My parents were very sympathetic with Zionism. My mother's father was a New England fundraiser for I don't know what organization from the early 30's on, before naziism. He had pictures and letters from Chaim Weizman. He died when I was six, and my mother adopted his sentiment. Her brother, my uncle, served in an intelligence translation unit in North Africa in WW2, and only speaks hatefully (I mean hatefully) of Arabs. I don't know to what extent he had personal experience, but I do know his intensity about it.

My father you know. He was very similar ideologically to my aunt, whom you knew very well. Liberal, but quiet about it. My aunt was more open about it and had a publicly prominent job so even as she necessarily kept her politics subdued, her sentiments and skills to apply them were obvious.

Both surprised me in their defenses of Israel, and unquestioningly, independant of Israel's policies, behavior. (Neither sought to harm, and my aunt seemed more aware even of Palestinians' existence, but they never expressed to me anything other than support for Israel.)

I did have a spiritual experience in my Bar Mitzvah preparation. Most important to me was the v'ahavta prayer.

"You shall love Yah with all your heart, with all your soul, and with all your might (body). And these words which I command you today shall be upon your heart. You shall teach them diligently to your children, and you shall discuss them when you sit at home, and when you travel on the road and when you lie down and when you rise."

I value the continuity of Jewish values. The deep commitment in that prayer. Its unequivocal. Its not "keep a little love going". Its definitely not "make sure that you are politically correct." Its "you shall love with ALL of your being."

And, as many inspiring Jews have expressed and modeled, including putting that love into practise in all one's relations, including political, but not from ideas or math, but from love, amplified idea.

I find that the generalization prohibits me from the intimacy, the customization necessary to love in reality (even if I don't live up to that bar most of the time). And, in my politics.

Too much baby out with the bathwater for my tastes.

I don't understand how in one breath you can say that you respect Dan Fleshler for example, then in the next describe him in some respect as complicit with the worst of expansionistic Zionism.

I had some correspondence with Michael Lerner in which he said the same thing as you imply, that Israel needed tough love, reality checks, as much or moreso than they needed the appeasement of unquestioning identification.

Maybe the need for action is obvious, and that supercedes thinking about how to choose and clarify what exactly is the goal, and what is the kindest means to accomplish the goal.

Politically, most importantly, I find that the generalization HINDERS the political effort to change things. It alienates those that hold the same sentiments of caring for the other.

It sounds more self-satisfying than accomplishing anything of merit.

I've described how I believe that the Israel/Palestine conflict is NOT parallel to apartheid, because of the equal demographics in Israel/Palestine, oil and water communities currently.

The work that I could see as valid and progressive, would include assistance to Palestinian or joint Israeli/Palestinian projects based on universalistic commitments. Things like universities, hospitals (Hippocratic ethic). Also things like ecological innovations like greywater management, water conservative agriculture, photovoltaics.

Also, non-polemic description of each others' experience. A traveling holocaust/zionist/nakba museum, as hard as that is to get one's head around.

Yah/Allah does.

My understanding of the Walt/Mearsheimer thesis is that it was an attempt to deconstruct the means by which the likud approach got adopted unquestioningly by the Bush administration, and not confronted by those with more dually loyal views. (Israel, America, AND the world as a whole, rather than just the good guys and the bad guys).

That seems to be of only temporary relevance, if that.

(Except in the mouths and pens of those that bear permanent animosity towards Israel and Jews.)

How do you distinguish Phil? How is a generalization careful enough? How does it turn on a dime, when the conditions change?

That isn't what I remember of you. I remember fundamental dissent from what is American.

In my own experience, what is close to me is my community. America is too big.

My family (nuclear, and extended less so. I see you as often as I see my cousins), my friendships, my home town (small, not anonymous at all), my workplace.

Jewish community is an element, but more in thankfulness to my parents for the transmission of what taught and modeled and interacted, that I feel as a continuing river in my relationships to my sons.

I have a few old friends that I've recently reconnected with that never had children (they were teenage lovers in my home town, now 40 years. I love their friendship. I don't really know why they didn't have children.

We haven't talked about any different attitudes. I'm still in the midst of responsibility for mine. I expect that later, I will be more freely my own person, and revise some of my current views.

It has been important to me, an introduction to the real.

A closeup.

Not particularly political.

The areas that I know about are energy and taxation, and I do feel confident to state what others should do, what policy should be.

Israel/Palestine is too confusing for me to say confidently. I'm too aware of the pains of each. I know that even in events that many condemn, I don't know enough to, and won't compromise myself by speculating pretending to be certainty (with potentially harmful consequences).

I also wanted to ask a question, and explain why I ask it. I am not Jewish, as will be evident by the question.

The right wing, or conservative (or whatever the correct word would be) part of the Jewish community (in Israel and the US), has embraced, so to speak, the right wing Evangelical Protestant community, because of the Evangelicals hard core political support for Israel. I think this is a fairly accurate description, and is well known.

So where does that leave those of us Christians (I am Catholic) who happen to be liberal, and are concerned about both Israelis and Palestinians?

More precisely, what would either of you see as an appropriate response on the part of Christians to this issue? Or if appropriate is the wrong word…what would you Like to see Christians doing, that might in some way alleviate Jewish fears, and/or support the Jewish community as it struggles with this genuinely awful conflict?

Seems to me that you're a big part of the problem. We're looking for a solution for the problem of Israel/Palestine. "Alleviating Jewish fears and/or supporting the Jewish community as it struggles with this genuinely awful conflict" is NOT going to solve the problem. Phil is trying to solve the problem, by addressing America's BLIND adherence to a right-wing, Likudite policy of supporting ANYTHING that Israel does.

If you're concerned about both the Palestinians and the Israelis, as you say, I'd suggest your supporting a more evenhanded approach to peace in the Middle East. That entails dealing with the elected government of Palestine, promoting a unity government, DEMANDING the cessation of settlement expansion in the Occupied Territories, and perhaps getting back to the Clinton parameters.

Damn it man, just looking at your post raises my gall. I'm a liberal lapsed Catholic myself, and asking Richard Witty about what the Americans should do to alleviate the fears of the Jewish community is NOT PART OF THE SOLUTION.

PM

Other things that you can do is from a place of respecting both/all communities, continue to witness, and speak of what you witness, moreso than the politics that you see. (The failing of the promotion of young idealistic Rachel Corrie. I don't know the person herself.)

There is something very inspiring about committing to never hate, while witnessing unnecessary pain.

We tend to get impatient, and want it to be solved already.

Why is this still happening? Why is another generation still in camps rather than viable homes/communities? Why is another generation still shelled, even by just "firecrackers"?

Witness is very painful. If you've ever counseled a troubled marriage, there are always valid experiences and concerns, and also idiotically constructed and coercively expressed dysfunctions.

If you are engaged and active, I would recommend starting or assisting in some of the joint projects that humanize the other, that are based on the firmly held a-nationalist values like medical services (guided by the hippocratic oath, heal who is there, not heal only Jews or Arabs), and the ecological (for which boundaries are itself an absurdity).

(An aside. When doctors participate in terror as in England last year, or when terrorists use ambulances as their delivery vehicles, it shifts everything to "which side are you on?, the distrust is so wrenching")

Next up in a-national development is to facilitate trade between the peoples. "Its not personal, its business." That is later in some ways because to conduct trade confidently requires physical security as a prerequisite. But, it makes a big difference.

Ironically, that is the stated goal of much of the neo-conservative goals for the region that I've read, to create a Middle East free trade zone, of course with American advantage. (While Phil and Walt/Mearsheimer look for inferences of Israeli advantage, the material that I've read has emphasized American opportunism much much moreso, which I don't regard as so great ethically either.)

None of this is possible though with American enabling even the relatively incidental incremental pace of settlement expansion that is happening now.

The pace and structure of settlement expansion is likely to INCREASE dramatically if likud wins the next elections, if Netanyahu is elected prime minister and in a xenophobic coalition.

To Islamic Jihad, Hamas, PFLP, Hezbollah "Don't you see that if Netanyahu is elected prime minister, that the conditions will be worse for Palestine. Don't you want to do what you can to influence who is in the Israeli government?"

"We don't care. Our resistance is what is important."

Could you please refrain from the disgusting comments on threads that I post on?

My first response is…how on earth would you know that I am not as concerned about Palestinians as I am about Israelis? That I do not already support an even-handed approach, as you describe it?

As for your complete disregard for Jewish fears..did it ever occur to you to ask…what is it, exactly, that Jews are afraid of? That you don't seem to have ANY clue about the importance of this issue is NOT impressive, at least to me.

For Jews, it seems to me, there is more than politics involved in this issue. Do you actually read, and think about, some of the things Phillip and Richard are saying?

Your self righteousness is awesome to behold. When was the last time you lost any sleep, Paul, over the stolen land YOU live on? What have YOU done to alleviate the wretched conditions of native Americans? Have you ever even heard of Pine Ridge?
And tell me, please, how this is any different, from a moral standpoint?

Are YOU supporting any efforts to rectify the extraordinary injustice inflicted on these (native American) people? (and which CONTINUES to be inflicted on them.)

The easiest thing in the world is to pass judgement on others.

You are a lapsed Catholic? So what? Why don't you study a little Catholic history, vis a vis the Jews, and then tell me you feel qualified to be so damn self righteous.

I would conclude by saying it is attitudes like YOURS, Paul, that FUEL Jewish fears. And justifiably so. It is precisely because I AM balanced in my feelings and views about this conflict that I think Jewish concerns are as important as those of Palestinians.

Yawn, come back in ten year and let us know if you still believe such fantasies. Probably most people here, including me, were like you at some point of their lives. Now we know we were indeed part of the problem. One day that will dawn on you too.