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The War of Ideas in the Middle East
I'm not sure you're giving enough weight to the practical rationale for a report like this. It's not "breathtaking denial" as much as consciously selecting, or even making up, evidence to sustain public confusion.
Do you really think the time of public confusion is over, and this conscious tactic is no longer effective?
That is was intended. Considered and intended.
Citizen: I haven't done the research, either, just asking reasonable questions. I'm actually beginning to side with you that a failed court case might be better than no court case.
My preference right now would be that the case be fought on as broad a basis as possible, something like – Israel is asking the US to harmonize its administrative practices to Israel's own racist principles. In other words, get the nub of the issue in as few words as possible, and force the discussion around the relevance of the case and the competence of the court to deal immediately with 1) Israeli racism and 2) American acquiescence to it.
At the same time one tries to lift the issue out of the negotiation between sovereign states, and to position it as Jim Crow laws being introduced through a back door, obviously diminishing the rights of Americans and open to redress by the American legal system.
It needs to be as bold as possible, and force the real issues to the fore.
As you say, the legitimacy of the original case should "speak for itself", appealing to concepts that most Americans would consider fair.
I shudder when I look at the coordination of minds and powers seeking to institutionalize various degrees of American citizenship.
Citizen: Thank you for your persistence.
I want to ask two questions that may look alike, but are actually separate.
Is there an American court that would allow itself jurisdiction or competence to agree that Israeli government border policy is demonstrably racist to certain groupings of Americans, and that the fact of that be considered in the constitutional legality of federal legislation?
In other words, you may be able to prove it, but they don't have to agree that what you prove is relevant to the case at hand, or within their jurisdiction or competency. The Court can argue that you are misusing its time as you try to overreach. They are looking at the Bill in front of them, and essentially you are trying to prove that the Israeli government is acting in bad faith, and that the American government doesn't have either the wit or desire to recognize it. Your "facts" can only be linked to the specifics of the bill through an argument of known intention on the Israeli side. No court will go there. The court's safest option is that the court doesn't have the competence to determine Israel's good faith or not, which is why state to state negotiations are necessary and correct procedure.
(Or, reversing approaches, the lawyer for the government might even decide that this Bill goes some distance in improving and clarifying past border abuses. Strange as it may seem, your past cases then end up as evidence for why a different system needed to be negotiated, and that the non-reciprocal aspects of it are reasonable determinations among sovereign states.)
Would the appeals court or (eventually) the Supreme Court vitiate any favorable judgement of a lower court, claiming it had no jurisdiction to intervene on sovereign state to state negotiations (at the juncture of both foreign affairs and security concerns) which, on the whole, were undertaken in good faith to improve the general situation for many Americans?
Likely.
What then is to be done within the courts? How can the law be brought onside?
In international waters.
Citizen, in intent I fully agree with you. There is no justifiable reason for the US to adopt Israel's core values at the expense of US citizens. But it is happening, and most likely will be legalized.
Your argument can only be proven with empirical evidence that there has been consistent racist prejudice in implementation of a law that was "not meant" to discriminate. In other words, an effective challenge will only come after a prolonged period of implementation. If contested prior to implementation, we can be sure that the Israelis will argue, the US government will collude, and the judge will agree, that there is no racist intent, only necessary procedures to identify security risks of whatever cultural or ethnic background.
And as to the other 29 countries with reciprocal agreements, it will be accepted that Israel lives in "extraordinary circumstances" calling for "extraordinary measures", and not being sympathetic to the existential threats would be the acceptance of antisemitism as a principle within American governance.
To put this another way: you may think Israeli and US core values are distinct (as do I) but is there a court in the land that would agree? The accepted dominant narrative remains that terrorism actually exists because of shared core values between Israel and the US targeted by the (inferior/foreign) values of radical Muslims.
I imagine we probably agree that what is happening, in fact, is the beginning of a formal "roll-back" on equality of citizenship as a modern concept, which suits Israeli jurisprudence just fine, as it is a state predicated on the inequality of those who live within it (and outside of it, too, for that matter), and has worked out laws, practices and legal precedents to promote and defend that very inequality.
The greatest threat to American jurisprudence is the legalization of inequality of rights as a practical solution to issues of "security", which themselves simply mask the implementation of racist privilege.
But since 2001, who would bet on the American Justice department defending the equality of rights for all Americans? What was his name... Furkan something? "Shot five times from less than 45 cm, in the face, in the back of the head, twice in the leg and once in the back."
Anything come of that?
Remember, if one loses the court case, which I would predict: given the argument that 1) Israel has the right– for extraordinary security reasons – to negotiate a non-reciprocal relationship and 2) it is a fairly 'negotiated' agreement, deemed acceptable and freely chosen by both 'sovereign' sides, then you will have on record a legal precedent for the acceptable (even if unfortunate) two tiers of American citizenship.
I agree it's outrageous. But I also think there's a fair chance it will happen, and other similar distinctions will be worked into the fabric of governance, both legally and in accepted practice.
How do you think caste systems evolve?
One can be a member of more than one group at a time. A study of the interlocking members of the 'Lobby' with the 'Military-Financial-Media' elite would help clarify this issue.
Using civil war to "degrade the enemy" is the very intent of Israeli-American foreign policy. They are looking to weaken countries in a structural way for the long term. Sectarian influences achieve that. Its one of the reasons Israel supported the early Hamas.
Friedman knows he is misrepresenting the situation in his presentation, and that Assad has genuine and deep support among Sunni's. But democracy isn't the point, getting Americans to enthusiastically support the bombing of Syria is the point.
The US – Al-Qaeda alliance is proven, alive, and well.
I find your assessment strange. Obama commits yet more money to Israel, commits yet more military support, commits the promise of eternal ties, ignores past crimes and rampant racism, seriously trivializes the occupation (usual) and expulsion (unusual) and yet you somehow think progress has been made.
Your evidence? That using the word expulsion 'is a fairly radical admission on the part of the U.S."
When there is another major expulsion (small ones continue all the time) it will be condoned and paid for by the American government and labelled a timely population transfer. That is the message the "many influentials throughout the world" actually took away.
It is business as usual, with more resources and political cover to do it.
This will be a long struggle, but I am heartened by seeing well-researched and well informed articles like this. Many thanks, Charlotte, and keep at it.
Interesting, but wrong. It is, in fact, the closed tribes which disappear. Take a look at the population/religion statistics current in the world, and you'll quickly find that the most closed religious tribes are in a race to extinction, while the most open, flexible, and welcoming, grow.
It's about cultural strength, not birthrate, but I doubt if the historical facts will convince you.
The conservatives are always about furthering THEIR " communities" (usually defined by blood), but not for ANY social obligations or responsibilities to others not "of the blood".
This leads them into a destructive form of ethnic politics and ethnic economic favoratism which has had, incidentally, catastrophic consequences for the US.
I am very grateful for this article, and the work it represents. Thank you.
Only when the history becomes available do the scales fall from the eyes.
Eljay, yours has to be the "comment of the week", if there is such a thing.
I think of Paul Wellstone as the American Giacomo Matteotti.
Who owns MSNBC?
The lies started long before '48.
The one bad apple argument?
I find it odd that any complaint of Israeli control over the US is called "left".
I suppose the implication is that any and all of the "right" should support Israeli control of the US.
You write the US press is no better than Pravda under the USSR.
But Pravda served the official government, and even the uninterested Soviet citizen was aware of that. The US press neither serves the official government nor truth, and it manages to maintain discipline and coordination across many so called independent companies. So even the interested American citizen, turning from one bad source to another, ends up confused, angry, and marginalized.
NormanF says "Tolerance and respect for others is not a noted Arab trait".
Actually, that's wrong. Tolerance and respect are not only Islamic traits, they are Arabic traits as well.
Just to get the spelling right: Zapruder
This might help to explain the alacrity with which President Johnson hushed up the Israeli attack on The Liberty.
It also leads to questions regarding Abe Fortas and Johnson, as well as the role Fortas played in the Warren Commission, and why Fortas was recommended as Supreme Court Chief Justice – a nomination later withdrawn. Fortas eventually resigned from the the Court when it became clear that he had accepted money from Mr Wolfson, "a wealthy industrialist who was imprisoned for stock manipulation."
link to nytimes.com
It actually gets better, she continues... " these overtures can leave the peace process in serious jeopardy."
Imagine, the peace process is in serious jeopardy if the organizations representing the people with whom you are supposedly negotiating agree. In the usual world, their agreement would be a prerequisite for any successful negotiation.
Can divide and let wither be any more obvious as the on-going US / Israeli position?
Some?
I wish it were comprehensive.
It leaves out the on-going integration of national Jewish organizations with the interests of the current Israeli state. For example, the Canadian Jewish Congress, at one time a national voice for all Canadian Jews, has been folded into the The Centre for Israel and Jewish Affairs. The name change says it all, and directly reflects the priorities of the organization. This has happened world-wide. The fight against BDS is being fought, bitterly, through a series of actions by the national Jewish organizations, fully informed by current Israeli state interests.
A timely and encouraging post. The historical insights of Arendt need to be broadly shared.
The international community is well aware that American foreign policy is proscribed by Israeli interests. It is also aware that Israel is a deeply racist society that continues its illegal expansion at the expense of the Palestinians, and has both prosecuted and supported wars of destruction in the Middle East, as well as being a nuclear state that is not a member of the NPT. They are quite aware that the United Nations has failed in relation to the Israeli-Palestinian issue due to the US veto.
In short, there is a general and well justified awareness that the US supports both Israeli racism and Israeli expansion in the Middle East at whatever cost to itself. This knowledge, wide spread and general, can't be "walked back".
Is that of any consequence?
A fair comment.
If the Palestinians are fighting for a two state – whatever that means – then the liberal Zionists will concur, delay, and covertly expand. We know this empirically.
If the Palestinians demand one person one vote in a unified state then the liberal Zionists will.... ?
This is an extremely important post. Thank you for working on it.
For those who have studied Zionism's organization and goals in America from the 1920s and on, this falls into a pattern of misrepresentation, not miscalculation.
To this day, the 250 policeman are accepted as Hamas militants in western figures.
And BIG MEDIA.
Dickerson – You have a habit of both excerpting and bolding within the excerpt. FWIW, I find it difficult to read. If it's the right excerpt, why the need to bold?
Please look up the role of the Wolfowitz, Feith at al. Or the Operation of Special Plans.
Boston, one thing that approach clarifies is the relation of Russian crime syndicates to Israel and to the Russian community within Israel: a whole area of financial power and political suasion that is rarely discussed.
Well, all I can say is that where I come from questioning Herzl and Ben Gurion was considered blasphemous, as the return to Israel was thought the very essence of authentic prophetic Jewish values. I imagine that's still the case in many places. If answering the call of "next year in Jerusalem" wasn't prophetic, what was it?
Annie: Isn't it Seigman's use of the word "authentic" which is causing the problem? He's making a distinction between inauthentic and authentic Jewish tradition – in that respect, knowing what he means is in fact "arcane" (defined as 'understood by few').
It makes no difference if one is Jewish or Christian, Seigman's precise understanding of "authentic" tradition is arcane.
But perhaps this "Jewish or Israeli" debate actually hides the real struggle.
Do Americans as a people believe in equality of peoples, or a hierarchy or races; do they believe in individual acts of crime or collective punishment and guilt; do they want laws based on equality of individuals and individual acts, or laws based on the propagation of collective advantage for some?
The head of state, Constantine, actually called the Christian religious leaders together and influenced them in the development of an acceptable Christian creed. In other words, the religion was expressly shaped according to both state and religious needs; an evolutionary turning point in Christianity.
In the same way, contemporary Israel and its political forces and personalities are forging a new Judaism for the present and the future. Ellis is seeing an historical analogy, and has (unfortunately, I think) mixed the terms to get across the point.
The early history of Christianity is, in general, very badly understood. But let's say this: the expanse of Christianity benefited from state support (although the integrity of the religious institutions didn't), and it is supposed that the growth and security of Judaism will benefit from state support as well. Ellis wonders, though, about the integrity of the religious institutions; and if they falter (as they have) can one truly call Judaism secure, no matter how powerful the state of Israel might be?
Do you accept that its not only the Palestinians that might be "deeply offended – and rightly so", but the Lebanese as well? The multiple invasions and bombings are recent, and remain as present fears. And for those who died in the Iraq invasion, solidly supported and instigated by the same pro-Israeli forces visible again in the constant threats to Iran... can they, too, be "deeply offended – and rightly so".
How many "particulars" are necessary for the "general" to be accepted? When does the fear of the general symbol become acceptable as a reasonable response?
"This is how it goes: Walzer allows himself and his friends a studied pessimism. A call to action is anti-Semitism."
I can't think of a more accurate portrayal of the general situation.
Due to our governments unconditional support for Israel, we are directly complicit in Israeli crimes. That is why there is a focus on Israel.
Sean, it does support the points you've made on the subject. It is clear proof, is more proof is needed, that many of those who are religious (even if broadly so) will support your argument that there is a strong correlation between Judaism and Zionism, both as to its historical nature (it has always been so) and its contemporary manifestation (it remains so).
Can a good historian or sociologist, however, agree that it has always been so, and is currently so? I don't think so. Too many contrary examples exist, both of Jewish individuals and of Jewish groups and communities, both historically and currently.
Thus, your central point is thought correct among those of a certain ideological predisposition (of whom there are many), but only partially correct, and certainly not true as a generalization, among those who view the question from an historical or sociological point of view.
So, for me at least, the question I would ask you is this: are you saying that Judaism and Jewish nationalism must be equated and can't be separated; or rather that the identity of Jewish nationalism with Judaism is a belief among many Jews both historically and today?
I would consider the first statement to be a fallacious and ideological generalization, while I would consider the second to be an historical and sociological statement difficult to dispute.
I think you can safely assume I'm somewhat aware of the role of the Jewish pro-Israel Lobby on American politics; I'm simply saying that the historian has to acknowledge that the policies passed and accepted within the Congress, say, or as implemented by the White House, have been bullishly pro-Israel and consistently so. To date, that pro-Israeli support has not negatively affected either of the two major American parties: in fact, both parties believe pro-Israeli policies enhance their electoral standing.
And covertly, both the US and Europe helped Israel become a nuclear power, and overtly they actively sustain and enhance that capability even today, knowingly creating an ever greater chance of a one-sided nuclear war in the Middle East.
I think where you are now pointing is that this historical relationship might be changing, and you are expressly pointing to its fragility.
I'm not sure how this will play out. Certainly the cost of Israel for America is huge and continues to grow, not simply in financial and military commitments, but in the realignment (or interpretation) of its own cultural values as parallel to Israeli cultural values: the resistance to which is the origin of this site.
Are Israeli cultural values necessarily Jewish cultural values? The short answer is no; there is a reciprocal relationship, and many Zionists (both secular and religious) claim the identity, but the good historian, looking at the history of both Jews and Judaism, would have to say that being Jewish doesn't predetermine one's values as being either pro-Israeli or a Zionist, despite what the Zionists argue.
The struggle for Jewish acceptance of Zionism, and self-identity with Zionism, both in Eastern Europe and in America (and often about Eastern Europeans in America) was very much alive in the early decades of the twentieth century. It wasn't as if Zabotinsky's or Nordau's writings came out of nowhere: they were even then understood as part of an earlier and on-going movement. What is needed is a good anthology of the small Yiddish newspapers and magazines both in America and Europe from about 1880 to 1930 to historically track the movement well before the Holocaust.
Of course the Holocaust was a "tipping point' for many, but the tipping point for those who led the Zionist movements (plural) in Europe, the US and Israel came well before. No?
I think what can be said, to be accurate, is that the founding, existence and growth of Israel were supported by the concerted actions of the governments of the US and major European countries, despite the personal disapproval of many important American and European leaders.
It is evident that the governments were "pushed", or "lobbied", but they did enact the policies they were asked to support, and very often vigorously pursued them, both overtly and covertly.
You're kidding, right Klaus?
The Nazis very much intended to make Eastern Europe including parts of Russia into German Homeland. That was the very point of WW2. The attack on France was to forestall British and French attacks from the West while Germany dealt with and incorporated the Eastern lands it wanted.
Sean, did you really mean to say "in defiance of Europe, the United States and the rest of the world"?
The establishment and recognition of Israel was with both the overt and covert support of the United States and the major European nations (the UK, France and Germany). From the Balfour Declaration to the 1947 Declaration and international recognition through the numerous wars, to the acquisition of nuclear weapons and delivery systems (including subs); all has been accomplished with the active material and moral support of the US and Europe. And its on-going, this support, in spite of the fact that Israeli intentions are clearly to establish Eretz Israel.
It may sometimes "appear" to be in defiance, but in historical actuality its with the support of the US and Europe.
What I like about this series is that, for one reason or another, Mark Ellis is allowed on this blog – where others are deterred – to explore the relations between being a Jew, universalism and contemporary ethics. Does it well, too.
I appreciate this series as well. There is some overreaching within it, and tenuous jumps, but for me at least he is speaking clearly. Racism and anger are linked, and are mutually supportive. One can't talk clearly about the one without recognizing the other.
A new global arbiter is needed other than the UN, which is mortally crippled by the US-Israeli alliance.
Isn't that now?
Isn't he suggesting, rather, that Liberal Zionism has been a willing partner with Jabotinsky Zionism to create Eretz Israel?
Perhaps it doesn't need pointing out, but Canada is the strongest supporter of Israel right or wrong, and that policy has played well in creating the Conservative majority by helping to carry critical seats in Metro Toronto. In fact, it should be said, the current heads of all three major parties subscribe entirely to the Zionist narrative.
Yes, I think you have it.
Declined, and still decline to give information necessary for their removal. That in itself, you'd think, would be a small item: apparently not.
The CIJA response is here: link to us1.campaign-archive2.com
Correct me if I'm wrong, but it reads as if they will be working to support dissident members and congregations to break away from the United Church.
I think Colin has this right. Israelis have made a choice that the nation, even a 'democratic' nation, is there to serve the interests of its 'natural people', in this case, Jews. Only limited 'inherent rights' are given to other individuals.
And now the elite that supports that position wants to make the principal publicly acceptable. The debate has moved from one state or two state to "do you agree that a unified Israel is there as a reflection of Jewish collective values and should govern accordingly?"
With this comes collective guilt, collective punishment, and a caste system based on birth, and a legal and state apparatus to implement it all. These systems are in place in Israel today.
One thing, I know, however, is that progressive Islam will not accept its people being treated as second class at birth: to support those Israelis and Americans who support a racist Israel is to lengthen the long war against that which is most admirable in Islam.
I think its a shame that the work of Moshe Menuhin has been edited out of our consciousness. The father of Yehudi Menuhin, he was an ardent anti-Zionist. He wrote both 'The Decadence of Judaism in Our Time' (1965) and 'Jewish Critics of Zionism'.
He was prescient in much that he said.
I seriously wish more time was spent with many of the strong anti-Zionists of the past, Moshe Menuhin certainly being one of them.