Joseph Dana has an interesting take on the report in Haaretz that Netanyahu has described Barack Obama's top advisers, Jews Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod, as self-hating Jews:
There is a feeling among certain intellectuals and statesman in
Israel that left leaning American Jews do not have the right to be
critical of the policies of the State of Israel. In recent
conversations with some prominent academics, I have heard how the New
York Review of Books is one of the worst arenas in which these ‘Jews’
discuss the politics of “our state”. In these circles of ardent
Zionists, left wing Jews are often considered ‘political enemies’. The
fact that the State of Israel acts in the name of the ‘Jewish people’
has no bearing on their right to talk freely about Israeli politics.
The recent passing of the renowned Israeli author and journalist
Amos Elon is an interesting case. Elon was a respected critic in Israel
until he decided to sell his house in Jerusalem and move to Tuscany
about ten years ago. The news of his death took a relatively long time
to show up in the Israeli media which surprised me as he was the
leading Haaretz correspondent for nearly forty years. In my opinion,
his life and work were swept to the side because of his decision to
leave Israel. I suppose his decision to join the Diaspora made the date
of his death much earlier than it was in Israel.
I am not talking about emigrants from Israel, of which there are a
huge number every year and very little coverage in the media. Rather, I
am talking about Zionist insecurity that manifests in the form of
assaults on anyone who is critical of Israel regardless of religion.
Zionism has never understood itself as a strong movement or project.
Out of weakness come irrational attacks on anyone and anything. Bibi’s
comments are not reflective of his own insanity rather the weight of
our collective insecurity. Zionism has a significant fear of
abandonment complex that only grows with time.
