Ralph Seliger of Meretz USA sent me some "serious questions." Here are two:
1. As I said, it's fine if you personally believe in assimilation. Is
it not intolerant of you to insist that we who believe in the value of
Jewish peoplehood, culture and/or religion are somehow unenlightened or
not politically progressive?
2. We (although not you, I guess) agonize over Israel's future.
1. I call myself an assimilationist because it honestly describes my personal progress. No sense in lying to anyone. I wish Zionists would identify themselves openly too. I completely respect people who don't make my choices. I have only always asked other Jews to stop shaming Jews who make my choice. I think I obviously believe in the value of Jewish culture; I'm an embodiment in my view of a certain intellectual tradition, text-oriented. It may be that my choices are affecting the future of "peoplehood." And there are also hundreds of languages dying in the world. I don't know what I can do about this, and also whether the effort to preserve peoplehood is worth the costs. I will not reverse my personal choices on that basis. I think it is possible to reconcile ethnocentrism and love of Jewish life and anti-assimilation with progressive politics. It's harder to reconcile Zionism with progressivism. Though I think some manage to do it… 2. I agonize over America's future, Palestinians' future, and Israelis' future too. Your statements are highly problematic. You say the short term deprives Palestinians of their rights. They have been deprived of self-determination (yes partly by Jordan and Egypt) for 60 years even after India, Pakistan and Israel were given theirs by the U.N. IT IS SIMPLY ABSURD TO SPEAK OF THE SHORT TERM. The short term of occupation is over 40 years old. Expulsion was more than 60 years ago. Generations are deprived of any hope. And you worry about a one-state solution killing people. I'm for a 2-state solution, I remind you Ralph, but the problem is that the status quo is killing lots of people, and enmeshing my country–the US–in the cycle of violence with "radical Islam" in the Middle East. Zionism has played a large part in the radicalization of Islam. I want to turn down the temperature, and try to preserve lives, whatever it takes. Even if that means ending "national self-determination" for the Jews, most of whom don't want to live in Israel anyway.
from the fact that a one-state solution won't work as a practical
matter (except to kill or oppress many more people), it will inevitably
deprive one people or the other of their right to national
self-determination. In the short run, it's the Palestinian Arabs who are denied this right; in the long run, it will be the Jews.
My answers:
I'm going to post this and then you can respond and I'll post that…
"Is it not intolerant of you to insist that we who believe in the value of Jewish peoplehood, culture and/or religion are somehow unenlightened or not politically progressive?"
Let's try transferring this to a different ethnic group and see if it still seems so innocuous:
"Is it not intolerant of you to insist that we who believe in the value of Aryan peoplehood, culture and/or religion are somehow unenlightened or not politically progressive?"
Doesn't quite seem so innocent, does it? And yet it's basically the same sentiment. If we don't approve of Aryanism and "White Nationalism", why do the Jews get a free pass for the same sort of ethnocentrism and the disregard for the rights of others that always seems to go with it?
"If we don't approve of Aryanism and "White Nationalism", why do the Jews get a free pass for the same sort of ethnocentrism"
Because according to their "peoplehood, culture and/or religion" they are "the chosen," and this belief is affirmed, endorsed and sanctified by billions in annual aid sent to Israel by the US government and US politicians, and by wars fought on Israel’s behalf by the US military. Also, because this hypocritical state of affairs is relentlessly lobbied for by US organized Judaism, most of whose members profess to be progressive.
And because, notwithstanding Phil Weiss, only a handful of Jews have the courage to call them on it.
so president Kennedy dared to tackle the project in the middle east and its tentacles within the united states.
he was either a very brave man or didnt know the beast.
Phil, i know i have said this a few times before but i will repeat it again…youre a breath of fresh american air in the stale room of dual allegience jewish american zionism.
mazel tov.
yours is the voice of one crying in the wilderness..the best to you in your endeavor as you enlighten those who cannot and will not leave dual allegience behind.
"With Malice toward none, with charity for all, with firmness in the right, as God gives us to see the right, let us strive on to finish the work we are in, to bind up the nation's wounds."
a.lincoln
our nation….and mankind.
'Is it not intolerant of you to insist that we who believe in the value of Jewish peoplehood, culture and/or religion are somehow unenlightened or not politically progressive? '
This belief 'in the value of Jewish peoplehood, culture and/or religion' sounds harmlessly anodyne, even vaguely commendable. But there is a vital clause missing, isn't there, the one relating to the 'value' of, or more accurately, the need for the appropriation of other people's land in order to realise these dreams of 'peoplehood' and so on.
If Zionism entails support, or tolerance, of this theft, if it means endlessly coming up with novel ways to defend what's indefensible, then Zionism is itself intolerant. Palestinian rights, if they exist, take a back seat to Jewish rights. That's intolerance.
Phil, and most of the rest of us, are indeed intolerant toward this intolerance, which is morally the only thing a decent person can be intolerant about. Similarly, if you are tolerant of intolerance, you are abetting it. Which are you, Ralph?
To call Phil 'intolerant' is pot/kettle territory, and yet another example of how easily Zionists project their own shortcomings upon those who disagree with them.
Also, you cannot be truly 'progressive' if your otherwise global egalitarian concern stops at the checkpoints of the West Bank. There is no equivalence between those illegally evicted from their homes and the immigrants sent out (and protected) by Israel to occupy them. One side is the perpetrator, the other is the victim. Sympathy with and action on behalf of the victim is not intolerance. Sympathy with and action on behalf of the perpetrator is. The former can be regarded as progressive, the latter surely not.
And I echo Phil's outrage at the term 'short term'. You live in a bubble Ralph, one that allows, even encourages an attitude that clinically airbrushes Palestinians and their rights out of mind, before their irritating presence can contaminate the beautiful idea of 'peoplehood' and all that other Jewish stuff that lies at the centre of your universe.
Hey, you're not the Lone Ranger, whole classes of you over there, elites in particular, fall prey to this sort of magical thinking. ('We're the light on the hill/they hate our freedoms/Saddam's got nukes/whatever) You can afford to in a hyperpower like the US; indeed, the insulated warmth of a (still) prosperous and blissfully ignorant military giant is the only place that fantasies which fly so comprehensively in the face of reality can take root and thrive.
Your community in the US, as Phil keeps pointing out, is an especially priviliged and insulated community within that privileged and insulated nation, which makes the embrace of an essentially anti-progressive position vis-a-vis the Palestinians by erstwhile progressives more understandable, if no less repugnant.
Ihe 'Jews' of today, corrupted by Zionism, are antithetical to the Prophetic Line which they originated, which informs the basis of the morality of the Western World. The great tradition of the ancient Jews would be best served if the groundless idea of 'Jewish Peoplehood' would disappear.
And, on the other hand, the Jewish people are a people, self-define and are defined by others as a people, and live proudly as a people.
In the American "peoplehood", we start BIG and little wars for our interests.
The reality of the world is not homogenious assimilation, as that is what really describes modern commercialism, but multiple associations at multiple scales.
It is rational to be sympathetic with the concerns of other populations of one's own people, as Jews are largely concerned with the experience of Israelis (even as we very often differ as to life conditions and choices). Palestinians and Lebanese diaspora are similarly concerned with the experience of their peoples. Consider the comments of Saif, or Leila.
Are they tribalist, and then their comments are dismissable?
Phil chose to adopt an assimilationist approach in personal life, intermarriage, no children (so no question of how to bring them up). From my perspective, I consider that a LESS universalistic approach than to be affirmatively Jewish AND universalistic.
Universalistic in a real continuing social life, rather than just politically.
You've gotta speak your truth, but to say "I will never change my mind" is something that I would expect of John McCain.
Both Jewish and American 'Peoplehoods' are cultural artifacts deliberately created and supported by the ruling class. Marx called it 'false conciousness' I think.
Its true the Jews have a shared experience of irrational antisemitism, but its kind of vacuous to define yourself by your enemies. The Zionists keep clinging to the fear of antisemitism because its the only thing todays 'Jews' have got in common.
"Is it not intolerant of you to insist that we who believe in the value of Jewish peoplehood, culture and/or religion are somehow unenlightened or not politically progressive?"
I should have noted in the first place that the Zionists 'peoplehood' has nullified the practice of the Jewish religion.
I have to admit that along with the universalistic elements, the Jewish scriptures include a strong paticularistic strain that stems from its one time status as a State religion. Its tragic that the Zionists have appropriated the regressive part and thrown away everything that is authentic, beginning with God.
“When And How the Jewish People Was Invented” is a very serious study written by Professor Shlomo Sand, an Israeli historian. It is the most serious study of Jewish nationalism and by far, the most courageous elaboration on the Jewish historical narrative.
In his book, Sand manages to prove beyond any reasonable doubt that the Jewish people never existed as a ‘nation-race’, they never shared a common origin. Instead they are a colourful mix of groups that at various stages in history adopted the Jewish religion.
In case you follow Sand’s line of thinking and happen to ask yourself, “when was the Jewish People invented?” Sand’s answer is rather simple. “At a certain stage in the 19th century, intellectuals of Jewish origin in Germany, influenced by the folk character of German nationalism, took upon themselves the task of inventing a people ‘retrospectively,’ out of a thirst to create a modern Jewish people.” [2]
Accordingly, the ‘Jewish people’ is a ‘made up’ notion consisting of a fictional and imaginary past with very little to back it up forensically, historically or textually. Furthermore, Sand – who elaborated on early sources of antiquity – comes to the conclusion that Jewish exile is also a myth, and that the present-day Palestinians are far more likely to be the descendants of the ancient Semitic people in Judea/Canaan than the current predominantly Khazarian-origin Ashkenazi crowd to which he himself admittedly belongs."
Good comments above.
Glenn Condell, en fuego of late! You go, Glenn!
Even in historic Poland there was no Jewish Volk (People, ethnic group). There were Jews who belonged to the Yiddish ethnic group and there were Jews that belonged to the Tatar ethnic group.
In some sense the Zionist intelligentsia is lucky that the Yiddish ethnic group was destroyed because maintaining the fiction of the Jewish people is so much easier while survivor guilt or nostalgia are excellent mobilization tools to create a pool of dedicated activists, who serve the "Jewish people" gratis.
Ralph Seliger: "2. We (although not you, I guess) agonize over Israel's future."
Most Americans don't agonize over Israel's future, nor is there any reason why we should. Israel is a foreign country. If we are going to agonize over any country it will be America.
Ralph Seliger is a jerk. Phil and I disagree about things including his assimilationist view of Jewish identity. But to call Phil "anti-Israel" as Seliger has at his/MeretzUSA blog is atrocious. And MeretzUSA should not allow Ralph to make such statements in its name but then try to weasel out of them by saying Ralph speaks only for himself (as a MeretzUSA representative did actually write to me).
How can someone who has spoken favorably of Brit Tzedek & a 2 state solution be "anti-Israel?" I've never read anything Phil has written here that I would consider "anti-Israel."
Richard,
Phil does not say much that is even accepting of Israel (culturally, politically, economically, socially).
But, he does express much criticism to the point of current contempt, and respectful treatment of views that regard it as existentially criminal (with no corresponding respectful treatment of its justification).
There is a basis for Seliger's interpretation, correct or incorrect in truth.
"There is a basis for Seliger's interpretation, correct or incorrect in truth."
Is this what is called a "talmudic" argument?