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.

Hard day? The worst.

This is not good.  Simply put, it is very bad.  The worst.  A "flotilla" of six ships bringing supplies and activists opposed to Israel's closure of Gaza was enroute to Gaza with expressed intentions of breaking the Israeli naval blockade.  Israel made it clear they would not allow the ships through and directed the ships to the port of Ashdod (see the video below).

As it became clear that the ships were not going to turn from their objective, Israeli naval commandos stormed the ships.  Anywhere from 9 to 15 (I've seen varying reports) people on the ships were killed by the Israeli forces.  At least seven Israeli commandos were injured, two severely.  The circumstances are in dispute.  The facts are not clear beyond the numbers killed and injured and that this happened about 70 miles out to sea. Already there are widely different accounts from the Israeli government and soliders and the flotilla organizers and participants.  You can see the video below and many others like it that have been posted to YouTube.  Whatever the videos show, it is obvious that something went very wrong.  It also seems obvious that Israel will bear the brunt of the criticism and responsibility for this violent incident.  It also seems clear, however, that these humanitarian protesters were not the non-violent followers of Gandhi nor was this the Middle Eastern equivalent of th Freedom Riders buses in the American civil rights movements.  The UN Security Council is in emergency session about this incident - probably the tip of the iceberg of diplomatic and media (if not, God forbid, outright physical) assault that Israel and Israelis will face in coming day and weeks.



All I can say is that this is a shande - it is shameful, terrible and could have (SHOULD HAVE) been avoided.  It is a shame on so-called "humanitarian" critics of Israel to be defending club wielding thugs affiliated with terrorist groups (watch the video above) and there is nothing for Zionists to be proud of in these killings.

Here's a few links to Jewish sources I follow and their initial reactions and reports of the event:

Scholar and Rabbi Daniel Gordis offers his defense of Israel and its actions on his blog.

Ynet news account from an Israeli reporter, Ron Ben-Yishai.

Haaretz blogger, Bradley Burston, critiques the Israeli action and the Gaza blockade in general.

Moral Clarity, Transition and the Street

As much as I like to read one book at a time, my recent acquisition of a Kindle (love it) has shifted my reading into overdrive.  I am juggling three things at once (not well, I should admit).  I started with Susan Neiman's "Moral Clarity" after seeing it cited in a Haaretz op-ed piece that struck a chord with me.  Neiman is an expert on Kant and the Enlightenment and she turns to that era for guidance for "grown up idealists" today.  She starts by acknowledging that the American left has ceded moral principles to the right and now holds nothing more than "helpless pragmatism."  She puts it like this in her introduction: "This book aims to reclaim moral concepts that the left no longer uses with full voice.  Reclaiming them from the right isn't a matter of packaging but of the conviction that without them we will lose our souls - whatever we take our souls to be.  We will also lose our footing, and our young. The inevitability of cynicism often looks like the twenteith century legacy, but one goal of philosophy is to enlarge our ideas of what is possible... [that] will take us back to concepts that have been abandoned to the right: good and evil, hero and dignity and nobility."  I admit here that my journey from academia to the pulpit was, at least in part, a response to my growing cynicism: frustration (and at times out-right disillusionment) with the leading intellectual ideas on the left, my discomfort with knee-jerk anti-Israel sentiment from the left, my rejection of moral relativism.  Some would see my most recent moves as a shift to the right: I am now reading the Wall Street Journal as my daily paper of choice and the New York Times for Sundays only (I'll still take Frank Rich and David Brooks' over Karl Rove and Peggy Noonan).  When I get to DC, I will surely add the Washington Post to my daily regimen. We'll see how my eyes hold up under the strain.

It is not a shift to the right so much as an embrace of moral clarity. You can call me old fashioned but I believe in the values of duty, patriotism, and character; the power of faith; and the importance of family. I do believe that there is right and wrong, good and evil.  I believe in phrases like "Never Again" and "There but for the grace of God go I."  I believe in the power of ideas (that led me to academia) but it's where the rubber meets the road that we make the world a better place (that led me to the rabbinate).  It doesn't hurt that a congregant is an editor at the Journal while the Times laid off a congregant who had loyally stuck with the paper through ups and downs.  Personal connections matter.

My other book actively open at this time? Michael Watkins, The First 90 Days.  A Harvard Business School publication about executive leadership transition.  Very helpful stuff.  I know you will see its impact on my work and we will all enjoy success through the upcoming transition because of it.  A gem: "The overriding goal in a transition is to build momentum by creating virtuous cycles that build credibility and avoid vicious cycles that undermine credibility."  Sounds easy enough on paper, why's it so hard in practice?

Books of the month: What I just read

Whenever I sat over lunch with my friend Marty Cole, z"l, we talked shop.  He was a sales manager constantly looking to bring out the best in his team and in himself.  He loved ideas and was a "student of the game" who always believed we could improve.  I'd like to describe myself the same way.  I just finished reading the last book he suggested to me, Moneyball by Michael Lewis (soon to be a major motion picture starring Brad Pitt and Jonah Hill).  Through the story of Billy Beane, Oakland A's general manager, Lewis presents important lessons for organizations and their leaders:  Too often we make major decisions based on nothing but gut, intuition, emotion or appearances. It's not how much money you spend but how you spend it.  Leaders who are willing to break the "rules" (not literally but in terms of industry culture) and use good, measurable, outcome-oriented information to make decisions that contravene the accepted wisdom of their industry can succeed far beyond expectations.  The "club" of industry insiders will reject that success and explain it away irrationally and emotionally rather than admit their own failure (or, the old guard will always dismiss the new guard and the more the new guard succeeds the more hysterical the old guard will become).  Luck and "the human element" can mess up the best scientifically based and perfectly executed theories.  Describing pitcher Chad Bradford, Lewis shows how self-doubt and insecurity can destroy the future success of a person whose past performance otherwise seems to guarantee it: "Chad doesn't know that he will retire batters at such a predictable rate that he might as well be a robot. As a result, he might not do it." The story of Scott Hatteberg teaches how people can grow and improve with the help and support of others.  Hatteberg's wife spent weeks hitting ground balls to him so he could learn to play first base and thereby stay in pro baseball and his fielding coach practically manufactured his skill at picking up difficult throws by constantly calling Hatteberg a "picking machine."  Moneyball has lots of great stories for leaders trying to navigate new territory.  There is applicable material here for the synagogue and Jewish organizational world.  Take Marty's advice and mine: Read it before the movie blows it for you.