One could not ask for a more perfect museum quality specimen of the spiritual crisis and degradation that Zionism has wrought. It is one thing for the Michael Walzer-Paul Berman-Alan Dershowitz school of masturbatory meditation on the “ethics” of war and occupation in the name of “liberalism” to be the basis of one’s politics. But for such political discourses to be the basis of a religious discourse is the moral monstrosity that has characterized most non-Orthodox Judaism for the last 70 years.
It is worth noting that this particular rabbi has been one of the chief ideologues of Reform Zionism in the last generation and, in saying he is “worried about Reform rabbis and rabbinical students” makes a point of identifying himself with the protestations of Daniel Gordis. “What does it say about the future of liberalism,” the good rabbi asks “if in less than a decade Peter Beinart has gone from hawkish liberalism to calling for a boycott of Israelis?” What indeed.
The avalanche of neocon hysteria that has rained down against Beinart even before the official release date of his book is frightening and unprecedented. It is the living confirmation of what I was always told by my elders that the people Norman Podhoretz most wanted to see shackled in a gulag were his progressive Zionist former friends. What was once said of the expelled American Communist leader Earl Browder can thus now be said of Peter Beinart – there, but for an accident of geography, stands a corpse!
The rabbi inadvertently states the truth that Israel launched a pre-emptive strike in 1967 when four sentences before stated that it was attacked in a war of extermination by its Arab neighbors. Pre-emptive wars launched by Israel have worked well as it has added much valuable territory to its hegemonic quest to be a superpower in its neighborhood. However being an aggressor does not perpetuate the commonly repeated narrative of the small David battling the mighty Goliaths surrounding it.
It is always fascinating to read your posts, Jack.
When he comments (at about 4:45) about “the disease of assimilation”…wow. ..kind of leaves me (almost) speechless.
They just keep piling on Beinart merely for saying limited BDS is the way to go to save Israel from itself: http://online.wsj.com/article/SB10001424052702304459804577285882739791266.html?mod=WSJ_Opinion_LEFTTopOpinion
Here’s another one: http://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/94872/peter-beinarts-false-prophecy/2/
And they never incorporate what US support for the occupation has done to America’s good standing in the world, and how it makes us vulnerable. Beiden & Petraeus & Freeman & Mitchell all said so, for example. Ron Paul points out the financial cost to our broke nation. None of that is even part of the conversation by all those Jewish Americans piling on Beinart merely because he was concerned about the long-term negative impact on Israel of following AIPAC’s status quo. We, non-Jewish Americans are just proverbial 98% chopped liver even though Israel can only do what it does with our support in blood and treasure and it’s been so for decades.
RE: “The avalanche of neocon hysteria that has rained down against Beinart even before the official release date of his book is frightening and unprecedented.” ~ Jack Ross
ALSO SEE – Dear liberal American Jews: Please don’t betray Israel, by Dahlia Scheindlin, +972 Magazine, 2/14/12:
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://972mag.com/dear-liberal-american-jews-please-dont-betray-israel/35396/
Rabbi: “Israel fortifies the American Jews with the vitamin of Jewish collective meaning… and purpose… and history… and destiny.”
And as Zionism becomes more desperate, rabbis are going to echo this desperation through their sermon. His message, about Israel being even ‘more’ democratic than America was laughable and sounds like the words of a politician than a holy man. The tide is rising for these message makers, and they’re becoming trapped by the failing state of Israel, as is their congregation.