This post is part of Marc H. Ellis’s “Exile and the Prophetic” feature for Mondoweiss. To read the entire series visit the archive page.
In a recent debate between Alan Dershowitz and Peter Beinart at the City University of New York, a sentence from Beinart struck me. Beinart was preparing to drive home the need for justice for Palestinians. Nonetheless, even as strategic set-up, it struck the wrong chord.
Beinart began this way: “Believe me, there’s an Israeli flag on my kid’s wall, I love Israel.”
What “I love Israel” can mean other that a rote credential trotted out to place one’s Jewishness in an irreproachable manner is beyond me. If we follow that line, Jews should wear “I Love Israel” buttons to make sure everyone knows we’re kosher.
“I love Israel” isn’t a Jewish credential. It impedes our ability to think.
When I read Beinart’s words, I thought of my children’s bedrooms when they were growing up. You didn’t find Israeli flags there. For a time, my younger son had a Palestinian flag on his wall. He and my older son displayed other presents I brought back from my travels among Palestinians. They even wore “Free Palestine” tee-shirts to school on occasion.
If you’re thinking inversion, take a deep breath. For my children, the presence of Palestinian life symbolized their deep embrace of justice – and Jewishness. They knew that to be Jewish in our time is to be in solidarity with Palestinian people. There is no other way.
As a father and teacher of Jewishness to my children, I never once uttered the phrase “I love Israel.” Nor have I done this for strategic reasons in my public life. I’ve never heard my children express this sentiment. I would be surprised if they did.
I’m grateful my children don’t need equivocation or strategic set-ups to wear their Jewishness on their sleeves. Jewishness is way too important to them.
The Palestinian flags aren’t of a state in actual existence. They represent the aspirations of a dispossessed people. If and when a real Palestinian state comes into existence the symbolism ends. No more flags – Palestinian or Israeli – in Jewish bedrooms.
After all, I assume a Palestinian state will be more or less as corrupt as the state of Israel is. As the United States or France or China are.
When I hear of love for Israel – or any state for that matter – I hear innocence, strategy, lack of thought, romanticizing the collective. Regarding Jewish life, I hear the same and more. I see a deflection of the prophetic. I hear: “Exile isn’t for me.”
No matter the pull of patriotic emotion, patriotism and the prophetic don’t go together. If there’s anything we’ve learned over the past years placing Jewish before state doesn’t change the propensities of state power.
Hating Israel is equally absurd. When you’re criticizing policies of a state or even a state you don’t think should exist, hate places critical thought on hold.
The world of politics, like the world of ethnicity and religion, isn’t about love or hate. It’s about a commitment to make justice come closer to reality. It’s about freeing those who are suffering under occupation and martial law. It’s about ending war or at least alleviating the ravages of war.
Sure the state’s the outer wrapping of suffering and war. When it reverses course, it can become the outer wrapping of a movement toward justice.
When the state becomes the inner core of our ethical life, we’re in trouble. Our inner core atrophies. We begin to think the state sets the agenda. We hand responsibility over to our “leaders.”
Flags in the bedroom and declarations of love for established states are outmoded. For Jews, they’re new-fangled.
Loving Israel has gotten us into all sorts of problems. This includes the diminution of critical thought. I see this in Beinart’s writings and in his debate with Dershowitz. Beinart doesn’t understand the next place he will be forced to go – and sooner than later. Then he will have to make a decision whether to go either all-in on the Israel/Palestine front or leave the playing field.
All-in means risking your name and honor. The rabble commonly known as the Jewish establishment doesn’t take kindly to those who say: “Enough – Not in My Name!”
Israeli flags in our children’s bedrooms and “I Love Israel” buttons worn on our chest aren’t going to accomplish what needs to be done.
What needs to be done is way beyond the sloganeering that cripples dissent. The sloganeering that paradoxically encourages more and more dissent.
Why should any Jew of character shy away from saying “I HATE Israel”? It doesn’t “put thought on hold”–quite the contrary. As Jews, we may have many reasons for our contempt for Israel. Thanks to Israel’s ceaseless propaganda, we as Jews are invariably implicated in her vast crimes, though they are against our will. Every vile stereotype of Jews as arrogant, selfish, vicious, pathological liars and con artists is daily reinforced by Israel’s behavior. Our ancestors who struggled with such courage and who were so wretchedly abused and murdered in Europe are being invoked as a plot line to defend Israel’s monstrous assaults on innocent people. Should this not fill decent Jews with revulsion for Israel? Is there more than a grain of truth in the old saying that Israel was the second worst thing to ever happen to the Jewish people? Should conscientious Jews sit passively in synagogue while the rabbi drones on about supporting Israel and the walls and tables are littered with Israeli flags? To me, these are TRUE acts of self-abasement. These are genuine manifestations of “self-hatred.”
Ellis: “If you’re thinking inversion, take a deep breath. For my children, the presence of Palestinian life symbolized their deep embrace of justice – and Jewishness. They knew that to be Jewish in our time is to be in solidarity with Palestinian people. There is no other way.”
Amen. However, just in case there is some confusion, I would suggest that to love justice is not a sure sign of being Jewish. It is available to all. And not all Jews manage it. Not all anybodies manage it.
For me — apart from a love for my mother’s chopped liver and matzo-ball soup, alas no longer available to me — my only “signals” of my own Jewishness (if any) are a love of justice and a love of language and precise and logical argument (not always achieved). And I’m sure you don’t need to be Jewish for most of those.
Great post, Mr. Ellis.
>> After all, I assume a Palestinian state will be more or less as corrupt as the state of Israel is.
I sincerely hope that Palestinians aim much higher than do Zio-supremacists, who seem to be content to strive for as little justice and morality as possible.
“What “I love Israel” can mean other that a rote credential trotted out to place one’s Jewishness in an irreproachable manner is beyond me. If we follow that line, Jews should wear “I Love Israel” buttons to make sure everyone knows we’re kosher.”
Beyond you? Really? You’ve never heard of members of a minority group who have had to voice certain opinions in order not to be marginalized? Never? Not once? Do you think if two Palestinians debate tactics in Palestine, it’s not required to voice support for the Palestinian struggle?
“If you’re thinking inversion, take a deep breath. For my children, the presence of Palestinian life symbolized their deep embrace of justice – and Jewishness. ”
Or the fact that they had a father who was pro-Palestinian.
“I’m grateful my children don’t need equivocation or strategic set-ups to wear their Jewishness on their sleeves. Jewishness is way too important to them.
Please give other examples of how your children manifest their Jewishness. I’m curious. You’ve basically never discussed them until now.
“Hating Israel is equally absurd. ”
Then why are you here? This blog is at least in part about hating Israel.
“Flags in the bedroom and declarations of love for established states are outmoded.”
What planet are you on? Kids put American flags in their rooms. If they’re of Greek ancestry, they sometimes have Greek flags in their room. Same with other countries.
“The rabble commonly known as the Jewish establishment doesn’t take kindly to those who say: “Enough – Not in My Name!””
The reason for that is that these people collectively evince no interest in anything Jewish except this issue, and yet, they claim to acting in the name of their Jewishness. It’s called hypocrisy.
I think it’s possible to love someone who is slowly killing himself.