The crisis of Zionism in the United States–and I think actually the end of Zionism as an invigorating ideology for the next generation of Jews–arises from two big factors:
1, Israel is practicing apartheid in the West Bank, as is becoming more and more clear in spite of the denials; and there is something inherent in Zionism that licenses this behavior. Because if you embrace an ideology that is based on a religious claim to land, before long you are going to have fundamentalist crazies practicing ethnic cleansing in the name of god. That would seem to be a basic political law the world around. It happened in '48, it's happening in '08. And in the age of Obama, how many young American Jews are going to sign on to that program?
2, Zionism's dual loyalty problem, in the wake of the Iraq disaster. Which is what I want to talk about here.
But the Iraq war has shown the true basis for the dual-loyalty concern. The evidence continues to mount that the pro-war braintrust and pro-war movement had as one of its key concerns Israel's security, and that this was a hidden agenda. The fact that neoconservatism came out of Jewish life escaped no one in Jewish life; and in the last year or so Joe Klein, Walt and Mearsheimer, and I have all pointed out that delusions about securing Israel were an important factor in the spread-democracy ideology behind the Iraq war. After all, Israel was repeatedly attacked by Saddam. And if there's one country whose population has continued to support the American effort there, it's Israel. That's because Israel's only answer to the Arab world has been militarism.
I bring all this up because of my ongoing dialogue with Ralph Seliger, and because I just learned that his organization, Meretz USA, a group of progressive Zionists, took no position on the Iraq war:
Wow. And these guys are on the left!!! This is added weight to my argument that American Jewish leadership, even progressive leadership, has to have a soulsearching about its role in the Iraq war. As I note often, the only reason I'm doing this blog is because of a conversation I had with a close relative 6 years ago where he said, "I demonstrated against the Vietnam war but my Jewish newspaper says this war could be good for Israel." I was shocked by the statement; it was an open admission of dual loyalty. But I learned before long that that attitude was pervasive in the organized Jewish community. Even the Union for Reform Judaism (which I believe was full on against Vietnam) supported the war. Now that the war has proved to be a disaster, it has consciously or not, provoked a deep reckoning in Jewish life: Why did the U.S. adopt Israel's militant/invasive policies toward the Arab world? What was the Jewish leadership's role in that bad decision?
Ralph Seliger has been more vociferous than anyone on this issue. He says Iraq had nothing to do with the Israel lobby in the U.S. I think he's defensive, because neoconservatism, i.e., the spread-democracy delusion, had gained a foothold even in progressive circles. He has told me that the position I find so shocking above was driven by Meretz's 501c3 status, that it can't speak out on American policies. I think that's horse feathers. Many organizations that are 501c3's are far more vocal. Meretz's board had a fierce debate about this; I don't think it was just about the legal issue. I think the real reason that good leftwing Meretz sat on its hands as the U.S. drove off the cliff is that members of Seliger's own community were for the war because they thought Saddam deserved it for paying for suicide bombers, or for the Scuds in '91, or for the Arab Liberation Army in '48–i.e., they figured eliminating an enemy of Israel was a good thing. I bet some of them drank the koolaid on spreading democracy to the Arab world (even as Israel can't practice it in the Occupied Territories). Even at Meretz, I believe, they rationalized Israel's bankrupt approach to the Arab world–militarism, occupation–and so saw the merits of this approach for the U.S.
Several times I've referred to the panel that Asian-Americans hosted a year ago, in shame, over the killings at Virginia Tech by that crazed young Asian-American kid. Maybe that's because Koreans have a shame culture. They felt a real responsibility to account for the kid's actions, even though they clearly bore no responsibility. The difference here is that pro-Israel organizations do bear some responsibility for the greatest foreign policy disaster of the last 40 years, a decision that has destroyed my country's image around the world. And yet such organizations routinely offer the single gunman theory of the Iraq war: George Bush did it on his own, with Cheney. So I say again, There has got to be an accounting of the Jewish role in the disaster, within the Jewish community. And there will be. Seliger (who I'd note is the son of Holocaust survivors; i.e., I can understand his reasons) has been completely defensive. As have many other Jewish leaders, as was Yivo in a shameless monsters' ball of Mearsheimer and Walt-bashing last November.
I'd like Ralph to tell me, Who was for the war within his leftwing community, and why?
P.S. Jack Ross points out to me: "You make a significant error when you speak of how the 'democracy promotion idea' has found support 'even on the left' – don't forget that it began on the left." Got it, thanks!
