I need to document something important that happened in 2009 in American Jewish intellectual life that someday people will look back on in horror.
Twice in the last month I have had conversations with Jewish intellectuals who must go nameless here, who said to me, in virtually these words:
I was appalled by the Gaza war. I don't want to speak out against it.
Both these people are prominent, well-known in intellectual circles. Both rely on institutional support. One is left-liberal, one more centrist. Both are affluent.
I report this because this attitude is widespread; and of course it is all but unforgiveable. Both of them work in the international field, so the statement violates their professional/ethical charge.
This is a secret post because I like these people and won't tell you who I was talking to till they're dead. I did not probe either individual. They spoke in casual conversation, without any beating of the breast, maybe a flicker of anguish, no more.
I would say that the statement reflects fear of being defunded–in a word, fear of the Israel lobby. And also, fear of tribal norms, of being condemned by the tribe as disloyal.
Will these people speak out now that Michael Walzer is going forward?
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{ 16 comments }
They should speak out. There are ways to distinguish their exact sentiments.
Saying that one was appalled by the war does NOT mean that one supports terror, nor that one supports threats to Israel, nor that one opposes Israel's right to self-defense.
It does suggest subsequent questions. What appalled you? The use of white phosphorous? The careless (or intentional) targeting of civilian (non-military) buildings? The callousness of the sentiment of many of the soldiers?
Its possible to be clear. Its possible for the individuals that you spoke to, and its possible for you.
Human beings should have spoken out against Israel's militancy in 2006, when Israel was bombing apartment blocks in Beirut and mining children's playgrounds. The recent Gaza atrocity was bad, but not unique. There will be another similar event soon, then another, another, and another. Then another. Anathema upon the cowards who cannot condemn Israel's actions.
"Both these people are prominent, well-known in intellectual circles. Both rely on institutional support. Both are left-liberal. Both are affluent."
In other words, limousine liberals. One of the most disgustingly hypocritical species on the face of the earth, and poison to the societies in which they dwell. The Israel lobby has them in droves.
Jews who prefer to remain anonymous as they speak their minds in quiet corners where their positions or their promotions or their reputations remain intact are not alone. I remember when the academics of CUNY grad school, not all of them Jewish, refused a session on the Walt Mearsheimer book because the topic was "too controversial." And these are the teachers of the young? Ultimately, the price of silence is far higher than the price of peace at any price.
"The hottest places in hell are reserved for those who in times of great moral crises maintain their neutrality." Dante alighieri
"Washing one's hands of the conflict between the powerful and the powerless means to side with the powerful, not to be neutral." ~ Paulo Freire
And these are people of means and influence, living in a state affording maxim free speech, a state founded on a declaration of the principle that all men are created equal before the law, etc.
Imagine what they would be like in any past or present police state.
I guess it all depends on who's ox is being
gored.
Well, we can all cease wondering why more old time Germans never spoke up, or those Poles who smelled the smoke coming from the chimneys, looked up briefly, then continued their plowing…
Lesson learned?
Right.
But American gentiles have had 60 years of accusations flung at them about how they kept quiet. The biggest Jewish whine is that no one spoke up when it mattered. So now these two guys know what it feels like. What goes around….
Whats the Schindler's list analogue for this quiet complicity? Weiss is on the right side of history.
So, now, which culture inculcates guilt, and which does not? Do I have to shred my collection of old
Catskill jokes about Jewish guilt? Start a new collection entitled "Barbarian Guilt Jokes?"
What I will never understand is why it took the atrocity of Gaza 2008-9 for these people to suddenly be appalled at Israel. Lebanon, 2006 was no less appalling, and we could go back, and back, and back in history and find equally appalling acts.
And were these same people OK with both of the U.S.'s appalling atrocities in Falluja, 2004, not to mention everything else the U.S. has done in Iraq since 2001?
What does it take to outrage decent, bright, aware people who work in the international field?
I guess, at least a vast trust fund with no conditions attached. And a good dose of mental integrity on moral issues. Then, some actual courage.
Courage is required to stand by Israel when it punishes its enemies. Wringing hands in this instance is for moral cowards like Weiss. Hell has a special place prepared for him and his ilk.
Aren't you Jewish, Chris? You sound like a Christian Zionist.
Phil, your no more ethical by hiding their identity. It's like gay 'outing' prominent hidden gays who are hypocritical and faux homophobic.
It's ethical to hide someone's identity . . . until they're hypocrites and their duplicity is causing death.
Be a man, care about a cause and justice and an end to killing (not a friendship), expose them!
Their two-faces fuel this fire and you're helping them and hurting the cause of justice.
@DavidF: There aren't many Jews nameed CHRISTopher. So I am guessing that Chris Berel is either a Christian Zionist or the offspring of a Jew and a shikse/sheygetz.
@ Chris Berel
"Courage is required to stand by Israel when it punishes its enemies."
"Courage is paramount to stand by Germany when it punishes its mortal enemies." Himmler to his SS troopers.
@ DavidF: You are living in the past. And since when did American jews not take on WASPY names to get ahead, especially in our most profound industry, the Entertainment industry in charge of popular culture? Further, "Chris Berel" is just one of many pen handles, but not excluding the theft of real names, real gentiles posting here in their own name (most abused, Jim Haygood, of late), many sock puppets–hasbara agents, the prime mover: SOG aka Bill Pearlman.
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