Jerusalem Post: A group of rabbis calling themselves the "Sanhedrin" have ruled that it a Jew who sells land to a Palestinian Israeli is an "enemy" and must be excommunicated.
Jerusalem: An axe-wielding Jew in an orhtodox neighborhood went on a rampage, attacking a Palestinian cab driver in a "lynching attempt," then trashing his car.
Tony Karon in the National– last March:
In a remarkable interview last November, the Israeli prime minister Ehud Olmert cautioned that unless it could achieve a two-state solution quickly, Israel would “face a South African-style struggle for equal voting rights, and as soon as that happens, the state of Israel is finished”. The reason, he said, was that Israel would be internationally isolated. “The Jewish organisations, which are our power base in America, will be the first to come out against us because they will say they cannot support a state that does not support democracy and equal voting rights for all its residents.”…
The New York Times: "…many American Jews on the left are passionately pro-Israel.."
They will support Israel’s apartheid policies , or at least not go on record objecting to them, as long as average gentile americans
do not have a clue about the real nature of Israel’s “democracy” and how much they pay for it with the sweat of their taxed brow and that of their own soldiers (indirectly).
I love the Podster’s last comments!
I’m not a big fan of Lieberman but listening to Moynihan wax on about this or that on the Senate floor was enchanting. I miss the man.
I would at least make some (overlapping) subdivisions in ‘american jews’ :
- those who would oppose apartheid regardless
- those who consider the reasons for apartheid insufficient or false
- those who oppose apartheid but believe unfortunately in this case there is no other choice. The degree of tension you know.
- those who support apartheid out of loyalty and principle. Israel has the right to be a jewish state.
The third option is the attractive one. In Israel it’s also the attractive option but in the US there is the advantage of having to work with a more extreme caricature of the situation. I still like to believe that comparatively in the US many more people will go in the first two groups. A much larger minority …
The contradiction persists.
Theres support for an ethno state in Israel, yet theres this overarching sentiment that
“The more diverse American society is the safer [Jews] are,”
The contradiction cannot stand for long before it consumes itself. It can only be maintained by pressure.
You assume neocons on the left and right are ashamed of using a double standard;
in fact this troubles them not at all: A more diverse American society is safer for Jews, and a less diverse Israeli society is safer for Jews. Ultimately the standard exposed is a single one. The only problem is that some see it behind the surgical rhetoric and
factual omissions.
The greatest lie is that Israel somehow guarantees Jewish safety.
But by concentrating all the world’s Jews into one small target, they are only endangering them. Israeli paranoid hysteria about the possibility that Iran, might, someday, maybe, conceivably acquire nukes is recognition of this vulnerability, that all the Jews could be wiped out in a single blow.
In 1942, when Rommel appeared to be poised to take the Suez canal, the Jews of the Yishuv panicked, knowing how vulnerable settlement in that place rendered them. They were ready to evacuate (at least the women and children) to Cyprus, which would itself have been a risky undertaking as well as one of Rommel’s next targets.
Concentrating all the world’s Jews into a small patch of land that rightly belongs to another people and then enraging not only that people but all their numerous relatives, is even more endangering. If Israel wanted safety, they would make peace and stop creating more enemies. But if Jews want safety, they will keep the hell away from that place.
Israel is bad for the Jews, and dangerous for the Jews.
I always thought “unfortunately there is no other choice” (ever heard of ein brera?) as a rather slick way to have people accept the contradiction though.
Yep.
It conveys the peculiar perception that Israel’s reality dictates no “normal” conditions
of existence are attainable. See
Robert Alter’s reflections on “The Masada Complex”
If you think there is no linkage between Israel and American designs than you need to look again at this region. I only mention this because of its absence in these posts. Sure, there are some that have some misguided religious fervor, some are materially bound, but you can rest assured that some who will profit want Israel to be the outpost of the West in the Middle East. In this sense they are no different than those in America who want to sign up people under the auspices of Patriotism.
This is what all of the language about the unshakable friendship between the US and Israel is all about, that their goals are identical. Whereas the goals are identical only for a tiny elite who will profit from the carnage, as the imperial hand in the ME. Before 1967 there was not much talk about Israel as really significant among certain echelons of American Jewry, than suddenly some “got religion” when Israel was perceived to be a strategic asset.
So some profit immensely from running their Western franchise in the ME, just like others in other regions profit by their little franchises. They have to prove to the US that they have the reprobate “stuff” to do anything to protect and expand their turf, and American interest likes them as corrupt and reprehensibly violent as possible to do their dirty work. So they will sacrifice both Jew and Gentile alike, both Israel and the USA, so the few can profit in either region.
Israel not only gets supplied with everything it needs to genocide its indigenous population, but is also a storehouse for American use. It is not only a military strength in its own right, but at the beck and call of its mentor. I just thought you might like to know, because the few in Israel like their masses as ignorant as the US likes the masses ignorant here, and will use them to their benefit.
This is why the it does not matter to the moneyed rulers in Israel that they endanger their people, nor the same in the USA give a damn about their own people. They are two peas in a pod, and they will screw their own when necessary so the few can prosper – all religious pretense aside, for those in power it is all a sham and a con game to get what they want.
THE ONLY DEMOCRACY IN THE MIDDLE EAST INTERACTIVE