Here is an important piece at the Jerusalem Post by Alon Ben-Meir, a professor at NYU, saying that an ancient Jewish imperative to stick together has caused US Jews to blindly support Israel’s rightwing course toward “endless conflict.” Ben-Meir seconds what Peter Beinart said a few months ago, the American Jewish leadership has failed, by supporting the Netanyahu gov’t, and the Likudniks before that.
As you read this, notice that Ben-Meir is explaining the Jewish imperative of forming a monolith when dealing with the goyim. This is the monolith that J Street, JVP and Mondo too all challenge– some of us by being non-Zionists.
Also consider as you read this, even as Ben-Meir celebrates the Arab spring, what kind of possible freedom do liberal Zionists have in mind for Palestinians? Not a freedom that Palestinians will find acceptable– with little access to their “petrol,” Jerusalem. And so Ben-Meir’s apostasy anticipates pieces some years from now about Who lost Israel? When Zionists concede that Walt and Mearsheimer’s critique of the lobby and the Arab Peace Initiative were actually efforts to save Israel…. Ben-Meir:
At a time when Israel is led by a government that is steering it toward unending conflict, and whose actions are threatening its Jewish and democratic nature, much of the American Jewish community today is merely echoing Binyamin Netanyahu’s talking points.
While unity has kept the Jewish world strong, if it is perpetuated through blind support of misguided policies, it could severely undermine Israel’s security.
The instinct to unify is one that is ingrained in Jews. This heritage goes back not only generations, but millennia…
Whether by choice or by force, Jewish communities banded together to survive the Spanish Inquisition, the pogroms of Eastern Europe and, of course, the Holocaust and the eventual creation of the Yishuv in what would become the State of Israel. Holidays like Hanukka and Purim celebrate the success of the Jewish people escaping the threat of destruction, others like Tisha Be’av and Holocaust Remembrance Day commemorate those periods when Jews failed to do so.
THE PSYCHE of a people with a history under almost constant siege has served as the key unifying agent between Israel and the American Jewish community.
The narrative of the Jewish people surrounded by hostile enemies, and needing the constant support and vigilance of its brethren to survive, is indeed a powerful one. Today, when faced with the threat of a nuclear Iran, Israeli and American Jewish leaders are often quick to compare the current period to 1939 in an effort to demonstrate the urgent need to safeguard a Jewish people under the threat of annihilation…
American Jews have an important voice, and they are failing to use it effectively. While a united Jewish people is critical for the continued survival of global Jewry and its relationship with Israel, this relationship should be based on a shared vision of the future, not on the vulnerability and fears that have characterized the past. American Jews should use their voice to communicate a different path for the future of Israel’s relations with the US and the Diaspora.
P.S. Years ago, after Mearsheimer and Walt published The Israel Lobby, I proposed a piece to magazines called, The Guardians. I was going to get the Israel lobby in the back door, by interviewing people like Hoenlein and Foxman about the sacred trust they felt, holding the breathing tube for Israel here. Pretty much what Schumer said when he declared at AIPAC that his name means Guardian in Hebrew. Well of course no one would let me do that piece. I was not a Zionist.
