reliance (in process with lapses among the Palestinians, as well as material administrative obstacles placed by Israel – infrastructure, water, movement of citizens, trade paths, consistent principled law).
Formal definition of Palestinian statehood (Whatever temporary or contested status of borders. Syria is still a state, even as it contests its borders with Israel)
Normalization of relationships including exchange of ambassadors and other diplomatic relations. (The seat of government would probably be within 3 miles of each other. They could walk and visit. Not unlike walking from Brooklyn to Manhattan, or Brookline to Cambridge.)
Then after a decade of relative acceptance, with all important conflicts resolved by discussion not by military, and the inherent intimacy of being close neighbors with much interchange, federalism may be known as best.
Israel can be the Jewish state in Israel/Palestine, and Palestine the Palestinian one.
Politically, most likely in 25 years, as the majority of Israelis are civil in orientation and a large minority of Palestinians (not religious), a civil coalition government would probably be the dominant coalition arrangement (not Likud, not Hamas).
They and all those describing the states in solely religious terms (Jerusalem as anchor of Islamic Waqf, or conquering and driving "them" out as indication of messianic era.) would object and seek to disrupt.
What keeps it from happening? Neo-religion (religion that is described as the historical 'prophetic' sequence, rather than "keeping MY commandments"), neo-left ideology that acts forcefully (threats of boycotts, description of identity – not actions or policies – as "racism" for example).
Richard, I feel like you're being a little too compassionate. Maybe to both sides.
Nadler said the other night that Israel/Palestine was less soluble than Iraq. There has been violence in I/P for 75 years he said. He's going back more or less to Hebron massacre of '29 that killed many Jews. And Hebron massacre grew out of Zionist emigration to Palestine.
The Holocaust obviously played a significant role in the formation of the Israeli state, but the Displaced Persons in Europe were also used by Zionists as a means to establish the state. They insisted on a Jewish commonwealth. I don't think this was wise. I would have been with the Anglo-Inquiry commission, which called for a binational state, and Jewish emigration. Two books–Jews Against Zionism, and Israel in the Mind of America–describe Truman coming under enormous political pressure, of the sort that Aipac now wields, to endorse a Jewish state, even after partition in 47 had produced violence
I dont think the history of the Displaced Persons in Europe is complete wihtout a discussion of the Displaced Persons made by Israel's creation. Their displacement did not cry out to the west with anything like the orphans of the Holocaust. But they are part of that history…
The reason that I revisit anti-Zionism is that the current situation is Way FUBAR, as they say in the military, F'd Up Beyond All Recognition. In defending Israel, you are making excuses for an ideology that now entwines the Labor Party politically with Avigdor Lieberman, who wants to flush Arabs from Israel. And as Ali Abunimah said, some time back, the two-state solution is, per South Africa's de Clerk, just what the Afrikaaners were trying to do in South Africa, maintain a white state as long as they could, thru separation.
How realistic is the idea of unending Jewish immigration to Israel from the antisemitic West? It's not.
When I revisit antiZionism, it's because there's a cycle of violence in I/P, going on for 75 years, the business now of Arabs whose identity is based in violence, and Israelis whose identity is based in a Jewish security state and contempt for Arabs. I say a plague on both their houses.
Also: I wouldn't deny high position to religious Jews, or religious Christians. I would deny the presidency to someone who has feelings of religious separatism/superiority, and I'd keep all such folks out of advisory positions bearing on the Middle East.
I think the Israel/Palestine issues are soluble, but to no one's satisfaction.
They are soluble like a husband and wife fighting, or an addict, decides that they will do what it takes to create a better life in the present and future.
The husband and wife may decide to:
1. Divorce (not possible with Israel and Palestine short of ethnic cleansing of either population)
2. Separate (not be in each other's faces, while they still retain responsibility to parent for example)
3. Work it out and learn to coexist, if not to love
When you revisit anti-Zionism, I hope you acknowledge that there are tensions and inconsistencies with EVERY option, including the "anti-Zionist" speculation.
And, that the choice of a responsible person is to assist in the least abusive choice, and in the least abusive manner of implementing that choice.
I think the two-state solution is clearly that choice currently, as it would invite civil war to have a single state with a single parliament, with majority determined by a percentage point or two, with winner take all with potentially vicious consequences to the minority, whomever.
A partioned society in the environment of severe distrust is the lesser of two tensions.
I am still a Witty even though my uncle on my mother's side is adamently literally anti-Arab. (He was an intelligence officer in North Africa during WW2, interpreting German communications between nazi brigades and Arab sympathizers.) You know my family, so you know the range of views that Witty's can hold, and still be family.
I frankly took some offense at your equation of my views with any perspective that enabled Israel Beitanyu party.
I hope that you don't feel similarly about being an American, or a Weiss, or a Jew, that you can't be a loved part of a community because of either "your" or "their" views.
Zionism contains a wide range of supporters, from the socialist left to the fascist right. Even those that describe themselves as post-Zionist (Uri Avnery for example) still reside in Israel and bear the benefits of it.
The important political distinctions that I would make are between sensitivity and insensitivity, more than between left or right, or Zionist vs anti-Zionist or post-Zionist.
I thought that was your stand as well.
I'm all for sensitivity. But it seems that the demand that others (and it's always others) show sensitivity can sometimes serve as an excuse for not confronting unpleasant truths.
By the way, tomorrow, April 9, is the anniversary of Deir Yassin.
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=341600202419569830&q=deir+yassin+remembered&hl=en
Israel is the homeland of the Jews and anyone who is anti-Israel is a NAZI! Hilter loves philip Wiess and others anti-semites like him. Why don't you come clean fagbog and tell us about your slutty shiksa mother? Your father was a self-hating Jew and now your a gentile with a Jewish problem. Go to hell Nazi pig!
It's impossible to tell for sure whether the above outburst is a genuine Zionist loony, or merely an anti-Zionist trying to caricature the movement. Let's hope it's the latter, as that's clearly the less dangerous of the two possibilities.
I see that Dutch TV has aired a documentary on the power of the Israel lobby here in the U.S.–
link to vpro.nl
Wilkerson is pretty daming on its role in fomenting the whole Iraq thing–
"You ask yourself what were the factors [behind the war], and inevitably the Jewish lobby in America — AIPAC in particular — has got to be there. You're being naive if you don't put that factor up there as an influence. Particularly with the Bush administration, the AIPAC lobby is VERY inlfuential through Vice President Cheney — VERY influential — through people like Elliott Abrams, Paul Wolfowitz, and a host of others."
How far are we from seeing a program like this aired on U.S. TV? One year? Five years? Never?
After 59 years, there is still no memorial, marker, sign, or recognition of any sort by the Israeli state of what occurred at Deir Yassin.
We aren't making much progress toward the making of amends.
What would Elie Weisel say?
Michael Walzer, Philip and Dove are talking about something they have not experienced in its broad range.
At least, I can speak from experience.
Judaism has failed its people.
In Europe, In Israel and In USA.
Starting with the made up story of the Old Testament.
The rest is minor distortion.
Propagating an unreal and disconnected concept.
The other side is equally in the dark.
Philip has reported on the Spinoza lectures.
Why is the planet spinning according the "prophets" when Spinoza enlightened us and guided us towards a secular ethics?
"Propagating an unreal and disconnected concept."
Steve, do you mean the concept of prophecy or something else?
Phil Weiss'notions about Jewish identity are alarmingly simplistic, as I convey in today's post on Realistic Dove(link to realisticdove.org
I'd welcome comments on my blog, not just Phil's. He's already developed a fan club. I'm just getting started.
Cheers,
Dan F.
Woops. Just posted the wrong URL for today's Realistic Dove. It's at:
http://www.realisticdove.org/archives/93
What did you think of that TV documentary on the power of the Israel lobby, Realistic Dove? Are you glad to see the old taboos finally being broken?
I imagine Dove's mind was drifting off to visions of pogroms.
("For where your treasure is, there will your heart be also.")
David,
Hello again.
I am not afraid of pogroms in the U.S. I am afraid that careless rhetoric and pointless diatribes about Jewish identity will make American Jews who are silent doves reluctant to be public ones. That has always been my spiel.
Look at Phil's most recent article in The Nation, where I am quoted on the potential to mobilize the vast numbers of unaffiliated, disaffected, left-of-center American Jews who have had little or nothing to do with Israel.
Like it it not, they are the key to any effective political movement for positive change in the Middle East –at least what most Palestinian and Israelis view as positive change: a two state solution. These American Jews will be less likely to speak out if they believe they are making common cause with or providing respectability to people whose rhetoric sounds suspiciously similar to those who used to organize REAL pogroms.
"These American Jews will be less likely to speak out if they believe they are making common cause with or providing respectability to people whose rhetoric sounds suspiciously similar to those who used to organize real pogroms."
A caveat to readers who might get caught in Realistic Dove's half-realities:
link to robertlindsay.blogspot.com
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"Like it or not, they [i.e., American Jews] are the key to any effective political movement for positive change in the Middle East."
This is your problem, Dove. Apart from the question of how any intelligent man could think this after seeing the record of the past 60 years, why not just fix the system so that single-issue lobbies can't override the democratic will? Why not trust Americans, not just Jews, to support justice in the Middle East?
Is there some kind of genetic infirmity in the Gentile that makes them unfit for this task?
David,
Go ahead. Please see what you can do to overturn AIPAC et. al without the help of American Jews who disagree with it.
It's hard enough to mobilize Americans to demand universal health care or other policies and programs that they desparately want and need. If you think you can mobilize them to take on AIPAC without any help from American Jews, I admire your ambition. Just how do you propose to accomplish this?
"Just how do you propose to accomplish this?"
The work to rein in the lobby falls under two broad categories: legal/structural changes and social changes. There is no single silver bullet.
One important legal change is to get AIPAC properly registered as the agent of a foreign power. This is the step that the Council for the National Interest, for example, has been working on for a number of years. Registering would mean funding and activities would be much more transparent. And of course campaign finance reform would drastically reduce all lobbies' power. AIPAC's tax-exempt status should be reexamined (along with that of the ADL). Laws against the concentration of media ownership in a small number of hands are another part of the battle. Etc. etc.
On the social front, the most important step has already begun — making sure there is a full and open discussion of the lobby's power. As Steve Rosen (former AIPAC head and soon to go on trial for espionage for Israel) once said, "A lobby is like a night flower: It thrives in the dark and dies in the sun." And every time the lobby tries to hide behind the cry of "anti-Semitism!", it must be loudly derided.
These are just common sense steps that any healthy democracy requires. None of them are "Jewish" causes.
David,
Those are goals. How would get from here to there without having support from politically active American Jews who can provide a counterweight to AIPAC? I agree it certainly more than a "Jewish cause." One of the first posts on my new blog was to urge an alliance between people in my camp and likeminded Arab Americans and church groups. But what is your political plan?
I have no plan. Other than trusting in my neighbors' sense of justice when they are given the truth.
"Those are goals"
Some columbiforms do have a political use for their preen glands!
I happen to think that Phillip's comments about exercising power but at the same time being apart from the country to be spot.
Furthermore, one gets uneasy about the tendency of certain remarks here–that Americans oppose good things but Jews favor them–as if Jews cannot produce their own hardline capitalists (Milton Friedman and Robert Rubin, anyone)? To say that all the good things in America are Jewish and all the bad things come from "Americans" seems somewhat ludicrous.
Great response! I've entered into the discussion over at Realistic Dove, and to give them credit where it is due, they have – at least thus far – engaged in real discussion. As an outspoken anti-Zionist Jew, frankly I find that very refreshing compared to the normal "head in the sand" and/or "anti-Semite!" approach to discussing the serious issues.
John S.
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Jewish Friends of Palestine
link to
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Online One State Bibliography
link to
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Glad to inform you that there is an English version of The Israel Lobby & Endgame, a two part documentary series on the influence of the Israel lobby on US foreign policy and the consequences for the near future of Israel, available online now at www.youtube.com/vprointernational
The Israel Lobby; portrait of a great taboo (Featuring interviews with John Mearsheimer, neocon Richard Perle, Colin Powellâs chief of staff Lawrence Wilkerson, Tony Judt, Earl Hilliard, Michael Massing, pastor John Hagee, Daniel Levy & Kenneth Roth) and part two Endgame: a future scenario for Israel (with a lot of the same speakers but also Martin van Creveld, Anoush Ehteshami, Brigitte Gabriel & Etgar Keret) are produced by the Dutch public broadcasting company VPRO Backlight/Tegenlicht 2007. Directed by Marije Meerman and research by William de Bruijn.
Special Notice: There is a rogue version online with a different title: The Israel Lobby: A Danger to the world. This is a re-edit from the original by American ultra rightwing forces. VPRO distances itself explicitly from this infringement of its copyright.
For more english background information on The Israel Lobby: link to vpro.nl
For general information:
www.vpro.nl/backlight
If you would like to order an English subtitled DVD please contact: tegenlicht@vpro.nl