At City University of NY on October 15th.
Perspectives: Is Zionism in Crisis?
Alan Dershowitz debates with Peter Beinart on the topic of Beinart’s recent book, The Crisis of Zionism.
Gosh, I didn’t know that there was any real question about this, and have to assume there’s a generational blindness at work here? Though I’m going to be very curious to see how many coins Beinart throws in Dershowitz’s old fountain, what he praises him for.
I’m more interested in the discussion between Norman Finkelstein, Anna Baltzer, Noam Chomsky and Adam Shatz on the American Jewish relationship with Israel, on October 6 at the New School. This quartet is much more of the Jewish moment… I hope that Finkelstein offers the pronouncement that he made in one of his speeches a couple years ago: Let us not ask, Are you now or have you ever been a Zionist? Wait, here it is, from his lecture on Gandhi– and yes, I’m chumming:
“I am not anti-English; I am not anti-British; I am not anti-any government,” Gandhi insisted, “but I am anti-untruth—anti-humbug, and anti-injustice.” Shouldn’t we also say that we are not anti-Jewish, anti-Israel or, for that matter, anti-Zionist? The prize on which our eyes should be riveted is human rights, human dignity, human equality. What, really, is the point of ideological litmus tests such as, Are you now or have you ever been a Zionist? Indeed, it is Israel’s apologists who thrive on and cling to them, bogging down interlocutors in distracting and endless intellectual sideshows
The problem with this formulation is that Gandhi would not have said, I’m not anti-colonialist. Zionism is a very active alive ideology, yes in crisis, but alive. A neoconservative recently pressed the NYT’s Jodi Rudoren on whether she is a Zionist, and I tried to ask Ethan Bronner the same question at Vassar a year or so back; because both the neocon and I regard Zionism as a powerful ideology that has ordained and continues to ordain a great amount of human behavior and we’d like to know where you stand on same. (Which is not to say that I favor inquisitions on the question, just some transparency.)
Quite so, the question is hardly academic. It’s the question that underlies the purely hypothetical prospect of truth and reconciliation. “Did Zionist Jews have a right to settle in and conquer Palestine?” If people of Jewish background cannot answer resoundingly in the negative they have cut themselves off from the Palestinians.
T&R is only one line on the balance sheet; others are the Jewish relationship to gentiles, and what to say and do about Zionism in the US.
The failure to reject Zionism leads to the minimal critique of “solutions discourse”, anti–occupation etc etc, and a multitude of political evils and failures
Both talks sound interesting. Hope Mondo folks tape and link. One would think that Democracy Now might be interested in being there
Some political movements, regimes and situations that were in obvious crisis before they fell apart or collapsed:
1. apartheid South Africa
2. British Empire
3. Confederacy
4. Iraq War
5. Italian Fascism
6. Nazism
7. Soviet Union
8. Vietnam War
Add Zionism to the list.
Alan Dershowitz has positioned himself on the wrong side of history for emotional and irrational reasons. There is no question that he will be able to manufacture many clever arguments to rationalize his error. Passionate attachments to messianic ideologies reduce one’s ability to think objectively and clearly.
i agree with 8 especially, and plan to post Daniel Bell on the US regime’s delegitimization because of that adventure. He had a matrix of delegitimization that were it applied in this context would result in… delegitimization, which obama swears to oppose
What is legit about locking down the West Bank so Israeli Jewdom can atone for its sins? It is WTF to the power of infinity. This book that G-d has- does He not write in it what they are doing to Gaza ?
Zionism is nuts.
Maybe some Zionists are atoning for not pushing hard enough on Palestinians, Arabs generally, Iran, EU and USA. Atoning for being lazy and fearful. I mean, they seem to think they own the world. And no-one (who counts at Davos) says them “Nay”.
One should compile a list of the foremost last-ditch defenders of apartheid South Africa, the British Empire, the Confederacy, the Iraq War, Italian Fascism, Nazism, the Soviet Union, the Vietnam War, etc.
Illuminating stuff. Often laughable stuff. It’s amazing the things that some people can talk themselves into believing, against all evidence and facts.
It is a consistent pattern that last-ditch defenders of losing causes tend not to be very bright — they are the slowest to catch on to what is really going on.
The smartest members of losing causes tend to jump ship first. They figure it out.
Kissinger would not agree.
Henry Kissinger: ‘No Israel in 10 years’
On September 17, 2012, Cindy Adams in her column at the New York Post, quoted Henry Kissinger predicting that if the current isolation of the Zionist entity continues – the Zionist entity will be gone within next 10 years.
“Reported to me, Henry Kissinger has stated – and I quote the statement word for word: “In 10 years, there will be no more Israel”. I repeat: “In 10 years, there will be no more Israel”, wrote Cindy Adams.
“Do not argue with Mr. Kissinger’s know-how. He already knows how,” added Adams to emphasized her point.
link to rehmat1.com
Kissinger is right. But it is about more than isolation
““May God protect Israel if, heaven forbid, it ever turns into Yitzhar: violent, isolated, conservative, religious and backward. “
Dershowitz reminds me of Alan Greenspan. 2 old men who rose to positions of prominence and exercised enormous influence and leave behind 2 f@cked up systems and deny any responsibility .
I dunno about statements like “in 10 years there won’t be any Israel”.
How about “in 10 years Israel will have to change her policy”?
That’s not the same as “no Israel”.
Suppose that Israel extended to Palestinians the same rights that Israeli Jews now “enjoy”. Is that the same as “no Israel”? I wouldn’t say so.
After the Civil Rights movement of the 1960′s, Mississsippi is there there. Alabama is still there. They just had to change their policy.
And it was not a small change!
That would mean RIGHT OF RETURN for the Palestinian refugees as well?
Jews have the right of return, so Palestinians would also have the same right.
I seriously doubt that all the Palestinians would want to return. Some would, some wouldn’t.
What about American Jews? They may proclaim that all Jews have the right – and ought to have the right – to return. But how many American Jews actually plan to move to Israel permanently? So far, it’s about 1%.
The other 99% are staying in the USA.
@Ned: That’s a duplicitous “Right of return” by all accounts.
Phyllis Bennis, Director of the New Internationalism Project at the Institute of Policy Studies: – “A Palestinian refugee cannot even return for a visit though I can go to Palestine as if I were “returning” and claim immediate citizenship having no historic tie, speaking no Hebrew, knowing no one in the country, having no family whoever was there. All that one needs is being Jewish.”
“Suppose that Israel extended to Palestinians the same rights that Israeli Jews now “enjoy”. Is that the same as “no Israel”? I wouldn’t say so.”
Same rights? Then Israel won’t be the State of the Jews, nor the Jewish State.
As a state of (all) its citizens, you might call it Israel all the same. Whatever the name, maybe such a state could easily work as a democratic state, but, as of today, saying Israel/democratic State, seems sheer contradiction. Unfortunately.
Of course Israel could change its policy. Lot of people are waiting, but there ain’t a clue.
Also possible that in 10 years, there will be no Israel because its right-wing government claimed it was under existential threat by delegitimizers and launched WWIII with its arsenal of 200+ (plausibly deniable, except to Mordechai Vanunu) nuclear weapons. Just before the world as we know it came to an end, Israel was able to finish ethnically cleansing the West Bank. No one from the UN was available for comment.
Zionism must be in crisis cause all the zionist and Israel are in total overdrive….
Netanyahu daring to insert himself into and interfer in US elections for one glaring example.
I mean a foreign leader doing ads on US TV promoting a foreign country’s positon against what the current US President’s position is…where in the whole world has that happened before?
Well, USA and UK have interfered with the internals of many countries, such as Iran in 1953 when the shah replaced a democratic government that was set to nationalize the oil companies. But perhaps USA and UK were not so brazen as to run TV ads saying so on Iranian TV. (Was their Iranian TV in 1953?)
Not until 1958 from what I could find out.
Derhsowitz’s middle name is denial
Bended Knees: Zionist Power in American Politics
by James Petras
Excerpt:
Zionists and the Jewish Communities in America
The 51 Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organization (PMAJO) claim to speak for all Jews in the US.2 A major study in the north Boston region found that less than 25% of Jews belong to a synagogue, fewer (10%) contribute to the Jewish Federation and over 50% do not accept rabbinical Zionist precepts against inter-marriage with non-Jews.3 According to the Jewish Telegraph Agency (12/4/2009) conservative synagogues have declined by almost 25% from 800 to 650 over the past decade. Even most striking many prominent individuals who may be of Jewish parentage, no longer consider themselves “Jews” despite frequent claims by Zionists that their achievements are a product or a result of their being “Jewish”. Near majorities of young people of Jewish ancestry do not identify with Judaism and are critical or indifferent to Zionist appeals for Israel. They have no involvement in Jewish centered civic activities.4 A small, but vocal, group of Jews are organized and active critics of the entire Zionist apparatus, rejecting the idea of Israel as an exclusive ethno-religious state and supporting a secular democratic republic in Palestine. 5 In addition several Orthodox Jewish sects view the ‘state of Israel’ as a form of blasphemy and call for its destruction.6
The “51” misrepresent their actual numbers and claim to speak for 6 million US Jews. At best they may speak for less than half of the imputed population and even then their support waxes and wanes according to the issue, the timing and the place and varies in intensity. The power of the “51” is not a result of its representativeness of the Jewish community at large, but the location of its followers in the power structure and the intensity and quasi-religious fervor of their activists. Their political power resides in their singular forces in pursuit of the interests of the State of Israel and the control and influence in media; their nationwide networks and the wealth and financial power of contributors. Their capacity to browbeat apathetic Jews into making contributions and lending support adds organizational muscle. Their willing use of force, money and media slander intimidates any and all critics, including dissident politicians, media, journalists and professors.7
At most there are probably no more than 500,000 Jews who actively back the “51” – but what a half million! Given the low level of political participation of the US population in general, the relative low saliency of Middle East issues to most Americans and the one-sided pro-Israel mass media propaganda, which misinforms the public, the Zionist zealots have little competition. They have a free hand in penetrating and influencing political, social and cultural institutions in line with the policies dictated by their Israeli influenced leaders among the “51”.
The issue of the limited representativeness of the Zionist organization must be separated from the exercise of power. By leveraging non-Zionist, non-Jewish civic organizations, political institutions, pension funds, trade unions etc. the ZPC magnifies its power beyond its numbers8.
The limited representativeness of the “51” is compensated by the silence and apathy of the majority of Jews and non-Jewish/Jews, who either are not willing to challenge ZPC claims or are immersed in private concerns, careers or other unrelated civic issues.
The ‘51’s hundreds of thousands of activists are strategically placed in institutions, as well as geographically, with a centralized command capable of mobilizing money, media attention and political leverage in any priority, political, cultural or social arena9. The ‘51’ organizations are not merely a “lobby” in the sense of having paid officials operating to influence congressional votes.10 They include religious, civic, charitable, ideological, cultural and social organizations unified and unconditionally committed to following the zigzags of Israeli political directives11. The actual structure resembles a ‘power configuration’ that reaches from small chapters in municipalities to statewide confederations, as well as national organizations, each with its own budget, its own ideological watchdogs and appropriate levels of power.
The power for Israel is exercised by elected and appointed Zionist officials, especially those in positions that have any relevance to Israeli interests. These “interests” include direct aid to Israel, sanctions and wars against Israel’s Middle East and Asian adversaries, American pension fund investments in Israel, boycotts of companies trading with Israeli-designated adversary countries and many other strategic concerns.
The key to the power of the Zionist Power Configuration is that it is a mass grassroots organization, bolstered by the financial support by scores of millionaires and dozens of billionaires and a complicit mass media. These political resources translate into tremendous leverage over the far more numerous non-Zionist electorates, the mass media spectators and the upwardly mobile politicians.
The ZPC illustrates clearly how “numbers” in the abstract do not count,12 especially in a permeable electoral system like the US, where money, organization, discipline and ethno-religious fanaticism define the boundaries, issues and acceptable policies.
Full article: link to informationclearinghouse.info