Another Jewish Liberal Rationalizes Silence on Things That Disturb Him in the Middle East
Liberal Jewish Alan Wolfe makes similar points in a piece for the Chronicle of Higher Education, in which he says that "we need in the United States a debate about the future of Israel as robust as the one that routinely takes place within Israel itself."
Yet Wolfe isn't jumping in. He says it's hard to raise criticisms of Israel when the American discussion is basically "a shouting match" with alot of Christian antisemites and right-wing pro-Israeli "illiberals" screaming at one another.
[I]t is hard to raise them, at least in any probing way, when prominent Hollywood celebrities like Mel Gibson flirt with anti-Semitism, and when newspapers like The New York Sun, a staunch defender of Israel, routinely accuse those who criticize Zionism of being little different from Gibson. It is difficult to know why honest discussions about Israel have become so difficult to conduct. Is it, perhaps, because the rise of the Christian right, no matter how ostensibly supportive of Israel it claims to be, reminds Jews that they live in a Christian country and thereby makes them more likely to circle the wagons?
This is a tired rationalization for passivity. When Wolfe suggests that to criticize Israel means to be lumped with a laughingstock, Mel Gibson, he is writing off the ability of the intellectual to express independent ideas if he chooses to. When he suggests that to criticize Israel is to help Christians oppress Jews, he is self-involved and deluded, offering a Boratish shtetl paranoia about goyische America. Wolfe is a big deal professor and head of a center on religion and public life at an important school. The power structure has long since made room for Jewish wealth, Jewish brains, and Jewish political muscle. The people he is so fearful of are largely outsiders. He ought to focus on Nancy Pelosi, who is an insider. When Pelosi denounces Jimmy Carter and says that the U.S. will stand with Israel forever and there is no such thing as second-class citizenship in occupied territories, she is bowing to a powerful lobby and misrepresenting reality in a way that ought to concern an intellectual more than whatever Mel Gibson said drunk to a cop. Wolfe's muddle is the same muddle that Jewish liberals have been in since the Iraq war. They are against the war, but their critique is blunted because they know that devotion to Israel played a part in the thinking of some of the war planners, but they don't want to talk at all about that because they fear it would result in a pogrom. And so they ascribe all the bad stuff to people they don't know and can easily demonize: the Christian right. Or Halliburton. And thereby fail to do their jobs as intellectual leaders, at a time when the country is in a tremendous foreign-policy crisis.
Wolfe's weakest moment is granting the right to silence him to the New York Sun. The Sun is a superb newspaper. I disagree with just about everything it says, but I have to marvel at how much influence it has achieved in five years, as well as its cultivation of fine talents like critic Adam Kirsch. Hats off to Kovner, Hertog and Lipsky. But to give these rightwing neo-Jabotinskyites power? Einstein didn't give them power. Nor did Isaiah Berlin, Ahad Ha'am or Chaim Arlosorov. Today progressive Israelis like Gideon Levy, Akiva Eldar, and Yehuda Shaul don't care what the Sun says about them when they criticize religious-nationalist forces they are up against.
This is the tragic aspect of Wolfe's muddle. He says we need the robustness of the Israeli discourse here. The Israeli left agrees. It keeps looking to liberals in the U.S. to form an arc of thought to help end the hateful occupation and challenge the racists like Avigdor Lieberman who now have a place in the government there. By looking away from all that and blaming it on the Sun, Wolfe is doing precisely what liberal American Jews have done for a long time now: handed their power to the rightwing Israel lobby.
First it's interesting that Mel Gibson is only "flirting" with antisemitism in little Phils mind. And the fact that he had this momentous discussion at a wine and cheese reception is something you couldn't make up. But here is the thing, American Jews and Israel have nothing to fear from religious Christians in America, Has opposed to Europe where they take in antisemitism with the baby formula. The ones who advocate for the destruction of Israel are the Moslems and the left wing, including the ones who subscribe to replacement theology. Lastly, anti-Israel Jewish liberals have their own magazine "tikkun Olam" and I can't turn on my television without seeing everybody from Chomsky to Carter to Cair to Finkelstein bash Israel. If anybody is geting silenced its proIsrael-speakers. Also, and this part always amazes me. Liberals should side with Israel over Hamas, the tanzim, and Islamic Jihad. Let me ask you this, if your a left wing feminist lesbian you can live very nicely in Israel. Your life expectency in the Moslem cultures is measured in days. Yet they are so obsessed with Israel that they would rather see the only place in the middle east with human rights wiped out and replaced with sharia, interesting.
As usual, you two are only arguing about the kickability of the word 'anti-Semitism'. Well, take it from me, its kickability is dropping all the time : if it was a football you would give up re-inflating it, and go out buy another football.
BTW, just for the record, Mel Gibson's "anti-Semitic rant" consisted of a single sentence: "The Jews are responsible for all the wars in the world."
Now, although he left out the Tamil Tigers and a few other hot spots, it's hard to quibble with the thrust of this observation--particularly if you're talking about just the wars that America's engaged in. Fault him for not making the politically-correct distinction between Zionists and Jews if you must, but lay off the mock outrage.
ENOUGH! The Palestinian people are dying and their society intentionally destroyed. Half a million Iraqis are blown up and their country laid to ruin. And meanwhile American Jews talk endlessly about their unique psychological suffering, emotional vulnerability, and the "complexity" of it all.
I just don't care.
Also, let's not forget those iraqis who died of disease and hunger because of the sanctions post gulf war.
Excellent comments by Phil. Wolfe should show a little bit of the courage that Israelis like Amira Hass, Gideon Levy, and Uri Avnery display every day in the Israeli press. But to call the New York Sun "superb"? They sent me a free subscription for a few weeks, and that's not the word I would choose.
"Little Phils mind"? Hey, come on Pearlman, try to be decent.
"Little Phils mind"? Hey, come on Perlman, try to be decent.
trouvere:
I'll bet some of your best friends are Jewish, right.
Things ARE Changing! They always have! Will the jew, with thousands of years of tragic experience, ever learn not to push it to the point of no return? We goys maybe dumb, but not that dumb! (Apart from the REALLY DUMB zionist/christian fundamentalists). Push us hard enough and history will repeat itself......as it always has. Sorry for the timely? reminder, chaps.
Exceptionally well written Mr. Weiss. Very perceptive.
Pearly-Q's kneejerk dig at any mention of Jewish friends is typical and much like the "have you stopped beating your wife?" question. Either one has Jewish friends (maybe even "best"), or does not. I'm sure Pearldrips would be able to find fault with either admission.
Wisegoy:
I know your sorry that you missed those great old days in the 3rd Reich.
Lance ( shit for brains ) Thruster:
What in the name of God are you talking about,
No Bill, I think Hitler and the Third Reich were monstrous! Does your idea of history only go back to 1933? What about 5th century BC Egypt, how about the constant conflicts between Jews and Greeks that Josephus writes about in the Jewish Wars, how about the disturbances of 66 to 70 AD which culminated in the destruction of the temple by the Romans, how about Tacitus' mention of Judaism as opposed to all that is practiced by other men, how about mediaeval Europe and the many expulsions of the Jews, how about the Spanish Inquisition in the 15th century, how about Karl Marx's essay on the Jewish Question where he says Jews are a clannish, asocial and alien group engaged in exploitation of the Gentile, in the 19th century, compare that to Hecateus of Abdera in the 3rd century BC who describes the Jew as misanthropic and hostile to the non jew. I could go on and on, but more to the point, what does the goy hating jew expect the goy to do when he discovers the jews opinion of him? It is the opinion of many that anti-semitism is only the natural human response to the abhorrence in which the gentile is held by the "chosen people". The cynical relationship between the jewish Zionists and the christian fundamentalists is really a high profile example of this hateful attitude. As to the impossibility of some such further horror occurring in the 21st century, ponder the following. Mossad/Israelis having information of 9/11 and not informing US authorities? An impossibility, you say, but what about the Israelis filming 9/11, seen and documented, what about the USS Liberty, the many jewish american pro israeli spies . . . I could go on, but let us just say the ice is very thin. You see, your position is becoming increasingly untenable. Israel and Zionists be afraid, be very afraid. Did you notice the goy reaction to the jewish attack on The Passion , I did, and I noticed how quickly the attack was dropped when the goy hit back. You get my drift. On one point jewish tradition is very accurate, the goy will turn at the drop of a hat, and according to my readings of the jewish scriptures this is God's plan, so it shouldn't be surprising. Before I close, let me say that my very best friend is a jew, two of my wives were jewish, so I even have jewish children. You see, it is not personal, just the facts.
wisegoy:
Two of your wives were Jewish. How many wives have you had. Can you keep count? It seems to me that you quoted numerous examples where we got shit on. And we should be afraid, very afraid. Well personally asshole I have a lot of trust in our system of government, the intrinsic goodness of the American people, and last but not least the second amendment. I know you think that we deserved slavery, the holocaust and everybody in between but I beg to differ. Also, we have been a tremendous plus to this country in every endeavor. So, when you beat your kids from two of your many wives give it some thought scumbag
Alana; I know we stand diametrically opposed on this but I do agree with you on one thing. Jewish liberal angst has exhibited by Philip Weiss and his compatriots is really kind of boring already, don't you think?
Bill, a serious question for you..are you refering to the Israeli or the American system of government when you say 'our system of government'? What American people? The Israel-firster Likudist neo-cons? Therein lies the crux of the matter! Dual loyalties even in the face of monstrous injustice! I really hope that the honest and good Americans like Philp Weisses succeed rather than your, alas, more typical species, for your and the world's sake otherwise its back in the shit, as you so eloquently phrased it. PS Three wives in total... so far. Still good friends with all. Never beat anyone, much less my beloved children. Sorry.
The American system of government. Frankly the Israeli electoral system is not particularly reponsive. And I trust the American people, not you, but most of the rest of them. And what species are you by the way and if you truly had two Jewish wives, and boy their parents must have been really fucking thrilled, then you have Jewish kids, that must really suck for a guy like you. Phil Weiss is a pice of shit and the only good thing here is that when he dies the jewish part of his families story dies with him. Last but not least, I am really glad to live in a country that has the right to bear arms with idiots like you walking around.
You should be in jewish comedy, bill