Tony Karon has a great piece on the state of the Situation in the National, out of Abu Dhabi, and he agrees with me, the next generation of American Jews is off the reservation on Israel:
Jewish communities in western countries have long been Israel’s trump card against international pressure, because they mobilise support for Israel and restrain critics by painting opposition to Israel’s policies as motivated by hostility to Jews – a toxic accusation in a world still sensitive to the horrors of the Holocaust. But what was palpable during the Gaza conflict was the diminished enthusiasm of young Jewish people abroad for Israeli militarism, and the increasing willingness of many to openly challenge Israel.
This change is personified by Jon Stewart, the Jewish-American comic whose Daily Show is the premier vehicle of contemporary American political satire. Stewart mercilessly mocked American politicians for their slavish echoing of the Israeli narrative during the Gaza conflict. “It’s the Möbius strip of issues,” he sarcastically enthused. “There’s only one side!” Clearly, the younger, hipper Jewish liberal mainstream exemplified by Stewart intends to judge Israel on the basis of its actions, rather than express morally blind ethnic solidarity....
And that is where the apartheid warning used by Mr Olmert and other Israeli advocates of a two-state solution becomes an unintended confession. It is not some demographic milestone that will tip Israel into the realm of apartheid, because apartheid is a qualitative rather than a quantitative term: it refers to a situation in which a whole category of people were denied the rights of citizenship in the state that ruled over them. South Africa’s apartheid would have been no more acceptable to the world had black people comprised 45 per cent of the population rather than 80 per cent. And since 1967, the Palestinian population of the West Bank and Gaza have been living under the control of a state that denies them citizenship.
Doesn't matter if American Jewry were to "turn its back on Israel" (something that is not going to happen anyway). The large majority of pro-Israel Americans are non-Jews. There was strong support for political Zionism in the US as far back as the 1840's (yes, the 19th century), long before there were enough Jews in the US to make a potent political forces. So dream on, Phil.
BTW-I enjoyed your posting of the protest in Wales by the woman wearing the Palestinian flag bandana. Not only did none of the shoppers in the store join in her deranged harangue, but I found it quite encouraging to see how many products from the "West Bank" are sold by that chain…obviously there is a good demand for those products. Keep posting encouraging items like that one!
Hey, bar_kochba132: The large majority of pro-Israel Americans are non-Jews. Big whoop. The larger majority of Americans are anti-racists. Of course, there are always enough of the laggards to keep the old-timers happy. Stay happy, dude. Time will pass you by, none-the-less.
Margaret-
If you are right that they are "anti-racist", then they certainly aren't going to take the side of the Arabs….do you remember the bloody civil wars in Lebanon, Algeria and Yemen? What about the mutual Shi'ite-Sunni slaughter in Iraq? (Non-Arab Muslims are also slaughtering each other in Pakistan on the same Shi'ite-Sunni lines). All we have to do is show them TV clips from official Palestinian Authority broadcasting or HAMAS TV with its Muslim preachers saying how Islam is going to take over the world, the Jews are "sons of monkeys and pigs". Then, of course, there is the polygamy in the Muslim world (what do you think about that, Margaret, or female circumcision which they also have in some of their countries?), chopping off peoples hands and heads in Saudi Arabia, the fact that Christians are being run out of almost all the Muslim Middle East countries (do Americans like that?). Yes, anti-racists are certainly not going to take the Arab side against Israel. That is why recent polls in the US say 70% of Americans identify with Israel, while about 17% identify with the Palestinians. Americans already know where the racism is.
Bar Kochba – All the calumnies you cite about the Arab/Muslim world may have some truth (some more than others – I think many Christian Arabs would take at least some exception to what you claim here, although I am sure your exposure to Arab Christians is limited to Brigette Gabriel and others like her), but that should never excuse the racism against Arabs in Israel, anymore than racism in other countries should excuse racism here in the USA. This is a typical, huge whine of a child who has been caught doing a bad deed. You are just piqued because more people in the world aren't buying it anymore. As my mother would say, "I don't care if Jimmy/Susie are doing bad stuff, it doesn't give you a right to do what YOU did!" How this obvious "duh" reasoning escapes you is mystifying, other than intellectually you are still stuck in early adolescense.
KatinPhilly-
What I object to is the hypocrisy of you "progressives". If you are going to divest from Israel, you are certainly going to have to divest from all those Arab countries I listed in addition to China and all the other human rights violators in the world. If you did that, then maybe peope might listen to you regarding Israel's problems. Otherwise, a hypocrite is just a hypocrite.
Only Israel gets unconditional USA financial support, and an annual heavy dose of it at that. Or shouldn't we notice?