Eric Yoffie has a piece up at Huffington Post on the importance of the existence of Israel to the survival of the Jewish people. The piece states that Jewish sovereignty and power in Israel–which entail a Jewish majority and the privileging of Jewish citizens over Palestinians– are essential to insure the survival of Jews as a people.
Leave aside whether he is right or wrong (he could be right that the survival of the Jewish people depends on having a nation state with an army).
Leave aside whether the second-class-citizenship of Palestinians in a Jewish majority state is offensive (it offends me as a civil-rights-bred American) and whether there is anything liberal about this liberal Zionism (No).
Let us go to the simple issue: What are my obligations as an American citizen? I am commanded by Yoffie to support Israel.
Zionism bestows upon Jews everywhere a role in determining the character of the Jewish state.
But the word America does not appear in this piece, until you get to the bio box. Executive Director of the Association of Reform Zionists of America.
Eric Yoffie has led a fine career in America. My challenge to Yoffie: What are the obligations of Jewish citizens of the United States to their country?
As Herzl discovered when English Jews shut the door on him, the central political question about Zionism from a western standpoint is a loyalty issue. Zionism has always depended on American support, and therefore on the fervent support of American Jews. He has nothing to say about my American citizenship.
Excerpts:
Zionism is the belief that the establishment of a Jewish and democratic state in the Land of Israel is essential for the creative survival of the Jewish people.
Being a Zionist does not require that I live in the Jewish state, but it does require serious and thoughtful advocacy for the proposition noted above…
Zionism calls for a state that is Jewish. While I have my own strong views on the subject, I know that the precise nature of Israel’s Jewish character has yet to be defined and will evolve over time. The task of Zionism now is to assure that the Jewish state has a secure Jewish majority so that her Jewish citizens can determine by democratic methods what it means for Israel to be Jewish. Still, it is important to emphasize that Zionism does not see the Jewish state as “a state of all its citizens,”…
Zionists do not apologize for the fact that the Jewish state was created to promote the religion, civilization and culture of the Jewish people and its dominant Jewish majority. The Jewish state is to be the one place in the world where the national anthem is Jewish, where Jewish holidays provide the rhythm of the calendar, and where Jews openly apply Jewish values and the Jewish spirit to every aspect of life; it is the one place where others must struggle with the problems of being a minority — even as they are assured democratic rights. Zionism calls for the Jewish people, operating through the democratic institutions of their state, to master the gun and to exercise power, both against their enemies and — when required — against their own citizens who refuse to accept the verdict of democratic decision-making. By bestowing sovereignty on the Jewish people and returning them to history, Zionism gives the Jewish people control over their own destiny….
Zionism bestows upon Jews everywhere a role in determining the character of the Jewish state. Final authority rests with Israel’s citizens, whether Jewish or not. But Israel is not primarily the state of Israelis; it is the state of the Jewish people.
P.S. Leonard Fein is the editor of this series. I would like for him to explain what is liberal in Eric Yoffie’s vision.
Phil: “Leave aside whether he is right or wrong (he could be right that the survival of the Jewish people depends on having a nation state with an army). ”
Ask instead this question: “Assuming, arguendo, that a Jewish State of Israel is necessary [for Jewish safety], how does that justify 45 years of illegally-conducted occupation and 66 years of refusal, contrary to I/L and agreements and conventiuons Israel has signed, to allow return of the refugees/exiles of 1948?”
UNGA-181 (1947) is commonly taken for the “birth certificate” for Israel. It did not promise a rose garden. It also did not promise them a vastly-majoritarian Jewish state. It was explicit that the non-Jews had to have their rights respected. Being exiled (or having readmission refused) is not a respecting of rights, nosireebob.
The mistake is to take the claim of a need for a state as justification for every act, no matter how horrible or illegal, of that state. Even if the state is legitimate, its acts need to be judged for what they are, not “magic’d” into acceptability by the alleged legitimacy of the state.
Germany was (and is) a state, and a legitimate state. That did not make the excesses of the Nazi regime — the invasion of most of Europe and the USSR and the Holocaust — “legitimate”.
I don’t think pitting Israeli nationalism against American nationalism is the best way to frame this argument. It is all too easy for Zionists to simply say they have the best interests of America and Israel at heart. As one person I heard describe it said: “You can love your children and your husband at the same time.”
I think a better argument would be framing this issue as Jewish cosmopolitanism versus Jewish nationalism. Cosmopolitanism does not pit Israel vs. U.S. nationalist claims. Rather, it celebrates the kind of diasporic Jewish identity that emphasizes being world citizens, caring about the future of the planet and the human race, not just particular countries.
RE: “the precise nature of Israel’s Jewish character has yet to be defined and will evolve over time. The task of Zionism now is to assure that the Jewish state has a secure Jewish majority so that her Jewish citizens can determine by democratic methods what it means for Israel to be Jewish.” ~ Eric Yoffie
MY COMMENT: Lots of luck with that!
FROM URI AVNERY, Feb. 2010:
SOURCE – http://tpmcafe.talkingpointsmemo.com/2010/02/28/the_nation_of_israel_wait_and_see/
zionism is the belief that the establishment of a jewish and democratic state in the land of israel is essential for the survival of jewish people?
and never mind that israel has been built by jewish settler colonization of palestine and ethnic cleansing of its native people
and we jewish-americans aren’t to concern ourselves with whether israel’s actions endanger america, the land that has welcomed and nurtured us?
no thanks, traitorous israel firsters
before i’ll turn my back on america and universal human rights, israel can disappear*, and a terribly deformed judaism along with it.**
life will go on
without even a pause
and with doomday everted
*the entity, not its people
**who needs a racist credo?
Phil Weiss wrote:
“Let us go to the simple issue: What are my obligations as an American citizen? I am commanded by Yoffie to support Israel.”
Hurrah to you Phil for your patriotism here, my fellow American. Because obliterating that issue is *exactly* the point that Yoffie’s entire piece was subtly aimed at. Just as hurrahs go to MJ Rosenberg posting in the thread about your dinner with those jewish society members at Yale calling ’em Israel Firsters.
And just as with that thread I’m just amazed at the comments here so far. Here after all is an American—Yoffie—telling other Americans to put the interests of another country first, and the reactions here are … to quibble with his view of what Zionism means? To get into the minutia of … UNGA (181) Resolution?
Or (and I can’t help being so harsh, jon, despite your obvious good intentions), the forehead slapping comment that no, “pitting Israeli nationalism against American nationalism is [not] the best way to frame this argument …. I think a better argument would be framing this issue as Jewish cosmopolitanism versus Jewish nationalism.”
As if .. riiiight … because after all Americans are much more likely to be moved towards a better policy towards the I/P conflict not by arguments that their political system is being manipulated and their blood and treasure is being taken advantage of, but because deep down … they have fretted over the distinctin between jewish cosmopolitanism and jewish nationalism and prefer the former….
Riiiiiiight.
Yeesh.
Like I said in that Yale society thread: Go ahead and ignore the constant open appeals of people like Rabbi “I prefer to live with jews” Yoffie to other Americans telling them to be Israel Firsters. And go ahead and (unlike Phil) don’t raise the issue when they go on and on about the importance of Israel and etc. and never ever utter a molecule of concern about American interests no matter how greatly and gravely they are immediately implicated. (With nuclear weaponry issues even.)
Go ahead instead—like so much commentary here—debate the Yoffie’s of the U.S. over the intricacies of what Zionism or democracy means, and whether the Mufti was really a bad guy or not and whether the Palestinians said X or Y back during Conference A or Conference B or blah blah blah, ad infinitum, ad nauseum.
Go ahead. The Rabbi Yoffie’s of the world *love* you for it. They’ll argue with you until the cows come home over this crap! Delighted to do so! First off of course you ain’t never going to move them from their opinions. But the greatest thing of all is that you’re just impliedly reinforcing the idea that oh of *course* the U.S. should be up to its neck in the conflict over there! That … there’s innumerable matters of great and vast concern and interest for the U.S. over there that we *must* be involved in! After all, all *you* appear to be saying is that, gee, maybe we ought to be a little more even-handed….
Or go even further if you want, and they’ll love you even *more* for that: Go “take the Palestinian/arab/persian side” and see what fun they’ll have with you. Siding with bin Laden and Yassir Arafat and the lunatics of the Taliban and the loudmouth from Iran who doesn’t even know to wear a freaking tie when speaking to the U.N….
Go ahead. Hell, you’re like the Rabbi Yoffie’s best friends in the world! Giving them a free pass to exhort Americans to put the interests of Israel first, and then … to not even have to *argue* whether America has any true interests over there worth our blood and treasure! What a pal!
As I said in that Yale society thread, nobody on the planet much less here can say with any good degree of certainty or credibility whatsoever what’s the perfectly just and fair solution to the I/P conflict. And damn near everyone here agrees the U.S. is just being used like a cheap prostitute and that involvement is hurting the situation.
And yet … so much of the sensibility here seems to be that no, Americans don’t care so much about their country being used like a cheap whore, and the real solution is to just make all Americans Ph.D’s on the vast intricacies of Zionism and jewish and Mideast history and this will result in a fair and just solution, despite the fact that nobody here can even articulate same with any confidence or credibility.
Pfui.
All the more glad you nailed it here Phil, and MJ Rosenberg in that other thread. Not that these other substantive issues aren’t interesting or aren’t worth discussing on their own, but damn, a Yoffie talks like that and all that is noticed is the freaking trees and nobody even mentions the forest?