The other day Jerome Slater participated with Adam Horowitz, Steve Walt, and MJ Rosenberg in a discussion at the Palestine Center hereabout blogging. Slater, a longtime professor of history and in the last year a blogger, subsequently published his opening speech, Why I Blog. It includes this description of his personal progress on the issue.
So why do I blog on this particular issue? Over the course of my life, I’ve gone through three phases on Israel. Coming of age in New York City in the 1940s, immediately after the Holocaust, and with anti-Semitism still alive in America, I thought of myself as a fervent Zionist. I guess in a sense I still am something of a Zionist, although a lot less fervent, since I regarded the case for the creation of a Jewish state, if nothing else than as a refuge for persecuted Jews, as a compelling one—though not necessarily in Palestine, a land already populated by the Palestinian Arabs.
How to resolve that moral dilemma is a complex matter that is beyond the scope of these brief comments. However, in light of the history of the Jewish people, perhaps the most basic rationale of Zionism is still not to be dismissed, however much it has been betrayed by Israel.
From 1957-60 I served as the anti-submarine warfare officer on a U.S. destroyer. Some years later Egypt bought four submarines from the Soviet Union. Since I was still in my first phase as a fervent Zionist, I wrote to the Israeli Embassy and offered to serve as an anti-submarine warfare officer on an Israeli destroyer, in the event a new war broke out with Egypt before the Israelis could train their own people.
However, at about this same time my views began to change, as a result of three factors.
First, I began serious study of the history of the Arab-Israeli conflict, as opposed to its mythology. How anyone can continue to believe in this mythology, after at least twenty years of its decisive refutation, principally by Israeli historians and journalists, is beyond me. Well, not really beyond me—among most Israelis and American Jews, sad to say, there is an invincible need not to know.
Second, it became apparent that soon after the 1967 War, Gamal Abdel Nasser, and then his successor Anwar Sadat, were seeking to end the conflict, but were being stonewalled by Israel. I felt like writing to Golda Meir and saying that if Israel blundered into an unnecessary war with Egypt—which, of course, it soon did—she should consider my offer as cancelled.
Third, in 1977 Foreign Affairs published George Ball’s famous article, “How to Save Israel In Spite of Herself.” It had a profound influence on me. These three factors impelled me into my Tough Love phase, hoping that truth-telling would eventually convince the Israelis, and the American Jewish community, that Israel was on the road to both a moral and security disaster, and needed to come to terms with the historical truth as the first step, actually the sine qua non, of saving itself.
But in the last few years—and this is hard to admit, let alone to say out loud—I no longer believe that Tough Love can work. I do not love Israel—as opposed, of course, to the many wonderful and courageous Israelis who still resist what their country has become. Moreover, I no longer think Israel can be saved from itself—and certainly not if the American Jewish community, with its enormous influence on U.S. policies, continues to believe in the long-discredited mythologies.
In short, Israel is no longer on the road to a moral and security disaster, it is already there, and I see no realistic prospect that it can reverse course. It is hard to see how a two-state solution can be reached, and the one-state “solution” is no solution at all, but a fantasy which if somehow actually materialized, could well be even worse than the present situation.
So why bother to continue to write about it? Part of the reason is illustrated by this story. One day the governor was touring the state mental institution and he came across a man who was completely naked, except that he had on an elegant top hat and beautiful black dress shoes. “Why do you run around naked,” the governor asked? “What’s the difference,” the man responded, “no one ever comes to see me.” Then why the top hat and dress shoes, asked the governor?” “Somebody might,” was the response.
In that spirit, I now write in the forlorn hope that truth and justice might yet prevail, despite my deep pessimism. But equally or perhaps more so, I also now write in the spirit of “Not in my Name.” If you are a completely secular Jew, like me, it is hard to see what the point is of being Jewish if not to uphold the best values of western civilization.
Today that seems quaint, if not downright preposterous—but it wasn’t always so. There was a time when it was widely accepted—and not just by Jews--that the Jewish culture and tradition was one that was particularly committed to reason, truth, and justice. Consequently, when Israel was founded, and committed itself to be “A light unto the Nations,” it was widely believed that it might indeed fulfill this promise.
No longer, needless to say. The appropriate response to what Israel has become is outrage. So maybe that’s the main reason why I continue to bang my head on the wall.
Finally, is this activism or journalism, or both? I don’t know, but as a lifelong academic, I prefer to think of it as scholarship in the best sense: the search for knowledge, reason, truth, and justice.
Phil,
Maybe some of us who read Jerome Slater’s “why I blog” essay, who have already had to explain that, or, as in my case, “why I blog about Israel and Palestinian rights, when nobody else within thousands of miles does,” can use the comment section here to link to their own posts on “why I’m compelled to write about this?”
Here’s mine, posted eight months ago:
I’d rather write about the most environmental issues, and have been forced to write hundreds of essays about Sarah Palin, because I’ve known her for almost 20 years and live in Wasilla. But there are many local writers, some more knowledgeable than I, who write about those issues.
If people in Alaska are going to get the truth about this, I’m afraid it’s up to me.
There was a time when it was widely accepted—and not just by Jews–that the Jewish culture and tradition was one that was particularly committed to reason, truth, and justice.
Reason, truth and justice just can’t compete with shaking a lemon.
The form of religion that most US Jews once turned their backs on, creating the sort of liberal humanist Judaism that Slater describes, is despised in Israel. They are supporting something that slaps them in the face, because they can’t seem to see this.
Thanks for sharing your personal awakenings, Mr Slater, Mr Munger. Folks, please check out Munger’s own blog article–he really very effectively responds in detail to the hasbara trick of saying only Israel is picked on, thus implying anti-semitism or self-hating jew. My own intense interest on the subject derives from my study of the historical factors and reasoning & emotional thought processes that brought about Nazi Germany, which in turn originally derived from my innate hostility to bullies, BS artists, and group think. I guess there’s a core of George Carlin in me.
Ditto that.
Put us together and what do we have? American Citizen. That’s all, no more, no less.
Citizen,
The second link in my above comment you reference deals with my interest in pre-war German and Austrian politics, which seems to parallel yours.
Thanks.
Thanks, Philip–Your blog text dissecting Palin’s character in the context of similar themes and emotional takes during the Weimar era in Germany
are on the mark. I read all the comments too–your supporters make me realize (assuming they are from Alaska too) that Alaska has grown some wise people every bit as sophisticated as any located around any key cosmopolitan area on the mainland. OTH, your detractors seem infantile except for one or two who correctly point out that Obama has a bit of that Palin charm too; perhaps they might realize that when Hitler still lived in the barracks right after WW1 he was a young spokesman for the reds before he turned to the far right. Demogogery doesn’t shun
any political ideology. I share the feelings of one commenter on your blog that stated when McCain picked Palin I shuddered with horror at the thought if McCain died she’d be POTUS! Bill Kristol and Krauthammer can’t help but smile like knowing gentlemen with the ignorant, narcissistic, homey and picturesque shiksa grizzly bear mama in mind. What a pleasant face to put on their rabid zionism. She’d like
her image painted on the nose of our bombers over Iran to hasten the end days.
Slater is someone from the Navy who might appreciate the death of Robert Burton Eisenberg on the USS Liberty thanks to Israel which did not take the time to ask if he were a Zionist before bombing his ship in 1967.
Thanks Johnson, you crude traitor. Here’s a pic of Eisenberg. Wonder if his parents are still living, and what they think of that attack.
link to ussliberty.org
Posted: 13 Dec 2008 2:51PM GMT
Classification: Obituary
Surnames: Eisenberg
CT2 Robert Burton Eisenberg, USN, 776 09 35
Born 12 October 1944, St. Paul, Minnesota
Active duty since 3 February 1964
Parents: Mr. & Mrs. Benj. Eisenberg, St. Paul, MN
Died in Naval Security Group (intelligence) Department spaces
Killed by ISRAELI FORCES June 8,1967 while serving on the USS LIBERTY.
Whether it was his fear of the Israel Lobby or not, Commander-in-Chief President Johnson treasonably betrayed the US sailors under his command when he, not once but twice, ordered back Navy planes sent to determine what caused the USS Liberty to send its SOS when attacked by Israel in 1967.
And McCain’s father helped (as in “Shake n Bake n Ah Helped!”) The acorn didn’t fall far from the tree. In the primaries I voted for Ron Paul, in the election I voted for Obama–mainly because it was a practical vote against McCain-Palin. Imagine if Obama got shot n Chicklets took over, or McCain won, got shot, and Palin took over.
Maybe we should just put Bill Kristol in charge?