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Eric Yoffie says Jewish leaders can criticize the settlements, but nobody else

Eric Yoffie, the liberal Zionist rabbi who defended the Gaza slaughter, has a chilling editorial up at Haaretz, titled, “Heading toward an irreparable rift between U.S. Jews and Protestants,” suggesting that 15 church leaders who have called for a congressional investigation of aid to Israel are anti-Semites. The world hates Jews and always has, so you have no standing, Yoffie is saying. You Protestants were silent during the Holocaust and again when Israel needed support in 1967 (a cakewalk started by Israel, with disastrous political results).

And Yoffie seeks to circle the wagons in the American Jewish community by commanding us that we are all for giving US aid to Israel no matter what happens in the West Bank– apart from some fringe groups.

There have always been ups and downs in the relations between mainline Protestants and American Jews, but they have now hit a 45-year low.  And this time, they may not recover….

Criticism of settlements [the basis of the Protestants’ letter] is completely legitimate; I am an outspoken settlement critic myself. But the Protestant leaders made no effort to include in their letter words that might have reassured Jews and others that this effort was not motivated by hostility to Israel. They could have expressed the hope that the Palestinians would return to the negotiating table in the days ahead. They could have said that just as the Jewish people must welcome the Palestinian people as neighbors in a sovereign Palestinian state, so too must the Palestinian people welcome the Jewish people as neighbors in a sovereign Jewish state. They could have said that just as a two-state solution will require Israel to radically change its settlement policy, so too will it require the Palestinians to renounce the Right of Return and to declare the conflict with Israel over—once and for all.

But the Protestant leaders did none of these things. And by failing to do so, they aroused all of the suspicions that exist in the Jewish community about the real intentions of the letter.

To be sure, no matter what the wording, Jewish leaders would never agree to a reduction of American aid to Israel. Except for a few fringe groups, this is a consensus position of the Jewish community.

My friend Ilene Cohen has this highly-perceptive take on Yoffie’s comments, and his arrogance about who has a right to have an opinion:

Per Yoffie and the others like him, there are strict rules. Only they may criticize the settlements and then with the clear understanding that such criticism is not a call for consequences. More than half a million settlers illegally occupy stolen Palestinian land (that elusive, future Palestinian state), part of a settlement program that has been ongoing for forty-five years (without criticism by Yoffie for most of that period), leaving Palestinians to struggle to survive under military occupation. (Just last week, Palestinian high school students couldn’t take the SATs because the Israelis wouldn’t release the tests—to cite one of the more absurd facts that constitute the occupation.)

But again—here’s the key—nobody’s allowed to do anything about it—not use leverage with the EU, not use BDS, not call on the US to withhold funds, not engage in noviolent resistance if you’re in Palestine. Because all of that “delegitimizes” the occupier and hurts the feelings of American Jews.  Boo-hoo.

The implicit message that the Palestinians are not entitled to resist is, I think, deeply offensive given who the guilty party is.

So doesn’t Israel deserve to be delegitimized? Think about it—had its best friends told them the truth long ago—that stealing Palestine, obliterating the Green Line, and setting the border of Israel at the Jordan River was not going to end up eventually legitimized the way the 1949 armistice line (the Green Line) was—they might not be in the pickle they’re in today, as an increasingly isolated state that lives from war to war.

Bottom line: people like Yoffie are very, very worried for Israel. But Netanyahu apparently hasn’t a care in the world over the matter of the occupation: just this week, he reaffirmed his commitment to continuing to colonize occupied East Jerusalem.

The Cassandras among his friends in America are obviously not getting through to him. And, worse, they’re not even offering anything that resembles a solution, except hysteria that we’ve got to return to negotiations over that pie in the sky—the 2SS. They don’t understand that Netanyahu has already euthanized it.

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“To be sure, no matter what the wording, Jewish leaders would never agree to a reduction of American aid to Israel.”

That is tail wagging dog . Are there any examples from history of such imperial access working indefinitely ?

The lies about 1967 war has been exposed by Begin and by other military figures of Isreal. Still liberal Rabbi uses it ( or may be he knows and is telling 1967 war was started by Israel but still should have been supported by US .Isreal was supported then by letting USS go down memory hole but then again liberal rabbi may be asking that US should have done more like doing the actual fighting for Isreal )
Rabbi knows Palestinian has agreed to 2 state solution with Jews /Arabs living side by side and within the lands as co equal. Rabbi knows like evryone else the Church knows it and does not have to remind the Palestinian to remember what Palestinian already fully remembers . Church also knows that return of refugees or partitioning of Jerusalme is not an only Palestinain issue but one that is upheld by UN and US (until now ) .Unless the Rabbi is asking the church to throw those established positions under the bus the way Saban and sheldon -money-soaked Romney and Obama are doing along with the rest of the crowd looking for a chair in Congress and Senate ,his convoluted lies about the past that have been expsoed by israel itself is an exrcise in obfuscation and d elays and slanderings with more lies.
His other assertion that he was a critic of settlement is reminiscent of those lies by Ben Gurion ,Herzl,and person like Elizer Ben -Yehuda who asked in 1880s ” We shall not set up committees so that the Arabs will know what we are after,we shall act like silent spies” and Ben Guron writing this ” I am certain we will be able to settle in all other parts of country,whether through agreement..with our Arab neighbours or in another way.Erect a Jewish state at once ,even if not the whole land.The rest will come in the course of time.it must come” to his son Amos. Jabtosnky urged American to raise money to scatter Palestinians to other parts of Arab lands. Herzl was soothing the fears of Arab notable by picturing and promising of co existence and joint enterprises and of mutual benefits while planning for ‘an outpost of civilsation” aginst barbarism for the benefit of the West in addition.-(ref Herzl’s Nightmare by Peter Rodgers )

Eric Yoffie speaks only for himself, or at most the born-again Zionist wing of the Reform movement (it was once fiercely anti-Zionist). But it is also interesting that Yoffie has jilted JStreet and praised AIPAC, so his remarks should be measured by fealty to the talking points that come from the Israeli Foreign Ministry direct to AIPAC and its sister organizations.

I am sure the Churches and leaders were aware their action would create a riff, they aren’t politically naive, the riff was inevitable.
The best course of action for the Churches now is to not dignify the accusations of anti semitic intent with a reply or lower themselves to publicly denouncing the smear, thereby giving it any oxygen to change the subject or take away from the real purpose of their letter to congress.
Hopefully they will just proceed on doing what their conscience dictates is necessary.

Notice that when Zionists attack the letter from Protestant church leaders, they rarely provide a link to the text so that people can judge for themselves whether or not the message is “anti-Israel”.

Here is the link:

The third paragraph of the letter states ( before the proposal to re-examine the appropriateness of military aid to Israel): http://globalministries.org/news/mee/pdfs/Military-aid-to-Israel-Oct-1-Final.pdf

“Through this direct experience we have witnessed the pain and suffering of Israelis as a result of Palestinian actions and of Palestinians as a result of Israeli actions. In addition to the horror and loss of life from rocket attacks from Gaza and past suicide bombings, we have witnessed the broad impact that a sense of insecurity and fear has had on Israeli society. We have also witnessed widespread Israeli human rights violations committed against Palestinians, including killing of civilians, home demolitions and forced displacement, and restrictions on Palestinian movement, among others. We recognize that each party—Israeli and Palestinian—bears responsibilities for its actions and we therefore continue to stand against all violence regardless of its source. Our stand against violence is complemented by our commitment to the rights of all Israelis, as well as all Palestinians, to live in peace and security.”

Just what more could they have written — other than refraining from criticizing Israel at all? Of course, as Phil writes, the idea is that they should just shut up. . .