Comments on: 6 decades of ‘unswerving’ American Jewish support for the Israeli gov’t threatened by youth

By: Donald

Donald — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 19:13:20 +0000

” but a drink is still a drink,”

Well, I fell off the wagon.

I’ll get back on.

By: Chaos4700

Chaos4700 — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:42:50 +0000

J Street contrasts with AIPAC, Witty?! Really? You spent your time leading up to the conference demanding the Phil Weiss and his crew form a line behind J Street, at one point exploiting your ties of family and friendship to try and demoralize him, and then you turn around and claim that J Street isn’t run the same way as AIPAC? Are you really blind to the blatant contradictions and hypocrisy that radiate from your very rhetoric?

By: potsherd

potsherd — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 15:22:17 +0000

Wrong. The racism of Zionism has nothing to do with expansion. It is the position that seizing the land of Palestine in the first place was the right of the Jewish people.
It is the position that the Jewish people had the right to turf the Palestinian people out of their own homes.

Even if Israel never throws another Palestinian family out of their house, it is still a racist ideology.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:50:24 +0000

The tragedy of the policies of AIPAC include though the idea of solidarity, of passively accepting the dictates of the vanguard (a very similar approach to what is expressed by solidarity here – “Who are we to criticize the decisions of the Palestinians fighting for their own safety and decency”)

J Street contrasts with that. It states we support Israel, but not passively, retaining our responsibility to productively criticize as a dear friend intervenes in a bad marriage, or an addiction.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:47:34 +0000

Innaccurate.

There is form of Zionism, the prevalent one in the US, that enough is enough, that Zionism needs a home, not to expand.

By: Colin Murray

Colin Murray — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:39:58 +0000

Oh, Hil. While the cat is away (pretending to be a global stateswoman whose opinion anyone in the Middle East gives a damn about), the mice will play. U.S. State Department: Israel is not a tolerant society ********************* The database also shows that, in more than 30 settlements, extensive construction of buildings and infrastructure (roads, schools, synagogues, yeshivas and even police stations) has been carried out on private lands belonging to Palestinian West Bank residents. Secret Israeli database reveals full extent of illegal settlement

By: potsherd

potsherd — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:38:05 +0000

Zionism is the ideology declaring the Jewish people have a right to seize the lands of another people by force, that the right of the Jewish people supersedes the rights of other, less important people.

Denying this is simply an expression of racism, and all the rest is blather.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:33:43 +0000

Also for reference, Palestine has never offered or agitated for the right of return of its Jewish residents. An ethnic screen, not honestly a geographic one.

By: Richard Witty

Richard Witty — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 14:31:39 +0000

If you define Zionism as the right of the Jewish people (which do self-identify as a distinct people historically, less in this generation except in Israel), the to deny-self governance on the basis of ethnicity is racism.

If it weren’t necessary to have a state following the 30′s and 40′s, then the issue wouldn’t have been raised, but it was necessary, and was responded by non-acceptance of Israel and by ethnically based repressions.

People voluntarily associate by very differing motives.

In an environment of acceptance and normalization, the gradual changes in consciousness of its citizens and composition will likely change. It is only in the environment of threat that any that hold conditional attitudes shift to fortress.

While many dissenters dismiss the concept of “Israel is Jewish like France is French”, the reality is that France is still French (as in French language and culture), but is different than solely French ethnically. Still a democracy, a changing one, but not by revolution.

The cruelty by Israel (and proposed cruelty by its enemies) should stop, but its existence as a Jewish haven with right of return offered should remain.

Again, the SAME confusion as to how you can be really any definitive association but have some boundaries and exclusions, is comparable to what is attributed to Zionism, and in that light the BEST that any self-governing entity can be, defined geographically or ethnically, is simultaneously its basis of identity AND democratic.

It is up to progressives to emphasize the democratic, but not at the exclusion of identity.

Just for reference, my wife’s cousin successfully was granted Hungarian citizenship for his father’s Hungarian ancestry, though he has never been to Hungary, or speaks the language. (He’s Canadian, lives and works in the New York area, but is likely to move to Europe in a couple years.)

By: Shmuel

Shmuel — Sat, 07 Nov 2009 10:00:07 +0000

Not that I’m replying to anyone in this thread, or wishing to interact with anyone here in particular. Just making an observation to pass time, maybe collapse the wave function, see which universe we each find ourselves in.

Clever Donald but a drink is still a drink, although I admit that the “anti-Zionism is racism” remark is an ice cold craft beer on a scorching afternoon. Get thee behind me Satan!