Amos Schocken in Haaretz’s offices. (Photo: Michal Chelbin/The New Yorker)
Amos Schocken, owner of Haaretz, writes in Israel (not here, no way) that the settler movement Gush Emunim is building an “apartheid regime” in Israel and Palestine and that it is supported by the “Jewish lobby” in the U.S. That lobby is “totally addicted” to settler policies; and this explains Obama’s collapse.
In trying to understand Obama’s reversal of his declaration in Cairo in 2009, Schocken does what Walter Russell Mead of the Council on Foreign Relations swears never to do; he ascribes political influence on the Democratic Party to American Jews. Mead would classify Schocken as an anti-semite for saying this.
As to Schocken’s question, Why they fell into line? He does not understand the minority Jewish experience. American Jewish leaders were instructed after ’67 and ’73 that they were the only thing preventing Israel’s destruction and that they must support Israeli leadership, no matter what. (Chuck Schumer: I am Israel’s guardian.) These are religiously-loaded instructions that young Jews are trying to reform. Thanks to Paul Mutter.
The term “apartheid” refers to the undemocratic system of discriminating between the rights of the whites and the blacks, which once existed in South Africa. Even though there is a difference between the apartheid that was practiced there and what is happening in the territories, there are also some points of resemblance. There are two population groups in one region, one of which possesses all the rights and protections, while the other is deprived of rights and is ruled by the first group. This is a flagrantly undemocratic situation.
Since the Six-Day War, there has been no other group in Israel with the ideological resilience of Gush Emunim, and it is not surprising that many politicians have viewed that ideology as a means for realizing personal political ambitions. Zevulun Hammer, who identified this ideology as the way to capture the leadership of the National Religious Party, and Ariel Sharon, who identified this ideology as the way to capture the leadership of Likud, were only two of many. Now Avigdor Lieberman, too, is following this path, but there were and are others, such as the late Hanan Porat, for whom the realization of this ideology was and remains the purpose of their political activity.
This ideology views the creation of an Israeli apartheid regime as a necessary tool for its realization. It has no difficulty with illegal actions and with outright criminality, because it rests on mega-laws that it has adopted and that have no connection with the laws of the state, and because it rests on a perverted interpretation of Judaism. It has scored crucial successes. Even when actions inspired by the Gush Emunim ideology conflict with the will of the government, they still quickly win the backing of the government. The fact that the government is effectively a tool of Gush Emunim and its successors is apparent to everyone who has dealings with the settlers, creating a situation of force multiplication.
This ideology has enjoyed immense success in the United States, of all places. President George H.W. Bush was able to block financial guarantees to Israel because of the settlements established by the government of Yitzhak Shamir (who said lying was permissible to realize the Gush Emunim ideology. Was Benjamin Netanyahu’s Bar-Ilan University speech a lie of this kind? ). Now, though, candidates for the Republican Party’s presidential nomination are competing among themselves over which of them supports Israel and the occupation more forcefully. Any of them who adopt the approach of the first President Bush will likely put an end to their candidacy.
Whatever the reason for this state of affairs – the large number of evangelicals affiliated with the Republican party, the problematic nature of the West’s relations with Islam, or the power of the Jewish lobby, which is totally addicted to the Gush Emunim ideology – the result is clear: It is not easy, and may be impossible, for an American president to adopt an activist policy against Israeli apartheid.
Schocken asks why
Word. When will the craven, lickspittle US media put this travesty of Judaism, the perversion of religion, on their front pages and make it a major talking point and election issue?
I agree — as an observer it really does look as if Judaism has been swallowed up by Zionism. Judaism has become part of the Lobby. As the Christian Zionists have attached themselves to the Republicans, the American Jewish (religious) Zionists have binded themselves to the Democratic Party — and everyone else is expected to lump it.
Obervations:
With …”the disturbing level of discontent with the Jewish state among a number of Reform, Conservative and Reconstructionist rabbinical students spending a year in Israel…” The answer from their spirtual leaders “…“The central objective of the program is to build a Zionist mindset,” said Rabbi Ammiel Hirsch of the Stephen Wise Free Synagogue (Reform) in Manhattan. “Otherwise it’s a wasted opportunity.”
http://www.thejewishweek.com/editorial_opinion/gary_rosenblatt/alienation_israel_hitting_liberal_seminaries
And when you have ex-J-Streeter (An organization supposed to be close to the Administration), URJ President-Elect Rabbi Richard Jacobs
quoting Daniel Pipes favourably you can see many of us are seeing a massive perverted trend before us.
This coming from the supposedly progressive liberal wing of Judaism? Where’s the outcry from URJ congregations?
http://urj.org/about/union/leadership/rabbijacobs/?syspage=article&item_id=65240
URJ’s equivalent program to ‘BIRTHRIGHT’:
Israel, Up Close and Personal (July 25, 2011)
By Rabbi Richard Jacobs, URJ President-Elect
“…Just days before, these Reform Jewish teens had left their homes in North America and traveled to Eastern Europe where they stood together at Auschwitz and Birkenau contemplating the darkest moment in all of human history. Having experienced the remnants of Jewish life in Prague, they would journey next to the home most had not yet visited [Israel]…”
http://israel.rjblog.org/2011/07/25/the-land-of-israel-up-close-and-personal/
BTW: Biden’s has been summoned by “Jewish American leaders” (including the Rabbis no doubt) AGAIN on Pollard!
Biden Meets With Jewish Leaders About Pollard Case
Tuesday, November 22, 2011
JTA
http://www.thejewishweek.com/news/breaking_news/biden_meets_jewish_leaders_about_pollard_case
If this guy does get released then he should be treated with at least the same amount of contempt given to the Lockerbie bomber when he was flown home. A full hour documentary on PBS is required to show the crimes he committed against the United States to the United States National Security! Also, those who continually badged the Administration asking for his release should be interviewed and profiled!
It’s true, the Lobby is responsible for US support of Israel. It’s always been true, that has been admitted by every US President, ( in their private papers and conversations, check any Presidential Library).
The US has come a long way from this:
“Up to World War I the United States refrained from intervention in the Middle East region mainly because they wanted to avoid competing with British interests there . Oil exploitation was also at its beginnings and British Petroleum had the monopoly of it. For the countries of the region the US enjoyed a favorable image since they had no imperial designs in the Middle East. This view was reinforced at the end of World War I by President Wilson’s 14 Points and by America’s championing of the principle of self-determination at the Versailles peace conference. The Middle Eastern countries which were resisting the encroachment of European powers even hoped for American protection against European imperialism. This hope was expressed forcefully in the King-Crane Commission dispatched by Wilson to Syria and Palestine to ascertain the preferences of the populations regarding which mandatory power should be chosen to help them toward independence, according to the goals set by the League of Nations. The King-Crane Commission left a favorable impression in Syria and Palestine as the majority of those interviewed expressed a desire for an American mandate in preference to a British or a French one.”
To prempt those who claim Israel is tied in with US imperialism and colonialism I am wiling to give the imperialism, but not the colonialism claims an inch of truth.
But it was a creeping thing brought about by other circumstances, mainly our Russian concerns after WWII and the French and British scaling back on their own imperialism in the ME. The US stepped into what they considered the void and tried what they called” off shore balancing” to protect US oil interest. This was mainly an effort to make sure no one power had the ability to screw up the ME to the point where oil availability was threatened.
BUT ..this was just ‘bizness’ and even though Arabs came to resent it as it became more heavy handed, they tolerated “bizness’ and ‘interest’ easier than they did
US support of Israel because they saw that correctly as an ‘outright assault’ on and insult to the Arab ‘people’ and the whole region.
US support of Israel is now the core of all anti American attitude in the ME.
It’s one thing when you resent someone meddling in your business or cheating you. BUT.. it’s another thing entirely when you see that bully championing and making it possible for it’s mad dog Israel to kill, steal and flaunt in it your face. And compound that with the 1001 US economic strong arming acts ‘solely’ to benefit Israel even when it damaged Egypt’s or some other ME countries own economy and had absolutely no benefit to the US.
Probably relations with Saudi is the only one the Lobby hasn’t been able destroy, but they have deliberately screwed with and tried to and have destroyed for the most part every other US relationship interest in the ME.
No one, no one, can put forth an argument for Israel being of any benefit or any kind of asset or anything but a liability to the US without lying their head off.
The Israeli Lobby has made the US act against it’s own interest and that’s a fact.
Mr. Schocken may be being diplomatic when he refers to the “Jewish lobby”, but he does not understand the current condition of the U.S. government if he does not include Christian Zionism as part of the Jewish lobby. The only way Jewish Zionist supporters have any support is because they fit into the end-times eschatology of Christian Zionists. Christian Zionists are a large minority in the Christian community, but they have a political influence far beyond their numbers. They are running the Republican party and Democratic politicians, including Obama, kowtow to them.
I was in Jerusalem a few weeks ago and witnessed the symbiotic relationship which exists between Orthodox Jews and evangelical Christians. Each is very friendly with the other, but their theology believes in the ultimate demise of the other. (Note: Not all evangelicals are Christian Zionists, but all are at least enablers.)
Christian Zionists base their world view on superstitions based on the Book of Revelations. They believe Jews must be converted to Christianity or destroyed. It is the same ideology that has plagued Jews for 2000 years.
Christian Zionists are the driving force behind an attack on Iran. They work closely with settlers on the West Bank to achieve the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians. See this video of a 2007 conference of Christians United for Israel to see the nature of their ideology:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mjMRgT5o-Ig