I say all the time that American Jews have supported the settlement project. Here, proving my point, is James Besser in the NY Jewish Week, talking about J Street's "self-inflicted wounds" including its opposition to same. Bear in mind that the entire world is against this project and that American president after president has opposed the project. Yet inside the Jewish community, it's a disaster to oppose them.
The group has been plagued with what critics say are mostly self- inflicted wounds, including... J Street’s suggestion earlier this year that the United States consider not vetoing a UN resolution blasting Israel's settlement activities and labeling them illegal...
When Israel disappears as a Jewish state-- an inevitability of the unending colonization project-- it will be these fools who the American Jewish community will then turn on.
Most of the American Jews who are very committed in their support of Israel approve of the settlement project. Some delude themselves to think that there is no contradiction between the project and a two state solution and others never considered a two state solution practical or desirable. I think some take an attitude of “in for a dime, in for a dollar”, which may mean they are superficial, but doesn’t necessarily prove the point. The organizations even moreso than the committed individuals, for the organizations have had to deal with the reality of modern Orthodox commitment to the project and the fact of Likud dominance of Israel’s government since 77 and organizations cannot finesse such questions the way individuals might, they have to choose sides.
thanks WJ, helpful
Have you read Amos Oz’s autobiography, WJ? There is one amazing scene from an early 1950s meeting of Begin’s party where the young Oz first came face to face with the second class Mizrahim who would sweep Begin to power in 1977.
“Most of the American Jews who are very committed in their support of Israel approve of the settlement project.”
You ought to know. Isn’t that how you make your living?
It is the same in Israel.
link to haaretz.com
The Jewish mainstream has invested far too much in the YESHA project and now that it has become the greatest Israeli liability the denial and aggression are in full flow. This is how disaster unfolds. And it may lead to a “civil war” within Judaism.
link to haaretz.com
“On the other hand, there is also no longer any option of deploying force against the rebellious masses. The occupation is even more dangerous than it was. The settlements are even more delusional than they were. The status quo has become a firetrap, and all the familiar ways of escaping it have been blocked. “
Hardly a settlement project for Jews to live in parts of their homeland which were clearly awarded to them by an international organization and in which it is clearly legal for them to reside. Whether some of these portions of the Jewish National Homeland will have to be given up for good in the interests of peace is a decision for the Israeli people to make- but not for J Street or you.
“Jewish National Homeland…”
Think about what is behind this language.
What international organization awarded Israel the West Bank and Gaza?
HaShem Land plc
“What international organization awarded Israel the West Bank and Gaza?”
You mean it’s not the Palestinians who are settling on Israeli land and kicking Jews out?
“clearly awarded to them by an international organization” (Reuven)
Yeah, I think it was the Max Hochstim Society.
Another San Remoist.
San Remo doesn’t support the settler nutjob argument either.
San Remo supports the right of the Jewish people to live in any part of the Jewish National Homeland. I am sorry that international law seems distasteful to you, but there it is. This does not endorse any particular action of nutjobs- Jewish or Arab. The vast majority of Jewish residents of the West Bank are normal people, not religious fanatics- in spite of the efforts of many to demonize them.
Whoever is spreading this San Remo meme in hasbara class only marks its users as ignorami. Not that this was in any doubt in the case of Reuven.
>> San Remo …
Yeah! Let’s hear it for San Remo!
\m/ >,< \m/
It's been a while since SR was last brought up. Way overdue.
“San Remo supports the right of the Jewish people to live in any part of the Jewish National Homeland. ”
No it didn’t, hasbarist. The reverse, actually.
Can’t have it both ways – begging us for welfare, than telling us you don’t want us to have a say.
Just say lo to our tax dollars, I bonds and free weapons, agreed?
for Jews to live in parts of their homeland which were clearly awarded to them by an international organization and in which it is clearly legal for them to reside.
Not according to the OFFICIAL DOCUMENTS that reside in the Lillian Goldman Library at Yale University. Proclaim all you want. You are wrong, You are a liar.
Israel lies. So do the Jews in Israel.
Deal with it. Liars.
no one awarded them anything. they took the land in an illegal war of conquest. just another zionist who argues that we stole it far and square. none of Israel was legally aquired.
“no one awarded them anything’
Wrong, pj. God awarded the land to them.
You ask him if you don’t believe me.
J Street, the Knesset and the limits of dissent.
very tribally.
There is little evidence efforts to portray the group as beyond the pro-Israel pale — and now, the willingness of a Knesset committee to consider that question — have hurt J Street with its liberal base in the Jewish community.
i’d say the jury is still out on that. i think it is more likely j street has hurt the jewish conservative base in the eyes of the global community. one thing that is glaringly missing from the discourse within this tribal conversation is the rest of us (non jews) and what we think. j street changes more than the tribe, it reaches out to the global community (as other jewish groups do of course, but in a more dictatorial way) and the response has been overwhelming. maybe not overwhelming in the US congress but they resonate with the rest of us and we believe we matter.
“There are efforts to narrow the definition of ‘who is a Jew’ that leaves many non-Orthodox Jews …”
we’ve heard lots of that on these threads in the last few months. this is going to backfire. i don’t think most americans are aware there’s a huge disparity between the balance of orthodox vs reform in the US vs israel. lessoning the ‘jewishness’ of jews depending on their choice of worship or secularism won’t fly here like it will in israel. at all.
very interesting article phil, thanks for bringing it to our attention.
Annie,
You like J street even though it clearly states that it is a Zionist organization? Are you a Zionist also?
my post wasn’t so much about ‘liking’ j street it was about assessing their impact. i’ve been critical of them in the past and i am to the left of their positions but frankly i don’t think i’m that far to the left of many of their members. as i mentioned here we all choose our own battles and j street is definitely not on my front burner. ‘liberal zionists’ are also not on my front burner unless their impulse is to directly target me or the left instead of the right.
j street (the org) wisely doesn’t focus their angst on those to the left of them (or if they have i haven’t noticed). they know what the main problem is and they direct their energies accordingly in that direction, at the right. meretz is also zionist and i don’t attack them because there are big fish that need frying. peace now is still a zionist org last i heard. there are zionists doing good work. i’m not a zionist but i am also not an anti zionist. i’m a non zionist. this is why if zionists agreed to a viable two state solution i would support it.
i’m not convinced any liberal or moderate zionist party in israel is going to trump the radical rightwing. but j street seems to be keeping the radical right busy. i think it’s very telling the knesset is going after them, it just goes to show how very desperate they are.
You’re conflating two different things, and you know it. J Street’s support of the UN Resolution did not piss people off because it was an anti-settlement stand. After all, there are many mainstream Jewish organizations that are not supportive of settlements. It pissed people off because it was support for bashing Israel at the UN.
It would be nice if you were truthful about things like this, rather than going for the easy smear.
“It would be nice if you were truthful about things like this, rather than going for the easy smear.”
Gosh, it’s amazing that nobody has started a Mondowatch blog.
Between the Israelis building settlements and firing missiles and torturing Arabs and running checkpoints and demolishing homes and bokhim ye vorim and going to Yeshiva and sockpuppeting on the internet and crying antisemitism and Nazis and those actually doing meaningful productive work of value there sadly aren’t enough spare to monitor Mondo. Because they may have the 4th largest army in the world but they are only 5.5 million Jews .
I doubt anyone thinks Mondo is important enough to monitor. Just a collection of ill-informed bigots for the most part. The Internet is filled with such groups.
ill informed bigots? you mean Israel supporters?
Because I/P case belongs to UN, until palestine situation is solved. 50 % of it has done allready a’la Israel state. And that “bashing” continues as long as Israel keeps violate UN resolutions.
Some day you should really read those resolutions and what they say.
Ahhhh, forget it….
it was support for bashing Israel at the UN.
so, that’s how you define not vetoing that resolution? bashing israel? grow up hophmi. US gov official policy for decades has been the settlements are illegal. you might as well claim that policy is ‘bashing israel’.
“grow up hophmi.”
I wish I could express to you all the permissions Zionism gives, all the anxieties it relieves, and all the ambiguities it resolves. And eternal youth is one of its benefits.
eternal youth is one of its benefits
spitting up on keyboard. what i would do to spend one hr as a fly on the periphery of your mind.
You forgot the hot women, Mooser.
Bar Rafaeli comes as standard. In an olive uniform. With her foot on the neck of some Palestinian for that extra frisson.
Mooser, OT, but more about God and Japan for your eddification.
link to au.answers.yahoo.com
Read the comments, too.
she didn’t enlist to the idf, fake married instead.
“so, that’s how you define not vetoing that resolution? bashing israel? grow up hophmi. US gov official policy for decades has been the settlements are illegal. you might as well claim that policy is ‘bashing israel’.”
You grow up. Phil claims that the fact that mainstream Jewish orgs disagreed with J-Street’s support of the UN resolution shows they’re pro-settlement. One has nothing to do with the other. One can oppose settlements in principle and also oppose UN resolutions that single out Israel in principle. UN resolutions happen in a context. This one resulted from a meeting called by Arab states, mostly human rights violators who escape scrutiny for those violations in the UNSC and the UNHRC.
You may not agree with this position, but that’s how it’s viewed in my community. It is dead wrong to claim that one cannot be against settlements unless one supports a UNSC resolution. There are many American Jews who oppose settlements who nevertheless oppose any UN resolution singling out Israel.
I think Hop has been getting lessons in Witty speak. The qualifier “in principal” clearly leaves wiggle room for a contradictory position to be held in practice. At the very least, it means they cam remain silent on the matter, which allows them to go into denial.
The Israeli High Court agreed that the settlements are a violation of the 4th Geneva Convention “in principal”, but refuses to issue a ruling in practice, which is taken as refactor endorsement.
Those Jews who “oppose settlements in principle” probably hold their noses and nod approval.
“This one resulted from a meeting called by Arab states, mostly human rights violators who escape scrutiny for those violations in the UNSC and the UNHRC.”
It’s true that the UN pays more attention to Israeli human rights violations than to many others. I’d be fine with the US pointing out in the UN that Israel is singled out sometimes if the US then turned around and stopped coddling Israel. The fact that the US is opposed to settlements seems to mean very little in practice.
Of course, even with international community it’s not really true that Israel is singled out in any way that matters. Here’s a piece in Salon today about how Gadaffi will probably be put on trial for his crimes. That kind of thing happens to deposed dictators (which might happen to Gadaffi). It doesn’t happen to Western war criminals.
link
“There are many American Jews who oppose settlements who nevertheless oppose any UN resolution singling out Israel.”
So the settlements are wrong, but the UN can’t say so if they mention Israel?
The resolution would then be something like:
“We unreservedly condemn any settlements that might be established on occupied territory, just in case it is happening anywhere. Not that we are saying that it is. No judgements of any specific country here. No siree.”
It’s you that is conflating Hop. The only thing J Steet has supported is the enforcement of UN Resolutions, which I’m your mind, is Israeli bashing.
“[T]he entire world is against this [settlement] project”. REALLY? You’re kidding, surely!
Well, you’re wrong. The rest of the world is divided between people who don’t care (or who approve), who have possibly actually thought about giving mere lip-service to anti-settlementism, and who have actually already risen to the heights of giving mere lip-service to anti-settlementism.
There has been ZIP BDS action at any national level. NO STATE has stopt commerical airline service to Israel, withdrawn its embassy, etc.
That said, good luck to the anti-Zionist and anti-occupation camps.
Maybe BYahoo’s snub of the JStreetites will wake them up to the fact that Israel just isn’t worth it.
The dual loyalty of Israel right or wrong Jewish-Americans is going to hurt them more than they’re going to hurt us Jewish-Americans who support justice for Palestine. This has to do with the fact that the settler entity’s intransigence vis-a-vis a ME peace endangers* our troops in Afghanistan. Compounding the dual loyalty dilemma for Jewish-Americans is this Arab Spring of revolution & democratization in the ME, events that will see our own government frantically playing catch-up so as not to be on the wrong side of history, especially in regards to the ME conflict. Jewish dual loyalists, of course, will try to prevent any slippage in our government’s pro-Israel stance by charging us anti-Zionists (along with anyone in government who wavers in his or her support of the Zionist entity) with being antisemites. After our government switches sides, however, and demands justice for Palestine, the world will find out that the real antisemites are – these Jewish American Zionists, since it’s their support for Israel that stokes whatever antisemitism exists today, such that, delegitimize Israel** and not only said entity but antisemitism itself will be headed for the dustbin of history.
*as per statements from General David Petreaus, Vice President Joe Biden & Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, among others
**the entity, not its people
“When Israel will disappear as a Jewish state”
Perhaps safely ensconced in New York City feeling ashamed to be Jewish, that’s how you feel. But Israel is not designed to feed the egos of assimilated Jewish ultra-liberals but to serve as a refuge for persecuted Jews from around the world. And millions of Jews in Israel derive from persecuted Jews- particularly from the Arab world- who were treated from 1948 to 1967 the way the Egyptian Copts are now. In both cases largely ignored by the world media. And as such Israel will survive with or without your approval.
Reuven
People have to work to support the settlers and the Orthodox. And they need to be able to sell things to us goys that we can buy in exchange for money. And in order for us to buy we need to see that things are being done properly. And we can’t see that right now.
REUVEN- “…serve as a refuge for persecuted Jews from around the world.”
Refuge? The recruitment of Diaspora Jews to make Aliya, combined with subsidies for those that do gives the lie to the notion of Israel as a refuge. Or perhaps you mean to say that Israel is a refuge for Jews facing prosecution, such as the Russian Jewish mafia oligarchs who found refuge from justice.
The vast majority of Jews who made aliya were from the Arab states initially- that is many of the 800,000 Jews who were brutally dispossessed from their land and properties by howling Arab mobs and greedy corrupt Arab governments. More recently a million Russian Jews fled the Soviet Union and came to Israel for political freedom and opportunity. Israel does help refugees- most of whom arrive with few assets. Certainly Israel’s record in helping refugees is admirable compared with Arab states like Lebanon who kept Palestinian refugees in concentration camps to this day with severe restrictions on their right to work or even travel outside the camps.
>> Certainly Israel’s record in helping refugees is admirable …
Sure it is, if you completely discount the fact that Israel:
- created a massive Palestinian refugee crisis; and
- shows no interest in helping Palestinian refugees.
Oh, right, you meant “helping Jewish refugees”.
Israel is willing to take in even Nazi skinheads as long as they aren’t Arabs – any ammunition in the demographic race to replace the population they drove out at gunpoint.
The fact that Jews, even nominal Jews, are able to emmigrate freely anywhere in the world but Palestinians are forced to live in refugee camps only underscores the fundamental injustice in the situation.
If you feel so sorry for the Palestinians in Lebanese refugee camps, Reuven, why not press for them to be able to return home?
You forgot how Israelis “helped” Jews across the Middle East by setting bombs up in Egypt and Iraq, and probably elsewhere. And sometimes, in synagogues…
your a joke. howling arab mbsd and currupt gobvernments you sound exactly like you are another racist Israel supporter. what its ok for jews to strip the rights of palestinians but not ok for it to happen to jews? the arabs. the jewish movement to Israel was a large part volentary and where it wasn’t the action was a result of ISrael’s own brutal attack on the nativbe arab population. context is important.
if Israel was designed to be a refugee for persecuted jews the designer really screwed the pooch on it.
Since Israelis have one of the higher levels of satisfaction among national groups in the world, and since they also have great optimism for the future, the “designer” seems to have done a rather good job. It is in the Arab world that people have to struggle and die for the freedoms that the Israeli people- Arab and Jew alike- already enjoy.
Of course there’s high levels of satisfaction there, the same way there was among Germans in the National Socialist era and slaveholders in the antebellum south in the US. Members of the self-described “chosen people,” “master race” or how ever the bigot wants to justify his bigotry, are always self-satisfied.
that’s because they get to commit crimes and get away with it
than they are fools because eventual the butcher bill is going to come due and it will be the Israelis paying it. though I do believe the info your saying is false.
lets see it made jews around the world a target because a segment of it couldn’t bhave like decent people a failure if their ever was one.
because of colonial enterprises like Israel helped set up dictatoirs over them. and only Israeli jews have freedom. pretending the palestinians in Israel have equal rights( which is what freedom is) is bigoted and insulting to the hardships facing them. your just another fanatic behind Israel.
See, I thought Israel took in Arab Jews in order to ring their outer frontier with human shields that would bear the brunt of Palestinian attacks (c.f. Sderot) and provide the Ashkenazi elite with cheap labor. But no, they were rescuing Jews from the consequences of colonial occupation which made the Zionist state possible to begin with. Thanks for the reminder.
The Zionist government is terrified that the split between Aipac and J-Street is going to cause Israelis to kill each other in large numbers.
There is nothing hotter than a Jewish American Princess carrying an RPG.
Something tells me you’re a little less Ariel, and a little more Ursula. So hearing you talk about princesses is funny.
J-Street should be excommunicated, they are heretics, schismatics and traitors.
They got this little idea that they support Israel, but do they support Israel as is, or some imaginary country with “human face”? We do not need human face, we want Jewish face. Their imaginary cute country would uphold human rights. Calumnious agitators! It so happens that Israel already has too many human rights and too little Jewish rights. If you do not believe, visit the website of Caroline Glick, or just read 10 random columns in Jerusalem Post.
“But Israel is not designed to feed the egos of assimilated Jewish ultra-liberals but to serve as a refuge for persecuted Jews from around the world. ”
Ah, I smell a whiff of Diasporish whining here. Not a refuge, sir, but a country where Jews can express themselves to the fullest. Destruction of settlements would be a tragedy. Nowhere else Jews can live as beautifully and offend ultra-liberal and Jihadists as completely. Without mundane distractions, settlers can devote their time to the study of Torah and making the life of unbelievers miserable — as it should be. We, in the Diaspora can live through this joy vicariously.
“Settlers” like almost everyone else in Israel work for a living. If everyone in Israel are the parasites you envision- it is hard to imagine how Israel is one of the leading nations in the world for high tech startups, and medical research. Many of these companies were started by “settlers”. If you took your nose out of the comic books from whence you seem to acquire your lack of information, you might understand this.
You’re right, “settlers” isn’t the right word for them. They’re international criminals. Violators of the Geneva Conventions. Is there a more elegant word for “wagers of pogroms?” That applies too.
its easy to start a buisness with someone elses money