The Sky is Not Falling on Liberal Zionsim: A response to Peter Beinart

Peter Beinart's article, "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment" in the New York Review of Books has caused quite a stir.  That's good.  We're talking about Israel and American Jews and what we're doing right and wrong in regards to both.  Here's my few cents on Beinart's piece:

*I agree with Beinart that we should be concerned about Israel and the gap between pluralists and seculars on one side and anti-Arab Jewish nationalists on the other.


* I think he conflates events that are unrelated and may actually disprove his point. For example, the apathy of Jewish college students regarding Israel in 2003 does not find continued manifestation in the Brandeis Student Senate's actions in 2008 (or their protests against Ambassador Oren in 2010). Further, neither '03 apathy nor Brandeis '08 necessarily proves the failure of Liberal American Jewish organizations. It is, I would argue, the opposite. The Brandeis action represents one example of serious liberal Zionism among young people. They didn't condemn Israel or simply forget about the 60th anniversary of Israel's Independence. They made exactly the kind of constructive protest that Beinart seems to be calling for.

* His implication that high school student straw poll preferences for Avigdor Lieberman signal a larger cultural shift toward Kahanist attitudes is just not convincing. It only reminds us why we don't let children vote in real elections. His citation of Netanyahu's 1993 book is equally empty. '93 was the big lead up to Netanyahu's first PM candidacy and the book is as much electioneering as anything. Second, the best peace makers in Israeli history were once die-hard pro-settlement, violently anti-Arab (he cites the best example, Begin's connection to the Deir Yassin massacre, but never mentions the '79 Peace with Egypt?!). Changed positions is more common than career long consistency.

* I found his assessment of the "obsession with victimhood" and especially the threat from Iranian nuclear weapons disturbing. This sentence strikes me as outrageous: "the dilemmas you face when you possess dozens or hundreds of nuclear weapons and your adversary, however despicable, may acquire one, are not the dilemmas of the Warsaw ghetto." It is not a simple factor of who has more. All it takes is one and the will to use it, which is why we are more afraid of Al Qaida getting a single nuclear weapon than we fear the entire Russian arsenal (and our fear of the Russian arsenal is about securing it against rogues and terrorists). Israel, like America, has many nuclear weapons whose purpose is defensive deterrence that will likely never be (please God) used. Even in its worst positions (1973?), Israel opted not to use nuclear. So it doesn't really matter that they have dozens or hundreds more than Iran. Iran, on the other hand, talks of destroying Israel and (though I know I'm changing countries here) we've seen for example with Iraq in the first Gulf War that Arab enemies of Israel who talk of attacking Tel Aviv with missiles will do it even if Israel has not attacked them first. There's no guarantee that Iran will strike Israel with it's one nuclear missile, but it's much more likely a threat than we can see from Israel's possesion of even a hundred-ish nuclear weapons. I think maybe we do have the dilemmas of the Warsaw ghetto - do you sit there and wait for the mass death or join the ZOB? An Iranian nuclear weapon IS an existential threat - or as somebody else once said "a flying instant death camp." I'm not obsessed with victimhood just because I believe that, I'm a student of history. One of the things we learned on the CCAR conference call with HaLevi and Miller is the sense that Israelis feel an existential threat on all sides: Hezbollah in the north, Hamas in the south and Iran from the East. The only place to go is into the sea they speak so freely of pushing us into.

* Last point, why no mention of J Street? New Israel Fund? the Reform Movement? The Four Mothers (within Israel)? This decade has seen the largest burst of new and increasingly strong American Liberal Zionist organizations maybe since '48 and they are making an impact. The right wing of the Knesset would not have held up NIF as traitorous if they weren't making headway and, despite the right's horrible proposition, that right wing assault did not pass. J Street not only survived the AIPAC/right wing onslaught at its birth, it came through it even stronger.

So, where's that leave us? Gravely concerned for the future of a Jewish homeland in Israel that can be pluralistic, democratic and strong. Outraged at the continued failure to protect human rights, foster true democratic values, and settle the #&@! occupation already. But not lost and disheartened with regards to American Liberal Zionist outlets. The opposite: we have more ways than ever to be (if J-street will allow me the usage) Pro-Israel AND Pro-Peace. So keep it up.

The Flotilla: How to make sense of it all?

I am sitting on a CCAR sponsored conference call with Aaron David Miller, Anat Hoffman, and Yossi Klein Halevi.  Miller's article, "The False Religion of Mideast Peace: And why I'm no longer a believer" in the May/June issue of Foreign Policy got much cudos on the call.  Miller himself was a very informative and coherent analyst on the call.  I'm reading the article as soon as the call ends, check it out yourself.

I will offer a sermon about the Gaza Flotilla and its larger issues tomorrow night at services drawing on the insights of these analysts and the text study shared by Rabbi Micah Greenstein about the existence of evil and how we respond to it.

Some points from the call:

Miller's points:
* Israel still has no strategy regarding Gaza
* Dysfunction is THE defining characteristic of Israeli - Palestinian negotiations and relations.
* Other crises are inevitable, especially with Hezbollah.  They have amassed a stockpile of high trajectory missiles AND Israel has no better plans to respond than it had in its unsuccessful war in Lebanon in 2006.
* There will be no fix to the Gaza problem because there's no lasting fix to the Palestinian issue.
* Iran moves dangerously closer to nuclear weapons by the day and there's no fix on the horizon, only "drift" - which encourages the last ditch open: military action.
* This flotilla crisis may bring some clarity and improvement to the US-Israel relationship.

Hoffman pointed out:
*Israel is not the only country imposing the embargo.  Egypt, in its desire to keep the Muslim Brotherhood from linking up with Hamas also has a blockade and embargo on Gaza.

*The list of products on the Gaza embargo is random and not productive, i.e. pasta is allowed because John Kerry demanded it but sesame seeds are not.  Shampoo is allowed in but conditioner is not.  This caused a problem recently over conditioning shampoo.  "It is hard defend the lists, but I can't say that Israel is causing a humanitarian crisis."

*Israel needs us now more than ever.  Do not boycott and do not hold back your investment and engagement with Israel.  We are moving towards greater pluralism in Israel and boycotts only encourage more "Masada mentality" in which Israelis see themselves as hopelessly trapped, surrounded.  Such thinking produces terrible outcomes.  (See Yediot Achranot article)

Yossi Klein Halevi:
* We must have a two state solution and most Israelis agree with this.  It is an existential necessity, however most Israelis also feel that a two state solution under current circumstances would be an existential threat.  Especially since the Goldstone Report, Israelis are now convinced that withdrawal from the West Bank would be suicidal because they believe the world would not allow Israel any clout to respond to terrorism launched from those areas.

* So long as Hamas is a significant player in Palestinian politics, there will be no two-state solution.  Israelis are simply too afraid of a Hamas takeover of the West Bank and East Jerusalem and could never accept it.

* For most Israelis the question of the Gaza siege is tactical and not moral.  i.e. liberal columnist Ben Caspit in Maariv's article, "It's not enough to be right one also has to be smart."  Israelis overwhelmingly accept the siege as morally legitimate.

* The growing crisis between liberal diaspora Jews and Israel is highlighted by reactions to the flotilla.  90% of Israelis want the IDF to stop the next ship coming to Gaza.  What would American Jews say? (probably much less he guesses).

* The lack of balance in coverage and condemnation is inexplicable.  For example, IAEA experts announced yesterday that Iran has enough fuel in the works for two nuclear weapons.  That story was on page 4 of the IHT; the front page was flooded with condemnation of Israel.  No country, no UN body has met or condemned that development.  See Daniel Henninger's very clear op-ed piece on this same issue in today's Wall Street Journal.