The crisis of Zionism deepens in America
Israeli border police frisk a suspected Palestinians youth next to the
Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. Atef Safadi / EPA
The crisis of Zionism deepens in America
Tony Karon
March 28, 2016 Updated: March 28, 2016 04:00 PM
Related
. Israeli extrajudicial killings belie narrative of morality
. UN slams 'gruesome' killing of Palestinian by Israeli soldier
. Decades on, Israel tries to bury its darkest times
One-page article
Israel's biggest public relations problem in the United States today is its
weakening grip on the loyalty of the liberal mainstream of Jewish America.
And that's bad news for a country that claims to speak and act on behalf of
all Jews - and on that basis to claim immunity from reproach over its
treatment of Palestinians.
The latest evidence of that mounting crisis comes in the form of a
University of California Board of Regents ruling last week linking
opposition to Zionism with anti-Semitism. That may sound like a victory for
the Israeli side, but lobbying to limit criticism of Israel reflects a
growing panic in the pro-Israel establishment.
The international effort to use boycott tactics to pressure Israel over its
occupation of Palestinian territories is gaining traction on American
campuses - where some of its most fervent and active advocates are left-wing
Jewish students.
As Peter Beinart, perhaps the most eloquent and thoughtful spokesman for a
younger generation of liberal Zionists, recently noted in the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz: "To the degree that establishment Jewish leaders
acknowledge this rising Jewish anti-Zionism, they chalk it up to
self-hatred. But when you talk to Jewish students in the BDS movement ...
you quickly discover that being Jewish is precious to them." What the
ferment among liberal Jews on US campuses tells us is that the intra-Jewish
debate about Israel and Zionism has resumed.
I say resumed, because anti-Zionism began as a Jewish political current,
long before the dispossession, displacement and disenfranchisement of
Palestinians by Israel. When it first emerged as a nationalist political
movement among European Jews in the late 19th and early 20th century,
Zionism was supported only by a minority of the community it claimed to
represent. It was dwarfed by the Yiddishe Arbeiter Bund, a socialist Jewish
organisation fiercely opposed to Zionism, which it deemed a dangerous
capitulation to anti-Semitism, which also sought to remove Jews from Europe.
The Nazi Holocaust, combined with the anti-Semitic immigration quotas still
enforced by the main western powers at the end of the war, left most
survivors with little option but to settle in Palestine. And for decades
after, a majority of Jews world wide supported Israel as a state of
Holocaust survivors, deeming it a vital refuge from anti-Semitic persecution
- and preferring to ignore the cost its creation had imposed on
Palestinians.
Times have changed. Anti-Semitism has receded from the western political
mainstream, while Israel's dispossession and occupation of Palestinians has
deepened. That's created a sharp generational divide among Jewish Americans:
A 2007 survey found that less than half of Jewish Americans aged under 35
would deem it a "personal tragedy" if Israel ceased to exist.
The majority of Jewish Americans today are proudly American and
predominantly liberal, and don't see being Jewish as making them part of a
separate nation. More than two-thirds of non-Orthodox Jews are married to a
partner who is not Jewish.
No surprise, then, that the Iran nuclear deal was supported by a strong
majority of Jewish Americans despite the Israeli leadership's urgent calls
for US politicians to stop the agreement.
Liberal Zionism has for years traded on a fantasy version of Israel,
portrayed as the embodiment of the progressive values of the Jewish-American
liberal mainstream, "the only democracy in the Middle East" at war only
because it is besieged by Arab extremists. The question of Palestinian
rights simply doesn't feature in this fantasy world. It's simply no longer
possible to suppress the often brutal truths of what Israeli security forces
and settlers do every day - in the name of all Jewish people.
Where the pro-Israel establishment had proven adept over the years at
pressuring mainstream US outlets to limit critical coverage of Israel, that
capability is of diminishing use today because a dwindling number of people
under 35 still rely on the New York Times for news. Videos streaming across
social media platforms of the incontrovertible reality of the occupation
reveal a candid picture of Israel in which many Jewish Americans are unable
to identity with those claiming to act in their name. Raised in a liberal
Jewish ethical tradition, they are taught to side with the victims of
persecution, the underdog, the oppressed, those being bullied by the
powerful.
And it's rather difficult to present Israelis as any kind of underdog in the
occupied territories.
Commenting on moves like the lobbying of the UC Regents, Beinart warned,
"The American Jewish establishment does not want to rebut anti-Zionist
arguments. It would rather call them anti-Semitic and thus shut the entire
discussion down. But . the debate is coming, not only within the United
States at large, but within American Jewry. It's going to make a lot of
people uncomfortable. Yet the longer American Jewish leaders evade it, the
more likely they'll ultimately lose."
They've probably lost already. Some 60 per cent of the world's Jews live
outside Israel, and each new generation is less convinced than its
predecessor was of the state's claims to represent all Jews. That alienation
is likely to deepen as the pro-Israel establishment - fearful of losing its
claim to represent all Jews, and the immunity it demands as a result - tries
to reverse the tide by silencing American critics, many of them Jewish.
Freedom of speech, after all, is a fundamental American value.
Tony Karon teaches in the graduate programme at the New School in New York
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/the-crisis-of-zionism-deepens-in-a
merica
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undoubtedly increase so long as the present Israeli govmt remains in power
or is replaced by ones like it. May the numbers grow!
Dorothy
From: Rupa Shah [mailto:rupashah40@xxxxxxxxxxx] ;
Sent: Thursday, March 31, 2016 5:57 AM
Subject: The crisis of Zionism deepens in America
Israeli border police frisk a suspected Palestinians youth next to the
Damascus Gate of the Old City of Jerusalem. Atef Safadi / EPA
The crisis of Zionism deepens in America
Tony Karon
March 28, 2016 Updated: March 28, 2016 04:00 PM
Related
.
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/israeli-extrajudicial-killings-bel
ie-narrative-of-morality
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/israeli-extrajudicial-killings-bel
ie-narrative-of-moralityIsraeli extrajudicial killings belie narrative of
morality
. UN slams 'gruesome' killing of Palestinian by Israeli soldier
. Decades on, Israel tries to bury its darkest times
One-page article
Israel's biggest public relations problem in the United States today is its
weakening grip on the loyalty of the liberal mainstream of Jewish America.
And that's bad news for a country that claims to speak and act on behalf of
all Jews - and on that basis to claim immunity from reproach over its
treatment of Palestinians.
The latest evidence of that mounting crisis comes in the form of a
University of California Board of Regents ruling last week linking
opposition to Zionism with anti-Semitism. That may sound like a victory for
the Israeli side, but lobbying to limit criticism of Israel reflects a
growing panic in the pro-Israel establishment.
The international effort to use boycott tactics to pressure Israel over its
occupation of Palestinian territories is gaining traction on American
campuses - where some of its most fervent and active advocates are left-wing
Jewish students.
As Peter Beinart, perhaps the most eloquent and thoughtful spokesman for a
younger generation of liberal Zionists, recently noted in the Israeli
newspaper Haaretz: "To the degree that establishment Jewish leaders
acknowledge this rising Jewish anti-Zionism, they chalk it up to
self-hatred. But when you talk to Jewish students in the BDS movement ...
you quickly discover that being Jewish is precious to them." What the
ferment among liberal Jews on US campuses tells us is that the intra-Jewish
debate about Israel and Zionism has resumed.
I say resumed, because anti-Zionism began as a Jewish political current,
long before the dispossession, displacement and disenfranchisement of
Palestinians by Israel. When it first emerged as a nationalist political
movement among European Jews in the late 19th and early 20th century,
Zionism was supported only by a minority of the community it claimed to
represent. It was dwarfed by the Yiddishe Arbeiter Bund, a socialist Jewish
organisation fiercely opposed to Zionism, which it deemed a dangerous
capitulation to anti-Semitism, which also sought to remove Jews from Europe.
The Nazi Holocaust, combined with the anti-Semitic immigration quotas still
enforced by the main western powers at the end of the war, left most
survivors with little option but to settle in Palestine. And for decades
after, a majority of Jews world wide supported Israel as a state of
Holocaust survivors, deeming it a vital refuge from anti-Semitic persecution
- and preferring to ignore the cost its creation had imposed on
Palestinians.
Times have changed. Anti-Semitism has receded from the western political
mainstream, while Israel's dispossession and occupation of Palestinians has
deepened. That's created a sharp generational divide among Jewish Americans:
A 2007 survey found that less than half of Jewish Americans aged under 35
would deem it a "personal tragedy" if Israel ceased to exist.
The majority of Jewish Americans today are proudly American and
predominantly liberal, and don't see being Jewish as making them part of a
separate nation. More than two-thirds of non-Orthodox Jews are married to a
partner who is not Jewish.
No surprise, then, that the Iran nuclear deal was supported by a strong
majority of Jewish Americans despite the Israeli leadership's urgent calls
for US politicians to stop the agreement.
Liberal Zionism has for years traded on a fantasy version of Israel,
portrayed as the embodiment of the progressive values of the Jewish-American
liberal mainstream, "the only democracy in the Middle East" at war only
because it is besieged by Arab extremists. The question of Palestinian
rights simply doesn't feature in this fantasy world. It's simply no longer
possible to suppress the often brutal truths of what Israeli security forces
and settlers do every day - in the name of all Jewish people.
Where the pro-Israel establishment had proven adept over the years at
pressuring mainstream US outlets to limit critical coverage of Israel, that
capability is of diminishing use today because a dwindling number of people
under 35 still rely on the New York Times for news. Videos streaming across
social media platforms of the incontrovertible reality of the occupation
reveal a candid picture of Israel in which many Jewish Americans are unable
to identity with those claiming to act in their name. Raised in a liberal
Jewish ethical tradition, they are taught to side with the victims of
persecution, the underdog, the oppressed, those being bullied by the
powerful.
And it's rather difficult to present Israelis as any kind of underdog in the
occupied territories.
Commenting on moves like the lobbying of the UC Regents, Beinart warned,
"The American Jewish establishment does not want to rebut anti-Zionist
arguments. It would rather call them anti-Semitic and thus shut the entire
discussion down. But . the debate is coming, not only within the United
States at large, but within American Jewry. It's going to make a lot of
people uncomfortable. Yet the longer American Jewish leaders evade it, the
more likely they'll ultimately lose."
They've probably lost already. Some 60 per cent of the world's Jews live
outside Israel, and each new generation is less convinced than its
predecessor was of the state's claims to represent all Jews. That alienation
is likely to deepen as the pro-Israel establishment - fearful of losing its
claim to represent all Jews, and the immunity it demands as a result - tries
to reverse the tide by silencing American critics, many of them Jewish.
Freedom of speech, after all, is a fundamental American value.
Tony Karon teaches in the graduate programme at the New School in New York
http://www.thenational.ae/opinion/comment/the-crisis-of-zionism-deepens-in-a
merica
