‘Better a battered dream than no dream at all’ –liberal Zionist lament

Leonard Fein, the venerable Forward columnist and founder of Moment magazine, sent out a fundraising note on Passover to followers of Americans for Peace Now, the liberal Zionist group. It includes these statements:

There is not only a promised land; there is also a promised time. And we are withal, still in the desert. Now we dwell in the land, but the promise turns out to be far more complex than had been imagined. Advocates of peace though we are, we are not oblivious to the fact that Israel has very real enemies, ill-wishers who challenge it at every turn. Nor are we indifferent to the fact that the promise has so far been subverted by Israel’s own policies-most particularly, its settlement policy. We, who yearn and labor for a two-state solution, in which Israel and Palestine co-exist as neighbors, each with its own dignity intact, we tremble at what appears to be the closing of the two-state window.

We are Zionists-which means that we deeply believe in the idea of a Jewish state. But the great achievement of Zionism is now plainly threatened. The achievement? Transforming the idea into a living, breathing reality. The threat? The curdling of that reality.

We are a people of dreamers. Indeed, throughout much of our history, all we had were our memories and our dreams. The present was simply too punishing. So now the question becomes: How do we cling to a dream that has been so battered? How do we keep hope alive?

Those are not rhetorical questions. How we answer them is crucial to our prospects-to the prospect of peace, of dignity, even, I may say, of our integrity. We dare not be satisfied with pretty words, nor with idle wishes. How do we keep hope alive? The tradition teaches that we are assirei tikvah-prisoners of hope. Hope is a curious prison, for it is a prison without walls. In the words of Martin Luther King, “We must accept finite disappointment, but never lose infinite hope.” That is what it means to be a prisoner of hope. That is how short-term disappointment does not lead to surrender. That is why we continue to march, errantly, through the barren desert, clinging to the dream, clinging to one another.

How do we cling to a battered dream? True, better a battered dream than no dream at all. But there’s more to it than that. The window may be closing, but it is not yet closed. And between today and its potential closing, there’s Shalom Achshav, Israel’s Peace Now movement, guardian of the dream. And-you knew I was going to get to this-there’s Americans for Peace Now (APN).

It is no small thing that Shalom Achshav’s Hagit Ofran is acknowledged as Israel’s leading expert on West Bank settlements…. [etc]

As usual I am staggered by the contradictions of American liberal Zionist attitudes. Leonard Fein lives in the U.S. and enjoys American civil rights, which are denied to millions of Palestinians. Though he surely remembers an era of anti-Semitism in the U.S., he travels freely around this country and to many foreign countries, even as a “prisoner of hope.” He cites Martin Luther King, who transformed the country that Fein lives in. The Martin Luther Kings of Palestine are arrested in night raids by forces of the country Fein dreams about. Many live in real prisons, and never get to see their families. He clings to that dream though it is battered, though rightwingers have taken over the government. At what point does maintaining a dream about a place you don’t have to live in arise to arrogance?