Jews Against the Israeli Government
by: Peter Marmorek on March 31st, 2010 | 2 Comments »
There’s climate change happening all over the world, and everywhere melting glaciers calve icebergs at an unprecedented rate. (“Iceberg”? Isn’t that a Jewish name?) One particular glacier that’s disappearing fast is the unified and monolithic support that Jews outside of Israel have always given to whatever the Israeli government of the day wanted to do. It has been a truism for years that there was far harsher criticism of Israeli governments from Jews within Israel than from Jews outside of it. But now, for the first time significant numbers of diaspora Jews (and fellow travellers) are opposing the Israeli government, and doing so because they see the current expansionist policy as hugely harmful to any chance of Israeli survival.
Exhibit A is the J Street Ad “It’s Time” in last week’s New York Times. This clearly sounds what is the common note among all these voices; we are critical of the Israeli government because its current behaviour endangers the chances of Israeli survival. The ad is clear and explicit on this theme: “It’s time for Israel to stop allowing extremist settlers and their sympathizers to endanger not only the friendship of the United States, but also the very future of Israel.” J Street has always been clear about its goal, “to broaden debate around Israel and the Middle East”, and you clearly can’t have a broad debate that only allows one side to speak.
In the UK, a similar pattern is emerging with the emergence of a new group JNews. They’re a self-described “independent source of analysis, opinion, information and news on Israel and Palestine” whose goal is to “promote understanding and stimulate critical debate about Israel and Palestine among British Jews and the broader public as a contribution to promoting peace with justice for all in the region.” Again those code words come up “stimulate critical debate” is a lot like “broaden debate” – and what they both mean is that the complexities of how Israel can best survive are no longer to be limited to lock-step support of the actions of the current Israeli government.
The New York Times ran a long and fascinating op-ed piece by Robert Wright, Against ‘Pro-Israel’ in which he explores at considerable depth what policies really are pro or anti-Israel. (Short version: advocating policies that lead to the destruction of Israel is not being pro-Israel). Here’s a taste:
So, by my lights, being “pro-Israel” in the sense embraced by Bauer, Boot and Foxman – backing Israel’s current policies, including its settlement policies – is actually anti-Israel. It’s also anti-America (in the sense of ‘bad for American security’), because Biden and Petraeus are right: America’s perceived support of – or at least acquiescence in – Israel’s more inflammatory policies endangers American troops abroad. In the long run, it will also endanger American civilians at home, funneling more terrorism in their direction.
The flip side of this coin is that policies that would be truly good for Israel (e.g., no more settlements) would be good for America. In that sense, there’s good news for Bauer and Boot and Foxman: one of their common refrains – that Israel’s and America’s interests are essentially aligned – is true, if for reasons they don’t appreciate.
The reaction to this among the left wing peace camp in Israel has been enthusiastic, in two different ways. Uri Aloni (in Haaretz) praises Israelis Struggling To Peace and says:
As an act of solidarity with the subjugated Palestinian people, a group of Jewish Israelis has decided to join those Palestinians who have chosen the non-violent struggle for civic and national justice.
This act has given politically conscientious Jewish Israelis a golden opportunity to join a campaign against their own government without forsaking their own people. Indeed, this act leads the way towards a broader joint struggle with the oppressed people, through a rebuilding of our fundamental human values, enabling us to do away with the friend/foe dichotomy, which lies at the root of Israeli racism and anxiety.
And also in Haaretz, long time peace stalwart Gideon Levy thanks the most notable person to opt out of lock-step support, Barack Obama. Levy draws exactly the same distinction as the others: Obama is supporting the survival of Israel by criticizing the behaviour of the government of Israel. Here’s a taste of what he says:
If Israel had a real peace camp, if the silent majority had broken its sickly silence, if more Israelis approached the situation as a collective rather than individuals yearning for the next holiday or car, if more Israelis refused to accept blindly the deceptions of Israeli diplomacy and propaganda, Rabin Square would have been filled with demonstrators yesterday. Among the banners and flags, one sign would have stood out in this hour of risks and fateful decisions: “Thank you, friend.” Thank you, Barack Obama, friend of Israel.
The tidal wave of slurs and slanders, the unitary portrayal of Obama as someone trying to subjugate and humiliate Israel should have been answered with a dissenting voice saying that Obama was doing exactly what a true friend would do. Yes, it’s unpleasant, but after 43 years there’s just no other way. After a regrettable one-year delay and despite constant doubts and question marks, there now seems to be a chance that the 44th president of the United States will prevail where all his predecessors failed. There’s a chance Obama will pull Israel out of the crisis it created and work to achieve a better future, a future where it will claim what’s its own, but only what’s really its own.
So what happens next? That depends on Netanyahu’s reaction to these new icebergs, all adrift in his path. Bradley Burston doesn’t see much hope; in his current piece “Israel’s Titanic Moment” he paints this image: ‘This month, down here in the engine room of the Titanic, a single coherent order continues to sound from the officers shrouded in fog on the bridge: “More power!” ‘ But what is clear is that if an “us versus them”, Jew versus Muslim view of the conflict in the Middle East were ever true, it isn’t now. And that belief in a putative “solution” to Israel’s problems through expansion of its borders is about to be drowned in the wash from that melting glacier.
I like it! Am reposting.
Thankyou. Thankyou so much for pointing out that Israel’s government is endangering Israel’s future. As a non-Jewish person (who keeps reminding people that Jesus was a Jew, talking to Jews about Judaism, not to American Christians) I have had such trouble getting fellow “Christian” and other Americans to realize that our blind support for Israel has created a monster that is destroying itself, and that while Israel’s policies may be causing great suffering to Palestinians now, they are also digging Israel’s grave.
Israel is a non-native plant, growing in the desert. It was planted by the Christian West, with the help of the atheistic USSR, under the fig leaf of the UN. It not only requires a constant migration of Jewish people from around the world, but an unending irrigation of what turns out to be human blood. The blood of non Jewish Middle Easterners, the blood of Israelis, the blood of victims of Islamic extremist terrorists, terrorists birthed in the suffering of the Palestinians, and the relegation of Islamic Middle Eastern peoples to second rate status among peoples of the World, as the West blindly supports Israel; and just as blindly denies the humanity of the people of the Islamic Middle East, recognizing only their corrupt and morally bankrupt leadership. Yet, this plant Israel not only casts shade over its neighbor’s crops, and grows over onto it’s neighbor’s soil, it sends its roots to drain its neighbors wells, and when those neighbors come too close, Israel’s response is always hostile and toxic. Who wouldn’t want to rip this plant out by its roots, and burn it? Wear gloves.
But Israel’s policies aren’t the only problem. For the first time in over a hundred years, Jewish people in the US, and to a lesser extent in Europe, see themselves as American (or European Nationals) who happen to be Jewish, not a people apart, a community separate from those around it. The situation couldn’t be more ideal (or, conversely, in the eyes of those who went through the Holocaust, more dangerous). But Americans don’t take responsibility for the consequences of their government’s actions, when things go wrong. Yes, Israel is hurting itself when it steals Palestinian land, and when its reaction to every foreign problem is militaristic, but Israel is also hurting the Diaspora. If Israel’s actions eventually set off a situation where Israel is truly threatened, and the US goes in to fix things, and finds itself lunching with the Hapsburgs; when Americans finally realize that Defeat is really possible, and Happened; rumors will turn into policy. People will turn towards religion and simplistic answers. People will remember AIPAC and claim that the Jews hijacked the US government. Fundamentalists will promise that “we can get beyond this” and “rebuild” and “teach the world a lesson” if only we “Get Right With Jesus”.
Now who wouldn’t be able to do that?
What happens when “Are You Right With Jesus” becomes the modern equivalent of “Are You Now, Or Have You Ever Been A Communist?”; when millions of self proclaimed, patriotic Americans are spying on their neighbors, as they did during the McCarthy Witch Hunts, this time looking for people who “Aren’t Right With Jesus”? Aren’t with the Program. We see Israel as deserving of our blind support, without questioning why; just as we feel that America is immortal, and exempt from History, without questioning why. Yet, neither is true or worthy of our unexamined faith in their progress.
I wish more people read Tikkun instead of the magazines filling the ends of the check out counters, and sought out the principled, reasoned, and thoughtful articles therein. They will most certainly regret not having done so, but by then so will the rest of us.