Max Blumenthal follows up on his post the other day revealing that J Street refused to have non-Jews debate the issue of boycotting Israel. Jeremy Ben-Ami is the head of the liberal Zionist organization.
“I think it is essentially important that this discussion not just be an intra-Jewish affair,” [JVP's Rebecca Vilkomerson] stated [to J Street]. Vilkomerson proposed scheduling a debate between Ben Ami (or someone representing J Street) and [Omar] Barghouti, the intellectual author of BDS and one of its most articulate advocates, when he arrived in the States this April for his book tour.
Ben Ami responded as follows (I redacted the email addresses and personal banter):
From: Jeremy Ben-Ami
Date: Wed, Feb 2, 2011 at 7:07 AM
Subject: RE: BDS debate?
To: Rebecca Vilkomerson
Hi Rebecca.
My apologies for taking so long to get back to you. Obviously not an easy question – and not a lot of bandwidth at the moment for me to really engage people in discussion of a complex question related to after the conference!
As a general matter, I am open to participating in discussions of strategies for ending the conflict that would include me and someone who favors the use of BDS tactics.
I am not particularly likely to do that in a frame that is about the tactics themselves or even framed as being about the BDS movement. I’m really open to how to frame it, I just don’t think it advances the ball for a broad enough community for it to be simply ‘about BDS issues.’
I also am most likely – given J Street’s mission within the Jewish community – to do such discussions with others in the Jewish community such as yourself – though again I don’t rule out a discussion with Omar or other Palestinian activists. Our discussion as J Street in my mind is less with them – because they can choose whatever tactics they want, but within the Jewish community about how we run our communal conversation around these difficult questions.
Finally – again as a general matter I’d consider it a home run to do such a discussion including someone who thinks we’re both wrong and who thinks that any of our efforts to change Israeli policy constitute de-legitimization…
Ben Ami’s email was provided to me by Rebecca Vilkomerson. “Jeremy [Ben Ami] asked me to forward on exactly what he wrote because he believes this will clarify that his policy is not racist,” she told me.
So what have we learned? that J Street sees it’s primary goal as working inside the Jewish community. Next up: Arab Caucus at the convention ONLY INVITES ARABS to join!
This broadside on Ben-Ami for his decision about who, when and what to debate about feels petty, and a lot more like bullying than dialogue. Nothing stops Barghouti from write an open letter or something addressed to J Street.
clencher, what do you think of this:
“Jeremy [Ben Ami] asked me to forward on exactly what he wrote because he believes this will clarify that his policy is not racist,” J Street’s Rebecca said.
when you used the term ‘broadside’ what were you referring to? do you object to this second post with ben ami’s words? do you think they should not have been provided to us? was there something specific in max’s introduction that led you to use that terminology?
I think that Max has framed an instance where a Jewish organization behaving in an ethical manner as a ‘racist.’ This perverts what has actually happened.
Having been to so many events and conferences with caucuses based on orientation, race, gender, etc., I’m baffled by the demand that a Jewish organization shouldn’t make the perfectly reasonable choice to refrain from a debate that doesn’t serve it’s own interests.
More fundamentally, it’s another instance of far left supporters of Palestinian rights unleashing fury on that portion mainstream American Jewry most in support of Palestinian rights.
Calling someone or something ‘racist’ is a big deal in US political life. Using the word in this way cheapens it and casts a certain amount of dishonor on the blogger who made that cheap shot.
I think Ben-Ami’s reasoning is quite frank. His lobby is about representing Jewish interest in Israel, and forming an alternative to the major lobby currently representing Jewish interest in Israel – AIPAC.
BDS is trying to form a solution. BDS is both Arab and Jewish (and of course, non-Arab and non-Jewish). J-Street would like to form/find a Jewish answer to BDS. An answer that can be contrasted with AIPAC’s Jewish answer to BDS. That sounds like part of the solution too.
Nothing racist there – this is an ethnic discussion at its core, and as such groups form to find/represent these communal interests. It all feels very much above-board.
J-Street’s “communal” idea is rather odd. First, BDS as a whole is not a “Jewish” enterprise; it is a Palestinian-rights enterprise which some Jews may wish to join. Those who do so may wish to join it “as” Jews or “as” Israelis or “as” human beings. But the idea of conducting a separate discussion of BDS qua BDS inside a closed Jewish community (J-Street’s apparent idea) tends to cut off those inside that closed community from learning (and from influencing) the thinking of those outside. It sounds a bit like a get-out-of-my-ghetto idea. (In my mind, it also echoes the works of the South African “official” Jewish Community to force Goldstone to recant.)
Of course, J-Street has a perfect right to decide (democratically or autocratically as it may prefer) what steps to take as a group. If J-Street is a Jews-only organization, then J-Street’s discussions of its own actions w.r.t. BDS would naturally be a Jews-only discussion simply because it would be a members-only discussion. This is not racist.
Discussions about the Israel/Palestinian conflict have been largely limited to Jews and Arabs. It is essential that the discussion be enlarged to include the 97% of the US population who are neither Jews or Arabs.
If that happens, it will have a transformational effect on the debate.
Well said.
NN
You are correct, however, how do you get the population of the USA to join such a discussion when they couldn´t care less what happens outside of this country? Half of them couldn´t even find Palestina on the Globus.
I tried and ran against a wall harder than the Wailing Wall in Jerusalem.
They just don´t care!!!
Agreed. I think the most principled of us here, especially those of Jewish descent, are struck by the decision. As purists, I think race means much less to us. And to even have a closed Jewish discussion seems limited and counterproductive.
But I think it borders on racism regardless…. a group branded for Jews and being kept to Jews in general is “normal” but not for me. It is OK if the leadership and even membership is limited to Jews, but to bar speakers based on race does push the racism charge forward. But I think we must be honest about what J Street has as a strategy….
They are trying to get many members in a (frankly) biased and indoctrinated community. Therefore they want to keep a very big tent, and are avoiding the issues which may cause attrition. Is it strategic? Yes. Are they able to keep intellectual honesty in this position? No.
I hear that even the founders or influential members may be to the “left” of the J Street platform. I think we can guess how complex the positioning must be when trying to maximize membership, and push opinions in a better direction, yet also achieve a position of influence.
I cannot say where this leaves me, as I do not even identify as Jewish, and I am more to the JVP side. I think I respect the fact that J Street is pushing things to a better position, so I support them in that noble goal, and note their success. But I may be too much of a purist to get involved in such a pragmatic and fundamentally compromised organization.
Perhaps in time, as Israel continues its slide to democratic fascism and continues the gross crimes, J Street as a group will shift. I guess I am saying we should not “eat our own” when we think they have the right idea, but have to do some odd things to fulfill their goals and remain relevant. There are groups to the left of J Street, and you can see the size difference. In summary: politics suck, and we all get compromised……
“those of Jewish descent,…”
I have trouble with this language. Jews are of many races and people. Can we speak rather of Jewish culture and background and not race.
My Slavic Jewish neighbors are not any more of of the same “race” if we will, than Jews of Ethiopia or of Southern Egypt.
Ellen
There is no such thing as a “jewish nation or decent” as claimed by the zionists, people with that fate come from 100 different nations and races. Just the same, there is no christian nation or moslem nation, they are all religions.
However, to be able to legitimate Israel, the zionists came up with the idea of the jewish nation, because if there is such a thing, then it needs a place to create the state of the jews.
Hasbara, nothing but hasbara.
Theo
You’re so wrong on this one.
Jews may not be of one ethnicity but have always considered themselves a nation – just take a look at the siddur (Jewish prayer book mostly composed from talmudic times about 1800 years ago), there Jews are called “am yisrael” (the people of Israel) or “am hashem” (the people of god). In the bible they’re even called “a stiff-necked nation” – good or bad they/we are a nation.
No zionist invention, just a return to roots and realisation of a dream after a long diaspora.
A good analogy is the “British people” – all are members of the British nation, but many trace their ethnicity from the Punjab, the West Indies, Malaya, etc. Even the royal family has German and Greek origins. But all are still “British”. And the American “nation”?
The Jewish nation has existed for thousands of years, and is also a religion and a culture and a heritage all in one. Not every thing fits into little boxes and can be defined as you would have in black and white terms.
Legitimate to discuss and disagree with Israel’s policies and even to argue against zionism, but no need to distort the history of the Jews and invent for them a solely religious identity, something which at no time in history was ever fact.
Ellen and Theo – what you’re doing is a form of semantic quibbling. Is it a race? is it a religion? an ethnic group? what of Ethiopians? etc etc. These questions each have their place except when trying to talk of Jews as a group.
There’s a group of people who consider themselves part of the same group – the Jewish people – each for his/her own reasons and with different definitions for this group. But they each, more or less, recognize the same people as belonging to the same group. People outside this group (with their own definitions/lack thereof) also recognize the same people and the same group.
Personally, I think of the Jews as a gang.
The gang that cut off a bit of my penis so I could never leave the gang/escape. My definition is neither an ethnic definition nor a religion one – but I’m still talking of same group of people.
Jews think of themselves as ethnically or nationally or historically or religiously or culturally connected – even if some of these connections escape their strictest definitions.
hi samuel, perhaps you could assist me with something. we had a similar conversation here the other day and i asked one of the posters (i think it was eee) if he could provide me with some pre zionist (pre cultural zionism circa mid 19th century) non biblical text (fiction or non fiction) referencing this “always considered themselves a nation ” concept. there such a wealth of information available as the culture is so rich in philosophical and historical writing i would just like to check it out. i’m also interested in the idea of the ‘one nation’ concept considering so many jews are secular and always have been so i’m sure there is documentation of this ‘oneness’ out there between the 14th and the 18th centuries that speaks for them as well. thanks.
The best sources for starters would be the Talmud and any standard Jewish orthodox prayer book (a reform prayer book may have removed the references, I’m not sure). Then there is the Kuzari (R. Yehudah Halevi, c. 11th century).
Do you read Hebrew? Do you know Aramaic? There is the Soncino translation to the Talmud which is sometimes a bit tiresome, but true to the text with a good index. Many prayer books have a translation to English on parallel pages.
Most identifying Jews until about 200 years ago would also have been religious and not secular, as pre-renaissance society demanded some form of religious affiliation. A non-believer would probably go through the religious motions or convert to another religion and be lost to the Jewish nation. Spinoza being a notable exeption and payed the price for it.
It’s only in the last 200 or so years that there has been an attempt to define a non-religious (or, perhaps, better, a non-believing) Jewish identity.
Annie,
I can’t pull a source out for you, but will point out something else. The Zionist logic is that IF Jews are a people/nation, THEN they deserve a state, AND that state should be Palestine.
So anti-Zionists might go after all three points: Jews are not a people, if they are they do not deserve a state, and if they do that state should not be in Palestine.
To me, that’s overkill. For the whole premise to be false, only one link has to be false; and the strongest link is the Jews are a people one.
It’s just that this people don’t necessarily get a state, and if they do, it might not be in Palestine. ‘Nuf said. If we were talking from before Israel existed.
But since it does, and Zionist goals have been largely realized, it feels odd to even raise the issue. Israel exists. An independent Palestinian state does not. So let’s get to it, and let Jews think whatever they want about their own identity.
There is no scientific test for being British, no verifiable characteristic that makes Her Majesty or me what we claim to be. Those whose ancestors lived here a thousand years ago are no more or less British than those who did not. Many people who had ancestors here a thousand years ago are not British at all – many of these are Americans, some are to be found almost everywhere. Inheritance isn’t that important.
There is no scientific test for being Jewish. The only tests are religious or formed within secular legal systems with reference to the religion of ancestors. The first to call themselves Jewish must have been those who adopted a certain religious practice despite being descended from those whose religion was different. There wasn’t then and there isn’t now and there never will be any biological inheritance of religion or culture.
The whole idea of race is scientifically baseless and morally misleading.
Annie
I forgot an important point – the bible, whether fact, fiction, myth or god’s word is a major part of Jewish national identity throughout the centuries.
The Jews until about 150 years ago would not even question its authenticity, and it is a basic point of reference to the Jewish nation even if it is considered by some as a complete pack of lies from a historical point of view.
One cannot dismiss it as a source, as subjectively to Jews it moulds their identity even if objectively is not completely reliable.
Shmuel,
I totally agree. I would just like to make one important clarification. The term “nation” underwent a change of meaning in the 19th century when nationalism developed. Because people reflected on this concept, it got elucidated and its meaning became less vague. A mistake made by people who deny Jews are a nation is to try to force our modern more specific definition on the nationhood of the Jews which of course preceded the modern meaning. They want evidence that Jews thought about nationhood in the conceptual framework of the 19th century before the 19th century. This is of course impossible as the conceptual framework did not exist. Maybe you can explain this point better to Annie.
Your argument that one needs to find a pre-Zionist text referring to the Jews as a nation plays right into the hands of Zionists who ask to see pre-Zionist references to a Palestinian people.
Jews regard themselves as a nation today. One can extract the historical roots of Jewish nationality but one can’t deny its existence. It’s real now. As real as the Palestinian nation.
If you’re looking for the roots of the “one nation” of Jews, you need look no further than the millenia-old continuation of Jewish religion and culture. It’s safe to say Jews collectively saw themselves as belonging to the biblical “chosen people” in the pre-nationalist eras. This idea of being a “chosen people” and “light onto the Goyim” crosses ethnic boundries, continents, religiosity and secularism. The retention of Jewish language and traditions in all these disparate countries, empires and regimes, across two-millenia (14th and 18th centuries included) at least hints at a “oneness” the Jews feel amongst themselves and their covenant/brith with each other (or a common God). Zionism simply labeled this as Jewish nationalism when the idea of nationalism was about to die out. And now we’re stuck with it.
We should be saying how inadequate nationalism is in facing today’s problems. Dismantling the historical roots of Jews as a cross-national and cross-ethnic people is futile.
There’s Spinoza’s ‘Zionist paragraph’ (Tractatus Theologico-Politicus iii, 104) which says ‘The sign of circumcision is in my view so powerful that it could alone preserve this nation for ever’. Read in context this passage shows how closely Nation and Religion/ideology were connected in most people’s minds in those days, and eventually how difficult it is to give a satisfactory philosophical analysis of ideas like ‘nation’ and ‘self-determination’.
But what would hang, for the purposes of morality and right in our time, on what people thought about nationality in general or any one nationality in particular in previous centuries?
Does ‘cross-national nation’ mean ‘nation distributed among other nations but not belonging to any of them’? I’m not sure that most people who were of Jewish religion thought of themselves like that. But in any event the rights that you and I have in the present time do not depend on how our ancestors thought of themselves.
Arnon- Your contention that “the idea of nationalism was about to die out” is baloney. You might say that the idea of nationalism ought to die out or that in certain parts of the world the idea of nationalism has weakened considerably, but to assert that nationalism has died out or is about to die out is just plain malarkey.
Samuel,
What do you mean by “nation”?
‘A good analogy is the “British people”’
No it isn’t. The British nation is a state. What makes someone British? Being a citizen of that state.
The Jewish “nation” is not a state. So what is it?
“Israel exists.”
But it doesn’t have to keep on existing.
“So anti-Zionists might go after all three points: Jews are not a people, if they are they do not deserve a state, and if they do that state should not be in Palestine.
To me, that’s overkill. For the whole premise to be false, only one link has to be false; and the strongest link is the Jews are a people one.”
But since all three are dubious, why not go for all of them and leave the argument dead and buried?
(From my perspective, the “a people deserves a state” is the weakest. I do not accept that as a general principle; not for the Welsh, the Jews, the Gypsies, the stamp collectors, the Kurds, the left-handed spokeshaver’s apprentices, the Palestinians, the Bontoc Igorot, or even the members of RoHa’s family.
I do adhere to the principle that all individuals have a right to full and equal citizenship in the state currently established on the territory in which they were born.)
Your argument that one needs to find a pre-Zionist text referring to the Jews as a nation plays right into the hands of Zionists who ask to see pre-Zionist references to a Palestinian people.
i’m not sure if you are talking to me arnon but if you are i am not making that argument so you’re just boxing at shadows. plus it doesn’t play into any palestinian narrative because unlike jews palestinian culture did (for the most part) all live in one place for thousands of years unlike jews, therefore they did not require having a unifying biblical text to bring the diaspora into one conceptual unifying body to consider themselves a people because palestinians were already a people the way most people are, by virtue of living together on the land.
the concept of nationhood that exists today is relatively new. this is not to say jews were not a ‘people’ before the idea of people as nations or nations as people arose recently. eee said Arnon- Your contention that “the idea of nationalism was about to die out” is baloney. although i do not see exactly where it is you said that i would have to agree w/eee. nationalism wasn’t about to die, relatively speaking it (nationalism) has just been born.
annie, I noticed a rush to say that the Jews were a “nation”.
I notice far less enthusiasm to say what “nation” means.
Why do you think that is?
what i notice roha is a rush to assume and accuse wrt my question which had nothing to do w/refuting jews as a people or a nation. i’m all for respecting people’s self identification so i’ll respect whatever it is they want to call themselves. i guess i have a little issue w/the almost constant reference to past tense wrt nationhood expecting us to just kind of blank out the reality that the concept of nationhood wrt ‘peoplehood’ hasn’t even existed for very long. it’s stuff like this:
The Jewish nation has existed for thousands of years
well, actually i don’t think it has. i think if you had ask a bunch of jews in 1500 where the jewish nation was they would have scratched their heads. but hey..who am i? while samuel tells us Not every thing fits into little boxes and can be defined as you would have in black and white terms. it sounds to me like he is trying to fit a concept inot a little box and define it in blac and white terms.
so if this idea of nationhood existed pre zionism in the way we understand nationhood today i just asked for some references to it, non biblical that is (because we sure as hell have tons of non biblical references to it today, like this thread for example..just a discussion and reference to it) and what am i told? i am told before 200 years ago there really weren’t any secular jews. iow all self identifying jews were religious.
well okay, i guess THAT explains it!
but here’s what i find most curious indeed. here’s wiki (go fish for the link yourself i’m feeling lazy
Cultural Zionism (Hebrew: ציונות רוחנית) is a strain of the concept of Zionism that values Jewish culture and history, including language and historical roots, rather than other Zionist ideas such as Political Zionism. The man considered to have founded the concept of cultural Zionism is Asher Ginsberg, better known as Ahad HaAm.
Supporters of this strategy promoted the revival and fostering of a Jewish national culture.
revival? fostering? why would anyone need to foster something that has been in existence for thousands of years? revival from what? where did it go? it almost sounds like it once was a nation and then wasn’t and then zionism revived and foster it and viola! israel was a result of that. but whatever…it was there all along in plain site..nobody ever wrote about it tho because they would just read the biblical texts instead.
so lets head on over to Ahad HaAm’s wiki page, he sounded like a stand up kinda guy actually, it is a decent read:
sorry, i got a little off course…back on topic:
so what exactly was the state of affairs in 1897 that would inspire anyone to write about adopted the idea of disseminating Jewish culture in the Diaspora if there was already a jewish nation? wasn’t the whole point of a revival of the Jewish people bringing everyone together to form a nation, to create a ‘nationalism’ in the coming age of nationalism?
look at the history of nationalism (wiki):
so doesn’t it seem logical that jews (like christians) were dispersed in many areas, held cultural things in common but, like christians..did not think of themselves as a ‘nation’ and with the advent of nation states and the aspirations of a nation state for jews, Ahad HaAm and other cultural zionists sought to pull the diaspora together by “adopting” the idea of disseminating Jewish culture in the diaspora? and why would he do that? because jews were all over the map both figuratively and literally. clusters of communities all over the world who perhaps did not think of themselves as a ‘nation’. and if they had thought of themselves as a nation there would probably be more recent text besides biblical texts which were written when jews were not spread all over the place.
but to take a modern term and concept wrt nationhood and claim this was a concept shared by jews for centuries using biblical text as the only source for this..well..it is a lot to ask me to believe. why should i believe it? if someone told me christians have been a nation of people for centuries i’d say the same thing. but christians are not asking us to believe this. so i think it is fine if jews consider themselves a nation (and the ones who don’t i respect that too) but please don’t ask me to apply this logic to the last few centuries. there’s got to be one jewish thinker, philosopher or writer referencing this prior to the development of nationalism or cultural zionism. just some books talking about some unifying theme, some evidence people were thinking along these lines.
Why do you think that is?
i think it is because there are strong forces in play reinforcing the idea jews are ‘all in this together’ and the concept of an enduring nationalism or ‘nation’ that has been in existence for thousands of years is a very powerful image and concept. it isn’t enough for jews to believe it, non jews are supposed to believe it too. it’s political.
but that is just it as it is based almost solely on religious links they cannot be considered a nation but have to be viewed solely as a religion. they might believe themselves to be a nation but quite frankly they aren’t and just because thery successfully Illegally conqured palestine doesn’t make them a nation.
annie- What is a nation? The first thing we look towards is land. A dispersed people therefore is lacking the first “requirement”. But usually the second thing we look towards is language. In this case then the Jewish people, those who observed the Jewish religion, could be divided into two (around the year 1789 to pick a “random” date) those who spoke Yiddish and those who didn’t. European Jews (excluding Turkey which is part of Europe, but not part of Europe, even then) spoke Yiddish. So they had this national trait in common.
Next: A key date: 1666 Shabtai Zevi declares himself Messiah. Although revealed eventually as a false messiah, and therefore usually mentioned by anti Zionists who wish to compare Zionism to this false movement, I cite it to prove the national aspect of the Jewish diaspora. His popularity varied from country to country where Jews resided, but the fact that this movement spread across national boundaries and fed hopes across national boundaries with hopes of an end to the travails of the “galut” (exile) and an ingathering of the exiles to Israel, indicates the national aspect of the dispersed Jewish people.
The next personality who deserves mention is Moses Mendelssohn (1729- 1786) , considered the father of the Haskala or Jewish enlightenment. He urged Jews to forgo their national bonds and to cast Yiddish aside and to adopt the nationalities where they were residing. Thus, to put Mendelssohn in context, until he came along, the Jews thought of themselves as a separate nation and he urged them to give that up and to consider themselves only a religion.
Part of the Haskala movement (in the example of Smolenskin) reacted to Mendelssohn, and rejected his advice regarding casting aside their national identity. They pursued the study of Hebrew not only as a means of studying the religion, but as an aspect of national revival.
What does national revival mean, if they considered themselves a nation always? Two things were occurring at once, the fall of the ghetto walls and the collapse of religious beliefs. The national identity was tied up in the religious identity and to discard the religious identity and keep ahold of the national identity was not a simple thing. They dreamed of becoming new people, throwing off the bondage of their religion and with it the discrimination suffered by Jewish people. Some who had this wish, went to the baptismal font and accepted a new faith. Others who merely disbelieved in their old faith and did not wish to replace one false belief with a new false belief, hoped to become one with the predominant societies in which they lived, without undergoing baptism. This was not that easy in most places in Europe, where baptism was the ticket into society: see Heinrich Heine, see Benjamin Disraeli, see Karl Marx.
I realize that I have just begun to scratch the surface of the issue, but I think the preconceptions that you have are based upon American society in the latter half of the 20th century up til today, whereas in fact in European society the religion of a person, was a major part of national identity. This was probably true with regards to Protestants and Catholics to some extent: Thomas More lost his head because he wished to remain Catholic, but it was very true in regards to the concept of the societies of most of Europe in their nonacceptance of the Jews as part of their nations.
thanks for this incredible response eee. i really appreciate it. i think you do have a point when you say I think the preconceptions that you have are based upon American society in the latter half of the 20th century up til today, whereas in fact in European society the religion of a person, was a major part of national identity.
because of course i am limited by my own preconceptions and understanding..i especially associate ‘nation’ as nation state and nit so much as a people not pertaining to geography.
i’ve been reading up a little on Mendelssohn as a result of your post and understand he is considered the or a father of reform judaism although he was orthodox his whole life. i still have reservations about that quote partly because my limited research leads me to believe Julius H. Schoeps was not translated into english. here’s another. none the less i get the idea behind what you are saying, i just wonder what the letter actually said and if it referenced ‘nation’ or if that is a more modern translation given what we call nation today.
In this case then the Jewish people, those who observed the Jewish religion, could be divided into two (around the year 1789 to pick a “random” date) those who spoke Yiddish and those who didn’t. European Jews (excluding Turkey which is part of Europe, but not part of Europe, even then) spoke Yiddish.
what about the ones who spoke arabic?
annie- I wish I knew more about Mendelssohn.
As far as the question of the non Yiddish speaking Jews, that is a topic on which I have VERY superficial knowledge (rather than just regular superficial knowledge). There is a language called Ladino, a Judeo Spanish language, but I think that it was never common in the Arab speaking world, only in Turkey and other places where the Spanish expulsion Jews ended up.
I think that the Yiddish speaking world can be considered one unit in a way that the Yiddish and the Arab speaking Jews cannot be considered one unit. To consider Yiddish speaking Jews and non Yiddish speaking Jews one unit would require using other measurements for nationhood other than language- genetics (of which I know almost nothing) and then the elements of the religion that speak of “am”.
An anecdote: I was in Jerusalem for a visit before I moved here in November of 2004 and I was in the old city and a group of Ethiopian Jewish teenagers were also there and I started a conversation with one “black” “kid”, who was rather shocked to hear that I, a redhead with very light white skin, was a Jew. He seemed dubious. I too was dubious of his Jewishness.
By the way, I am a different person than eee, with whom I agree sometimes and disagree at other times.
Sorry, not when he wants the whole world to finance his “communal” fascist state with its “communal” ethnic cleansing.
J-Street is a last-ditch attempt to keep the racket that early Zionists framed. No cooperation from me with that.
I agree to this as well. I think I am hoping they shift once they are established, and it time. They are off on some major issues. I hope it is just strategic. But if I had the option between no J Street, and having J Street, I fear I would say J Street is a good piece to have. Anything to counter the extreme right of AIPAC is good on some level. But maybe only as a lesser of two evils.
Earlier Nevada Ned wrote:
“Discussions about the Israel/Palestinian conflict have been largely limited to Jews and Arabs. It is essential that the discussion be enlarged to include the 97% of the US population who are neither Jews or Arabs.
If that happens, it will have a transformational effect on the debate”
How right you are NN. Americans who are neither Jews or Arabs could care less about I/P (born again christians are an exception). It’s an unfortunate truth…pressured to appear informed they side with Israel….. thanks to AIPAC’s influence on the press and Congress. Attempting to enlighten or debate people who are asleep is a lost cause. It calls for too much thinking!
There needs to be campaign telling Americans about the billions of dollars, US dollars… tax money…. that’s given to Israel. It’s a FACT and can be proven. Americans are very concerned about taxes…no one likes to have their money stolen. Wake them up!!
American tax payers won’t be pleased. Encourage them to be vocal….tell everyone they know…For those especially outraged, explain how simple it is to pester their elected officials…demand attention from the press.
Once that ball begins to roll they’ll be ready for listening, discussing, using their brain. They’ll want to become involved in the I/P discussion and another ball will begin to roll.
The taxes are a drop for the US. It is wars and horrible political cover that really tax us. And it is not just “Jews”, it is many people. So the wars clearly have many cheerleaders…. follow the money.