There is today massive opposition to Israel’s extremist new government in Israel, and in the American Jewish community too, with even establishment Jews threatening to boycott the rightwing country. Though one motivation for the American protest is fear for the job of the Israel lobby in the U.S.: that the new government’s fascistic steps could make it hard to sell the “special relationship” between the U.S. and Israel, a relationship that has granted Israel a high standard of living and impunity from war crimes violations.
Hey Israel — we are going to lose our figleaf on defending you from apartheid charges, is an all-but-explicit message.
Look at this statement by 120+ Jewish leaders saying that Israeli finance minister Bezalel Smotrich should be shunned by the American Jewish community during his recent visit.
[W]e call on all pro-Israel Americans to understand that welcoming Smotrich here will harm, rather than help, support for Israel…
Those leaders represent the establishment Jewish Israel lobby, from Abe Foxman to Jeremy Ben-Ami to Dan Glickman to Ruth Messinger to Sharon Brous to Lester Crown.
Their statement stresses Smotrich’s anti-Palestinian views but itself bears traces of the same bigotry: it does not use the word “Palestinian” (referring to Smotrich’s “anti-Arab racism” and threats to communities based on “ethnic heritage”) surely so as to get rightwing Zionists like Foxman on board.
The same balancing act was performed by Halie Soifer, leader of the Jewish Democratic Council of America, when she took the “unprecedented” step of protesting the Finance Minister’s visit last Sunday in Washington. Soifer emphasized that Smotrich was undermining the “very foundation of US-Israel relations” by expressing “dangerous and racist” ideas that were anathema to American Jews.
Soifer’s speech did not mention Palestinians. The rally she spoke to featured Israeli flags and was organized by a group of Israeli expatriates called UnXeptable aimed at saving Israeli democracy. Though it featured speakers like Libby Lenkinski of New Israel Fund who is concerned with Israeli racism, reports are that the rally excluded folks who point out that an apartheid state can’t be a democracy. They got to demonstrate around the corner!
The Israel lobby appears to be struggling to save Israel and the lobby from the Israeli government. Several stalwarts of the lobby have said as much.
Israel’s alliance with “American Jews/the U.S. government” is an “existential strategic interest” that Netanyahu threatens, Israeli analyst Yossi Alpher wrote at Americans for Peace Now.
While Aaron David Miller (the former peace processor who told us that the U.S. negotiators served as “Israel’s lawyer”) warned that the new government puts “the special character and resilience of the US-Israeli relationship” at risk.
And David Makovsky and Dennis Ross warned Netanyahu months ago that if he formed a government with extremist racists Smotrich and Itamar Ben Gvir, he would threaten the special relationship between the United States and Israel by giving an “enormous boost” to “Israel’s fiercest critics in the US.”
That fear was many times expressed in a webinar about Netanyahu’s plans held by the ADL on March 14. Shaya Lerner, an Israeli staffer for the ADL, harped on concerns that the judicial overhaul would hurt Israel-U.S. relations by giving a platform to anti-Zionists to use the word “apartheid,” so as to delegitimize Israel as a “Jewish democracy.” He said, “We’re concerned about being able to defend Israel in some of the more hostile environments,” notably campuses in the U.S.
So the Jewish establishment leaders are trying to thread a needle here. Protest Israel’s new government but do nothing to undermine its supposedly democratic traditions: like granting Jews greater rights than Palestinians and forcing Palestinians to live behind high walls, conditions that Noam Chomsky says are worse than apartheid.
But this letter by 255 “business leaders and Israel supporters in America and abroad” threatening to pull billions out of investments in Israel over Netanyahu’s overhaul of judiciary never mentions Palestinians (who have been calling for boycott over their persecution for many years).
Neither does this letter from Israel lobby writers Daniel Gordis, Matti Friedman and Yossi Klein Halevi (all Jewish emigres to Israel from the United States). They are afraid of the danger to the lobby’s efforts to defend Israel.
We have explained and defended Israel against the campaign of distortions that seeks to turn the Jewish state into a pariah and will proudly continue to do so….The changes afoot will have dire consequences for the solidarity of Israel’s society and for its economic miracle, as our leading economists are warning. It will also threaten Israeli-American relations, and it will do grave damage to our relations with you, our sisters and brothers in the Diaspora….
Thankfully, Gordis, Halevi and Friedman describe the role of the lobby directly in their effort to preserve its work: “The North American Jewish community has steadfastly come to the aid of Israel at moments of crisis.”
Lerner also stressed the continued role of the Israel lobby: “We as American Jews have an obligation to express our support when Israel needs it most” — in security matters, and when people seek to delegitimize it.
Myself, I remain optimistic about these protests. They are a moment of huge dislocation in the Zionist sphere: the fact that the lobby is in disarray over its role and Israel’s racism is a great thing. Or as Mustafa Barghouti said today on BBC News, explaining his optimism, The world is finally getting to see what Israel is up to.
This is obviously an opportunity for those in the Jewish community who are honest about apartheid, including Jewish Voice for Peace, IfNotNow and (members of) Americans for Peace Now to play a role in raising consciousness. The ADL will smear anti-Zionists as being just as dangerous as white nationalists, but it will not succeed in silencing us.
The Israel lobby arose out of Jewish communal solidarity 50 years ago, and one way it wielded power was by telling U.S. politicians, We speak for American Jews. Even in recent years its advocates could argue that 95 percent of American Jews were on board, except for a few self-hating nuts. The communal disarray is undermining these claims.
By now many commentators have observed that one of the big reasons Israel finds itself in its current mess is the lack of a constitution for the country, for example this interview with Dahlia Scheindlin: “The Origins of Netanyahu’s “All-Systems Assault” on Israeli Democracy.”
https://www.newyorker.com/news/q-and-a/the-origins-of-netanyahus-all-systems-assault-on-israeli-democracy
“I don’t want to say that all of the problems are caused by the failure to write and ratify a constitution, but it is indicative, and it was a reflection of these completely unresolved problems that are essentially a lack of commitment to the idea of civic equality—equality between all citizens—which to this day is not guaranteed by any primary legislation….We’re nearly seventy-five years old, and we still don’t have anything like a regular law that says all citizens in Israel are equal.”
The reason Israel needs a constitution is not because every country needs one – the reason Israel needs a constitution is because of Israel’s particular dilemma: it explicitly announces that it is a “Jewish democracy” and that it treats all citizens equally, which are, in fact, two contradictory ideas that pull in opposite directions.
A constitution would also provide the legal machinery for people to sue for unequal treatment, and handing its citizens the legal weapons to enforce equality is exactly what Israel doesn’t want.
This so-called “special relationship” is an especially corrupt relationship. President George Washington warned against “special” relationships in foreign affairs. They lead to irrational decisions and open the door to corruption. America’s relationship to Israel is a textbook case. It is rife with criminality and should be ended immediately.
A little too late….despite the signs, many American Jews ignored the warning signs, and continued to support Israel, the occupation, the land theft, and kept pushing for more aid and weapons, used to fund the occupation and kill unarmed civilians. All for what? For this nation to lose its democracy, and have a bunch of racist, anti Arab extremists, who now want to erase Palestinian towns, and kill Palestinians?
Were they naive to think a 2 SS was around the corner, when the criminal PM said there never will be one under his leadership?
Now that they realize Israel is on the brink of maybe losing its democracy, all due to the actions of a power hungry crook, who they supported, and welcomed in this country, they are all up in arms, some even calling for boycotts. The very same calls by those who wanted justice for the Palestinian people with no freedom or rights, and which were met by false outrage, and accusations of anti-semitism.
This is trying to lock the stable door after the horse have bolted.
It is time the US wised up and ended the support of this country on the path to fascism at any cost.
The extremist leaders will not be swayed by the US, the protesters, or their new friends in the ME.
2 of 2
For example:
Since Zionists now champion boycotts, divestments and sanctions against Israel, will they now support BDS?
Will Zionists who boycott Israel be in open violation of any/all the domestic anti-BDS laws they succeeded in getting passed in more than 30 state capitals?
Does Israeli and Zionist engagement in widespread boycotts against Israel render moot, forever, the anti-democratic and unconstitutional efforts of American Zionism to proscribe the right to boycott for those Americans who support Palestine?
A writer in Forward said: “Even if the justification of boycotts has in the past been questionable, I think that American Jews owe it to Israel, and to Israelis like myself, to promote such measures now.”
It behooves us to demand a deep, detailed explanation for exactly why it was “questionable” to support the non-violent and ethical Palestinian call for BDS but it is perfectly unquestionable to do the very same thing when Zionists are doing the boycotting? Those answers would, I imagine, would be awkward bigtime.
Defending the indefensible is a fool’s errand and I imagine few Zionist apologists will rush forward to offer their “explanations” knowing full well that another immediate casualty of Israel’s moral and ethical meltdown is hasbara.
Good riddance!
Q: Is it antisemitic according to IHRA to point out glaring contradictions and hypocrisies in Zionist thinking and Israeli hasbara?
View here approximately 600 Palestine posters on the subject of Boycotts, Divestments and Sanctions which includes many examples of Zionist boycotts
1 of 2
The emerging political crises in Israel literally burst upon the scene in a mere matter of weeks catching many (most) Israelis and American Zionists on the back foot. American Zionism is in disarray over how to react which is understandable given that Israel advocacy has always collectively bought into Zionist dogma that held that Israel was a uniquely exalted concept, invulnerable to the threats and ironies all other countries might face. As such, they never deigned to war-game the trainwreck taking place today.
Events are unfolding in Israel so fast and it would be impossible to address all the emerging ironies here so I will focus only on one: Zionist/Diaspora calls for boycotts of Israel.
Even before the Knesset has taken its final vote on the “judicial reforms” the Israeli and American press/internet are white hot with calls from traditionally avidly pro-Israel groups to engage in boycotts against Israel. Indeed, the headline of yesterday’s Forward was: If you want to support Israel, boycott its new government. Some of the boycotts already taking place:
Israeli speakers (Jerusalem Post);
Settler products (Forward);
Israeli military service/training; (Times of Israel)
Votes in the Knesset (Haaretz)
There is also a growing movement to disinvest from Israel and JP Morgan and HSBC have voiced misgivings about future investments. Press accounts reveal that more than $4 billion (an entire year of US tribute-not-aid) in tech development funding had been “re-directed” out of Israel.
Calls have been publicized to disinvite from future conferences any member of the Netanyahu government and its coalition partners and refuse to meet with any of them. Smotrich felt the sting of that rebuke last week. Israeli academics and universities are in a roaring panic about the loss of prestige, funding, scholarly exchanges, student opportunities, etc. that will likely result if the reforms are approved.
How might these affect political action here, in the US?
(cont.)