Everything you need to know about the Jewish community’s marriage to Israeli is in this piece by former Brandeis president Frederick Lawrence in the Jewish Week, explaining how he managed to put down the burgeoning Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement (BDS) at that Massachusetts school with roots in the Jewish community. Bring in Israeli soldiers, bring in lots of Israeli students, and invite “participation by anyone who cares about Israel… regardless of political views.” But all in the “context of love” for Israel.
Note that not one Palestinian is mentioned by Lawrence. They’re not stakeholders in the Jewish community’s view.
Here’s the part about the Israeli soldiers:
But perhaps the most significant event that evolved was what came to be called “b-VIEW” — Brandeis Visions for Israel in an Evolving World. This program, a campus-wide, broad-based Israel discussion group with a yearly multi-university conference, was started by three IDF vets whom we had recruited to Brandeis, and two American students. They created a forum for sharing a wide range of views on Israel in the context of love and determination for Israel’s survival and future. I was privileged to support it and help make it happen.
Speakers at b-VIEW conferences have included Mideast expert Aaron David Miller, Israel’s consul general in New York, Ido Aharoni, and New York Times columnist Tom Friedman. Most important were the breakout sessions where students from colleges up and down the East Coast wrestled together with the situation confronting Israel.
Whereas many campuses find themselves hosting a confrontational and adversarial discussion of Israel, Brandeis’ b-VIEW revolutionized the process because it goes beyond simplistic rhetoric and polarized debates. It invites participation by anyone who cares about Israel and the region, regardless of political views, and encourages engagement in constructive and mutually respectful conversation…
The Bronfman Brandeis-Israel Collaborative Research Initiative provided research grants to faculty for projects done together with Israeli academics.
Now a scholar at Yale Law School, Lawrence says the “surest way to defeat BDS” is to promote Israel, not to be negative about BDS. But his Rx is essentially racist. Again: he mentions no Palestinians. And at the same time that he was torpedoing BDS, Lawrence was ending the school’s relationship with Al Quds University because its president Sari Nusseibeh failed to condemn in strong enough terms a rally at the school of masked militants carrying fake guns and giving a Nazi style salute. So Nusseibeh deplores the rally, but not loudly enough, and meantime his more powerful American partner hosts soldiers from an Israeli force that massacres children.
Lately I had a discussion with a friend about Who lost Israel? Israel is clearly in jeopardy right now as the “Jewish democratic state”; you can see the desperation in all J Street and New Israel Fund’s year-end communications. Help us get back to the Israel we love, by getting rid of Netanyahu, and Bennett, and Shaked, and Lieberman, and everyone else in the Israeli political establishment, tomorrow. Aren’t they speaking out a little too late? Yes, they’re too late. Israel has gone too far right to be redeemed, IMHO; and the American Jewish groups were complicit in this process because they kept feeding Israel rope, preventing any accountability in the States. As Frederick Lawrence preserved Israel’s impunity by shielding it from the nonviolent BDS movement. And anyway, my friend said that the American Jewish community lost Israel in 1980 when it forced the resignation of Andrew Young as the US ambassador to the UN because he had had a brief meeting with the PLO over the Palestinian state issue. You weren’t supposed to talk to the PLO; and in an election year under tremendous pressure from Jewish organizations, Jimmy Carter accepted the resignation of a man very close to him. A sad chapter. And all we can say is that Barack Obama knows all this, and is fighting back against the lobby.
kumbaya moment around the campfire for pro-Israel Jewish community in Massachusetts. more of an act of desperation on behalf of the community rather than a defeat of the BDS.
“And all we can say is that Barack Obama knows all this, and is fighting back against the lobby.”
Surely he knows all this, and doesn’t agree with it, but he isn’t doing much fighting. He doesn’t know how to fight. He’s the POTUS, with more power at his disposal than anyone, and exceptional native rhetorical skills, yet he is chronically afraid to use his power, chronically reluctant to offend anyone, chronically willing to forgive and overlook, and give a pass. Unable to wear the mantle of him who must be feared.
He just needs to take Netanyahu on directly, on any one of the many issues where Israel’s policies and actions are totally unacceptable under international law and western democratic values. He just needs to draw a line in the sand on one outrageous crime, and make Netanyahu and his right-wing government, embraced by an increasingly racist and fascistic society, bend, or forfeit substantial US support. He’s got a year left. He’s accomplished a lot on the economic and policy fronts, but he hasn’t impressed as a fighter, as one who can deal with a bully.
He’s still the emperor marching around in invisible clothes, wearing a s***-eating grin, deserving of history’s contempt as a weak president.
Notwithstanding its essential racism, that is an interesting piece. It shows that the Zionist establishment knows exactly how to modulate its rhetoric and tactics for the audience, all with the end goal of insulating Israeli policy from an existential threat.
The problem for the Zionists is that Sheldon Adelson isn’t nearly this subtle or tolerant of the notion that tactics and rhetoric must be varied for the audience. Ergo his $50 million anti-BDS fund will be nowhere near as effective as what’s described here.
@- David Doppler
President Obama has been and is a great disappointment for his total failure in asserting the US’ position of supremacy viv-a-vis Israel, a totally dependent client state that however acts as if it were the more powerful of the two, especially under the government of Netanyahu.
Obama may have had his heart in the right place at the beginning of his presidency, although the fact that his first official speech as President was to reassure the various American Jewish organizations of the continuing US’ support for Israel speaks volumes about how his agenda had already been highjacked by the powers that control the American government.
What’s puzzling is that now, nearing the end of his second and final term, he still seems to be incapable of escaping the yoke that’s been around his neck from day one. I mean, if he really cared about resolving the I/P conflict, what’s stopping him now from applying pressure to Israel and force a fair and just settlement? He certainly would have the backing of most of the world.
He obviously had the strength to dig in his heels when the issue was the Iran deal, but not when it comes to Palestinian rights, it seems. Will we ever know what’s the weapon pointed at his head – as well at all previous US Presidents since Truman – that keeps them kissing Israel’s butt in spite of our military superiority? What else could it be other than their threat of opening up those ‘secret’ silos and unleashing a nuclear Armageddon upon the world?
Brandeis has chosen to sacrifice intellectual integrity for its donors, under the pretense of “love”. Fortunately for the world, most people have not suffered the youthful brainwashing of this community. Their fantasy and delusion will eventually be overwhelmed by reality.