The White House put out an intriguingly short official statement on the Netanyahu-Obama meeting. Only one notable adjective–strong–to describe the U.S. commitment to Israel:
"The President and Prime Minister Netanyahu discussed a number of issues in the U.S.-Israel bilateral relationship. The President reaffirmed our strong commitment to Israel’s security, and discussed security cooperation on a range of issues. The President and Prime Minister also discussed Iran and how to move forward on Middle East peace."
I watched most of Bibi Netanyahu’s speech to the Jewish Federations General Assembly today and it left me cold. Netanyahu is unappealing. He doesn’t smile, he has that gloomy-gus expression, he is strong in a scary way. The speech had blood-and-soil overtones. It boiled down to: We’re smarter than other people, we have a lot of Nobel Prizes, we are leading the world in desalination and we are going to replace oil with another energy source, and we ARE the Jewish people! This justifies the 19th-century tests on citizenship:
Any Jew, of any denomination, will always have the right to come home to the Jewish state. Religious pluralism and tolerance will always guide my policy.
What does a Jewish state mean for the Palestinians? They must abandon the fantasy of flooding Israel with refugees…
Netanyahu also warned American Jews against what they’re doing, getting comfortable here. This is a theme of his administration. Michael Oren does identity politics, too. And Sharansky says that assimilation is "eating" the Jews alive. Netanyahu:
Today, you support Birthright, Masa [which came out against intermarriage] and Nefesh B’Nefesh [which encourages Americans to move to the Occupied West Bank]. These are programs that promote Aliyah and strengthen Jewish identity, thereby ensuring that our numbers are not further diminished and dwindled by the forces of assimilation.
Strengthening Jewish identity can no longer be a task exclusively for the Diaspora.
It is increasingly the responsibility of the Jewish State. Over a decade ago, I was proud to be the first Prime Minister to allocate state funds to bolster Jewish identity outside of Israel.
And I assure you that in my second term, I intend to do even more.
I.e., you’re doing a lousy job of holding the Jewish people together in postracial America. Increasingly, Netanyahu’s idea of what it means to be a Jew, militant, ethnocentric, is bumping up against young Americans’ ideas about identity. Apparently too late to make much difference for the Palestinians.
Related posts:
- Zogby Extols Assimilation for Arab-Americans. Why Not for Jews, too?
- Jewish press warns new NY senator she will lose campaign money for mild criticism of Netanyahu
- Mr. Netanyahu, how many American Jews are ’self-hating’?
- JPost Warns that Assimilation and Intermarriage Threaten Israel Lobby
- MASA drops anti-assimilation ad citing a ‘disconnect’ between Israeli and American Jews
{ 27 comments }
netanyahu: come to israel and join the master race (jewish KKK)
Birthright, Masa, and Nefesh B’Nefesh. Netanyahu’s a white-supremist in Jewish duds.
With all the controls and ownerships in everything from weapons of mass destruction and domination to the economical control of the federal reserve and medicine and now the health care system, does it make anyone wonder what may lay ahead for the world, yes the atomic bomb and all the corner shot weapons and droids should scare the hell out of anyone and everyone, this is a cultist period in the history of civilization or should that be the lack of civilization?
Gandhi’s answer was probably the best when he was asked “what do you think of Western civilization?” Essentially he replied “that would be a good idea.”
I remembered as well the kraft foods company too look at all they control every aspect of everyones lives.
What is wrong with the picture that paints to an ordinary person and someone who has not been plagued by religon and dumbed down by the media they control.
Damn, Javs, the bastards got your punctuation, too.
Just a personal observation here.
I went to a Catholic private high school in a large southern city in the sixties. For certain reasons–perhaps most likely the fact that the high school was considered as offering the best education in the city and the neighborhood was heavily Jewish–the student body was perhaps 20-25% Jewish, equally split between Reform and Orthodox.
Absolutely none of my fellow Jewish students would have in any way, shape, or form identified at the time with any sort of Likudish statements about Jewish identity or assimilation the likes of which are being spouted nowadays by the Israeli government.
It would be interesting to learn what those Jewish students’ views on such Israeli nonsense are nowadays–are they alienated from official Israel, or have they hunkered down and embraced that tribalism?
pineywood slim, as far as I know, if any of those Jewish kids you went to school with had a moment of difficulty or maladjustment, there are plenty of organisation ready, willing and able to turn their emotional difficulties into tribal cultism.
The funniest part is how exactly alike these organisation are to the Christian cults that do the same thing, but of course, they don’t have their own armed country.
Zionism will be the death of Judaism as a religion.
If you’re looking for a homeland to preserve jewishness for many centuries to come then it’s easy to imagine the logic
- peace or war in the short run is insignificant if you keep in mind the big picture.
- a small country has a military disadvantage. So better a larger one.
- having more people makes you stronger
- it’s good to have the capacity to harbor all the jews in the world
- regional dominance is safer than getting along with people
- an extra safety border around the first one makes you safer
- the nearer the neighbor the weaker it should be. It may be necessary to make it so.
- even far away neighbors are a risk in the long run
- presence of non jewish people in your state are a long term threat to the jewishness of the state.
- people feeling at home in the diaspora are an existential threat.
- intermarriage is an existential threat because it dilutes jewishness.
We only want to be safe, you know.
“having more people makes you stronger”
You could harbor every goddamed Jew in the world and you still wouldn’t have “more people”
And BTW, all of that you list is really minor points for Israel, and you left out the biggest one, and the one on which the rest depend, and have depended from the beginning: -have a major power colonial sponsor, so the basic unfeasibility of the project can be obfuscated, and they can do the dirtywork, or at least hide yours.
When Israel finally fails at this (loses the US) they are finished.
Mooser, You’re right that I overlooked the ‘major power protector’ factor – even if I’m not sure what to do with it.
The list is not an analysis though, it’s an experiment in how far you can stretch the concept of ’security’. Do you think the other arguments are all that credible?
Sometimes sensible people argue that the colonization of the westbank is clearly not driven by security – but you can stretch the concept till it does, till “you’re not really lying”. That doesn’t mean it’s the best way of looking at it because you can then just as well claim that zionism is only about security.
In 67 when the Allon and Dayan plans were made up, the idea of security was all over them, but how do you provide the best fit with the components ‘obsessive immediate concern with security’, ‘pretext for covert colonisation(it was deemed unacceptable internationally to do any open colonisation)’ and ‘long term construction of an invincible state’.
I bet both would have discussed the Zionist hoax of a “nuclear Iran”, and terrorist groups like HAMAS and HIZBOLLAH, and countries like Pakistan and Sudan threatening the very existence of the so-called “Jewish State”, even though, almost all Israeli presidents and prime ministers have been confirmed atheists.
It reminds me of the “Jewish Conference on Iran”
http://rehmat1.wordpress.com/2009/09/12/jewish-conference-on-islamic-iran/
In a nutshell Netanyahu told the Jewish Federation that the world should realize (like his audience) that the Jews are the salt of the earth, the best, the brightest, the one people the whole world can count on to make the world a better place. Just before his speech a woman spoke how she had come to realize what a blessing it was to be Jewish; she was the product of intermarriage and had not been raised as a Jew although she had a Jewish father; but all was wonderful now because she had converted to Judiasm and brought her
two siblings into the Jewish fold too. And even her dad came around and is no longer proud of being Jewish too. Nothing was said about the mother or her side of the family.
She got a very large applause. There was a lot of talk about how wonderful Birthright
Israel was doing in bringing young Jewish Americans back into the fold.
Before 67′ if you read a good portion of the literature in the community you find almost nothing about Israel in the US literature. It is amazing how man found the “faith” after Israel was considered a strategic assent of the US and the “aid” started to pour in, along with quite a bit of private money. Now many are “proud” to be Jewish in the sense of patidipating in Israel’s atrocities, and getting something for themselves – the motives are not only suspect, they are plainly apparent.
You’ve got it pegged, v…
I got a pre-67 Jewish religious education, and it’s completely different than the crap they’re feeding kids now.
I’d like to see that woman move to Israel and discover that the official rabinate doesn’t consider her conversion legitimate and she and her kids really aren’t Jews after all.
Yes Potsherd, and as the economy worsens it will be interesting to see how many more suddenly join the ranks.
Oops
delete no longer proud of being Jewish too.
and substitute is now a proud Jew.
“We CAN” is a good message.
I read the speech on Tikkun. I differ with his priorities, settlements, manner of “making peace”.
Hopefulness is important. The opportunity for dissent is not to dismiss only, but to clarify goals and the map towards actual achievement, not just the self-talk.
Hopefulness? Really? In an Israeli government lead by a man who said that 9/11 was good for Israel?
Well, Witty, what can I say–except Adolph was pretty good at saying “WE CAN” too.
That’s a good message too? Of course to the Germans nailed by Versailles Treaty Hope was important too. So, where are you going with your self-described self-talk?
You just gotta love how utterly free of genuine honesty international relations are. I mean here’s Netanyahu, who’s really saying “Hello President Obama, so nice to see you so soon after publicly making you eat feces on the settlements issue. I was just in your country here to rally some of your constituents to force you to do some other things that you might not feel is in your country’s best interests.”
To which Obama responds approximately verbatim, with even greater dishonesty:
“And hello there to you Mr. Prime Minister, I’m so glad to see you again.”
That said, is it just me or is did the degree of the appeal to tribalism Netanyahu undertook really turn a corner from the previous ways that Israeli officials at least used to do same? Really seems raw here now.
And given the amount of dough we send over there every year you just gotta wonder if he wasn’t smirking with his comment about how he intends to continue to bolster Jewish identity outside of Israel using “state funds.”
He reminds me of an Acorn spokesperson.
Citizen? Most of the time I appreciate your contributions, but… seriously. What is that supposed to mean?
Chaos, as Citizen announced in another thread he is “a white bigot” and proud of it.
But for God’s sake, don’t worry about it! Look, we will never get Americans to mind what Israel is doing in any actionable numbers. After all, it doesn’t hold a candle to the stuff (in terms of size and ferocity) Americans do, and seem to approve of in vast numbers. Our only chance of doing anything is to convince people it’s only wrong because Israel is doing all this to benefit the Jews, and the Jews are accruing too much power and control in America.
Now, one way of doing this is to try and associate what the Jews are doing with what the other groups who are acquiring all the power and wealth in America are doing, thus, ACORN. You can easily see how that works.
Remember, Chaos, it’s a zero-sum game! Anything a Jew or African American has must have been taken from a white person. And damn, they don’t even get a capitol “W”.
Here’s what american jews can do: they can invite palestinians, allow them to convert to judaism – and then allow them to go back. Strictly speaking it’s not assimilationism so I guess Netanyahu won’t mind.
This is ironic, especially that it comes mere days after the media (e.g. Anderson Cooper and Wolf Blitzer) and has gone into a frenzy questinoing whether American Muslims are either loyal or assimilated in the US.
Had Netanyahu been the leader of a Muslim/Arab nation and had he called on Muslims not to assimilate into American society, could you imagine the backlash from the media and Joe Lieberman?
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