Since the publication of “How I’m Losing My Love for Israel,” a personal essay describing my fatigue as a liberal Zionist, the most disturbing responses have not been the vitriolic e-mails or online comments, nor the thoughtful and well-reasoned replies from the likes of Daniel Gordis and Jonathan Sarna. Rather, I have been most troubled by the statements of many Jewish professionals — rabbis, federation leaders, nonprofit directors — who have told me, “Thank you for saying what I cannot.”
Why is it that they cannot say what I said? Because they fear for their jobs, or fear their organizations would be harmed if they expressed their opinion? And what opinion is that, which they and I share? Is it hatred of Israel? Support for the terrorists of Hamas? No. It is *ambivalence.
Remarkably, and disturbingly, this American Jewish McCarthyism has reached such a paranoid pitch that my colleagues in the Jewish world fear even to express ambivalence, uncertainty or reservation regarding the State of Israel. We fear that we might endanger relationships with members, donors, supporters and friends for expressing uncertainty. This is outrageous, and it has shocked me in the weeks since the column was published.
And to be clear, losing love does not mean lacking it. My colleagues and I continue to love Israel, support it and defend it against its enemies. What has changed is that they, and I, are increasingly of the opinion that Israel does not deserve the kind of love — unconditional, unwavering — that many in our community demand. This is so, not because we are unfaithful, but because our lover has become abusive.
For example, if, as Gordis writes, “Only justice matters. Only the future matters,” then we must ask some hard questions. What is the “justice” of expanding settlements? What kind of “future” do such policies augur for building a secure Israel and a viable Palestine? Those of us who question such actions don’t lack love of the Land of Israel or the State of Israel. But we are tired of having our love abused, yoked to violence and demanded of us as some kind of loyalty oath to the Jewish people. There is such a thing as too much forgiveness.
Nor is our concern because, as Gordis and Sarna both suggested, our love is somehow immature — it’s precisely because it is mature. Mature love does not mean total acceptance. It does not demand that we never visit the territories to see firsthand what is happening on the ground, or that we never fear for the demographic extinction of liberal Israel, or never criticize its growing wealth gap. We’re not naïve about the fact that many in the Arab world seek Israel’s destruction, by increments if not all at once. On the contrary, we want Israel to survive, to thrive, and not to sell its ethical and political birthrights for the porridges of territory and a dream that can never come to pass.
Fortunately, I think the American Jewish community is at a tipping point on these issues. The very ambivalence I described in my essay is the foundation of a new political movement, which coincidentally is about to hold its first conference in Washington. And I think one reason my little personal essay struck such a chord is that, between J Street, President Obama and these shifts in the American Jewish community, there’s an understanding that the tide has begun to turn.
Many find these changes fearful, which, I think, is why so many people responded with fear to what I had to say. But if you love Israel, you should celebrate these developments. Fewer and fewer people — especially American Jews under 40 — feel the reflexive, unquestioning loyalty that an older generation did. If their only choices were blind acceptance or outright opposition, they might just walk away. J Street and organizations like it represent a third way — and that is a very good thing for Israel.
Indeed, the more you love Israel, the more you should fear the loyalty oaths some American Jews demand. Such all-or-nothing binarism will drive our children away in droves. It will fail to convince anyone not already converted. And it will further marginalize the Jewish state, further remove it from dialogue, engagement and international cooperation. The all-or-nothing crowd in America is really just the flipside of the boycott-Israel crowd in Europe. Both oversimplify a complex situation, both see Israel and Palestine in terms of black and white, and in so doing, both are hurting the Jewish state.
If there is one thing I wish I’d done differently in my essay, it is that I should have mentioned exhaustion last, rather than first. It’s not that I’m
exhausted, and therefore rue the loss of Israeli values, critique American Jewish myth-making and question my own Zionist education. It’s the other way around. I loathe the company we Zionists are forced to keep: ethnocentrists, know-nothings, warmongers and worse; that angry pseudo-majority whose Disney-fied myths eclipse the region’s messy realities, who dehumanize Arabs and furiously lob the words “antisemitism” and “Holocaust” like rhetorical hand grenades. What they love is not what I love.
Yet I feel tainted by the association. Perhaps I would put up with the tiring defense of yet another Israeli trespass, the eclipse of the Israel I love by one I hardly recognize, and the companionship of those I mistrust if I didn’t mistrust myself as well. I, too, love Israel; I, too, was raised on its myths — and thus I am obligated to second-guess how I reflect upon its policies. Precisely because I hold love in my heart, I question my opinions, pause before jumping to conclusions, and doubt my intuitions of certainty.
It is this introspection, or perhaps its results, that has caused such a stir. Admittedly, it is less romantic than the swell of “Hatikvah,” less useful for advertising or propaganda. Yet sometimes true love looks very different from romance, and sometimes “yes” is not what a lover needs to hear.
Jay Michaelson’s column, “The Polymath,” is published monthly in the Forward’s Arts & Culture section. He is the author, most recently, of “Everything Is God: The Radical Path of Nondual Judaism” (Trumpeter).
Read responses from Miriam Shaviv, Gadi Taub, Jonathan Tobin and Steven Zipperstein to the issues raised by Michaelson’s original essay, “How I’m Losing My Love for Israel,” here.
Who are americans Jews to lose their love for Israel, what did american Jews ever do personally for Israel, those who lose their love never had it, are probably intermarried, baptised into the fiction of christianity or assimilated with values of non-particularism, universalism and relativism. How many american Jews know enough hebrew to partake of Israeli life to learn to love it, very few. Israelis themselves are tired but their life is much harder than american Jews. American Jews are nothing, have nothing that can't be taken away with force and are utterly totally defenseless. They cannot protect themselves and yet they take pride that again they could be herded onto cattle cars, concentrated in work and death camps and led to gas chambers and machined gunned into awaiting pits or hide like rats in sub cellars or caves or attics like animals. That passivity is immoral, not being able to defend your children from starvation is immoral, leaving your daughters to be raped immoral. Israelis have given 25,000 dead and thousands wounded and maimed for a moral purpose. Families who have lost a son they can feel empty and depressed, soldiers and citizens who bodies are destroyed can feel depressed, american Jews cannot morally be so, they are not allowed to morally say anything. During Israel's memorial day there is a minute of silence, when the sirens sound you stop, on a ladder you stop, on the highway you stop, american Jews should stop before they criticize.
Fantastic post, I couldn't agree more.
I equate it to the love of an adult child. The child spends 6 years floating around in college (paid for by Abba and Ima no less) only to move back in at the end of it and loaf around all day in front of the TV enjoying home cooked meals and clean laundry secure in the knowledge that nobody will ever say no to extra beer money.
At some point that permissive love became toxic and inappropriate. At some point you have to turn to the child and insist that he stands on his own two feet, for the good of all.
The unconditional nonstop attention and care we offer an infant vastly differs from the strong message we have to offer the grown up. Both are love.
JMK - you jest no?
What did American Jews ever do for Israel? Hadassah hospital. Well, apart from that, what did American Jews ever do for Israel? Every ambulance. Well, apart from that, what did American Jews ever do for Israel? Support world class educational facilities. Well, apart from that, what did American Jews ever do for Israel? Provide assistance in assimilating poor Jews from around the world. Well, apart from that, what did American Jews ever do for Israel?
Using their political clout to help ensure Israel has the support and assistance of the most powerful nation in the world?
Yes Jay you are so right in so many ways. Good for you. I would suggest two avenues for broadening the discussion. In the UK there is a collective of Jews who have formed an Independent Jewish Voice. Readers of this discussion should check them out: http://www.ijv.org.uk.
Also, I think that the use of the word/emotion love is misplaced. I live in Jerusalem and every year around Independence day we have a discussion in the family about putting flags on the car. I refuse... for many reasons but my young kids ask me (after hearing others talk) "don't I love Israel?" and I respond that I love them and Ima but as far as the country goes, I do not love it or not... I respect it and therefore I do the work I do, to try to promote social change, democracy, Peace and human rights...
Lisa B - It's true that there are American Jews who support Israel. But let's not get carried away. Most American Jews are not involved in any Jewish activity. Most don't belong to a synagogue, most don't join any Jewish organization, most have never expressed support for Israel in a debate with colleagues - and most have never even been in Israel (but they have traveled to London or Paris or Rome). The reason for this situation is the sad shape of Jewish identity in America. So, there are many Jews for whom Israel is very dear, and there are many who have been active in a variety of ways for Israel - but all in all, support for Israel (just like any organized Jewish public involvement in America) is a minority phenomenon, because being Jewish is no longer an important aspect in the lives of most Diaspora Jews.
Stella Goldschlag - Are you declaring yourself to be an enemy of the Jews by choosing that name?
How does your love realistically deal with the truly existential threat from those who want to destroy Israel - those in the Arab and Muslim world, those on the political left in Europe and elsewhere?
Some deal with it by making believe it does not exist. Unfortunately, reality keeps challenging these beliefs with verbal threats and actual bombs.
Some have a fiction called "becom(ing) a citizen of the world" even though the only entrance to world citizenship is through the citizenship of a particular nation - anything else is a fiction. "The rest of humanity," as a comment above calls this, seems to be holding on to their national identity, and even using it as a justification to batter others. Yes, we can expand our self beyond national identification, but not if we deny the national and thereby justify all sorts of demonizing - such as talking of "zionist nightmare" and "ghetto of zionism ."
Jay: you lose me when you speak of this "Jewish McCarthyism" attacking Jewish critics of Israel. You started out by saying how exhausted you were because supporting Israel is associated among your peers with endorsing apartheid, or worse. Isn't this McCarthyism of the worst sort? What the McCarthyism you suffer consist of, specifically? Anonymous postings on internet message boards? Chiding from your elderly aunt? Anyone who takes a public stance on any issue - left or right - is subject to vitriol from nameless fanatics. Whether you are supporting or opposing something as important as the Iraq War or as trivial as the merits of Jay-Z, you will be flamed (especially by elderly aunts). What more are you possibly taking about? Is there some kind of Jewish Star Chamber that I'm not aware of (is so, how can i join?). Now, you express your personal distate for American Zionists and your desire not be socially associate with these (primarily Orthodox?) types. This complaint is the flip-side of your earlier allusion to the isolation you feel in your social circle caused by defending Israel. I understand you and empathize. True, the cool kids like Matt, Spencer, Josh and Ezra are all on the JStreet bandwagon and what young non-Orthodox Jew wouldn't want to be part of that crowd? What can possibly be gained by supporting Israel when centerists (e.g., Jeffery Goldberg) are excoriated on the net as Zionazis (try reading MJ Rosenberg and his commentators, never mind Philip Weiss). But this McCarthyism claim is just pure rationalization for beliefs you know are intellectual inconsistant, but are socially expedient. As I read more and more, I'm convinced that when American Jews - left or right - discuss and obsess over Israel, it is all just a metaphor for how they feel about themselves.
"...The reason for this situation is the sad shape of Jewish identity in America"
The problem is less about Jewish identity in America and more about those who have taken it upon themselves to define what that identity is for the rest of us and the pantheon of hypocritical sanctimony that passes for leadership in the community, yehudi chamoodi.
DRW makes a great point.
DRW " you lose me when you speak of this "Jewish McCarthyism" attacking Jewish critics of Israel. You started out by saying how exhausted you were because supporting Israel is associated among your peers with endorsing apartheid, or worse."
he lost me way before this.
I am always amused when leftist used McCarthyism as an example of evil.
While the drunken McCarthy was blacklisting people. Communists were murdering them by the tens of thousands. Did McCarthy kill even on person?
Moreover in Prague in the early 50's communists were even murdering Jewish Communist officials while other Jewish leftists in the US were defending Stalin and calling those who talked about Stalin's crimes McCarthites.
The same thing is happening now leftists hypocrites are attacking Zionists and supporign genocidal organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah.
I don't love Israel and I don't hate Israel. I love Jewish and especially Hebrew culture. AS for Israleil politics it's not perfect but then which country's politics are perfect.
"...There is something narcissistic about Michaelsons' comment. It's all about me, me, and me."
Well, it is all about him, isn't it?. Just as it is with all of diaspora jewry, Michaelson isn't making demands of Israel, Israel is making demands of Michaelson. Or more accurately, Baruch Marzel and Moshe Feiglin are making demands of Michaelson. Its up to Michaelson to decide whether or not to accede to those demands. The fact that these two miscreants conflate their interests with that of Israel is not Micahelsons fault. When seen in this context, whats in it for Michaelson? What does he gain from their xenophobia? What Michaelson failed to aniticapate, was that any dissension whatsoever from the party line would result in vicous censure, ad hominems(self-hating jew etc.), and vituperation would cause. Its speaks to the essntial weakness of a movement that so fears the words of one individual, to the extent that it would cause such a disturbance to their pecae of mind.
Come come! What you mean losing love for Israel! Was it not George Ball who wrote an expose in his work:The Passionat Attachment! There is a pervasive neo-McCarthyism among US Jewry and any one who dares to quetion Israeli war crimes is labelled as Anti-Semite if he is not a Jew! If he is one then he becomes a "self hating Jew"! One can question even Divinity but Israel and its Ruling Mafia is sacrosanct! The way Judge Goldstone was pilloried by US Media and US Zionist Establishment confirms that Israel is above Law.The way USA comes to back every outrage of Israel shows the stranglehold US Jews have over US policies! And that is costing US dearly both financially and in its global image! President Obama despite his open call to halt Israeli Land grab has not moved Netayanhu to pay heed! Western Media is crying hoarse about Iranian Nuclear threat.Not a word is mentioned about Israeli nuclear arsenals! IDF and mucuh of Israeli war apparatus is much stronger than Western Europ combined! Yet Israel is the victim! How silly can US be and its leaders!
Here is an interesting related story:
"Elie Wiesel to Keynote CUFI Conference Sunday"
"On the one hand we have a Holocaust survivor and rightful Nobel Peace Prize winner (Wiesel) addressing an organization whose pro-Israel credentials J Street has repeatedly attacked. And on the other we have a paranoid, anti-Semitic, anti-Zionist (Salam Al-Marayati, the executive director of the Muslim Public Affairs Council)addressing an organization that the Israeli ambassador refuses to engage on the grounds that the policies it supports could "impair Israel's interests."
http://www.weeklystandard.com/Weblogs/TWSFP/TWSFPView.asp#13711
"This is outrageous, and it has shocked me in the weeks since the column was published."
Michaelson's either completely unconscious or being disingenuous. Why has he not recognized or objected to these things before now?
So at last a reasonable debate is kicking off among Israel backers. Look, the only way out of the mess is for Israelis and Palestinians to live side by side in a single secular socialist state. If that happens, it'll really be THE example for the surrounding west Asian region. In fact, old Arafat's PLO had as the first article in the organisation's charter: setting a secular and democratic Palestine with its different peoples. Yes it also said "destruction of the zionist state of Israel". As any first year student of political science knows, destroying a state is not destroying the people living under that state. But of course, US and Israeli propagandists smeared that PLO line saying it meant eliminating the jewish people. The US govt. even put pressure on the PLO to erase that article from its charter. So now the PLO-Abbas is fighting for a bundle of bantsustants next to Israel whose more and more far-right leaders say they'll cede no more, if at all they cede anything. Hamas, for its part, doesn't really know what it wants. But its basic line about an islamic state over historic Palestine is a way of saying "a single state". Most of Hamas swears by islam, but doesn't practise it like they do among the US' and Israel's friends in Saudi Arabia and those other Gulf statelets. If the people rise up, mainly the Israelis, there's hope for the near future.
To Frank
First of all, the idea of a single socialist state was entertained and discussed at least 100 years ago mainly by the socialist Jews who made up the vanguard of the Zionist venture, and was rejected not only by most Jews, but certainly more so by the Arabs. The fact is, the one-state solution was, is, and always will be a non-starter. And Israel is already 25% non-Jewish as. And in fact, bi-national states do not work. The only possible exception is Switzerland, a tri-national state. Almost every other binational state has either come unglued or is perpetually wracked with internal strife. Jews and Arabs are two people, albeit related by blood, like Germans and the English, but are very different in culture and mindset, though less so with Christian Arabs than with Muslim Arabs.
As for the Palestinians becoming Bantustans, that's up to them. A true nation can build itself on any amount of land. Israel rapidly became a viable country because the JEws are a real nation. The "Palestinians," by contrast, are a congolomeration of different tribes, peoples, and competing clains, where hatred of ISrael is the main thing that unites them to a degree. Left to their own devices, they will fight each other like all other tribal societies as in Somalia or Afghanistan or in many African states.
So all of these idealistic utopian ideas were discussed and tried ad nauseum, and none meets the test of reality on the ground. There is only one possible way a one state solution can happen, and that is if the Palestinians agree to join Israel and pledge allegiance to the flag of Israel. And I don't think they are ready for that yet.
So I was troubled and went to a temple, yes not "to temple", I don't belong to one, but I was troubled so I went to one. I asked the rabbi, "Rabbi, I'm troubled about how 70 years after Auschwitz people all over the world act like the commission of acts of mass inhumanity is okay, even blessed" So he says "Look, when was the last time you were in shul?" "When I was 13", "I see, you play the numbers!" I told him how I think mediterranean monotheism is at its root monomaniacal. "Look", he says, "why are you so concerned about why Moses and all the subsequent saviors and prophets failed to go to a proper therapist? Don't you know what's going on in Israel today?" "Well that's why I came here to ask you..." "Look, first: don't expect miracles, second: do what you know is right, third: it's cold, how can you walk around like that without a sweater?"
Love Israel by hating Zionism because there is no love for the Jewish homeland or the Jewish people when the ideology of choice is based on the dispossession of others. I'm sorry, but this black hole is so fundamental that Zionism is Israel's foremost existential threat. Today is the 44th anniversary of my bar mitzvah. What I have learned over the ensuing years is that Zionist Israel is the Golden Calf.
I don't criticize Israel as a matter of policy. I am not an Israeli citizen and what Israelis do is their business. Nor do I feel it incumbent on every Jew everywhere to pledge allegiance to Israel. That is entirely a matter of choice.
If the situation should become intolerable for Jews in America (which would likely mean intolerable for atheists, blacks, gays, and anyone else the rightwing militias deems sub-human) I will pack up and move to Canada.
As to the comment that Jews in the diaspora are somehow less Jewish than Jews in Israel, I offer this Yiddish expression: "Beser a yid on a bord vi a bord on a yidn" (better a Jew without a beard than a beard without a Jew).
You know when you see the word 'apartheid' being misused, just as the word 'racist' has been so incorrectly used that it has lost all meaning, that you are in the presence of the Deluded Ones--Those whose only 'religion' is the Secular Torah of the Left, abortion on demand, homosexual marriage, and an obedience to the New Mantra of the Western dispossesed, If it feels Good, It's Okay. Add to this the 'White Guilt Syndrome' drilled into them from their first days in school by the education establishment and....Presto! You have the Jay Michaelson's of the world. The perfect patsies for the Islamic fascists and the Secular variety. In Europe they are already in the process of drowning in a rising tide of muslim fundamentalists.
Love can most certainly be 'blind' but hopefully in time, one regains one's sight. When the 'blindness' is caused by stupidity, the outcome is less promising.
This Iranian thinks that the debate started by Jay Michaelson is healthy and not a minute too soon. It means that people now want to support Israel because it represents something good and not merely because of the trauma of the Holocaust. Maybe some wound it healing. Vorwaerts!
Props to DRW, I couldnt have said it better.
If I love Israel I should celebrate J STREET? WTF? I dont know where to start with this. If you think J Street is going to get traction with the American public in spite of being so leftwing it's falling off the edge, then you need to get out of Manhattan more. Let J Street disavow Steven Walt and rap poets who compare Israel to Naziism and then we'll talk.
LisaB, your comment is dripping with condescension. Israel should diversify its alliances more, but it does pretty well considering the constant attempts of its enemies to ostracize it. Israel's most recent ally is India - designed a spy satellite India put into space. They both get it about radical Islam, unlike the current immature president of the US.
Israel doesnt get welfare from the US, it shares military technology and intelligence. It receives loan guarantees and it has always paid the loans. Israel's economy is in better shape than ours because their banks dont make crazy subprime loans - who's the teenager then? Israel supplies chips and software for your computers, cellphone, and internet services. If you are at all involved with agriculture you should be glad there is an Israel which is at the forefront of research. Israel is a major center of medical research and has more biomed startups than any other country - not per capita, but total, in a nation of 6 million people. If you ever get seriously ill you should be glad there's an Israel.
Have you ever been there? I find Israelis in general more mature than Manhattan Jewish lefties.
FranK The British misruled mandate of Palestine was ineffect a secular state "of its citizen" whose functioning was perverted from the League of Nations mandated establishment of a Jewish state. When Jews fleeing Nazi oppression started trickling in for salvation, the British barred Jewish immigration because of Arab rioting. The shelter and protection of an independent state is a main reason for the establishment of Israel- a haven which will accept even you J-street Woody Allen type schmucks if your welcome in the US of A wears out
enough already! His claims notwithstanding, Michaelson does NOT love with Israel and appears to be QUITE blind about Israel. He seems obliviously unaware of how unaware he is about the current complex Israel scene. He may be convinced he knows what went on and is going on here, but his last two compositions in Forward show a rather superficial basis for his presumptuous judgements. As for "love of Israel" - gimme a break. Even many so-called observant Jews ensconced outside of Israel are hypocrites in this regard. Throughout their long exile, Jews loved and longed for the Land of Israel. But consummating the genuine love used to be difficult. love means consummating the love once the opportunity exists and not staying far away from the one you love (without even making a reasonable excuse). But nowadays not only does the opportunity exist, it is easier than ever before for diaspora jews to consummate love for Israel by moving here. Declarations of love for israel by diaspora jews nowadays are by and large empty words. They are as meaningful as telling someone that he/she is your true love that you don't really want to live with her/him and chose to stay far, far away. For Michaelson, it was never love . If it were, he wouldn't be where he is - both physically and emotionally. Identifying with israel is another matter. Once a jew's primary identity becomes American ( = jewish AMERICAN and not american JEW) then the degree of identification with Israel becomes wideranging - from positive to neutral to negative. With the weakening of jewish national identity in the USA, there is a creeping (or sometimes galloping?) process of identity disassociation with Israel, the state of the jews. The People of Israel (Am Yisrael) become "them over there". As for Michaelson, he is clearly an American first and a jew second. As an American, he has opted be a lean-to-the-left American (as opposed to a middle-of-the road American, or a lean-to-the-right American) so distancing himself from Israel keeps him in fashion with his chosen milieu. Sure it's sad. But Am Yisrael chai (the Nation of Israel lives!)
A liberal is a liberal first, foremost and always. Liberalism comes before everything including Judaism and Israel. When a liberal finds themselves having to defend Israel against the Liberal establishment they will predictably choose liberalism. They will sell out EVERYTHING for Liberalism.
The liberal Jew is first a Liberal. They have given up their religion of Judaism for the religion of Liberalism.
And the Lord said. Look, my people Israel, there is the land of plenty, I give it to you as I promised, but first you must drive out the tribes that inhabit the land. But, the JStreet leftists said, Lord, we cannot do that we might offend all those other idol-worshipping tribes and they will not love us. So the Lord said to JStreet, you do not have to go, I will commit you to wandering the desert forever, never having a homeland, you will be a blight upon the face of the earth. Your enemies will embrace you and you will never know peace or love. You will talk, but your words will be hollow, without form or substance and you will carry the mark of Cain forever
Careful.
When Bush was in office, NCIS, a popular TV program, had an Israeli agent from Mossad connected to NCIS. Now that Obama is President, the agent was almost dropped from the cast. The producers decided to keep the character (the actress of Spanish descent who plays the Israeli is gorgeous and has chemistry with the group) but she's had to drop all ties to her father and to Mossad/Israel. She's agreed to this.
I don't see anything in your analysis of Israel (and America) except adulthood.
Jay Michaelson's narcistic article is interesting, I have read it three times before I could develop a sense, not of what he said, but what he means. There is fear in his words, a fear that the left is losing the battle for the minds of people. In the last 4 years Israel, France, Italy and Germany haved moved to the right in their elections. England will do the same in their next election. There is a good chance that the USA will shift to the right in 2010. Israel has had liberal, center and conservative governments in their history. All have failed to make peace with an enemy that does not want peace. Israel voted in a right wing government this time. the left wing government of Ehud Olmert failed in the war with Hezbollah. I can respect their decision. The liberal left wing in this country cannot. But, this is typical of an ideology that has no redeeming value. This article is not about Israeli actions, it is about her politics. "Dehumanize Arabs", everytime they send a child or a woman out in an explosive vest they dehumanize themselves a lot more than Israel could do.
"Love Is Not Blindness"
Yes, but with Jay Michaelson hatred for Israel is blind.
Yehudit - you asked if I'd ever been to Israel.
I'm Israeli and live in the US. I was also referring to US Jews, not the US government.
Toby says he is "always amused when leftist use McCarthyism as an example of evil", and explains why, by reminding us that "while McCarthy was blacklisting people, Communists were murdering them by the tens of thousands."
Toby is perfectly right: Either you are a McCarthyist, blacklisting people for their political opinions -- or you are a Bolshevik. There is simply no third way. How enlightening of Toby to grace us with his wisdom.
Tiger Mike:
You err when you make accusations against liberals. A liberal in the best sense of the word is concerned for human rights and justice. Hence it is absolutely critical to open your eyes when you see injustice. The real fight is speak up truth not propaganda. That kind of paraphrases our Prophets
Nationality, as Zamenenoff, said, is a curse to both the oppressed and oppressor.
"Why is it that they cannot say what I said? Because they fear for their jobs, or fear their organizations would be harmed if they expressed their opinion?"
Uhmmm, I hate to break it to you, but this is exactly how 90% of Americans (and I'm sure much of the rest of the world) feel. MUZZLED.
Candida - Are you serious? Do you really feel that 90% of the world is "muzzled" about Israel. Gee, I can't think of another topic that is so discussed as Israel is. The UN is busy with Israel morning, noon and night, publishing more condemnations than any other country in the world. College campuses are alive with debates and demonstrations about Israel. You would have to be unreasonably anti-Israel to claim that people are being silenced about Israel while they are in the midst of endless heated debates about her.
Qotz: Candida is pretty much correct about the problem of criticizing Israeli in the Jewish professional world. You will offend the more conservative contributors who believe in Israel without regard to ethics. I find these specific American Jews, those who are knee jerk supporters, often feeling inadequate compared to the tough security minded Israels who always pretend to be in control. Oddly, the macho Israel is like a big brother by which some Jewish Americans vicariously identify. I once worked as a Jewish community professional a number of years back. I supported the Israeli Palestinian peace process. The professional head of community told me that nobody in the community supported my view which was a message to lay low. What he really meant is that a few machers do not support the peace process. In response, I told him that when the professional Jewish community (whatever that is) is given the marching orders by AIPAC to support peace they will fall in line. I can only hope the J Street will grow in popularity and power.
gawd - newsvine.com redux. Same old arguments and side-taking.
As to Michaelson, anyone who can write "And to be clear, losing love does not mean lacking it" with a straight face is a mind-8=))er extraordinaire. Ewww.
Great article. It seems that Israel does all it can to prevent liberal-minded (the real meaning, not what most Americans seem to think it means) Jews from supporting it. No secular or interfaith marriages, the Occupation, housing descrimination, trying to deport young non-Jews that were born in Israel and speak Hebrew, supporting stopping interfaith/interethnic relationships, segregation and a long, long list to add.
Not all of us can be Allen Dershowitz, championing freedom in the U.S. and ignoring atrocities in Israel.
Israel wants U.S. Jewish money and influence, but tells U.S. Jews to shut up when we speak. They can't have it both ways.
U.S. Jews need to give Israeli Jews tough love. Instead we let them call us "self-hating", assimilators, "jewboys" and so forth.
You know, I think this expansion of your last column sold me a little bit more on where you're coming from, however, just because you are not knee-jerk in the way that we'd all agree does Israel a disservice and undermines the argument for Zionism, doesn't mean you or I are any less Disney-fied than them. We all, even you, project our understanding of what Israel should be, on to Israel, when our personal skin in the game is really no more or less defined than is the knee-jerker, all-or-nothingers. Some of them may have more personally invested in Israel than you, but no high-minded rhetoric changes that you and he occupy the same role with regards to Israel.
On one hand, I don't want to be all or nothing, but on the other, do any of us want to be standing on the other side of another catastrophe for our people?
Dithering about whatever influence we think that we have, as American Jews favorable to Zionism, is one thing, but what happens to our fellow Jews if we lose our support?
It's the same self-important whining that we should be bemoaning on your part. So what, how you feel? The end result should concern you, as there is no evidence that Israel's neighbors are going to be friendlier to the idea of a Jewish state, really, without a Jewish state. We'll get by, but a mutually shared Jerusalem, the strategic and tactical value of the West Bank as high ground for military commanding excellent artillery view of the rest of Israel, and the Golan, giving those back, I'm sad to say, could very easily convert Israel into an even more insecure ghetto, one worthy of our stay in Europe.
Dwell less on the hear and now and the consequence of your fading favor for Zionism. In the end, no one is going to care about how Jay Michaelson feels.
Do you notice how the instant those who criticize Israel are themselves criticized they start claiming they're being muzzled? Wasn't the point of Michaelson's first article to "open debate"? What do people like Michaelson think debate means, exactly?
And how is it that Michaelson never cried out against the radical left muzzling him? After all, isn't their persistent harassment the reason he got so tired of supporting Israel in the first place?
Against the radical left, Michaelson has lost the will to fight for Israel. Against pro-Israel Americans, his fight is strengthening. What conclusions are we to draw from this?
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