Ralph Benmergui, a Canadian Jew of Arab ancestry, has a fabulous piece in the Globe and Mail rejecting the summons of the Israel lobby and addressing a spirit of universalism in Jewish life. He hits my central issue with Zionism, that it has blinded Jews to the humanity of Arabs, rationalizing indifference to the piles of bodies in Lebanon and Iraq:
As a Moroccan Jew (most of us in North America are descendants of
Eastern Europe), I have always seen more of what we have in common with
Arab Canadians than what drives us apart. We are Semites from the same
cradle. Sons and daughters, if Isaac and Ishmael. My family shares
food, song and culture with the Muslim Arab world.
I have heard many of my co-religionists justify the death of
innocent Palestinian bystanders as an unfortunate by-product of a just
cause. "What do you expect?" they say. "The terrorists hide among them."
Here is where I must speak up, only for myself. I believe that we
have lost our way when we can look at the bodies of dead children and
feel so little….
The Torah commands us to "Love the Stranger." Our New Year compels
us to make amends and ask those we hurt for forgiveness without
equivocation or regard for the quality of their response. We can only
be responsible for how we act.
We can only be responsible for how we act. I.e., a lot of this talk of Islamofascism is an effort to rationalize Jewish militarism. Two wrongs… Pieces like this don't run in the U.S. press, because they are felt to be softhearted. We have lost our way…
I agree, and I am heartened that he wrote it and it was published.
It is this blind indifference to feelings of Arabs that is so utterly bewildering to those of us who were affected by Jewish suffering during the second world war.
I posted an article that deals with a related topic at Non-Ashkenazi Jewish Scholar on Morris.
Ooh, whoop-de-do! The Israeli's vote! So sorry we blew you to bits, but we took a vote first so it's Ok.