Opinion

If billionaires have no right to exist, what about Israel?

“Billionaires should not exist,” Bernie Sanders has said often, and in the Las Vegas Democratic debate last night Chuck Todd asked him what he meant by that. The Vermont senator responded directly:

We have a grotesque and immoral distribution of wealth and income. Mike Bloomberg owns more wealth than the bottom 125 million Americans. That’s wrong. That’s immoral. That should not be the case when we have half a million people sleeping out on the streets. When we have kids who cannot afford to go to college. When we have 45 million people dealing with student debt. We have enormous problems facing this country and we cannot continue seeing a situation where in the last three years, billionaires in this country saw an $850 billion increase in their wealth.

Todd followed up by asking Mayor Bloomberg, “Should you exist?” Bloomberg said he deserved his wealth, most of which he gives away.

I find the question intriguing because it echoes and exposes the famous question, Does Israel have a right to exist? Israel advocates often bring this question up in an alarmed fashion, saying that it is a call for genocide. Anti-Zionists say that Israel has no right to exist! They want to push the Jews into the sea!

The issue ought to be dealt with in the same detached manner as Sanders and others have handled the billionaire question. No one thinks that Bernie Sanders wants to kill Mike Bloomberg and other billionaires. He wants to redistribute grossly-inequitable wealth, so that Mike Bloomberg is merely a multi-millionaire. (Sanders also pointed out that three individuals, Jeff Bezos, Warren Buffett, and Bill Gates, now have more wealth than the bottom half of American society.)

Anti-Zionists — and to be clear, Bernie Sanders is not one of us — generally oppose the existence of a Jewish state. Some, like myself, might accept its existence if a viable Palestinian state had been/could have been established. No anti-Zionist I know wants to kill Jews or force them to leave (though, yes, some intemperate types seem to want an Algeria outcome).

Anti-Zionists oppose Israel’s existence as a Jewish state because they feel that status is a legal construct that is at the heart of countless injustices, like the injustices Sanders described as flowing from wealth inequality. Palestinians are second-class citizens inside Israel and can’t expand their towns or acquire “Jewish” lands held by governmental bodies. Jews have an exclusive right to “self-determination” and a higher right to settle anywhere they choose. Millions of Palestinians are living in an open-air prison in Gaza and have no rights in the West Bank — conditions Israeli writers have likened to slavery and that countless human rights experts have called apartheid.

All of this follows from Israel being a Jewish state. So we anti-Zionists are against it. These are, after all, human arrangements of rights, like the Jim Crow South, or the apartheid state of South Africa, or the tax code, that humans can change. (A very different moral question than whether a human being has a right to exist.)

The other analogy here is that neither billionaires nor Israel are going anywhere in the near future. We know that. We are expressing a desire; not leveling a gun. “I hope the day comes when they don’t [exist],” Sanders said of billionaires last year. “It’s not going to be tomorrow.” This reminds me of James North coming back from his first trip to Israel many years ago and telling me that anyone who says they’re against Israel’s “existence” is the equivalent of an ant walking by Citibank headquarters in midtown New York and threatening the bank. Israel is so powerful that it is dishonest for Israelis to claim they are truly afraid that Palestinians, even with more international support, could truly end the country and force all the Jews to leave.

P.S. Sanders is also the candidate who is most critical of Israel. While he is all for its continued existence as a moral matter, alongside a supposed Palestinian state, and has bragged about his working on a kibbutz more than 50 years ago, he has been highly critical of its human rights violations and called for an evenhanded U.S. policy with respect to Israelis and Palestinians. A lot of people associated with the Israel lobby group AIPAC are spending a lot of money to try to stop his campaign.

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Surely, given his history, its long since time that multi-billionaire presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg was publicly asked where his loyalty lies, i.e., with the United States or Israel.

https://www.jpost.com/American-Politics/Is-Michael-Bloomberg-leading-Jewish-presidential-candidate-good-for-Israel-608956

Jerusalem Post, Nov. 26, 2019 by Herb Keinon

“Is Michael Bloomberg, Jewish Dem. candidate, good for Israel?”

“Jews, both here and abroad, are not satisfied if the US president likes Israel the way he likes a country such as South Korea. They want him to have a special feeling.”

“Well, one thing is for sure, newly declared Democratic presidential candidate Michael Bloomberg passes the ‘kishke test.’

“You know the ‘kishke test,’ the question many Israelis and Jews around the world ask when weighing the pros and cons of a US president or presidential candidate: ‘Does he have a warm spot in his heart for Israel? Does she get us in her kishkes?’

“Jews, both here and abroad, are not satisfied if the US president likes Israel the way he likes a country such as South Korea or Jamaica. They want him to have a special feeling.

“Bloomberg, at least according to his own words, does.

“The multi-billionaire businessman, who was New York City’s mayor from 2002-2013, was awarded the first Genesis Prize in 2014. During his acceptance speech in Jerusalem that May, he noted that his parents instilled in him the importance of Israel.

“’My parents saw in our lives just why Israel had to exist – and why it must always exist – and those lessons were passed on to us,’ he said. ‘We are as one with this city [Jerusalem] and this country and this people as you can be.’

“Bloomberg said that his parents taught him that Jewish history ‘gives us a special obligation to build a brighter future for everyone, and to always believe that tomorrow can be better than today. For them and for so many Jews who witnessed the horrors of World War II, the creation of Israel embodied that obligation and validated that belief. It was a dream fulfilled.’

“In a short video shown at the Genesis Prize ceremony, Bloomberg’s sister – Marjorie Bloomberg Tiven – said that growing up in Medford, Massachusetts, her parents had a ‘strong Jewish identity’ and took their son’s ‘Jewish education very seriously.’

“Aryeh Mekel, who was Israel’s consul-general in New York for part of the time that Bloomberg was the city’s mayor, described him to The Jerusalem Post as a ‘liberal New York Jew’ who is ‘very supportive of Israel.’

“Mekel said he would speak to Bloomberg frequently, and that he brought a parade of Israeli visitors to the mayor’s office and residence on a regular basis.

“’There is no doubt that he has a soft part in his heart for Israel,’ said Mekel, though he added that this may be for a nostalgic Israel that has long since passed.

“Saying that candidates such as Bernie Sanders and Elizabeth Warren would be ‘problematic’ for Israel, Mekel said that from an Israeli point of view, Bloomberg would be the best candidate.

“Democratic presidential candidate Joe Biden is a friend of Israel who has an ‘excellent’ record of support for the Jewish state, both as vice president and as a senator, Mekel maintained, but he is an ‘American politician’ and, as a result, there are questions as to what motivated that support.

“Bloomberg’s support for Israel is of a different nature altogether, Mekel said.

“’He is a Jew who grew up in a Jewish home, and donated to Israel because that is what his parents would have wanted. It is a completely different approach,’ he explained.

“Some, however, are not convinced that Bloomberg’s Jewish identity is something that would be good for Israel. One Israeli official, who did not want to be identified, said that there always exists the concern that Jewish officials in senior positions will have to ‘bend over backwards’ to show their impartiality towards the Jewish state.

“But former ambassador to the US Michael Oren, who knows Bloomberg from his days in Washington from 2009 to 2013, characterized Bloomberg as a ‘friend’ who would be ‘very good’ for Israel.

“’I had a lot of contact with him, and he was very upset about the [Obama] administration’s treatment of us,’ said Oren. ‘He is a Jewish guy who grew up in Boston suburbs. He is not a progressive. He has a deep tribal connection to Israel.’

“That connection helps explain why in July 2014, during the middle of Operation Protective Edge when the US Federal Aviation Administration (FAA) prohibited US domestic airlines from flying to Ben-Gurion Airport after a Hamas rocket landed nearby, Bloomberg hopped on an El Al plane and flew from New York to Tel Aviv.

“This was after his third term as mayor ended, and he explained the move in an opinion piece he penned for his eponymous news service. He made the flight, he wrote, ‘to express solidarity with the Israeli people and show the world that Israel’s airports remain open and safe.’

“Bloomberg wrote that the FAA’s decision was wrongheaded, and called for the ban to be lifted.

“’Hamas would like nothing more than to close down Ben-Gurion, isolating Israel from the international community and seriously damaging its economy,’ he wrote. ‘By prohibiting US carriers from flying into Ben-Gurion, the FAA handed Hamas a significant victory – one that the group will undoubtedly attempt to repeat. The FAA has, regrettably, succeeded only in emboldening Hamas.’

“At a time when Israel was coming under a great deal of criticism for its actions in Gaza, Bloomberg wrote: ‘Every country has a right to defend its borders from enemies, and Israel was entirely justified in crossing into Gaza to destroy the tunnels and rockets that threaten its sovereignty. I know what I would want my government to do if the US was attacked by a rocket from above or via a tunnel from below; I think most Americans do, too.’

“That was not the only time that Bloomberg made a lightening trip to Israel. In November 2003, he flew with his sister and 95-year-old mother Charlotte to Jerusalem for a brief visit to dedicate a new mother and child health center in her name at the Hadassah-University Medical Center in Jerusalem’s Ein Kerem.

“According to a communiqué at the time on ‘NYC,’ the ‘Official Website of the City of New York,’ this fulfilled one of his mother’s dreams: ‘to be together as a family in Israel.’

“The communiqué quoted Bloomberg as saying that he and his sisters were ‘overjoyed to be here as a family’ to dedicate the center.

“’For more than half a century, our mother has been involved in community activities, especially her synagogue and her local Hadassah chapter,’ he said. ‘Her enduring commitment to Hadassah as a Life Member and her devotion to Israel are profound, and she has served as an inspiration to us on the importance of giving back and community.’

“According to the communique, this was the second time Bloomberg and his sister honored their mother with a donation to Hadassah in honor of her birthday: ‘For her 90th birthday, they created an endowment for a scholarship fund for deserving teenagers to attend the Tel Yehudah Camp, the Hadassah youth movement, Young Judaea, leadership training camp for 15-17 year olds.’

“According to a 2010 story in The Wall Street Journal, while religion ‘has long played an important role in the life of Michael Bloomberg’s mother, Charlotte, now 101 years old,’ Judaism ‘never took a stronghold in the New York mayor’s own life, his advisers and other observers say. He believes in God, but is more likely to be found at church for a political event than temple for worship. He grew up among very few Jews in Medford, Massachusetts, but his family maintained some traditions, such as a kosher kitchen and Hebrew school.’

“According to this report, ‘The mayor had a bar mitzvah, a Jewish rite of passage, but neither of his two daughters had bat mitzvahs. The mayor’s ex-wife, Susan Bloomberg, whose mother was Jewish, ‘kind of raised us to be Church of England,’ though the family celebrated the major Jewish holidays, the mayor’s youngest daughter, Georgina, said in a 2009 biography of Mr. Bloomberg. The mayor’s longtime companion, Diana Taylor, is not Jewish.'”

Phil – When you tell us that you “might accept [Israel’s] existence” on some condition, it seems quite odd that you choose the word “might”. It’s really the most non-binding term that you could have chosen. “You might” is really the same as “you might not”. But your use of language is even stranger. The condition that you attach to what you might (or might not) do is worded in the past tense: If a Palestinian had been or could have been established, then you might (or might not) accept the existence of Israel. Ordinarily, one says in the past tense: “If a Palestinian state had been established, then I would have accepted the existence of Israel”. Another possibility is to express your condition in the future tense: “If a Palestinian state will be established, then I will accept the existence of Israel”.

Obviously, there are no circumstances in which you would accept the existence of a Jewish state, period. You actually say so in your article by stating in the simple present tense that “anti-Zionists oppose the existence of Israel as a Jewish state”. So, what is the need for that strange declaration that you “might” do something if an event (that didn’t happen) had happened? You want to sound reasonable, but you don’t want to commit yourself to a position that you absolutely oppose. It’s all so strange. Just write in simple and normal language what your position is. It’s not about Palestinian statehood that could have been, and there is no point in making an empty non-promise of what you might or might not do.

Your statement that you don’t know of anti-Zionists who want “to kill Jews or force them to leave” was really unbelievable. Really, spare us the nonsense. In the English language, you can find an interview with the late Prof. Said in which he was asked what will be the fate of the Jews after the establishment of the single state. He admitted that he is worried. I imagine, Phil, that you are familiar with that interview.

Not a very helpful analogy.

And this sentence and its qualifier makes no sense: ” No anti-Zionist I know wants to kill Jews or force them to leave (though, yes, some intemperate types seem to want an Algeria outcome).” Seems to be saying, no one wants to force them to leave, they only want to act in ways that will lead them to leave.

One of the latest arguments by zionists over the ‘right to exist’ goes all the way back to the recognition of israel (this one *said* ‘as a Jewish state’). This apparently conferred an ongoing right to exist by law and any argument or challenge against that was outright antisemitism.

While I accept Israel’s existence – it’s not going away – I believe that the Jewish claim to Palestine has no rational basis i.e Israel has no right to exist. To suggest that the presence of some sort of Jewish entity in Palestine 2,000 years ago gave Jews from Eastern Europe (and around the world) a right to sovereignty in Palestine in the 20th century is an insult to the intelligence of any rational person. As the King-Crane Commission of Inquiry, sent to Palestine in 1919 by US President Woodrow Wilson stated “For the initial claim, often submitted by Zionist representatives, that they have a “right” to Palestine based on an occupation 2000 years ago, can hardly be seriously considered”.