Praise is due The New Yorker this week for publishing a thorough, thoughtful piece of reporting called "The Apostate," about Avram Burg, the former speaker of the Knesset who has shocked Israel by coming out as an anti-Zionist. The piece, by editor David Remnick, is most remarkable as evidence of a shift in our discourse, for it does, and very fairly at that, what I have pushed our press to do: give airtime to the dissident voices in Israeli society. Remnick has not only demonstrated great news judgment by leaping on a good story (I wrote about Burg a month back), but has opened a window on Israel's spiritual crisis. Says Burg:
“In the last years, Israeliness has confined itself for itself only and lost interest almost for what happens in the world,” he went on. “For me, Israel is shrinking into its own shell rather than struggling for a better world. Who is responsible for identity? The ultraOrthodox. They sit in the yeshivot”—the religious schools. “Who is responsible for our fundamental relation to the soil? The settlers. The two tribes responsible for the spiritual dimension and the territorial dimension are anti-modern Israel.”
Indeed, the piece ends on this note, when Remnick details the huge brain drain to the U.S. that Israel is now experiencing.
Three criticisms. 1, Remnick is clearly uncomfortable with Burg. His piece quotes a lot of Israelis trashing Burg as quixotic, including the American Enterprise Institute's secret scholar, neocon Dore Gold, but only one Israeli half-praising him. No Arabs. 2, Burg is (self-proclaimedly) in the prophetic Jewish tradition; it's no surprise that so many pols dislike him. It would have been nice if Remnick had conducted more of his inquiry on the spiritual plane, for instance by interviewing young, disaffected Israelis. 3, The piece perpetuates a journalistic tradition of, Israelis can criticize Israel, we can't. But Americans have something to say here. Remnick cites (and slights) the Walt-Mearsheimer paper of 2006 (saying it is about AIPAC), and says that Burg's statements are part of an international discussion, which Zionists have come to describe as the "delegitimization" of Israel. (Benny Morris closes his TNR piece with those fearful words.) In the frame of this piece, that important discussion is just "noises off."
lookie here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=D8JLMfIUwsw
When I lived in Israel, with the Six Day War still fresh, an important part of the Zionist project was a "regeneration" of the Jewish people through Jews doing the jobs heretofore reserved for gentiles and turning their backs on the "money making money" way of life imposed by antisemitic restrictions. This would mean not only Jewish soldiers, but also Jewish plumbers, farmers, garbage men etcetera. When I read a few years ago that Ariel Sharon had "guest workers" from Thailand working on his "ranch", I knew that my knowledge of Israel was far out of date. The Israel knew seemed like Boy Scout campfire stuff.
As I tried to get up to speed, it struck me how corrupt the country had become. Israel had always been a little lackadaisical and Mediterranean (yiye tov) but not rotten, gangster ridden, like it seems today.
Another change seems to be the number of Americans involved there. When I lived there, I found I was treated much better when people knew I was a goy as an American Jew in Israel was considered then as "not playing with a full deck"… Today most of the settlers seem to have Brooklyn accents.
The great Russian immigration, which soon connected Israel directly with the oligarchs and served the money laundering and sleaze of the Yeltsin era as some kind of an offshore, Kosher Cayman Island.
Whatever it is all, the idealistic, Zionoot seems to have disappeared. Certainly the gravest danger to Israel's survival comes from within, not from Iran.
link to seaton-newslinks.blogspot.com
ok, phil got the picture. American Jews who don't want to see Israel disappear are the "dark side". Which I guess makes Hamas, Hezbollah, Islamic Jihad, and the rest of the crew a bunch of what, Jedi Knights. And since Jewish organizations are all part of the problem then certainly the membership should be rounded up and what exactly, camps, reeducation? What's the plan
Bill Pearlman seems to prefer catechisms and tribalism to understanding and morality.
A state built and reproduced on ethnic cleansing as a guiding principle (and led, with rare exceptions, by gangsters) can't help but corrupt its citizens and its supporters. That's it.
Hezbollah and Hamas are products of the Israeli state's criminality. This 'jihadi' stuff is just so much palaver. A viable Palestine, whether secular or multi-faith, was unacceptable to successive Israeli leaders.
Israel reaps what it sows. Unfortunately the rest of the world has to tolerate the adverse side-effects of Israeli perfidy, not least the grotesque machinations of the pro-Israel lobbies.
Avraham Burg was a constructive voice in Israel.
Just overwhelmed by the greedy Zionist extremes.
The Zionist extreme is supported by delusional citizens who read a Talmud, and ignore the modern history. Among them many Americans.
A moderate Zionism was always a positive movement, and the secular Zionism gave a chance to Israelis to escape from the Orthodox Judaism's curse.
It was also a positive influence on the Israeli Arabs, Druze and Bedouins. It became their ticket to modernity.
I would encourage all enlightened secular people to embrace the moderate Zionism and extend its message to the oppressed ordinary people of the Middle East.
Our only goal can be to oust all tyrants and juntas in the Middle East.
Don't you want to see that freedom and secularism arrives to Iran – Syria – Lebanon – Sudan.
All these obsession with Zionism should take a backseat while the Muslim, Christian and other people live in a prison in countries from Sudan to Iran.