The endorsement by Pat Robertson of pro-abortion candidate Rudy Giuliani this week is widely seen as a sign that the evangelical Christian vote, which has scared the bejesus out of a lot of people in blue states for the last 30 years, is losing its monolithic power. Yay!
But I want journalists to start talking about the religious left– the Israel lobby– and its effect on the Democratic party and our foreign policy. For the lobby also has a strongly religious component, and it’s more important now than the religious right.
One reason journalists don’t talk about the religious left is that we blue-state Jews are a completely familiar quantity in journalistic culture (unlike the Christian right, which has horns) and we Jews have been among the champions of secularism: the separation of the religious and political spheres. And if you’re a secularist, well–you can’t very well be a religious voter, can you?
This idea is simply not very well examined. The problem in the Israel case is that a lot of people who behave like good secularists, decrying the influence of the anti-gay-rightsers in the Kerry vote in the heartland in ‘04, are themselves voting or giving money on the basis of a politician’s support for a religious state, overseas. I’ve run into sophisticated liberal New Yorkers who go haywire about the evangelical vote then tell me that the Bible gives the Jews a passport to the Holy Land. Sorry, that ain’t secularism. And some secular Jews who loudly proclaim that they don’t believe in God come out with a devotion to Israel that verges on the religious–especially when you consider that oftentimes they’re talking about a place they’ve never been to.
Last night Saifedean Ammous alerted me to the fact that Alan Dershowitz is keynote speaker at a secularists conference today in New York. I wonder how Dershowitz can call himself a secularist. Not when much of his activities are aimed at preserving support among the American public for a Jewish state that discriminates on a religious basis. At his Brandeis speech earlier this year, trying to rebut Jimmy Carter, Dershowitz referred to the pre-1967 Israeli borders as "Auschwitz borders." Afterward he told me that this was an Abba Eban line; but I would note that in Lords of the Land, the great new book on the settlements, the authors say that the religious settlers used these very words "Auschwitz borders" in their rhetoric– to justify the illegal expansion.
Ammous, himself a secularist, takes the analysis further:
Zionist Americans are (commendably and understandably, since many of them are not Christian) amongst the fiercest advocates for secularism in America and have done good work, intellectually and politically, to cement secularism here. It’s ironic that they are the ones working hardest to prevent secularism from ever taking place in the unHoly land, where they are comfortable in supporting everything and anything racist and discriminatory that the Israeli government does. The same people who (rightly) get outraged over the display of a cross on public land in America, have no problem defending the Israeli government banning non-Jews from purchasing land, or building religiously-segregated roads.
When I argue with Zionist Americans, I tell them "How would you feel if I was a Christian missionary from Palestine spending billions of dollars to strengthen the religious right to establish God’s Kingdom in America and set-up religious rule that does to American non-Christians what Israel has done to Palestinian non-Jews: Ethnic cleansing of the majority with no right-to-return; second-class citizenship for some of the remaining non-Christians with a ban on purchasing land and restrictions on who you can marry; and illegal military occupation without citizenship for the rest, along with walls, Bantustans, segregated roads, a stifling siege that controls all your contacts with the outside world, and extrajudicial unaccountable murder…"No one exemplifies this hypocricy more than Alan Dershowitz. He has written some important work on secularism in America and is one of its fiercest defenders, but is also perhaps Israel’s most unrelenting and dogmatic defender. Dershowitz supports secularism in the country in which his religious group is in the minority, but supports religious discrimination in the country in which he is in the majority. He’s no different from Pat Robertson who wants a Christian nation in America where Christians are a majority, but opposes Islamic rule in Sudan, where Christians are a minority…
Related posts:
- Hypocrisy: Keep America Secular, and Israel Jewish!
- Dershowitz Once Celebrated Jewish Influence and Called Support for Israel a ‘Secular Religion’
- Alan Dershowitz and Lanny Davis are rabbis for secular Jewish society
- We Can Talk About Religion in the Republican Party. But Not Among Democrats
- Shouldn’t we be getting religious crazies, like Eric Yoffie, out of our politics?
{ 36 comments }
What's your point infidel?
Demographic Trends and Jews.. attitude towards government:
By 2050 the U.S population will surge to 500 million (projected) yet the Jewish population will drop to 3.5 million from perhaps 6 million today. (Jews have few children hence their strong disinterest in having them fight their wars).
I would expect that in order to maintain Jewish influence over the US govt that Jewish thinkers will advocate a move away from one person one vote to voting based upon capital accumulated, degrees awarded etc. This would allow Jews to maintain their disproportionate influence in government as their numbers decline.
Look at what the jew armitage is claiming now:
WASHINGTON (CNN) — The man who revealed that Valerie Plame worked for the CIA said that he was "extraordinarily foolish" to leak her name.
Former Deputy Secretary of State Richard Armitage told CNN's Wolf Blitzer in an interview broadcast Sunday that he did not realize Plame was a covert agent when he discussed her with syndicated columnist Robert Novak.
Novak, a former CNN contributor, wrote the July 2003 column in which Plame was named as a CIA employee. He later cited his sources as Armitage and Karl Rove, then President Bush's top political adviser.
Armitage said he had seen a memo that said Plame was publicly chairing a meeting, so he assumed her CIA employment was not a secret.
"There was no ill intent on my part, and I had never seen, ever in 43 years of having a security clearance, a covert operative's name in a memo," he said.
Blitzer asked Armitage if he "simply assumed that she was not a clandestine officer of the CIA."
"Well, even Mr. Novak has said that he used the word 'operative' and misused it," Armitage said. "No one ever said 'operative.' And I not only assumed it, as I say, I have never seen a covert agent's name in a memo. However, that doesn't take away from what Mrs. Plame said. It was foolish, yes."
Emotional Rove announces 'next chapter'
Judge tosses out lawsuit in CIA leak case
Bush commutes Libby's prison sentence
Rove, who left the White House in August, has denied he was also a source of the leak to Novak.
Plame's identity was disclosed shortly after her husband, former U.S. Ambassador Joseph Wilson, challenged one of the chief claims underpinning the Bush administration's case for the U.S. invasion of Iraq — that Iraq had sought uranium for nuclear weapons from the African country of Niger.
In an op-ed piece for The New York Times, Wilson wrote that he had investigated the claim at the request of CIA officials and found it "highly doubtful" that any such transaction could have occurred, and he accused the Bush administration of having "twisted" the evidence for war.
Neither Armitage nor Rove was charged with a crime in the leak.
Dershowitz is an odd duck. Although he has taken a lot of heat for his "discussion" (from both his left and his right) with prominent critics of Israel, particularly Noam Chomsky and Norman Finkelstein.
However, he also prominently confronted Meir Kahane in public debate.
Zionism is not by definition "religious". It is popular, as in defined by self-identification with a people.
Sometimes the source of that self-definition is religious, but that is a subset of the definition as one of a people.
My experience with the Christian left, if you are using that term descriptively, is that they are mostly very principled people, applying values to situations.
They emphasize the spiritual and ethical teachings of Jesus (really liberal Jewish teachings), and deemphasize the dictums to exclude or punish.
There was an article I think in the Times magazine section a few weeks ago, describing the new theological emphasis on spiritual growth post conversion as more important, than either the conversion itself or the association as "Christians".
The principle of "love thy neighbor as thyself" is not really consistent with war for interests (say warring for oil supply chain stability).
"Demographic Trends and Jews.. attitude towards government:"
By 2050 the number of elite jews in the lists of the most powerful people in America will surpass the 80%. They will have very little need of the jewish vote to control the american political process because they will be themselves the american political process.
And Richard Armitage is not jewish (as far as I know)
Oinc! Oinc!
I don't know about that. I don't see too many lefties who aren't disgusted with Israel and with the US/Isr relationship at present.
I check out the dem left site, DKos frequently and the vast majority there are negative toward Israel and their US Lobby. There is a small group of posters there however, always the same ones, that are rabid pro zionist and apoligist for AIPAC and Israel. They operate like a pack and hunt down every Israel related post to trash it and hurl the anit-semite thing.
I think that actually the dem party in congress, having a large number of jews, are more Israel centric than your average dem voter.
Those damn Palestinians are no better than the Israelis.
At least six people have been killed in gunfire at a rally organised by Fatah in the Gaza Strip to mark three years since the death of Yasser Arafat.
Security forces from the rival Hamas movement opened fire at crowds, causing people to run for cover, reports say.
It was the biggest rally held by the late president's party since it was ousted from Gaza by Hamas in June after a series of bloody clashes.
The iconic Palestinian leader died in Paris on 11 November 2004.
Since his death Palestinian politics has been riven by splits, the most violent between the secular nationalist Fatah party and the radical Islamist group Hamas.
Taunting
Hundreds of thousands of Fatah supporters, carrying pictures of Arafat and waving yellow Fatah flags had gathered in a large square in the centre of Gaza City.
Hamas security officials said they fired toward protesters who threw stones at security compounds.
Witnesses said the first shots were fired after crowds started accusing Hamas security forces of being a proxy for Shia Muslim-ruled Iran.
About 100 people were reported to have been wounded in the violence.
Hamas has banned opposition rallies since its takeover of Gaza, and its security personnel were out in force at the edge of Monday's massive gathering.
Correspondents say any move to prevent a ceremony commemorating Mr Arafat – whose following still crosses factional divisions – would have been widely unpopular in Gaza.
The UN ordered an investigation into an incident in which Palestinian militants fired mortars at Israel from a UN-run school in Gaza.
Ban Ki-moon condemned the abuse of UN facilities and described it a "serious violation of the UN's privileges and immunities", a spokeswoman said.
Israeli military aircraft filmed the mortars being fired from the school's playground in Beit Hanoun last week.
The UN has already complained about the incident to the authorities in Gaza.
The coastal territory has been controlled by the Islamist movement, Hamas, since it seized control from the rival Fatah group of Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas in June.
'Serious violation'
The Israeli military's video of the incident on 29 October, taken from the air using thermal imaging equipment, shows three figures firing mortars outside the school run by the UN agency for Palestinian refugees, Unrwa, in Beit Hanoun.
"We've complained frequently to both sides – to the Israelis when the IDF comes in and use our schools for interrogating people, and also to the Palestinians whenever anybody also violates our installations"
Karen Koning AbuZayd, Unrwa Commissioner-General
Unrwa commissioner-general Karen Koning AbuZayd said the school had been evacuated earlier in the day because of an Israeli military incursion nearby.
"This is a problem when we're not there, what happens to our schools," Ms AbuZayd told a news conference on Wednesday.
"We've complained frequently to both sides – to the Israelis when the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) comes in and use our schools for interrogating people, and also to the Palestinians whenever anybody also violates our installations," she added.
A spokeswoman for the UN secretary-general said he had asked Unrwa to fully investigate the incident.
The United Nations runs a number of schools in the Gaza Strip
"The secretary-general condemns this abuse of UN facilities, which is a serious violation of the UN's privileges and immunities," Marie Okabe said.
"He calls on all involved in this conflict to avoid actions that endanger the lives of civilians, especially children, and that put at risk Unrwa's ability to carry out its humanitarian mission."
Rockets are fired from the Gaza Strip on an almost daily basis by Palestinian militants, who say they are responding to continued Israeli aggression.
The Israeli government has responded by declaring the coastal territory a "hostile entity" and stepping up economic and political sanctions.
Last week, Israel's attorney general intervened to suspend government plans to restrict electricity supplies to Gaza's civilian population, although fuel restrictions have already been initiated. The UN has called the sanctions punitive and unacceptable.
Equally OT, this article from Bloomberg (quelle surprise!) provides a good description of the Israel lobby (elected representatives’ arm) at work derailing the nuclear rapprochement between the US and India because of the latter’s ties with Iran.
This precisely the sort of thing W&M presented as a problem. In this case it is sacrificing US-Indian ties on the alter of the US-Israel relationships.
http://www.bloomberg.com/apps/news?pid=20601104&sid=aeQLq2c_FnrU&refer=mideast
Wake-up Americans!
Witty-
When Dep. Sec. of Defense Wolfowitz said oil would pay for this Iraq war, he meant that the price of oil would be so damn high, that oil profit taxes (cough!) would pay for the war. That, and the sizeable cashing-in on the Canadian tar sands just now becoming viable per current astronomical prices.
No one [who's really paying attention] believes this war was to CONTROL Iraqi oil. Or in your words, stabilize the supply chain.
The war never proved remotely possible of achieving that end, what with the bombs and billions of dollars and weapons gone missing, almost instantaneously. Evidence it could not possibly achieve that aim was and is abundant and the oil futures market basically bears out the material failure of that, meaning that you, Richard Witty, must literally believe the men who took the world's biggest military to war, and continue its expansion, are complete and utter fucking buffoons.
You are; they aren't.
"Those damn Palestinians are no better than the Israelis."
Gudbrand, today the television here in the subequatorial third-world showed some scenes of the fighting palestinians and immediately right after it they showed scenes from the fire on the London Olympic Park and said: "there is no confirmation that the fires were a terrorist plot."
It's always like this. News about palestinians are necessarely followed by news about some event in which the word "terrorist" would be mentioned.
The television editor is jewish. Most people have no idea of this, but they are bombarded with the palestinian=terrorist mantra almost daily.
Here in the third world the israel-firsters are already a plague. Do you really think the palestinians are really on pair with the israeli wickedness?
Don't wast your time on "Gudbrand." He left out of his accout the fact that the school used by the militants had been vacated — because of the IDF's attack.
"Do you really think the palestinians are really on pair with the israeli wickedness?"
Yes. Just give them the chance to prove it and they surely won't disappoint.
You seem to posit that Israelis are somehow different from the rest of us, somehow more wicked. That's because you're a racist. Gutbrand just gave you an example of how the Palestinians do the exact same thing when they are in power. The very same thing you hold the Israelis in contempt for. This is not a slight on the Palestinians. They are human and no better than the rest of us, depsite their being fetishized by so many.
Seems to me that the legitimacy of Zionism ultimately rests upon theology. So while Zionism started as a secular movement, the idea of expropriating land from others rests upon an interpretation of the Torah. I don’t see how it can be otherwise.
From what I can tell, ultimately even secular progressives of the three B‘s will have to rely on the theology of one of two Orthodox groups — Edah HaChareidis or Agudat — to make their case either for or against Zionism. And that’s where the theological battle lies. There is no in between on this one. One group ultimately will assume a prophetic office for the Jewish people, at least in regard to Zionism.
From what I can tell, one group believes that a Messiah will appear within the Zionist template. The other group — led by Satmar — believes that only the Messiah can end the Exile. So, to these Hasidic rabbis, Zionism is a type of “armed materialism” and a form of idolatry that worships the State more than the Torah. Satmar rabbis appear to argue that the religious experience within the Zionist template only fuels a very powerful and intoxicating experience of militant ethnic nationalism. These rabbis believe that Zionism will only lead to the notion of a false messiah and total chaos. They explain it more succinctly here:
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/about/mission.cfm
I don’t have a clue which one is right ultimately. So if you have problem with the Satmar rabbis, argue with them. All I can do, at this point, is look for trends and rely on intuition, with the hopes of figuring out what is best for America. But I am sure that Rabbi Teitelbaum’s theology completely negates the theology of the evangelists beholden to the Rapturist movement. And I am certain that the ultimate desire of the Rapturist movement is to see a terrible tragedy befall the Jewish people. The Rapturist movement, in my opinion, is based upon an anti-Semitic impulse. If someone can point out any Rapturist work that empathizes with the suffering that the Jewish people would experience if this evangelical deus ex machina fantasy came true, then I would like to read it.
The Rapturists, of course, are aligned with Agudat. Hagee is on the tellie waxing sentimental about this grand alliance all the time, which of course makes me think of the ol’ saying that “sentimentality is but an echo of brutality”. (probably goes both ways!) And I do note he and fellow evangelist Lindsey seems to idolize the IDF — the State — more than the Jewish experience. In fact, while we are at it, I note he and his ersatz intel analyst wanna be — Hal Lindsey — arguably seem to idolize the IDF more than De Oppreso Liber, which suggests a dual loyalty problem among gentiles.
When it comes to the West Bank, the Rapturists are in the same political camp as the neoconservatives and Alan D. So to construct an organizing principle during this time of “ideological disarray“, I suggest: Agudat — Rapturists — Neoconservatives. Strange, but under this theory, Alan D. ultimately is a spokesman for Agudat; he just masks it under the idea of being a secular progressive.
From what I can glean from Gorenberg and others, I sometimes wonder if an unconscious impulse exists, within the Jewish people, even among secular progressives, to have complete control of Jerusalem and to build a Third Temple. To use Jungian terms, such an impulse may spring from the collective unconscious as it was handed down generations through rituals.
But I am also deeply impressed with how the Satmar rabbis explain the dynamic between anti-Semitism and Zionism. Their religious devotion and sacrifice — which I believe is worthy of great respect — may yield previously unknown observations about this symbiotic relationship that are beyond the grasp of the rest of us who lead secular lives. From what I can tell at this point, they are either wrong about their observations or have assumed a prophetic office.
Disclosure: I continue to hold onto the idea of an Israel based on the 67 borders. This idea was based on a prior work (04) by Martin Van Creveld who argued rather persuasively that the 67 borders ultimately would provide the best security for Israel. But, in light of the settlement movement, I don’t see how Israel can return to the 67 borders without a tremendous amount of violence. The US is partly to blame for this situation. So it looks like an all or nothing situation here.
‘Tis strange but Martin Van Creveld has been shoved aside as people now look to Natan Sharansky for input into issues of military security. Huge mistake. Just my opinion, but when it comes to military matters, Sharansky has a double digit IQ. No wonder Bush gave him a MOF. They think alike. As for Martin Van Creveld…he was the man and represented one of the best hopes of the Zionist dream, in my opinion. He wrote a great essay for the Forward in 05, but no one listened or cared.
http://www.forward.com/articles/costly-withdrawal-is-the-price-to-be-paid-for-a-fo/
I had to write The Case for Israel because if you look at college campuses around the United States and, even worse, in many parts of Europe — if you look at what's going on in the United Nations and in so many European capitals — there are so many false allegations and accusations being made against Israel and so many believing them because they are not being given appropriate factual responses that I just had to write The Case for Israel. I wish I could write the case for peace. I'd much prefer to write a book calling on people to come together and proposing various solutions, which I think are possible. And I'll talk a little bit about, I think, the case for peace. But my own view is that before you can make peace and before you can make reconciliation you have to clear the air of these kinds of false accusations, accusations that Israel is the worst human rights offender in the world. Israel is a colonialist regime, that it engages genocide, that it commits crimes against humanity. You've all heard it. You've read it. You hear it on Pacifica Radio or other places and people tend to believe these accusations.
And so there were several events that led me to decide to drop my other writing projects and to defend this pro bono client. One of them, of course, is well known to everybody: Israel in 2000 and 2001 made an incredibly generous peace offer to the Palestinian Authority. It offered 90 something — there is some dispute — but around 95 percent of the West Bank, 100 percent of the Gaza, a Palestinian state, with its capital in Jerusalem. It offered control of the holy places to Islam — to Islamic control. It offered a $35 billion dollar refugee package. It was the dream offer. It wasn't the perfect offer. Obviously, Israel could have been more generous and perhaps if the Palestinians had said, "Yes, but," they would have gotten more. But the offer was quite a remarkable one.
And then President Clinton twisted some arms, of Ehud Barak to get him to give a little bit more, having been assured by Arafat that Egypt and the Saudi Arabians supported the peace offer, [their position being that] as long as Jerusalem and the mosques are under the control of the Muslims we're okay with this. Arafat would sign on the dotted line. Instead Arafat walked away, having embarrassed President Clinton, having embarrassed Ehud Barak to the point of assuring his electoral defeat the next time around. And almost immediately thereafter, before Sharon ever walked on the mountain top [that is, Sharon's visit to the Temple Mount in Jerusalem's Old City on 28 September 2001 which was protested by the Palestinians--ed.], which in my view was a foolish decision and a provocative decision, but before he ever did that, the Second Intifada began. That is, the use of violence as aid to diplomacy recommenced. It then spiraled out of control, as we'll talk about later.
What happened after that persuaded me I had to write the book. And that is, shortly thereafter, when Israel, as every democracy does, overreacted to the murdering of its own civilians, the world turned against Israel on a dime. It was as if no peace offer had been made. It was as if Israel was totally responsible for the ensuing bloodshed. By the way, that wasn't the view of Prince Bandar of Saudi Arabia, who was one of the negotiators for the Palestinian side. He concluded that Arafat's decision to turn down the offers at Camp David and Taba were "crimes against the Palestinian people" and "crimes against all the people of the region." He blamed all of the then 3,000 deaths, now coming closer to 4,000, on Yasser Arafat personally.
Reasonable people could argue about where the blame lies. There are some Israelis who think [the offer] wasn't generous enough and that's all perfectly reasonable and perfectly understandable criticism. But to see the world and the academic community so quickly forget what Israel had offered and turn so dramatically and ferociously against made it clear to me I had to write the book.
The Divestiture Campaign
Then two other things happened. One was the divestiture campaign. You'll remember that. Just about a year ago. An effort was made to get universities, like this one and like my own, to stop investing in companies that did business with Israel. It was such an irrational, immoral campaign, because what is Israel's major export today? It's not Jaffa oranges anymore. It's medical technology. Israeli medical technology saves more lives of people around the world per capita than any other country in the world. And yet Israel was being singled out for economic capital punishment, not other counties that were far worse. Not Libya. Not China, which was rewarded with the Olympics even though it has had an occupation of Tibet with more settlers that is much more brutal for a far longer period of time. And then it occurred to me that the campaign for divestiture wasn't intended to succeed. Nobody thought that UCLA would divest or that Harvard would divest. Obviously, that wasn't going to happen. All the major university presidents immediately indicated it was off the table. The goal was much more subtle. It was to miseducate a generation of American college students so that when they became the leaders ten, fifteen years down the line, they would have a kind of knee-jerk opposition to Israel of the kind that one sees in Europe. And I decided I had to respond to that.
[The second thing] was much more personal and I think some of you students may be able to identify with this. Just about a year ago a student came to me and he said, "I'm ashamed. I'm embarrassed. I understand a lot about Israel. I've been to Israel. I've been to the West Bank. I know that what I'm hearing in some of my classrooms, what I'm reading in the Harvard Crimson, what I'm hearing at the lunch table, what I'm hearing in my house at night is not true and I don't ever speak up." And I said, "Why not?" And he said, "I'm embarrassed to tell you." I said, "Don't be embarrassed. I will never quote you by name." He gave me permission to tell the story, though. He said, "I don't speak up because I'm afraid if I'm perceived as pro-Israel none of the young women will go out with me. It is not cool to be a Zionist. It is not cool to be pro-Israel. It is cool to be pro-Palestinian."
And I decided that I had to do whatever I could to help make it again be cool to support Israel. Not to support every one of Israel's policies. Now you know there is a simple solution. If you want to make it easier to support Israel, you know, date a Zionist tonight. But that's not the solution obviously. There's a more pervasive solution that one has to talk about. And that's why I wrote this book, which I really wish I didn't have to write, The Case for Israel. I believe that once the facts are known, the case for Israel makes itself. And I don't mean the case for Israel being the case for Sharon. I don't mean the case for the current Israeli government. I believe very strongly in criticizing Israel and criticizing any policy of any government of Israel as long as the criticism is comparative, contextual, constructive, and reasonable. That's not what we are hearing on campuses today. We're hearing criticism and condemnation designed to de-legitimate Israel, designed to demonize Israel, and designed eventually to create a generation of students who believe that Israel has no right to exist. So that's why I wrote the book.
Garrett: Thanks, Alan. Your comments about what you argued was a turn in the United States against Israel after the failure of the peace plan and the intifada obviously makes sense in the American context, but as a foreigner living in the United States and somebody who grew up in Australia in the 1970s I wanted to ask you a broader political question. First of all, there's another phenomenon in the U.S. at the moment that, I guess, you alluded to, but I wonder if you could talk about it directly, which is Jews against Israel and how that works. But I think the broader global question as a political matter is that in the U.S. at least, the mainstream left tends to be seen as being a steadfast supporter of Israel and the criticisms that you are talking about don't seem to make it into mainstream politics very much. There's wide consensus in the U.S., it seems, on the left and right that support for Israel should be the basic policy of the United States. As you know, if you go outside the U.S., that's just not true at all. And since the 1967 war, in fact, I think it has been a central tenant of the foreign policies of many countries, many stable democracies in the world, that the center left is basically pro-Palestinian and not pro-Israel. So I'm wondering what you think about these broader global political issues?
Dershowitz: Well it's an excellent question and whatever happens abroad is likely to come to the United States at some point in time. I agree completely with your description. I think it's very important to note that, because there's a lot of kind of liberal bashing that goes on among pro-Israel people. [They] say, "Oh, we've given up on the liberals. There's no hope for the liberals. The liberals are all against Israel." That just isn't true. In America today the liberal mainstream media is generally pro-Israel. The liberal political establishment is generally pro-Israel. Even the kind of liberal Hollywood is certainly not anti-Israel.
Hostility to Israel in the European and American Left
What is virulently anti-Israel is the hard left, the hard academic left, the Noam Chomsky left on the American college campus, which is totally unrepresentative of the left in America. In fact, Chomsky can't even get a hearing among the left. He can't get on mainstream television. He can't get called to testify in front of Congress. He is regarded as completely outside the mainstream. But on college campuses he is the most influential academic, perhaps, in the world today. I agree with you, too, that among many European — it's true in Australia; it's true in Canada — to an increasing degree the left center has been pro-Palestinian and anti-Israel. By the way, I mean to make a sharp distinction. I'm pro-Palestinian. I'm just not pro the current leadership of the Palestinians. I think, in fact, the Palestinians have been victimized more by their own leaders than by any external country
I knew that writing The Case for Israel would engender a tremendous amount of controversy. I actually predicted to my publisher that the most controversy would come from criticism from the Jewish left, which has turned out to be true, Tikun and people who associate with Tikun and from the Israeli left and from Israeli scholars, in general. The interesting thing that I didn't anticipate is how positive the reviews from Europe have been. The book got a rave review in the London Times and the London Examiner, and the Canadian Globe and Mail. But in the United States, the Los Angeles Times had a Jew who frequently bashes Israel making an interesting point. He called it "bombastic nationalistic defense" and made it seem as if I were an uncritical supporter of Israel. In fact, even this week's Los Angeles Jewish Journal describes my book as describing an impossibly virtuous country whose intentions are always pure, whose conduct is forever above reproach, etc. Of course, that's not my book.
In my book I'm very critical of Israel. I'm very critical of the Sharon government. I'm critical of Israel's occupation policies. I'm critical of the settlements. I'm critical of the way the refugee problem was handled. But I'm regarded by the Jewish left as an extremist. Now it's interesting to make a comparison between me and the late Edward Said. Edward Said is regarded as a moderate by most American academics. I know he spoke on this campus. And remember that Edward Said broke with Yasser Arafat when Yasser Arafat signed the Oslo Accords. Said refused to recognize Israel's right to exist, refused to recognize the two-state solution. On a scale of extremism if you judged Palestinians and Jews by the same scale, Edward Said would be at about the point of Meir Kahane, and I would be smack in the center. But because of the double standard that's applied not only to Israel but also to supporters of Israel, I'm perceived as being on the extreme right, although were I an Israeli I would vote the Labor Party. I'd vote for Ehud Barak. I'd vote for Shimon Peres. I would have voted for Yitzhak Rabin. And I would have voted against Likud. And I'd probably be a member, though a critic, of B'Tselem [the Israeli Information Center for Human Rights in the Occupied Territories] and other human rights organizations. I am a supporter of ACRI [Association for Civil Rights in Israel] and I criticize far more than almost any Palestinian would criticize the Palestinian regime. So I anticipated that criticism and I was ready for it.
"I just had to write The Case for Israel."
But you didn't write The Case for Israel.
Sidney O Smith III – you seem to be representing Dershowitz incorrectly in your argument. He is now who you say he is.
Sidney O Smith III – you seem to be representing Dershowitz incorrectly in your argument. He is not who you say he is.
As documented in Clayton Swisher's "The Truth About Camp David," the so-called "generous offer" was a myth. Due to its greed for Palestinian land, Israel has never wanted a fair and just peace, as shown by its rejection of the Arab League Peace Plan, still on the table, which was accepted by Arafat in 2002 (before he was most likely poisoned). America was attacked on 9/11 due to Israel's treatment (on our dime) of the Palestinians , as documented in Zertal and Eldar's "Lords of the Land." Pushed by the Israel Lobby, we unnecessarily invaded Iraq to benefit Israel, squandering our budget surplus, our noble volunteer army, and our good name. Now in debt to China and going bankrupt, the US would like Middle East peace, but as usual Israel is the foot-dragger, refusing to even discuss substantive issues, except to insist that not even one Palestinian refugee can return to Israel. The truth is that Israel can't be a Jewish state and a democracy without lots of ethnic cleansing.
To observer:
I am from “Jawja” and I am very confident that former President Carter — even if he is wrong — is not anti-Semitic.
All I can do is contrast “Dersh” to the work of Rabbi Teitelbaum and his dedicated followers. These people understand religious sacrifice and — while they disagree with former Pres. Carter — they did take a stand on his behalf.
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/news/newsletters/jaz022007.htm
Just to be provocative…as far as I am aware, the vitriol and invective directed towards former President Carter could only have been equaled by one other group — the KKK who greatly despised Pres. Carter’s opposition to segregation and showing the “black man” dignity. Does this suggest that the venom directed against Pres. Carter is rooted in an animus of militant ethnic nationalism? Is Alan D., in essence, a lawyer for a Bull Conner approach to the Middle East? Condi suggests such, as MondoMan suggests. It is something to ponder, although I don’t know the answer.
And I also greatly appreciate the stand that Satmar took for those in “Nawlins” after Katrina:
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/news/newsletters/jaz091205.htm
If only Dersh and Kristol had done the same. I do recall a review by Dr. Coles years ago where he wrote that maybe Kennedy at Harvard Law School should spend some time volunteering at an American soup line. Such an experience may help the “critical studies” department at Harvard Law. Perhaps Dersh should consider such on Auburn Ave. in hotlanta as well as the West Bank. That said, I admire his smarts.
Anon wrote:
"Gutbrand just gave you an example of how the Palestinians do the exact same thing when they are in power. The very same thing you hold the Israelis in contempt for. This is not a slight on the Palestinians. They are human and no better than the rest of us, depsite their being fetishized by so many."
The variety of things humnan beings are capable of has probably not changed very much in the history of homo sapiens. What has changed is human institutions. Such little progress as has been made has to be found there, not in 'human nature'.
So the critique of Israelis is basically criticism of the institutions (and the variety of social situations based on these) that allow them to be as objectionable as they are. To reason that all human beings would, broadly, act alike given the same circumstances does not make the critique of institutions that breed injustice and oppression any less viable.We should not allow circumstances to arise or to be continued that provide scope to the oppressor and violator in all of us.
Social institutions are carried and represented by human beings. Hence the critique of them targets these human beings, in this case the Israelis.
"And I decided that I had to do whatever I could to help make it again be cool to support Israel."
Dershowitz seems to have the most extraordinary illusions about himself. Doesn't he realize that a case becomes uncool just by the mere fact that he stands for it. He is fast becoming an asset to the anti-Zionist cause.
The Case Against Alan Dershowitz: The Public Committee Against Torture in Israel vs. Alan Dershowitz
Regan Boychuk
Alan Dershowitz is a well-known lawyer and professor at Harvard Law School, a prolific author, and makes regular appearances in the media. When it comes to Israel, he is particularly outspoken and taken quite seriously within certain segments of the North American mainstream.
Whether he deserves to be taken seriously is another issue altogether. In a recent talk at York University in Toronto, Canada, Professor Dershowitz repeated many of the controversial claims of his recent book, The Case for Israel[1] but one claim struck me as — even by his standards — exceptionally far-reaching.
In the course of arguing that Israeli authorities no longer torture Palestinians, Dershowitz claimed he had a long conversation with the Israeli human rights organization, Public Committee Against Torture in Israel (PCATI), in which PCATI not only conceded that there was no longer any torture for them to investigate, but that they had decided not to change their name because it 'helped them attract media attention'.[2]
Although organizers of his lecture wore shirts arrogantly proclaiming, "Dersh knows more than you", I decided to check his claim.
First, I visited PCATI's website (www.stoptorture.org.il) and immediately found its July 2003 report containing 48 affidavits testifying to the continued use of torture against Palestinians by Israeli authorities.
More than three years after Professor Dershowitz claims torture had stopped, PCATI reported:
"Each month, the ill-treatment reaching the level of torture as defined in international law is inflicted in dozens of cases, and possibly more. In other words – torture in Israel has once more become routine."[3]
And after Professor Dershowitz claims PCATI conceded torture had ended, PCATI was still reporting that
"Instances of torture, abuse, prisoners held incommunicado and excessive violence against [Palestinian] detainees continue to grow in both numbers and severity", while "interrogators and perpetrators of torture, their commanders and superiors enjoy impunity."[4]
These reports didn't exactly corroborate Professor Dershowitz's story so, next, I contacted PCATI to confirm his allegation.
Alan Dershowitz
"Dershowitz's claim that he had long conversations with PCATI and that we reported that there is no longer any torture in Israel," I was told by PCATI's Orah Maggen, "is totally false. We never met with him or spoke with him directly. I did meet him at the Knesset (Israel's parliament) when he spoke at the Law and Constitution Committee [but] I, and representatives of other human rights NGOs challenged most of what he said about torture, the role of human rights NGOs and other issues."
When I reported PCATI's denial to Professor Dershowitz, he replied: "During my conversation at the Knesset I asked the representative of the committee [Orah Maggen] why they kept their name, despite their acknowledgement that torture was no longer a significant issue? She responded – I remember clear as day – as follows: 'You have no idea how difficult it is to get attention to any human rights issues in this country. Maintaining our organizational name, with the word torture, is essential to getting needed attention.' I had an extensive argument with her about that tactic, focusing especially on the international implications and the misleading nature of the name outside of the country. I am certain she remembers the conversation because it was quite heated. It also took place in front of numerous witnesses."
When I emailed PCATI Dershowitz's "clear as day" recollection, Ms. Maggen replied that it is true that there was a heated exchange with others present, but "All other statements made by Professor Dershowitz are blatantly false and utterly preposterous. Neither I nor any other representative of PCATI acknowledged, claimed or in any way stated that torture is no longer a significant issue. On the contrary, it is our claim that the systematic and large-scale torture and ill treatment of Palestinian detainees and prisoners continues to this day."
She further stated that, "Neither I nor any other representative of PCATI ever stated that we kept our name to 'get attention' for any reason whatsoever. Considering the fact that torture is still widespread and that PCATI has its hands full struggling against the torture and ill treatment of Palestinian detainees (and others) by Israeli authorities, the claim regarding statements we supposedly made about our organization's name is totally absurd."
Finally, she concluded that Dershowitz's claim was "shocking in its audacity."
In fact, however, it is on par with Dershowitz's claim in The Case for Israel that the Israeli government has a "generally superb record on human rights," and that "Israel's record on human rights is among the best in the world".[5]
What's "clear as day" from this little episode is that Dershowitz's every word should be taken with a mountain of salt.
Regan Boychuk is a graduate student in political science at York University in Toronto, Canada and gets irritated when people get away with lies.
Footnotes
1. Alan Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, (Hoboken, NJ: John Wiley & Sons, 2003).
2. Alan Dershowitz, public lecture at Osgoode Hall Law School, York University, Toronto, Ontario, Canada, 14 March 2005.
3. Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, "Back to a routine of torture: Torture and ill-treatment of Palestinian detainees during arrest, detention, and interrogation", July 2003, p. 11, .
4. Public Committee Against Torture in Israel, "Preventing torture: Legal advocacy, legislative activism & public outreach: A narrative report", [Draft] 2004, p. 1.
5. Dershowitz, The Case for Israel, pp. 204, 199. Despite Dershowitz's fervent attempts to prevent its publication, readers can soon find what promises to be a thorough debunking of The Case for Israel in Norman G. Finkelstein, Beyond Chutzpah: On the misuse of anti-Semitism and the abuse of history (Berkeley, CA: University of California, June 2005).
"The war never proved remotely possible of achieving that end, what with the bombs and billions of dollars and weapons gone missing, almost instantaneously. Evidence it could not possibly achieve that aim was and is abundant and the oil futures market basically bears out the material failure of that,"
That is the truth, that the administration utterly failed at its mission.
You falsely presume that by my describing what I understood the administrations motives, that they are also mine.
Zionism is ultimately entirely a secular effort. There are occassional religious invocations, but they appeal only to a minority of Israelis. The appeal to expansion is widely contested in Israel, and is NOT regarded as necessary to be Zionist.
Zionism is the POLITICAL assertion that Jews are a people and as a people deserve to self-govern in a homeland.
Expansionist Zionism is merely a flavor of Zionism. Its good to confront and expose expansionistic zionism. But, Zionism itself is a good thing on the planet.
Sidney,
I've know a couple Satmar in my life. That is unusual for otherwise assimilated Jews, as they really do keep to themselves. They are both principled and often a pain in the ass. Their theology is beautiful and at the same time exclusive and seemingly arbitrary.
My father did business with a couple Satmar adherents, and we actually got invited to a Bar Mitzvah (unusual) and went. In college, he gave me a tape of his rabbi explaining a letter of the Ramban to his son, a very deeply spiritual (as distinct from religious) letter, urging humility in all behavior. (An irony of life as they are also often accused of being very stubborn and even dogmatic.)
"This idea was based on a prior work (04) by Martin Van Creveld who argued rather persuasively that the 67 borders ultimately would provide the best security for Israel."
This is absolutely correct, that the 67 borders would be far far easier to defend than the current maze of settlement blocks. Olmert and even labor are advocating for the settlement blocks to be included in negotiated Israel.
Its a silly suggestion. The reason that the 67 borders were considered difficult to defend is the "waist" southwest of Jerusalem in which the border of Israel was only about 12 miles wide.
The settlement block "finger" strategy was deliberately designed to annex, and along the strategy that has been slowly and officially pursued.
It really is a fence proposition. One is either on one side of the fence or the other.
Olmert and Labor even, have previously been on the gradual annexation side of the fence. The fingers thicken "naturally", until they control and the Palestinians are choked and leave "voluntarily".
If they now conclude (which I hope they do), that the gradual annexation strategy is impossible and undesirable, both, then they will have to make some significant compromises on the settlements.
There are really two options:
1. Remove the settlements entirely
Difficulties include that the settlements are now towns and cities, and second and third generation of owners (sales generations, not father-son generations). The individuals have made significant investments in their homes and land.
Politically, it is impossible to uproot 250,000 especially including the highly ideological that will fight.
2. Allow the settlers to remain in their residences, but if they are in green line Palestine, they must become Palestinian citizens, with no pretense of Israeli citizenship.
They would have to perfect the currently ambiguous title to their land, by compensation (who knows who would pay for it, the individuals or the state).
I personally regard that as the most just approach, and most politically feasible of the two. It is difficult certainly, as they could become the target of allowed, if not promoted, mass and political violence directed at minorities.
It would take real courage on the part of the PA to assert in law that it protects the rights of minorities within its sovereign land.
Why don't liberal Jews that oppose expansionistic flavor of Zionism join in public condemnation?
They do. But, they REFUSE to be associated with the fascist and dogmatic left approaches that solely demonize.
Alan Dershowitz is much more progressive, even about internal Israeli issues, than you are aware.
I share his sentiment at the reaction to the hatred often expressed towards Jews and Israel without knowledge or thought.
He however takes criticism of his own comments overly personally, and partially from a negligence in attempting to cover assertions that he's made without knowledge, the same as he rightly criticizes in others.
I am always amazed at people who defend Israel's actions and start with the comparing of Israel and the Palestines.
Those of you who do this are so far from the thinking of the average American who knows something about this conflict.
Bottom line Israel is and has been stealing land and resources and is and has been killing people for this land…aided by US money.
It's theft by war and occupation. If I were a Palestine I would be doing the same thing as Hamas because it is clear that Israel has no intention of changing their ways until they are hurt so bad they have no choice.
There is no doubt in my mind that if the Palestines wern't resisting with the same violence Israel uses they would have been totally run off their own land long ago.
I don't care if Israel is a Jewish state or secular or fricking Methodist.. they are wrong in what they are doing..and it's a moral blot on America to be supporting Israel's occupation. It makes me ashamed of my country and I am not giving Israel a pass because they happen to be jewish.
How would they respond to this?:
"How would you feel if I was a Christian missionary from Palestine (directly) spending billions of your tax dollars and thousands of your children's lives (indirectly) to strengthen the religious right to establish God's Kingdom in America and set-up religious rule that does to American non-Christians what Israel has done to Palestinian non-Jews: Ethnic cleansing of the majority with no right-to-return; second-class citizenship for some of the remaining non-Christians with a ban on purchasing land and restrictions on who you can marry; and illegal military occupation without citizenship for the rest, along with walls, Bantustans, segregated roads, a stifling siege that controls all your contacts with the outside world, and extrajudicial unaccountable murder…"
I've been following Alan Dershowitz's antics and outright lies for a long time. Oddly, since he and Phil appear to be at opposite
ends, I found this summary of AD, which made me think of Phil to the extent it conjured up soul-searching:
http://www.nytimes.com/books/97/03/30/reviews/970330.30rosent.html?_r=1&oref=slogin
Richard Witty:
Thank you for the info re: Satmar. At the (presumably) Satmar website, there is a fascinating list of recommended titles in English. These books are a far cry from Uris. But a couple of the authors are Zionists and certainly secular. I plan to read a bit more and then try to draw some conclusions.
http://www.jewsagainstzionism.com/bookstore/store.cfm?ShowAll=Yes&catCode=1
Another book that is rarely mentioned today but I found significant is Richard Ben Cramer’s How Israel Lost. He may have been a few years ahead of the curve in trying to foster debate re: Israel.
While I lead a secular life (understatement), I do try to read at the Satmar website “Parsha Pearls” from time to time and try to determine if the religious imagery that the rabbis employ act as metaphors that may portend an authentic message. Parsha Pearls certainly contains luminous symbols from the collective psyche.
Also at this website, there is a claim that the GOI has brutalized some followers of Satmar or the like. I don’t know the legitimacy of the allegation but such gov’t tactics, if true, seem particularly unwise.
Interesting how Dershowitz compares the mainstream liberals with those supposedly evil Chomskyite liberals. The mainstream liberals are the ones who've been whitewashing Israel's sins for decades–Chomsky and Finkelstein are the people who bring the human rights violations documented by HRW, Amnesty International, and B'Tselem to light. And you can read Israeli writers–Meron Benvenisti, Avi Shlaim, Tom Segev, Shlomo Ben-Ami, and even Benny Morris (when writing as an historian and not as a racist) and their description of Israel and its actions match the picture painted by Noam.
Sidney,
The orthodox Jewish sects bicker a lot. They can get very heated.
Among all of the sects are genuinely saintly in real substance, and flaky and trivial. They really don't mix with each other, and inter-marry between the sects only reluctantly if at all.
All of the conventional orthodox do NOT consider Israel to be the messianic action. They all acknowledge that a state is just a material form, an arrangement.
But, they have VERY different attitudes as to how they relate to Israel. Most orthodox greatly value the protection that Jews have there, moreso than even in the best of the relatively safe environs historically.
The Satmar and Neturai Karta and a couple other smaller sects regard the state of Israel as worse than a distraction even, actually to the level of regarding the state as idolatrous. But, that is really relative to hope that it is messianic.
Many of the settlers on the other hand, are neo-orthodox (not the "modern orthodox" like Joe Leiberman, who have very conventional jobs and dress conventionally, but rigorously practise shabbat and kosher laws). These zealous neo-orthodox speak as if the assertion, the expansion itself, is what constructs the messianic age.
In that way, they are similar to the neo-evangelicals, that they believe that by their assertive actions, they can either create the conditions for the messianic time, or even compel it by their actions.
Many are that fanatic.
It differs from the genuine orthodox whom must run behavior and decisions past all of the Torah, all of the commandments, and not just an opportunistic selection.
So, a true orthodox, MUST reconcile the commandment "Thou shalt not desire thy neighbor's wife … or any of their possessions", with rationalization/instructions to inhabit the land.
Dershowitz said:
"The interesting thing that I didn't anticipate is how positive the reviews from Europe have been. The book got a rave review in the London Times and the London Examiner, and the Canadian Globe and Mail."
It comes as no surprise to those who know about the shameless way in which D. puffs himself in Wikipedia that here he transforms the review in a Murdoch-paper as The Times and that in an obscure rag as The Examiner into "the reviews from Europe".
I have translated for D's benefit some passages from a review in the Sueddeutsche Zeitung of 6th June 2006. Quotes from him have been translated back into English:
In the gun smoke of an ongoing battle
"This …book already betrays in its title that no attempt is made here at all to analyze the emotion-charged conflict in the Middle East. .. Alan M.Dershowitz tries to prove over 320 pages, under the title “The Case for Israel”, that the charges against Israel consist of prejudices.
He answers 32 polemically formulated questions (Is Israel an imperialistic colonial state? Have the Jews exploited the holocaust for themselves? Is Israel a racist state?) with the same kind of polemic. Instead of taking the trouble to look at both realities Dershowitz looks only at the Israeli side and comes up with the (tasteless) metaphor: “Israel is the Jew among the nations”. One wonders for whom he has written the book.
Dershowitz suppresses facts to support his argumentation (“the Oslo peace process led finally to an end of the Israeli occupation of Palestinian cities and villages”) and often he becomes really furious, and therefore no longer factual, when he talks of the “pro-Palestinian pseudo historiography”. He attempts, with breathtaking naivety, to put a good face on the Israeli occupation: “Other occupations, such as that of Tibet by the Chinese, have lasted much longer and are far less justified.”
The fact that Israeli soldiers also kill Palestinian civilians is explained by Dershowitz in this way: “In the gun smoke of ongoing battle errors cannot be avoided”.
Henryk M.Broder says in the Preface that it is “a scandal that this book had to be written by a Jew and an American.” It should have been produced by a Christian theologian. If, however, the background of the author is the only criterion for a book one might as well leave it aside.
Dershowitz’s book does not aim to enlighten but is for those who want to see their prejudices confirmed."
And, still there is much truth in Dershowitz assertions, particularly regarding the prejudicial willingness to demonize, rather than criticize.
Lots of wrong messengers abound.
Dersh,
You've been discredited more times than a junkie ho on the stand.
http://www.normanfinkelstein.com/article.php?pg=11&ar=1287
To Arie on Henryk M. Broder
Henryk Broder is an asshole. In his case, being an asshole stems from being Jewish.
When Michel Friedman's prospectve wife Bärbel Schäfer was about to convert to Judaism to marry Friedman about two years ago, Broder declared that he will quit being a Jew: "Ich trete aus" (aus dem Judentum). Why? Because Ms Schäfer did a "trash TV show" – and becoming a Jew "wasn't something you can get like an American Express Gold Card", said Broder.
I wrote to Broder some time ago asking him whether he had in fact quit being a Jew – i.e. revoked his contract with Yahwe and had his foreskin sewed back on again.
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