Israelis are celebrating their Independence Day today, and it’s not likely that too many of them are spending their holiday worrying about American Jewish efforts to save them from themselves. The imbalance in the relationship between the two sides of the Israel-Diaspora relationship lends a touch of comedy, if not pathos, to the celebrated anguish of liberal American Jews who will spend this day, if not every day, publicizing their angst about Israeli policies and dramatically predicting doom for the Jewish state if it does not listen to their criticisms.
We have been hearing a lot lately about the imperative for “liberal Zionists” to speak out. Israel is a democratic country with a bewildering array of political parties and ideologies (almost all of which have some representation in its parliament), and if American Jews wish to identify with a particular brand of Israeli politics, there’s nothing wrong with that. I may disagree with some of the political views expressed on the Zionist left, but I consider the debate with those who are devoted to Israel but who wish to improve it in various ways, arguments undertaken, as Jewish tradition calls it, “for the sake of heaven,” which ought to be conducted with civility and respect on both sides and mutual commitment to Jewish peoplehood. Israel does not need blind devotion from its foreign friends or from Diaspora Jews. Nor does it require anyone to pretend that the Israeli state is perfect. Its democratic system, its politicians and even its military are no more perfect than those in the United States. But it does deserve a degree of respect that I think is lacking lately from some who call themselves liberal Zionists.
Much ink has been spilled and great deal of space on the Internet has been wasted debating the dubious merits of Peter Beinart’s The Crisis of Zionism, but as off target as his views about American Jewry may be in many respects, his ignorance of Israel has made it a symbol of all that is wrong with the liberal Jewish critique of the country. It’s all well and good for Beinart and other American Jews to wish for peace or to argue that different policies might bring it closer. It’s that they operate in an intellectual vacuum in which the real world dilemmas of Israeli life and the realities of Palestinian nationalism don’t exist.
That’s why, despite the fact that the vast majority of Israelis desire a two-state solution and are no more enamored of extremist settlers than Beinart, they support the government they elected in 2009 and are almost certain to return it to power when it faces the electorate sometime next year. They do not see their country walking off a cliff bent on suicidal policies as Beinart and others preach. Instead, they believe they are undertaking prudent measures of self-defense and asserting their right to exist in peace and freedom. Israel has achieved much in its 64 years of existence, but it cannot magically transform the political culture of the Palestinians that rejects the legitimacy of any Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn.
This is a basic truth that most Israelis intuitively understand but which continues to elude some of their liberal American friends. Israeli Independence Day is as good a day as any for some of these preening liberal Zionists to ask themselves why is it that the average Israeli regards their impulse to save Israel from itself with a mixture of humor and contempt? After a generation of territorial withdrawals, peace accords and peace offers that have been consistently rejected by the Palestinians, Israelis are right to view those who act as if the history of the last 20 years never happened as simply irrelevant.
Those American Jews who support Israel against the assault on its existence are often accused by their foes of believing in a mythical Israel and having no conception of the real place. But despite the naivete of some who wish to hear no evil of Israel, it is those liberals and left-wingers who believe that the Jewish state can unilaterally create peace or in any way diminish the ideological and religious opposition of the Muslim and Arab worlds to its existence who are really living in a fantasy world.
Liberal Zionists and other so-called progressives should not feel inhibited from putting forward their vision of what Israel can or should be. But what they first need to do is to show some respect for the people of Israel and demonstrate some understanding of the limits to which their ideas can alter political reality on either side of the security fence. Without that respect and understanding, Israelis are to be forgiven for viewing American liberal Zionism as a thin façade for self-righteous and ignorant claptrap.
Many of those American Jews who refer to themselves as "Liberal Zionists" are simply using the Zionist label as a cover for their anti-Zionism. Zionism is a Jewish nationalist movement supporting a Jewish state in the historical homeland of the Jewish people. American "Liberal Zionists" largely object to the request of Israel to be defined as a Jewish state.
Tom Friedman stream of consciousness: n n n In my mind, the Likud is forever tainted by the sin of being in power when the Lebanese Christians slaughtered Palestinians, for which the Likud is responsible because they bought and paid for the Phalangists just like they bought and paid for Congress. And this was almost as bad a sin as the Likud coming to power in the first place, displacing the enlightened Labor socialists because democracy be damned – that’s only for other people, after all, not Israel, which has a constitutional requirement to be governed by PC socialists who are apologetic for the wars they win, always give back the territory, and who in any case must take their orders from the White House because Israel is not a real country, just an extension of socialist Jewish summer camps I went to as a child, except with real camel rides and a very salty lake you can read a newspaper in while floating on your back as your counselor gets you a felafel sandwich, and there are interesting, strong but good looking chicks with guns around (or are they rifles?) who keep ignoring me . . . n n n_________________ n nIn all seriousness, I think Tobin gives guys like Friedman and Beinart too much of the benefit of the doubt by calling their ideas merely ignorant and self righteous claptrap. They are in fact malignant, and to the extent they set trends (and hopefully, they do not) potentially destructive and dangerous. n nWhen they are ready to risk their chubby butts the way Israelis do (after turning in their US passport escape tickets), THEN they can talk and expect to be taken seriously by FELLOW Israelis. The same actually holds true for many on the Israeli left, who know, in their heart of hearts, that if their dreams of a 'new middle east' don't turn out, they can escape to other countries on their dual citizenships. Not so for the majority of poorer Israelis, who would have to live (or die) with the consequences of the left's asinine peace plans. n nThough interestingly, one Israeli characteristic they already have in overabundance, is chutzpah. n n n
In total agreement. Sorry that I voted with a 'down' thumb by not realizing at first that you were quoting that moron Tom Friedmann (I use 2 n's deliberately). The term 'liberal' Zionist is self contradictory these days – I can't think of the right word (I am getting old -84).
To believe that Israel has within its power to unilaterally make peace is a pretty high form of racism. Those who believe that necessarily believe that the Arabs have no free will, or ideas of their own; they are only there to react to Israeli actions, as bit players in a drama played out in (foreign) Jewish heads. n nThe left, racist? Again? Impossible!
you are so right. the "soft bigotry of low expectations" rears its ugly head once again.
I hear liberal Zionists speak out every day. They're called Hamas.
What's so bad about Hamas? They're fighting for liberty against a cruel oppressor.
this made me LOL! thanks for the laugh, Your Highness,
The post-WWII generation of American Jews has little in common with Israel. We have comfortable, privileged lives and most of us have never fought in a war. A smattering may have served in Afghanistan or Iraq, but those police actions in far away places were not well supported by the liberals, Jewish or otherwise. n nThe Israelis have several major wars for national survival in recent memory. All but the youngest adults have served, or have had to watch as their parents or siblings or children marched off to battle, knowing that the enemy would take no prisoners, knowing that if they failed, all of Israel would fall. n nLiberal fools write their columns and trumpet their empty views because it costs them nothing, because there is no risk. It is fashionable to be perverse, and perversity in the past twenty years has meant siding with the Arabs. Even after 9/11, except for a few months of temporary sanity, they rather quickly reverted to form, some even buying into the notion that the Jews themselves were behind the attack. n nIsrael will survive these things, because they must. They will leave the diaspora Jews behind as they forge a new Jewish identity from the furnace of blood and struggle in the Middle East. n nThe American Jews are fast becoming irrelevant, with their misguided support for Obama, the most anti-Israel president in a generation and even for the boycott-Israel movement. I'm ashamed of them.
Well said. Correct on every point.
Reagan never once spoke to AIPAC or kissed the tuchas of the big machas. Obama is a much better friend to Israel.
Yeah but Obama sticks his tongue in when he's kissing up to Arab butt. Where is your head?
You are a profane racist. n
it's not all grim, tho, blister. my daughter, who's 21, went on a Birthright trip two years ago, and it really inspired her. as long as there are those of us who keep telling the truth about the Middle East, and programs like Birthright Israel so they can see the truth for themselves, I have hope for the future. n nand needless to say, as soon as President Romney takes over, things improve about a million percent.
We can hope!
Bravo, @MainesMichael n nThat's what it is!
A very important made by Jonathan is that Israel cannot unilaterally make peace. The Arabs have to want it too. But Israel cannot "magically transform" how the Arabs think. Peace is like the tango. It needs two. But Arab-Muslims do not believe in peace with kuffar, with non-believers, if they faithfully and strictly follow their religion. Many do want peace but their religion is an obstacle. For real & lasting peace, that religious rejection of it must change.
Those you call the "liberal Zionists," like Peter Beinart, want to deny that the Arab opposition to Israel is religious. The Mohammedan leaders hate Jews (and other non-Mohammedans, like Christians). There is no solution to the Arab opposition to the existence of Israel except for Israel to be prepared to fight. The so-called "two-state" solution, with yet another Arab state is militarily foolish and pointless. The so-called Palestinians are Arabs who have taken over the name "Palestinian," which has meant "Jew" every since the Roman Emperor Hadrian changed the name of Judea to Palestina – so that the name "Palestine" was synonymous with "land of the Jews." That is why Great Britain after World War I was awarded the "Palestine Mandate" to be the "homeland of the Jews." nCalling Arabs, non-Jews, "Palestinian," with all the phony history and propaganda about them, comes from the invention of the "Palestine Liberation Organization" (P.L.O.) by the Soviet Union and Egypt under Gamel Nasser in Cairo in 1964.
The 'Save Israel from itself' school has its home base in the NYTimes. They have commissioned hundreds of articles along these lines. Tom Friedman and Roger Cohen write these articles frequently. Paul Krugman and Nicholas Kristoff do so from time to time. David Remnick of the New Yorker is also of this school. Beinart is the latest manifestation of arrogant ignorance parading as 'liberal conscience'. These are people who do not tell the whole story, and simply ignore systematically the fact that there is another side to the conflict, and an incorrigibly hostile one at that. nI doubt that there is a remedy for all this windbag-ism. But at least these people should be made to understand that for many of us their views are not simply wrong they are also immoral and self- serving. n
Liberal and leftist Jews should go to Israel or shut-up! nThey falsely call themselves humanists! They have no idea what it means.
As an American Jew, I find myself wishing more and more for an "Israel: A Guide for the Perplexed."