I just got off the phone from a conference call with Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation. It was arranged by Brit Tzedek, and it was just a beautiful call. We really have to honor the Jews who are deeply engaged in Jewish organizational life who are appalled by the slaughter and who refuse to condone it, who condemn it. Levy is one. God/Allah bless him.
I'll have a fuller report tomorrow, including his deep chagrin at Rabbi Eric Yoffie's attack on J Street–"It's easy for the Reform movement to talk about Darfur. This is the time you're tested. [when it's your own tribe]…I think he got this terribly wrong." Including his belief that Israel is deeply damaging its international reputation (duh) and that the mainstream American Jewish lobby is "driving Israel toward national suicide." Wow. And also Levy's fabulous comments on the Israel lobby and its role in denying Palestinians statehood forever. (Echoing me here, in his own way).
But I want to focus tonight on one beautiful and helpful statement this guy made. He said: We all hear, oh, the U.S. would do the same thing if Canada or Mexico were firing rockets at us. We would have a duty to respond. And yes, I think, Israel has a duty to respond, Levy said.
But then he went on to explode that analogy, and get at the core issue: Lack of Political Sovereignty. Canada and Mexico are states. Palestinians have no state. Remember, he said, that Gaza is just 4 percent of the Palestinian territories. The other 96 percent are still occupied. They have been for 40 years. And imagine that the 4 percent had been under siege, since they were unoccupied 3 years ago. And the occupied parts were crisscrossed with checkpoints and colonies.
Would it really be that surprising if in Canada or Mexico there was a hardline opposition that took over the government? And was deeply opposed to the occupier? "I'll leave that to your imagination."
I will get the transcript tomorrow and expand those comments. Taking notes by hand tonight. But what a bold act of humanization Levy was undertaking. Yes, obvious. But from inside the Jewish community. Of course: denied self-representation for 40 years, of course some of us would take up arms.
And others of us, terrorized by that monstrous power, would hide in international schools.
