At left is a picture of Malcolm Hoenlein (holding the mike), one of the stalwarts of the Israel lobby as head of the Conference of Presidents, making nice to Avigdor Lieberman 2 years back. And that's no surprise. American Jewish support for Israel is so monolithic that The Forward says that most American Jewish groups are paralyzed by the ascendancy of Lieberman, a politician who has talked about loyalty oaths and expulsion for Arabs.
One group that isn't paralyzed is an adhoc mainly-Jewish organization with the slogan, "Don't Do It: No Government With Lieberman!" which is circulating a petition
urging Netanyahu and Livni not to make a governing coalition with Lieberman or to give him ministerial responsibility. The group behind the petition (which has gotten wide coverage) is called "Support Israeli Democracy," and was started by Dennis Gaitsgory and Josh Tenenbaum, professors at Harvard and MIT respectively.
Tenenbaum, who from the looks of it is a smart guy, writes:
Our statement has now been signed more than 500 people including many Jewish professors at leading Universities in the US and Canada, rabbis of various denominations, and other Jewish community leaders and major donors to American Jewish organizations. Most of these signers are not particularly left-wing when it comes to Israel -- they have all signed a statement that begins and end by stating that they are "friends of Israel", and we have heard from many people who would have liked to sign the statement but could not because of these words. [!] Of the signers whom I know personally, most are solidly in the mainstream of liberal American Jews, which is to say liberal by American standards but not usually (or ever) outspoken as critics of Israel. Yet they have all signed on to the statement that a government including Lieberman will be one that "even Israel's friends would find increasingly difficult -- if not impossible -- to identify with or support." I believe this position represents a significant departure from the long history of relations between mainstream American Jews and Israel, and it is a sign of deeper tensions to come if Israel continues to promote such outspokenly anti-democratic leaders as Lieberman.
If you want to see how our signers express their views in their own words, read their signing statements here.
Weiss again. I've put a few excerpts from the petition below. They indicate that for American Jewish supporters of Israel who are willing to swallow a lot, including even Gaza (cast-iron stomach Jews), Lieberman is the limit. And who knows what the Lieberman revelation may lead to for them...
# 522:
9:53 pm PST, Feb 20, Zachary Braiterman, New York
Dear Sir or Madam: It pains me as a life long Zionist and a professor
at an American university who has always stood up for Israel against
its detractors to say that I do not see how in good conscience I
will be able to continue to do so if Avigdor Lieberman joins the
government. I understand that American Jews have no voice in Israeli
coalition politics. But conversely, Israeli politicians cannot expect
American Jews to defend persons or positions they find indefensible. I
supported the operation in Gaza, much to my own dismay, because I
thought it was necessary for the security of the country. But this may
very well be the limit. Lieberman will destroy the image of Israel in
America, it saddens and worries me to say. Sincerely, Zachary
Braiterman
# 518:
1:26 pm PST, Feb 20, Adam Klein, Georgia
As a Jew and a Zionist, I have a great love for the State of
Israel. As an American, I have nothing but pride in the face that my
country was the first to recognize Israel as a sovereign nation--eight
minutes after independence was declared, and has been her closest
friend. It saddens me to think that that support might soon be at its
end. As a Jew, I cannot forget the lessons of Hitler and Goebbels; of
Auschwitz and Berkinau. Mr. Lieberman and his party are the first step
toward the end of Israeli democracy, by any real definition of the
term, and the beginning of a state dedicated to a Final Solution to
the Arab Problem. No. Jews do not give shelter and power to fascists,
and Lieberman and the men who will follow him represent exactly
that. Not in our house.
# 517:
1:09 pm PST, Feb 20, Jesse Salomon, Washington
As a Jew who lived in Israel as a boy I have seen the Intifada and
understand security issues. Israel must pursue its security but at the
same time recognize the rampant racism wihtin its society against
Israeli Arabs. That racism threatens to disenfranchise them and turn
them into a 5th column security threat. Don't do it to them, don't do
it to ourselves!
# 516:
9:37 am PST, Feb 20, Ilse Wellershoff-Schuur, Germany
As a priest in a small and new Christian Church I have been conducting
German-Israeli youth camps and study trips to Israel for the last 15
years. I am part of a Jewish-Arabic project in the Galilee and have
many friends there, Jewish and Arabic Israelis, who are doing great
work. I am very much afraid of the inner security in the Galilee and
Israels reputation abroad should Liebermann become part of the
government! As a multiplicator I very often take the Israeli side in
discussions in Europe, stressing the fact that we still deal with a
democratic society as opposed to all we meet in the Arabic world, but
this position is harder and harder to defend - and a government
working against the rights of Arab citizens will have a difficult
stand in all European countries! I love Israel and am sad to see
sympathies dwindling, but with Lieberman in the government I will not
really be able to speak up any more... Please make a wise decision!
# 511:
6:10 am PST, Feb 20, Laurel Mark, Wisconsin
Israel has been a beacon of democracy for Jews throughout the
world. Avigdor Leiberman's policies and views are antithetical to the
moral teachings of Judaism and will alienate Israel's supporters in
the world, incluidng myself.
#501:
7:18 pm PST, Feb 19, Ruz Gulko, Washington
Israel was founded on the ancient sacred principles that make us a
light to the nations. Lieberman is an angry, hate-filled old man. Let
him NOT be a part of the legal process of Medinat Yisrael.
# 500:
Feb 19, 2009, Burton Gene Goldstein, California
I support Israel's right to military self-defense when necessary,
within the limits of the Geneva Convention. I mention this because I
do not think opposition to Mr. Lieberman, or to racism, or to torture,
constitutes a 'softness' on Israel's survival. Rather I think of them
as a necessity for Israel's survival.
#499:
Feb 19, 2009, Joshua Lovejoy, Washington
A strong Israel is an ethical Israel. Please stay strong, we American
Jews are counting on you.
# 495:
Feb 19, 2009, Les Perelman, Massachusetts
My father shipped arms to HaHagana in 1947. He raised considerable
money for Israel. But I know that he would never want to see the
Jewish State that he risked his freedom to help create have a bigot
and racist as one of its leaders.
Lieberman is Israel's Jörg Haider.
Pass the popcorn, please. This is gonna be a hoot.
I am finding all this wonderfully amusing!
Lieberman actually understands Zionism, and what must be done to preserve a Jewish State. Liberals do not. A (modern) liberal ethno-religious nationalist is a contradiction in terms.
For years, most liberal American Jews have advocated every manner of leftist foolishness, while trying to imagine that their support of Zionism is somehow compatible with multicultural ideology.
I agree with Gideon Levy. Go Bibi! Form a right-wing government. You've got a mandate, come up with a real plan.
Better yet, throw the armchair liberal Likudniks in the US off the bus. Do you want your own country or a client state for evangelical nuts, neocons and American Jews playing out Exodus fantasies with their checkbooks?
What was the expression: Changes in Jewish Power Occur Quietly? That may not be possible with Lieberman blundering about. Perhaps it would be constructive to have a full out debate as to whether racist, bullying tactics help or hurt Israel, whether a code of silence restricting non-Jewish Americans from openly expressing their views about Israel helps or hurts the American-Israeli relationship, whether it is legitimate for critics of Israel to be smeared as Anti-Semites even when their motive is to support Israel through wiser policies, or neutral – aSemitic – simply concerned first with American interests independent of Israel. While there would surely be Anti-Semitism expressed in such a debate, you know, America has never been afraid of open debate, and its power to elevate the truth, and weed out everything else. Let Lieberman's true nature be plastered verbatim in the NYTimes. Let those who cannot support him, like those above, express themselves there too. I don't think it will be hoot, nor advance real Anti-Semitism. I think it will finally permit good policy on the Middle East to emerge, and from that a decent future can be forged.
This is funny. Lieberman is more authentically Zionist than all these wimps with their prattle about democracy and tolerance.
Okay, I was being flippant, Dr. Doppler. I meant to suggest that Israel is going to get hoisted on its own petard. Forgive me for hooting quietly to myself.
As the Gaza massacre showed, and as Lieberman's rants will underscore, one can't pose as the eternal victim — invoking Holocaust guilt — whilst simultaneously advocating the ethnic cleansing of inconvenient minorities.
If David F's robust amusement is typical, Israel — still feeling the intoxicating endorphin rush of smacking down the Gazans — is going to drive its bus right off the cliff.
The whole 'US-Israel special relationship' was a manufactured fantasy to begin with. Now these two countries are skating into the outer darkness of mutual incomprehension. They don't get our multicultural meritocracy. We don't get their ethnic obsessions and zionist paranoia. Who arranged this ill-starred match, anyhow? We don't even like each other.
I never got the US-Israel "special relationship" either. I once read the term was first used by John F Kennedy in a meeting with Golda Meir. But what was it our countries were supposed to have in common?
Israel was started by a bunch of eastern European and Russian socialists, none of whom had anything in common with the American founding fathers. Currently Israel is doing its best to rid itself of certain ethnic minorities. America just elected its first black president.
How exactly is Leiberman's ideology incompatible with Zionism?
Well, in the spirit of "Israel, right or wrong," why don't we all publicly denounce these find Zionist liberals as antisemites?
Glad to hear there are jewish hearts out there (additional to Phil) who see the hasbara wannabe children lately infesting this blog for what they are: Those who digested the vegetarian Hitler and made his
ideas their own. More meat from the great objective regular commenters on this blog, less gas from the likes of SOG, chris berel, et al.
The Israeli political system was birthed on the extreme right. That's Zionism, that's nationalism, that's exceptionalism, that's ethnic cleansing. What are called extremist views, such as Lieberman's, are manifestations Zionist statism. The function of succeeding "extremists"–Begin, Shamir, Netanyahu, Sharon, Lieberman, is to portray Israeli politics-as-usual as "moderate," while facts on the ground pile up. LABOR ZIONISM ORIGINATED THE SETTLER MOVEMENT. Serious critics of Israel wouldn't buy into the above protestations–their distractions from the reality that the Barak/Livni/Netanyahu triumvarate represents the next stage of "facts on the ground" in the prevention of a viable Palestinian state, apartheid, isolation, and murder of innocents. I find these letters to be at best disingenuous, at worst liberal Zionist business-as-usual. This sort of response is reflected, of course, in the alleged and likely non-existent contrast between Bush and Obama, especially in relation to I/P. Besides Lieberman, has Yoffie ever criticized anything that Israel has ever done in relation to the Palestinians? Does Yoffie support equal rights for all Israeli citizens? Of course not.
David, you are very astute. And honest.