Liberal Zionists Should Support BDS

Readers, this post appeared last week in Open Zion here and was answered by Peter Beinart here. I plan to respond to his response later. 

Liberal Zionists want to end Israeli control of the West Bank and Gaza, abolish institutional discrimination between the Jewish and non-Jewish citizens of Israel, and witness the establishment of a Palestinian state that will allow Palestinians to live as a free and secure people in their own homeland. As liberals, they insist on preserving the civil and human rights of both Israeli Jews and Palestinian Arabs. These objectives are virtually identical with two of the three aims of the Palestinian BDS National Committee. The sticking point is the third, which is “respecting, protecting, and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in U.N. resolution 194.”

I don’t agree with Mira Sucharov that an endorsement of the Palestinian right of return is incompatible with the State of Israel having a Jewish character or that such an endorsement will lead to millions of Palestinians returning to their homes and properties. Conjuring up that scenario (which has zero likelihood of coming about) allows Zionists to justify the demographic cap of “only 20 percent Arab” that they consider necessary for the continued existence of a Jewish ethnic state.

Still, I realize that the right of return is a red flag for the vast majority of liberal Zionists, who use it to explain why they won’t endorse the Palestinian BDS movement. So let me argue why I think this is the wrong approach for them to take.

Liberal Zionists have three options, as I see it:

1. They can continue to oppose BDS and support liberal organizations as effective as J Street, shaking their heads at reports in the New York Times about the latest Israeli settlement expansions, and placing their faith in a U.S. administration that has done nothing to stem Israel’s inexorable march toward a state that is Jewish and democratic and apartheid: Jewish for the Palestinian Israelis, democratic for the Jewish Israelis, and apartheid for the Palestinians living under the control of the military and the settlers. They can continue to defer for generations the moral scandal of the Palestinian refugees, a problem created when Israel unilaterally barred their return to their homes, populated its state with Jewish immigrants, and made use of their Palestinian property in defiance of international law and U.N. resolutions (not to mention the Balfour Declaration).

2. Or, publicly eschewing the Palestinian BDS movement, they can practice their own “targeted BDS” or “Zionist BDS,” focusing their efforts on boycotting products produced in the Occupied Territories, like SodaStream and Ahava beauty products, or supporting divestment from companies like Caterpillar that benefit from the Occupation. (Some of them may extend this to Israeli agricultural companies.)

3. Or they can express solidarity with the global BDS movement as a non-violent protest movement emerging from Palestinian civil society, while at the same time making known their reservations about endorsing the right of return. In other words, they can join hands with the global BDS movement in its efforts to end the occupation and institutional discrimination against Palestinians, while agreeing to disagree about the right of return. Two out of three aims is basis enough for joint action.

In a post written three years ago, I tried to persuade liberal Zionists to offer support, if only qualified, to the BDS movement. As I anticipated, my “bridge proposal” was criticized by both sides for conceding too much to the other. The liberal Zionists gave the standard arguments: BDS will harden the Israelis, strengthen the right wing, and hurt the peace camp. Adopting the tactics of the “demonizers” will only make the Israeli left less relevant (if that’s possible). Some called the BDS movement potentially dangerous to Israel. Others called it weak and ineffectual, a minor annoyance. I was told that liberal Zionists can only have influence if they stay within the tribe, ally themselves with “moderate Palestinians” like Salam Fayyad (who has endorsed BDS in the territories) and distance themselves from the Palestinian one-staters. And then there is Eric Alterman’s view that the Palestinians’ “only hope can come by convincing Jewish Israelis that the risks and benefits of peace outweigh the risks and benefits of continued conflict.” That’s going to be a tough sell when Israelis are doing quite well without peace. They have shown that they can handle the occasional intifada, and they know that the benefits of occupation outweigh the risks of ending it—especially when there’s no external pressure to do so.  

Neither segregation in the South nor apartheid in South Africa ended when blacks convinced the majority of whites to end it. Concerted action, including but not limited to boycotts, divestment, and sanctions, were instrumental in convincing a few white people in power that the status quo was untenable. It took an intifada to convince Yitzhak Rabin that the occupation was untenable.

The BDS movement is currently the only game “out of town,” i.e., outside of human rights activism and political organization within Israel and the territories. And it has been partly effective. Israelis, except for the hard-core settlers and the ultra-Orthodox, care deeply about their image. Every cancellation of a concert by a fading rock star, or of a lecture by a protesting academic, is front-page news. The artistic boycott of theaters in the settlements, the European supermarket boycott, the various divestment campaigns—all have tremendous psychological value. We are now at the stage when major Christian denominations, European supermarkets, andTIAA-CREF are contemplating some form of BDS. Even those individuals who boycott shitake mushrooms from Tekoa make a statement.

BDS, in fact, may be the best hope for liberal Zionists who haven’t given in entirely to ethnic loyalties or to a blind faith in an illusory and never ending “peace process” that serves only one side, the powerful one.

Traditional Jews are familiar with the problem of the agunah, the “chained wife” whose husband refuses to divorce her unless it is on his terms. Both sides may have legitimate grievances. But according to Jewish law, the power of divorce lies entirely with the husband; the wife is powerless to effect anything on her own. If the husband refuses until he is able to extort his terms from the other side, Jewish law empowers the court to force him to “voluntarily” divorce his wife. In the old days, recalcitrant husbands would be flogged. Today, communities publicly shame them, and in Israel they are jailed. (Just yesterday my shul rabbi publicly shamed a recalcitrant husband, and community protests have been organized against the offender.)

In the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, both sides have legitimate grievances. But in terms of the power equation, Israel is the recalcitrant husband and the Palestinian people, the agunah. Shame and ostracism are not guaranteed to be effective; like the recalcitrant husband, Israel may indeed dig in. But as an Israeli I have more faith in my country than that. As I wrote above, Israel is acutely sensitive to its public image, and most Israelis want to be part of the community of nations. A broad coalition between Palestinians and Jews, occasionally acting together, occasionally acting in parallel, may be the best hope for allowing the divorce that liberal Zionists feel is important for both sides.

At the very least, by endorsing the BDS movement, albeit with reservations, liberal Zionists will have publicly declared their moral priorities and will have importantly set limits to their ethnic loyalties.

What's So Wrong with BDS

Readers, this appeared in Open Zion here last week.

Controversial speakers appearing on campus are as American as apple pie. So why are critics riled up about an event organized by the Brooklyn College chapter of Students for Justice for Palestine, where Prof. Judith Butler and Omar Barghouti are explaining and defending the Boycott, Sanctions, and Divestment (BDS) movement against Israel?

Harvard Law professor Alan Dershowitz complains that the event is co-sponsored by the political science department, which is inappropriate for an academic unit, unless it sponsors all sides of a controversial issue. For him the co-sponsorship implies an endorsement of a political view that may have a chilling effect—indeed, an adverse career effect—on opponents of that view within the department.

I can sympathize with the claim that academic units should not co-sponsor events with student groups, although many universities, including Harvard, permit it, and I am not aware that Prof. Dershowitz has spoken out against this practice on other issues besides the Middle East. As the director of a Jewish Studies program that houses Israel Studies, I have instituted a policy against co-sponsorships with student groups (although we occasionally contribute modest sums for refreshments, which is what student groups are often looking for anyway).

But forget the co-sponsorship issue: What if the political science department had on its own initiative invited Butler and Barghouti to explain the aims of the BDS movement to its faculty and students? Prof. Dershowitz doesn’t just object apparently to a department “endorsing” a controversial speaker. He also objects to a department even sponsoring a controversial speaker unless opposing views are presented—an unusual and impossible demand for departments.

I suspect that the real reason for the Brooklyn College brouhaha is the belief among mainstream Israel supporters that those who support BDS belong to the extremist, loony fringe of Israel-haters. Free speech may require that they be allowed to speak on campus when invited by student groups, and, indeed, they appear regularly not only at colleges like Berkeley and San Francisco State, and but also at Penn and Harvard. But a respectable institution should publicly disavow their positions and relegate the event to a room in the crowded Student Union.

The real issue here is not freedom of speech for controversial ideas but rather the presentation of the BDS movement as beyond the pale.

I have written elsewhere about why liberal Zionists should consider supporting the global BDS movement. To the claim that the BDS movement is anti-Israeli I pose the question, “Was the BDS movement in South Africa anti-South African?” For many whites and most Afrikaaners, and the South African government at the time, the answer would have been yes. For them, apartheid was an essential part of the South African regime. Dismantle apartheid, and the country, no matter what its name, would never be the same. Yet it was possible for those who opposed apartheid to contemplate a better place for all South Africans, blacks, whites, and colored. For them the BDS movement against apartheid was not directed against the South African people but against the policies of its government.

The global BDS movement has adopted three goals (rarely mentioned by its critics): ending the occupation and colonization of all Arab lands and dismantling the separation barrier; granting full civil rights and equality to the Arab minority within Israel; and respecting, protecting and promoting the rights of Palestinian refugees to return to their homes and properties as stipulated in U.N. resolution 194. The three goals correspond to the three main sectors of the Palestinian people today. There is no goal of the abolition of the State of Israel, or even its transformation into one secular democratic state. In fact, those who support BDS against Israel have somewhat similar aims as those who supported BDS in South Africa. Both groups wanted and want to bring about fundamental changes in their respective societies in a non-violent manner.

One can disagree with the desirability or the consequences of some of these goals. Certainly one can disagree about the utility or efficacy of BDS as a tactic. But there is nothing odious or despicable about the goals or the tactic.

Some opponents of BDS will object, “We have no problem with criticism of Israel, as long as it is constructive and recognizes Israel’s legitimate security needs. But BDS aims not only to weaken the state, itself an immoral goal, but also to delegitimize its very existence. Indeed, many who endorse the BDS movement are in favor of replacing the Jewish state with a secular Palestinian state. That’s what places it beyond the pale of respectable discourse at universities, and what makes it deeply offensive to some students, even if it is protected by free speech.”

Arguing in this manner is troubling for two reasons. For one thing, it insinuates that the supporters of BDS hide their real agenda, the destruction of the State of Israel and the subjugation or exile of its Jewish inhabitants, under the cloak of human rights and international law. Second, it reads the desire to see a better regime or regimes for both Israelis and Palestinians as the wish to relegate the Jews to a second-class citizenship in a secular Palestine.

The question at stake here is not whether extreme positions should be allowed to be heard but rather whether BDS or One State advocacy are extreme positions. Prof. Dershowitz opposes the BDS advocate on one extreme and the radical settler zealot on the other. But the settler’s opposite counterpart is not the advocate of BDS, nor even the advocate of one state for Palestinians and Israelis, but rather one who would deny Israeli Jews any place in Palestine—just as the opposite extreme from the white supremacist in South Africa was not those South African blacks who wished to replace the apartheid ethos with the belief that blacks and whites should have equal rights in a shared society. In the Israeli-Palestinan conflict, the “middle” is not the domain of the two-staters but rather of all those who see both sides as entitled to control over their own security, lives and liberty, whatever the political arrangement, one state or two. “Neither to rule, nor to be ruled” as the old socialist Zionist slogan went.

This is why it is important that discussions and debates over BDS go mainstream and are not marginalized by the self-appointed arbiters of the acceptable and the unacceptable. The boundaries of discussion on Israel/Palestine are changing, albeit slowly. The longer the Palestinian people are deprived of their rights, the harder it will be to justify the current boundaries of discourse. The New York Times correctly complains that “the sad truth is that there is more honest discussion about American-Israeli policy in Israel than in this country.” But the terms of reference for such a discussion should not be limited to what is acceptable discourse in Israel. The diverse voices of the Palestinian people and their supporters, not to mention the supporters of the civil rights of both Israelis and Palestinians, should be heard in this country—not just in alternative media but in the public sphere.

How Jews Should Relate to Palestine

Yesterday I was speaking with a young graduate student in Islamic studies, an orthodox Jew,  who told me that the question arose in one of his courses, "Where is Safed?" to which the professor replied, "In Palestine."

His story reminded me of the one told by the Palestinian-American, Ahmed Moor, who, when telling a fellow undergrad that he and his family  were from Palestine, met with the reaction,  "Palestine doesn't exist."

Well, Palestine, from the Mediterranean to the Jordan river, does exist and will continue to exist, even if the State of Israel is recognized by the entire world -- including the Palestinians themselves -- as a legitimate and sovereign state. And the first people to understand this should be the Jews. For Jews have called the same land that the Palestinians call "Palestine" Eretz Yisrael/the Land of Israel, even  when their communities in Palestine were tiny. For  homeland and political sovereignty are two distinct concepts.

For the Palestinians, the State of Israel will always be at best a political entity whose founding ideology was foreign to Palestine, whose founders conquered Palestine and expelled most its inhabitants, and who allowed the remaining inhabitants to remain as second-class citizens under a military government while their lands were taken away. Israeli Jews at best will be legitimated as Jews of Palestine. And there is historical precedent. Poland remained Poland for the Poles, despite disappearing after it was partitioned  by Austria, Prussia, and Russia. I am not referring merely to the Kingdom of Poland, I am referring to the homeland of the Poles, "the sacred landscape," to use Meron Benveniste's term.

People of good will on both sides recognize that their narrative is not shared by the other. But that does not mean that each should be compelled to give up their narrative. As an Israeli Jew, one sympathetic and supportive of the Palestinian cause, I recognize the continuing existence of Palestine, not on some truncated spots of the West Bank and Gaza, but on the entire land of Palestine. LIke Benveniste, I feel saddened by the Israelis who don't know what they have lost by attempting to wipe this Palestine off the map. Fortunately, that attempt is doomed to fail, as long as Palestine continues to be remembered.

From a purely visceral standpoint, it is sometimes difficult for me to hear references to Palestine, because I was raised to believe that anybody who talked about "Palestine" wanted to drive my people into the sea. That, of course, is rubbish. I don't thing it is wrong or not politicallly correct to talk about Eretz Yisrael, or to treat it as the promised land of the Jews. That has nothing to do with the regime that governs the Holy Land.

As a religious Jew, I believe that the Jew qua Jew has three homes: the state of which she is a citizen; the Jewish community of which she is a participant, and the land of Israel. Jews do not need political sovereignty in an exclusivist ethnic state in order to feel at home in that land. In fact, increasingly I am feeling less at home in the State of Israel, then in the United States.

But I do feel at home in my home in Jerusalem in Eretz Yisrael, and I would like to be welcomed by Palestinians as a Jews, and, yes, as an Israeli, living in Palestine. In fact, I would like both homelands to be shared homelands.

Recognizing the State of Israel, and recognizing the rights of Israeli citizens of that state, does not mean -- should not mean -- relinquishing the notion that the State of Israel occupies part of the historic homeland of the Palestinians. As an orthodox Jew I believe that the West Bank is part of Eretz Yisrael, as is southern Lebanon and parts of Syria and Jordan.But that means nothing with regard to the question of the best political regime(s) for Eretz Yisrael and Palestine.

As for the Zionists, despite all their efforts to wipe all traces of Palestine off the map, and to replace it with the State of Israel, they were successful only in getting rid of mandatory Palestine. Palestine as homeland remains as long as the Palestinians and others honor it in their collective memory.

And Now, the Projections.....

Update: As of 6 am, with 99% of the votes counted,  some of the numbers have changed.

Lapid is up to 19!

Labour is down to 15. And it is now officially one of the losers of this election. Shelly Yachimovich is one of the disappointments, if those numbers hold. Some people looked at her position on the Palestinians and voted Meretz.. Others on the moderate right, looking at the loonies in the Likud list, preferred Lapid to her.

Shas will sit with Netanyahu and Lapid. So will the United Torah list. Bennett may be outside the coalition. That's up to Lapid. A center right coalition will be a boon to Bibi on the international front. But Bibi won't be able to put his economic policies into place.

The "consistent left" is up to 18 seats. Ram Tal has 5 seats! Another winner.

Some thoughts about the winners and losers from the Israeli Knesset election projections.

Biggest Losers: Bibi Netanyahu and Avigdor Lieberman, hand's down. Bibi didn't need this election. And now he got hit in the face by the social protests of two summers ago and general dissatisfaction with the old guard. He saw the Likud shrink. And he is going to have a heckuva time putting together a coalition. What was he thinking when he dissolved parliament? What bubble does he live in? And is his advisor Arthur Finkelstein the new Karl Rove?

Biggest Winner: Yair Lapid, who is now projected to have the second largest party in the Knesset. He is anti-haredi, pro middle class, against the cartels and tycoons and the flavor of the month. Just as his father's party, Shinuy, was the first time Bibi was prime minister. 

Other winners include:

Shelly Yachimovich, who saw her Labor party go from 8 to 17. She may have lost a few seats to Meretz by pretending that the Palestinians are  not a pressing issue. But look at what she gained by jumping on the social-protest bandwagon.

The post-Oslo generation.  This was the election that threw a lot of old bums out and voted a lot of young bums, and not such bums, in.  That includes Naftali Bennett, and a lot of new faces. Even the older faces like Shelly Yachimovich (Labour) and Zehava Gal-On (Meretz) are not so old. 

The consistent left and the consistent right.

Other losers include:

The Palestinians: Don't believe the spin you will hear that the center-left did really well. The Palestinian issue was not on the ballot; the majority of the country voted on economic and social issues. Most of the  Israeli public could care less about peace and could care less about the Palestinians. And why should they? There is no terrorism, and they don't even see the Palestinians who are behind walls or living in Gaza.

The ultra-orthodox parties.  They didn't like Tommy Lapid. They sure aren't going to like his son, Yair.

Some Predictions and Recommendations for the Israeli Elections

[Update: After writing below about my blogger colleague Yossi Gurevitz's explanation why he will vote for Meretz and not  for Hadash, I see that he has basically endorsed voting for any party that is not Netanyahu from Labor to its left.  He does not mention the Arab parties Balad or Ram Tal, which he may think too sectorial, or not sufficiently socialist. Here is his post in Hebrew.]

In less than a day Israeli citizens residing in Israel will get to vote for the Knesset. I am an Israeli citizen who left Israel a few days ago for the US so it's tough luck on me. I remember the days when thousands of dead people in Brooklyn were resurrected by the ultra-orthodox to "vote" for their parties (well, that was the rumor, anyway. It probably happened in a handful of cases.)

If the polls are correct -- and they are notoriously inaccurate in Israel -- there will be three headlines the day after tomorrow.

1. The collapse of the "center-left" in Israel (in Israel the "center-left " is what elsewhere would be the center, the "center" is what elsewhere would be the moderate right; the "moderate right" is what elsewhere would be called the right; and the "right" is what would be far right. As for the Israeli "far right" I would call that the "fascist rightwing" (e.g., "The Jewish Home" of Nafatli Bennett) or the "Judaeo-Nazi"  (of settlers to his right, and, yes, there are those.)

2. The inevitability of the  super-right wing government. If the polls are correct, I can't envision Bibi making a coalition without Naftali Bennett's party, unless Shelly Yachimovich goes back on her promise and joins a government coalition. And Naftali Bennett makes Avigdor Lieberman look like a moderate rightwinger! So we will have the most rightwing government in the history of the State of Israel, following an extremely rightwing government before that. 

3. The rise in strength of the "consistent left". In the current government the genuine Left has 14 seats; the polls show that going up to 18 seats. I fear that the polls are a bit optimistic. Meretz is taking mostly from Labor and somewhat from Hadash. And, of course, the Arab turnout is a big question. Contrary to Jewish misconception, many Israeli Palestinians are not boycotting the elections because they are dissatisfied with their own parties (whom the Jews see as being overly nationalistic - hah!) but because they realize, quite rightly, that Israeli democracy is a sham. And yet, strengthening the "consistent left" (Haim Baram's felicitous phrase) won't hurt, and will at least help preserve the democratic crumbs that the Jews threw at them in 1948 and have been trying  to take away recently. 

So that will be the good news of the election. I don't just mean point 3., I also mean  points 1. and points 2. Don't get me wrong. I genuinely feel for my liberal Zionist friends who see their old "liberal" Israel being snatched away from them by nationalist Russians and converts to religious Zionism. I think they are self-deluded, but that doesn't make their pain, or my sympathy for them, any less.  The death of the two-state solution -- and, pace Assaf Sharon in this week's piece by David Remnick in the New Yorker, the notion that a genuine two-state solution remains possible in the actual world, is to use his term, "bullshit" -- will help hasten the pariah-status of the 1947 regime among moral people, although the regime itself could certainly hold on for at least a few generations. And here's another encouraging statistic: the number of Jews and Palestinians worldwide are roughly equivalent. And which group as a whole is becoming less nationalist, do you think?

Given the rise of the left in Israel -- and the death of the so-called "center-left" -- what party should a supporter of the "consistent left" vote for? My first answer is any of them -- the important thing is to vote for one of them, since they will all be in the opposition. 

My second answer is that I see no convincing reason to change my vote from Hadash to Meretz. I like Meretz, and I like Zahava Gal-on. But I don't see myself as a liberal Zionist, and Meretz is still a Zionistic party that supports a state that deludes itself and the world in thinking that it is both Jewish and democratic. So, yes, for ideological reasons I don't support Meretz, even though on a personal and parliamentary basis, the list is top-rate.

My blogger colleague Yossi Gurevitz has given several reasons why not to support Hadash. They are still a communist party; they voted overwhelmingly against reserving a seat for a woman in the top three; they talk to Jews and Arabs differently; they support. Assad. With all due respect to a blogger with whom I agree 90% of the time, these are not sufficient reasons to abandon a party whose ideology is Arab-Jewish partnership and social justice. The communist business is a "red" herring. They did not as a party support Assad. They rarely talk in two different voices to their constituencies, and most political parties tailor the message to the audience (ask Mitt Romney and Barack Obama about that). I would have liked more affirmative action in that party, but the answer is to join the party and try to influence it from within. (Full disclosure: I am actually a card-carrying member of Meretz. Long story....) 

My main reservation with Hadash is that it is officially -- and fundamentally -- two-statist. Oy! But since there is no possibility of the two-state solution in the actual world, I won't that stand in my way for support of them.

Balad and Ram Tal, are also worthy parties. I have always liked Dr. Ahmed Tibi ,who is infinitely more Israeli than most of my Anglo-American Israeli friends, and I admire Haneen Zoabi, who, while representing an Arab party with relatively few Jewish members, realizes the importance of forging coalitions with the Jewish left. Were I in Israel and were I to have more time to look at the parties platforms, records, and personalities, I could see myself voting for either of these parties.

So that's my recommendation. Vote for any of the consistent left. But go out and vote.

In a better world I would endorse voting for the truly integrated and progressive party, Da'am Workers Party. But at the moment that party doesn't look like it will make it, and that means throwing away your vote. And yes, I vote strategically, ever since I threw away my vote for Lova Eliav back in 1984 (?)

And, finally, I cannot endorse voting for Labour, despite the fact that some of the members of the list are excellent, and I wish them well.  Merav Michaeli and Stav Shaffir will get into the Knesset no matter if none of the "consistent left" votes for them. And I hope that none does -- simply because their votes are needed to make a more powerful statement elsewhere.

Shas Ad: A True Jew Won't Kiss a Russian Shikseh

Here's the gist of this election ad.  A wedding is taking place between two Israelis, one clearly Russian and one clearly of Mizarahi (a.k.a. Sephardi) extraction. It turns out that the Russian is waiting for her conversion to Judaism to come through on the fax machine. She reassures the bridegroom that she got her quickie conversion through Avigdor Lieberman's party, Israel Beiteinu The message of the ad is that if you don't vote for the religious Mizrahi party Shas, "shikses" like Marina will be marrying your children with these bogus conversions.

I learned of this ad from an article by Yair Ettinger in today's Haaretz, which noted the hatred of Russians and hypocrisy in the ad (Shas has itself been criticized for lax -- not fax -- conversion standards). But what the paper didn't note is the absurdity of religious conversion being taken up by political parties in the first place. Why should any state control religious conversion? Well, that's simple -- if the state is the nation-state of the Jewish people, and a sizable number of its population are religious fundamentalists, then those fundamentalists are going to insist that religious criteria determine who is a Jew for personal status issues If Shas had its way, it would determine citizenship also on that basis, but it lost that fight in court.

Shas and Israeli Beiteinu are two sides of the right-wing Zionist coin, and they are equally bigoted.
The problem is with the liberals, like Haaretz writer, Yair Ettinger, who concludes his article saying:

One good thing could come out of the controversy: perhaps the conversion crisis, which continues to deepen in the Netanyahu-Shas era, will finally make its way to the national agenda.

The conversion issue is only on the national agenda because the state interferes with religion. If some folks don't think that some rabbis' conversions are kosher, what business is that of the state? Let the religious communities decide who they accept and who they don't, and leave the state out of it.

Ah, but this is Israel, where religious affiliation makes you automatically into a returning citizen

The only country in the world, by the way. And that includes the Muslim world.

Why Chuck Hagel's Confirmation is a Slam-Dunk

Chuck Hagel is going to be the next Secretary of Defense, unless there are surprises or skeletons in his closet.  Already his "opposition" has defectors, such as Barney Frank, who initially expressed reservations. There will be grandstanding at the Senate confirmation hearings by Lindsay Graham and others -- folks have to play to their base -- but the real players will not challenge the president on this one. (I am betting Chuck Shumer will vote for him after his "concerns" have been allayed.)

Jeff Goldberg says what I have been thinking -- and that doesn't happen very often -- that AIPAC is not going to mount a significant opposition here. Not only do they know that this is a lost cause, but they also know that Hagel can be managed on Israel. For one thing, the mlitary-industrial complexes of Israel and the US are so tied together that even Jimmy Carter -- heck, even Ali Abunimah -- couldn't render them asunder. For another,  AIPAC's strength has always been in Congress and not in the cabinet or the administration.

Again, all this could change if AIPAC smells blood, but it is never in AIPAC's interest to lose a battle; that was the famous lesson they learned when they saw they would lose the AWACS battle under President Reagan. They will keep a low profile. If you don't fight, you can't lose.

That doesn't meant to say that AIPAC, like the NRA, won't go after those Republican supporters of Hagel when election time comes around. So I wouldn't rule out some caving for fear of the Israel Lobby's money.

Oh sure, the Republican tea-party types (thank God, it's not the House that confirms cabinet appointments) will make a lot of noise in the confirmation hearings, and the media is whipping up the enthusiasm before the big Senate fight for its ratings. But when Joe Scarbourough backs Hagel, you know that Obama has once again succeeded in pitting  Republican against Republican. I can't wait to see Charles Krauthammer grind his teeth over "The Return of the Real Obama" -- Part Two. After all, there are a heck of a lot of Republicans out there who want to send William Kristol to Alaska for good. And, frankly, there is no danger to Kristol, either. After all, he will never have problem raising money for his various think-tank projects. If there was ever a better example of the well-fed dog barking while the caravan moves on, I can't think of one

Whether President Obama has grown a spine, or some other part of his anatomy, he has hit his stride. Who knows? He may actually do something one day that Paul Krugman likes.

I write this from Jerusalem, where the news is unbelievably bad and gets worse daily.  Now religious"settlements" are being built not only on the West Bank but in Arab neighborhoods Lod/Lydda, Jaffa, and Acco/Acre. And the tactics used to expel Arabs from their homes are sickening. See the article in Haaretz today.

So at least I get a little naches from somebody like Chuck Hagel, who is willing to treat the Palestinians as human beings.

Why Obama Should Nominate Chuck Hagel for Secretary of Defense

The White House's trial balloon of former Republican senator Chuck Hagel  as Secretary of Defense has not yet burst, despite rocks thrown at it by the pro-Israel lobby, the anti-Iran lobby, and some members of the gay community. But there is no question that to date there have been fewer defenders than detractors. And now there is Michael Hirsh saying that the White House is "considering others for the job." (Weren't they considering others beforehand? Isn't that what a "leading candidate" means?) So given the likelihood of tough confirmation hearings, wouldn't it make political sense for Obama to drop this ball now?

Perhaps. But the president should go forward with the nomination.  Here's why:

Let's analyze the opposition. The usual gang of vocal neocons and "Israel-firsters" like the Emergency Committee for Israel, can be ignored. These are the people who did their best to defeat Obama and to plunge the US into foreign wars, convincing themselves that there is no daylight between Israel's interests and those of America in order to absolve themselves of dual-loyalties. Do you really think Barack Obama gives a  fig about folks like William Kristol and his ilk? 

True,  the group is doing its best to whip up senators against the nomination. But we are not talking about AIPAC getting Congress to pass one of its pro-Israel resolutions. We are talking about defeating a president's nomination for secretary of defense. Such a defeat is rare; it occurred only  once in the last fifty years when George H. W. Bush's nominee John G. Tower was rejected because of allegations about his private conduct and possible conflict of interest. Some cabinet nominees withdrew their candidacy in recent years, but because of possible legal infractions (employing illegal immigrants, etc.) 

Then we have the Democrat liberal hawks, and while they are not openly supporting Hagel, they aren't saying no either. Chuck Schumer, whose base is very pro-Israel (and some of it quite rightwing) says that he will have to study Hagel's record. Significantly, Jeffrey Goldberg gives Hagel a clean bill of goods on the Israel question. Unfortunately, Goldberg has to strut his pro-Israel creds by taking a false and libelous shot against Stephen Walt, but the bottom line is that he supports Hagel's tough stand on the settlements. 

If the nomination goes through, then Hagel could be facing tough confirmation hearings. I don't think Obama would lose this one,  but even if he did, the confirmation hearings would bring to the center some of the major concerns of the Obama administration -- the criticism of the settlements while at the same backing a democratic Israel, the disinclination to act unilaterally in the Mideast, the desire to eliminate waste at the Pentagon. Win or lose, this would be a powerful teaching moment for the rest of the country. And it could help revitalize the grand tradition of Republican realism that was sidelined when the neocons took over the party and got us into mess after mess.

Still, if past performance is any indication of future results, the administration may pop its own balloon. I am not just referring to the Susan Rice affair. I heard Jim Jones speak at the first J Street Convention a few years ago, as as a representative from a cautious administration. The next year there was no representative.  True, the president doesn't have to get reelected now. But "no-drama-Obama" doesn't like this sort of fight. 

Which would be a pity. Chuck Hagel may be Israel's last chance for survival as a Jewish democracy. That's why liberal hawks like Goldberg are partial to him.  Given my positions, I should be supporting a secretary of state that assists Israel in going over the cliff (like Hillary). 

But this is one cliff I prefer avoiding.

Some Arguments for the Illegitimacy of Anti-Communism (c. 1950)

For Phil Weiss

1. Communism represents the will of the Soviet peoples, and ipso facto it must be respected.

2. The morality of communism could be debated before the October Revolution, but once the Soviet Union has been established, and the people have made their choice, the subject is closed.

3. The singling out of the communism of the Soviet regime for criticism, especially on the part of dissident Russians and those peoples most affected by the regime's actions, can only be explained as indicative of prejudice and bigotry towards the Soviet people.

4. Those who argue for regime change in the case of the Soviet Union, but not in more tyrannical regimes, are deeply anti-Soviet.

5. To question the legitimacy of the communist regime in the Soviet Union is tantamount to wishing the destruction of millions of Soviet citizens -- although the anti-communists may not say so explicitly.

And a P.S. from a reader

6.  The suffering of the Soviet people in the Great Patriotic War entitles them to have great concern about the anti-communist delegitimizers.

Boycott the Occupation, Not the Settlers

Readers, this post appeared today on Open Zion here.

Samuel Lebens cites some familiar arguments against boycotting Israel in general, and boycotting settlers in particular: Boycotts against Israel won’t bring about positive change, he says, but will only harden positions; constructive engagement has a better chance of winning hearts and minds; effective economic boycotts may actually constitute collective punishment; it is wrong to boycott settles who are two-staters, etc.

I would like to make five points about these arguments.

First, their empirical basis is thin. Do boycotts harden existing positions? Are they  counterproductive? Do they harm progressive elements in oppressive societies? One would expect Leben to adduce evidence from other cases of state sanctions. This he does not do, substituting for data his own take on the Israeli situation. He does not respond to familiar arguments in support of boycotting Israel, as,  for example, the argument that boycotts have a better chance of influencing policy in Israel than, say, in Iran, precisely because Israelis care deeply about their image as a Western style democracy, and the Israeli electorate can and occasionally does influence policy. In Israel even the most trivial artistic boycott is front page news and is used by progressive elements to make their case in the public sphere.

Second, his arguments seem to be directed against boycotts and sanctions in general. After all, it is hard to find a society that doesn’t have some decent people.  Would he have opposed sanctions against Germany in the 1930s on the grounds that such sanctions would be counterproductive -- that they would harden German attitudes, harm progressives, and constitute collective punishment of the German people? If he believes that boycotts are justifiable in some cases, he has to convince us why they are not justifiable in the specific case of Israel. And given his own position as a settler, his arguments cannot appear to be self-serving.

In fact, Lebens allows that some cases of collective punishment may be justified in order to avert a greater catastrophe (“World War III,” in the case of sanctions against Iran). He implies that the suffering of Palestinians under a long and often brutal occupation does not justify collective punishment of the Israelis, or of the settlers, despite the fact that most countries and legal authorities consider the settlements to be  illegal and recognize Palestinian suffering. One comes away with the impression that Lebens is more concerned with the potential suffering of the settlers than with the actual suffering of the Palestinian natives caused by the presence of the settlements That’s his right, but some arguments are needed.

Third, his arguments are what philosophers call “consequentialist,” i.e., they focus on evaluating the morality of acts in light of their consequences. But some acts may be required, or at least commendable, regardless of their results. Boycotts and sanctions can be merely symbolic, and in the case of Israel, they generally have been. The message underlying the call of the global Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, endorsed by elements of Palestinian civil society, is that Israel cannot be considered a decent society as long as it discriminates against Palestinians and deny them civil rights. The boycotters wish to deny Israel a place in the company of decent nations until civil equality for the Palestinian people is achieved, and even if they fail in their endeavor, indeed, even if they make things worse in the short term for the Palestinians living on the West Bank and in Gaza, many see this as a required moral stance regardless of the consequences. None of Lebens’ consequentialist arguments pertain to non-consequentialist arguments in support of boycotts.

Fourth, Lebens’ claim that the boycotters are “underpinned by an almost unconscious anti-Semitism” because they rarely boycott any other country involves a leap of logic that I have examined elsewhere. The boycotters may have good reasons for singling out Israel for moral opprobrium – especially if they are Palestinian, who are directly affected by Israeli actions, or their supporters. There is no need for them to be concerned for all, or even more egregious, cases of injustice After all, isn’t Lebens principally concerned with what affects him as an Israeli settler?

And this brings me to my fifth point. Lebens seems to think that the settler boycott is wrong inter alia because it affects settlers like him who are decent two-staters and not “racist colonialists.” This is a familiar argument against boycotts and sanctions in general, and indeed, the argument was used by those who opposed sanctions in South Africa, which caused economic hardship not only to anti-apartheid whites but also to many blacks. Yet the reply to this is also well-known: The boycott is not directed against settlers as individuals, but against an oppressive Israeli occupation. Boycotts and sanctions, like workers’ strikes, make all sorts of people suffer. But that suffering may be justifiable in certain circumstances, and, in the long run, may actually benefit both Israelis and Palestinians, including settlers.

A final comment on boycott and engagement: the one need not exclude the other. People are complex, and winning people’s hearts and minds requires various strategies. I endorse the global BDS initiative as an act of solidarity with the Palestinian people, although I personally purchase items from Israel (when I live there, it’s hard not to) and generally oppose academic boycotts. How and when to implement a BDS strategy – where should there be boycotts, which companies should be divested from – are tactical issues that need to be discussed and weighed in light of competing principles. Unlike Israel, Palestinians have very few means by which they can advance their cause. If the goal is to win concessions from a hard-line Israeli government, boycotts may be a less effective tactic than firing rockets or waging an intifada. But it is a nonviolent one. 

And the Winner Is...Justice Richard Goldstone

There is now a cease-fire between Hamas and Israel, thank God. The senseless military operation initiated by a blundering Israeli overreaction, and resulting in death, destruction, and fear in civilian populations, was only the latest in a series of such operations. And an examination of the cease-fire "understandings," virtually identical with those after Cast Lead, shows that Israel's over-arching strategy in assassinating Chief of Staff  Jabari.was of the "We've-got-to-DO-something" variety. It is unlikely that the cease-fire will hold, but it is sufficient to worry later about future troubles, as the saying goes.

Who won? Ask the Israelis, most of whom opposed the cease-fire, and they will tell you that the other side won. Ask the Gazans, and they will tell you that their side won.  My view is that the real winner was Justice Richard Goldstone, whose report changed the way Israel waged war against the Gazans.

How did Pillar of Cloud differ from Cast Lead? Less indiscriminate shelling; no press blackout; the leaflets to the Gazans telling them to leave their homes about to be destroyed gave routes to the nearest shelter. Of course, this was cold comfort, seeing as the nearest shelter was already overcrowded. In fact, CNN allowed us to see one family moving from school shelter to school shelter until they get could find a classroom for their clan. No white phosphorous, either.Without the Goldstone Report, the civilian casualties and the destruction of property "for the sake of deterrence" would have been higher.

This is not to say that war crimes were not committed by both sides, and I hope that the human rights agencies will investigate these  and issue their reports.

Judge Richard Goldstone was vilified, first by the Israelis and their supporters, and then by the supporters of the Palestinians, who misread his so-called "retraction". No person is above criticism, of course, and reasonable people often disagree. But Judge Goldstone, and those who worked with him, and above all, the Israeli human rights organizations that provided him with data, both directly or indirectly, and who were also vilified by the Israeli government, should take satisfaction in the numbers of lives they saved.

Israel's Turkey Shoot and Hamas' Weapons of Minimal Destruction

There is no "war" in Gaza. There is a military operation by one of the most advanced militaries in the world against a cadre of militants that can't shoot straight because their weapons are relatively primitive and cannot be aimed well.

So much for offense. As for defense, one side has the most advanced shield in the world; the other has...well, no defense at all.

For illustrating the disparity, here is a convenient article and graphic.

So let's talk about civilian suffering.  For tribalistic reasons, the Jewish community in the US has been bombarded  with pictures of Israelis sitting in shelters and safe rooms. We are being told that hundreds and thousands of rockets have been fired into Israel, and that Israelis are being held hostage to Muslim terrorists.

I don't want to minimize the trauma that the Israelis have suffered. On the contrary, I know it is huge, and I fear for the long-term effects. But because I understand how much Israelis who are in harm's way are suffering, I also understand how that suffering, as great as it is, pales in comparison to the suffering of the Gazans. And yes, making discriminations in the amount and depth of suffering does matter.

Name your critirion: Fatality statistics? Death and injury of civilians? Destruction of property? Fear and trauma? Deafening explosives? Feelings of utter helplessness? Of being utterly exposed? On every possible metric, the Gazans suffer more than the Israelis. And after there is another cease fire, and things get back to "normal," the Gazans suffering because of the blockade and the restrictions in movement, not to mention the occupation, will continue


Israelis get this. Ask anybody in Sderot where they would prefer to be now -- Sderot or Gaza City -- and they will look at you as if you are crazy.

On NPR this morning there was a report of Israeli wedding guests who, when they heard the air raid siren, skipped the shelters and went outside to watch the Iron Dome intercept its missiles.Picture that in Gaza.

IDF rockets and missiles have killed more innocent civilians in the last three days than all the Hamas rockets combined in the last eight years!

When you say this to Israelis, they get very huffy. Some will say that it is sheer luck that rockets don't killl hundreds or thousands. But that's an uneducated argument. In fact, they don't kill that many, and Hamas soldeirs knows they won't kill that many. They know that they are just shooting off steam and hoping to beat the house odds that are stacked against them. . In the First Intifada, the Palestinians threw thousands of rocks against the IDF soldiers, and Menachem Begin justified the use of lethal force against them saying, "A rock can kill." But rocks usually don't kill, and we now have abundant evidence that Hamas rockets rarely do the same. That cannot be said for IDF bombardments.

I realize that statistics don't mean anything to most people; if they did, people wouldn't waste their money on lottery tickets. It is indeed scary to hear a rocket exploding, even if explosion was in an open area.

But how much more scary would it be if the rocket were launched by the most technologically sophisticated weaponry in the world? Who would you rather fight? David or Goliath?

Bombs fired discriminately that kill  large number of civilians are worse than rockets fired indiscriminately that have little chance of hitting anybody.

I suppose Hamas is learning this from the Israelis. When a missile was fired towards Jerusalem on Friday, the Hamas leadership said that they were aiming for the Knesset, which according to Israeli military ethics, is a legitimate target.

Instead, the missle landed miles away on the West Bank. Had it killed civilians, Hamas could have done what Israel does in such circumstances.

Express regret and set up an investigation.
 

How Two Jewish (and One Stoic) Ideas Helped Me Get Through Yesterday's Sermon in Synagogue

Before I left for synagogue in DC yesterday I resolved that I would not sit through a sermon that painted the Israelis as the innocent victims of murderous Hamas thugs. I expected that additional Psalms would be said for those in Israel, and I would say them with more kavvanah/intention than usual. (Some of my children and grandchildren have been in those shelters recently.) But I would try to insist that civilians on both sides be included in the Psalms.

As it turned out, I would have gladly sat in my safe room in my apartment in Jerusalem -- or in a shelter in Sderot -- than have sat through the sermon I heard. The rabbi, who is a  moderate, learned, and decent man, and often quite liberal and tolerant towards other religions,  began by commenting on the intractable conflict between Israelis and Palestinians. He then tied that to the weekly portion, which refers to the enmity between Jacob and Esau, already in the womb of Rebecca. Of course, he conceded that Esau was later interpreted by the rabbis not as Muslims but as Christians, and he also said that the prototypical Muslim was Ishmael and not Esau. But what can you do...today's Torah portion was about Esau and Jacob and any typological enemy will do in the current storm.

As the sermon went on, its message became clearer: There is no hope of peace with Muslims, because their values are simply different from those of us Jews. They believe that heaven is acquired through fighting and dying. They use firepower indiscriminately. They target civilians. We Jews live in a bad neighborhood, getting worse by the growth of fundamentalism (this from an orthodox rabbi, who had just used the Bible as a source for historical inevitability!) He ended with the hopeful comment that, as a rabbi, he has witnessed more and more Muslims converting to Judaism.

As he started talking about Islam,  I felt that I could take it no longer. My blood boiling, I weighed the option of walking out. Since I sit in the front row of a relatively small room,  my protest would have been noticed by everybody, including the rabbi. I knew that this would cause a stir, and, who knows, maybe some good would come out of it. It would have been disrespectful to the rabbi, but our sages teach that "where this is desecration of God's name, one doesn't accord respect to rabbis." Or so I reasoned, in my anger.

But then I remembered two important teachings of our sages:

"Who is a hero? One who masters his passions." It's a passage I had learned with my students only the day before, and it smacks of Stoic influence.  Maimonides writes that one should avoid anger, even when anger is appropriate. All right, I realize that some psychologists may disagree. But walking out in a huff is not a way to influence people. And disrespecting the mara de-asra, the local rabbinical authority, especially one whom I respect on many other matters, and who is a friend and colleague, because of a disagreement, is wrong. At any rate, it's not me. 

And I also thought, what right do I have to cause anybody discomfort, especially since

All us Israel-supporters, even rabbis, are tinokot she-nishbu "children who have been raised among the Idolators" (tinokot she-nishbu). This rabbinic  phrase has come to mean somebody who have been raised in ignorance of the truth. How can I blame any of my fellow-Jews for their ignorance, since they have been indoctrinated since birth with Zionist myths and Israeli narratives. The mainstream media in this country is hopeless "captured" by the Israeli hasbara machine, whether liberal Zionist (NY Times, Washington Post) or chauvinist Zionism (Fox News, the Murdoch papers). Unless you read Haaretz, which now charges a hefty subscription free, you are entirely clueless as to what is going on, and Haaretz, God bless it, also reflects an Israeli perspective. 

After the services I talked with people who were not happy with the Gaza situation, who were not knee-jerk supporters of the Netanyahu government, but who, out of ignorance, spouted the same hasbara slogans that the Israeli spin machine puts out so well, and now on Twitter and Facebook. They receive links from the Jerusalem Post and Fox News? Can I blame them for their ignorance?

The problem is not Hamas violence or Israeli violence; these are only symptoms of a much deeper mindset, or mentalite, which cannot be erased easily, if at all. Talking with my fellow Jews I felt as if I were  talking with some doctrinaire Marxists, or evangelical Christians (or Muslims, Jews, or "Dawkinsians"), whose entire worldviews were the servant of some ideology.

As is my own, I suppose, only in my case the ideology is the American liberalism with which I was raised.

To be fair, my fellow-congregants have also been raised with a lot of that American liberalism. When one said to me, "Don't you think Israel has the right to defend itself against rocket attacks." I said, "Not only a right, but an obligation." But when I countered,  "Don't Palestinians have the right to defend themselves from Israeli attacks, including cross-border incursions and naval blockades?" I was met with a blank stare. If this had been Israel, my interlocutor would have said, "No, they don't." But for an American Jewish liberal, what I had said had completely thrown him off, at least for a few seconds.

It doesn't occur to most American Jews I know, or for that matter, most people I know, that the Palestinians are the primary victims of the Zionist movement, that they were dispossessed by superior force,  and that they are struggling for decades to enjoy the same life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness, in their land that the Israelis have enjoyed.  Whether they are second-class citizens, or under occupation,  or in the Palestinian diaspora,  they refuse to admit total defeat, and they will never relinquish their claims. They are among the longest suffering peoples since World War I, and their suffering is compounded because some of those who supplanted them suffered terribly during World War II.

A few of the  lessons I take away from yesterday's portion, which focuses on Genesis 27.

Spin and Deception work in the short term. 

(See under Jacob.)

But the truth will out eventually, even for the Israeli hasbara machine

"The voice is the voice of Jacob but the hands are the hands of Esau"

And Israel is willing for the sake of Zionism to fulfill the Biblical prophecy of Esau

"Then Isaac his father answered and said to him,
From the fertility of the earth shall be your dwelling
From the dew of heaven from above
By your sword you shall live."

Only in current Hebrew, this living-by-the-sword is called "conflict management."

Follow-Up Questions You are Not Likely to Hear on American TV

UPDATE: For the "Nate Silver wonks" among my readers the following piece by  Phan Nguyen dissecting the IDF rocket numbers spin that is bombarding the social media is a must-read.

And Robert Wright and Emily Hauser make the important point that it is pretty hard to determine who started the current round of hostilities. It all depends on the day you pick. What can be said is that only one people has had control over the other people's life, liberty and the pursuit of happiness for years.

While MSNBC, the so-called "progressive network," continues to shill for Obama's reelection and avoids the Gaza crisis like the plague, other networks have stepped up to the plate to shill  for Israel -- or at least against Hamas.

Israeli officials and spokespeople line for interviews with the networks, but have you seen Hamas government officials (those who don't live in constant fear of assassinations), or even officials in Gaza being interviewed? At best you have a Washington-based PA official, usually a Fatah aparatchik, who is not unhappy to see Hamas weakened.

Heck, I saw the neoconservative Fouad Ajami, a close family friend of the Netanyahus, who blurbed Benzion Netanyahus book on the Spanish Inquisition (!) being interviewed as an expert on Israel/Palestine!

We have been treated to a parade of statistics for rocket firings provide the IDF spokesperson, never  followed by any statistics of Israeli firepower against the Gazans.

In short, the "narrative" is entirely left to the Israelis and their surrogates. Since the networks and cable news are incapable of coming up with with good follow-up questions, here's my holiday gift to them:

1. "Israel has the right to defend itself militarily against rocket attacks."

Do the Gazans have the same right to defend themselves militarily against shells, missiles, and bombs?

2. "If the Hamas stops shooting rockets, Israel will call off its operation."

Why did Israel on November 8 initiate hostilities after a two week break where there were little to no rocket firing, and none from Hamas?

3. "Hamas does not recognize Israel's right to exist."

Does Hamas have the right to conduct hostilities against Israel, which doesn't recognize Hamas's legitimacy?

4. "Israel does not negotiate with terrorists."

Why did Israel negotiate with General Jabari over the Shalit exchange?

5. General Jabari has blood on his hands.

Doesn't Ehud Barak have a lot more blood on his hands?

6. How can you compare? Jabari was reponsible for rocket firing.

But wasn't it reported in Haaretz that Jabari was the "subcontractor" for Israel who prevented rocket-firing in Israel, and who had agreed to a long-term cease fire brokered by Egypt -- right before he was assassinated by Israel?

7. There is no moral comparison between Hamas's indiscriminate firing of rockets and Israel's targeted firing of military installations.

If your little sister were killed "unintentionally" by a bomb fired in a civilian area, would you feel less upset because she was only "collateral damage" of a campaign designed to establish deterrence?

8. If a Hamas civilian is killed, that's because terrorists cynically position themselves among civilians.

Where is the IDF's headquarters located?

9. There's still no comparison -- Hamas fires hundreds of rockets, whereas we pinpoint our targets.

If your chief of staff were assassinated, and the only weapons you had were rockets, would you refrain from using them?

10. We withdrew from Gaza, and they answered with rocket fire....

How many years have gone by since Operation Cast Lead, and how have you eased conditions on the Gazans since then?

11. Israel will do everything it can to protect itself.

Especially after Netanyahu lost one election, and can pick up a few seats with the new one -- and Ehud Barak can keep his career and his ego intact.

Another Shabbat without Shalom

And That's Why Israel Doesn't Want A Cease-Fire

One response to my post below was that I gave the Israeli government way too much credit for having a strategy in the current wave of hostilities. It makes more sense that  they bungled into it the way they bungle into so many things, by over-reacting poorly to events with disproportionate force. 

Call me dewy-eyed, but I like to think that the Israeli government does have a strategy, or at least  a mindset that accounts for its actions. In this case there is at least circumstantial evidence that its plan was to provoke hostilities so that it could a) decrease the chance of a lasting cease-fire and b) strengthen extremists within the Gaza strip and thereby weaken the moderates in Hamas, whose stock has been steadily rising since the Egyptian elections and the victory of the Muslim Brotherhood. 

Or it could be just bungling.....

For people with short memories, that is to say, for those who can't remember what Israel did to provoke the rocket fire that served as the pretext for the current operation, there is a very good time line here  It shows that Israel initiated  the current spate of violence on Nov. 4, two days following the US election, and shattering a two-week lull in violence. Most significant was the attempt of Egypt to broker a cease-fire, which the various factions in Gaza accepted, and a key player of which was Ahmad Jabari, the chief of Hamas's military wing. For an account of Jabari's role in negotiations for long-term cease-fire negotiations since the Shalit release, read Gershon Baskin's insider account in today's Open Zion as well as in Haaretz.  Jabari's assassination was a twofer for Israel -- they got rid of a moderate who was trying to produce a long term cease-fire, and they provoked  Hamas into launching massive rocket attacks.  The death of the family in Kiryat Malachi was the collateral damage of Israel's  misguided policy. The last thing they want is the security offered by a long-term cease-fire with Hamas.

Even if we allow for a little bungling, I still maintain that the assassination of Hamas leaders, as well as the deaths of Palestinian and Israeli citizens, serve the interests of the Netanyahu government, the chauvinistic center in Israel, and all their supporters. I can't see this as a cynical election ploy; for one thing, there is no evidence; for another, if the number of Israeli casualties rise, it could hurt Netanyahu. It is more likely that this was an attempt to do the "house-cleaning" I wrote about below.

As always, the ray of hope lies in Palestinian resistance to aggression, and in the "coalition of the sane" who recognize stupidity, cruelty, and inhumanity when they see it.

If you want to belong to that coalition, subscribe to Haaretz and read Jewish Voice for Peace's eloquent statement on here -- and sign up for their protest activities.  JPV shows  even in a period of spiritual darkness, Jews raise their voices  against the apostates of violence, chauvinism and dehumanization. 

 

Israel's Post-Election War

I don't know whether Nate Silver gives odds on wars, but the odds of Israel escalating its aggression against Gaza were higher than the odds Silver gave for Obama winning the last election -- I mean the odds on election day.

It has been clear for over a year that  Israel would wait until after the American elections to launch some act of military aggression, and it was clear, to me, at least, that it would not be directed against Iran, Syria, or Lebanon. It seems likely that Israel had decided to conduct an operation in Gaza  before the first rocket was fired from Gaza.

All military actions, indeed, all actions having to do with Gaza, have one goal in mind: the subjugation of the Palestinian people there with minimum cost to  Israel. In hasbara speak this is called  "protecting Israelis," "defeating terror," "defending national security," even "protecting national honor," but it boils down to the same thing -- Israel cannot be secure if the Palestinians have real independence. That is why Israelis are divided into those who want to subjugate Palestinians by giving them no self-determination and those who want to subjugate them by giving them quasi self-determination in a quasi-state.  

I spoke with an expert on the Israeli military shortly after "Operation Cast Lead," and when I told him that many argued that the operation was a reaction to Hamas rocket-fire, he laughed. He said that Hamas rocket-fire was deliberately provoked when Israel broke the cease-fire so that Israel could do a little "spring cleaning," deplete Hamas's arsenal of weapons. He told me that this happens every few years, and that I should expect it to happen in another few years. Israel will assassinate a Hamas leader, Hamas will have to respond (wouldn't Israel, under those circumstances?) and Israel will perform a "clean up" operation. If Hamas is smart and doesn't play into Israel's hands, then Israel will also come out ahead, because it will be weakened in the eyes of the Palestinian public. It's win-win for Israel. That's what having control means.

Since 1967, Israel has occupied Gaza. Since the disengagement -- or more accurately, the "redeployment" -- Israel has effectively controlled Gaza. It has allowed Hamas to wax and wane, at its pleasure, and when it thinks the timing is ripe, it strikes against Hamas. 

The only thing that will restrain Israel is world-wide, and especially US and European, condemnation. As always, the only way to advance the cause of peace and justice in this region is through holding Israel to the standards of a decent state, not the rogue state it has long become.

Note to readers: I'm back in the saddle again.

Loving Fellow Jews, Loving Fellow Humans, Loving "Folks Like Us"

I suppose I should be pleased that Rabbi Jeremy Rosen, whose blog I occasionally read with pleasure, contrasted favorably the Magnes Zionist's posts with Avraham Burg's recent op-ed in the New York Times. Burg was indirectly admonished by the rabbi for criticizing Israel harshly to an external audience, whereas he singled out the  Magnes Zionist for his harsh criticisms of Israel to an internal audience. Since the subject of Rabbi Rosen's blog was "Ahavat Yisrael," love of one's fellow Jews, one can reasonably infer  that he thought that Mr. Burg was more deficient in that trait than is Jeremiah Haber.

I certainly hope that wasn't his point!

For one thing I write a blog that, while having a tiny fraction of the circulation of the New York Times, is addressed to anybody who can read it, and I have a lot of readers who are gentiles. True, I have a tendency to talk insider language, but that is just because blogs are "unbuttoned" affairs, with scads of spelling mistakes and punctuation errors.  I do want to address Jews, of course, but not just. At times I am very happy to be seen in other company.

For example, I just published an essay in an anthology called, After Zionism, ed. by Antony Loewenstein and Ahmed Moor. Among the other contributors were Ilan Pappe, Sara Roy, Diana Bhuttu, Jeff Halper, Joseph Dana, Ahmed Moor, John Mearsheimer, Phil Weiss. The audience of this book is not mainly a Jewish one, and I would not be surprised if those individuals  fail to make most people's Ahavat Yisrael list. (Some of them WILL make mine.)  I wrote in my essay that not all forms of Zionism are treif (there I go again), and that there is a place for a certain kind of Zionism in a transformed Israel/Palestine.  My essay sticks out like a sore thumb in this company, but the editors accepted it because they felt that this book is about trying to envision a more just Israel/Palestine than is the horrible state of affairs today.  

As for Mr. Burg -- well, I assume that he wished to publish his piece in the New York Times because he wanted to reach Americans (including more American Jews than all the readers of all the Jewish media outlets combined)  who consider themselves liberal and supporters of Israel. He has been carrying on a debate with Rabbi Daniel Gordis about Jewish fundamentalism on the pages of the Economist, even though the both of them work withing a five-minute walk of each other. Is this bad? To some it may suggest a lack of ahavat Yisrael to wage the wars of the Lord in the goyyische press.  I don't see it that way. I see Burg's writings as a kiddush ha-Shem, a sanctification of God's name. 

Re ahavat Yisrael, I once wrote:

When people ask me whether I am pro-Israel, I unhesitatingly and unabashedly say yes. I am for Israel, which is the classical name for the Jewish people, I believe in and practice, to the best of my limited capacities, the love of the Jewish people, ahavat Yisrael. But what does that phrase mean? Hannah Arendt pleaded guilty to Gershom Scholem’s charge that she lacked ahavat Yisrael, stating that she loves people, not “the people”, not an abstraction. But even if “Israel” is not taken to represent an abstract collective but rather each and every individual Jew, it is arguably impossible, not to mention undesirable, to love people you have never met, or worse, whose ideology or character revolts you, simply because you are a member of their tribe. (Do you love everybody in your family?)

And yet, for me, ahavat Yisrael means to accord members of the Jewish people a special place in my heart, because I view them as extended family. And that is why as a member of the family I feel worse when some of family act atrociously. 

The basis for the commandment of ahavat Yisrael is the rabbinic interpretation of the Biblical commandment, "You shall love your neighbor as yourself." The philosopher of education Akiva Ernst Simon wrote an essay in which he showed (much to his dismay) that the rabbis interpreted "neighbor" not as one's fellow human being, but rather as one's fellow Jew. That much is clear; there is love for one's fellow Jew and respect for God's creatures. Still, one does hear the phrase nowadays, "ahavat ha-adam," love of human beings, if not as much in traditional rabbinic Judaism, than at least in the Judaism I admire and cherish.

But I propose here another reading of the verse, "You shalt love your neighbor as yoursefl" -- you shall love the neighbor who is like yourself, that is to say, you should love like-minded individuals, or what we Yanks call, "folks like us."

In my case, "the folks like us" are composed of what my mother-in-law, of blessed memory, would call kol ha-minim, 'all kinds': Jews, Christians, Muslims, lefties, righties. I will stand shoulder to shoulder with all of them provided that we share the same values. As the song goes, "We are family." True, the family may not be a traditional one, but it is family nonetheless. And if this non-traditional family can help members of my traditional family do the right thing...well, that's fine.

Of course it is also nice when members of your family are also "folks like us" -- in this case, folks like Rabbi Jeremy Rosen and Avraham Burg.