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.
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.
http://rehmat1.com/2012/09/26/henry-kissinger-no-israel-in-10-years/