David Brooks has a Times column today saying that Obama has wrongly chosen to be a “fighter” on economic issues. In the middle of the column, whoosh, here comes a stray Israeli bullet:
Obama faced a choice. Double down on conciliator mode or become a fighter. Think of the latter as the Bibi Netanyahu strategy: since I have no negotiating partner I’m going to come out swinging in a way that pleases my base.
Brooks has been to Israel a dozen times and says that love of Israel is a core element of my identity, and Noam Chomsky’s, and Alan Dershowitz’s, too: “As an American Jew, I was taught to go all gooey-eyed at the thought of Israel…” He is a lobbyist for Israel; he puts in propaganda points for Israel wherever he can. As if the Palestinians are responsible for the fact that Israel has gobbled almost all the land that the world assigned for the Palestinians under partition.
“He is a lobbyist for Israel; he puts in propaganda points for Israel wherever he can.”
Examples?
This looks like a criticism of Netanyahu as much as a criticism of Obama.
Very interesting :
An Open Letter to America’s Christian Zionists
From David P. Gushee and Glen H. Stassen
http://www.newevangelicalpartnership.org/?q=node/139
“Not to put too fine a point on it, we wish to claim here that the prevailing version of American Christian Zionism—that is, your belief system—underwrites theft of Palestinian land and oppression of Palestinian people, helps create the conditions for an explosion of violence, and pushes US policy in a destructive direction that violates our nation’s commitment to universal human rights. In all of these, American Christian Zionism as it currently stands is sinful and produces sin. We write as evangelical Christians committed lifelong to Israel’s security, and we are seriously worried about your support for policies that violate biblical warnings about injustice and may lead to the outcome you most fear—serious harm to or even destruction of Israel.
We write as evangelicals to you, our fellow evangelicals. On the shared basis of biblical authority, we ask you to reconsider your interpretation of Scripture, for the sake of God, humanity, the United States, and, yes, Israel itself, the Land and People we both love. ..”
And here is the settler view
Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu
Jerusalem, Israel
Dear Mr. Prime Minister,
The Provisional Executive Committee of the Jewish Authority in the Land of Israel wishes to bring once again to your attention the exclusive, irrevocable and inalienable rights of the Jewish People to the entire Land of Israel, recognized by the entire international community between 1917 and 1924 in the following documents of international law: (1) the San Remo Resolution of April 25, 1920; (2) the Mandate for Palestine confirmed unanimously by the Council of the League of Nations on July 22, 1922 and re-affirmed by the United States of America in (3) the Anglo-American Convention respecting the Mandate for Palestine, signed in December 1924. These rights were then recognized and protected by Article 80 of the United Nations Charter formulated and signed in 1945, thus acquiring the status of an international treaty valid to this very day.
The Provisional Executive Committee wishes, moreover, to stress that the State of Israel inherited from the Jewish Agency for Palestine the status of representative of the Jewish People to implement the rights thus acquired by the Jewish People; the State of Israel has no legal or moral right to give up those rights or any part of them to any political or ethnic grouping that is not the Jewish People. The policy of the Government of the State of Israel at the head of which you stand, the policy of “two states for two peoples” in the Land of Israel west of the Jordan River, thus lacks legality or moral status of any sort whatever.
The Provisional Executive Committee of the Jewish Authority in the Land of Israel calls on you, as Prime Minister of the State of Israel, to act in accordance with the principles set out in this letter and to inform the members of the “Quartet” of this decision of yours at the earliest opportunity. Furthermore, the Provisional Executive Committee expresses herewith its intention to exercise the internationally-recognized sovereignty of the Jewish People over any areas of the Land of Israel the Government of Israel may unwisely, illegally and immorally decide to abandon.
Very respectfully,
Professor Hillel Weiss
The Provisional Executive Committee, Vice-Chairman
The Jewish Authority in the Land of Israel
NormanF said…
Rights are not cancellable or revocable.
No Jewish leader or authority has the right to withdraw or retract any Jewish right under any circumstances. No one may bind future generations.
This is all the moreso true today and no Israeli negotiator has the right to withdraw any previous rights Jews have. Politics maybe about the art of the expediency but rights serve to temper that expedience with the accumulated wisdom of the ages, obtained through much suffering.
Israel must insist on maintaining without qualification or reservation, the right of every Jew alive today and those still waiting to be born in the future.
“We will leave it to God to sort out with the Jewish people of the modern state of Israel the very complex terms of his covenant with them. But we cannot remain silent about the vast array of American Christians who support the most repressive and unjust Israeli policies in the name of Holy Land and a Holy God. We charge that you bear grave responsibility for aiding and abetting obvious sin, and if Israel once again sees war, we suggest that you will bear part of the responsibility. Christians are called to be peacemakers (Mt 5:9), but by offering uncritical support of current Israeli policies you are actively inflaming the Middle East toward war—in the name of God. This is appalling; it is intolerable; it must stop!
We plead with you, our brothers and sisters, to find a better way, a more biblical way, to love Israel. Love Israel enough to oppose rather than support actions that violate God’s clearly revealed moral will. And while you are at it, it might be good to work on loving the Palestinians, some of whom are also our Christian sisters and brothers. When you visit Israel, we urge you to visit with Palestinian Christians and ask them what they want us, their fellow Christians, to support. For they surely need our love. And we are surely commanded to love them, too.
In the name of Christ,
David P. Gushee, Distinguished University Professor of Christian Ethics, Mercer University
Glen H. Stassen, Smedes Professor of Christian Ethics, Fuller Theological Seminary”
“”As an American Jew, I was taught to go all gooey-eyed at the thought of Israel…”
Brooks takes shots often. Have often notice this about Brooks. His logical mind goes gooey when it comes to Israel. Logic departs goo appears