The neocon cabal is going crazy over comments supportive of J Street from Hannah Rosenthal, Obama’s aide in charge of fighting anti-Semitism. It’s really amazing that the neocons have been able to hurt J Street, a mainstream group if ever there was one, a group that turned its back on the powerful Goldstone report that describes the moral corruption of Israeli society.
Andrew Sullivan, who has been accused of anti-Semitism for his own criticisms of Israeli policy, correctly identifies the Israel lobby’s presence in the discourse:
Remember what the neocons believe is a criterion for public office: no criticisms of any Israeli policies. Or you are a suspect Jew or a closet anti-Semite. And they believe this. Thank God the younger generations are less paranoid and less blinkered.
The problem with Sullivan’s formulation is that it isn’t just neocons. Remember what Haaretz stated baldly in an article a couple weeks back:
Every appointee to the American government must endure a thorough background check by the American Jewish community.
In the case of Obama’s government in particular, every criticism against Israel made by a potential government appointee has become a catalyst for debate about whether appointing "another leftist" offers proof that Obama does not truly support Israel."
I.e., it’s Democrats who are imposing this criterion, not just neocons!
I would take this analysis further. Rosenthal made several comments in her interview with Haaretz suggesting that this high White House official, whose office is on the same floor as Hillary Clinton’s at the State Department, regards Israel as her country.
"It is not 1939," she said. "We have the state of Israel…"
Although she did not say outright what she thought Israel should do regarding the peace process, when pressed, she said: "I lived in Israel in 1973 in the bomb shelters. I don’t want my kids or my grandchildren to have to ever come visit their homeland and to live in a bomb shelter – that is what I mean when I say the matzav [the situation/conflict] … Sometimes I wonder what it does to the psyche of people and children to know that they have to know where the nearest bomb shelter is – that’s not okay. As a peace loving person and as a Jew who wants my kids to feel comfortable here [Israel]- I think that’s what I mean that the matzav cannot continue."
From the time that Herzl began promoting Jewish nationalism in the 1890s, anti-Zionist Jews said, Wait, you’re threatening our patriotism to our country! This was a refrain in England and the U.S., where Jews did not require liberation. Today, dual loyalty continues to be an issue. I started this blog in large part because I saw the neocons, many of whom feel tremendous loyalty to Israel, helping to plot a war by the United States.
The essence of dual loyalty is a failure to distinguish American interest from an Israeli one. Rosenthal describes Israel as a "healthy democracy." Well: It is a democracy for Jews, as many Palestinians point out. That it is not a democracy for Palestinians is known throughout the Arab/Muslim world, and that fact is damaging the American image in this dangerous region. I believe that Hannah Rosenthal is incapable of acknowledging that fact, out of a religious identification. Let’s hope Sullivan is right about the coming generations…
Ah, but, Phil, if we leave it to coming generations, it will be far too late.
The Israeli occupations of the West Bank and Gaza are bad enough; but do you suppose Americans will ever bother to stand up to the Israeli occupations of the Capitol Building and the White House?
Nothing said about the Palestinian children who don’t have bomb shelters, what it does to them to live under constant military assault.
It’s all about Israel.
We’ve seen it with Witty and all the other Zionists here. They don’t give a damn about anyone who gets hurt, so long as they’re not Jewish.
The J Street approach is the most promising of any that exist, and deserves support.
There is no way to avoid accusations of dual loyalty if your version of success has multiple criteria, and as ANY mature objective has multiple characteristics, simplistic accusations of dual loyalty will appeal to simplistic minds.
EVERY question has at least five criteria that a moralist must way.
1. Is it good for me?
2. Is it good for my family?
3. Is it good for my community?
4. Is it good for the world at large?
5. Is it good for the US?
To make any single loyalty a fetish is to be less than humane.
Just to elaborate. I am THANKFUL that my cross-border identity as a Jew has taken me beyond the trivial single loyalty to a state.
My loyalty is therefore closer to humanism than American or Israeli nationalism would be.
Loyalty to organizations or individuals is no basis for any system of ethics. Sure, we all make decisions based on our own benefit, on our feelings for our families or our sense of community, but let’s be clear about it: These are emotional decisions not based on rational ethical considerations.
And another thing: For most of us, “Is it good for the US” is about as meaningful as “is it good for Zimbabwe”.
If that was the case, then you’d have accepted long ago that a single, bi-national state is the best solution to the conflict.
…And this is what Jewish supremacy looks like, folks. If my grandfather of German descent had been talking like this during the wars in his life time, he would have been thrown into prison. Instead he was a US soldier who fought bravely in the homeland of his grandparents.
I have no illusions, Witty, what choice you would make if it were the US and Israel at war. You’ve made your fealty quite clear.
“I am THANKFUL that my cross-border identity as a Jew has taken me beyond the trivial single loyalty to a state”
Sure, Witty, when they send the boxcars for American Jews you can escape to Israel. Whoopee for you!
“I am THANKFUL that my cross-border identity as a Jew has taken me beyond the trivial single loyalty to a state”
As I remember, the Nazis were very THANKFUL that Hitler’s “philosophy” and National Socialism which allowed them to reason with your moral imperatives, above, lifted them beyond the trivial demands of a life-valuing and other valuing morality.
I am THANKFUL that my cross-border identity as a Jew has taken me beyond the trivial single loyalty to a state.
More of Witty’s bullshit. This woman is putting her loyalties with a foreign state when, as a government official, she should be primary loyalties to the state she is serving. Being loyal to mankind as a whole is commendable, but to claim that you’re being loyal to mankind instead of the US is bullshit.
Where’s your loyalty to humanity as a whole when Palestinians are being denied the right to their own homes, to a decent education etc.? If Iran was in the position of Israel, would you defend it the way you currently do Israel? I think not.
Please don’t try and kid yourself onto the moral high ground. If there’s anything worse than a blind nationalist, it’s a traitor.
Who are you to judge who and what people form a loyalty to, and what it means? Read the U.S. Constitution lately? A single loyalty is neither a fetish nor any of your damn business. Allowable and legal. And last I checked, protected by that same Constitution and the Bill of Rights.
this is the oath my Mother swore when she became a citizen of the United States. Every person who comes to the US from some other country and seeks to become a citizen of the US must recite the same oath.
Can Hannah Rosenthal honestly make these declarations?
Aren’t the American people, people like my Mother, who renounced her allegiance to her Italian ‘homeland’ in favor of American citizenship, entitled to have as officials in their government, persons who make at least the same promises that naturalized citizens make?
Richard,
IF you were gentile during Second World War in Poland , under German Occupation, and held on to your morality as described above, there would be NO WAY you would lift a finger to help Jews, as helping Jews was, if discovered, carried a death sentence to gentile and his entire family.
I’m singularity unimpressed with your morality.
What an absurd speculation.
In MY REAL life, I’ve done much that conflicted with the trivial definition of self or even family interest.
Bother to find out before you carelessly judge another.
What an absurd response, Richard.
You give a very trivial and incorrect definition of the steps involved in making a moral decision and then when Eva points out the immorality of your own definition, you insist that in “MY REAL life” (is that any different than the uncapitalized version?) you don’t really follow the trivial steps that you yourself outlined. Fine, then admit that the “criteria” you listed are not really moral criteria. Don’t blame Eva for pointing out their weaknesses, when you admit the same.
Your arguments are being judged here based on your own words. You’ve just admitted that you don’t even follow your own “moral” advice. Why should anyone here take it seriously, and refrain from pointing out its faults and weaknesses? Your activities, or your real life, which none of us can know, do not absolve you from criticism of your words. Bother to think before you propound things that you cannot reasonable defend and you might make more sense, and be taken for less of a self-rationalizing fool.
Witty, your POV is absurd; Eva’s POV is right on the mark. You need to read modern European history and take a few social science 101 classes, e.g., in psychology and sociology. Eva simply followed your expressed moral logic in a particular historical context.
Many Germans decided that having Jews around was no good for them, their family, their community or the world at large. They couldn’t care less about US.
By your definition they weighted the criteria and Auschwitz-Birkenau was the only moral way forward.
Maybe you should not share your views on morality before running it by another hasbara operative, Richard.
No more Holocaust talk! Stop with the Hitler this and German that! Jeez! Enough!
BSDNOW,
its an obsession on this site, that is where the Judenreich thing came from too. I guess people think that by comparing Israel w/ Nazi Germany whether its warranted or not will help their cause.
Not sure its done anything yet, there is really nothing constructive on this site actually. Its all accusations, true or not, they don’t help solve anything. Tons and tons of name calling. I have yet have anyone answer me how exactly they’ll get a bi-national movement to succeed, but its “the only way.”
Yonira we’ve answered that question a million times. Please don’t play dumb.
Furthermore, some commentators refer to Israel as a Judenreich because Israel has always been a state where Jews are privileged over non-Jews, while engaging in a policy of land theft and ethnic cleansing that serves to only create more living space for Jews and Jews only.
Finally, if you find nothing constructive on this site I suggest you find somewhere else to troll.
BDSNOW,
You have not been on this site long enough to appreciate the irony of Eva’s remarks. She is the last person you should be hurling your monkey feces at. Believe me….
For the Zio-speechmakers and their media lackeys and stink tankers the clock is always stuck in 1938, every public figure in the world critical of Israeli policies
is always Hitler reborn, and the next Shoah is right around the next corner. And Congress parrots this mental illness, and the USA pays for the results, as does the world, and most of all, the Palestinians. Yet Yonira accuses this site of obsession simply because this
site challenges this constantly voiced and written public obsession of Zionism, Israel Firsters. If you can’t stand the heat, quit making the hasbara fire.
“EVERY question has at least five criteria that a moralist must way.
1. Is it good for me?
2. Is it good for my family?
3. Is it good for my community?
4. Is it good for the world at large?
5. Is it good for the US?
To make any single loyalty a fetish is to be less than humane.”
This is the EXACT OPPOSITE of the way in which a moralist makes judgements. Moral principles are based on whether or not a particular action is morally just, regardless of how that judgement affects the individual or tribal interests. A true moralist decides on a general principle, such as “it’s morally wrong to kill people and take their resources, therefore, even if my retirement plan suffers, I will not invest in companies that manufacture weapons.” Decision-making that is subjected to the prism of “is it good for me/my tribe” will lead to decisions that will be advantageous to that individual/tribe at the expense of morality. Loyalty has nothing to do with moral decision-making since a true moralist understands that selective morality is the height of immorality.
Bull Ana,
I doubt that when you make decisions, or form ideology, that you ignore what is good for yourself, for your family, for your neighbors.
I’m glad that you also regard the concept of single-loyalty to a state to be a reactionary position.
So, Dick Witty, all citizens of any one state who have loyalty only to that state (and no other state) are ipso facto always reactionists? Are all US soldiers and federal office holders who take loyalty oaths reactionary by definition? And the same around the world?
Richard,
Any short-term gain for myself or my tribe, if it is immorally gotten, will in the long-term be harmful to our interests in ways that I might not be able to foresee at this time.
Richard calls bullshit on Ana because she believes that humanity is more important in the long run over her tribe.
Wow…
“I doubt that when you make decisions, or form ideology, that you ignore what is good for yourself, for your family, for your neighbors.”
There is a hell of a difference between making moral decision based on what is good for me or my family and taking into account what is good for me or my family while making moral decision.
Congratulations Richard, you are evolving.
Huh. ……………………………… Maybe this is why some Zionists are willing to betray America at the drop of a hat. It is asinine to call loyalty to a single state ‘reactionary’ when it is the state in which you are born, live, work, pay taxes, raise your children, retire, and die. Some of us actually want our tax dollars and shed blood to go towards improving and making safer the place in which we live, rather than to some foreign country with alien values engaged in ethnic cleansing and colonization. It takes a stunningly self-involved metric of political viewpoint to call that position reactionary.
I’ve heard many arguments from Zionists that Muslims aren’t ‘like us’. There is some degree of truth to this: some of the great variety of cultural, social, and political values to be found among Muslim peoples are quite different from ours, e.g., ultra-conservative Afghani’s who close down girls’ schools. However, I am beginning to suspect that there might be more than a few Zionists who fit the category of ‘not like us’ as well. Kahane and his followers certainly qualify. I wonder how many other Zionists agree with his general philosophy and objectives, but thought his methods a little too violent, or perhaps merely a little too publicly flamboyant, to be associated with or to tolerate the resultant damage to Israel’s international image. Perhaps the answer is ‘very few’, but I for one am definitely no longer going to just assume that.
I don’t consider myself to be “like Kahane”, except in the concern for our children and families, but not in the way that it is expressed.
I brought my own children up to be in the whole world, not only the Jewish. One became a chasid. One became a world oriented musician. Both close to my heart.
Colin,
In my family (parents, cousins, uncles/aunts), we’ve worked and paid taxes to: US, Canada, England, Peru, India, Hungary, Germany, Italy, France, Denmark, Mexico.
I live in the US and have for really all my life, but I’ve also lived within a couple miles of Canada, KNOWING that the individuals on the other side of the border are not different than me, that the only difference was of a line.
Well then, Dick Witty, you can understand why many on this blog are trying
to unharness the hasbara bandwagon which depends on viewing Arabs, especially Palestinians, as less than human. So why don’t you give a shoutout
here on this blog for the Gaza freedom march?
“I’m glad that you also regard the concept of single-loyalty to a state to be a reactionary position.”
All your talk about multiple loyalties would be more convincing if you didn’t use it mainly to justify putting Israel’s interests ahead of those of the United States.
America only works when its citizens support one another and not primarily some foreign country without a common history or shared values 7,000 miles away.
And, a moralist must weigh the affects on his/her actions on all scales, not just on some abstraction.
Exactly, just as any Pole, for example, during the Third Reich, had to weigh the affects on his or her self and family of harboring a Jew. Right? Should all of those people used your moral ethics to decide?
Great response, Ana. Witty is completely unaware of Kohlberg’s Stages of Moral Development; and his specious response shows it.
A strong argument can be made that loyalty is an immoral position. When loyalty enters the picture, moral principles are cast aside. It is loyalty to the tribe that makes so many Disaspora Jews support Israel’s immoral activities.
That’s your idea, Richard, of what a “moralist” does? Sounds to me like the most a-moral train of reasoning I ever heard.
So you are saying that the highest good is that of the state? And if a state decides that getting rid of Jews, or reducing them to a lower status or degree of influence, that’s alright with you? You see no moral hazard in that?
C’mon, Witty, you can do better than that. If there’s one thing I gotta admire, it’s a moralising which at no place takes life, its loss or destruction into account.
You’re pathetic, Witty, and you are getting senile. But thanks for telling us that the good of the state is the highest good. Or am I reading it wrong, and you say the individua’ls good is the deciding factor in morality?
So complete selfishness is the highest demand of morality?
I’m saying that oppossite of “the highest good is that of a state”.
That is what Phil is saying, relative to the US, that multiple loyalties or concerns are some betrayal.
Phil is not saying my country (USA) right or wrong, nor is he saying Israel right or wrong;
nor is he saying my people (family) right or wrong. He loves them all so much he dares to be critical of them to their face and his blog articles collectively show this–that’s a friend. With friends like you, who needs enemies?
If he’s not saying the US as single-loyalty, or not saying Israel as single-loyalty, or not saying his family as single-loyalty, then he IS stating/advocating a multiple loyalty.
Oh, Lord.
——————
There, there, MRW, here is a big hug…….
Witty, have you never given constructive criticism to your own child? If not,
you are not much of a parent. If you have, you call said constructive criticism
being disloyal to your son?
Is that what you are doing? “Constructive criticism”.
Why don’t you answer my question, Dick Witty? Dragged you out of your narrow closet, yes? And also, do you think you are
engaging in constructive criticism on this blog? Have you noted the general
consensus here? They are all wrong and you are right, huh?
Witty, somehow it must be made clear to Israel that their behavior is unacceptable. They are in total denial that anything they do is wrong. So we have to YELL LOUDLY to get through. Constructive criticism only works if someone is listening. Get a grip
Dual loyalty in a post-Zionist era:
link to sscnet.ucla.edu
What if it’s good for the USA, but some perceive it as not good for Israel? Having two
wives might be a problem?
Or are, and will the interests always be identical?
What does the man in the street but the Jew at home have to say?
How about the man in the street and the man at home?
And if we are all in the same American rowboat, and you, Dick Witty, was drilling a hole down between your feet, should we care?
Israel is not even a democracy for certain Jews as my personal experience with Israelis shows me. My friends were driven out of Israel about fifteen years ago for the crime of inviting Palestinians into their homes for peaceful discussions. The father’s actions resulted in his being fired and unable to find work anymore. So they came to New York where I met them. The same applied to my Israeli artist friend who left Israel and said he would “kill himself” if he ever had to go back because of the social pressure he felt. He wanted nothing to do with the rampant militarism of Israel he told me.
The monstrous Hillary Clinton is truly a Secretary of Permanent War and a Zionist by convenience because of her basic need to sustain her power base and disregard reality. In that she is like that horror Madeleine Albright who never saw an Iraqi child she didn’t want to starve.
We dont have time to wait for succeeding generations, and since when do dual-loyalty activists set serious foreign and national US policy with American taxpayer dough and without a stringent national debate…just because the rest of us are terrified of being pegged as anti-semites (I’ve long got over that) and wont confront this insanity? These aren’t lobbyists. These are creeps. These are taxpayer thieves and traitors to US national interests and values.
“Hannah Rosenthal, Obama’s aide in charge of fighting anti-Semitism”
Uhhhh… WHAT?!
Ask Congress. They passed the law.
Notice that Witty claims to be obsessed with the continuation with the Jewish people, but his moral imperatives nowhere mention the value of human life.
That leaves it, the Jews against the rest of humanity. Sure Witty, you go ahead and take life on those terms.
But like every Zionist I ever knew (and that’s plenty) you are way, way more concerned with whether you can force or influence me to think that way, rather than worrying about if you do, or even possibly can, live on those terms.
I know a con game when I see it.
Witty just needs a sports team to root for; something to take him beyond the everyday–cheer up, Mooser. You’re on his bench even if you don’t get to play in the sports stadium of his mind.
What is the contrast with dual loyalty? SINGLE loyalty.
And single loyalty to what? To the US is the only contrast to dual loyalty to both US and Israel, or to US and humanity, or to US and community, or to family and friends.
You want to pose a different contrast, wonderful. Use different language that reflects the specifics of what you are talking about.
Dual loyalty in the sense that the rest of us use it and discuss it here means failing as elected or tax-paid US officials to be loyal to the people and country to which one has obligations.
Thats crap. Phil uses the term “dual loyalty” in a careless generalized tone, that applies not only to specific officials but to an attitude of freely chosen concern for multiple characteristics.
He juxtaposes “dual loyalty” with the “pragmatism” of the realists who claim to non-ideologically focus on American interests solely.
In other words, the only valid criteria is what is in America’s interest. Thankfully, individuals like Walt don’t interpret that in a trivial one-dimensional manner, but the question itself is trivial and unrealistic, as people live cross-culturally. Jews do in particular. Our identity DOES cross boundaries.
The only confusion is the sense that that identity has shifted in some sense to a phase change from non-geographic community identity, to geographic.
From bodilessness to having a body.
There might be individual officials that can be held to a standard of specific accusations of dual loyalty. ANY analysis that extends to generalization is more fascistic than insightful, more suppressive than liberatory.
Humanists concerns ALSO cross borders. The absurdity of the single reference of patriotism however defined is haunting to humanist.
As I’ve said, the cross-boundary identity of Jews is more suggestive of actual humanism, than the bound identity of “loyal Americans”.
No, actually it isn’t. If it is showing more concern for those who are of the same religion or ethnicity over those of other religions or ethnicities, then it certainly suggests less humanism and more ethnocentricity or religious bigotry. If I believed in white supremacy, my greater concern for white people everywhere would not be a sign of my “humanism”, it would be a sign of my bigotry.
I will always be more concerned with my own community than others. That is natural, and should not be discouraged.
The presence of relative concern is NOT equivalent to exclusivity or to suppression. Again, I care a great deal for Jews and Israelis, and only a lot for Palestinians (NOT enough to buy into the proposal to demonize Israel).
Not having any association to my mind is a poverty, a great poverty of political consciousness, an adolescence rather than an adulthood. It is the political equivalent of being solely a headless consumer, an expression of not being part of community (ironically stated in the name of anarchy).
But what everyone here is attempting to point out to you, to little avail, is that your self-defined “community” is limited, by your own words, to Jews and (Jewish) Israelis. (Even though you are not an Israeli or former Israeli.) This is the “community” that you spend hours here “defending”, and yet those of your actual community that don’t fit your exclusive Jewish definition rate a lesser concern from you. This is not humanism. This is exceptionalism and tribalism. Humanism does not rate caring by ethnic similarity. Words have meanings. You cannot change their meanings at will simply to make yourself feel justified in your ethnic preferences and prejudices.
That is your projection.
The Jewish community is one of many that I participate in.
You are merely repeating “tribalism”, when by definition, a single loyalty approach is a tribalism, while a multiple association, multiple sympathy is the oppossite.
No, it is your words. The only community you mentioned belonging to was the Jewish one, and professed a greater concern and like for them than for others, and then you insisted that this interest in a cross-border community made you some kind of humanist rather than an ethnocentrist and tribalist. Interest in your own tribe does not make you a humanist.
Again, that is your projection. I am an active member of MANY communities at many scales.
I believe that the influences of association with a cross-border community DOES influence me more to be non-nationalist humanist, than tribalist, and does similarly for most Jews.
That is an element of your projection. You emphasize the term “loyalty” as your descriptor (an opaque term), whereas I emphasize the term participation and sympathy.
You seem to regard the sympathy with Israel as conflicting with sympathy for Palestinians, conflicting with humanism, whereas I believe that association and identity gives BODY to humanism.
That you don’t bother to regard the distinction between HOW a humane Zionist differs from an expansionist Zionist, describes your approach as more guided by exclusion than a criticism of policy and action.
We’ve seen it too often, condemnation RATHER than relation, condemnation rather than reform.
So, Dick Witty, as a non-nationalist humanist, rather than a tribalist, we can
assume you include all the world’s people as the community with which you
most identify–then why do you constantly war with Phil and most of the commenters on this blog? Very few Palestinians comment on this blog regularly, yet most commenters here, although not Palestinian by heritage,
seek to improve the Palestinians miserable collective lot. And most here
regularly criticize both US and Israel foreign policy–because they are humanists, but also because they see the USA, and its taxes, support Israeli
lebensraum policy.
Richard,
Again, that is your projection. I am an active member of MANY communities at many scales.
Projection appears to be yet another term whose meaning you do not understand. YOU are the one who singled out Jews everywhere, and (Jewsh Israelis) as the only “community”, outside of your friends and family, that you thought important enough to mention. You then mentioned that your attachment to one particular ethnic group(Jews) exceeded any attachment to another ethnic group, regardless of the individuals inhabiting those two groups. You consider Ami Popper a member of your community, but not Mohammed Othman, though I assume you know neither personally. You have chosen attachment to “community” and resultant sympathy purely on the basis of a shared ethnicity. My point is that attachment based on shared ethnicity or religion is not a definition of humanism, and in fact it can be a detriment to real humanism, as it is in your case, where you excuse actions taken by your “community” (Israel and Jewish Israel-apologists) that you would sure condemn if they were taken against your community instead. You’ve got a right to be ethnocentric if you wish, but please don’t kid yourself that your ethnocentrism is actually humanism. It isn’t.
I believe that the influences of association with a cross-border community DOES influence me more to be non-nationalist humanist, than tribalist, and does similarly for most Jews.
So what you are saying is that having tribal connections that cross national borders makes you LESS of a tribalist that someone who has no tribalist connections. Again, you misunderstand both tribalism and humanism here. And many Jews, and certainly most Jews in positions of authority within the American Jewish community, are strongly nationalistic when it comes to Israel. You wish to ascribe some higher humanist attribute to most Jews (as opposed to the rest of the world) that reality does not support.
That is an element of your projection. You emphasize the term “loyalty” as your descriptor (an opaque term), whereas I emphasize the term participation and sympathy.
This is classic projection on your part. I did not emphasize the term “loyalty”. I DID NOT EVEN USE THE WORD “LOYALTY” in my posts to you. Look back. You are projecting, rather than reading what I said.
You seem to regard the sympathy with Israel as conflicting with sympathy for Palestinians, conflicting with humanism, whereas I believe that association and identity gives BODY to humanism.
I tend not to have “sympathy” for governments. I find they don’t really need it, and in Israel’s case ( as is the case for many governments) they don’t deserve it. I try to have sympathy for all individuals, and don’t distinguish or rank my sympathy by whether or not an individual shares my affinity group. I have great sympathy for those Israelis who are seeking to make Israel a better place, less oppressive to its minorities, more in line with democratic and humanistic values for all, regardless of their ethnicity and/or religion. I also have sympathy for those Israelis who are so trapped in their own bigotry and sense of Jewish superiority that they can not relate to others suffering, nor see how their own bigotry diminishes their lives. Sympathy does not mean lingering in co-dependence or excusing and supporting others bigotry.
Bigotry must be challenged and confronted. It will not go away by itself, or merely by “sympathy” that ignores bad and hurtful behavior. And ranking sympathy with Israelis higher than sympathy with Palestinians purely because of ethnic association is a bigotry in itself.
That you don’t bother to regard the distinction between HOW a humane Zionist differs from an expansionist Zionist, describes your approach as more guided by exclusion than a criticism of policy and action.
You are making up terms to suit yourself. I consider “humane Zionist” to be an oxymoron, like “colossal shrimp” or “cruel kindness”. Despite the fallacious term, I understand your intent. You believe that Israel should be able to remain a Jewish state, rather than a state of all its citizens, giving more rights and assistance to its Jews than to its other citizens, and refusing to let any o the descendents of the people it expelled return to their homeland. I’m sure that your “generosity” in regard to letting the original expellees returns is based solely on the fact that you expect no such return to happen before they are all dead. Your “humane Zionism” is akin to paternalistic colonialism. Your difference with “expansionist Zionism” is that you think that Israel shouldn’t steal anymore Palestinian land in the future. This does not a “humanist” make.
In any case, Israel does not and will not embrace your “humane Zionism”. It has been expansionist since its very beginning. It is impossible for it not to be, as it is based on a concept that the rights of Jews must and rightly should supersede those of non-Jews. Such a basic belief will always support expansionism, as, by definition, it believes that Jews have more of a right to land than those others who inhabit it.
Reform can only be instituted by Israel. It is our part to criticize inequality, and sometimes condemn, in order to open Israel’s eyes to their need for reform. If, instead, we constantly apologize and excuse, they will see no need to reform. At the moment Israel is the one condemning rather than reforming. You are barking up the wrong tree if you really want to be a humanist, rather than pretend to be one on a website.
Your definition of oxymoron is the breaker, the continental divide.
Humane zionism is morality with a body. A community that self-identifies, that treats others as human beings.
As progressive as you get.
“Humane zionism is morality with a body. A community that self-identifies, that treats others as human beings.
As progressive as you get.”
No, Witty, it’s as progressive as YOU get.
And actually, I don’t mind what you say in this thread, as I could imagine someone I respect possibly saying something like it. Phil, for instance, cares more about the Palestinians than the Tamils because it is his people who are oppressing the Palestinians. Loving one group more than another doesn’t have to mean blind support for human rights violations when they are committed by the home team. Unfortunately in your case you have a bad case of tribal morality. It’s not as bad as that of, say, Netanyahu and you think yourself free of the problem because even you can see what a jerk Netanyahu is. But you make excuses of Israeli war crimes and it’s clear that when people are too blunt and too honest about those crimes, you resent it.
If you really loved your community you wouldn’t take the shallow easy way out by pretending it’s only the rightwing Zionists who ever do anything wrong. You’d admit that there was a tragic flaw in mainstream Zionism, something that has to be corrected. But you’re a tribalist, so you don’t do this. You’re rather like Dick Cheney’s daughter, always defending her dad from those mean old lefties who say he was a war criminal. She loves her dad, but not enough. She’s not doing him any good.
“I will always be more concerned with my own community than others. That is natural, and should not be discouraged.”
That’s a dangerous position for a Jew in America to take and advertise. Most Americans identify with the nation-state, and the percentage that are actually internationalists, “humanists” or multiculturalists is low.
I’m glad that Israel-onliers like Witty and Rosenthal make their views clear in public, and I don’t think that their views are all that uncommon in the Jewish community. I don’t believe that America will ever become ethnically fragmented enough to give cover for such people. Afterall, many of the immigrants who are supposed to provide insurance against pogroms are fighting Israel’s wars.
Your comment does not obviate mine. I repeat: Dual loyalty in the sense that the rest of us use it — including Phil — and discuss it here means failing as elected or tax-paid US officials to be loyal to the people and country to which one has obligations.
That definition applies to very few specific cases, NOT to the generalization inherent in the fascistic accusation of “dual loyalty” applied to any with ideas or sentiment of multiple affinities.
The state is an abstraction. USA political leaders and all those government employees and their appointees who are required to take a loyalty oath, an oath of allegiance, swear to use the powers of the state in behalf all American
citizens as top priority under the principles of our Constitution. In comparison to the total USA citizen population, our political leaders and government servants are, yes, Dick Witty, a very few. And so? They nevertheless create, interpret, and enforce the living character of our state in its relation to the rest of the world (and domestically). That’s no small
power, and is a major subject of this blog.
Phil doesn’t use language in a “careless generalized tone.” I’ve read him for some years now, and that is the last thing I would ever accuse him of.
He no more juxtaposes “dual loyalty” with the “pragmatism” of the realists who claim to non-ideologically focus on American interests solely than fly to the moon. It is you who juxtaposes reasons in your head. Your proof ought to be the number of people who regularly bang their head against the wall wondering that the fuck you’re rambling on about. And that includes Jews.
You have a distinct animus against Phil. Some sort of vengeance in you that propels you in your universe to criticize him, because he’s asked us not to cut you down to size because you are a long-time family friend; as a result you now perceive yourself as a contributor to this board who must be taken seriously to the point where you are a self-appointed editor, and a miserably bad one at that. The majority of your arguments are incomprehensible drivel — everyone, EVERYONE, keeps dropping hints to save you from yourself — and as someone wrote of your stabs at Don Quixote fame, they are rambling stream-of-cconsciousness mutterings that make no sense. You make no effort to join any conversation. You make pronouncements no one can understand. You can’t write plainly, and that means you can’t think plainly. Good writing is good thinking, and vice versa: the first thing they teach you at the Columbia Univ. Graduate School of Journalism. And Phil fits that bill gloriously more than anything you can realize. Or write.
I have animus to loyalty criteria, “ironically” stated as progressive. That you don’t have a clue as to the degree of suppression incorporated into the term “dual loyalty” is a real poverty on your part, and on Phil’s. Its not “just a question”.
If you don’t understand what I’m saying about a topic or point, ask.
It seems it is you, Richard, who doesn’t understand the concept of dual-loyalty, even though you exhibit it so clearly. You’re mistaking dual-loyalty with humanism, which would be the case if Israel was on the right side of humanity. Alas, it isn’t. Assuming the concept of loyalty to humanity as a whole didn’t exist, single-loyalty is much preferable than dual-loyalty.
You don’t have a clue to what I’m saying.
Again, there are a couple officials that the claim of dual loyalty might apply, literally only a couple.
For the vast majority identified and criticized (carelessly unspecifically), the only question is of sentiment and concern.
I’m HAPPY that JFK was Irish and knew Irish and new Catholics and was aware of their concerns. I don’t believe that he governed in a dually loyal fashion. I’m HAPPY that Barack Obama is African-American, knows African-Americans and is aware of and sympathetic with their concerns. I don’t believe that he governs in a dually loyal fashion. I am HAPPY that Rahm Emanuel is Jewish, knows Jews and Israelis and is sympathetic with their concerns. I don’t believe that his service to our African-American president is dually loyal (though not a ratified government official, but still reamed in this “insightful” blog space).
Hey Dick Witty, imagine all of us in a rowboat on the high seas. There’s one person sitting there
who is drilling a hole in the floor of the boat. It’s you.
Did JFK volunteer to service Israeli military tanks in Ireland? Did Obama do anything remotely similar in Kenya, anywhere in Africa? Were either of their
loved fathers terrorists?
JFK–service Irish military tanks in Ireland?
There’s a big difference between JFK and the likes of the woman above – JFK didn’t put Irish concerns ahead of US concerns and most of the time didn’t even register them. Yes, he forged cultural links, but his primary political loyalties lay with the US. How many Irish Americans know anything about Irish politics? How many have any connection to modern Ireland other than on the annual Patrick’s Day celebrations?
There were cases when dual loyalty did exist – e.g. when certain Irish-Americans felt it necessary to fund Sinn Fein and the IRA. Now compare the relationship between Irish-Americans and Ireland, with the relationship between American Jews like yourself and Israel.
Dual-loyalty is not an accusation labelled solely at government officials, but at ordinary citizens too.
In my case, if I was to go back to when Pakistan first developed nuclear weapons (I wasn’t actually alive then), and I lobbied the British government to sanction Pakistan because it was an enemy of India (where I originate from), would that be justified? Of course not, unless I lobbied for the same sanctions against India seeing as they also had nuclear weapons. Now change Pakistan for Iran, and India for Israel.
If I was in government, it would be natural for me to voice the concerns of other British-Indians, but why in hell should I be more sympathetic to the concerns of one foreign nation (India) to another?
Rahm Emmanuel should not be any more sympathetic to Israeli concerns than Palestinian concerns, but he is.
A quick perusal of Wikipedia reveals that included in the US State Department there are three bureaus and two offices that constitute the Office of the under secretary for global affairs. One of the bureaus is the Bureau of Democracy, Human Rights and Labor Affairs. Included in this Bureau is the Office to Monitor and Combat Anti Semitism.
This seems to be redundant, for one would think that human rights would include the issue of antisemitism, but if one sees it as a subset of human rights it is certainly not foreign to the domain of this function of the state department.
Rosenthal was in Jerusalem as the administration’s envoy to the Israeli Foreign Ministry’s Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism and her answers to the Haaretz interview should be seen in that context. She was attempting to describe an international Jewish attitude toward Israel in the context of world antisemitism rather than a US state department attitude toward Israel. As such referring to Israel as the “homeland” is “more” appropriate or certainly different than it would be without the given context.
If antisemitic incidents doubled in France last year what concern is that to Phil Weiss or his model American Jewish citizen who eschews dual loyalty by opposing Zionism and apparently any feeling toward any Jew anywhere in the world who is not an American? Nothing. But the head of the office to Monitor and Combat Global Anti Semitism obviously must be concerned with the doubling of antisemitic incidents in France last year and thus her analysis of the issues will not comply to Phil Weiss’s standards of pure Americanism.
She is not describing “an international Jewish attitude towards Israel”. She is describing her own attitude towards Israel. As a US government official, one is usually required, on official government business as her visit to Israel was, to stick to US government policy and positions. I find it sad that she seems only to be able to relate to Jewish Israeli suffering, and not to Palestinian suffering or to the need for equality and justice within the area controlled by Israel.
Oops, second paragraph is mine. I messed up the close blockquote at the end of the first quoted paragraph.
“Opposing Zionism within itself does not equal lack of caring for any Jews anywhere.” True, but I may be wrong, but Phil Weiss’s concern is solely for Americans and American Jews who are willing to disown Zionism. I have read no evidence of his concern for any Jews anywhere else on this globe. (Unless you consider his blind acceptance of Roger Cohen’s reports of the safety of Jews in Iran as a proof of their safety.) If you can find a post of his that indicates otherwise I will accept that as proof that I am wrong.
I believe Phil’s concern in getting Americans and American Jews to disown Zionism comes from a realization that Americans and American Jews are the only ones with enough power to stop Israel from its oppressive and self-destructive ways, outside of Israel itself, which has shown no ability or interest in doing anything other than perpetuating the injustice that will ultimately bring its ruin. You seem inclined to view few such appeals as merely showing an interest only in the welfare of American Jews which I think is a wrong reading of his intentions and interests. I think that all his posts indicate his interest in the welfare of all, including non-Jews.
As I said before, I don’t see Zionism as a help to Jews. It seems to have been disastrous to many. Jews are most at risk in Israel, and Israel has shown little concern for Holocaust survivors, Arab Jews, Jewish emigrees from the former Soviet Union, Argentinian Jews during the the Argentinian military junta rule in the late 1970s and 1980′s, or even the victims of anti-semitic attacks in France, unless that “concern” includes a petty co-opting of that concern to benefit, not the Jews involved, but instead the State of Israel. Opposing Zionism is showing concern for Jews everywhere and anywhere.
Well said, Tree; I agree with you. If France was a superpower, and an enabler
of Israeli oppressive actions like the USA is, Phil would be critiquing France regularly. Additionally, there are tons of tax exempt NGOs that attack any sign of anti-semitism here and abrod; also US Taxpayer dollars support a unique federal agency, a redundant agency within the US government devoted exclusively to monitoring anti-semitism around the world. Curbing jewish victimhood
is well taken care of; in contrast, the Jewish Israeli oppressor is given free
reign and US tax dollars, and the consistent UN veto of the world’s only superpower to support the Jewish state’s incessant violations of international law and humanistic consensus. Opposing the Israel Firster’s
rubber-stamping of atrocious Israeli actions is showing concern for humanity and especially for Jews anywhere. Ever hear of blowback?
She is an official of the US government. When she is on an official visit and says “we” she must mean the US government, not some other “we” she may be a part of.
When she says “we” she must mean the US government.
Is that “must” as in should or “must” as in “that is her meaning by definition.”
That’s in “she must mean the US government.” Period. We dont pay her to represent another government. Period.
If she wants to represent France, Germany, Israel, or Senegal, let her work for those governments.
That is both senses of “must”.
It is certainly what she should do and this is because it is what she is doing whenever she speaks officially, and how she will be taken as meaning by other nations.
When she says “we” and means “we Jews” she is in effect identifying the US with the Jews.
Humane Zionism is a great help to world Jewry. It is a self-assertion that we will never again accept persecution as the norm of our relationship to the world.
Expansionist zionism extends beyond self-assertion to abuse of others.
They are not equivalent. Humane Zionism is distinct from the fantasy of cultural zionism, or single-state assimilation, as the observation that a state is needed to preserve the cultural identity, is proven by history (old, middle and recent).
Humane Zionism vs. Expansionist zionism are not on anyone’s radar. Neither are your made-up definitions. Neither is your argument. Or your paucity of thinking.
mrw- I wonder why you feel that this type of a comment qualifies as worthwhile.
They are the distinction that J Street and Brit Tzedek are making.
And, it is the distinction that the majority of American Jews are making, and a large minority of Israeli Jews and non-Jews.
The allied powers put the leaders of the sovereign states of Germany and Japan on trial for war crimes; Geneva conventions since showed accord. The concept and principles established were
to assure Never Again. Not just for Jews, but for all humanity. Limits to state sovereignty were thus established. They include the world consensus that the world
will never again accept persecution as the norm under color of any state’s law de jure
or de facto. Zionism as implemented by the state of Israel after the universal
civilized bar was so upped violates human moral and ethical progress–or else we
are left with Goering’s as the final word. It might be good enough for practical
Zionists governing Israel, but it’s not good enough for the rest of us. And “Humane Zionism” owes a debt to all Palestinians it has not honored. “Expansionist Zionism”
is nothing but state terrorism and illegal occupation–criminal lebensraum refurbished.
As a European, I am astonished that the US President needs an ‘aide in charge of fighting anti-Semitism’.
Where are the aides in charge of fighting anti-Sinicism, anti-Latinoism, or anti-blacks and browns? And we all know about ‘Freedom Fries’, cheese-eating monkeys, etc.
Can you imagine the anti-Latinoist aide talking about his time during the ‘Hundred Years of Solitude’ in Colombia, like this woman talks about her time ‘in the shelters’ in 1973, and invokes her real ‘homeland’?
This appointment, and the attacks that Neocons (Israeli 5th column) are mounting, are evidence that America has an attitude towards a single shitty little country in the Levant, that behaves very badly, are ‘American Exceptionally’ foolish.
To the rest of the world, the subservience of America to the Israeli right wing is very obvious (as evidenced by overwhelming Congress votes, budget allocations, etc, etc).
America is isolated from the rest of the world’s problems by two large oceans. They don’t need to get into small quarrels between colonialist and natives in the Levant with such discriminatory passion.
Hi Richard Parker–here’s the lay of the USA land regarding why the tiny Israel tail is wagging the USA dog:
link to sabbah.biz
And here’s more on how the tiny Israeli tail commenced to wag the big USA dog:
link to intifada-palestine.com
And here is the latest twist involving direct USA involvement with strengthening
the open air prison for the Palestinians (along with dissing the Goldstone Report, working with Israel and Egypt to prevent the impending Gaza Freedom march on the pretext of unusual security at the Egyptian border,
forgetting the expanding settlements,
and sending in more military equipment to replenish that used up in the Gaza turkey shoot, and giving away our most advance military weapons to Israel, and
blocking refined oil to Iran):
link to intifada-palestine.com
The special bureau to monitor and act against world anti-semitism affords special
privilege and protection to Jews in the USA and all over the world–backed by the full might of the only superpower (98% non-Jewish). Keep in mind that the USA government does NOT have
a bureau to monitor and act against Anti-Americanism, although that has been growing by leaps and bounds over the last few decades. And that before the special anti-semitism bureau there already existed (and still does) exist a federal agency monitoring
such things generally.
link to examiner.com
It is important to access what the view of antisemitism is that is embraced, what is the definitive structure. If it comes anywhere near the carte blanc of the state of Israel’s actions, as opposed to classic antisemitism it is to be rejected. Specifically because any reasoning that tries to skew common moral relations as developed within the structure of the state does not cause them to rise above criticism and condemnation.
Loyalty is not an excuse to circumvent morality or commonly recognized justice, and to thrust loyalty to any individual or group before is individually and collectively unacceptable. Al l the arguments of how your decisions and actions have endeared you to an individual or group are meaningless and destructive in an immoral context. It does not matter what nation you are talking about, or what their past entails, if it means dismissing common moral principles which are recognized among peoples.
As an example, one might argue that a child needs a heart, and that you love that child and will do everything in your power to see that this child gets a new heart. If it entails the murder of another child in order to get this heart it is not acceptable. You can argue all day long about how it has endeared you to the other child, and how you have become recognized and awarded by relatives of the child that received the heart, but it does nothing to avert the immoral act of killing the other child, nor the just desserts you should receive for your criminal behavior. Arguments of how loyal you are to this child and its extended family are invalid, and are not admissible, and rightly so, in a court of law. You can argue all day long about the “promise” of the child that received the heart, and how undeserving the other child was to life because it was merely a street urchin – none of these arguments are seen, nor should they ever be seen as valid.
Murder of one people, and theft of their property on a national scale does not dismiss the moral culpability of the aggressors. Interjection of “law” merely made to dismiss the context of such immoral activity is not legitimate. What is true of an individual case cannot be routed because of a national context.
Therefore, if loyalty is the plea in regard to any country, it does not trump mortal and legal culpability – if that were the case, the only “law” invoked would be that might makes right. If loyalty is invoked for any country the circumvents common moral principles, it is disloyal to assent to the call for loyalty. If loyalty to the USA or Israel involves dismissing commonly recognized moral principles it is to be rejected, and is not a form of loyalty but merely ensuring the ultimate destruction and current corruption of any given nation. This is because no plea for impunity in both immoral and illegal acts by a nation is static, but ensures it course to a rogue status that eventually must be stopped by the world community.
Funny; while Rosenthal is slammed here for saying her secret heart it’s still not enough apparently for many Israelis:
link to cgis.jpost.com
Yeah, I saw this on the JTA. Ironic, but par for the course. One could say the same of J Street itself – the specific cause of the “incident”.
Blah – typical Rosner.
Why don’t they just have Israel appoint the US government, from the President on down, and get it over with?
the observation that a state is needed to preserve the cultural identity, is proven by history (old, middle and recent)
Nonsense.
Lots of peoples have preserved their identities without a State. For instance, the Catalans haven’t had a state for 600 years, yet they have retained their language, cuisine, music, dances and sports that are clearly distinct from those of the rest of Spain.
In a binational state, Jews and Palestinians will live side by side, learning each other’s language, respecting each other’s religion and traditions, quarreling over trivial issues, but agreeing on the truly important things, such as support for the national soccer team.
How this will come about, or how long it will take, I don’t know. But it will happen. Believing otherwise is like believing you can unscramble an egg to obtain a white and a yolk.
“a state is needed to preserve the cultural identity”
I don’t know what is so important about maintaining a separate cultural identity in the first place. What is so awful about blending into the American mix? Just because garlic melts into spaghetti sauce doesn’t mean it’s influence disappears without a trace. People who obsess over the prospect that their culture might be diluted must really consider it superior to all other brands.
The desire to preserve a culture does not necessarily imply a view of it as superior. Certainly some people who obsess over a culture’s survival are convinced of its superiority. But not everyone is like that.
Judaism and Jewishness contain elements that are inferior, superior and neutral in regard to other cultures, in my opinion. It is much more ancient than the prevailing western culture with its obsession with modernity and the latest fad and there is something to be said for maintaining one’s grounding in the past. Certainly the products of Greek culture are superior to Jewish culture in certain ways. Does this mean that like Christopher Hitchens I must denigrate the lighting of candles on Chanuka, because the philosophy of Greece was greater than the philosophy of the Macabees? The monotheism expressed by Islam is purer than the monotheism of Judaism (if one includes Kabbalistic views of God’s nature or if one includes the early Biblical attitude which seems to imply a multiplicity of gods but the superiority of Yahweh), does this mean that a Jew must convert to Islam in order to obliterate any possibility regarding the confusion of God’s unity? The universality of Christianity and Islam are superior to the tribal emphasis of the Jewish religion, does this mean that one should convert to Christianity and abandon the religion of one’s fathers (and mothers)?
No. There is value in continuity. It is a destructive culture that states: you must assimilate, otherwise you are a chauvinist. With history in mind other angles on all problems can be brought to bear and the sameness of assimilation and the destructiveness of forced amnesia can be fought by those who maintain a connection to the past, a past that is not necessarily superior, but a past that deserves to be remembered and not blotted out.
I don’t think anyone objects to people honoring their roots. I’d probably be better off if I worried more about mine. I’m more concerned about people like Elliott Abrams who consider intermarriage a kind of slow genocide. I really don’t see how one can distinguish such tribalistic views from those of the thirties-era Aryans. If some people are so threated by the prospect of their children marrying gentiles they really ought to consider exercising their dual citizen rights and move to Israel before their kids become sexually aware.
And Israel is just such a country. Its the height of irony that Israel, which has done more to limit and codify what is acceptable Jewish culture. is considered a boon to that culture. While helping to create a great outflow of Arab Jews from their home countries, Israel then sought successfully to quash the distinct Mizrahi culture it gained and subsume it under the dominant Ashkenazi Jewish culture. It also helped quash Yiddish as a viable language by rigidly insisting on resurrecting a new modern Hebrew and conpelling its usage in detriment to Yiddish. It seeks to “ingather” Jewish communities from other countries, thus depriving them of their distinct country-specific Jewish culture. It also seeks to speak for all Jews, as if all Jews were a monolith with but one voice. Anyone who objects to that “one voice” runs the risk of of being called not a “real Jew” or a “self-hating Jew”.
Israel has been a net negative for Jewish culture, while seeking to destroy the indigenous Palestinian culture, demanding assimilation even from its Israeli Arab citizens who must accept their inferior status in a Jewish state or face demonization as a “fifth column”.
So, please, Israel is not about preserving Jewish culture, but rather about limiting and warping it.
tree- Israel has been wrong on many issues of Jewish diversity, including its suppression of Yiddish and its quashing of distinct Mizrahi culture. But to state: that Israel is only about limiting and warping Jewish culture is perverse. How many Jews in the Diaspora speak a Jewish language as their primary language? (whether Hebrew, Yiddish or Ladino). How many Jews in the Diaspora greet each other on the weekend with Shabbat Shalom (or gut shabbes) compared to Jews in Israel? How many Jews in the Diaspora are aware of the festival of Sukkot when it occurs compared to Israel? I think Israel fares far better on these questions than does the Diaspora.
Jewish culture and language has survived for 2000 years without a state. What makes you think Israel is needed for it to survive another 2000 years.
Shafiq- Certainly the Palestinians have suffered as a result of Jewish statehood. Certainly the aspect of militarism that has been part and parcel of Zionism has added something to Jewish identity that is regrettable to say the least. But to make a statement that “Jewish culture and language has survived 2000 years without a state”, 2000 years that has included innumerable instances of persecution, forced conversion and attempts to exterminate is certainly reckless and uncaring. If you are truly concerned about the survival of Jewish culture and language you have not demonstrated it with this statement.
I admit that statement was rash. What I meant was that a lot of Jewish culture has been defined by the exile. The idea that Jewish culture is simply going to disappear if there is no Israel, is false. It’s also false to assume that diaspora culture is somehow inferior to native culture or that they’re the same thing. Israeli culture and diaspora Jewish culture is not the same, with the former being heavily influenced by the culture of its neighbours.
First- there is a Catalan independence movement, so your attitude towards preservation of identity is not shared by those people who seek independence.
Second- It is great having a prophet in our midst- not only one who knows that there will be a binational state, but that it will be a peaceful state. Question: does this knowledge come to you in a dream state or in a waken state?
Yet the Catalan independence movement had a big setback at the last general election, when its population voted for mainstream Spanish political parties, instead of the nationalists. How about Belgium? it’s split into two but manages to function without their ever being a civil war.
Northern Ireland shows that people can learn to live together.
The problem of course is not one of “dual loyalty”–valuing both countries equally. A far more serious problem is that some influential American Jews openly hold the interests of Israel above those of the United States. They then use their considerable power to persuade our feckless politicians to pledge eternal fealty to Israel, ensuring its continued expansion with our wealth and the blood of our soldiers. Well, phooey on that.
Stunning developments in Britain:
Britain’s Jews in crisis over national loyalty, identity and Israel
Whistleblowers say top Zionist institutions in unprecedented crisis
December 26, 2009
Britain’s leading Jewish institutions are facing their worst crisis in living memory as their loyalty to the United Kingdom and support for basic universal principles of human rights and common decency come under growing scrutiny.[...]
The first to make contact with us were two whistleblowers from the Board of Deputies of British Jews. They explained to us the nature and scope of the crisis gripping Britain’s top Jewish institutions and offered to put us in contact with people in the Office of the Chief Rabbi and the Jewish Chronicle newspaper. We took up the offer.
link to redress.cc
The report of turmoil within the Jewish community of my country is very interesting. I think two things are going on.
I think many Jewish people are turning against the idea a social contract, the source of political loyalty, arises from blood rather than consent – they are saying that the only social contract to which they’ve consented is the British one. This is to question the Zionist idea that what gives you a right to a share in the social contract of Palestine is Jewish blood and thus to begin, at least to begin, to question the whole moral foundation and legitimacy of Israel.
So at the deeper level they are beginning to question whether Mosaic religion or Jewish culture can really imply something which has no other moral foundation. This, if it is the beginning of a serious trend, would be good news for those who like me were beginning to fear that we were morally so alienated from Jewish culture that we were being driven towards a form of anti-Semitism. If I were Jewish and thought that the Jewish name was being used for immoral purposes I would perhaps think that I had a special obligation to clear that name. If many people throughout the world who think of themselves as Jewish were to accept that obligation then there would be a reasonable settlement of the Israel-Palestine question in short order. But perhaps that is just another fantasy unfolding.
How well would Jews do in a society where their Jewishness was emphasised as a condition of all their actions? Imagine if any American Jew was judged, not by merit, but as a Jew. i.e. he is a good banker [well of course, he is a Jew]. He is an intelligent man [they say Jews have higher IQs], he’s very funny [I hear its a Jewish characteristic]
Smells like antisemitism, does it not? And yet, this is how Jews appear to define everything they say and do. By their “Jewishness”. So, until Jews stop being antisemitic, there is no guarantee we will see any sea change in how they perceive the Palestinians. And hence there will be no real change in the situation. It will just become another issue for protracted discussions on websites.
Only relative to non-acceptance.
Jews vary.
Gee, Witty, thanks for the useless truism. How profound.
Its called acceptance. You’ve heard the term?
Considering your definitions of terms like “justice,” “ethnic cleansing” and “self-determination” have been demonstrated to have virtually nothing to do with any reasonable definition found in Webster’s book or any other similiar work, I’m not going to assume that you have any sensible definition for any term at this point.
[The head of the U.S. administration's Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, Hannah Rosenthal], told Haaretz earlier this week that comments made by Israel’s ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, against the liberal Jewish lobby J Street were “most unfortunate.”
Alan Solow, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations and a confidant of U.S. President Barack Obama issued a condemnation of Rosenthal’s remarks, casting doubt over her ability to fulfill her responsibilities as an opponent of anti-Semitism.
U.S. official’s criticism of Israel ambassador sparks furor
Are you telling me that Obama has an aide to “fight antisemitism”?
This is so sad. I fear for the future, what will it hold?
Don’t worry, it won’t hold the United States as a super power. Not to be sounding like I should be parading around with a placard and a tin foil hat, but the United States in its current form and stature really isn’t going to last very long. It can’t. Our economy has been dealt a death blow and most American politicians and pundits pretend like they don’t see the blood spattering the walls and puddling on the floor.
And Israel? They won’t last very long without a teat to suckle, so.
Seriously, does the Israeli government literally attack everyone and anything that moves when they haven’t explicitly given said target specific marching orders to do so?