The Iran deal is an important moment in Jewish history because the Jewish state has made clear that it wants American Jews to support it and oppose the deal, but American Jews aren’t buying. This is a crisis both for the lobby (the dovish segments of which are supporting the U.S. government) and for the Zionist construction of Jewish identity, which entails some measure of dual loyalty.
Two clips that back this up. The Economist speaks of a “terrifying split” that Israel faces between itself and American Jews, and says that Netanyahu has played a dangerous game by risking their solidarity. And at Haaretz, an American Jewish writer calls on American Jews to wallow in dual loyalty.
Yes, two foreign publications, anatomizing American Jewish identity. Where is the New York Times?
The Economist cites polling that shows Americans overwhelmingly support the Iran deal, and American Jews align:
What is certain is that Mr Netanyahu is risking a split between Israel and America, and between Israel and American Jews, of a type that has never before occurred. The American people are not interested in fighting another war in the Middle East. They do not see the Iranian nuclear programme as an immediate, existential threat. They do not dismiss the election of a moderate Iranian president willing to sign an agreement with the United States, one containing significant sacrifices for Iran, as a deceitful trick by a totalitarian government. They believe that Iran’s shift in direction may be real, and they have endorsed a deal that rewards that shift in direction.
The same is true for a large fraction of American Jews. American Jews are largely liberal, and largely support Barack Obama; Mr Netanyahu’s relentless baiting of Mr Obama over the past five years has already tested their willingness to take Israel’s side. Now, Mr Netanyahu’s threat to stage a unilateral attack on Iran risks creating an unprecedented schism. In every previous conflict between Israel and its regional enemies, even when Israel initiated the military action (as in the 1956 and 1967 wars, and to some extent the invasions of Lebanon and Gaza), American Jews have accepted Israeli assessments of the threat. This time, many of them won’t. An Israeli attack on Iran that resulted in Iranian and regional Shiite attacks on American targets and interests, against the wishes and best judgment of most Americans and many American Jews, could lead to an irreversible break. The fact is that Mr Netanyahu is wrong about the deal signed on Sunday: it reduces, rather than increases, the risk of an Iranian nuclear bomb. But even if Mr Netanyahu were right, an increase in the risk of an Iranian nuclear bomb poses nowhere near as great a threat to Israel’s security as losing the solidarity of American Jews.
Here is Dov Waxman, an associate professor of political science at Baruch College and at the Graduate Center of the City University of New York (CUNY)., speaking of the same issue, a “nightmare scenario for American Jews – forcing them to choose between their loyalty to the U.S. and their loyalty to the Jewish state.”
The countries’ interests are not the same, and Waxman says that we should accept our dual loyalty. I believe Waxman is right, and that dual loyalty is inherent in Zionism; and the Iraq war exposed the faultline, engendered this crisis of Zionism, in the era of the nation-state (when my Americanness however I choose to define it is more important than my Jewishness). Waxman:
Despite whatever pro-Israel lobbyists in Washington D.C. might say, the U.S. and Israel simply do not have identical national interests when it comes to Iran. To be sure, neither want Iran to have a nuclear weapon and both are determined to prevent this, but the United States could live with something less than this – Iranian nuclear enrichment – if it really had to, whereas Israel, or at least the Netanyahu government, clearly believes that it cannot. As long as Iran retains the technical ability to produce a nuclear weapon, Israel faces an existential threat, however remote that threat may be. The U.S., on the other hand, faces no such threat. It is simply too big, and too far away, to be destroyed by Iranian nukes even if the ruling clerics in Iran were suicidally inclined.
That two different countries should read the strategic map differently should hardly come as a surprise to anyone. But this basic and unavoidable fact is, however, discomforting for many American Jews. For decades, it has been an article of faith within the American Jewish community that America and Israel shared the same interests and values. In synagogues across the country, the flags of both countries are displayed patriotically side by side…
By insisting on the unity of interests between the United States and Israel, American Jews could avoid the thorny issue of ‘dual loyalties.’ They could comfortably maintain emotional ties and allegiances to both countries, secure in the belief that there was no conflict of interest between them. This was always something of a convenient fiction, even at the height of the Cold War when Israel’s strategic value to the U.S. was greater than it is today. It is now obviously false, at least to honest observers.
When an Israeli prime minister directly appeals to American Jews to oppose a major diplomatic initiative of an American president, as Netanyahu recently did in his address to the General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America, the American Jewish community is confronted with a test of loyalties. …
In the coming months, as the interim nuclear deal with Iran is implemented and negotiations for a comprehensive agreement get underway, the Obama Administration and the Netanyahu government are likely to continue to disagree, at times publicly and testily, over the Iranian nuclear program, and this will cause many American Jews to feel deeply conflicted. This is the unavoidable burden of having dual loyalties. It is a burden that should neither be denied nor wished away: Difficult as they are to manage, American Jews should embrace their dual loyalties as an expression of their multifaceted identity.
P.S. Eric Alterman said the same thing a few years ago. Zionism entails dual loyalty, and I embrace it. The U.S. can take a few hits, Israel can’t; I’m with Israel, he said. But then, where’s the line?
“P.S. Eric Alterman said the same thing a few years ago. Zionism entails dual loyalty, and I embrace it. The U.S. can take a few hits, Israel can’t; I’m with Israel, he said. But then, where’s the line?”
Alterman’s isn’t dual loyalty, it’s a primary loyalty to israel and a secondary one to the US. That’s fine, if that’s how one feels. I don’t have a problem with that in and of itself (although if one is an American and one feels this way, that person should consider getting the hell out.) I do, however, have a problem with this being termed a “dual loyalty.” If one is, like Alterman, primarily loyal to israel (i.e., would chose israel’s interest when they depart), then that person needs to say so so that those of us who are loyal to the US can properly view the irael-loyalists’s arguments as being motivated by loyalty to this alien state.
“Difficult as they are to manage, American Jews should embrace their dual loyalties as an expression of their multifaceted identity.”
It is not as simple as that. If Jews of country X “embrace their dual loyalties as an expression of their multifaceted identity”, is it prudent for country X to fire Jews from all state positions with a higher degree of responsibility? This is theoretical a bit. I lived through exactly such action — firing Jews — even though the fired people (including my late father) hardly “embraced their dual loyalties”. But what is this “dual loyalty” in practical terms? To me, it sounds like an oxymoron. One can have dual sentiments, but if you are an employee of a State Department, Department of Defense etc. the question of “loyalty” has to be answered with no ambiguity.
The Israel lobby is becoming naked.
And as such, the appeals to dual loyalty are becoming naked, too.
Maybe Steven Rosen was wrong. Maybe AIPAC was never a nightflower. Maybe Americans have become so used to seeing Israeli talking heads on their TV that they take it for granted to have the Israeli viewpoint butted into their TV sets every time there is some movement in the Middle East on any given issue. So that when AIPAC is forced to work in the open, it is not shocking to people, it’s merely what they’d expect.
Even if that’s the case, however, the polls from Reuters show an overwhelming distance from the general public to the positions the lobby is taking.
But as I wrote to Woody Tanaka, merely relying on public opinion isn’t a durable strategy. Given enough time, the lobby can come back from its current nadir. Public opinion is transistory. And maybe we need more than just writing about the fact what AIPAC is doing. The website “ifamericansknew.com” has it all wrong. Maybe knowing isn’t enough. Maybe people need to be educated what something called national interest even means anymore after all these decades of automatically assuming the Israeli one in the Middle East.
” and this will cause many American Jews to feel deeply conflicted. This is the unavoidable burden of having dual loyalties. It is a burden that should neither be denied nor wished away: Difficult as they are to manage, American Jews should embrace their dual loyalties as an expression of their multifaceted identity”.>>>>
Pardon me while my head explodes.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Antisemitic_canard
Anti Semetic Carnards
No 12. Accusations of dual loyalty.
Dual loyalty[edit]
A canard found in the Protocols of the Elders of Zion, but dating to before that document, is that Jews are more loyal to world Jewry than to their own country. Since the establishment of the state of Israel, this canard has taken the form of accusations that Jewish citizens of countries such as the United States are more loyal to Israel than to their home country”
If ‘dual/divided loyalties had not been considered a bane and threat to every tribe, nation, people entity since time began it would never have been and still be ‘carnard-able’ to the world. You can talk about nations today as garden salads and multi cutural instead of melting pots but this ‘whiff’ of disloyalty in a nation is the one thing among people of a nation that has never lost it’s odor and causes a reaction.
So what is Waxman saying when he tells Jews to embrace their dual loyalty as an expression of their multifaceted identity”?
Is he saying it’s o.k. to ‘feel’ some fondness for Isr as the expression of the Jewish whatever?
Or does he want to make Jews feel o.k. about ‘practicing’ or voicing(politically) their loyalty to Israel? Which naturally would be a big help to US Zionist.
I tend to suspect what he had in mind in this article was getting US Jews over the conflict ”hump, to present it as normal so they could feel not so guilty/conflicted about supporting Israel.
First he admits the fallacies in Jews thinking the US and Isr are always the same—-but then he tells them that’s o.k. they can still support Israel.
I notice almost all the comments on Waxman’s article in Haaretz took issue with his embrace advice also.
This is very serious business and so I think we should be careful and qualified in discussing it.
Certainly being a Jewish American does not imply dual loyalty. So Netanyahu’s gambit should not in itself create conflict within or among American Jews.
Being a Zionist and an American does not in itself imply dual loyalty. One can without conflict believe that religious and ethnic Jews have a right to settle and rule the space that is Palestine/Israel without any portion of his or her state loyalty going to Israel.
What cannot escape a conflict of loyalties is being a citizen of the U.S and a citizen of Israel (or any other country). Citizenship implies loyalty to country (though not necessarily to its government). Dual citizenship implies dual loyalty.
It is therefore necessarily a conflict of interest for a citizen of both Israel and the U.S. to hold U.S. governmental positions, where the mission is to maximize U.S. benefit. At very least, any candidate or potential office holder should disclose his or her alternative citizenships when being considered for the jobs.