Harold Meyerson has a great oped in today’s Washington Post which makes several of the same points we have been making on this site – American Jews’ belief in liberalism and equality is beginning to outweigh their support for Israel. Meyerson:
But why the waning of American Jewish identification with Israel over the past few decades? At its birth, and for several decades thereafter, Israel commanded virtually consensual support among American Jews. But for the past 42 of its 61 years, Israel has ruled over Palestinians who are citizens neither of Israel nor of a Palestinian state. They are — a condition that should be familiar to Jews — stateless. The blame for their statelessness is surely their own as well as the Israelis’, but in time, the Israeli role in the Palestinian disaster has eroded American Jewish identification with Israel.
By every measure, American Jews remain intensely committed to liberalism and to universal and minority rights. As a democratic state rising on the ashes of the Holocaust, Israel once embodied those values to its supporters, but 42 years of occupation have rendered Israel a state that tests those values more than it affirms them. Its most fervent American Jewish backers, to be found disproportionately among the Orthodox, identify with it for reasons that are more tribal than universal. All of which has created the political space for President Obama to try to craft a resolution to one of the planet’s most venerable and dangerous disputes.
Two points. First, although Meyerson focuses on the Jewish community, I think it is actually the declining support for Israel among American more broadly that is opening political space for Obama. While the American Jewish community is clearly an important voice on this issue, it is also important that the issue not be left to Jews alone. The US send over $3 billion a year to Israel which makes this an issue for all Americans. American support for Israel seems to be dropping across the board and this is important.
Second, Meyerson draws a distinction between pre-1967 Israel and post-1967 Israel. This is common and understandable to degree, but ultimately misguided. Israel was not a flourishing democracy before the 1967 occupation. The first and most important example of this is the Nakba and its aftermath which went virtually unacknowledged outside the Arab world, especially in the Jewish community, for decades. Following the displacement and dispossession of the Palestinian people in 1948, Israel held the Palestinians who remained inside Israel under martial law until 1966. The reason this history has not determined the US perception of Israel is because it is not widely known, and there is certainly an ongoing effort to keep it that way. Stories like Exodus helped sanitize Israel’s history for Western audiences and helped create the liberal image that Meyerson refers to when he says “Israel once embodied those values to its supporters.” What the ongoing occupation that begun in 1967 has done is make that illusion impossible to sustain.
As Israel’s history becomes more widely known it can be expected that widespread US affinity for Israel will continue to fall, along with support for sustaining the one-sided “special relationship” that the US has maintained with Israel for so long.
Just wanted to say I appreciate the work you do. Keep up the great job, and let us push for peace and dignity for people on both sides!
Ditto their actions on Twitter re: the Iranian protests. From a HuffPo link: http://axisoflogic.com/artman/publish/Article_560...
OT: M&W have won. Another mainstream reporter is talking about the impact of the lobby. Patrick Tyler's book on US Middle East policy came out late last year, but I've only just read a review– A World of Trouble by Patrick Tyler The (London) Times Literary Supplement reviewed it May 29. A few selections from the review by British diplomat Oliver Miles follow: (apparently the new comments have to be very short)
Tyler documents the penetration of the US establishment up to the level of the White House by Zionist activists. … Tyler records that when America was taken by surprise by the Israeli invasion of Egypt in June 1967, it just so happened that Mathilde Krim, a Zionist hawk and former active memeber of Begin's terrorist organization, the Irgun, was a guest at the White House. She and her husband had been frequent guests at President Johnson's ranch in Texas, and he had given them top-secret security clearances. Throughout the Six Day Was she "sent a steady stream of notes to the Oval Office". When Dean Rusk was arguing for a more blanced position, Johnson put him on hold and "asked his secretary for Mrs Krim's memo on Jewish anger so he could read portions to the Secretary of state".
Britain seems to have avoided the mistake of expecting committed Zionists to take a balanced position on problems of the Middle East. … Tony Blair's appointment of Lord Levy as his representative in the Middle East was foolish, because Levy was inevitably seen by some, at least, of the Arabs as representing Ariel Sharon rather than Blair, but at least Levy, like Emanuel, has not been publicly involved in Zionism [like Obama's Dennis Ross].
Britain seems to have avoided the mistake of expecting committed Zionists to take a balanced position on problems of the Middle East. … Tony Blair's appointment of Lord Levy as his representative in the Middle East was foolish, because Levy was inevitably seen by some, at least, of the Arabs as representing Ariel Sharon rather than Blair, but at least Levy, like Emanuel, has not been publicly involved in Zionism [like Obama's Dennis Ross].
The NYTimes had it reviewed by a Jewish writer, Adam LeBor, who seems to have missed any references to an Israel lobby in the book, or at least doesn't mention them in his review. (LeBor is a frequent contributor to Harry's Place.) By a strange coincidence the LATimes also assigned it to a committed Jewish Zionist, the ultra-sensitive Tim Rutten. All you need to know about Rutten's review can be found in his complaint, "What, precisely, is the point of identifying Ross and Indyk as Jews?" What indeed.
Adam, I think you make a great argument for where we are right now and where it's going. And just as whatever started this protest last Saturday has morphed into something bigger than could have been conceived, the same flood is beginning to hit Americans about Israel. Oddly enough, because of the shenanigans the hard-right Israelis and US neocons are playing with Iran on Twitter, hundreds of thousands of Americans are getting exposed to what Israel does to foment war. There is no way Israel can contain it. Read Andrew Sullivan taking on uber Israeli hawk Danielle Pletka and the NYT this afternoon: http://andrewsullivan.theatlantic.com/the_daily_d... Read Nico Pitney's live-blogging on HuffPo for the subtext. Nico sings Sullivan's praises for his serious and honest efforts. It's coming out, and there is no way Israel's PR and hasbara machine can control Twitter, ultimately.
However, with recent events:
http://www.independent.co.uk/news/people/pandora/...
Well, Tony Blair's first act after joining the Labour Party was to join Labour Friends of Israel, but seeing as Israel/Palestine doesn't rank very highly in the eyes of the public, no-one cared – that and the cult of personality around Tony Blair
That article gives no evidence and makes multiple logical fallacies. While it's certainly possible (and wouldn't be surprising) if there are any number of fraudulent Twitter accounts pushing one agenda or another (probably both pro- and anti-Ahmedinajad), this article does nothing to prove it. There are probably lots of people, especially students, in Iran who joined Twitter after the trouble started to add their voices. That many such people would have chosen account names related to the current crisis is hardly surprising. That the Jerusalem Post chose to link to or quote three of them is interesting but proves nothing; the article asks "Is this newsworthy?" as if it obviously wasn't, when in fact it is newsworthy; the Iranian crisis, the citizenry's protests, and the government's brutal crackdowns have been one of the biggest news stories in the world for the last few days, and the opposition's use of Twitter has been a noteworthy part of that story. That these three accounts have the same profile photo sounds like good evidence against them until you realize that the "photo" in question is simply a stock protest image featuring the words "Where is my vote?" against a green background. Like the account names, this is understandable considering the situation. The use of English is also understandable because part of the point of these feeds is to inform the rest of the world of what is going on, which is better done in an international language like English than in Farsi. The way the article expresses utter certainty that these accounts are fraudulent despite "evidence" that is incredibly weak and entirely circumstantial leads me to wonder about the author's own agenda.
The article on Danielle Pletka is powerful. It's a pity there's no documentary evidence, but the portrait is quite believable despite that technical weakness. Many think-tank writers, especially at neocon groups like AEI, seem motivated, as the article says, by the desire to support pre-selected conclusions rather than by any desire for truth. It's all just political games.
From Meyerson-"They are — a condition that should be familiar to Jews — stateless. The blame for their statelessness is surely their own as well as the Israelis', but in time, the Israeli role in the Palestinian disaster has eroded American Jewish identification with Israel." A small step forward, but really, would any serious respeted op-ed writer ever say that stateless Jews were partly to blame for their own statelessness? And yet Meyerson felt it necessary to blame the Palestinians for their own statelessness. At any time over the past 40 odd years if Israel had lifted one finger to help create an independent Palestinian state it would have become a reality. Should we partl blame the Jews for the Holocaust? It makes as much sense as partly blaming the Palestinians for the Nakba. The discourse on Israel will only have taken a major step when someone like Meyerson can stop blaming the victims to appease the victimizer. Its like blaming the American Indians for being put on reservations, which seems to be the Israeli preferred solution over the decades.
New Labour didn't want the union money so…
Pre-67 IS very different from post-67, as much as Adam revises history to get to the conclusion that he desires. While the resident Arab communities obviously experienced the trauma of being displaced, it wasn't until 1967 that it imprinted as formative for a Palestinian national identity. And, if he values democracy at all, the PRESENT is the definer of one-person one-vote. The past is at most motivation. There are fascist movements that call themselves "democratic" referring to a past only. As if injustice is isolated, only occurring to one community, and at one community's hand.
I too see a parallel with our country. Before the Indians were defeated, they were savages. Now that they have been utterly defeated, we are starting to tell the truth about our history. Israel needed the myth to consolidate its hold on Palestine. The remarkable thing about this thuggery is that it's not remarkable. Isn't this how every nation state was formed? My objection is not that Zionism is innately evil, it's just that its an ethnic/religious/national ideology that's pawned off on us as sometime of "good." Is Serbian or Albanian nationalism "good"?
That last part should read: "My objection is not that Zionism is innately evil, it's just that its an ethnic/religious/national ideology that's pawned off on us as some kind of "good"–like freedom, liberty, or equality. Is Serbian or Albanian nationalism "good"?
Actually, Craig, I found two of those accounts suspicious after a couple of days. There was a list of Iranian user-ids that was circulating on Saturday. I checked a number of them, meaning I determined when they started tweeting. Suddenly, 1/2 to 3/4 went private late Sunday when the clampdowns started. Two of those that remained were being urged on us as name to follow. I went back to the beginning of the tweets to see when the accounts were formed. As I did it, I found tweets that didn't sit well with me. I dont remember them exactly, but I did write about this on a post on Pat Lang's site, and I quoted the tweets. One urged revolution the morning of the election. Another called Ahmadinejad "HItler" before the election was held. The User-IDs were two of the ones in this article. This article confirmed what I saw independently. I didn't know that the Jerusalem Post was promoting them.
The Iranian military announced in the press last weekend that it would "not be engaged in the protest," that it's 'job is to protect the borders, not attack Iranian citizens'.
The analogy to the American Indians is accurate. They could be blamed because they failed. Mostly, they had to accept that a very powerful enemy was stealing their land and that military resistance was futile. So with the Palestinians. Today they must work towards a diplomatic and political solution, not a military one. As long as they avoid violent resistance then Meyerson and his ilk will not be in position to blame them.
"It wasn't until 1967 that it imprinted as formative for a Palestinian national identity." Not sure that's true at all. The Nakba has a very important role in Palestinian national identity. And it is absolutely true that those Palestinians who were not ethnically cleansed during '47-'48 and remained in what became Israel were under military law until 1966, similar to the military law that is now in place in the occupied Palestinian territories–permits needed to travel outside of their home towns, etc. It is just as important to examine history in order to understand what would constitute equal rights under the current situation as it is to examine our own history in the United States when discussing equal rights in reference to oppressed communities here, whether they be indigenous communities or communities of color. Can you imagine a discussion of American Indian rights with no reference to history? Injustice is universal, but when injustice is committed against those in a position of power, they have mechanisms of power by which to address grievances. When violence is committed against Israelis, the Israeli state feels free to retaliate in a variety of ways, and expects to be viewed as legitimate in doing so. So a baseline for justice is that people must have access to a system of redress for injustices. Israel, with a powerful state and army, has this. The Palestinians do not. International law and universal principles of human rights seeks to create a system of redress for all parties.
Here is another data point documenting the IDF as the most moral army in the world: http://counterpunch.org/cook06172009.html
A bit OT but Avigdor Lieberman is in Washington today and he announced Israel will not completely halt settlement expansion in the West Bank. I know, shocking: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1093701.html I'm waiting for the State Dept. to post the transcript from the 3pm press conference with Clinton and Lieberman.
Richard, Your second paragraph implies that you have knowledge of Palestinian identity evolution that Palestinians themselves would not have recognised. Palestinians had national identity. They identified with Palestine. What 1967 started was period of acceptance that they have been robbed of 80% of their land and they will not get it back. Your second paragraph simply does not make sense. Neither do individual sentences. Your third paragraph is a godsend to any Holocaust denier that will clap his eyes on it.
I read your message over at Pat's den. I agree with you on the use of Hitler. But that's exactly the same feature we find when people here spoof others. They don't change their basic message. (Only a few times there was a different method used.) So you can't really mix up the spoofer with the original person. I hear from Iranians over here that they are glued to their PC's. They communicate with their families over there. We had an interview with Bani-Sadr, who lives heavily guarded in Paris at the moment. It seems the exiled communities and people inside Iran are well connected. Bani-Sadr claimed to have been involved in this. And he said there is a broad movement within the Iranian people for more democracy. It won't be short-term but it will happen. I don't see why we need all of this necessarily connect to Israel. It feels this is not what Israel wants. This event changes the perception of the world concerning the Iranian people. They can see now that they can democratize their society and don't need to be bombed into democracy. The problem is the neocons won't let go, and neither will Israel. But it somehow feels this is counterproductive to their strategical perception management. The people on the streets are perceived as individual humans with a cloud of war hanging over them now and not as a mass to bomb. I don't see how this can please the average pro-Israel hawk or neocon. They don't want a differentiated image of the Iranians. They don't want them to be seen as a people that can choose its own development, and I don't think a fast change would be healthy.
My post was clear and informative. You should read more about the formation of Palestinian national identity. Its a new phenomena. That, to my mind, does NOT make it invalid in the slightest, and it does not make the Nakba any less experienced or relevant. But, Israelis' presence and desires are part of democracy. The pendulum swing approach of going back to some past (always mythologized) is NOT democracy.
that may be the reason for the underlying winner versus loser meme we encounter so often.
I really hate this the had no "national" identity game. It's the colonizers perspective.
Thanks for informing me witty,I just found out that Iam a palestinian.Jerk.
Can we forget about the stolen car your Honor,we need it to rob the next bank.What chutspa.mamzerem.
Hah! I have been saying for years that wide spread support for Israel is mosty imaginary …and that what there was was fast disappearing. 98% of Americans didn't care about Israel one way or another…..then they saw a few things, heard a few things, learned a few things and don't care turned to don't like. So… has the distain for Israel come from the top down or the bottom up? I think is has come from the bottom up. ..thanks probably to everyman and hisbrother having access to the net and altetnative and foreign news sources. Everyone challenges the zionist and their MSM mouthpieces now and everyone knows who they are.
Do you talk in your off net life with the same disconnected and babbling unrelatedness as you do here? If you do I am surprised no one has carted you off to a mental professional. Nothing you write makes any sense, it's like you skip thru a dictionary selecting words or terms at random and then try to make a thought out of them.
"The pendulum swing approach of going back to some past (always mythologized) is NOT democracy." The state of Israel is a perfect example of going back to some mythologized past. Geez, do you honestly think that you are an authority on Palestinian national identity and its formation? And, claiming that your post was clear and informative is not the same as it actually BEING clear and informative. Apparently you can dish out criticism of Phil all day and night long, but you can't recognize and acknowledge any criticism of your own obtuse writing style.
I think you are right on this. The images coming out of Iran do not suggest a nation in lock-step threatening the whole Western World, or the whole world. Or even Israel.
Even with the best propaganda, a brutish reality can only ride high on the horse for so long–how long has it been since Paul Newman's baby blues appeared in Hollywood's Exodus? My mother read the book in its heyday–at that time it was virtually the only "painting" available to Main Street.
For the critics who say the people weren't Israeli in the Max Blumenthal video, here is a Palestinian being humiliated by Israeli border quards. http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094019.html This is the face of the occupation. Do Americans really want to support this?
Settng aside its well documented history of military expansion, racism, ethic cleansing, occupation, mass murder of and humiliation of Palestininas and other Arabs for over 60 years, Israel has become a big piece of doo doo on America's shoe. We are witnessing the beginning of the necessary and inevitable "scraping off."
There are SO many things deceiving about Meyerson's opinion (and that's all it is, everyone has one, some smell worse than others, Harold's is one of those) : Israel has NOT "ruled over Palestinians" for 42 years. In the 1990's Palestinians in the disputed territories of Judea/Samaria began to self-govern themselves (didn't do too much good though, with a corrupt terrorist like Arafat running the show) In 2005, Israel left Gaza, with greenhouses for the Gazans (purchased by wealthy philanthropists for $14 million US) which the Gazans, destroyed, turning them into weapon smuggling tunnels, instead of growing much needed food. So what 42 year period Harold is talking about? When you look at the GDP numbers and overall poverty, Palestinians were actually BETTER off with Israel in control than the way they are now. When Arafat came back from exile in 1994, the average Palestinian salary decreased significantly. THIS IS A FACT. Harold tries to link the Holocaust with Israel's creation, despite the fact that it happened nearly 100 years after Jews began buying land and building Israel and has relatively little to do with the Holocaust when you look at where the majority of Jewish Israelis came from… ARAB & PERSIAN MUSLIM nations. Hmmmmmm…. He makes no mention of the FACT that most of Israel's JEWISH residents are REFUGEES FROM MUSLIM nations. He makes no mention of the 9,000 terror attacks on Israelis between 1949-1956. He makes no mention of the illegal occupations and crimes by Jordan & Egypt. Jordan illegally occupied Jerusalem for 19 years, murdering and driving Jews out of their homes in 1948, destroying synagogues, using Jewish graveyards as latrines and dividing the city for the 1st time in history. *Several facts to help you understand the truth
You probably don't know this, because like many people commenting here, you probably haven't been to Israel and don't know much about the makeup of the country, but many Israelis serving in the IDF are NOT Jewish. There's a large Druze population that is not fond of Muslims because of the way they were treated in the past. These Druze soldiers are often involved in shooting at protestors. You may recall one story of a soldier being convicted of a shooting in the past couple years. Take a look at his name. It's anything but Jewish. One of the many perks of being an Israeli citizen of the Muslim faith: no mandatory military service. Jews have to serve, Muslims don't. Talk about special privileges.
Israeli Bedouin Arabs serve in the IDF, too. They are Muslims – and the Bedouin HATE the "Palestineans" to death. I was amazed at the enmity between these two groups…
I lived just outside Gaza City in the 1960's. I'm an eyewitness. While UNDER EGYPTIAN RULE, the Arabs of Gaza (who hadn't yet begun to call themselves "Palestineans" were BAREFOOT, had NO FRESH WATER NOR SEWAGE TREATMENT, NO PUBLIC HEALTH, NO ELECTRICITY AND WATER. Plagues of CHOLERA WIPED THEM OUT IN LARGE NUMBERS. INFANT MORTALITY was horrifying. All of this IMPROVED DRAMATICALLY under Israeli rule. Under Arab rule again, whether Arafat and the PLO or Hamas, they went back to decrepitude. Arabs (not just "Palestineans") always blame outsiders on their own incompetence. They want 'independence', they got it. The problem is, they can't handle it. This isn't Israel's fault.
He also ignores the slaughter of over 1200 Jews by Arabs in the 6 month period prior to the Israeli declaration of statehood and the many massacres of Jews by Arabs after the declaration of statehood.
Here's an article about how the Border Police demean Palestinian people. It this is not enough to make you puke, I don't know what is http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1094242.html
Oh, Witty, for Christ's fucking sake! As if we Jews don't make up our identity each day for ourselves when we get up, according to our moods! As is their was one constant "Jewish Identity". You really are a first-cless idiot, or in the throes of senile dementia, Hey Witty, have you ever heard of CONSERVATIVE and REFORM Judaism? Are you gonna tell me those eggs aren't new-laid? Would Judaism give America a rotten egg? Never.____And BTW, how does having a religious identity entitle you to a state, schmendrick? And if we had some kind of "national identity" why are there, for one thing Ashkenazi and Sephardic Jews?____What I dislike most about you Witty, is you compulsive urge to discard any aspect of Judaism which you don't feel lends itself to the formation and continuance of a settler-state. Just throw a two-thousand year tradition of adaption and movement in the toilet so you can get a parade ground to do a military hora (shudder) on.____You're someone who wants top replace religion with state doctrine, for a State you won't even go to!!
Oy, such a nasty way of putting it! It may turn out to be apropos. There is nothing more emetic than a basically anti-Semitic person trying to propitiate a Jew that he thinks will be of use to him. Once the possibility of stopping becomes apparent, everyone will join in. And the IDF will go out of fashion, if it hasn't already.
Craig, Jake, you seem to have a very poor grasp of the verities of American political life. First, everythin you say about those horrible Arabs might be true, but see, they are not menacing America's borders. And every day we are greeted by new news of Israeli intransigence, which in stark human terms is very affecting. So the Israelis are losing our sympathy. Bye-bye Israel, good luck with your next sponsor, no hard feelings! Remember Jake and Craig, South Africa was once a well respected and admired country, too. And look what happened there. We didn't lift a finger for those poor Afrikaaners. That's how it goes, Jake, on top one decade, abandoned the next. You have to think these things out in advance.
See what I mean, Craig and Jake? All you've got is drunken Israelis and American Jews bragging about how America is their shabbes Goy. It won't do, Jake. You are going to have to come up with something better. And I have the answer. One that will solve all of Israel's problems, and defuse the Palestinian Demographic Time Bomb, to boot!! Oh, it's just a knack, Jake, don't thank me. I'm sharp in the ordinary way, but I have these flashes of genius now and again. To begin our presentation, let us look to the mysterious East, to the pleasant and exotic land of Thailand, the former Siam….
The IDF is well out of fashion, isn't it, now that it has been exposed that their mission is to police and brutalize Palestinians and Arabs? There isn't much hope for Israel's culture since they require all of their kids to wear this badge of shame. It is no wonder that their culture is so coarse, something even David Brooks observed this year.