The boycott, divestment and sanctions movement (BDS) had its tenth anniversary this year, and no doubt it is growing rapidly. Yesterday I received a fundraising appeal from a liberal Zionist group that calls itself the Third Narrative that is aimed at saving Israel as a Jewish state from the unending occupation. But Third Narrative’s big concern is the BDS movement, because the BDS campaign is indifferent/hostile to the idea of a Jewish state. Third Narrative’s fundraising letter, signed by Kenneth Bob and Gideon Aronoff (of Ameinu), mentions the “fight” against BDS again and again.
“With your help,” Third Narrative says, it can
Provide honest materials on Israel and Palestine that recognize the injustice of the occupation while countering the BDS movement’s false accusations against Israel – including that Israel is an apartheid state and the IDF equivalent to oppressive police forces in the US;
That last phrase is very expressive of Jewish nationalism. Whether they’re liberal or not, Zionists look on the establishment of Israel as a deliverance, a fulfillment of Jewish history, the time when Jews at last gained sovereignty, which gave us agency in history (unlike exile Jews, who live at the sufferance of non-Jews). At some level, Zionists continue to see Israel as a glorious story of Jewish self-determination, despite the unpunished lynchings in Duma and other atrocities of occupation that they can’t bring themselves to mention. As if Jews are better occupiers than other occupiers; as if military occupation isn’t inherently brutal.
I’m no partisan of US police forces, but they’re not as bad as the Israeli occupation. But these liberal Zionists are talking to a group of older American liberal Jews who really think that the U.S. is a worse place for minorities than Israel. James North reminds me that it’s like the Communists who said that the Soviet Union was a lot freer society than the U.S. back in the 50s.
The liberal Zionist group J Street’s fundraising appeal also raises the fear of the end of a Jewish state. It is quoting John Kerry’s interview with David Remnick of The New Yorker in which the secretary vowed to keep working for a two-state solution because a “unitary state.. is an impossible entity to manage.” Kerry to Remnick:
“You’re going to be one big fortress? I mean, that’s not a way to live. It seems to me it is far more intelligent and far more strategic—which is an important word here—to have a theory of how you are going to preserve the Jewish state and be a democracy and a beacon to the world that everybody envisioned when Israel was created.”
I [Remnick] asked him if he could imagine an end to the State of Israel.
“No, I don’t believe that’s going to happen,” he said. “It’s just, What is it going to be like, is the question. Will it be a democracy? Will it be a Jewish state? Or will it be a unitary state with two systems, or some draconian treatment of Palestinians, because to let them vote would be to dilute the Jewish state? I don’t know. I have no answer to that. But the problem is, neither do they. Neither do the people who are supposed to be providing answers to this. It is not an answer to simply continue to build in the West Bank and to destroy the homes of the other folks you’re trying to make peace with and pretend that that’s a solution.”
J Street echoes Kerry, “Will it be a democracy? Will it be a Jewish state?” and says that most American Jew love Israel as a Jewish state.
These are tough questions, which so many in the Jewish community are afraid to even ask … let alone answer…
At J Street we know we can’t let our fear get in the way of asking these questions ourselves — or of fighting to keep the dream of two states for two people alive.
We are the voice of the majority of American Jews who love, support and defend Israel — but insist that it live up to the authentic Jewish and democratic values on which it was founded.
We really are in the era now of the Crisis of Zionism. As Israel fails to do anything about the occupation, some liberal Zionists will end up giving up their dream of deliverance and supporting equal rights for all in one state (as some said at the Haaretz NIF conference). Others will double down on that dream in the belief that it can be redeemed. The Brookings Institution held a secret panel on BDS 2 weeks ago at which American Jews told Israelis that BDS is a train barreling down the tracks at the status quo; one participant said that the most popular Jewish group at his daughter’s campus is the pro-BDS Jewish Voice for Peace, and this means that the future leaders of America are being steeped in a movement that delegitimizes the idea of a “democratic Jewish state.”
P.S. Myself, I’m for the strict separation of church and state as the best way to approach democracy; as Harry Truman said, he’s seen more fights over religion than money. And: BDS is the best means of putting pressure on Israel to end the persecution of Palestinians.
what hasbara. the training of US police forces by Israel certainly facilitates this. what a set up that is. if law enforcement world wide were as oppressive as israel, israel wouldn’t stand out? fat chance of that.
someone should do the figures. multiply the equivalent fatality rates of israel killing palestinians over a 7 year period vs US police killings per (300+ million) capita (which are enormous as it is).
and the child abduction/imprisonment rates of black and latino children. our prison system is gross and shameful, one of the worst in the world, but it’s not the occupation.
I think the “IDF is better than U.S. police forces” is steeped in the mythology, a lot of it racist, that Jews are simply incapable – or at least less capable – of being brutish and racist than other peoples.
It’s part of the Light Unto the Nations narrative that never made sense. As if settler-colonialism and Apartheid is somehow better if you have J-positive blood. That’s a racist belief, one that plenty of Jews who are knee-deep into Zionism share, no matter where they fall on the U.S. political spectrum.
My view is that a lot of these “liberals” were never liberals to begin with. The 2SS is totally dead. If you continue to maintain that it’s possible, you’re essentially trying to avoid looking yourself in the mirror and ask the inevitable question: why am I supporting Apartheid and colonialism of another people? Why?
I have no sympathy for such people and they deserve to be called what they always were: virulent racists. The “liberal” mask is coming off and it’s no longer possible to pretend you are one.
Good riddance.
The foundations of the State of Israel are fraught with flaws.It is built on “silt” and as with any building that is erected based on fudged specs it will eventually collapse.Israel is well into this process and those who keep using scotch tape to keep it propped up are wasting their money and time , not to mention the thousands of lives , mostly Palestinian .They would do better to knock down the building , (metaphorically speaking)and replace the foundation with one built on equality and justice for all it,s citizens.Blaming BDS is just a cop out.
PHIL- “I’m no partisan of US police forces, but they’re not as bad as the Israeli occupation.”
No, they are not yet as bad but we are moving in that direction. Neoliberal globalization is producing an environment where the police are being turned into an occupying army to control the 99%, frequently utilizing techniques developed by Israel to control the Palestinians during the permanent occupation solution. The matrix of control which Jeff Halper writes about. Of course, much of this is familiar to US Blacks and other minorities who we warehouse in prisons.
“Zionists look on the establishment of Israel as a deliverance, a fulfillment of Jewish history”
The “Zionist project” is an attempt at self-therapy by Jews who have been emotionally brainwashed in their tribal myths.
The Israelis are like extreme alcoholics, completely blinded by their fears and dreams. The American Zionists are their enablers, also drunk on the same wine, but not as thoroughly besotted, able to see the road somewhat, but still not coordinated with reality.