My piece on the decline of the Israeli peace movement
... is now up on the Boston Review website, here.
I found it a really tragic article to work on. I have admired the Israeli peace movement since its inception. I still think its finest hour was when it mobilized hundreds of thousands of Israelis to take to the streets of their cities in September 1982, to protest the role Defense Minister Sharon and the IDF had played in orchestrating the massacres in Beirut's Sabra and Shatila refugee camps.
From the late 1980s through 1993 I worked pretty closely with Naomi Chazan and other leaders in the movement, particularly in organizing and facilitating some of the early contacts with various Palestinians and Arab-state nationals in which these women and men started hammering out the details of what a viable two-state solution might look like and how it could be achieved.
Naomi is one of the smartest, most dedicated, as well as most fair-minded (un-chauvinistic) Jewish Israelis whom I have ever had the privilege of knowing.
The Jewish-Israeli peace movement still has many extremely inspiring and dedicated people in it. I have written about some of them here at JWN over the years. But the political and social weight of the movement within Israeli society has declined very steeply since 1982.
In the BR article I pinpoint the singular role that I think Ehud Barak played in deflating the movement-- to be precise, with the fatwa he issued in December 2000, in which this man, who had been elected 18 months earlier on an explicitly pro-peace platform, ruled that he now judged that Israel had "no Palestinian partner for peace."
But I also describe four long-term reasons for the movement's decline:
- The diminution or elimination, post-Oslo, of the "cost" argument for leaving the occupied territories;
- The fact that so many Jewish Israelis have simply turned their backs on the Arab world over the past 10-15 years, and no longer partcularly seek or value good relations with it, seeing themselves as "westerners" or even quasi-Europeans, instead;
- The appropriation of the "demographic" argument the peace movement often used to use, by the forces of Israel's newly emergent ethnonationalist rightwing; and
- The apparent effectiveness of the "Hamastan" argument inside Israeli society.
One factor I was not able to explore in the article-- which got cut very heavily along the way-- was the fact that over recent years a lot of pro-peace Israelis have actually moved away from the country. It's not just Amos Oz and the late Amos Elon moving to Tuscany, or wherever. It's the whole cohort of younger pro-peace Israelis who are now turning up in the US (and Europe), including many who now blog from here in "the west."
I guess I can understand (and sympathize with) why they make this choice to emigrate from Israel. But their emigration does have the effect of leaving Israeli society even more heavily under the influence of the ethno-nats and the religio-nats than it would otherwise have been.
One thing the BR editors cut out of my piece was the observation I had made that though, at the beginning of Israel's assault on Gaza last December, the (once proudly pro-peace) Meretz Party in Israel for a crucial few days gave its support to the war effort, the US branch of the Meretz publicly expressed its opposition to the war from the get-go.
(I think Meretz USA later tried to fudge the fact of that disagreement with the "mother party" in Israel.)
For me, this points to an interesting broader change in the dynamics between Jewish-Israeli society and Jewish-American society. Until very recently, the pro-peace movement in Israel was always a far broader and weightier presence in Jewish-Israeli society than the pro-peace movement in the US has been in Jewish-American society. A huge chunk of Jewish American society was-- probably since the 1960s, if not earlier-- what Phil Weiss and others have described as "PEP", "progressive, except on Palestine."
Throughout those long decades, you would frequently hear from Jewish Americans some version of this argument: "Though I might well have concerns about some aspects of the Israeli government's policy toward the Palestinians, still, it's the Israelis who are on the front-lines, and therefore we Jewish Americans can't undercut them by expressing our concerns openly."
... And meantime, in Israel, the pro-peace activists were frequently out on the streets protesting their government's policy. They were founding organizations like Peace Now, B'tselem or Yesh Din, or the Israeli Committee Against Home Demolitions that threw great energy into documenting, publicizing, and organizing against Israeli abuses in the occupied territories. Those Israeli movements were (and still are) crucial voices of conscience; and for many long years they really made a difference.
Okay, perhaps not enough of a difference... But a difference, all the same.
And now? They are still a voice of conscience-- a function that, as Quakers know, is never to be under-estimated. But they have nothing like the social and political weight in Israeli society that they once did.
But meantime, Jewish-American society is now more willing than ever before to adopt political positions that are in direct contradiction to those of the government of Israel; and important voices in Jewish-American society are more willing than ever before to criticize the Israeli government's policies openly.
This is certainly true regarding the settlements issue; and I hope it proves true regarding other issues on the peacemaking agenda, too.
There is one further wrinkle in this new dynamic. Though Jewish-American critics of the actions of (this) government in Israel are a much larger force within Jewish-American society than they have been for many decades, the mainstream US media remains, in general, much less hospitable to views critical of Israeli government government policies than the mainstream Israeli media are.
However, the rise of the blogosphere has certainly "evened out the playing field" of the US political discourse on matters Israeli and Palestinian. So yes, while there are all kinds of staunchly pro-Netanyahu commentators out there in the US (and Israeli) blogosphere, there are also numerous strong voices-- Jewish and non-Jewish-- in the US blogosphere that are highly critical of Netanyahu and vocal in calling for a fair and durable peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
So anyway, do go and read my BR piece. I see you can comment on it there... But you can also comment on it here. Your choice!
It is difficult for all of us who have hoped and worked for peace between the Israelis and the Palestinians over the years to confront the reality that major segments of the Palestinian population simply do not want peace, or to accept global standards of human rights including those for women, and can only be dealt with by armed force. It's not what people want, and certainly not what the Israelis want, but it's kind of ludicrous at this point to consider otherwise. But the facts are undeniable: The Palestinians have been offered peace, their own state and everything else many times; all they have to do is join the rest of the world and recognize Israel. Wouldn't cost them a penny. But they continue to refuse simply because they want war more than peace. How could any Israeli peace activist say to the Israeli people that the Palestinians are ready for peace when Hamas is still moving in more rockets, and both the PLO and Hamas' charter continue to call for the complete elimination Israel. It's ridiculous. It simply doesn't make sense, and it's just not going to happen. Until the Palestinians come to their senses and recognize Israel, then those in Israel who want peace have to hold their hopes in abeyance, and focus on protecting Israel from further attacks. There isn't any other choice.
July 13, 2009 7:19 PM | Reply | Permalink
mikep - Would you please outline in detail what state the Palestinians could have had? What borders were offered? Any other details you care to share with us? When I was in Israel to vote in the February 2001 elections I was going to vote for Barak until I heard him explain that at Camp David he kept the Jordan Valley and complete and total egress and ingress control of the West Bank and Gaza. He stated we might hear about the possibility of the Jordan Valley reverting to Palestinian control after 20-25 years but to pay no attention - it won't happen.
This past February during the elctions I heard Livni herself explain that the Olmert/Livni negotiations kept the land east of route 90 to maintain again all control of access to and from Palestine. No country is going to accept having another country control everything and everyone who enters or leaves - that's not a state - it's a large "reservation".
I find it hard to believe in this day and age anyone really believing that the Palestinians don't recognize Israel. What have they been talking about during the last 16 years of negotiation. Even Hamas says they will honor a peace agreement with Israel if a Palestinian plebecite approves it.
Yes Hamas is moving in more weapons. That's human nature. There is no state or tribe on earth who willingly leaves themselves absolutely defenseless. Hezballah is never going to give up it's rockets and Israel will have to use military deterrence to prevent their use. The same is true of Hamas.
At some point, Israel is going to have to take a risk for peace. They took one with Egypt and I was in Israel when there was great fear about giving up the Sinai but it worked out well for Israel. Do you think Israel can continue the blockade of Gaza and occupation of the west bank for the next 100 or 1000 years? Soorner or later they either have to make two states or live with a bi-national one. Israel should do it now while they are strong and vibrant.
July 13, 2009 8:25 PM | Reply | Permalink
Hezballah is never going to give up it's rockets and Israel will have to use military deterrence to prevent their use.
Au contraire. It's Israel's efforts to "prevent their use" that will goddam guarantee that Hezbollah and next time, the Lebanese Armed Forces will join in to retaliate for yet another in the long line of Israeli attacks on Lebanon. The Lebanese, including the "pro-Western" Saad Hariri, are sick to the death of the constant Israeli threats to destroy them.
The massive round-up of Lebanese spies who provided the IDF with targeting information also puts a crimp in the next Israeli Operation Do-Over.
Be careful what you wish for, jdledell. Those "rockets" have no military answer unless airborne genocide is the tactic used to prevent their use.
July 13, 2009 9:05 PM | Reply | Permalink
I can't say for sure what will happen next time, but I know what happened last time. Shalit was kidnapped and then a bit later Hezbollah snatched two soldiers leading to the 2006 Lebanon war.
Hariri and others may be sick of the Israeli threat, but he was one of the first to complain that Hezbollah had unneedingly antagonized and started a war with Israel--much of the rest of the world concurred. In fact, even Nasrallah, from the safety of a bunker, commented that if he had known how it would have played out, he wouldn't have seized the soldiers.
Rather than using its katyushas purely for deterrent value, Hezbollah used them quite aggressively. It thought it could simply seize the soldiers and then negotiate because it was counting on the rockets and its impressive military posture to contain the conflict...i.e., Israel will quickly retaliate and then negotiate because they don't want to risk a wider war and nonstop rocket barrages. But Israel called their bluff. I'm not defending Israel's conduct of the war, but Hezbollah takes the blame for starting it.
What a joke--you talk of "the massive round-up of Lebanese spies who provided the IDF with targeting information." I wouldn't belive what you see on the Propaganda Ministry's al-Manar. Hezbollah's Iranian Revolutionary Guard mentors also call all the people they rounded up in Tehran and elsewhere American, British and Israeli spies.
July 14, 2009 10:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
Well, you certainly do have the version of the stupid summer war of '06 for clueless American Zionists down pat.
You do understand that Israelis are more informed about reality, don't you? Makes sense as they're the ones involved on the ground, so to speak, and believing in the kind of silliness sold to their friends-in-America is counterproductive.
Fortunately for Israel, those involved in planning for the next round are well informed about the nuetralization of their Lebanese assets.
There is much speculation that some hightech stuff supplied to the Lebanese security services by US has been key to the round-up of suspects (around 100 at last count, some suspects have escaped to Israel). Makes sense if they and the LAF are able to track transmissions from the spies to their Israeli handlers....
If true, it's a proud day for Americans to bear witness to our concrete contributions to Lebanese Homeland Security.
July 14, 2009 2:49 PM | Reply | Permalink
Maybe if you tone down the sarcasm (mistaken for wittiness) a bit I could understand what you're saying.
Clueless...ok. Cuz Hariri, Nasrallah, the Saudis, the Egyptians, Europeans, all of Congress and then candidate Obama didn't all say what I said they did and have the same interpretation of how the events started???
You can say what you want about the Israeli response being effective or proportionate, but it was the cross-border kidnapping raid that touched off the conflict. There were deeper, longer-standing issues, but this event was the main precipitant.
It almost seems like you think there's something noble behind Hezbollah and its supporters. For that moment in '06 Israel was public enemy #1, but go to non-Shi'a areas in Lebanon now and they'll tell you about their enemy Hizballah.
As an American, I haven't forgotten our 241 Marines murdered in Beirut or our service members being sniped at in Iraq and Afghanistan by the Hezbollah Quds Waffen SS war machine. Hezbollah deserves nothing nice from us.
July 14, 2009 4:20 PM | Reply | Permalink
Allow me Lally...
July 14, 2009 4:35 PM | Reply | Permalink
Sand, I read the article and I think you misinterpret it.
"the prime minister chose a plan..." AND "Preparations for Israel's war in Lebanon last summer were drawn up at least four months before..."
Yes, militaries all over the world have many contingency plans. If we had to go war in Korea we would pull out a plan, but the existence of that plan doesn't mean we are looking for a reason to go to war. Planning, preparations and rehearsals are big things that ALL militaries do. We also rehearse nuclear strikes and contingencies--does that mean we'll soon start a nuclear war? Better to be ready to fight than to fight and not be ready.
Also, Winograd wasn't some truth commission trying to expose war crimes. They were trying to find out why Israel did so poorly.
Again, this is not a defense of Israel's conduct of the war or its wisdom, but Hezbollah started that war for no reason. It used its deterrent as leverage for aggressive and risky behavior and miscalculated. Israel was given proper cause. Did it use that cause as pretext for something larger...a very fair question.
July 15, 2009 9:20 AM | Reply | Permalink
No I didn't misinterpret the article -- I also read the article right the way through. Olmert and Israel used the 'excuse' of the taking of 'two' military soldiers to start a test war, and he and ISRAEL didn't stop there, they extended their operation by killing selectively women and children Lebanese civilians.
And you say as as Olmert apologist "Israel was given proper cause". No comment.
Winograd was a whitewash, but it still unearthed some interesting insight how Israel's own HATE for its neighbors manifests in collective punishment.
July 15, 2009 3:46 PM | Reply | Permalink
JDL: I was a bit late to the party commenting on your recent blog. Thanks for the shoutout. You might be surprised to find I agree with you more than not.
With respect to your challenge to mikep, allow me to step in with this, from Newsweek.
Perfect? Of course not. But how is it that the Palestinians were not prepared, 60 years into this, to formulate a response?
July 13, 2009 11:01 PM | Reply | Permalink
Could you please point out the documents describing Olmert's offer. I have heard vague descriptions of that offer but they also included continued Israeli military control of the Jordan Valley. Look at a map some time; the Jordan Valley includes about half of the WB territory.
This is just more Israeli dissembling. Abbas would be a fool to step in the room with any Israeli leader without certified neutral mediators armed with tape recorders. These private encounters are set ups for a swindle.
July 14, 2009 12:09 AM | Reply | Permalink
What bullshit. The Palestinians have had every opportunity over the last 60 years, as AG says, to formulate a response to Israeli peace plans or present one of their own.
It's a point the Israel-bashers never fail to ignore. Why is it that the supposedly innocent Palestinians have NEVER - NOT ONCE - presented a peace plan of their own? It's just so much easier to point out the flaws and unfairness of this or that Israeli or American plan, all the better to continue to play the victim, thereby scoring short-term propaganda "victories" and continuing to dupe gullible westerners into supporting them. If they actually presented their own plan, then they would soon realize how far their vision is from reality.
If Israel were smart, it would start to publicly campaign to put pressure on the Palestinians to present a peace plan of their own. Why should Israel have to bear the brunt of the effort?
July 14, 2009 9:11 AM | Reply | Permalink
You are turning logic upon its head. No conquered peoples have ever given approval to the conquering party by way of a peace deal. Not in the entire hisstory of the world. The obligation for peace lies with the strong.
July 14, 2009 10:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
From the Newsweek article linked by AG:
If Fatah was the GOP, we would be calling it "the Party of 'No'."
July 14, 2009 11:40 AM | Reply | Permalink
Also, adding a bit of context here:
July 14, 2009 3:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
The point remains that there have been Israeli proposals submitted to Palestinian negotiators, while Palestinian negotiators have rejected them all with no counterproposals whatsoever. Further, I reject the standard set by Victor Shaw upthread that Israel is obligated to submit proposal after proposal until the Palestinians get one that they like. Since the territories in this particular dispute were formerly under Jordanian and Egyptian rule, not Palestinian sovereignty, the Palestinians are not a "conquered people." This has been a nation-building initiative since Egypt relinquished its claims in 1978, and Jordan relinquished its claims in 1989. If these are to be approached as genuine negotiations then both parties, not just one, are obligated to negotiate.
July 14, 2009 6:21 PM | Reply | Permalink
"The point remains that there have been Israeli proposals submitted to Palestinian negotiators, while Palestinian negotiators have rejected them all with no counterproposals whatsoever..."
So says the TPM 'bug' who I'm guessing was on the wall during negotiations?
July 14, 2009 6:29 PM | Reply | Permalink
OK, fine. Let's pretend that Palestinian negotiators have answered every Israeli proposal in the peace process with a counteroffer of their own, but it all has somehow been kept secret from the rest of us who were not in the room -- either at the wall, or at the proverbial table. What does that do to Victor Shaw's argument now that the "conquered people" have risen to an apparently mutual standard of obligation to peace with the Israelis? Or will you insist on having it both ways?
July 15, 2009 8:00 AM | Reply | Permalink
Your point that the failure of the Israeli peace movement began in 1992 seems quite reasonable. 1992 raised the hopes of many that peace could be achieved. But then nothing happened. Worse than that the settlements not only continued to be expanded but the growth rate increased. Under Rabin, Perez, Netanyahu and Barak, it made no difference, settlement expansion continued. For some reason I really do not understand, even though the Israelis claimed they wanted peace, they proceeded to continue the Westbank colonization movement. How could any Palestinian leader say to their people that the Israelis were ready for peace when the Israelis were clearly saying through their actions that they wanted the Palestinians lands.
By 2000 Arafat had lost control over the Palestinian people and the second intifada broke out. At this point the war parties on both sides became dominant and we have watched the Israeli peace movement wither.
Until Israel comes to its senses and recognize that the Westbank belongs to the Palestinian people then there is no hope for the two state solution. The possible alternatives are obvious and none are what those who wish of a progressive zionist state would desire.
July 13, 2009 8:11 PM | Reply | Permalink
"By 2000 Arafat had lost control over the Palestinian people and the second intifada broke out."
You have got to be kidding. Arafat made a strategic decision to start that "intifada". It did not break out, it was started by Arafat.
And why exactly does the WB "belong" to the Palestinians?? It was Turkish, British, Jordanian, but never Palestinian. Jews were always allowed to live there until Jordan occupied the WB in 1949.
There is one, and only one, solution to this issue: Jordan will take and administer the WB, and Egypt will take Gaza. This will happen long before there will be a "Palestinian state".
July 13, 2009 11:47 PM | Reply | Permalink
Arafat made a strategic decision to start that "intifada". It did not break out, it was started by Arafat.
Congratulations. You can replicate official Israeli talking points. I doubt you know what you are talking about, but for those of us paying attention it was clear that Arafat started losing control of the street in about 1998. He needed success at Camp David in 2000 probably more than did Barak. His failure there undermined his authority.
My one criticism with Helena's articles is that she blames Barak for this failure. It should be pointed out that it was Clinton who supported him when he returned to Israel and announced that there was no one to talk to. This was Clinton's mistake as much as Barak's.
July 14, 2009 1:15 AM | Reply | Permalink
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July 14, 2009 7:12 AM | Reply | Permalink
What I find incredible in this piece - and I confess i haven't read the longer article it references, so perhaps I'm missing something - is that the decline of the Israeli peace movement is attributed solely to factors within Israel itself. Helena Cobban talks about demographic factors, attitudinal factors - all sorts of things - in trying to explain the decline but completely ignores the most obvious reason of all, the campaign of terror that ensued after the collapse of the Camp David negotiations in 2000, when Israel was subject to suicide bombings on an unprecendented scale. What's more, the peace movement in Israel essentially ignored the suffering of their fellow citizens and kept on making the same arguments. That they were subject to vilification by the right is predictable enough. But they also completely lost the confidence of the broad middle of Israeli public opinion.
The simple fact is that the Oslo peace process in the 1990s was exactly what Peace Now and others had campaigned for - an acceptance of a Palestinian state based on a formula of land-for-peace. Sure you could argue about the details, but that simple fact is usually lost in these arguments. Prior to 1992, official Israeli policy was to not have anything to do with the PLO and to reject the concept of a Palestinian state. The recognition of the PLO was an incredible thing for Israel. Furthermore, after the Rabin assassination and the first Netanyahu government, Ehud Barak brought Labor back to power in 1999 with a platform to finish what Yitzhak Rabin started and conclude the Oslo process. Barak went further than any previous Israeli government. He put Jerusalem on the table as open for negotiation. He was willing to cede control of the Temple Mount. In short, he embraced much of what the Israeli peace movement had been arguing for years.
Well we all know what happened. Whether or not you view the final offer that Israel presented as inadequate or whether you want to point out that settlements still kept going the whole time, the simple fact is that Israel's red lines moved farther than they ever had before in this period. What were formerly extreme leftist positions became mainstream and given.
After the explosion of 2001-2003, when Israel was under attack from unprecedented terrorism, what would anyone expect other than a complete repudiation of the people who had devised the previous policy - and who were unrepentant to boot? How could anyone continue to argue that peace was still possible with such barbarians as Hamas? How could they continue to claim that a settlement was only a matter of more Israeli concessions? It was then and remains an incredible thing.
July 14, 2009 9:37 AM | Reply | Permalink
Helena...
After the reports on Oslo in .... was it 1983?... I had real hopes for Peace, but it is obvious just from the continual bitterness here, that it is more of a dream than not. And it is clear that the people you mention leaving Israel in many regards lose their moral authority to have a say. Their lives are no longer on the line. As to weakening of American Jewish support for Israel, I suspect you would find a renewal of very strong support, and demands that Obama furnish strong support, in any existential conflict. To a great extent, the falling of support is a result of Israel's relative success in lesseing the horrific attacks (particularly on civilians) of yore.
However, I am interested in your knowledge of the evolution of the "two state solution"...now paraphrased as "two states for two peoples".
Can you tell us who the two peoples are?
And one more if you would be so good: Assuming you are in favor of some sort of division of Jerusalem, what are the boundary lines? Surely, the pre-1967 borders would be unacceptable to you. Or maybe not.
Thanks.
July 14, 2009 9:43 AM | Reply | Permalink
Helena,
Thank you for your insightful piece in BR and the addenda in JWN/TPM Cafe.
Regarding your comment that, "the US branch of the Meretz [party] publicly expressed its opposition to the war from the get-go. (I think Meretz USA later tried to fudge the fact of that disagreement with the "mother party" in Israel.)", I'd like to clarify:
Meretz USA is an American non-profit that is fully independent of the Israeli Meretz party. The reason we share the name "Meretz" is because we, like the other national Meretz groups throughout the world, share a common vision for Israel and a common philosophy - that of a liberal humanistic Zionism that seeks peace and encourages human and civil rights.
Because of this shared philosophy, Meretz USA generally - but not always - finds itself in agreement with positions adopted by Meretz in Israel.
Meretz USA indeed opposed the Gaza war from the beginning, calling for an immediate cease-fire; sustained diplomatic talks between the Israeli government and the Palestinian Authority aimed at easing conditions in the West Bank and Gaza, and achieving an equitable two-state solution; the verifiable termination of weapons smuggling into the Gaza Strip; and the lifting of the economic blockade on Gaza. (http://www.meretzusa.org/meretz-usa-calls-immediate-cessation-violence-between-israel-and-hamas)
Ron Skolnik
Executive Director
Meretz USA
www.meretzusa.org
July 14, 2009 10:34 AM | Reply | Permalink
Who exactly turned their backs on whom? Did I miss "the Arab World's" recognition of any legitimate Jewish historical presence in Israel, let alone any legitimate Jewish national rights in the former British Palestine Mandate?
July 14, 2009 11:46 AM | Reply | Permalink
The obvious problem is that the Palestinian Authority has no partner for peace with whom to negotiate an end to the conflict.
Likud and its current leader, Netanyahu, still hold to its manifesto pledge of a ‘Greater Israel’ and the transfer of all Muslims and Christians out of all of Palestine/ Israel, to other neighboring states.
Their undimmed vision is for an Israel that stretches from the Gulf of Aqaba in the south to Mount Hermon in the north – in other words, an expropriation of the whole of the original land of Palestine.
Given this, no one should envisage a Palestinian state being established with the co-operation of this, or any other, Likud government.
For so long as the status quo can be held, Israel will benefit by manufacturing ever more ‘facts on the ground’ that need to be continually expanded to cater for ‘natural growth’.
Not so much a comedy as an international, long-running farce. You give me bombs: I will kill ‘militants’ with them: you will look the other way: I will complain that I am the victim: you will agree: you will give me more bombs plus some missiles: I will kill more civilians: you will pretend to be asleep: I will smile: others will be astonished: I will blog that we are being threatened and we need even bigger bombs: you arrange the shipment: we both smile.
July 14, 2009 2:09 PM | Reply | Permalink
Bibi's insistence that a Palestinian state must not have access to it's own airspace, and that it be the sole domain of Israel, tells us all what exactly he and the hard right monsters who championed the killing of children covered by thinly veiled cover stories, and the bombing of UN food trucks and schools in Gaza recently, think of a Palestinian state.
The hard right in Israel have become terrorists in my opinion, and it's a damn shame that the majority of Israelis and Jewish Americans have be guilt-bullied into not objecting harshly about their recent behavior, and their open lack of understanding that the Palestinian people are the same species as we are, and deserve the same right to human life. Hamas is not the only criminal organization in that area: the right wing elements of the Israeli government and IDF are no different - worse, they have no problem whatsoever killing hundreds of children, the food, family homes and schools of thousands of families, nor using children as human shields. This is the humanity of the hard right in Israel, and more people ought be screaming at the top of their lungs in disgust.
They do not represent human decency, nor western civilization.
And apparently because I object so strongly to such inhuman behavior I am antisemitic and want Israel to be wiped off the face of the earth.
Disgusting.
July 15, 2009 2:22 AM | Reply | Permalink
July 15, 2009 8:13 AM | Reply | Permalink
"it's a damn shame that the majority of Israelis and Jewish Americans have be guilt-bullied into not objecting harshly about their recent behavior."
Why do American Jews have to be guilt-bullied about anything? Most of us have nothing to do with Israel! Most don't give political donations or belong to organizations that support the so-called Israel lobby. And the overwhelming majority of American Jews are apparently so staunchly and stubbornly pro-Likud that they still vote for and support the candidate and party that is seen as less pro-Israel. Jews are hardly one-issue voters, certainly less than the abortion, gun rights and Cuba people, but yet we are brought in for all the ridicule. My contribution to the shadowy lobby is my opinions, which I assume it's still free to have.
Blaming average American Jews for what Israel does is as fair as blaming Arabs or Muslims for bin Laden and the Taliban!
July 15, 2009 9:09 AM | Reply | Permalink