As any regular visitor to this site knows, I have conflicted feelings about my relationship to the Jewish community. Though I am always proudly Jewish, I announce that I am assimilating, anti-Zionist, non-Zionist, realist, leftist. I have a love-hate thing about Jewish organizations and the Jewish community; and truthfully, I am only truly comfortable (can let my hair down socially) in the company of Jews like those in Jews Against the Occupation, who many years ago asked, Are we for the right of return? and some voted Yes and some voted No, and those who voted No left the room. I would have stayed in the room. I know many of those people now, and depend on them. When I'm around other more-communal types, I tend to feel guilty about my views, and embarrassed, and even try to hide them.
I begin with my alienation because it helps to politically frame the event I went to last night, called "Why We Need a Liberal Israel Lobby," at the 92d Street Y, which is a Jewish space. There were five Jews on the stage, most of them on "the left," and yet I felt my views were only partially represented. The person who voiced my views most was Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street, and the lesson of this story is what a difficult job J Street will have if it confines its efforts to Jewish communal life. It can't, and it won't; and last night demonstrates why it can't do so.
The hall was crowded with about 300 people, and the discussion was remarkable for three statements. One, Ben-Ami's sense of isolation from the organized Jewish community. Two, Eric Alterman's profession of dual loyalty. And three, the panel's agreement that the Chas Freeman case has had a large effect.
One. The speakers were liberal lobby supporters Alterman of the Nation, Ben-Ami of J Street, and Michelle Goldberg, a writer on religious themes. Their opposition came from Rabbi Steve Gutow, who was representing the ancien lobby, as the director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs. The panel was moderated by Jane Eisner of the Forward, who I found to be largely supportive of Gutow, though this may have reflected her responsibility as moderator; in general, though, I was surprised that she seemed blindered to the spiritual crisis that Israel is in today.
The general thrust of the night was that liberals are deeply disturbed by the new face of Israel and feel unrepresented by American Jewish organizations, meaning AIPAC. In a word: We want peace, and they support the Israeli right wing. Goldberg summed this up best. She identified herself as a Zionist and said she is horrified by what is happening to Israel. "This is the last chance to save Israel." The left's "invidious" claim that Israel is South Africa may become "apt" in years to come, she said, because you can't reconcile democracy with a government comprising Avigdor Lieberman. And if American Jews had only spoken out more forcefully against Lieberman, they would have had an effect.
After confessing his own apprehension about even stepping into the room, Gutow said that he didn't recognize the lobby these folks were talking about. It's a big tent, he said: just like the Talmudic commentaries, everyone is invited to speak out. That means everyone from J Street to AIPAC in the middle to the David Project on the right. "I've never seen the hegemony [you describe] where people can't speak out." There have been dissident voices in the Jewish community forever. "We're all pro-peace. We may have different ideas of how to get there."
It was at this point that Ben-Ami gave a speech about his own isolation that was very moving. I did not record the event so I can't give it verbatim. He said that Gutow reminded him of Claude Rains being "shocked" by the gambling in Rick's Cafe. "Very large numbers of unaffiliated American Jews and very large numbers of non-Jews feel that they cannot speak their mind when it comes to Israel." And when Ben-Ami meets these people, they say, "Thank god you're here." On issues like pressuring Israel, ending the settlements, even the two-state solution, these people feel they can't speak up.
Subsequently, Ben-Ami said that he gets invited to very few official precincts of American Jewry. He has not been invited to speak at any Jewish Federation meeting and while he spoke at Gutow's organization, the JCPA, there was pressure to disinvite him. Leading Jews are told he's undermining the Jewish community. "This is real."
Alterman promptly echoed the point by challenging Gutow, Why did the Polish Embassy disinvite Tony Judt from speaking about Israel after pressure from the ADL?
Two. Alterman has a bracing style. Halfway thru the event he said that the Jewish community suffers from hypocrisy around the issue of dual loyalty. "I find this very confusing." Of course there's dual loyalty to Israel. He was raised with it. In Hebrew school, they were told they had to be supportive of Israel. At 14, on his first trip to Israel, at the behest of the ZOA, it was drilled into him that he should always do what was best for Israel.
And while complaining that he gets quoted by Walt and Mearsheimer for making the point, Alterman cited the maxim of foreign policy that the strategic interests of two states inevitably will diverge and said, "Sometimes I'm going to go with Israel" when its interests and the U.S.'s interests diverge. Because the US can take a lot of hits, but Israel can't.
You heard that right, boss. To her credit, Eisner asked Alterman to name a situation in which the two countries' interests diverge. Alterman offered: that bin Laden and the 9/11 terrorists were "to some degree inspired" by the U.S. relationship to Israel. The general environment of "terrorist attacks" and their "pool" of supporters in the Arab/Muslim world obviously draws on the the U.S.-Israel relationship.
"Dammit, if that's the price we have to pay [for the special relationship], let's pay it… But let's be honest about it."
I wonder: how many Americans would share that view? (And where's the dual?)
Gutow then said that he's never really denied the dual loyalty thing. He's argued with rabbis who don't want to fly the Israeli flag. And if Palestinian-Americans want to fly their flag next to an American flag, "they have that right to dual loyalty too."
Three. Eisner wisely brought up the Chas Freeman case. It engaged the panel for 15 minutes.
Jeremy Ben-Ami took the soft J Street line: We didn't speak out on the guy, we didn't know who he was; but we're upset that there might be a litmus test for mid-to-senior level presidential appointments, that they can't be critical of Israel. I find this line weaselish: you could learn all you needed to know about Freeman in a day and understand that he was a pro who fits the model–blacklisted for heterodox ideas on this subject. Michelle Goldberg said that alas the Freeman case tended to vindicate Walt and Mearsheimer, whom she had earlier accused of "gallivanting" into The Issue and not getting their facts straight. When Jewish organizations say they had nothing to do with the destruction of Freeman, Goldberg said, "Honestly, are they going to insult our intelligence to that degree?"
Alterman offered the following analysis: Freeman's views are not that different from his own. He wasn't getting a policy position. The "organized Israel lobby" and the neocons went after him because of the danger to Iran policy. "AIPAC wants a US bombing of Iran's nuclear capability." It fears that it won't get that if Freeman got into intelligence.
"Secondly, they needed to show the rest of the world that you're not allowed to hold these views if you want to advance." It was like when the lobby took out Sen. Charles Percy. "You couldn't have a senator who called for an evenhanded policy in Israel and Palestine." After AIPAC took him out, "They basically put his head up on a pole…. And they did that with Chas Freeman. They win ugly on purpose…. because it intimidates people." Go anywhere in Congress and you will find, there's no percentage in taking on AIPAC.
Ben-Ami said that this was unfair. "AIPAC gets a bad rap." The problem was bigger. It was the "whole constellation of bloggers and groups" who presume to speak for Israel and who got traction on the Hill on Freeman. As soon as they had traction, it was all over.
Now I want to say why the evening left me alienated and gave me sympathy for Ben-Ami.
To begin with, here you have a leftish community and there was virtually nothing said all night about the horrors of Palestinian existence. The Gaza slaughter, unmentioned. White phosphorus, nothing. The checkpoints. The shooting of Tristan Anderson or the killing of Rachel Corrie–a whole universe, unmentioned. I felt unreflected. I sensed that an awareness of these realities was behind many of Ben-Ami's statements, but the liberals, Alterman and Goldberg, did not speak for me. The crisis for them is that Lieberman gets so many votes and maybe shatters the dream of Israel. I say the dream was shattered in Hebron and in Gaza and in Ni'lin. When Goldberg says that apartheid may one day become an apt analogy, I think, It's apt now. You've seen the videos of the Israeli army destroying olive trees in occupied territory, destroying a traditional way of life, opposed by international freedom riders, one of whom was brutally injured by that army. This is the moment.
There is, at bottom, even in the liberal Jewish community, a refusal to see Israel as others see it, an ethnocentric resistance to licensing non-Jewish critics of Israel. Both Alterman and Goldberg took shots at Walt and Mearsheimer. Gallivanters. Eric, if you are going to ever bring pressure on Israel, you need gentiles. You need Walt and Mearsheimer and the realists. How many Americans would Alterman trust to reach the same conclusion he has: that 9/11 was worth it for Israel's sake? I think fewer than half, especially if you told them about the checkpoints and the second-class status of Israeli Palestinians. No wonder Alterman and Goldberg seem to want to reform the lobby from within.
If you're stuck in the Jewish community, then you're really stuck in ethnocentrism and indifference to Palestinian suffering and, as Alterman says, dual loyalty. At one point when Eisner mentioned Avigdor Lieberman, there was a smattering of applause for him. His Amen corner out of Brooklyn–the same people who supported the Irgun during the Nakba. I don't want to be in community with those people, nor share a tent with the anti-Arab David Project.
The only way to lose that crowd is to get one foot out of the Jewish community. Jeremy Ben-Ami seems to understand this. He's a Zionist but he knows that his only hope to hold on to a Jewish state, of some non-pariah description, is through efforts at justice. Looking back on it, the most meaningful phrase in the evening was when he spoke of the great numbers of non-affiliated Jews and non-Jews who are afraid to speak out. They weren't speaking last night either. That's who you have to work with if you're going to have any political effect.
If progressive Jews want to have non-Jews work with them, them have to stop enabling the Anti-Semitism smearers, which happens every time the smears against Walt, Mearsheimer, Carter, Freeman, go unrejected by loud Jewish voices. It is not enough to disagree with the smears. They must be denounced. Often, and loud enough that no objective journalist can report the smear without reporting the denunciations.
Otherwise, you're just trying to alter the agenda but not the effectiveness of the Lobby.
Eisner asked Alterman to name a situation in which the two countries' interests diverge. Alterman stumbled a bit before coming to this example: that bin Laden and the 9/11 terrorists were "to some degree inspired" by the U.S. relationship to Israel. The general environment of "terrorist attacks" and the "pool" of supporters for terrorism obviously draws on the the U.S.-Israel relationship.
"Dammit, if that's the price we have to pay [for the special relationship], let's pay it… But let's be honest about it."
I wonder: how many Americans would share that view?
This is mind-boggling.
Phil, thank you bringing this to light.
Eric Alterman is a "liberal". Most of his readers probably think of him as a humanist, or something similar. How many of his readers are aware of these feelings that he holds? Would Alterman write this in The Nation, or will he only bring it up in a Jewish meeting?
How many Americans would Alterman trust to reach the same conclusion he has: that 9/11 was worth it for Israel's sake? I think fewer than half, especially if you told them about the checkpoints and the lives of Palestinians.
Phil, there's no way it's even close to half. It's the majority of the Jewish community and maybe a few others, and that's it. It's not even 10 percent. I know you're going to say that there are millions of Christian Zionists who've been led to believe that Israel has to flourish so that their own religious fantasies will come true, but the 9/11 scenario has never been put in that light for them. If you ask Christian Zionists if the murder of over 3000 innocent Americans on 9/11 was worth it for Israel's sake, the majority of them are going to say no. There may be some hardened ones who join Alterman in his insanity (I don't know what else to call it), but the majority will not agree that it "was worth it". Not if it's put directly in that light.
You know that I am a strong opponent of the question of "dual loyalty" being raised at all even.
American Jews in general are law-abiding, taxpaying citizens, and by definition are then entitled to full civil rights in all respects in this society, INCLUDING by definition qualification for any elected or any vetted office.
The only conflict to that is where "conflict of interest" can be demonstrated, and that should be assessed on a case by case basis, with clear and consistent criteria.
Anything less than that standard of accountability both ways, and of language, is FASCIST.
Again, it is wonderful that a black child can now dream plausibly of being President. According to the theory that a Jew, a Zionist Jew, is suspect at all on the basis of their Judaism means that the same statement is not applicable to my talented and intelligent Jewish children.
I agree that liberals are disturbed by the new face of Israel, as that creates a context of rather than two willing partners for peace with a political maze that each has to run in order to achieve it, with Hamas unconditional rejection of Israel, and Likud's unconditional rejection of Palestine, there are NO partners for peace.
There are however, three pairs of partners for war. Israel-Hezbollah, Israel-Hamas, Israel-Iran.
My contention is that Hamas elected Netanyahu, that without the resumption of shelling of civilians following the end of the formal cease-fire, the knesset would be 10+ seats to the left, the difference between a Kadima/Labor coalition and Likud/Israel Beitanyu.
And, that they knew they would have that effect, as its happened a dozen times in the past.
Why I don't know. Why they couldn't wait a month to start shelling, I don't know.
"[H]ere you have a leftish community and there was virtually nothing said all night about the horrors of Palestinian existence. The Gaza slaughter, unmentioned. White phosphorus, nothing. The checkpoints. The shooting of Tristan Anderson or the killing of Rachel Corrie–a whole universe, unmentioned. I felt unreflected. The liberals, Alterman and Goldberg, don't speak for me."
Thanks, Phil: You're a truly humane person with a great conscience, and you make exactly the "apt" points.
Thanks, doppler and Dan, too, for your wise thoughts.
I would be interested to know why you don't feel it necessary to define "gallivanting". I think that the vagueness and underlying absurdity of this term is what makes it useful to them, so it should be obvious to you that you can defuse it simply by defining it clinically. Yet, you let it slide, twice.
"Of course there's dual loyalty to Israel. He was raised with it. In Hebrew school, they were told they had to be supportive of Israel. At 14, on his first trip to Israel, at the behest of the ZOA, it was drilled into him that he should always do what was best for Israel."
Okay, and there are literally millions of American Christian kids being told right now in Sunday School that the precepts of the Christian religion should have legal force in the United States. Do you expect them to be as slavishly devoted to that? You don't expect them to question that?
I mean, after all, Israel is "The Jewish State", why shouldn't America be "The Christian State"?
My contention is that Hamas elected Netanyahu,
Richard Witty
Classic! Perfect! Ten points for the best "No.2 (Arabs Suck, constructed out of entirely imaginary events) I've seen in my puff, anyway! And you did it out of the whole cloth, and nothing but!
So how did the voting go in Gaza? Come off peacefully? No hint of electoral fraud?
Yes sir, that's the beautiful thing about those whole strength-of-will style ideologies, you can just fly off into the blue anytime you want. If you dare to dream it, all that.
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/03/the-agonies-of-a-tortured-palestinian-soul/
Witty has obviously not addressed the points summarized by Susie Kneedler, all points dripping goy blood .
"According to the theory that a Jew, a Zionist Jew, is suspect at all on the basis of their Judaism means that the same statement is not applicable to my talented and intelligent Jewish children."
Richard, they made a law saying Zionist Jews cannot run for President? My God, that's horrible! What is this country coming to?
Richard, please don't worry, when your "talented and intelligent Jewish children" (Good Lord, I wonder what the Jewish Children in Lake Woebegone are like! Little Einsteins, every one!) turn 35, they should run for President on a Zionist platform. I'm sure they will do very well! Nothing will stop them except lack of votes or questions about their campaign financing!
Let slip the poodles of Wah and cry anti-semitism!
This should open a lot of people’s eyes that even liberal Zionists are pretty hardcore. ALL Jewish Zionists are apparently predisposed to believe that anti-Zionism is some kind of trick designed to ultimately snuff them out. For a people so hell bent on perpetuating themselves, they sure do engage in a lot of belligerent, sinister and reckless behavior. I guess they really do want it all and believe they’re entitled to have it all — both the good life and the on-the-side hobby of kicking the goy in the balls at every opportunity.
"Are we for the right of return? and some voted Yes and some voted No, and those who voted No left the room. I would have stayed in the room. I know many of those people now, and depend on them. When I'm around other more-communal types, I tend to feel guilty about my views, and embarrassed, and even try to hide them."
Phil,
It's a bit off topic but I feel the same way about my views and Pakistan. Truth is I know of only two other (my mom and Tariq Ali)people who believe Pakistan should never have been created in the first place. People react to it as if I juste denied the existence of God or something. I understand where you are coming from. It's partly because of this isolation that makes me sypathetic to the Palestinians. They are isolated too.
Richard Witty wrote:
"You know that I am a strong opponent of the question of "dual loyalty" being raised at all even."
Richard, if I'm not mistaken some time ago you said that while you would encourage your kids to join the IDF you would not like them fighting for the U.S. military.
Please know I'm not trying to put words in your mouth at all; I may be mistaken entirely, or this may be a terrible corruption of what you said, it's just the best I can recall.
If it's correct though it's certainly a dual *standard*, right? So how is that not even *beyond* having a dual "loyalty" which at least implies an *equality* of loyalties?
Please; am not trying to score some polemical point, it just seems to me you are using the phrase differently from the way most people understand it.
fultronix,
Thanks for:
http://www.dissidentvoice.org/2009/03/the-agonies-of-a-tortured-palestinian-sou
Seeringly true.
"I would have stayed in the room. I know many of those people now, and depend on them. When I'm around other more-communal types, I tend to feel guilty about my views, and embarrassed, and even try to hide them."
I understand what you mean. Even the best policies would harm someone if enacted, and there is no need to argue with friends and family about things that none of you can change.
"For a people so hell bent on perpetuating themselves,…"
The Israeli Jewish birth-rate seems to indicate they have no more than a mild proclivity for perpetuating themselves. Lord knows, I've offered to help, sent the Israeli Embassy detailed plans for a program designed to get their birth-rate up into the stratosphere, but I got no response. Instead (I'm not kidding) the government seems to have instituted a program of classes and school groups designed to "educate" Israeli children and teens about the danger of mixing with Palestinians.
I mean, c'mon, Palestinians, in spite of all their privations and troubles, have a very high birth-rate. Maybe they have something to teach us, you know?
And why on earth would Israel forsake the traditional and most sucessful method of engendering peace and harmony with neighbors, that is intermarriage? Hell, it worked great in America, and it could really help in Israel. Once you're a son-in-law they can't kick you out, know what I mean?
J Street is nothing more than AIPAC lite.
A "pro-Israel peace group" makes as much sense as a pro-lynching civil rights organization.
And Mooser…actually, Israel DID invent the e minor scale!
Mooser wrote:
"My contention is that Hamas elected Netanyahu,
Richard Witty
Classic! Perfect! Ten points for the best "No.2 (Arabs Suck, constructed out of entirely imaginary events) I've seen in my puff, anyway! And you did it out of the whole cloth, and nothing but!
So how did the voting go in Gaza? Come off peacefully? No hint of electoral fraud?
Yes sir, that's the beautiful thing about those whole strength-of-will style ideologies, you can just fly off into the blue anytime you want. If you dare to dream it, all that"
I don't follow this. Richard's contention is debatable, but it's hardly a willful fantasy. I'm not sure I'd put it this way, but all he meant was that things might have gone differently if Hamas had had stuck to its ceasefire position even in the face of provocative Israeli aggression. One could just as easily say–and I think this is how I'd put it–that it was the IDF who elected Netanyahu–couldn't they have waited before maing the incursion that broke the ceasefire?–the fact is the election was determined in part by an unholy collaboration between rejectionists on both sides.
P.S. Phil: I think this was one of your best recent posts. Thanks!
"… an ethnocentric resistance to licensing non-Jewish critics of Israel."
You've hit the nail on the head here. As one of those non-Jewish critics of Israel, I have – in subtle ways – got the feeling that many liberal Jews who are critical of Israel and critical of the lobby, nevertheless view non-Jewish critics with suspicion. It's as if to say, this is a Jewish issue that needs to be handled by Jews. Yet it is this very attitude that insulates the issue and sets it off-limits.
I choose to disregard those boundaries, but obviously there are many others who are afraid of crossing them.
"You know that I am a strong opponent of the question of "dual loyalty" being raised at all even."
Gosh, I wonder why? But even more touching, in a sad way, is your seeming conviction that no-one will raise it if you kvetch and threaten to cry.
Of course, you can always complain to the House Un-American Anti-Semitism Committee. You're moving televised testimony will sway thousands. How many tearful Gentiles will scourge themselves and cry out: "Curse me, Lord, For I am an anti-semite, and not worthy to live!"
But that reminds me, I've been meaning to ask, all you guys, and especially you, Richard and Chris, what can anti-semitism do for me? I mean, there's this guy at work I can't stand. Can I get him fired with an accusation of anti-Semitism. If my wife won't make love to me, will a muttered "anti-semite" bring her back, much more chastened and willing, to my arms? Buying a house or a car, when is the right time to bring in the "anti-semite" theme to get the best deal? "Judge, I think you're an anti-semite!" "Case dismissed, record sealed!"
Cause I gotta be truthful, I bet my whole objection to that whole "anti-semetic" thing is just that I don't know how to use it. And damn it, it is my birthright, too. I don't even want the part that lets me judge the quality of the Jewishness of other Jews, and summarily excommunicate them, no, that's too much for me, I'll leave that to the experts. But damn, the way people harp on about that anti-semitism I figure there has got to be something in it for me, if I just knew how to use it.
Say, any of you ever used it to fix a parking or speeding ticket? That would really help me out!
Just asking, if you want to say it was the IDF who elected Netanyahu, I won't disagree with you. It's quite possible. You see, practically every IDF soldier and reservist got a chance to vote in said election.
If you don't think it's absurd to blame people who can't vote in an election for it's outcome, congratulations! You are ready to make the case for Israel, and win!:
http://jewssansfrontieres.blogspot.com/2008/07/how-to-make-case-for-israel-and-win.html
But don't worry, the idea that Israel is never responsible for what happens in it is one I'm used to. It's a basic tenet of Zionism.
These are the people who say, without apparent irony, "DAMN the Palestinians for making us massacre their children!"
'There is, at bottom, even in the liberal Jewish community, a refusal to see Israel as others see it, an ethnocentric resistance to licensing non-Jewish critics of Israel.'
Bingo. The notion that non-Jewish critics of Israel need to be 'licensed' — vetted to ensure that they aren't harboring an anti-semitic agenda — captures perfectly the presumption of those who automatically dismiss Israel's critics as haters.
Israel is an undeclared nuclear nation which refuses to sign nonproliferation treaties; refuses to submit to international inspection. What is the reason for this incredibly reckless, potentially lethal double standard, made possible only by the U.S. running diplomatic interference for Israel?
The surface-level explanation is that the Israel Lobby has succeeded for forty-five years in extracting or extorting this exorbitant privilege from the United States. An unprovable, but not completely insane, allegation is that Israeli intelligence helped murder John Kennedy, the last presidential opponent of Israeli nuclear proliferation. Kennedy's successor Johnson not only backed off from demanding inspections of the Dimona nuclear reactor, but even delivered a hasty one-week whitewash of the Israelis' murder of 34 U.S. sailors on the USS Liberty.
As I said, the facts of Kennedy's assassination have been successfully buried. At best, Israeli involvement is a probability. You might say 1 percent; I might say 30 percent. But if there's any truth to that theory, Israel is not only not a friendly nation; it's a lethal enemy.
Be that as it may, it remains irrational for the U.S. not to use its leverage over Israel to demand nuclear safeguards and inspections. To the extent that the Lobby continues blocking such urgent international controls, it poses a deadly risk to humanity. A serious investigation of how this situation has been permitted to occur in U.S. policy-making — of how the U.S. has even transferred nuclear technology and missile delivery systems to Israel, while obtaining no concessions in return — probably would reveal treason at the highest levels.
No one who claims to be for peace can rationally support Israel's privileged status as an unrestrained nuclear proliferator at the same time. A zionist should no more wear a peace sign than a swastika.
Excellent Post!!!
The zionist-Israel solution is simple.
All the zionist…AIPAC,including J-street and all jews who are zionist and dedicated to Israel SHOULD MOVE TO ISRAEL and support and work for Israel there, NOT HERE.
They are such fucking hypocritics. Like the Pearl guy Phil quoted in a previous post about "jewish self determination and right to a country ad nausum".. and Pearl lives in Califorina and complains about anti semitism in the US and talks about Israel,Israel, Jews, Jews,Jews, self determination, babble,babble,babble. WHY ISN'T HE LIVING IN ISRAEL?
If all the witties,SOG's,Fenton's, AIPAC members, ZOA and the thousand and one other zionist and groups would just go seek their ""self determination and country of their own" in Israel all our Israel problems would be solved.
BUT…THEY WON'T LEAVE…WON'T GO TO THEIR SELF DETERMINATION country will they? They won't put their themselves where their mouth is will they?
Tell us witty WHY YOU AREN'T LIVING IN ISRAEL.
ANSWER THE QUESTION…tell us hypocritic why you aren't living your jewish "self determination" in Israel?
WHY HAVEN'T ALL THE ZIONIST GONE TO ISRAEL TO LIVE THEIR SELF DETERMINATION IN THE JEWISH NATION?
Can't wait to hear your answer.
Posted by: Mooser | March 17, 2009 at 05:09 PM"
"Just asking, if you want to say it was the IDF who elected Netanyahu, I won't disagree with you. It's quite possible. You see, practically every IDF soldier and reservist got a chance to vote in said election.
If you don't think it's absurd to blame people who can't vote in an election for it's outcome, congratulations! You are ready to make the case for Israel, and win!"
I understand your point here, and there's no question that the fact that all Palestinians in the occupied territories have been unjustly disenfranchised by nation that actually rules them, and that the majority of Palestinians, especially those in Gaza have even had their own electoral rights abrogated by Israeli and US policy. All I meant to point out was that Richard did not make the "absurd case" you accuse him of making. All he said was that Hamas' response to the breakdown of the ceasefire can be seen as a cause for the swing to the right in the later Israeli election. This has nothing directly to do with the electoral rights in question. And my own position is that rejectionists on both sides bear a heavy burden of guilt for the on- going nature of the conflict. My own sense is that the Israelis bear a greater burden of guilt, but that doesn't mean that a continuation of Hamas' previous restraint after the Israeli incursion wouldn't have had a very different effect on the outcome of the Israeli election than the missile and mortar attacks that did in fact follow.
Sorry, but the first sentence of the previous comment should read:
"I understand your point here, and there's no question that all Palestinians in the occupied territories have been unjustly disenfranchised by nation that actually rules them, and that the majority of Palestinians, especially those in Gaza, have even had their own electoral rights abrogated by Israeli and US policy."
just asking
I don't necessarily disagree with that. But what you are really saying is that if the Palestinians can be effectively subdued by milder means of oppression from less radical Israeli governments, so much the better. The fact that the resistance is serious and determined makes the Israelis more Nazistic than they would be otherwise.
Nevertheless, the blame for the ghastly oppression and resultant violence falls 100% on the Israelis.
Not 90%.
100%
"by nation that actually rules them,"
Not rules them, Mr. Asking. Occupies them, and has for forty years. Completely different thing. And there is no good reason to use the word "rule" instead of "occupy" except obfuscation.
It's not as bad as blaming them for the results of an election they can't vote in, I'll say that.
Richard doesn't want to enter into questions of dual loyalty. Richard, do you agree with Eric Alterman's sentiments?
Richard, was 9/11 worth it for Israel's sake? (This is a yes or no question).
ROFL. Unprovable _and_ insane Jim. I guess you have officially joined Rowan and his little green men in the tinfoil hat brigade.
Actually, it was time traveling Jews from the future after they took over the world and revealed that they are actually killer cyborgs from even further in the future.
Oh, wait, no, it was psychic emanations from a parallel universe Israel that reached across the void between the universes to cause Lee Harvey Oswald to kill Kennedy.
Also, we sank the Titanic (Goldberg, iceberg, what's the difference?). We faked the moon landing. We also shot J.R. and framed Roger Rabbit. Know who was driving the bus that hit Jack of Jack in the Box? You guessed it.
Oh, and who controls the British Crown? Who keeps the metric system down? We do, we do.
BTW, Israel isn't proliferating nuclear arms, just owning them. As you say, they have had them for about 40 years now and haven't used them or handed them out to anyone. So quit worrying. Unless you live in Iran and are expecting them to use their first nuke on Israel. In that case, worry.
American, it always reminds me of the scene in "Pirates of Penzance" where the Major-General's daughter is encouraging the Police to go after the Pirates ("When the Foeman Bares his Steel"). After singing their intent to go "forward to the foe" they keep on marching around in a circle singing, "We go! We go"! And the poor Major-General's daughter keeps on pushing them and saying: "Yes, but you don't go!"
They always remind me of that. And my Yiddish version of "The Mikado" will be a smash hit, just you wait!
"We go! We go!" "Yes, but you don't go!"
BTW, Israel isn't proliferating nuclear arms, just owning them.
What the hell do you think the word "proliferating" means in relation to nuclear arms, dodo?
"Unless you live in Iran and are expecting them to use their first nuke on Israel"
We go! We go!
"Yes, but you don't go!"
And Thom, does the Israeli State kill people? Why yes it does, when it feels it to be in their benefit. Who's to say they did not feel it was in their benefit to kill Kennedy? Hey, a States gotta do what a States gotta do! Israel's a state like any other.
That's what you traded your religion for (if it is yours. Is "Thom" a Jewish name?)! Happy now?
And if he said the same thing about Jews, it would be ridiculous anti-semitism. But when it comes to Israel, well, it's just a State, and States kill people when they feel it is in their interest. Are you saying Israel shouldn't kill people? Cause that would be anti-Semitic, you know. They gotta defend themselves, possibly from Kennedy's. Maybe it was a mistake. States make mistakes. Why can't little Israel make a mistake now and then? Dangerously close to anti-semitism there, thom
The Israeli American Bund will end up like the German American one. Dual loyalties between Israel and America cannot withstand public scrutiny. As the dual loyalties of prominent war mongers become more widely known, the policies of propping up a pariah state that brutally oppresses helpless civilians not within its national boundaries will become increasingly unpopular.
Just because my Mom wanted to wear the same suits as Jackie Kennedy (complete with a leopard-skin pillbox hat) doesn't mean Israel didn't kill Kennedy! It was self-defense!
You wouldn't deny Israel self-defense, would you, Thom?
The 'whisper explanation' in the blogosphere is that the Lobby dumped Chas Freeman because he would have maintained the National Intelligence Estimate conclusion that Iran poses no current or near-term nuclear threat. That's true as far it goes, but the answer lies deeper.
What Freeman would have posed is the Question That Dare Not Speak Its Name — viz., Why does Israel receive absolute U.S. diplomatic protection in the UN Security Council, to continue in its role as the world's only unchallenged and unsanctioned nuclear proliferator? And what is the true level of the Israeli nuclear threat?
Given the sophisticated aircraft, missiles and avionics technology it has received from the U.S., Israel almost certainly can menace the eastern hemisphere. An intriguing question is whether Israel has ICBM capability — that is, whether the Lobby's chokehold on our capital is backed up by implicit nuclear blackmail.
These forbidden questions are the true third rail of American politics. Because a factual, public answer to them would not only bring down the U.S. government, but also put the leaders of the Democrats, Republicans, AIPAC and Conference of Presidents in prison.
Thom — 'Goldberg, iceberg, what's the difference?' — LOL, that's a howler! More, please, kind sir!
"I am assimilating, anti-Zionist, non-Zionist, realist, leftist". Other than the last two items, which Jewish Zionists (including, Avigdor Lieberman) have in spades, what exactly keeps you identified as a Jew?
Assimilating: You are for giving up your historical culture. Fine. Many Muslims do this. Many Asians in America do this (cf. Gov. Jindal). Many, many Jews do this, desperate to belong and not be seen as the "other". But please don't pretend that by shedding your culture you are somehow still a real part of it. You're embarrassed because you're embarrassed to be Jewish. Your view of Jewish civilization is bloodline first, culture and peoplehood afterwards (and only if it strictly conforms to the agenda of whatever the current issue of The Nation tells you to think). If you are an Asian Indian whose only connection to Indian culture is that you sometimes eat spicy food and watch Bollywood's version of Woody Allen – you're no Indian – especially if you say that India has no right to be on guard against Pakistan, that Pakistan (and not India) should really govern India, and you side with Pakistan over India in any dispute. You're plenty okay with Palestinians being ethnocentric, targeting civilian Jews for bombing as a national policy, having a misogynistic, homophobia, anti-free-speech, and otherwise extremely right-wing culture (other than its leftist liberation component), but for Jews, it's "embarrassing". Someone might think you're a "Jewey Jew" and that could be bad for your dating prospects and acceptance by the assimilationist crowd. At least acknowledge that you're not really Jewish – that you've opted out. You're allowed to do that here – there's no Islamic religious police that are going to try you as a heretic. But your whole shtick is a bit like a "Jews for Jesus" proselytizer, financed by Christian missionary movements, claiming that he's the "true Jew" and that everyone else is an "unfulfilled Jew".
"Anti-Zionist"; "Non-Zionist": I don't know what "Non-Zionist" means when you identify yourself as "Anti-Zionist". That's like saying you're an "Anti-Democrat" and an "Non-Democrat". Okay, you're not a Democrat and you're against Democrats. I could tell by the "anti" that your not one of what you're against. But really, I could understand "Non-Zionist" – that's kind of being agnostic about it. But with "Anti-Zionist" you are "Anti-Israel" and "Anti-Jew", at least anti-Jewish Civilization. I guess you could be "Anti-NAACP" and still be African-American and have a few African-American friends, just like Clarence Thomas. But Clarence Thomas is really just a "bloodline" African-American, isn't he? He is well outside the mainstream of African-American culture and most in that culture loathe him.
You cry for Rachel Corrie. Really?? Do you cry for the Israeli kids killed in the Dolphinarium or at Sbarro's? Corrie's death is a tragedy just like any other death of a misguided person who believes she is doing the right thing against a terrible society. But, she put herself in harms' way in a way that she wouldn't do in, let's say Iran or Saudi Arabia – she wouldn't protest in Iran against the hanging of a gay man or in Saudi Arabia against the beating of a woman whose veil slipped off. She didn't protest against polygamy in Palestine or Sharia "honor" killings there. You have a soft, weepy heart for the Stalinist revolutionaries with Swiss bank accounts, but a tin ear for the suffering of the true minority group. Again, all that is fine. But don't pretend you're part of the Jewish family – you're estranged and proud of it and can only see bad in your own culture and only good in everyone else's (even if, like the Hamas culture, it's genocidal, misogynist, homophobic and facist).
As for Avigdor Lieberman – I'm not a fan. But it is the bombs from Gaza (after withdrawal from Gaza) that have made others a fan of him. He's branded as racist, but he's certainly not as racist as Hamas or Fatah. He's, as you say you are, both a "realist" and a "leftist". He's a "realist" because he sees that, in reality, the Palestinians do not want peace – they continue to bomb after Israel withdraws, they continue to terrorize and they continue to want "back" all of Israel proper, not just Gaza and the West Bank. He's a realist in that he understands that you can't simply stop hating the other side for the terrible things that have been done to each other overnight and that if parts of the West Bank close to Ben-Gurion airport are permitted to be part of a "State" run by Hamas with full sovereignty rights and rights to acquire weapons, that Israel will need to move its main airport to the Negev. He's a "realist" in that he understands that, in the Middle East, unlike in America and Europe, cultural affiliation matters and that Israel is not big enough to have in it a large population that despises the State and wants to cecede or overthrow it. From a "realist" point of view, his solution is to transfer land in Israel proper that hosts a majority of Palestinians to a Palestinian-administered area and take in exchange areas in the West Bank populated by Jews. Alternatively, he says that they can show loyalty, like most Druze and Bedouins and many Palestinian Arabs, and stay. Lieberman is not calling for their murder, he is not calling them "pigs and apes", he is not saying that they must be annihilated – he, like you, is being a "realist". It is Hamas (and many in Fatah) who are the racist ones. Certainly Iran is racist and genocidal in its leaders' public calls for an end to Israel. He's a "realist" like you in that he understands that the following truisms are actually, in reality, false: That the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is the main cause of instability in the Middle East, that the conflict is territorial and not ideological, and that the establishment of a Palestinian state based on the 1967 borders will end the conflict. And, Lieberman is a "leftist" just like you. He believes in a secular State that doesn't have to bow to religious influence. Although Israelis are mostly secular, their religious affairs are governed by those much more Othodox than they are. Just like Hamas, except that they don't have any material life or death power over Jews' lives – just enough to make the very secular jump through hoops to marry a non-Jew and get a divorce. He's also "leftist" like you for one of the same reasons that he's a "realist" like you – he's willing to give up Israeli territory for peace – in fact, he's radically left-wing in his wish to give up parts of Israel proper. None of this is to say that you have to like him or the implications of corruption against him, but he's certainly "realist" and "leftist" like you and the "rightist" side of him is much more "leftist" than any Palestinian leader.
So – I understand that you and the folks here believe what you believe – but just don't pretend to have any real connection to the "other side" anymore and have the decency to admit that a few of your "facts" and "assumptions" are caricatures of the real facts and assumptions. Don't be like the "neocons" and pretend that you're a Democrat as you bash the "left" again and again with your version of the truth.
"Oh, wait, no, it was psychic emanations from a parallel universe Israel that reached across the void between the universes to cause Lee Harvey Oswald to kill Kennedy.
Also, we sank the Titanic (Goldberg, iceberg, what's the difference?). We faked the moon landing. We also shot J.R. and framed Roger Rabbit. Know who was driving the bus that hit Jack of Jack in the Box? You guessed it"
Any suggestions as to where this 'reductio ad absurdum' fits in Gabriel Ash's brilliant fourfold division of Zionist apologetic strategies ?
Lots of green men invoked here.
The United States position, AND Freeman's stated position, is that Israel is an impressive place, a good place, that is attacked unnecessarily and provocatively.
It is a tragedy that a man has to be put through the ringer of public opinion, that includes the loud right-wing "pro-Israel" one.
I personally prefer the dual approach, of two healthy neighbors.
It is a quandry as to how to find someone that is familiar enough with the issues at hand to make reasonable evaluations of what data is relevant from irrelevant, without having formed some bias in that process of education.
I think the INDIVIDUALS that orchestrated the sowing of doubt about Freeman, have lost a deal of credibility.
They have enough credibility to insist on a non-biased person in that position, but not enough to enforce any veto based on irrational fear solely.
For what its worth, I don't believe that Schumer or Lieberman were voicing irrational fear in their Senate inquiries. I can't say anything about Rosen, who obviously had an agenda.
The concerns about Iran approaching the level of nuclear viability is SERIOUS, and if there was a prospect that Freeman would diminish that prospect prejudicially, that deserved the light of day.
"Other than the last two items, which Jewish Zionists (including, Avigdor Lieberman) have in spades, what exactly keeps you identified as a Jew?"
And who the hell are you to ask, putz? When did God come down and make you King of the Jews?
Listen asshole, I learned a long time ago that as soon as someone feels they have the right to question my religion, they are an asshole, and can go pound sand. I wouldn't listen to a Christian who told me my religion is false. Why the hell should I listen to you?
And by the way, Fenton "Yes, but you don't go!"
When are you going to do the only thing which can prove you are a real Jew, and move to Israel? Bye bye, Fenton! Write us from Tel Aviv, or whatever settlement you settle into!
Tell me Fenton, do you go around telling Gentiles which of us are bad Jews and which "real" Jews? Cause that's what you are doing. Proud of yourself, jerk?
what exactly keeps you identified as a Jew?
Go pound sand. Only a fool would defend his belief in his own religion, and only the worst kind of anti-semite would challenge a Jews belief in his religion. Is it your advice that we should convert to Christianity, or maybe Islam?
I just read Jim Haygood's post. So he believes that there is a 30% chance that the Israeli's killed Kennedy. Mooser Loser concurs. Cuckoo! Cuckoo! Now I understand the full dynamic here at Mondoweiss – you really can't have a dialogue with functionally insane people. (Which, in a nutshell, is the problem that the Israelis face on a day to day basis with Hamas). I apologize for trying to bring reason to the psycho ward and I'll let you all get back to your medication and bedpans. Phil must feel really good that his posts bring out the Kennedy conspiracy theorists, the Jew-haters and, of all things for a Leftist, the Buchananites, all at once. Hope Nurse Ratched isn't too hard on you.
But don't pretend you're part of the Jewish family – you're estranged and proud of it and can only see bad in your own culture and only good in everyone else's
Go fuck yourself. And kiss my ass while you are at it.
"Yes, but you don't go
Harcourt, I shouldn't have gotten so upset. I see now that you are right, I have no right to call myself a Jew. But that's cool, cause now I can be an anti-Zionist, and not even worry about all those close distinctions between anti-Zionism and anti-semetism I used to worry about. The hell with it. From now on its anti-Zionism with all the anti-semitism people want! And all that crap about protecting the Jews in Israel from their own bad decisions because of our ethnic and religious ties, aw, the hell with that, let 'em all meet their fates as best they can. Thanks a lot Harcourt, you have really freed up my options as far as anyi-Zionism goes. And did I tell you how the Jews killed Kennedy? Hey, Harcourt, makes no never mind to me. According to you I've got no religious skin in the game, so what the hell.
But tell me Harcourt, what is supposed to happen to me, or Phil Weiss, for that matter, when you tell us we are not good Jews? Are we supposed to die inside? Feel ashamed? After a lifetime, 56 years of having Christian missionaries tell me my religion is false, don't you think I hang on to it just a little better than that?
And who or what is it you think will punish us when you make these stupid accusations of insufficient zeal? The Jewish Inquisition?
Harcourt, you have got some real problems in relation to your Judaism. But don't worry, it's not that uncommon. You have no idea what the Jewish religion is, so you have substituted either real estate for group dynamics (grade school group dynamics, that is) for it. And I have as much right to make that accusation as you have to make yours.
Your problem is, Harcourt, that you just don't like Jews. And you hate them for what they are. Most Zionists are like this.
Mooser – Very eloquent response. Just proves my point. If someone doesn't agree with you when you're off medication, you become violent and start using profanity. I'm sorry I struck a nerve.
Now, if you want to make yourself useful to your cause, why not put your belief that the Jews killed Kennedy and felled the Twin Towers on a sandwich board and go patrolling the avenues of New York to spread the gospel to your fellow haters?
Mooser – you're a self-described anti-Zionist. I'm not putting words in your mouth. You agree with the extinction or relocation of half of the small remnant of the world's Jews. Just because you don't want to become a Christian or a Muslim, and have successfully fought off their attempts to convert you, doesn't mean you're in love with your fellow Jews. You are violently opposed to them, that is, if they dare to be part of Jewish culture which has a critical component of Eretz Yisrael as part of its heritage. The missionaries may indeed have won – they made you so self-conscious about your Jewish identity that you are forced to fight against the majority of Jews in order to feel good about yourself. That's fine, but you're like a Muslim who doesn't believe that Mecca belongs to Islam or that Muhammed is the Prophet, or like a PETA activist who throws fake blood on people exiting a steakhouse while chomping on a hamburger on the side.
You fail to acknowledge that Jews have been in Israel continuously and that they only lost their majority in the land about 1400-1500 and that such loss was due to subjugation and murder by neighborhood friendlies. More importantly, you seem only to ascribe bad deeds to the "Zionists" and think that the Hamasites and West Bankers can do no wrong. Your goal is not to change the reaction of Israel to real threats, but to eliminate Israel entirely. That's what it means to be anti-Zionist. And you think that the Jews killed Kennedy.
You can hate Israel all you want – but please don't pretend that you can hate Israel and the "Zionists" and still be anything more than a "bagel and a schmear" bloodline Jew. Or pretend that you know that much about Judaism or Jewish history to be able to say that the land of Israel is not a huge component of both.
Wow, an anti-zionist essay has made it into the L.A. Times. Excerpts from Ben Ehrenreich's cri de couer — lissen up, Harcourt, he's talkin' to you, dude –
————
It's hard to imagine now, but in 1944, six years after Kristallnacht, Lessing J. Rosenwald, president of the American Council for Judaism, felt comfortable equating the Zionist ideal of Jewish statehood with "the concept of a racial state — the Hitlerian concept." For most of the last century, a principled opposition to Zionism was a mainstream stance within American Judaism.
Founding a modern state on a single ethnic or religious identity in a territory that is ethnically and religiously diverse leads inexorably either to politics of exclusion (think of the 139-square-mile prison camp that Gaza has become) or to wholesale ethnic cleansing. Put simply, the problem is Zionism.
The Brit Shalom movement — founded in 1925 and supported at various times by Martin Buber, Hannah Arendt and Gershom Scholem — argued for a secular, binational state in Palestine in which Jews and Arabs would be accorded equal status. Their concerns were both moral and pragmatic. The establishment of a Jewish state, Buber feared, would mean "premeditated national suicide."
The fate Buber foresaw is upon us: a nation that has lived in a state of war for decades, a quarter-million Arab citizens with second-class status and more than 5 million Palestinians deprived of the most basic political and human rights.
If two decades ago comparisons to the South African apartheid system felt like hyperbole, they now feel charitable. The white South African regime, for all its crimes, never attacked the Bantustans with anything like the destructive power Israel visited on Gaza in December and January, when nearly 1,300 Palestinians were killed, one-third of them children.
http://www.latimes.com/news/opinion/commentary/la-oe-ehrenreich15-2009mar15%2C0%2C6684861.story
————
Israel — worse than South Africa. Yep, when you think about it, the Afrikaner Nationalists never sent tanks into the bantustans; never bombed their universities and government buildings; never blockaded the highways and cut off food shipments.
Israel stands unchalleged as the world's most despised pariah nation.
harcourt appears you're into hate more then you're willing to admit.. it does seem your path has been made easier with a few stupid comments, that you have immediately attached yourself to.. painting with the same brush everyone who doesn't agree with you shows just how how hateful you really are…
"Dammit, if that's the price we have to pay [for the special relationship], let's pay it… But let's be honest about it."
It is amazing that Alterman says that the attacks of 9-11 were worth it to have this special relationship with Israel. I must say, I for one never understood where this special relationship came from. One day, I just opened the papers one day and there it was–this special relationship which apparently had been around forever.
Well it wasn't there when I was a kid. The earliest reference to it as far as I know was a kind of welcome speech John F. Kennedy gave to Golda Meir. And it just sort of popped out, a little over-exaggeration in honor of a visiting dignitary.
But then the line got out of hand. Everyone started referring to this special relationship like it was an amendment to the Constitution. I was thinking, whoa, that's amazing. All you have to do is have a speech writer pen a line in a throw-away speech about the special relationship and there it is cast in blood and concrete and billions of dollars for the next 45 years?
I say phooey on the special relationship. I'm with Ron Paul here. Let's have friendly relations with all governments and no special relations with anyone.