Here are two recent stories suggest that in some quarters of the liberal American discourse, Israel is on its back foot.
First, at a gathering at the Peninsula Beverly Hills Monday night, Fareed Zakaria promoted his new book, In Defense of a Liberal Education, and Haim Saban immediately landed on him for being “anti-Israel” on CNN. But Zakaria came right back at Saban, and said that Israel is destroying itself, and ultimately refused to let Saban keep talking. “I have the mic.”
The Hollywood Reporter got the story:
“Speaking of education, I think you need an education about what Israel really is.” Saban [said]… “Your point of view is so anti-Israel, I’m banging my head against the wall every time I watch you.”
Responding to Saban’s challenge to his understanding of Israel, Zakaria gave a concise, impassioned history of the country, then outlined the issues it must address as a democracy with regards to the Palestinians, referring to the situation as a “creeping cancer that has grown larger and larger and larger.” Finally, he confronted Saban by saying, “Frankly, Haim, I don’t give a damn if you think taking that position is anti-Israeli. I think it is more pro-Israeli than you because I think you are selling the country down the river by continuing to say that whatever the Likudniks want is the right answer — no matter what — and kick the problem down the road, hoping one day we’ll sort it out. One day, you will have 10 million people who are living without a vote. No,” he continued as Saban requested the microphone. “The beauty of this, Haim, is that I have the mic, and as Ronald Reagan once said, ‘I paid for this microphone.’ Actually, Nicolas paid for it.”
Zakaria was referring to Nicolas Berggruen, the German-American leader of the Berggruen Institute, which is an internationalist organization. And Berggruen has real estate investments in Israel but is evidently not sectarian about the conflict.
So Zakaria feels real autonomy in stating that the occupation is a “cancer” and Israel faces the likelihood of having 10 million people without a vote.
Saban is a very powerful man, and of course a big Democratic supporter of Israel. He has backed the Clintons and Obama.
Next, here’s an amazing report on US Rep. Donna Edwards’s Maryland Senate campaign in the Washington Post. The thrust of the article is that she’s been a bad girl on Israel. But to her credit, Edwards didn’t even talk to the reporter; she evidently thinks J Street, the liberal Zionist org, and her own constituents have her back.
The Post’s Rachel Weiner even speculates that Edwards may be building a political space for herself as an Israel critic:
As she campaigns for the Democratic nomination, Edwards is facing pushback over votes on Israel that put her to the left of both [MD Senators Ben] Cardin and [Barbara] Mikulski. Whether that record will stymie her reflects a larger struggle among Israel’s liberal critics to prove that stepping out on Mideast politics is not a political liability for Democrats.
[Rabbi Mitchell] Wohlberg, who has long deemed President Obama’s support of Israel insufficient, praises Cardin, Mikulski and Edwards’s primary rival, Rep. Chris Van Hollen (D), as more “comfortable” for Jews, who make up about 4.3 percent of Maryland residents. They tend to be reliable Democratic voters, concentrated in populous Montgomery and Baltimore counties.
Edwards’s crimes include not signing on to AIPAC letters. The Post’s Weiner reports that “Her views align with those of J Street,” the liberal Israel lobby group, but obviously that’s not good enough.
Edwards’s record on Israel-related issues has been problematic for her before. In 2010 and 2012, a Montgomery County-based group of Jewish donors backed a candidate who ran against her in the primary. Both challenges fell far short of unseating Edwards, who is strongly backed by national progressive groups.
Barbara Goldberg Goldman, a supporter of Obama and Van Hollen who was part of the 2012 effort, said Edwards’s record “does show inconsistency, and on things where there’s really nothing to have lost — by signing on to a bipartisan letter, for example.”
Edwards went to congregation Beth Am in Baltimore last week to show she loves Israel:
“I have a number of Jewish friends that are so right-wing that if they saw her here, they wouldn’t even go up to meet her,” said Sheila Lemel.
Because I’m such a starry-eyed liberal, I think the real story here is that there is space on the lib-left to criticize Israel. Edwards knows it and so does Zakaria, they both think they can get away with it. More power to them. They feel this confidence partly because they know the Jewish community is now officially divided, there are anti-Zionists speaking up inside that community, and no one will be able to accuse them of anti-Semitism for knocking Israel. Though of course, just what knocking Israel means for these mainstream actors is another question. It’s not like either is supporting boycott. Yet.
Thanks to Adam Horowitz.
Israel has been far more than an ally to the USA for so long that taking positions against Israel itself, or against its practices, or against elements of the alliance — or against elements of the special relationship: George Washington, are you turning over in your grave? — probably requires a bit of explanation.
One can decry ISIS without explanation, but not Israel, for the people have learnt much from our misguided and misguiding MSM, and that much must be challenged and refuted.
Are young Jews offered BIRTHRIGHT? Then one must offer them a fairly complex BIRTHWRONG. And the same goes for politicians and Zakaria’s (pundits?).
Mondoweiss fills this need but the politicians and pundits who wish to inject the Mondoweiss “line” into MSM need to do some educating.
I think they will.
“Strauss’s chief motivation as a thinker derived from his desire to oppose the twin forces of positivism and historicism, which separately and in combination produce relativism in political thinking. Positivism is the theory that says only scientifically (empirically) supportable claims merit the label of truth; all claims of the sort we have come to call values (for example, judgments of what is morally and politically good, right, and just) are pronounced merely subjective preferences, which can never be rationally validated. Only facts and broader theoretical conceptions built upon facts can be rationally established and defended. Values are thus “subjective” and “relative” to their holders.” http://press.uchicago.edu/Misc/Chicago/993329.html
By first fighting against empiricism, Straussian then takes the case of the purity and validity of the “subjectivism” to personal/tribal level .In the process Straussians attach legitimacy to the perosnal preferences what should be globally accepted as correct and valid subjecticism.They clear the path to that localized ethnic claims. No one will be able to question. Questioning become “antismeitic” or “beyond mainstream ‘ or just plain ridiculous :beyond the pale. So my pain ,my holocaust, is worse than yours and they are unique. My history deserves different interpretation and is flagged with pure moral direction. My values and interests are unique,my ways to defend those values and interests are also valid and unique . This validity precludes any challenge . Not only that it is unique ,but can’t be applied to the interests and concerns of other . Despite arguing for the relativities of ideas or experiences , Straussian often lapses into vicious attack mode by using the term “moral relativism” as perncious development , a threat to what they consider their sole preserve . Saban sees it that way. So does David Horowitz .
Other have to prove but that proof shouldn’t depend too much on empricism but on subjectivism !
Occupation is not occupation.Transfer never took place. IDF is the most moral army.Occupation is a lie that again points the diabolical nature of the enemies of Israel . Education should open the door to understanding without bias and bring the facts to the table. Saban elevates the relativism and the subjectivism . Strauss isn’t only a regular fixture in the psyche of the Republican zealot .He wields same influence on the democrats and on those who are obsessed with the certainty of the “moral clarity “of Israeli behaviors like Horowitz. is.
I think there is real change in the air lately, not just about Palestine, but it does not have a lot to do with liberals opening their minds. They feel the change and don’t want to be left behind. However, if they manage to bully their way into the driver’s seat like they have so many times before, real change will be watered down and eventually reversed.
The real news in this piece is that a representative from Baltimore is not totally on board with the Israeli agenda. As far as the gathering in Beverly Hills(!) where eyebrows were raised when a slight breach of decorum occurred, well, frankly, eyebrows have been rising in Beverly Hills, the Upper West Side, Harvard, Georgetown, and many other places where the elite go to have their intellects tickled-but in reality, every eyebrow in all those places can rise from now until doomsday, but it will not free one square inch of Palestine-well maybe one square inch, but not much more.
But the fact that a politician from a normal place is speaking out indicates that a change of attitude is seeping into the grass roots and politicians are reacting to it.-and perhaps even being chosen because of it. It is significant that Rep. Edwards is from Maryland, where police brutality is such a major issue currently. The Palestinians don’t have to be humanized for her constituents to know that it is wrong for soldiers or cops to smack people around or shoot them if they feel like it. Rep. Edwards stance, along with Baltimore States Attorney Mosby throwing the book at the cops who broke Freddy Gray’s spine, shows that at least in Maryland, this “change in the air” might actually be turned into government policy.And what started in Ferguson and Baltimore is going to spread across the country…which is good news for Palestine, because if we don’t have a racist, brutal, exploitive country, we will stop exporting that way of doing things to the rest of the world.
RE: “Frankly, Haim, I don’t give a damn . . .” ~ Fareed Zakaria
MY COMMENT: At least Zakaria didn’t refer to Saban as “my dear”! ! !
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PAqxWa9Rbe0
Shouldn’t Haim be with his beloved troops in Nepal instead of demanding the mike and a loyalty oath from Zakaria?
“American Idol’s Simon Cowell joins Haim Saban to help raise $20 million for the IDF” – See more at: https://mondoweiss.mystagingwebsite.com/2013/10/american-cowell-million#sthash.GzV63mRY.dpuf
Seriously, this is good news. Left to see if Fareed can bring it on to his show, GPS. I hope so!
As for Donna Edwards: GO Donna! Thanks Phil.