J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami had a conversation about criticizing Israel last night with Jeffrey Goldberg at New York’s Ethical Culture Society (which Goldberg quipped is the "Chabad House for atheists"). The conversation was most remarkable for the fears both these ardent Zionists expressed about what Israel’s becoming, and Palestine too. "The West Bank is developing apartheid-like qualities, I’m not disputing you," Goldberg said.
But the journalist challenged Ben-Ami about presuming to judge Israel’s security interests, rather than letting "your cousin in Tel Aviv" and other Israelis make that judgment. Isn’t that a little "vicarious" of you, and couldn’t you be wrong? Ben-Ami:
"I think that there is a very serious impact for Jewish communites around the world by how Israel behaves and how it’s perceived, and I think …. I may be wrong… It is very possible that I’m wrong… But I also think if I’m right… that the route that we are on right now and the path that Israel is following will lead it to become more and more of a paraiah state, more and more isolated, more and more demonized… and I worry about the impact of that on the Jewish people around the world, I worry about the impact of the way in which the world perceives what Israel is doing on my children, my grandchildren, how we are all going to be perceived as Jewish people. So I do think we have a stake. I do think that our place in our community is impacted by the way that Israel as a state behaves."
Hannah Arendt said something like this a long time ago, many Jewish critics of Israel have said it since.
Goldberg acknowledged that a conversation has begun in the U.S. we haven’t seen since May ’67, Jews expressing the fear that Israel is going to disappear. Can it survive the next 25 years? he asked Ben-Ami. I worry about ten years, Ben-Ami said. That by then it will be a "true pariah state, widely boycotted," with many more Palestinians than Jews between the Jordan and the sea and– hold on to your hat– a worldwide call for one man one vote.
(This is a tic of Ben-Ami’s, to assign to some imaginary future an Israeli dystopia that is here right now. He does it so he can continue to be a part of the Israel lobby/have access, or because he is religious about Israel. But it is denial of the reality there right now.)
Lord, these people are intertwined. Goldberg couldn’t stop talking about what a great place Israel is for gay people and scientists, but he also was freaked out about the Palestinian majority and the call for democracy. An "existential" threat to Israel is "the demographic and democratic challenge that’s posed by the occupation of the West Bank and the continued entanglement with Gaza." I need to parse that. The "democratic challenge" is an "existential threat." Peter Beinart also said recently, I’m not a liberal when it comes to the rights of Palestinians in Israel. Understood. Where do I sign up!?
Goldberg was honest about his Jewish identity. He was in the Zionist youth movement in Long Island, with a Bolshevik fervor was intent on moving to Israel, but immigration is tough for anyone, and then he realized he didn’t like living in a place where no one says "Excuse me." Tells you something, doesn’t it. He preached a very religious Jewish identity of adherence to the law, faith, love of the land, and tikkun olam, healing the world. And this kind of person, who served in the Israeli armed forces in the occupation, is America’s most reliable narrator on the conflict? I reflected later that I didn’t have time to study Jewish law and faith and tikkun olam because I spent my youth listening to Bob Marley records and reading Dostoyevsky books etc. A different kind of education. I didn’t know about Israel till Goldberg and friends decided to bring the challenge of democracy to Iraq, by force, in 2003. An existential threat, that was.
