I think it’s a matter of weeks before the Netanyahu gov’t collapses. OK, months. At the New Republic, Leon Wieseltier says the raid was a stupid idea, from a leader who is destroying Israel’s image. They were civilians, Wieseltier says. Good line:
The state was not supposed to be a bunker, even if it had enemies. But Netanyahu is a creature of the bunker. He talks about peace, but not like a man who hungers for it. He takes no steps toward peace except as the consequence of a crisis—a crisis not with the Palestinians but with the Americans.
(Wieseltier lapses into the usual outcry against the enemies of Israel, including Henning Mankell. Guess his books won’t be reviewed at TNR….)
Wieseltier’s bunker rap is echoed by Rabbi Andy Bachman, progressive Zionist of big temple in Brooklyn, host of Rashid Khalidi last year, who while he excuses Israel a lot, went to lunch yesterday with an Israeli general, Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street, and some rabbis:
One rabbi present made a very wise remark. He said in his observation of watching Netanyahu and Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Michael Oren speak recently, both espoused the classic Jewish narrative of us against them and this rabbi asked, "Is it possible the narrative is hurting more than it’s helping? And if so, what might a new narrative be?"
Everyone nodded their heads around the table but it remains unclear what that new narrative ought to be.
By the way, Rabbi, Emily Henochowicz, the art student whose eye was destroyed by an Israeli tear gas canister fired at her head by Israeli soldiers at the Qalandiya checkpoint, is said to be Jewish. I ask all American Zionists and non-Zionists to look at this photo of this idealistic and creative young woman after she was shot. She was protesting the raid on the boats going to help the people of Gaza. Maybe there should be more rabbis at the Qalandiya checkpoint?
