When I was in college, the social history of slavery began to appear. Scholars were writing about the world that the slaves made. Even in chains, they had music, story and custom that was different from the whites, and it was a vibrant culture.
What is the World the Jews made? As we try to resist integration in the west, as our children marry non-Jewish children, we hold on to our difference, and that difference focuses more and more on a 100-year-old settlement in the Arab world: Israel. The problematic aspect of The world the Jews made, to which this
website is a Jewish response (at times), is: Jews are defiantly isolating
themselves from world opinion out of an ancient idea of chosenness and
exceptionalism. It is problematic not because it is a response to assimilation; hey, anyone can resist assimilation, it's your choice. It is problematic because it is igniting the Middle
East. It is problematic because it treats a different ethnic/religious
group as non-people. It is problematic because it nullifies American foreign policy.
Here's a post from the greatest newspaper in the world, Haaretz, late last month, by Allison Speiser, who I sense is an American, talking about her plans to move to a settlement in Shomrom, the biblical term for the northern West Bank. Here's how she justifies it:
The status of the land often referred to as “occupied territory” is complicated, lacks a simple solution that would satisfy all sides and is beyond the scope of this post. To that end I encourage everyone to do their homework, become informed members of the conversation.
Speiser's behavior is in complete defiance of American foreign policy and world opinion. Her idea of the "norms" of occupation is anachronistic. We don't justify occupation. Read the U.N. resolutions, from the same body that created Israel. Kabobfest responds here.
