We are witnessing a landmark moment in American Jewish opinion, in which some segments of the Jewish community, licensed by Peter Beinart and Tom Friedman (and by the shock over Bob Turner’s victory in Brooklyn), at last turn on the Israel lobby as bad for Israel. Stanley Fish, who I believe is a Zionist, has a fair report on the critics of the Israel lobby in today’s Times. Good for him!
There is also the fact that Jews are disproportionately represented in the academy, and as scholars dedicated (in theory) to objectivity and a universal rationality, they may be bending over backward to avoid slipping into a tribal identification. (Hence the very vocal insistence on the part of many Jewish professors that criticism of Israel and anti-Semitism are very different things.) And then there are those academics (Jews and non-Jews) who feel that the whole of American foreign policy is distorted by what has been called the “Israeli lobby” and believe that unless the imbalance is corrected, we are in for a very bad time.
Disproportionately represented. Notice that once you start talking about the lobby, it is hard to avoid the larger issue of Jewish influence that Walt and Mearsheimer scrupulously avoided but on which head they were attacked. It is hard to avoid my issue, of the Jewish entry into the establishment. Eric Alterman acknowledged disproportionate representation in the media recently: “a great many pundits in the media happen to be Jewish and darn few are Muslim.” P.S., I saw Stanley Fish on Charlie Rose a week or so back, in an hour dedicated to great writing. And I could not help noticing that almost all the writers on the show were Jewish, including Nicole Krauss’s citation of her mentors Joseph Brodsky and Philip Roth. The point of this awareness on my part (which I grew up with; my family were always looking for Jews in the news) is that Jews transformed establishment culture and the definitions of success in our country, and to great effect. Civil rights, gay freedom, women’s liberation– all had strong Jewish support, and I laud it. And then we come to the affliction of the Palestinians. Also our achievement. Let American Jews walk away from Zionism as not good for the Jews, not good for anyone.
