MJ Rosenberg says he won’t be using the term Israel Firster but it was an effective tool in the work to stop a war on Iran.
It has proven to be a distraction, allowing the pro-war lobby to focus on my choice of words rather than the substance of my arguments. I will not be using it again, for many reasons including the fact that some good people were genuinely offended by it. That was not my intention. My intention is to focus like the proverbial laser on the threat posed by war with Iran and the 45 year occupation.
Perhaps I feel that threat more than some. My wife was born in a Displaced Persons camp in Germany to Polish Jews who survived the Holocaust. Many in the family didn’t including my wife’s uncle, for whom our oldest son is named, who was caught by the Nazis putting up posters in Warsaw urging resistance. He was gassed in Maidanek along with his young sister, just engaged to be married. They were both Zionists who dreamed of living in Israel. How amazed and happy they would be to know that a vibrant Israel exists. How horrified they would be to know that its existence is jeopardized by an unnecessary war, one that can be avoided by diplomacy….
My message is this.
Many of the same people who pushed us into Iraq are doing the same thing with Iran. They are pressuring Congress to prevent the president of the United States from negotiating with the Iranian government. They are banning diplomatic contacts. They are (as they have for a decade) hyping the Iranian threat, in part because they want a war and, in part, because they want to use President Obama’s reluctance to jeopardize lives as a tool to defeat him In November. And they are demanding that should Iran develop a nuclear bomb, we must not contain the threat (as we did with the Soviet Union, China, North Korea, Pakistan, etc) but should immediately go to war.
I have been fighting to help achieve a secure Israel, at peace with its neighbors, for more than 43 years. I continue to do that by fighting against a war that could eradicate Israel and endanger Jewish security in the United States and throughout the world. This war has to be prevented. The issue must not be what label I use to describe the war agitators. It is what the Iran war agitators are doing. They must be stopped.
MJ is a national treasure.
There are no ‘good’ people offended by Israel- firster, only guilty people .
Too bad MJ backed down but the description is here to stay.
If we don’t use Israel firster people will use something even worse to describe them.
“They were both Zionists who dreamed of living in Israel. How amazed and happy they would be to know that a vibrant Israel exists”
Hard to know. They would have to understand that Judah Magnes lost. Begin won in the end. The result is the Jewish brotherhood. Those born into the wrong religion are persecuted. It is far from the Shangri la imagined in the 1940s.
As usual here on the Mondoweiss, selective reading and filtered hearing are the critical virtues of the community. Mr. Rosenberg clearly says that his goal is to protect Israel from the distruction and save American Jewery from the backslash of the public “possible” fury. Sounds good to me, but all is heard here is- no more “Israeli Firster” use, let’s find another term. Such a waist and pitiful effort.
They are demanding (Senate Resolution 380) that Iran stop enriching uranium all together. Most of us know that Iran as a signatory to the Non Proliferation Treaty has the legal right to enrich uranium up to 20% for peaceful purposes. Many of the same individuals who lied this nation into Iraq (Liebermann, Kristol, Bolton, etc etc) are demanding that Iran stop enriching uranium all together. Not going to happen.