[Peace-discuss] Sunday Extra

Sun Oct 4 18:34:18 EDT 2015

It would be useful to have hard reliable data regarding the U.S. Jewish “liberal” community’s preferences and dislikes apropos of U.S.-Israeli linkages and Israeli policies, perhaps broken down by age group. Does such data exist?

Nonetheless, it was good to see the letter appear in the N-G. Could it begin an explicit conversation in that community?

—mkb

On Oct 4, 2015, at 12:40 PM, David Green via Peace-discuss <peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net<mailto:peace-discuss at lists.chambana.net>> wrote:

http://www.news-gazette.com/opinion/letters-editor/2015-10-04/sunday-extra-political-dilemma-american-jews.html<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.news-2Dgazette.com_opinion_letters-2Deditor_2015-2D10-2D04_sunday-2Dextra-2Dpolitical-2Ddilemma-2Damerican-2Djews.html&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=9eBn2xukb4K19JC8Bn8zUQ&m=8o_i7DM2ByMlp_3Nk_L3KWplWNLK35DcP2lmhag5c28&s=lvwvlFLXO2GRHRPVPOsNBTUMt42MLxpdvoApEOU-oZw&e=>

Sunday Extra: The political dilemma of American Jews

David Green

Sun, 10/04/2015 - 7:00am | The News-Gazette<https://urldefense.proofpoint.com/v2/url?u=http-3A__www.news-2Dgazette.com_author_news-2Dgazette&d=AwMFaQ&c=8hUWFZcy2Z-Za5rBPlktOQ&r=9eBn2xukb4K19JC8Bn8zUQ&m=8o_i7DM2ByMlp_3Nk_L3KWplWNLK35DcP2lmhag5c28&s=iA4D_MIxA9RnoNL5Bw3ZbVeM75W80a9xOdkImlY9zww&e=>
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Throughout the United States and in our community, Jews with liberal values face a political dilemma that has been long in the making. This dilemma has reached critical mass in the wake of Israel's opposition to the nuclear deal with Iran, which polling has shown that a majority of Jewish-Americans support.
There is more "daylight" between American Jews and the policies of Israel's leadership than since the Suez Crisis in 1956 when President Eisenhower, without significant opposition from Jewish-Americans, dictated that Israel's army would retreat from its aggressive occupation of Egypt's Sinai Peninsula — which it quickly did.
A lot has changed since then. Israel repeated its aggression in 1967 (the historical and archival records are clear that this was a calculated Israeli war of choice), but this time with the support of the U.S. government and American Jewry. This overwhelming victory, however, led to the occupation and planned settlement of the West Bank and Gaza, now customarily referred to as Palestine (settlers were withdrawn from Gaza in 2005, but the economic siege and virtual occupation remain). It also led to Israel's dominant military role as a strategic American asset in relation to the control of Middle East oil, especially since the 1979 Iranian revolution.
President Obama has reconfigured and palpably diminished Israel's role in U.S. hegemonic control of the Middle East, and therefore mitigated Israel's influence in the region. Most Israeli Jews don't like that, but most liberal American Jews clearly (and correctly) don't believe the lurid rhetoric about Iran's "existential" intentions. Moreover, they sensibly find Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to be a repellent figure.
Meanwhile, liberal Jewish-Americans are increasingly alienated by Israel's brutal oppression of occupied Palestinians, the relentless growth of settlements and violent extremist settler activity, and by what increasing numbers view as senseless Israeli massacres in Gaza, especially since 2008.
Jewish-Americans who have wisely opposed the Bush/Obama wars can hardly support Israel's continued provocations for more wars. Jewish-Americans who wisely (and in some cases actively) support a just two-state settlement and an end to Israel's illegal occupation of Palestine can hardly any longer rationalize Israel's blatant rejections of such a settlement, through both diplomatic means and the relentless, brazen creation of "facts on the ground."
Thus we have reached a point where substantial numbers of the still overwhelmingly liberal Jewish-American population find themselves in opposition to Israel's policies, the coercive Israel lobby, and many of their institutional leaders.
Nevertheless, it is unlikely (yet) that this dilemma will generate a more portentous crisis among American Jews. The absurd geopolitical gamesmanship that has characterized opposition to the Iran deal will fade, and Jewish institutional leadership will focus its attention on the increasingly difficult task of portraying Israel as an essentially liberal and democratic country.
However disingenuous this claim, it is likely that most liberal American Jews will at least passively accept such shameless propaganda. Jewish promoters of genuinely enlightened values and policies will be faced, as they (we) always have, with complex problems of truth-telling, organization, solidarity and resistance.
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