Wednesday, October 26, 2011
Christian Leaders Support Palestinian UN Statehood Bid
Dear Friend,
Christian leaders say yes to Palestine U.N. membership. Read in full.
With the deal for prisoner exchange with HAMAS, Israel has suceeded in perpetuating and strenghtening the division and rivalry between Palestinian factions, which is always to the advantage of the Israelis, who can argue no one voice really speaks for the Palestinians. Efforts now to prop up Pres. Abbas (FATAH) will also fortify the division. The youth of Palestine keep arguing for new elections and unity of voice among all Palestinians, a movement much to be desired. JRK
International law, basic fairness at stake, say four denominational leaders
October 25, 2011
Presbyterian News Service
Louisville
Leaders of four denominations have issued a statement backing the Palestinian Authority’s bid for membership in the United Nations.
U.N. membership for the Palestinians is deserved, the four leaders say, “not only on the basis of international law and basic fairness … but to preserve a multi-religious holy land that includes Christian Palestinians.
The full text of the statement, given to Presbyterian News Service on Oct. 24:
The Palestinians deserve membership in the United Nations — not only on the basis of international law and basic fairness — but to help preserve a multi-religious holy land that includes Christian Palestinians. We write as elected leaders of Protestant denominations with mission histories in the Middle East, a deep commitment to our sisters and brothers in Christ in the region, and a concern for the security of Israelis and Palestinians. We serve a God who calls us to seek justice. We look forward to the day when, by God’s grace, swords are beaten into plowshares. We stand united in prayer for peace and reconciliation among Jews, Christians, and Muslims. We write aware that an Obama Administration veto of Palestinian membership in the United Nations would put further pressure on Palestinian Christians and Christian minorities elsewhere in the Middle East.
We understand the view expressed by United States and Israeli representatives that international recognition by the UN is no substitute for two-party, two-state negotiations. But the reverse is also true, given the prolonged and undeniable failure of the negotiations between parties of vastly different power. Membership for Palestine does not preclude either the need for or the possibility of negotiations. Outstanding issues including an end to the occupation, final borders, the status of Jerusalem, settlements, and the right of return would remain to be resolved through negotiation. We believe that UN membership for Palestine would increase the likelihood of fair and transparent negotiations on these issues, as those negotiations would then take place between two members of the United Nations.
Moves in Congress to cut development aid to the Palestinian Authority to punish it for seeking UN membership seem unwise and counter-productive. Funds to strengthen security, education, and healthcare programs for ordinary Palestinians should not become pawns in the politics of a UN confrontation. In fact, cuts in aid from the U.S., the largest single-state donor to the Palestinians, would erode the quality-of-life improvements that have been achieved in the West Bank. Moreover, these cuts would be detrimental to the security of Israelis and Palestinians alike, not to mention U.S. interests in the region.
We are committed to the right of both Israelis and Palestinians to live in peace and security with their neighbors, within internationally recognized borders as described by UN resolutions that envision two viable states. We believe UN membership for Palestine would be a step in that direction.
No church leader wants controversy, yet we share a Bible that includes the critical and self-critical voices of the prophets. We invite those who disagree with us to visit Palestine and Israel, to go through the walls surrounding Bethlehem and Gaza, to understand the economic chokehold of the occupation.
We urge the Obama Administration not to use the veto for a 42nd time when the Security Council considers the recommendation for membership for Palestine, but to abstain—for the sake of a better future for the entire holy land.
Geoffrey A. Black
General Minister and President
United Church of Christ
Gradye Parsons
Stated Clerk of the General Assembly
Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
Sharon E. Watkins
General Minister and President
Christian Church (Disciples of Christ)
Jim Winkler
General Secretary
United Methodist General Board of Church & Society
http://www.pcusa.org/news/2011/10/25/christian-leaders-say-yes-palestine-un-membership/
Tuesday, October 18, 2011
On Understanding Experimental Israel
Dear Friend,
Welcome to this FPI group: "Friends of Palestinians and Israelis" (link below for archive).
Since meeting wonderful new friends at the Israel/Palestine Mission Network (of the Pres. Church USA) last week, several have asked to "join".
I'm enclosing an important piece from long time Israeli dissident Uri Avnery, who reflects on the meaning of the "Israeli experiment".
Significant quote: "You can take the Jews out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Jews".
Read on. Thanks to the ATFP (The American Task Force on Palestine, whose researcher, Hussein Ibish, was a guest on the Jim Lehrer program this evening).
Will there be a "shock"? A tipping point? A critical mass leading to "change"?
Having concluded a deal with HAMAS, is it possible to do even more deal making? Through Eygpt? Turkey? Russia? France? (the US is bankrupt as neutral broker. We are not neutral. Nor are we willing to use the clout we are capable of expending because of the political cost. JRK
Israel needs a shock: Positive or negative
Uri Avnery
Arab News (Opinion)
October 16, 2011 - 12:00am
http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article519177.ece
On Yom Kippur eve last week, when real Jews were praying for their lives, I sat on the seashore of Tel Aviv, thinking about the State of Israel. Will it endure? Will it be here in another 100 years? Or is it a passing episode, a historic fluke?
The Zionist Revolution — and that's what it was — started more than a hundred years after the French one. Once, in a more cheerful mood, I told my friends: “Perhaps we are all wrong. Perhaps Israel is not really the final shape of the Zionist enterprise. Like the planners of every great project, the Zionists decided first to build a 'pilot', a prototype, in order to test their scheme. Actually, we Israelis are only guinea pigs. Sooner or later another Theodor Herzl will come by and, after analyzing the faults and mistakes of this experiment, will draw up the blueprint of the real state, which will be far superior.”
Herzl 2 will start by asking: where did Herzl 1 go wrong? Herzl 1 visited Palestine only once, and that only for the express purpose of meeting the German emperor, whom he wanted to enlist for his enterprise. The Kaiser insisted on seeing him at the gate of Jerusalem, listened patiently to what he had to say and then purportedly commented to his aides: “It's a grand idea, but you can't do it with Jews!”
He meant the Jews he knew — the members of a worldwide religious-ethnic community. Herzl intended to turn these into a modern-style nation.
Herzl was not a profound thinker, he was a journalist and dramatist. He — and his successors — saw the necessary transformation as basically a question of logistics. Get the Jews to Palestine, and everything will fall into place automatically. The Jews will become a normal people, a people (“Volk”) like other peoples. A nation among nations. But the Jews of his day were neither a people nor a nation. They were something rather different.
Europe has changed many times, until the emergence of the modern nations. The Jews did not change. When Herzl looked for a solution to the “Jewish problem”, they were still the same ethnic-religious Diaspora.
No problem, he thought, once I get them to Palestine, they will change. But an ethnic-religious community, living for millennia as a persecuted minority in a hostile environment, acquires a mentality of its own. It fears the “Goyish” government, the source of unending evil edicts. It sees everyone outside the community as a potential enemy. It develops an intense sense of solidarity with members of its own community, even a thousand miles away, supporting them through thick and thin, whatever they do. In their helpless situation, the persecuted dream of a day of revenge, when they can do unto others as others have done unto them.
All this pervades their worldview, their religion and their traditions, transmitted from generation to generation. Jews have prayed to God for centuries, year after year, on Pesach eve: “Pour your wrath upon the Goyim...”
When the Zionists started to arrive and founded the new community, called the “Yishuv” (settlement), it seemed that Herzl had been right. They started to behave like the embryo of a real nation. They discarded religion and despised the Diaspora. To be called “exile Jew” was the worst possible insult. They saw themselves as “Hebrew”, rather then Jewish. They started to build a new society and a new culture.
And then the awful thing happened: The Holocaust.
It brought all the old Jewish convictions back with a vengeance. Not only the Germans were the guilty, but all the nations who looked on and did not lift a finger to save the victims. So all the old beliefs were true after all: The whole world is against the Jews. Right from its founding, the State of Israel became the Holocaust-state. The old existential fears, mistrusts, suspicions, hatreds, prejudices, stereotypes, sense of victimhood, dreams of revenge, that were born in the Diaspora, have superimposed themselves on the state, creating a very dangerous mixture of power and victimhood, brutality and masochism, militarism and the conviction that the whole world is against us. A ghetto with nuclear weapons.
Can such a state survive and flourish in the modern world? European nation-states have fought many wars. But they never forgot that after a war comes peace, that today's enemy may well be tomorrow's ally. Israel cannot do that. Public opinion polls show that the vast majority of Israelis believe that there will never be peace. They see the eternal occupation of Palestinian territories and the setting up of belligerent settlements all over Palestine as a result of Arab intransigence, not as its cause. They are supported in blind solidarity by most of the Jews around the world.
Almost all Israeli parties, including the main opposition, insist that Israel be recognized as the “nation-state of the Jewish people.” This means that Israel does not belong to the Israelis (the very concept of an “Israeli nation” is officially rejected by our government) but to the worldwide ethnic-religious Jewish Diaspora, who have never been asked whether they agree to Israel representing them. It is the very negation of a real nation-state that can live in peace with its neighbors and join a regional union.
I have never labored under any illusions about the magnitude of the task my friends and I set ourselves decades ago. It is not to change this or that aspect of Israel, but to change the fundamental nature of the state Itself.
It is far more than a matter of politics, to substitute one party for another. It is even far more than making peace with the Palestinian people, ending the occupation, evacuating the settlements. It is to effect a basic change of the national consciousness, the consciousness of every Israeli man and woman.
It has been said that “you can get the Jews out of the ghetto, but you can't get the ghetto out of the Jews.” But that is exactly what needs to be done.
Can it be done? I think so. I certainly hope so.
Perhaps we need a shock — either a positive or a negative one. The appearance in Jerusalem of Anwar Sadat in 1977 can serve as an example of a positive shock: By coming to Jerusalem while a state of war was still in effect, he produced an overnight change in the consciousness of Israelis. So did the Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn in 1993. So did, in a negative way, the Yom Kippur war, exactly 38 years ago, which shook Israel to the core. But these were minor, brief shocks compared to what is needed. A Second Herzl could, perhaps, effect such a miracle, against the odds. In the words of the first Herzl: “If you want it, it is not a fairy tale.”
Welcome to this FPI group: "Friends of Palestinians and Israelis" (link below for archive).
Since meeting wonderful new friends at the Israel/Palestine Mission Network (of the Pres. Church USA) last week, several have asked to "join".
I'm enclosing an important piece from long time Israeli dissident Uri Avnery, who reflects on the meaning of the "Israeli experiment".
Significant quote: "You can take the Jews out of the ghetto, but you can't take the ghetto out of the Jews".
Read on. Thanks to the ATFP (The American Task Force on Palestine, whose researcher, Hussein Ibish, was a guest on the Jim Lehrer program this evening).
Will there be a "shock"? A tipping point? A critical mass leading to "change"?
Having concluded a deal with HAMAS, is it possible to do even more deal making? Through Eygpt? Turkey? Russia? France? (the US is bankrupt as neutral broker. We are not neutral. Nor are we willing to use the clout we are capable of expending because of the political cost. JRK
Israel needs a shock: Positive or negative
Uri Avnery
Arab News (Opinion)
October 16, 2011 - 12:00am
http://arabnews.com/opinion/columns/article519177.ece
On Yom Kippur eve last week, when real Jews were praying for their lives, I sat on the seashore of Tel Aviv, thinking about the State of Israel. Will it endure? Will it be here in another 100 years? Or is it a passing episode, a historic fluke?
The Zionist Revolution — and that's what it was — started more than a hundred years after the French one. Once, in a more cheerful mood, I told my friends: “Perhaps we are all wrong. Perhaps Israel is not really the final shape of the Zionist enterprise. Like the planners of every great project, the Zionists decided first to build a 'pilot', a prototype, in order to test their scheme. Actually, we Israelis are only guinea pigs. Sooner or later another Theodor Herzl will come by and, after analyzing the faults and mistakes of this experiment, will draw up the blueprint of the real state, which will be far superior.”
Herzl 2 will start by asking: where did Herzl 1 go wrong? Herzl 1 visited Palestine only once, and that only for the express purpose of meeting the German emperor, whom he wanted to enlist for his enterprise. The Kaiser insisted on seeing him at the gate of Jerusalem, listened patiently to what he had to say and then purportedly commented to his aides: “It's a grand idea, but you can't do it with Jews!”
He meant the Jews he knew — the members of a worldwide religious-ethnic community. Herzl intended to turn these into a modern-style nation.
Herzl was not a profound thinker, he was a journalist and dramatist. He — and his successors — saw the necessary transformation as basically a question of logistics. Get the Jews to Palestine, and everything will fall into place automatically. The Jews will become a normal people, a people (“Volk”) like other peoples. A nation among nations. But the Jews of his day were neither a people nor a nation. They were something rather different.
Europe has changed many times, until the emergence of the modern nations. The Jews did not change. When Herzl looked for a solution to the “Jewish problem”, they were still the same ethnic-religious Diaspora.
No problem, he thought, once I get them to Palestine, they will change. But an ethnic-religious community, living for millennia as a persecuted minority in a hostile environment, acquires a mentality of its own. It fears the “Goyish” government, the source of unending evil edicts. It sees everyone outside the community as a potential enemy. It develops an intense sense of solidarity with members of its own community, even a thousand miles away, supporting them through thick and thin, whatever they do. In their helpless situation, the persecuted dream of a day of revenge, when they can do unto others as others have done unto them.
All this pervades their worldview, their religion and their traditions, transmitted from generation to generation. Jews have prayed to God for centuries, year after year, on Pesach eve: “Pour your wrath upon the Goyim...”
When the Zionists started to arrive and founded the new community, called the “Yishuv” (settlement), it seemed that Herzl had been right. They started to behave like the embryo of a real nation. They discarded religion and despised the Diaspora. To be called “exile Jew” was the worst possible insult. They saw themselves as “Hebrew”, rather then Jewish. They started to build a new society and a new culture.
And then the awful thing happened: The Holocaust.
It brought all the old Jewish convictions back with a vengeance. Not only the Germans were the guilty, but all the nations who looked on and did not lift a finger to save the victims. So all the old beliefs were true after all: The whole world is against the Jews. Right from its founding, the State of Israel became the Holocaust-state. The old existential fears, mistrusts, suspicions, hatreds, prejudices, stereotypes, sense of victimhood, dreams of revenge, that were born in the Diaspora, have superimposed themselves on the state, creating a very dangerous mixture of power and victimhood, brutality and masochism, militarism and the conviction that the whole world is against us. A ghetto with nuclear weapons.
Can such a state survive and flourish in the modern world? European nation-states have fought many wars. But they never forgot that after a war comes peace, that today's enemy may well be tomorrow's ally. Israel cannot do that. Public opinion polls show that the vast majority of Israelis believe that there will never be peace. They see the eternal occupation of Palestinian territories and the setting up of belligerent settlements all over Palestine as a result of Arab intransigence, not as its cause. They are supported in blind solidarity by most of the Jews around the world.
Almost all Israeli parties, including the main opposition, insist that Israel be recognized as the “nation-state of the Jewish people.” This means that Israel does not belong to the Israelis (the very concept of an “Israeli nation” is officially rejected by our government) but to the worldwide ethnic-religious Jewish Diaspora, who have never been asked whether they agree to Israel representing them. It is the very negation of a real nation-state that can live in peace with its neighbors and join a regional union.
I have never labored under any illusions about the magnitude of the task my friends and I set ourselves decades ago. It is not to change this or that aspect of Israel, but to change the fundamental nature of the state Itself.
It is far more than a matter of politics, to substitute one party for another. It is even far more than making peace with the Palestinian people, ending the occupation, evacuating the settlements. It is to effect a basic change of the national consciousness, the consciousness of every Israeli man and woman.
It has been said that “you can get the Jews out of the ghetto, but you can't get the ghetto out of the Jews.” But that is exactly what needs to be done.
Can it be done? I think so. I certainly hope so.
Perhaps we need a shock — either a positive or a negative one. The appearance in Jerusalem of Anwar Sadat in 1977 can serve as an example of a positive shock: By coming to Jerusalem while a state of war was still in effect, he produced an overnight change in the consciousness of Israelis. So did the Rabin-Arafat handshake on the White House lawn in 1993. So did, in a negative way, the Yom Kippur war, exactly 38 years ago, which shook Israel to the core. But these were minor, brief shocks compared to what is needed. A Second Herzl could, perhaps, effect such a miracle, against the odds. In the words of the first Herzl: “If you want it, it is not a fairy tale.”
Tuesday, October 11, 2011
American Jews Beg to Differ!
Dear Friend,
Rev. Duncan Hanson, the RCA staff person for Europe, the Middle East and India, has asked that I officially represent the RCA at the I/PMN annual conference beginning tomorrow thorugh Saturday noon in Louisville, KY. [This is the Israeli/Palestinian Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA)].
He wonders if there will be a request from the PCUSA denomination (there) asking for action/involvement by the RCA in this important region. We'll see.
Meanwhile there is a Task Force busy writing a "paper" to be presented to the General Synod of the RCA in 2012, concerning the Israeli/Palestinian situation. I look forward to reading it. Several of my "friends" are on the Task Force, (including three Palestinian Christians). It should be good.
Below, you will appreciate Jay Michaelson's overview of various approaches American Jews now have toward Israel/Palestine. Such a public expression would not have seen the light of publishing day or even been possible a few years ago. Times they are a-changin'. Faithfully yours, JRK
What's Wrong With American Jews Taking Partisan Sides in [re] Israel?
Jay Michaelson
The Jewish Daily Forward
October 11, 2011 - 12:00am
http://forward.com/articles/143901/
That there has been a realignment of American Jewish attitudes toward Israel is by now apparent and heavily commented on. In some quarters, this has been seen as an earth-shattering, Judaism-betraying paroxysm of collective self-hatred. Yet in fact it is entirely logical.
For years, Jewish moderates like me have held a curious combination of views: as one of my law school colleagues said, “liberal on everything except Israel.” This was because for years there was little alternative. There was no peace process, no nonviolent Palestinian leadership and nothing (other than the far left’s dreams of peace) for moderates to support.
The 18 years since the handshake on the White House lawn have yielded a much wider policy array. Now one can be for or against Palestinian statehood, concessions on Jerusalem, construction of settlements, the blockade of Gaza, the withdrawal from Gaza and 100 other gradations of Israel-Palestine policy. As a result, American and American Jewish attitudes have shifted — but shifted quite predictably.
Conservatives both here and in Israel maintain that the Palestinians fundamentally cannot be trusted; like most conservatives, they prefer “tough” tactics like settlement construction (“facts on the ground”), “stronger” security policies and “harder” lines in negotiation, since to be “soft” would endanger Israel’s security. Like other conservatives, they tend to be more nationalistic, and therefore less sympathetic to the “other side.” These policies flow quite naturally from a generally conservative worldview and are not dissimilar to conservatism in other countries around the world.
Liberals, while also skeptical of the Palestinian leadership, prefer typically liberal policies: more “balancing” in security policies (that is, fewer walls and checkpoints); “confidence-building” steps, such as a freeze on settlements, and “hard choices” in negotiations (that is, concessions on key issues). Unlike conservatives, liberals tend to be leery of nationalism and somewhat sympathetic to how the “other side” sees things. These policies, too, flow from basic liberal premises about peace and conflict, pragmatism, even human nature.
In other words, the American Jewish realignment is simply an alignment of conservatives with conservative policies and of liberals with liberal ones.
American conservatives (Rick Perry, Glenn Beck, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) support Israeli conservatives (Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, the settlers). American moderates (J Street, the Obama administration) support Israeli moderates (Kadima, what remains of Labor). The American far left (Noam Chomsky, most college-student activists) supports the Israeli far left (Shalom Achshav, as well as various non-Zionist and anti-Zionist movements). So of course, The New York Times can report, as it did just prior to the Palestinian vote at the United Nations, on the love affair between Benjamin Netanyahu and congressional Republicans. What’s not to understand here?
Well, for a start, many on the right don’t see their own conservatism. I recently spoke with a Knesset member who couldn’t understand why settlement construction was a conservative policy. Personally, I couldn’t understand what she couldn’t understand. It may or may not be a good idea to put facts on the ground, but doing so is clearly a conservative policy. It doesn’t promote an atmosphere of trust. It empowers Jewish nationalists. It makes a negotiated peace much harder to achieve. But, if conservatives are right that there is no real Palestinian partner, the policy makes sense. We’re already locked in battle, so we may as well try to win.
That view is respectable, time-honored — and conservative. So of course Glenn Beck supports it, and moderates and liberals do not.
As in the United States, where the right has often painted the left as being anti-American, some in the Jewish community say that to be moderate or liberal is to be anti-Israel. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the defeat, in a special congressional election, of Orthodox Jewish moderate David Weprin by Bob Turner, which pundits have in part ascribed to Turner’s attack on Weprin’s and President Obama’s policies toward Israel. Exit polls say that the economy, and the Democrats’ having taken Anthony Weiner’s former seat for granted, was as important as Israel or as suddenly relevant ex-mayor Ed Koch’s call to send Obama a message. But at least for some voters, there was indeed a perception that Obama’s moderate rather than conservative approach to Israel was the same as being anti-Israel.
Other American Jewish conservatives say that liberals are somehow deluded, or unaware of the real existential threats facing Israel. Sometimes they whisper that we are self-hating, or Muslim loving (Barack Hussein Obama), or insufficiently Jewishly proud. But can they say the same of the many Israeli generals who have increasingly come forward in favor of a negotiated two-state solution and against settlement construction? Are they, too, naïve, deluded, secretly anti-Israel, secretly Muslim loving, self-hating or worse? Of course not. Israeli moderates, American moderates, Israeli liberals and American liberals support Israel, but they have a moderate or liberal view of what policies are in Israel’s best interests. We thus oppose the current Israeli government’s policies, while fully supporting Israel itself.
Again, why is this hard to follow?
Just as conservatives are confused about their own conservatism, so, too, are they confused (willfully or not) about the boundaries of liberalism. Of course, there are also hard-left, anti-Israel and anti-Zionist folks out there, and “in here” — that is, within the Jewish community. Often, we liberals and moderates find ourselves at the same rallies (or Sabbath dinner tables) as these people, and it’s uncomfortable for us all. But breaking bread together doesn’t turn moderates into radicals. Just as a supporter of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is not a Kahanist, so a J Street supporter is not a Hamasnik, or even a Shalom Achshavnik. The fringe does not define the movement.
Actually, the reason I think this realignment seems so hard for many people to understand is because of the peculiar dynamics of American Jewish institutions. These institutions are inherently to the right of most American Jews. People who, facing a wide range of philanthropic options, choose to devote considerable resources to Judaism and to Israel fund them. That is laudable. But it also selects for those philanthropists who tend toward more nationalistic and particularistic points of view. Nonparticularistic Jews give more to non-Jewish causes. Jewish particularists fund Jewish causes.
This, too, makes sense. But it leads to the disconnect that I, as well as Peter Beinart and others, have lately decried: that American Jewish institutions don’t speak for most American Jews. Yes, in congressional districts like New York’s 9th, blocs of Orthodox Jews will vote for conservative policies, foreign and domestic. But in general, American Jews are more liberal than their communal institutions, because the institutions are funded and populated by people who have chosen to make Judaism their professional or philanthropic priority.
Of course, there are fantastic progressive Jewish funders and organizations, as well — including this very publication — and I salute them all. But we remain in the minority. Most progressives have less interest in Jewish particularism, and are more likely to be found at The New Yorker and Amnesty International than at specifically Jewish institutions. This doesn’t make them self-hating; it makes them less interested in Jewish particularism. And because of this “liberal drain,” what’s left in our Jewish communal institutions tends naturally toward the right.
Personally, I think conservative policies are bad for both America and Israel. I think they are self-fulfilling: Treat others as enemies, and they will be your enemies. This has now come to pass in Israel, as its ostensible partner has given up on the peace process (which has been neither peaceful nor a process) and gone to the United Nations instead. As Larry Derfner astutely observed in the September 30 issue of the Forward, the Palestinians did so because Netanyahu’s negotiating/delaying tactics left them no other viable option. They have thus fulfilled conservatives’ prophecies that there is no partner on the other side — but only because the conservatives left them no choice.
These are my views, but I don’t pretend that they are somehow “the truth,” or part of some great new understanding of the Middle East. They are garden-variety American liberalism, based on fundamental premises about universalism, rationalism and conflict resolution. Nor do I think that conservatives have somehow missed the point of the Jewish prophetic tradition. Conservatives have their texts, and we liberals have ours. I think they are wrong on both facts and values. But there shouldn’t be any mystery here as to why we all think this way. The only mystery is why there’s a mystery at all.
Rev. Duncan Hanson, the RCA staff person for Europe, the Middle East and India, has asked that I officially represent the RCA at the I/PMN annual conference beginning tomorrow thorugh Saturday noon in Louisville, KY. [This is the Israeli/Palestinian Mission Network of the Presbyterian Church (USA)].
He wonders if there will be a request from the PCUSA denomination (there) asking for action/involvement by the RCA in this important region. We'll see.
Meanwhile there is a Task Force busy writing a "paper" to be presented to the General Synod of the RCA in 2012, concerning the Israeli/Palestinian situation. I look forward to reading it. Several of my "friends" are on the Task Force, (including three Palestinian Christians). It should be good.
Below, you will appreciate Jay Michaelson's overview of various approaches American Jews now have toward Israel/Palestine. Such a public expression would not have seen the light of publishing day or even been possible a few years ago. Times they are a-changin'. Faithfully yours, JRK
What's Wrong With American Jews Taking Partisan Sides in [re] Israel?
Jay Michaelson
The Jewish Daily Forward
October 11, 2011 - 12:00am
http://forward.com/articles/143901/
That there has been a realignment of American Jewish attitudes toward Israel is by now apparent and heavily commented on. In some quarters, this has been seen as an earth-shattering, Judaism-betraying paroxysm of collective self-hatred. Yet in fact it is entirely logical.
For years, Jewish moderates like me have held a curious combination of views: as one of my law school colleagues said, “liberal on everything except Israel.” This was because for years there was little alternative. There was no peace process, no nonviolent Palestinian leadership and nothing (other than the far left’s dreams of peace) for moderates to support.
The 18 years since the handshake on the White House lawn have yielded a much wider policy array. Now one can be for or against Palestinian statehood, concessions on Jerusalem, construction of settlements, the blockade of Gaza, the withdrawal from Gaza and 100 other gradations of Israel-Palestine policy. As a result, American and American Jewish attitudes have shifted — but shifted quite predictably.
Conservatives both here and in Israel maintain that the Palestinians fundamentally cannot be trusted; like most conservatives, they prefer “tough” tactics like settlement construction (“facts on the ground”), “stronger” security policies and “harder” lines in negotiation, since to be “soft” would endanger Israel’s security. Like other conservatives, they tend to be more nationalistic, and therefore less sympathetic to the “other side.” These policies flow quite naturally from a generally conservative worldview and are not dissimilar to conservatism in other countries around the world.
Liberals, while also skeptical of the Palestinian leadership, prefer typically liberal policies: more “balancing” in security policies (that is, fewer walls and checkpoints); “confidence-building” steps, such as a freeze on settlements, and “hard choices” in negotiations (that is, concessions on key issues). Unlike conservatives, liberals tend to be leery of nationalism and somewhat sympathetic to how the “other side” sees things. These policies, too, flow from basic liberal premises about peace and conflict, pragmatism, even human nature.
In other words, the American Jewish realignment is simply an alignment of conservatives with conservative policies and of liberals with liberal ones.
American conservatives (Rick Perry, Glenn Beck, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) support Israeli conservatives (Likud, Yisrael Beiteinu, the settlers). American moderates (J Street, the Obama administration) support Israeli moderates (Kadima, what remains of Labor). The American far left (Noam Chomsky, most college-student activists) supports the Israeli far left (Shalom Achshav, as well as various non-Zionist and anti-Zionist movements). So of course, The New York Times can report, as it did just prior to the Palestinian vote at the United Nations, on the love affair between Benjamin Netanyahu and congressional Republicans. What’s not to understand here?
Well, for a start, many on the right don’t see their own conservatism. I recently spoke with a Knesset member who couldn’t understand why settlement construction was a conservative policy. Personally, I couldn’t understand what she couldn’t understand. It may or may not be a good idea to put facts on the ground, but doing so is clearly a conservative policy. It doesn’t promote an atmosphere of trust. It empowers Jewish nationalists. It makes a negotiated peace much harder to achieve. But, if conservatives are right that there is no real Palestinian partner, the policy makes sense. We’re already locked in battle, so we may as well try to win.
That view is respectable, time-honored — and conservative. So of course Glenn Beck supports it, and moderates and liberals do not.
As in the United States, where the right has often painted the left as being anti-American, some in the Jewish community say that to be moderate or liberal is to be anti-Israel. Nowhere was this more obvious than in the defeat, in a special congressional election, of Orthodox Jewish moderate David Weprin by Bob Turner, which pundits have in part ascribed to Turner’s attack on Weprin’s and President Obama’s policies toward Israel. Exit polls say that the economy, and the Democrats’ having taken Anthony Weiner’s former seat for granted, was as important as Israel or as suddenly relevant ex-mayor Ed Koch’s call to send Obama a message. But at least for some voters, there was indeed a perception that Obama’s moderate rather than conservative approach to Israel was the same as being anti-Israel.
Other American Jewish conservatives say that liberals are somehow deluded, or unaware of the real existential threats facing Israel. Sometimes they whisper that we are self-hating, or Muslim loving (Barack Hussein Obama), or insufficiently Jewishly proud. But can they say the same of the many Israeli generals who have increasingly come forward in favor of a negotiated two-state solution and against settlement construction? Are they, too, naïve, deluded, secretly anti-Israel, secretly Muslim loving, self-hating or worse? Of course not. Israeli moderates, American moderates, Israeli liberals and American liberals support Israel, but they have a moderate or liberal view of what policies are in Israel’s best interests. We thus oppose the current Israeli government’s policies, while fully supporting Israel itself.
Again, why is this hard to follow?
Just as conservatives are confused about their own conservatism, so, too, are they confused (willfully or not) about the boundaries of liberalism. Of course, there are also hard-left, anti-Israel and anti-Zionist folks out there, and “in here” — that is, within the Jewish community. Often, we liberals and moderates find ourselves at the same rallies (or Sabbath dinner tables) as these people, and it’s uncomfortable for us all. But breaking bread together doesn’t turn moderates into radicals. Just as a supporter of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee is not a Kahanist, so a J Street supporter is not a Hamasnik, or even a Shalom Achshavnik. The fringe does not define the movement.
Actually, the reason I think this realignment seems so hard for many people to understand is because of the peculiar dynamics of American Jewish institutions. These institutions are inherently to the right of most American Jews. People who, facing a wide range of philanthropic options, choose to devote considerable resources to Judaism and to Israel fund them. That is laudable. But it also selects for those philanthropists who tend toward more nationalistic and particularistic points of view. Nonparticularistic Jews give more to non-Jewish causes. Jewish particularists fund Jewish causes.
This, too, makes sense. But it leads to the disconnect that I, as well as Peter Beinart and others, have lately decried: that American Jewish institutions don’t speak for most American Jews. Yes, in congressional districts like New York’s 9th, blocs of Orthodox Jews will vote for conservative policies, foreign and domestic. But in general, American Jews are more liberal than their communal institutions, because the institutions are funded and populated by people who have chosen to make Judaism their professional or philanthropic priority.
Of course, there are fantastic progressive Jewish funders and organizations, as well — including this very publication — and I salute them all. But we remain in the minority. Most progressives have less interest in Jewish particularism, and are more likely to be found at The New Yorker and Amnesty International than at specifically Jewish institutions. This doesn’t make them self-hating; it makes them less interested in Jewish particularism. And because of this “liberal drain,” what’s left in our Jewish communal institutions tends naturally toward the right.
Personally, I think conservative policies are bad for both America and Israel. I think they are self-fulfilling: Treat others as enemies, and they will be your enemies. This has now come to pass in Israel, as its ostensible partner has given up on the peace process (which has been neither peaceful nor a process) and gone to the United Nations instead. As Larry Derfner astutely observed in the September 30 issue of the Forward, the Palestinians did so because Netanyahu’s negotiating/delaying tactics left them no other viable option. They have thus fulfilled conservatives’ prophecies that there is no partner on the other side — but only because the conservatives left them no choice.
These are my views, but I don’t pretend that they are somehow “the truth,” or part of some great new understanding of the Middle East. They are garden-variety American liberalism, based on fundamental premises about universalism, rationalism and conflict resolution. Nor do I think that conservatives have somehow missed the point of the Jewish prophetic tradition. Conservatives have their texts, and we liberals have ours. I think they are wrong on both facts and values. But there shouldn’t be any mystery here as to why we all think this way. The only mystery is why there’s a mystery at all.
Thursday, October 6, 2011
Nicholas Kristof (NY Times) op-ed. Oct. 5, 2011
October 5, 2011
Is Israel Its Own Worst Enemy?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (NY Times, Oct. 5, 2011)
For decades, Palestinian leaders sometimes seemed to be their own people’s worst enemies.
Palestinian radicals antagonized the West, and, when militant leaders turned to hijackings and rockets, they undermined the Palestinian cause around the world. They empowered Israeli settlers and hard-liners, while eviscerating Israeli doves.
These days, the world has been turned upside down. Now it is Israel that is endangered most by its leaders and maximalist stance. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is isolating his country, and, to be blunt, his hard line on settlements seems like a national suicide policy.
Nothing is more corrosive than Israel’s growth of settlements because they erode hope of a peace agreement in the future. Mr. Netanyahu’s latest misstep came after the Obama administration humiliated itself by making a full-court diplomatic press to block Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. At a time when President Obama had a few other things on his plate — averting a global economic meltdown, for example — the United States frittered good will by threatening to veto the Palestinian statehood that everybody claims to favor.
With that diplomatic fight at the United Nations under way, Israel last week announced plans for 1,100 new housing units in a part of Jerusalem outside its pre-1967 borders. Instead of showing appreciation to President Obama, Mr. Netanyahu thumbed him in the eye.
O.K., I foresee a torrent of angry responses. I realize that many insist that Jerusalem must all belong to Israel in any peace deal anyway, so new settlements there don’t count. But, if that’s your position, then you can kiss any peace deal goodbye. Every negotiator knows the framework of a peace agreement — 1967 borders with land swaps, Jerusalem as the capital of both Israeli and Palestinian states, only a token right of return — and insistence on a completely Israeli Jerusalem simply means no peace agreement ever.
Former President Bill Clinton said squarely in September that Mr. Netanyahu is to blame for the failure of the Middle East peace process. A background factor, Mr. Clinton noted correctly, is the demographic and political change within Israeli society, which has made the country more conservative when it comes to border and land issues.
Granted, Mr. Netanyahu is far from the only obstacle to peace. The Palestinians are divided, with Hamas controlling Gaza. And Hamas not only represses its own people but also managed to devastate the peace movement in Israel. That’s the saddest thing about the Middle East: hard-liners like Hamas empower hard-liners like Mr. Netanyahu.
We’re facing a dangerous period in the Middle East. Most Palestinians seem to feel as though the Oslo peace process has fizzled, and Israelis seem to agree, with two-thirds saying in a recent poll published in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot that there is no chance of peace with Palestinians — ever.
The Palestinians’ best hope would be a major grass-roots movement of nonviolent peaceful resistance aimed at illegal West Bank settlements, led by women and inspired by the work of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A growing number of Palestinians are taking up variants of that model, although they sometimes ruin it by defining nonviolence to include stone-throwing and by giving the leading role to hotheaded young men.
The Israel Defense Forces can deal with suicide bombers and rockets fired by Hezbollah. I’m not sure that they can defeat Palestinian women blocking roads to illegal settlements and willing to endure tear gas and clubbing — with videos promptly posted on YouTube.
Mr. Netanyahu has also undermined Israeli security by burning bridges with Israel’s most important friend in the region, Turkey. Now there is also the risk of clashes in the Mediterranean between Israeli and Turkish naval vessels. That’s one reason Defense Secretary Leon Panetta scolded the Israeli government a few days ago for isolating itself diplomatically.
So where do we go from here? If a peace deal is not forthcoming soon, and if Israel continues its occupation, then Israel should give the vote in Israeli elections to all Palestinians in the areas it controls. If Jews in the West Bank can vote, then Palestinians there should be able to as well.
That’s what democracy means: people have the right to vote on the government that controls their lives. Some of my Israeli friends will think I’m unfair and harsh, applying double standards by focusing on Israeli shortcomings while paying less attention to those of other countries in the region. Fair enough: I plead guilty. I apply higher standards to a close American ally like Israel that is a huge recipient of American aid.
Friends don’t let friends drive drunk — or drive a diplomatic course that leaves their nation veering away from any hope of peace. Today, Israel’s leaders sometimes seem to be that country’s worst enemies, and it’s an act of friendship to point that out.
Is Israel Its Own Worst Enemy?
By NICHOLAS D. KRISTOF (NY Times, Oct. 5, 2011)
For decades, Palestinian leaders sometimes seemed to be their own people’s worst enemies.
Palestinian radicals antagonized the West, and, when militant leaders turned to hijackings and rockets, they undermined the Palestinian cause around the world. They empowered Israeli settlers and hard-liners, while eviscerating Israeli doves.
These days, the world has been turned upside down. Now it is Israel that is endangered most by its leaders and maximalist stance. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is isolating his country, and, to be blunt, his hard line on settlements seems like a national suicide policy.
Nothing is more corrosive than Israel’s growth of settlements because they erode hope of a peace agreement in the future. Mr. Netanyahu’s latest misstep came after the Obama administration humiliated itself by making a full-court diplomatic press to block Palestinian statehood at the United Nations. At a time when President Obama had a few other things on his plate — averting a global economic meltdown, for example — the United States frittered good will by threatening to veto the Palestinian statehood that everybody claims to favor.
With that diplomatic fight at the United Nations under way, Israel last week announced plans for 1,100 new housing units in a part of Jerusalem outside its pre-1967 borders. Instead of showing appreciation to President Obama, Mr. Netanyahu thumbed him in the eye.
O.K., I foresee a torrent of angry responses. I realize that many insist that Jerusalem must all belong to Israel in any peace deal anyway, so new settlements there don’t count. But, if that’s your position, then you can kiss any peace deal goodbye. Every negotiator knows the framework of a peace agreement — 1967 borders with land swaps, Jerusalem as the capital of both Israeli and Palestinian states, only a token right of return — and insistence on a completely Israeli Jerusalem simply means no peace agreement ever.
Former President Bill Clinton said squarely in September that Mr. Netanyahu is to blame for the failure of the Middle East peace process. A background factor, Mr. Clinton noted correctly, is the demographic and political change within Israeli society, which has made the country more conservative when it comes to border and land issues.
Granted, Mr. Netanyahu is far from the only obstacle to peace. The Palestinians are divided, with Hamas controlling Gaza. And Hamas not only represses its own people but also managed to devastate the peace movement in Israel. That’s the saddest thing about the Middle East: hard-liners like Hamas empower hard-liners like Mr. Netanyahu.
We’re facing a dangerous period in the Middle East. Most Palestinians seem to feel as though the Oslo peace process has fizzled, and Israelis seem to agree, with two-thirds saying in a recent poll published in the newspaper Yediot Aharonot that there is no chance of peace with Palestinians — ever.
The Palestinians’ best hope would be a major grass-roots movement of nonviolent peaceful resistance aimed at illegal West Bank settlements, led by women and inspired by the work of Mahatma Gandhi and the Rev. Dr. Martin Luther King Jr. A growing number of Palestinians are taking up variants of that model, although they sometimes ruin it by defining nonviolence to include stone-throwing and by giving the leading role to hotheaded young men.
The Israel Defense Forces can deal with suicide bombers and rockets fired by Hezbollah. I’m not sure that they can defeat Palestinian women blocking roads to illegal settlements and willing to endure tear gas and clubbing — with videos promptly posted on YouTube.
Mr. Netanyahu has also undermined Israeli security by burning bridges with Israel’s most important friend in the region, Turkey. Now there is also the risk of clashes in the Mediterranean between Israeli and Turkish naval vessels. That’s one reason Defense Secretary Leon Panetta scolded the Israeli government a few days ago for isolating itself diplomatically.
So where do we go from here? If a peace deal is not forthcoming soon, and if Israel continues its occupation, then Israel should give the vote in Israeli elections to all Palestinians in the areas it controls. If Jews in the West Bank can vote, then Palestinians there should be able to as well.
That’s what democracy means: people have the right to vote on the government that controls their lives. Some of my Israeli friends will think I’m unfair and harsh, applying double standards by focusing on Israeli shortcomings while paying less attention to those of other countries in the region. Fair enough: I plead guilty. I apply higher standards to a close American ally like Israel that is a huge recipient of American aid.
Friends don’t let friends drive drunk — or drive a diplomatic course that leaves their nation veering away from any hope of peace. Today, Israel’s leaders sometimes seem to be that country’s worst enemies, and it’s an act of friendship to point that out.
Thursday, September 29, 2011
Jews in Conflict over "Israel"
Dear Friend,
Dana Goldstein, a NYC Jew, in conflict with her parents' generation over the State of Israel.
It's like an earthquake is going on. And where the earth settles is still not clear. But it sounds like everyone will have to adjust to the new landscape, as difficult as that will be.
Palestinian existence on the "land" persists, despite long efforts to ignor, displace and resist their grievances.
Stay tuned, and be in touch with Dana and her generation. More is undoubtedly coming. "God" loves all people. As one of my friends put it this morning at our fortnightly gathering: "If God is not God of all, God is not God at all". (Thank you Gene!). JRK
Thursday, Sep. 29, 2011
Why Fewer Young American Jews Share Their Parents' View of Israel
By Dana Goldstein
"I'm trembling," my mother says, when I tell her I'm working on an article about how younger and older American Jews are reacting differently to the Palestinians' bid for statehood at the United Nations. I understand the frustrations of the Palestinians dealing with ongoing settlements construction and sympathize with their decision to approach the U.N., but my mom supports President Obama's promise to wield the U.S. veto, sharing his view that a two-state solution can be achieved only through negotiations with Israel.
"This is so emotional," she says as we cautiously discuss our difference of opinion. "It makes me feel absolutely terrible when you stridently voice criticisms of Israel." (See photos inside the West Bank settlements.)
A lump of guilt and sadness rises in my throat. I've written harshly of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and its assault on Gaza in 2009, and on civil rights issues in Israel. But speaking my mind on these topics — a very Jewish thing to do — has never been easy. During my childhood in the New York suburbs, support for Israel was as fundamental a family tradition as voting Democratic or lighting the Shabbos candles on Friday night.
My mom has a masters degree in Jewish history and is the program director of a large synagogue. Her youthful Israel experiences, volunteering on a kibbutz and meeting descendants of my great-grandmother's siblings, were part of my own mythology. Raised within the Conservative movement, I learned at Hebrew school that Israel was the "land of milk and honey" where Holocaust survivors had irrigated the deserts and made flowers bloom.
What I didn't hear much about was the lives of Palestinians. It was only after I went to college, met Muslim friends, and enrolled in a Middle Eastern history and politics course that I was challenged to reconcile my liberal, humanist worldview with the fact that the Jewish state of which I was so proud was occupying the land of 4.4 million stateless Palestinians, many of them refugees displaced by Israel's creation. (See TIME's photoessay on growing up Arab in Israel.)
Like many young American Jews, during my senior year of college I took the free trip to Israel offered by the Taglit-Birthright program. The bliss I felt floating in the Dead Sea, sampling succulent fruits grown by Jewish farmers, and roaming the medieval city of Safed, historic center of Kabbalah mysticism, was tempered by other experiences: Watching the construction of the imposing "security fence," which not only tamped down on terrorist attacks, but also separated Palestinian villagers from their lands and water supplies. I spent hours in hushed conversation with a young Israeli soldier who was horrified by what he said was the routinely rough and contemptuous treatment of Palestinian civilians at Israeli military checkpoints.
That trip deepened my conviction that as an American Jew, I could no longer in good conscience offer Israel unquestioning support. I'm not alone. Polling of young American Jews shows that with the exception of the Orthodox, many of us feel less attached to Israel than do our Baby Boomer parents, who came of age during the era of the 1967 and 1973 wars, when Israel was less of an aggressor and more a victim. A 2007 poll by Steven Cohen of Hebrew Union College and Ari Kelman of UC Davis found that although the majority of American Jews of all ages continue to identify as "Pro-Israel," those under 35 are less likely to identify as "Zionist." Over 40 percent of American Jews under 35 believe that "Israel occupies land belonging to someone else," and over 30 percent report sometimes feeling "ashamed" of Israel's actions.
Read about America's first female black rabbi.
Hanna King, an 18-year old sophomore at Swarthmore College, epitomizes the generational shift. Raised in Seattle as a Conservative Jew, last November King was part of a group of activists who heckled Netanyahu with slogans against the occupation at a New Orleans meeting of the Jewish Federations General Assembly.
"Netanyahu repeatedly claims himself as a representative of all Jews," King says. "The protest was an outlet for me to make a clear statement, and make it clear that those injustices don't occur in my name. It served as a vehicle for reclaiming my own Judaism." (Read more about the debate on a Palestinian state.)
A more moderate critique is expressed by J Street, the political action committee launched in 2008 as a "pro-Israel, pro-Peace" counterweight to the influence in Washington of the more hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Simone Zimmerman heads J-Street's campus affiliate at the University of California-Berkeley. A graduate of Jewish private schools, she lived in Tel Aviv as an exchange student during high school, but never heard the word occupation spoken in relation to Israel until she got to college.
During Zimmerman's freshman year, Berkeley became embroiled in a contentious debate over whether the university should divest from corporations that do business with the Israeli army. Although Zimmerman opposed divestment, she was profoundly affected by the stories she heard from Palestinian-American activists on campus.
"They were sharing their families' experiences of life under occupation and life during the war in Gaza," she remembers. "So much of what they were talking about related to things that I had always been taught to defend, like human rights and social justice, and the value of each individual's life." (Read the top 10 religion stories of 2010.)
Even young rabbis are, as a cohort, more likely to be critical of Israel than are older rabbis. Last week, Cohen, the Hebrew Union College researcher, released a survey of rabbinical students at New York's Jewish Theological Seminary, the premier institution for training Conservative rabbis. Though current students are just as likely as their elders to have studied and lived in Israel and to believe Israel is "very important" to their Judaism, about 70 percent of the young, prospective rabbis report feeling "disturbed" by Israel's treatment of Arab Israelis and Palestinians, compared to only about half of those ordained between 1980 and 1994.
Ben Resnick, 27, is one of the rabbinical students who took the survey. In July, he published an op-ed pointing out the ideological inconsistencies between Zionism, which upholds the principle of Israel as a Jewish state, and American liberal democracy, which emphasizes individual rights regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion. "The tragedy," Resnick says, is that the two worldviews may be "irreconcilable."
Still, after living in Jerusalem for 10 months and then returning to New York, Resnick continues to consider himself a Zionist. He quotes the Torah in support of his view that American Jews should press Israel to end settlement expansion and help facilitate a Palestinian state: "Love without rebuke," he says, "is not love."
Dana Goldstein is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the Nation Institute.
Dana Goldstein, a NYC Jew, in conflict with her parents' generation over the State of Israel.
It's like an earthquake is going on. And where the earth settles is still not clear. But it sounds like everyone will have to adjust to the new landscape, as difficult as that will be.
Palestinian existence on the "land" persists, despite long efforts to ignor, displace and resist their grievances.
Stay tuned, and be in touch with Dana and her generation. More is undoubtedly coming. "God" loves all people. As one of my friends put it this morning at our fortnightly gathering: "If God is not God of all, God is not God at all". (Thank you Gene!). JRK
Thursday, Sep. 29, 2011
Why Fewer Young American Jews Share Their Parents' View of Israel
By Dana Goldstein
"I'm trembling," my mother says, when I tell her I'm working on an article about how younger and older American Jews are reacting differently to the Palestinians' bid for statehood at the United Nations. I understand the frustrations of the Palestinians dealing with ongoing settlements construction and sympathize with their decision to approach the U.N., but my mom supports President Obama's promise to wield the U.S. veto, sharing his view that a two-state solution can be achieved only through negotiations with Israel.
"This is so emotional," she says as we cautiously discuss our difference of opinion. "It makes me feel absolutely terrible when you stridently voice criticisms of Israel." (See photos inside the West Bank settlements.)
A lump of guilt and sadness rises in my throat. I've written harshly of Israel's invasion of Lebanon in 2006 and its assault on Gaza in 2009, and on civil rights issues in Israel. But speaking my mind on these topics — a very Jewish thing to do — has never been easy. During my childhood in the New York suburbs, support for Israel was as fundamental a family tradition as voting Democratic or lighting the Shabbos candles on Friday night.
My mom has a masters degree in Jewish history and is the program director of a large synagogue. Her youthful Israel experiences, volunteering on a kibbutz and meeting descendants of my great-grandmother's siblings, were part of my own mythology. Raised within the Conservative movement, I learned at Hebrew school that Israel was the "land of milk and honey" where Holocaust survivors had irrigated the deserts and made flowers bloom.
What I didn't hear much about was the lives of Palestinians. It was only after I went to college, met Muslim friends, and enrolled in a Middle Eastern history and politics course that I was challenged to reconcile my liberal, humanist worldview with the fact that the Jewish state of which I was so proud was occupying the land of 4.4 million stateless Palestinians, many of them refugees displaced by Israel's creation. (See TIME's photoessay on growing up Arab in Israel.)
Like many young American Jews, during my senior year of college I took the free trip to Israel offered by the Taglit-Birthright program. The bliss I felt floating in the Dead Sea, sampling succulent fruits grown by Jewish farmers, and roaming the medieval city of Safed, historic center of Kabbalah mysticism, was tempered by other experiences: Watching the construction of the imposing "security fence," which not only tamped down on terrorist attacks, but also separated Palestinian villagers from their lands and water supplies. I spent hours in hushed conversation with a young Israeli soldier who was horrified by what he said was the routinely rough and contemptuous treatment of Palestinian civilians at Israeli military checkpoints.
That trip deepened my conviction that as an American Jew, I could no longer in good conscience offer Israel unquestioning support. I'm not alone. Polling of young American Jews shows that with the exception of the Orthodox, many of us feel less attached to Israel than do our Baby Boomer parents, who came of age during the era of the 1967 and 1973 wars, when Israel was less of an aggressor and more a victim. A 2007 poll by Steven Cohen of Hebrew Union College and Ari Kelman of UC Davis found that although the majority of American Jews of all ages continue to identify as "Pro-Israel," those under 35 are less likely to identify as "Zionist." Over 40 percent of American Jews under 35 believe that "Israel occupies land belonging to someone else," and over 30 percent report sometimes feeling "ashamed" of Israel's actions.
Read about America's first female black rabbi.
Hanna King, an 18-year old sophomore at Swarthmore College, epitomizes the generational shift. Raised in Seattle as a Conservative Jew, last November King was part of a group of activists who heckled Netanyahu with slogans against the occupation at a New Orleans meeting of the Jewish Federations General Assembly.
"Netanyahu repeatedly claims himself as a representative of all Jews," King says. "The protest was an outlet for me to make a clear statement, and make it clear that those injustices don't occur in my name. It served as a vehicle for reclaiming my own Judaism." (Read more about the debate on a Palestinian state.)
A more moderate critique is expressed by J Street, the political action committee launched in 2008 as a "pro-Israel, pro-Peace" counterweight to the influence in Washington of the more hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). Simone Zimmerman heads J-Street's campus affiliate at the University of California-Berkeley. A graduate of Jewish private schools, she lived in Tel Aviv as an exchange student during high school, but never heard the word occupation spoken in relation to Israel until she got to college.
During Zimmerman's freshman year, Berkeley became embroiled in a contentious debate over whether the university should divest from corporations that do business with the Israeli army. Although Zimmerman opposed divestment, she was profoundly affected by the stories she heard from Palestinian-American activists on campus.
"They were sharing their families' experiences of life under occupation and life during the war in Gaza," she remembers. "So much of what they were talking about related to things that I had always been taught to defend, like human rights and social justice, and the value of each individual's life." (Read the top 10 religion stories of 2010.)
Even young rabbis are, as a cohort, more likely to be critical of Israel than are older rabbis. Last week, Cohen, the Hebrew Union College researcher, released a survey of rabbinical students at New York's Jewish Theological Seminary, the premier institution for training Conservative rabbis. Though current students are just as likely as their elders to have studied and lived in Israel and to believe Israel is "very important" to their Judaism, about 70 percent of the young, prospective rabbis report feeling "disturbed" by Israel's treatment of Arab Israelis and Palestinians, compared to only about half of those ordained between 1980 and 1994.
Ben Resnick, 27, is one of the rabbinical students who took the survey. In July, he published an op-ed pointing out the ideological inconsistencies between Zionism, which upholds the principle of Israel as a Jewish state, and American liberal democracy, which emphasizes individual rights regardless of race, ethnicity, or religion. "The tragedy," Resnick says, is that the two worldviews may be "irreconcilable."
Still, after living in Jerusalem for 10 months and then returning to New York, Resnick continues to consider himself a Zionist. He quotes the Torah in support of his view that American Jews should press Israel to end settlement expansion and help facilitate a Palestinian state: "Love without rebuke," he says, "is not love."
Dana Goldstein is a fellow at the New America Foundation and the Nation Institute.
Wednesday, September 28, 2011
A New Start for Rosh Hashanah!
Dear Friend,
I admire Bradley Burston. (Below is his op-ed in Haaretz) Especially in the honesty that opens up the crack in our facade of self-righteousness. It is in all and each of us. Some dare not go there. Self-assessment is hard. I would rather be invincible and correct, all the time, rather than "give in" to others, especially those whose intent is to do me irrevocable harm.
I have long felt that the average Israeli is scared to death of giving the Palestinian narrative even "one inch", lest the whole occupation edifice come crashing down.
So there is this constant buildup of walls, and military and entrenchment in "our way", our country, our narrative.
To look at the other narrative, openly, non-defensively, and walk in the "other's shoes". O my. That takes courage. There may have to be changes. And that would be God-aweful. Yes, in awe of "God", the King over all nations, tribes and peoples. Yours truly, JRK
Palestine, the UN, and lies at Rosh Hashanah
This year, in Jerusalem, show us what a New Year actually looks like. Avinu Malkeinu, hoshiyeinu. Rescue us from ourselves.
On the High Holidays when I was small, Jews wore clothes they were not comfortable in, in order to ask themselves questions they were not comfortable with.
Some things don't change.
On the High Holidays when I was small, the old people, when they weren't discussing the Old Country, would talk about the Holy Land, and peace, and how they would never see either, not in their lifetimes.
The rabbi, meanwhile, would talk about God's Book of Life, in which we all appeared, each of us with what we had done over the past year, and done wrong, and failed to do. On Rosh Hashanah, God would open the book for review, and at the end of the day of judgment, Yom Kippur, our verdict for the new year would be handed down, and the book, until the next fall, slammed shut.
Mindful of the Book of Life, I used to wonder what became of what we had left undone. This year, the Friday before Rosh Hashanah, I found out. Thanks to the United Nations.Thanks to the debate on Palestine:
Anything left undone becomes a lie.
Who'd have guessed that what's true in daily life is also true of the UN? Who'd have guessed that what was left undone when I was small, would still be undone these many, many years later?
When I was small and could take no more of the High Holidays, and when there was no baseball on the radio, I would open a book. One of them began with an observation by Pablo Picasso. "Art," he said, "is a lie which makes us realize the truth."
The same, I now realize, could be said of the United Nations. And because it is left undone, it can be said of Palestine as well. And because Palestine has been left undone, the same could be said of Israel. Left undone. Like all of us.
We pray to the same God - all of us, we and the Palestinians who are our cousins and neighbors, we pray to the lord of the second chance - but our belief is flagging. We are undone and unmoving. We cannot shake our grief and our failure and our guilt and our instinct for blame. We are undone by politics and by bad politicians. We are undone by warped religion and bad clerics. We are undone by our belief that only from our side do people see clearly and speak the whole truth.
When I was small, my favorite part of the High Holidays was singing with the old people to the prayer called Avinu Malkeinu, in part because there seemed some unique truth in it. "For Your own sake, Lord, if not for ours," the old people sang, "forgive us, let us off this hook, rescue us from ourselves."
Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father, Our King, they sang, these people whose own parents were long dead, these people who had never placed faith in the nobles who had once ruled over them, these people whose own voices were already fading. Avinu Malkeinu, Shma Koleinu, Hus V'Rahem Aleinu. Hear our voice. Help us hear the voices of others whose stories and tragedies are different. Help them to hear ours.
Hear our true voice, the one from close to the heart inside. Avinu Malkeinu, have pity for what we do and are and try and fail at, and what we give ourselves too much credit for. Give us permission to start again. Give us, this day, a break.
Avinu Malkeinu, haneinu v'aneinu, ki ein lanu ma'asim. Avinu Malkeinu. Cut us a deal we can live with. Avinu Malkeinu, help us find, at long last, an answer we can use, a way out of this, even though we have nothing to show for all our trying. Because we have nothing to show for all our trying..
God who does not make mistakes, God whom we bitterly and consistently disappoint, God whose land always falls short of the arrangement we feel would somehow dress the wounds in our souls - dress the wounds in our souls.God who created human differences and human disagreement and human compromise, help us write a new document for every one of us. A Book of Life.
Show us Your face in the faces of the people we find it easier to look away from and call enemy. Show them Your face in ours. For the same reason. Show us what we least want to see: That we look the same.
Avinu Malkeinu, Aseh Imanu Tz'dakah V'Hesed, V'Hoshieinu We talk big, but we are, all of us, small and fallible and wounded. Be kind. Teach us finally to grow tired of our own lies. Teach us to finish what we start. This year, in Jerusalem, show us what a New Year actually looks like. Avinu Malkeinu, hoshiyeinu. Rescue us from ourselves.
I admire Bradley Burston. (Below is his op-ed in Haaretz) Especially in the honesty that opens up the crack in our facade of self-righteousness. It is in all and each of us. Some dare not go there. Self-assessment is hard. I would rather be invincible and correct, all the time, rather than "give in" to others, especially those whose intent is to do me irrevocable harm.
I have long felt that the average Israeli is scared to death of giving the Palestinian narrative even "one inch", lest the whole occupation edifice come crashing down.
So there is this constant buildup of walls, and military and entrenchment in "our way", our country, our narrative.
To look at the other narrative, openly, non-defensively, and walk in the "other's shoes". O my. That takes courage. There may have to be changes. And that would be God-aweful. Yes, in awe of "God", the King over all nations, tribes and peoples. Yours truly, JRK
Palestine, the UN, and lies at Rosh Hashanah
This year, in Jerusalem, show us what a New Year actually looks like. Avinu Malkeinu, hoshiyeinu. Rescue us from ourselves.
On the High Holidays when I was small, Jews wore clothes they were not comfortable in, in order to ask themselves questions they were not comfortable with.
Some things don't change.
On the High Holidays when I was small, the old people, when they weren't discussing the Old Country, would talk about the Holy Land, and peace, and how they would never see either, not in their lifetimes.
The rabbi, meanwhile, would talk about God's Book of Life, in which we all appeared, each of us with what we had done over the past year, and done wrong, and failed to do. On Rosh Hashanah, God would open the book for review, and at the end of the day of judgment, Yom Kippur, our verdict for the new year would be handed down, and the book, until the next fall, slammed shut.
Mindful of the Book of Life, I used to wonder what became of what we had left undone. This year, the Friday before Rosh Hashanah, I found out. Thanks to the United Nations.Thanks to the debate on Palestine:
Anything left undone becomes a lie.
Who'd have guessed that what's true in daily life is also true of the UN? Who'd have guessed that what was left undone when I was small, would still be undone these many, many years later?
When I was small and could take no more of the High Holidays, and when there was no baseball on the radio, I would open a book. One of them began with an observation by Pablo Picasso. "Art," he said, "is a lie which makes us realize the truth."
The same, I now realize, could be said of the United Nations. And because it is left undone, it can be said of Palestine as well. And because Palestine has been left undone, the same could be said of Israel. Left undone. Like all of us.
We pray to the same God - all of us, we and the Palestinians who are our cousins and neighbors, we pray to the lord of the second chance - but our belief is flagging. We are undone and unmoving. We cannot shake our grief and our failure and our guilt and our instinct for blame. We are undone by politics and by bad politicians. We are undone by warped religion and bad clerics. We are undone by our belief that only from our side do people see clearly and speak the whole truth.
When I was small, my favorite part of the High Holidays was singing with the old people to the prayer called Avinu Malkeinu, in part because there seemed some unique truth in it. "For Your own sake, Lord, if not for ours," the old people sang, "forgive us, let us off this hook, rescue us from ourselves."
Avinu Malkeinu, Our Father, Our King, they sang, these people whose own parents were long dead, these people who had never placed faith in the nobles who had once ruled over them, these people whose own voices were already fading. Avinu Malkeinu, Shma Koleinu, Hus V'Rahem Aleinu. Hear our voice. Help us hear the voices of others whose stories and tragedies are different. Help them to hear ours.
Hear our true voice, the one from close to the heart inside. Avinu Malkeinu, have pity for what we do and are and try and fail at, and what we give ourselves too much credit for. Give us permission to start again. Give us, this day, a break.
Avinu Malkeinu, haneinu v'aneinu, ki ein lanu ma'asim. Avinu Malkeinu. Cut us a deal we can live with. Avinu Malkeinu, help us find, at long last, an answer we can use, a way out of this, even though we have nothing to show for all our trying. Because we have nothing to show for all our trying..
God who does not make mistakes, God whom we bitterly and consistently disappoint, God whose land always falls short of the arrangement we feel would somehow dress the wounds in our souls - dress the wounds in our souls.God who created human differences and human disagreement and human compromise, help us write a new document for every one of us. A Book of Life.
Show us Your face in the faces of the people we find it easier to look away from and call enemy. Show them Your face in ours. For the same reason. Show us what we least want to see: That we look the same.
Avinu Malkeinu, Aseh Imanu Tz'dakah V'Hesed, V'Hoshieinu We talk big, but we are, all of us, small and fallible and wounded. Be kind. Teach us finally to grow tired of our own lies. Teach us to finish what we start. This year, in Jerusalem, show us what a New Year actually looks like. Avinu Malkeinu, hoshiyeinu. Rescue us from ourselves.
Saturday, September 24, 2011
The Quarttete on The Next Steps
Friend,
The US, Russia, the EU and the UN are scrambling to find ways of getting Israelis and Palestinians to sit down and hash things out in the light of the conflicting narratives set forth at the General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday.
Here is their statement for the record. Don't put too much faith into it. It's a theological and ethical matter and politicians don't do very well with love for God and others.
JRK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Following is the text of a statement issued after the meeting of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union Catherine Ashton in New York on September 23, 2011.
The Quartet takes note of the application submitted by President Abbas on 23rd September 2011 which is now before the Security Council.
The Quartet reaffirmed its statement of 20th May 2011, including its strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by United States President Barack Obama.
The Quartet recalled its previous statements, and affirmed its determination to actively and vigorously seek a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, on the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, 1397, 1515, 1850, the Madrid principles including land for peace, the Roadmap, and the agreements previously reached between the parties.
The Quartet reiterated its commitment to a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East and to seek a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and reaffirms the importance of the Arab Peace Initiative.
The Quartet reiterated its urgent appeal to the parties to overcome the current obstacles and resume direct bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations without delay or preconditions. But it accepts that meeting, in itself, will not reestablish the trust necessary for such a negotiation to succeed. It therefore proposes the following steps:
1. Within a month there will be a preparatory meeting between the parties to agree an agenda and method of proceeding in the negotiation.
2. At that meeting there will be a commitment by both sides that the objective of any negotiation is to reach an agreement within a timeframe agreed to by the parties but not longer than the end of 2012. The Quartet expects the parties to come forward with comprehensive proposals within three months on territory and security, and to have made substantial progress within six months. To that end, the Quartet will convene an international conference in Moscow, in consultation with the parties, at the appropriate time.
3. There will be a Donors Conference at which the international community will give full and sustained support to the Palestinian Authority state-building actions developed by Prime Minister Fayyad under the leadership of President Abbas.
4. The Quartet recognizes the achievements of the Palestinian Authority in preparing institutions for statehood as evidenced in reports to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, and stresses the need to preserve and build on them. In this regard, the members of the Quartet will consult to identify additional steps they can actively support towards Palestinian statehood individually and together, to secure in accordance with existing procedures significantly greater independence and sovereignty for the Palestinian Authority over its affairs.
5. The Quartet calls upon the parties to refrain from provocative actions if negotiations are to be effective. The Quartet reiterated the obligations of both parties under the Roadmap.
6. The Quartet committed to remain actively involved and to encourage and review progress. The Quartet agreed to meet regularly and to task the envoys and the Quartet Representative to intensify their cooperation, including by meeting prior to the parties’ preparatory meeting, and to formulate recommendations for Quartet action.
PRN: 2011/1585
John
jandskleinheksel@gmail.com
www.friendsofpalestiniansandisraelis.blogspot.com
The US, Russia, the EU and the UN are scrambling to find ways of getting Israelis and Palestinians to sit down and hash things out in the light of the conflicting narratives set forth at the General Assembly (UNGA) on Friday.
Here is their statement for the record. Don't put too much faith into it. It's a theological and ethical matter and politicians don't do very well with love for God and others.
JRK
--------------------------------------------------------------------------------
Following is the text of a statement issued after the meeting of UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon, Russian Foreign Minister Sergei Lavrov, U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton, and EU High Representative for Foreign Affairs and Security Policy of the European Union Catherine Ashton in New York on September 23, 2011.
The Quartet takes note of the application submitted by President Abbas on 23rd September 2011 which is now before the Security Council.
The Quartet reaffirmed its statement of 20th May 2011, including its strong support for the vision of Israeli-Palestinian peace outlined by United States President Barack Obama.
The Quartet recalled its previous statements, and affirmed its determination to actively and vigorously seek a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, on the basis of UN Security Council Resolutions 242, 338, 1397, 1515, 1850, the Madrid principles including land for peace, the Roadmap, and the agreements previously reached between the parties.
The Quartet reiterated its commitment to a just, lasting and comprehensive peace in the Middle East and to seek a comprehensive resolution of the Arab-Israeli conflict, and reaffirms the importance of the Arab Peace Initiative.
The Quartet reiterated its urgent appeal to the parties to overcome the current obstacles and resume direct bilateral Israeli-Palestinian negotiations without delay or preconditions. But it accepts that meeting, in itself, will not reestablish the trust necessary for such a negotiation to succeed. It therefore proposes the following steps:
1. Within a month there will be a preparatory meeting between the parties to agree an agenda and method of proceeding in the negotiation.
2. At that meeting there will be a commitment by both sides that the objective of any negotiation is to reach an agreement within a timeframe agreed to by the parties but not longer than the end of 2012. The Quartet expects the parties to come forward with comprehensive proposals within three months on territory and security, and to have made substantial progress within six months. To that end, the Quartet will convene an international conference in Moscow, in consultation with the parties, at the appropriate time.
3. There will be a Donors Conference at which the international community will give full and sustained support to the Palestinian Authority state-building actions developed by Prime Minister Fayyad under the leadership of President Abbas.
4. The Quartet recognizes the achievements of the Palestinian Authority in preparing institutions for statehood as evidenced in reports to the Ad Hoc Liaison Committee, and stresses the need to preserve and build on them. In this regard, the members of the Quartet will consult to identify additional steps they can actively support towards Palestinian statehood individually and together, to secure in accordance with existing procedures significantly greater independence and sovereignty for the Palestinian Authority over its affairs.
5. The Quartet calls upon the parties to refrain from provocative actions if negotiations are to be effective. The Quartet reiterated the obligations of both parties under the Roadmap.
6. The Quartet committed to remain actively involved and to encourage and review progress. The Quartet agreed to meet regularly and to task the envoys and the Quartet Representative to intensify their cooperation, including by meeting prior to the parties’ preparatory meeting, and to formulate recommendations for Quartet action.
PRN: 2011/1585
John
jandskleinheksel@gmail.com
www.friendsofpalestiniansandisraelis.blogspot.com
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