‘We Were 18 Million in ’39. Now We’re a Mere 15 Million’
Here’s Ralph Seliger back at me. I have some responses, but they’ll wait till tomorrow. My parents are here. Also I’m going to be posting in a separate blogpost below Jack Ross’s response to Ralph’s earlier comments. Got all that straight? Here’s Seliger:
I didn’t use the term, “short-term” to minimize what the
Palestinians have experienced as a people since 1948. Instead, I was
thinking back to what Neve Gordon,
the leftist (and non-Zionist) Israeli political scientist told a
visiting Meretz USA group a few years ago, when asked about the
one-state solution: “We’re living in the one-state solution.” By this
he meant that because Israel and Palestine have not been properly formed as separate sovereign entities, one people will inevitably dominate the other.
Right now (in the “short term,” as I put it), Israeli Jews dominate Palestinian Arabs.
In the “long term,” if Arabs come to outnumber the Jews in
Israel/Palestine, it will eventually be the Jews who suffer as a hated
minority.
As you graciously acknowledge, we progressive Zionists advocate
for Palestinian Arab rights. Yet you dismiss this by observing (with a
mixture of truth and exaggeration) that we “get rolled by the
big orgaizations.” This is a curious form of attack: the fact that your
left-wing views are constantly “rolled” by the vast majority of ”big
organizations” doesn’t make you quit your convictions, does it? Does
the fact that we all fight uphill denigrate our struggles?
Everybody knows that J Street was founded as a counterbalance to AIPAC.
I don’t know in what sense J Street “won’t oppose AIPAC,” except that
it must feel that it’s better strategically if AIPAC is not explicitly
attacked. This is J Street’s self-description of its purpose:
“J Street
was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the
Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and
diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region.” This sounds bad or AIPAC-ish to you?
Phil, you exaggerate and distort (unintentionally, I hope) in
characterizing my views. When I described the experience of Jews with
American antisemitism, I wasn’t seeing ”Jewish persecution as
eternal”; I was saying that we are a small and vulnerable minority
group everywhere, except in Israel. To our sorrow, even where we are a
majority (especially where we are a majority, you’d say), we are still
a target. I have no idea if antisemitism is eternal, and I certainly
don’t believe in arguing that it is. But we remain vulnerable as Jews.
I actually thought– for two very different reasons– that the
year 2000 would mark a kind of official end to antisemitism as a
meaningful influence in the world. First, I thought that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict would be peacefully resolved with a final implementation of the two-state solution.
Sadly, and for a variety of reasons having to do with the
moral limitations, errors of judgment and practical mistakes of
Israeli, Palestinian and American negotiators and their political
leaderships, peace did not happen. And the televised images of Israel’s
harsh reaction to Palestinian violence unleashed a new round of
antisemitism, which have impacted the lives of Jews in France and other
parts of Europe.
The second failed opportunity to mark an end to antisemitism was
the bizarre and court-ordered electoral defeat of the Gore-Lieberman
ticket. It’s not that Joe Lieberman is my ideal Democrat or VP (au contraire!),
but the election of a (mostly) liberal-minded and religiously-oriented
Jew as VP would have been almost as monumental for its
significance symbolically as the election of Obama would be or Hillary
would have been.
Instead, for a variety of reasons, we live in an era where almost
a billion Muslims reflexively dislike Jews, many of them hate
Jews, some of them wish to harm Jews, and a few actually go on Jihad
to do so. And I don’t state this out of malice or out of a conviction
that “Jewish blood” is worth more than that of others. But Jews are
permitted to care about their fellow Jews.
We still are within living memory of the Holocaust, when one third of the world’s Jews were annihilated, including over 60% of the entire Jewish population of Europe.
We have not yet recovered from this trauma either in numbers or
psychologically: there were 18 million Jews in the world in 1939; there
are a mere 15 million alive today.
The exaggerated concerns, the paranoia and the aggressive politics of AIPAC and the so-called Israel Lobby
have everything to do with this fact. And US Jews became particularly
energetic in building a powerful body of communal defense organizations
(the “Lobby”) as a reaction to the fact that they were mostly cowed and
quiet in the face of an antisemitic political climate, before and
during the Holocaust, and thereby failed utterly to save people who
might have been saved by more aggressive action.
I suggest that Phil stop his petty sniping at the likes of Daniel Levy, Eric Alterman
and myself. If he truly believes in working for Palestinian rights and
a two-state solution, he doesn’t have to call himself a Zionist or even
suggest that he likes Israel, but he should realize that we are natural
allies in this struggle.
Once again, Ralph seems unable or unwilling to come to terms with his own privilege. He continues to see himself as part of a persecuted, oppressed minority, and to any objective observer from the outside, it is simply at odds with reality.
It is sad to see someone from Meretz, which is billed as pro-justice/ pro-peace, championing a perspective on the world that seems to have so much in common with the Douglass Feith's of the world. Feith, if you remember, is also not part of the reality-based community.
>> But we remain vulnerable as Jews.
Where? The guy wheezes on and on and on yet the only defence he can muster for the primitive and retrograde tribal state that is Israel is that "we remain vulnerable as Jews." Where are they so vulnerable?
–Slim.
"But we remain vulnerable as Jews."
In the Zionist State they are certainly vulnerable. In the US we might become vulnerable when people catch on how they have been hoodwinked by the Zionism of Jewish institutions. Throughont the world Jews are somewhat vulnerable to Islamic fanatics. But all these problems would disappear if the Zionist State would only go away.
Zionism was formulated as a response to 19th century racial antisemitic ideology, and is absolutely dependent upon it.
Zionism requires antisemitism. If it doesn't really exist, then it has to be fabricated somehow. A whole slew of Jewish organizations spend a lot of time and money trying to find new targets for this now virtually meaningless epithet.
The retooling of "antisemitism" to include opposition to Zionism is a hilarious example of recursive propaganda.
(i.e. If one opposes an ideology founded on 19th century racial nationalism, one is antisemitic.)
1. There's no such thing as "Palestine".
2. There never will be such a thing as "Palestine".
3. The Arabs won't have a piece of Israel either. They have chosen war INSTEAD OF a state, and will pay the consequences.
4. Good news: You can all relax now:
ARAB BIRTHS DOWN – JEWISH BIRTHS UP: NO DEMOGRAPHIC THREAT
Who is this Ralph person and why is he given space when he appears so ignorant? Has he ever travelled across the middle east?
Because if he did he would know that the statement "a billion Muslims reflexively dislike Jews" is complete and utter nonsense.
What is hated is the immoral and illegal occupation of Palestine and oppression of the Palestinians by Israel. There is widespread understanding that Jews in general are not to blame.
This whole "they hate us because we are Jews" thing is just a cover for moving the blame away from the real problem – Israel's actions.
Go to the Gulf states, go to Pakistan and ask – I did.
There's no "occupation" of "Palestine".
There's no such thing as "Palestine".
There would have been, but they chose war instead.
Oh well. That was their choice.
'Sadly, and for a variety of reasons having to do with the moral limitations, errors of judgment and practical mistakes of Israeli, Palestinian and American negotiators and their political leaderships, peace did not happen.'
Sadly. It's always (with a shrug of the shoulders and the hands turned out) 'sadly'. As if to say 'we did our best, but…'
which is evasive, self-serving bullshit. If Israel wanted peace tomorrow, it would have happened yesterday. It is in the dominant position, foot on the Palestinian throat, building facts on the ground even as we speak Ralph. Take that foot off their throat and watch their pissy, ineffective little bombs dry up. Easy peasy, but obviously all too hard.
'And the televised images of Israel's harsh reaction to Palestinian violence unleashed a new round of antisemitism, which have impacted the lives of Jews in France and other parts of Europe.'
Oh the poor things. My heart bleeds. It really does, but you see mine bleeds also for the far greater number of Muslims in France whose lives are 'impacted' by prejudice.
It's maddening, this autopilot Zionist bias. You at first appear to be critical of Israel, with it's 'harsh' reaction, but happily in the next clause you absolve that much put upon little democracy with a qualifier which attributes this reaction to 'Palestinian violence' ! Well, there you go! Whaddaya expect?! Those Palestinians!
'But we remain vulnerable as Jews.'
Why do you think that is Ralph? Because you are Jews? Or because you and people like you all over the West put Israel's (or perhaps just 'Jewish') interests above those of the country you live in? Thereby putting the rest of us in mortal danger from our craven govt's standing foursquare behind everything that foolish nation does? Because whole cadres of you in key positions in each of the country's estates and institutions work relentlessly at securing that unquestioned support, even at the expense of domestic national interest?
'Instead, for a variety of reasons, we live in an era where almost a billion Muslims reflexively dislike Jews,'
And where loads of Jews safely ensconced in countries like the US reflexively opine that 'almost a billion Muslims reflexively dislike Jews' while ignoring the fact that many of their own equally safely ensconced fellows are just as ignorant and racist, with far less in the way of mitigating circumstances (unless you count the Holocaust, which some of you are always doing, desptite the fact that not one of that billion had anything to do with it)
I don't think there's a great deal we here can do about Arab antisemitism over there, except deplore it. But I think we can attack the prejudice we see around us here, emanating from our own side, provoking that dangerous 'Other'. Obvious, school bully stuff like Madfish and SOG, but also bias wrapped in gibberish a la Witty or more subtly crafted examples like yours Ralph.
It's a free country, and if you're free to make biased assertions, we are free to call them what they are.
I liked his comments.
They are progressive, considerate, practical.
I don't care if Jews disappear any more than the average Jew seems to care if my racial, ethnic, religious or national group disappears or continues as it traditionally has.
I long for the day when Israeli, Zionist or Jewish interests are not a stated or unstated issue in American life or poltics. I don't even consider people like Ralph to be Americans.
Todd,
When you state "I don't consider people like Ralph to be Americans", you make yourself not an American.
Richard, that's nonsense. What you consider to be bad for Jews, you call anti-Semitism and shun. What I consider to be bad for America, I consider anti-American and reject.
Of course its not nonsense.
You state that Ralph is not an American. How dare you?
I dare, easily. Unless I read him wrong, his primary allegiance is to a small minority group that is largely insular, and mostly concerned with its brethren no matter what their nationality. No other generation of Americans would welcome such a group in their midst.
You read him wrong.
How surprising?
And you defend him. How surprising?