Ted Deutch, the 56-year-old fresh face at the American Jewish Committee, was introduced on a Zoom published on Facebook last week and the debut was remarkable: Deutch erased Palestine.
The former Florida Congressman spoke repeatedly of the Israeli “miracle” and its gifts to the world over 45 minutes. He did not once refer to Palestine or Palestinians.
The cheerful CEO was eager to talk about many people and places he cares about: Uzbekistan, Russia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Haiti, Buenos Aires, Paris, the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf countries, Europe, Boca Raton, the African American, Hispanic and Asian American communities. All got name-checked by Ted Deutch in his introductory video. Never Palestinians or Palestine.
The webinar was a living, breathing demonstration of anti-Palestinianism in the Jewish establishment. And I thought that maybe the American Jewish Committee would try to become more worldly with the departure of David Harris. No, they’ve just doubled down, like the ADL has with Jonathan Greenblatt.
Deutch called Israel “our state of Israel” and made clear that he was indoctrinated in Zionism as a boy in the Jewish community, and has never cared to look outside that worldview. He told of going to a religious Zionist camp in Pennsylvania for ten years from 12 on. “That as much as anything helped to form my Jewish identity, my proud Zionist identity, and it’s what’s informed so much of what I’ve done ever since.”
Throughout his remarks, Deutch expressed an identification of Judaism and Zionism. Jewish life in the U.S. is centered for him on the “miracle” of Israel. His new job allows him “to be in a place where I could work every day to try to bring our community together to advocate for one another and collectively in defense of our state of Israel and the U.S.- Israel relationship especially.”
Any effort to delegitimize Israel as a Jim-Crow state is of course antisemitism in Deutch’s view.
“We’re going to work to make sure that people understand that when a group says that Israel the one Jewish state in the world does not have the right to exist, that that’s antisemitism, and we’re going to come together to oppose it.”
Of course Deutch did the same in the House of Representatives when he was representing the good people of Fort Lauderdale. “For 12 years… Ted Deutch was Israel’s best friend in Congress,” AJC crows.
Deutch auditioned for his job on the House floor in September 2021 by smearing Rashida Tlaib as an antisemite when she dared to cite reports by Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem saying that Israel practices apartheid.
Now Deutch’s job is to lobby officials at the highest level in capitals around the world, “to enhance the wellbeing of the Jewish people in Israel.” And the AJC starts with American pols at the local level, long before they get to Congress:
“Those of us who care so deeply about the US Israel alliance understand that you can’t wait until someone decides that they’re going to run for Congress when they’ll be making foreign policy decisions to start to talk about the importance of Israel. And the relationships that are formed at the state and local level with mayors and state legislators and county commissioners who will become congresspeople senators and cabinet officials– those relationships set the stage for an ongoing dialogue about the importance of the U.S.-Israel alliance.”
Deutch said he’s now going to be working with Republicans as he did not in the past. Because Israel can’t afford to have its support politicized. “I understand how important it is to be a nonpartisan advocate…working with Republicans…. It’s almost the inverse of what I have experienced before.”
Deutch said his own feelings about Israel were cemented as a teenager. First at camp. Then he went to the University of Michigan and was active in the Hillel, an organization his wife works for today, and led protests of the student newspaper for editorials critical of Israel. Israel was central.
“This was something we talked about at home, the Jewish community spent 2000 years hoping and praying for an opportunity to return to the state of Israel… I felt then the way that I do still all these years later as we are headed toward Israel’s 75th, the miraculous modern state of Israel, its just an incredible thing to behold what Israel is and has become. Yes it’s the homeland for the Jewish people and that’s within me and I think within all of us, but beyond that it’s become this modern miracle of innovation and technology and contributes so much to the well being of the world and addressing some of the biggest problems the world faces.”
Deutch’s comments reminded me that Tom Friedman also got his indoctrination as a Zionist camper, in Wisconsin, reenacting the Dreyfus trial. “Israel had me at hello,” he explained to a Jewish audience in 2019, when he said his job as a columnist was to back Israel.
Ted Deutch debuted as CEO of the American Jewish Committee in a 45-minute video that erased Palestine. The former Congressman repeatedly praised the “miracle” of “our state of Israel” but did not once refer to Palestine or Palestinians. The cheerful CEO gushed about his Zionist indoctrination as a youth and was eager to talk about any place and people but Palestinians: Uzbekistan, Russia, the Czech Republic, Greece, Cyprus, Haiti, Buenos Aires, Paris, the United Arab Emirates, the Gulf countries, Europe, Boca Raton, the African American, Hispanic and Asian American communities. All got name-checked by Ted Deutch. Never Palestinians.
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“…the Jewish community spent 2000 years hoping & praying for an opportunity to return to the state of Israel…I felt then the way that I do still all these years later as we are headed toward Israel’s 75th, the miraculous modern state of Israel, its just an incredible thing to behold what Israel is & has become. Yes it’s the homeland for the Jewish people & that’s within me & I think within all of us,…” Reality: The Jebusite/Canaanites were ancestors of today’s Palestinians & it was they who founded Jerusalem circa 3000 BCE. Originally known as Jebus, the first recorded reference to it as “Rushalimum” or “Urussalim,” site of the sacred Foundation Rock, appears in Egyptian Execration Texts of the 19th century BCE, nearly 800 years before it is alleged King David was born. Its name “seems to have incorporated the name of the Syrian god Shalem [the Canaanite God of Dusk], who was identified with the setting sun or the evening star…and can probably be translated as ‘Shalem has founded’.” (Karen Armstrong, Jerusalem, One City, Three Faiths; Alfred A. Knopf, New York, 1996, pp. 6-7)
“… no credible archaeological evidence, or more importantly, writings of contemporaneous civilizations, have been found that prove Solomon or David actually existed. (Nor has any evidence been discovered to confirm that the Jewish exodus from Egypt ever occurred. )
The late renowned Jewish Israeli writer/columnist, Uri Avnery: “[David and Solomon’s] existence is disproved, inter alia, by their total absence from the voluminous correspondence of Egyptian rulers & spies in the Land of Canaan.” (“A Curious National Home,” by Uri Avnery, – http://zope.gush-shalom.org/home/en/channels/avnery/1494589093/)
Aclaimed historian/anthropologist & “Holy Land” specialist, Professor Ilene Beatty: “When we speak of ‘Palestinians’ or of the ‘Arab population [of Palestine]‘, we must bear in mind their Canaanite origin. This is important because their legal right to the country stems from the fact that the Canaanites were first, which gives them priority; their descendants have continued to live there, which gives them continuity; & they are still living there, which gives them present possession. Thus we see that on purely statistical grounds they have a proven legal right to their own land.” (“Arab & Jew in the Land of Canaan,” 1957)
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“The Racist Gene” Haaretz, June 21, 2017: EXCERPT: “In 2013, the results were published of a study by the prominent British geneticist Martin Richards, who specializes in researching the maternal genome, which passes from the mother to all of her descendants. Richards researched the maternal genetic ancestry of Ashkenazi Jews. And lo & behold, he discovered that 80 percent or more (!) of the maternal genetic makeup of Ashkenazi Jews derives from European women – goys, heaven forbid. Gevalt! Devoid of any gene originating in the Land of Israel.”
http://journal.frontiersin.org/article/10.3389/fgene.2017.00087/full
Front. Genet., 21 June 2017 https://doi.org/10.3389/fgene.2017.00087
“The Origins of Ashkenaz, Ashkenazic Jews, & Yiddish”
“Recent genetic samples from bones found in Palestine dating to the Epipaleolithic (20000-10500 BCE) showed remarkable resemblance to modern day Palestinians.”
“The non-Levantine origin of AJs [Ashkenazi Jews] is further supported by an ancient DNA analysis of six Natufians & a Levantine Neolithic (Lazaridis et al., 2016), some of the most likely Judaean progenitors (Finkelstein & Silberman, 2002; Frendo, 2004). In a principle component analysis (PCA), the ancient Levantines clustered predominantly with modern-day Palestinians & Bedouins & marginally overlapped with Arabian Jews, whereas AJs clustered away from Levantine individuals & adjacent to Neolithic Anatolians & Late Neolithic & Bronze Age Europeans.”
“Overall, the combined results are in a strong agreement with the predictions of the Irano-Turko-Slavic hypothesis (Table 1) & rule out an ancient Levantine origin for AJs, which is predominant among modern-day Levantine populations (e.g., Bedouins & Palestinians). This is not surprising since Jews differed in cultural practices & norms (Sand, 2011) & tended to adopt local customs (Falk, 2006). Very little Palestinian Jewish culture survived outside of Palestine (Sand, 2009). For example, the folklore & folkways of the Jews in northern Europe is distinctly pre-Christian German (Patai, 1983) & Slavic in origin, which disappeared among the latter (Wexler, 1993, 2012).”