It’s important to chart the New York Times’s Roger Cohen because he is a good sincere writer– and the limit of American Jewish liberal establishment opinion on the conflict. An avowed liberal Zionist in the J Street mold, he is visiting Israel and writes that Israel is the Jewish “homeland” and our deliverance after the Holocaust, and Israeli “genius” has flourished there. (Cohen’s pride in Israel and keen sense of Jewish persecution remind me of views that billionaire Lester Crown expressed at the Aspen Ideas Festival last month.)
Cohen regards Netanyahu and his settler-supporting coalition as intransigent, and in opposing them, he creates a composite Israeli liberal named Yakov, obviously based on his friends. Yakov is a prosperous software entrepreneur and a member of the Ashkenazi elite, a dying breed.
And the attitudes Yakov expresses reflect what Alex Kane says about Israeli Jewish opinion, it doesn’t really care much about Palestinian human rights.
I find Cohen’s summary of Yakov’s views extremely bleak– he speaks of Judea and Samaria, and Jewish exile, and endless security concerns, including of course Hamas’s rockets. Not so different from a rightwinger:
Yakov’s mood swings are sharpest over the conflict. A voice says: “I am completely supportive of the peace process — so long as it does not get to a solution. A solution could be problematic. You have to hand it to Netanyahu, by starting the peace process he has made peace. With Obama! Do I accept the idea of two states? Yes I do. Do I want two states? That is a different question … ”
At which point an angry voice will be raised: “Of course you don’t want two states. Look what happened when we withdrew from South Lebanon: Hezbollahland! And when we withdrew from Gaza: Hamasland! Is that what you want in Judea and Samaria? You want rockets not just in the south but all over Israel blowing up our children? Olmert offered everything and still they refused it. You want Jerusalem divided?”
Deep inside Yakov there is a white Ashkenazi Israeli liberal, that dying breed. He knows the Jews are not going away; nor are the Palestinians. He believes the Jews did not leave the European ghetto to build walls. The Jews did not emerge from millennia of exile to impose exile on another people, did not escape dominion to inflict dominion. He believes, still, in the possibility of peace through territorial compromise in the occupied West Bank.
I have to belief that by conveying these privileged and hermetic and “liberal” views, Cohen understands that they are anachronistic. There is no Palestinian voice in this column– Palestinians who have been promised a state for 66 years and gotten nothing, Palestinians who make up 15 percent or more of Israeli society, Palestinians who have been exiled around the world.
”An avowed liberal Zionist in the J Street mold, he is visiting Israel and writes that Israel is the Jewish “homeland” and our deliverance after the Holocaust, and Israeli “genius” has flourished there”>>>>
Question.
Why are all the Cohen’s who’s passion in life is about their homeland and Israel as deliverance from the holocaust not *living their passion* in Israel?
Why do they continue living here and in other countries?
Most people in the world, if offered the ability or chance to actually *live out their paramount passion* would jump on it.
A lot of ex-pats passions were to go live in the paradise of Belize or some other foreign paradise. Much easier for the Cohens to do that with Israel than for most expats to fulfill their passion.
So why dont they?
What I see in all these diaspora Jews that are passionate about Israel is really nothing but a passionate ethnic and tribal *egotism*.
As anyone who has study the Romans knows the Romans were not equip to expel jews from Palestine and often let local leaders rule themselves as long as they paid their taxes to the romans otherwise the romans would crush them but again not expel.
If the bible is correct which is highly dubious in itself it was Israelite that were given a divine mandate to ethically cleanse the inhabitants of Canaan which amount to genocide and ethnic cleansing in the name of God. If the Israeli Rightwing believe that garbage than cleansing the west bank of non-jews and building illegal settlements would only be logical to restore the once “great” kingdom by cleansing it of the native population.
History repeat itself?
That’s all well and good — but check out the two most up-voted NYT-recommended comments!!
First comment:
There might be a value in thinking of the people of the Middle East having a problem with invaders, rather than with Jews. In some countries the invaders were French, and the people hated French. Depending on the country, you can substitute English, Afrikaaners, or Jews. As long as (in this case) Jews came in, took the natives’ land, subjugated them and exploited them, there is opposition. It is hard to expect people to agree with their home being taken away on the pretext that in ancient history some of my ancestors lived there. Don’t expect your being Jewish earning more acceptance than being a crusader, English, French or Afrikaaner did in other countries.
Second comment:
The two-state peace process is the best illustration of The Emperor’s New Clothes on the planet. Everyone knows that both sides, along with enabler-in-chief John Kerry, are negotiating in bad faith, that there is zero possibility of “success,” and that even a hypothetical agreement could not be ratified by the masses of Palestinians or Israelis (eg., by referendum). Yet the pretense continues because no one dares admit that the “solution” is a fraud, the “road map” has proven to be a cul de sac and the Quartet can’t carry a tune.
In the long run Palestinians will become Israeli citizens and vote. That is a just resolution and its achievable through non-violence and democratic means. Gandhi did it in India. MLK did it in Jim Crow America, and the Palestinian people will do it in Israel. The sooner the two-state hallucination is rejected, the better.
A little question: is Yakov presented as “white Ashkenazi Israeli liberal” (as opposed to black Ethiopian Israeli liberals or those Ashkenazi Israeli liberals who are of Oriental race, consistent with their Khazarian ancestry)?
There is nothing remotely liberal in the rant (which is a good composite from actual statements one can read both in opinion pieces and comments of Israeli press, and surely hear when you talk with those people). The liberal is “deep inside”. It is like deep inside your cousin who emigrated when she was 19 and now shows a photo of her grandchild joining IDF is the teenager you remember from your childhood.
RE: Yakov’s mood swings are sharpest over the conflict. A voice says: “I am completely supportive of the peace process — so long as it does not get to a solution. A solution could be problematic. You have to hand it to Netanyahu, by starting the peace process he has made peace. With Obama! Do I accept the idea of two states? Yes I do. Do I want two states? That is a different question … ” ~ Roger Cohen’s column
MY COMMENT: Uri Avnery highlights the fact that Israelis seem to support the idea of a comprehensive settlement based on the two-state solution (a theoretical Palestinian state), but they have been “brainwashed” to believe that such a settlement is not possible (due to Palestinian intransigence). If Israeli’s don’t believe that a comprehensive settlement based on the two-state solution is actually possible, then it makes it very easy (i.e. ‘cost free’) for them to support this theoretical two-state solution that they believe will never actually come to fruition (thereby eliminating the need for them to make the concrete sacrifices that would be necessitated by the theoretical two-state solution). Additionally, by virtue of theoretically supporting the two-state solution (that they are convinced will never actually come to fruition), the Israeli’s absolve themselves of responsibility for the “demographic problem” [i.e., the inevitability that Israel will eventually cease to be a democratic, Jewish state; and a system of apartheid will be the only way for Israel to remain a Jewish state)].
SEE: “Israel’s Weird Elections”, by Uri Avnery, Counterpunch, 1/04/13:
ENTIRE COMMENTARY – http://www.counterpunch.org/2013/01/04/israels-weird-elections/