Dana Goldstein in The American Prospect:
I never, as a rule, write about the Israel-Palestine conflict. I'm going to break that rule today… It's not just that military solutions have a poor track record
of solving problems of terrorism in the Middle East — or, really,
anywhere. It's not just that a ground war leading to the deaths of over
400 people, many of them civilians, [make that 600] is a disproportionate response to
the latest rag-tag rocket fire of Hamas, which has claimed the lives of
four Israelis. It is not just that while Israel has every right to
target those missile sites and the terrorists who perpetrated those
attacks, it seems that through brutal, widespread violence, the Israeli
government is doing little more than devastating an already
impoverished society and planting seeds of hatred in a new generation
of Palestinians.
It is that this latest incursion, and indeed, much of Israel's
military history, seems manufactured in opposition to the founding idea
of the Zionist project itself — that the world should be made safe for
Jews. And that if the larger world could not be safe, than at least one
place — the Promised Land — should be. I needn't argue here that
Israel is one of the most unsafe places on earth to be a Jew; with
suicide bombings, missiles, and now full-fledged war, that much is
apparent. Asking young Jews to fight and die in a ground war, one whose
perpetration inflames anti-Semitic sentiments, is not the best way to
make Israel, or the world at large, safe for the Jewish people. And
sure enough, it is tragic to learn that due to the fighting in Gaza,
Jews in France, Sweden, Belgium, and Denmark have suffered anti-Semitic violence and vandalism in recent days.
Two comments. Add Goldstein's voice to those saying that the Gaza insanity is endangering Jews in whose name this stuff is being done, around the world. My point about antisemitic act in France the other day, which I seem to have written poorly. And note that Goldstein is engaging, whether she likes it or not, anti-Zionist ideas. The simplest most obvious one. Zionism was started because Jews were truly unsafe in the west. The complete reversal of the conditions of its founding show that it should be heaved. Better, truer Jewish visions needed that address minority rights. Right now, thugs are leading the community.
