Here's the late great Alfred Lilienthal, back in 1949 when the Reader's Digest ran anti-Zionist stuff, in a prophetic piece called "Israel's Flag Is Not Mine," inveighing against "cheap racial nationalism." 60 years ago, but it feels real fresh:
I was born and remain an American. I
have no ties with, no longings for, and feel no responsibilities to
Israel. And I believe that the future happiness of the Jews in America depends
on their complete integration as citizens of this—our true—country. I am sure that if we Jews as a group are persuaded to divide
that love which people normally give to their native land, it can lead only to
disaster….
There is today a deep split among Americans of the Jewish faith. The Zionists are the more vocal; they have more organized political power. But they do not speak for all of us, and I hope not for most.
But when we protest the right of the Zionists to speak as "American Jewry" on the question of Palestine, we are told that Jews should not be disunited, must not fight among themselves on Palestine or any other issue. And if we still speak out against what we feel is a dangerous trend, we find ourselves reviled and ostracized as traitors…
The answer to bigotry and anti-Semitism does not lie in fanatical Jewish nationalism. Of course the blowing-up of the King David Hotel, the hanging of the two British sergeants, the assassination of Bernadotte, the massacre of Arab women and children at Dier Yasin were all acts of tiny groups. But they have weakened the moral and spiritual stature of the world's oldest religion. Israel's terrorist Beigin and Hollywood's Ben Hecht, who encouraged such lawlessness by saying, "Every time you let go with your guns at the British betrayers of your homeland, the Jews of America make a little holiday in their hearts!" such people are doing the Jews more harm than any words which Goebbels spoke.
There is today a deep split among Americans of the Jewish faith. The Zionists are the more vocal; they have more organized political power. But they do not speak for all of us, and I hope not for most.
But when we protest the right of the Zionists to speak as "American Jewry" on the question of Palestine, we are told that Jews should not be disunited, must not fight among themselves on Palestine or any other issue. And if we still speak out against what we feel is a dangerous trend, we find ourselves reviled and ostracized as traitors…
The answer to bigotry and anti-Semitism does not lie in fanatical Jewish nationalism. Of course the blowing-up of the King David Hotel, the hanging of the two British sergeants, the assassination of Bernadotte, the massacre of Arab women and children at Dier Yasin were all acts of tiny groups. But they have weakened the moral and spiritual stature of the world's oldest religion. Israel's terrorist Beigin and Hollywood's Ben Hecht, who encouraged such lawlessness by saying, "Every time you let go with your guns at the British betrayers of your homeland, the Jews of America make a little holiday in their hearts!" such people are doing the Jews more harm than any words which Goebbels spoke.
Thanks to the anonymous euonymous primate, Nim Chimpsky.
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More from Lilienthal's article:
My one and only homeland is America. I am proud of my belief in the age-old Judaic concept of one God in Heaven and one Humanity here below. But my faith does not pull me into a feeling of narrowly tribal kinship with all others who worship God in this way. Whenever I read of Americans singing the Hatikvah, Israel's national anthem, or see youth groups raising Israel's flag beside the Stars and Stripes. I am outraged. For Israel's flag and anthem are symbols of a foreign state; ,they are not mine.
…
Anyone who tells me those foreign Jews are exclusively my people that I should be closer to them than to Bob McCormick, the kid on the block with whom I used to play ball: or to Nick Galbraith, who roomed next to me at Cornell; or Dave Du Vivier with whom I studied in law school—that man is talking dangerous nonsense. I have also learned, Mother, that when something. goes wrong in my relations with non-Jews. I avoid the habit of thinking that it happened just because I am a Jew. Such self-pity is comforting, but it is usually wrong and therefore dangerous.
Pretty commonsensical stuff, at least to me. What is shocking is this reminder of how it was once possible to have an adult discussion of Jewishness — and in the Reader's Digest, no less.
His view is very close to that of those leading members of the British Jewish community who were passioned opposed to the Balfour Declaration. As Geoffrey Wheatcroft recalled some time back in the NYT:
'As Chaim Weizmann and his colleagues were fighting to have the Balfour Declaration adopted, they were fiercely opposed by other Jews. In London, the only Jew in the Cabinet, Edwin Montagu, fought the Declaration to the end, bitterly asking his colleagues why they wanted to send him off to an ''Oriental ghetto.'' And two leading figures of English Jewry wrote to The Times of London deploring ''the establishment of a Jewish nationality in Palestine,'' which ''must have the effect throughout the world of stamping the Jews as strangers in their native lands, and of undermining their hard won position as citizens and nationals of those lands.''
(See http://query.nytimes.com/gst/fullpage.html?res=9D05E4DF1F39F937A2575AC0A961958260)
"This claim of unique Jewish specialness is
preposterous and offensive. If the Irish, the
Chinese, the Arabs, the Catholics, the Buddhists,
or any other ethnic or religious group made such a
ridiculous universal claim about themselves, we
would likely find it both disgusting and
laughable. Foxman makes this absurd statement, but
if we dare to say it is absurd, immediately he
would counter that we are anti-Semitic to say so."
–Lilienthal in 2002
Hopefully these things come in "3"s and if say Finkelstein and Chomsky would just drop dead now it would really be a great.
Hopefully, luck will have it in the end for those who view the various MOTs as apes. For starters, how about Lieberman and McCain dying of strokes today?
Be good also if all those who go to racist summer camps fall off a cliff.
Like those little Arab tykes who go to the Hamas camps and learn to kills Jews, right?
Why no, those kids are more like the little ones who were part of Geronimo's band. If not, why not?
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