When I was a kid in Baltimore we respected the Gordis’s. The father was a scientist named Leon, just like my dad, but he was a serious Jew. His father was a big rabbi. We went to their seder once or twice, and couldn’t keep up with the formality of the ritual (compared to my family’s slopjob seders). I remember a lot of Judaica. Daniel Gordis is my generation and moved to Israel– his father lately followed– and writes books denouncing assimilation.
He’s a big deal at the Shalem Center, a neocon thinktank, and like so much of Israeli society, seems to be going off the rails. At least according to this account in a Connecticut Jewish newspaper of Gordis’s talk at a Conservative synagogue the other night. If the account is accurate, it just proves that intermarrying, universalist me is on the right side of Jewish history, and Gordis has gone down a messianic, ethnocentric rabbit-hole that is completely dependent on imperialist power.
Notice the incredibly frank talk about the lobby. It’s the usual hypocrisy. Deny it exists to the goyim, work it in the minyan. From the Ledger:
Here are some of Gordis’ key points:
1. Israel has survived all conventional military attacks and… reduced terrorism to a minor threat.
2. There is one potent attack by the Arabs against Israel that is capable of succeeding and against which Israel has no defense:. That is the direct assault that Israel is now under by the Arabs via appeals to the world community. This coordinated effort aims to delegitimize the Jewish state and cause it to be treated as an international pariah, whose products and scholars will be boycotted and ostracized from the international community.
3. In order to survive this new attack American Jews must fight it in the halls of Congress and on the American campuses. This means getting involved with organizations willing to present Jewish arguments, e.g. the American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC).
4. If Israel were to be destroyed, American Jewry would be reduced to the bleak existence they experienced years ago in Poland or Russia….
Posted in BDS, Israel Lobby, US Politics{ 28 comments... read them below or add one }
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Interesting to see that the idea of making a serious peace is not even considered.
It never is, when you get the honest Zionist opinion.
That’s true. It seems the only two options for Zionists are a Palestinian vassal state, or no Palestine at all.
Let’s see if this works
Nope, maybe this
See, what’s really sad about this, is this really is the same sort of language used in white supremacy, and the Nazi ethno-nationalist rhetoric it borrows from lately. It’s the “other” — the Arabs/Poles/Slavs/blacks who are the the threat to Jews/whites/reinrassig and although we are the superior race and our might is uncontested, we face existential threat unless the “other” is beaten into submission. The grammar is the same, just a couple of words get cut and paste.
Does the diaspora feed off this sense of destruction? Fear is a great motivator.
Someone said it well in Stephen Walt’s blog the other day ‘POLARIZE TO MOBILIZE’. (danielet ) made some strong points.link to walt.foreignpolicy.com
Gordis key points are AIPAC key points (i.e. were the victim, how will we ever survive?). And this persecution complex has existed with the Jewish narrative for so long, it’s a part of their identity. It’s as much a part of their identity as is Israel.
If they’re in great danger, what is their back up plan? Their foreign policy strategy is ludicrous. It will never, never last. Gordi’s point is to funnel American money indefinitely to Israel. Well, that’s an original thought. I could’ve said that.
To answer your first question? No, not inherently, I don’t believe. As the descendant of German Catholic as well as Polish immigrants, I am, in my own way, part of a diaspora myself. German perseuction of Catholics and Poles did not lead to anything analogous to the Zionist movement among my people, so that isn’t the defining factor of the paranoia.
Do you guys think that this person is correct that there is no way for Arabs to defeat Israel militarily?
No, I don’t think it is correct. Israel, like Nazi Germany, built a vast mythology of military invulnerability around it. So did Soviet Russia.
It never winds up being true, does it?
One notes we have a similar mythology built up around the US — which is in the process of unraveling.
If Israel’s neighbors — Egypt, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria — ever did get together in a concerted, all out offensive, Israel wouldn’t survive. That of course, is the big whole in crazed Islamophobic hysterical Zionist rhetoric. Israel hasn’t ever had to put up with anything like that. They’ve always managed to make an end runs around their neighbors, beguiling Jordan, blitzkrieging Egypt, etc. They’ve never had to fight an actual all-out war with all of their neighbors, contrary to their mythology.
Of course, Israel might settle for launching nukes, in which case nobody wins.
Egypt in 1973′s war caused damages to IDF, Egypt are 80 Millions, imagine if 10% of the 80 M go to War against the Israeli IDF.
Hezbollah with very few caused a lot of damages to IDF.
That is the Israeli strategy, the Sampson strategy.
It only points out the fallacy of the entire Israel enterprise, the delusion that putting all the world’s Jews in one basket, a basket surrounded by enemies, will make them safe. No, it makes them more vulnerable.
Fact is, the Israelis don’t have the balls to use the Sampson strategy. They are all for war as long as the massive casualties are on the other side, but they can’t take casualties themselves. They have grown soft and decadent.
Sorry for a spelling correction, but Samson is not spelled with a p.
These guys all sound like Jewish Cheneys.
RE: “Jewish Cheneys”
MY COMMENT: Oy vey!
Meaning of course all these Gordis’ and Kadars and the rest of these Israeli neanderthals. Is it age? Is it just a vulgarity of consciousness?
It’s medieval. It’s like they didn’t escape the Inquisition with these arguments that Americans would be reduced to Polish ghettos because some 60-year-old foreign country had to take responsibility for its actions. They are as insane as Cheney, the nutcase who orchestrated the last eight years. Peas in a pod.
Yes, that’s pretty much what I meant by ‘oy vey’. “Pricky Dick” Cheney is very ‘bad seed’!
Zionism’s mission was to redeem the Jew from his precarious, fearful state and to transform the Jewish community in Palestine from a charity case living off the support of Diaspora monies to a self-supporting community.
100+ years later, what’s changed?
Israeli Jews live in constant fear of destruction and the State of Israel is completely dependent on the political and financial support of American Jews (and Christians).
In other words, Zionism has failed in its stated mission.
I’m waiting for the day when Israeli spokesmen stop being offensive and patronizing to Diaspora Jews and come to us with some humility.
Elliot did you happen to check the Israeli economy? It’s booming. They produce far more than all their neighbors combined. Life is very very good there. Even self haters like Neve Gordon admit to that. Anti Zionists have a very hard time dealing with reality. You lost a long time ago. Every time a read your bitterness over that fact, it makes me smile.
Oh, what we have a hard time dealing with is that Israel’s booming economy comes at the expense of American tax dollars and lost jobs.
Julian One-Note sings again.
Too bad that the Israeli educational system won’t sustain a high-tech economy.
link to ynetnews.com
The only thing taught in Israeli schools is bullying, brutality and racism. Julian must have graduated at the top of his class.
this it just me or is this homepage completely screwed up. No right panels. Type at 36 pt. Only one posts showing. ??
Typing mess: “Is it just me or is this homepage…”
RE: “Is it just me or is this homepage…”
MY: First the good news. Yes, it is “just you” and you appear to be losing your mind. I’m so envious!
Now for the bad news. Mondoweiss is really messed up. Mozilla Firefox is working best for me right now.
NOTE TO PHIL: See what happens to “nosy fellows?” (at least their sites)
I had dinner with a friend of my wife’s family, in Boston a couple months ago. The woman was friends with a number of progressive authors and actors that I had worked with in producing audiobooks.
The man was a retired scientist, Hungarian holocaust survivor, emigre to the US.
He stated that the single event that liberated European Jewry following the war, was the PRESENCE of Israel, not even the immigration to Israel.
He stated similar sentiments long-term to what Phil quoted as Gordis, even point 4. Phil looks short-term and dismisses point 4 as ridiculous. It definitely seems remote.
But, in a decade, under the blanket anti-semitism in Europe shifted uniquely enlightened and uniquely assimilated Germany into a fascist suppressive, then genocidal state.
The role of Israel in the shift from persecuted to assertive and proud (good things) is likely if not undeniable.
I’m not sure Phil wants to be THE right side, why he in accepting his wife’s community that is different from his, can’t similarly accept his neighbor’s.
He is stating different contempt than for inhumane policy. Rather than differing in elements of Gordis’ perception, he is stating his rejection.
I’ve NEVER met an individual, or rarely even an ideology, that contrained no truth in it, that deserved to be appreciated in some respect, even if also rationally criticized.
I agree with Gordis’ first three posts with the exception of rejection of AIPAC’s emphasis on likud policies.
Really? Because when you talk to other European Jews, Witty, they tell a different story. I think MRW has spoken to that, with regards to his family. And I think Zionist rhetoric itself is extremely demonstrative.
As spoken by one David Ben-Gurion. Maybe you know him?
The dude is a perfect example of Zionist self-denial. For example:
1. Except, for the Zionist entity – all armies in that region are ‘conventional’. However, it was an Arab militia (Hizb’Allah), which is not a ‘conventional army’ by any standard – rubbed noses of 30,000 Israeli soldiers in dust during 34-day war of 2006.
2. How can Arab attack (Hamas is Arab, but not the Iranians) can succeed in destrying Zionist entity by ‘propaganda’ – When the 98% of world’s propaganda machine in Europe and North America is covering Zionist backs?
3. American Jews already control the White House, the Senate, the Congress and even the Pentagon.
4. Poland is a ZOG and Russia did play the midwife for the Zionist entity – as most of its leaders were Russian Jews. Putin is not against Jews, he did appoint a Jew as President of Russia.
Julian:
Life is very very good there….Every time a read your bitterness over that fact, it makes me smile.
There was nothing in my post about Israel’s economy or any sentiments about it. The irony is that despite Israel’s successes (which American Jews and West Bank Palestinians helped create), Israel’s mental state has not moved beyond the pre-Zionist attitudes Zionism was intended to heal. Gordis’ speeech is about Israel’s dependency on the rich, powerful Jews of America and the perpetual fear that Israel lives in. They are still living in the shtetl the Zionists loved to hate.
Since you raise the issue of Israel’s economy, Netanyahu, in 1997, during his first term as Prime Minister addressed the US Congress. He told them his plan was to stop taking money from the US government. He got a standing ovation in Congress and was lambasted by economists in Israel. As Chaos already wrote, nothing has changed in that regard.
Israel’s economy is not a success per Zionism’s own standards. There is a successful class in Israel but the gaps between them and the poor (heavily represented by non-Jews: Palestinians and imported cheap labor) is worse than most Western countries.