Why do newspapers exist? To do what the Boston Globe is doing so valiantly today: publishing three stories about the recall of Israeli consul general Nadav Tamir (pictured) for being openly critical of the Netanyahu government’s tactics with Obama in a memo (which Adam covered last week). Here is the Globe’s lead story, which says that Jewish groups are in an "uproar" over the move, and Israelis are trying to blame the consul’s heresies on Boston’s liberal "bubble." Amazingly, the story tops the paper on the front page. And just as important, reporter James F. Smith quotes Steve [AIPAC-adoring, Tutu-bashing] Grossman, one of the most powerful Jews in America, condemning the move.
“I’ve known Israeli consuls general for the last 30 years or so. [you bet he has!] And I don’t think Israel has had a more effective leader in New England in that time than Nadav Tamir.’’
Grossman said that while he hadn’t seen the memo, Tamir appeared to have been doing precisely what an effective Israeli diplomat should do.
Story #2, here is Avigdor Lieberman suggesting that Tamir resign. Here’s the third, in which the Russian Jewish community in Boston wants Tamir to go home!
The Globe is taking a stand in favor of Tamir, and alarming the Jewish community over this question. The coverage signals the ways that a rightwing accession in Israel is finally eroding PEP–the undying liberal Jewish orthodoxy on Israel: Progressive Except for Palestine. Starting in liberal bubbles of SF, Boston, Brooklyn. Soon playing everywhere. (Photo from Tel Aviv University supporters’ site).
Soon playing everywhere. … lets hope so!!!
You notice how it’s Jews from the former Soviet Union (including Avigdor Lieberman, who is from Moldova, and his clueless subordinate Alex Miller, who is from Russia) who are the worst on just about every issue. This should not be a surprise. They grew up in dictatorships where any appearance of democracy was pure sham and the real power was administered through political connections and the secret police. This is what seems normal to them. They really can’t understand what’s wrong with just silencing anyone who disagrees with them and demanding absolute obedience from those below them. Such people are basically unfit to live in a democracy, much less to hold elected office. The strong disapproval of Tamir’s memo by the Russian Jewish community of Boston is thus to be expected. The proverb about how if you let a pig live in a mansion, he’ll turn it into a pigsty, is applicable here, if you just substitute “democracy” for mansion and “police state” for pigsty.
On the label “progressive.” I see the use of this term “progressive” when it comes to
technology–whether mechanical or electronic, there’s no doubt it is always happening.
My, just look at those old hand phones the characters use in Seinfeld. But as to human relations…. why look again at Seinfeld, or Curb Your Enthusiasm. Where’s the progress
in human relations? Is it in the essential white vote for Obama, or in the 95% black vote for Obama?
We have met the enemy and he is us.
Boston’s liberal bubble is funny. When Spiro Agnew and Pat Buchanan said things like that they were viewed as thinly-veiled attacks against Jews.
Ah, this will be Lieberman’s waterloo. Going after Nadav Tamir for being candid about the crisis in US-Israeli relations . . . the guy has 30 years of experience under his belt. Boston is the hub of progressive Jewish thinking . . . and progress . . . and a tone-deaf Lieberman starts calling for Tamir’s resignation? Expect it right backatcha, Liebs — this is the beginning of a civil war.
I think this is an important story, and highlights what are probably irreparable fault lines between American and Israeli visions of Zionism in the 21rst century. Obviously the issue is far too complex to be treated properly in a comment, but I’ll take a shot at a crude abstraction using a lot of assumptions that may be erroneous.
The Israeli political establishment, less the Arab parties, has been almost unanimously behind ethnic cleansing and colonization in the Occupied Palestinian Territories since 1967. The Tamir conflict has arisen from the differences in colonization strategy between the fascist and mainstream segments of the Israeli political establishment. Mainstream parties, e.g. Labor and Kadima, have preferred gradual ethnic cleansing and colonization with a minimum of unseemly violence and visibility that might disrupt the comfortable illusions of American supporters. They are all about maintaining appearances, and are keenly aware of just how dependent Israel is upon American financial and political largess. They have traditionally taken great pains to present an image of sharing American values.
Do the Americans want us to negotiate? Of course we will. We are all reasonable people. We’ll talk, talk, talk, and everyone who matters will politely fail to notice our simultaneous acceleration in colonization. No one can criticize us when we are at the table showing our good faith. Lack of progress isn’t our fault, and the colonies have absolutely nothing to do with it, and if you say otherwise you are antisemitic.
The fascist wing, e.g. Likud and Yisrael Beiteinu, have a marked tendency to take American support for granted. They are astoundingly self-righteous and don’t care what Americans think, including the majority of American Jews with different political values. They think that when the chips are down and Americans are presented with faits accomplis such as the acceleration of colonization in response to Pres. Obama’s request for a cessation in ‘natural growth’, we will fall grudgingly into line, forget that anything ever happened, and business will soon be as usual. That is not happening this time, particularly within the American Jewish community.
The fascists have little sense of international political strategy. They don’t understand that the special relationship isn’t something that arose spontaneously, but was constructed over decades by an enormous amount of very hard work. They don’t realize that it requires continuous active nurturing by the Lobby, defined as the heterogeneous collection of political organizations who seek to direct American domestic and foreign policies in favor of Israel. They don’t feel the need to dissemble with a carefully worded half-agreement in response to the American request for cessation of colony expansion that everyone would know would be ignored, but would provide enough of a fig leaf to lessen external scrutiny.
Many American supporters of Israel are comfortable with orthodox illusions about the reality on the ground in Israel and the Occupied Territories. They don’t want to have to confront the notion that there are gaping differences between what they are told is happening by traditional authority (the institutions that dispense, probably not the most accurate word, and approve the ‘official’ narrative), and what is actually happening. Recognition of the disparity invariably weakens respect for traditional authority. I hypothesize that this makes many conservative American Jews very uncomfortable because for them traditional authority for the narrative comes from the very same collection of social and political institutions that provide them a feeling of safety and security in American society. (I welcome feedback from Jewish readers on whether this is bunk or not.) If respect for and support of these institutions is the foundation of success for what is abstracted as ‘the Lobby’, then in the eyes of those holding to mainstream Israeli politics, the Israeli fascist leaderships’ careless imposition upon American supporters of unwelcome narrative inconsistencies constitutes an alarming strategic threat to Israel.
The fascists either don’t understand this, or don’t care. Tamir supporters who are fully cognizant of the reality of, and fully support, the colonization campaign want the Lieberman types to shut up and go away because they are trading the patiently wrought investment in assuring the long term stability of American support for colonization for minor tactical political victories, e.g. facing down Pres. Obama on the freeze, that are in their view meaningless or counterproductive to its eventual success. Consul Tamir’s disagreement with Lieberman doesn’t necessarily make him one of the good guys who are interested in assuring Israel’s security through genuine compromise and dialogue leading to acceptance of its right to exist as a Jewish state. It just means that he isn’t a fool.
Colin, brilliant analysis. Cutting edge view on what this means. For God’s sake, do the progressive diaspora Ivy League Jews from Boston see themselves as cut from the same cloth as Russian immigrants like the former club bouncer Lieberman?
Now if a senator would say this on the debate floor, this might have a great effect. Can J-Street fully fund the campaign of a senator to make a stand like this? -Although it would likely never be covered in the news media. But this would cause traffic on the internet. I wonder when the day will be that the mainstream news becomes less important than the internet for news?
It’s already happened for many, but when the uninformed start to see the obscured news and stop feeding from the mainstream news trough, there might be a new moment to tack.
I wonder what Joachim Martillo thinks about this? He used to blog about the Boston area Jewish community extensively.
He surely would manage to squeeze it into his larger narrative architecture. Ed’s mental system is rigid. It surely could handle this piece of our larger puzzle. In the end, absolutely no doubt, it would prove his thesis. As always.
Nadav Tamir seems to be leaning left after all, and that is as bad as Zionist/non-American First/or every Jew not accepting Christianity’s superiority.
Hmm? Vdare link? I miss Mooser more, especially his more entertaining alter ego.
what happened to these people? They were a big part of this blog. :(
It’s a complete non story. Do liberals and conservatives agree on anything in the US?
Yet some people are amazed when right and left wing Zionists argue about policy in Israel.
Tamir is very popular with many people in the media establishment in the Boston area.
His friends came to his defense. Big deal.
link to jpost.com
or link to haaretz.com
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