JDELL,

Thanks for your post. Perhaps it's selfish of me, a Jew living here, to say this: But Israel needs people like you and your wife. If you feel strongly about living out your days there, as you've said before and elsewhere, do it and help make Israel the place it can and should be.

(Peter)

Peter - Thank You for your kind words - they mean a lot to me, especially today. We are still working our way to a conclusion.

lally - To me the questioning was not that big a deal. I've been around a security concious Israel for a LONG time. The only reason I mentioned it was the negative impact it had on my wife who is not used to it. Having been married 40 years anything we do is a joint effort and if she does not approve of aliyah, neither will I.

Nothing was said or implied that we could not make aliyah. I think this questioning might be as a result of being informed by a couple of my settler relatives who consider me a self-hating Jew who wants to see Israel's demise. The aliyah folks were very nice even though they thought we were somewhat atypical. Maybe they were expecting a couple of Orthodox Jews from Brooklyn.

In any event, I think MJ is making too much of this situation in his post. He is taking one episode and making a mountain out of a mole hill.

I want to thank you for this post, JD. My first response was, "Oh my god, why would he want to live there!" But then I tried to put myself in your shoes and thought more carefully about it, and I can see tintin's earlier point (Israel may need you!), although I still worry for you, moving there when the country seems to have moved so far to the right, and seems to be heading ever more rightward still.

Your posts on Israel have always been enlightening. I hope you will be able to continue writing them, should you decide to make the move. Perhaps that's something that you should also add into the aliayah decision equation: with the country's current drift to the right, would you be prevented from posting to TPM in the future? That warning you got sounded ominous, and suggests to me that you might, but you probably can gauge the situation better. (I'm not saying that your decision should be made on the basis of TPM itself, but on whether you could tolerate being forced into silence.)

It really saddens me to hear the current pre-election mood in Israel. Haaretz has a very chilling article, comparing Lieberman to Kahane: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1062338.html

Palestinians are becoming only an Indian problem, for the cavalry to roust, to keep bottled up on reservations. Unlike during our displacement and elimination of indigenous Americans, TV is watching.

Hamas is the new Ghost Dance.

You are no Norman Finkelstein. Norman can be a pain, but he would never aid a country that just murdered 350 to 400 children.

"the fact that they were considered an issue and that you were warned is alarming as it suggests the direction of the state toward more totalitarian measures is aimed at more than Arabs."

Interesting comment. So, it seems that totalitarian measures aimed at Arab citizens of the "only democratic country in the Middle East" - that have been aimed at them for 60 years - are not so alarming?

jdledell,

Like others, I found this to be a touching though depressing post about a somewhat bizarre visit to Israel. I'm curious. Why did you feel the need to tell MJ Rosenberg not to make a big deal of it? Did he make a big deal of it? Looks to me like he made a fairly mild comment about it then linked to it. I've seen many others making a bigger "big deal" of things like this. You say he suggested you were roughed up. You say he suggested you couldn't make Aliya. I did not see any of this from MJ.

What exactly did MJ say or do that really bugged you?

I have for a long time now given up on the Israeli dream. It is a Jewish homeland that will not welcome the Jews of my heritage, the ones, yes victims, who were tied to victims everywhere. What is left? Israel finally is on the verge of its very own Bush/Cheney/rightwing gone mad moment. We are on the precipice and Israel is about to do something so stupendously terrible that even here there will be revulsion. Of course, I do not know what it is. But the sort of anti-Arab hatred that is running through Israel, the sort of Jewish fascist ultranationalism, will have its expression in atrocities. A disease like the one convulsing Israel does not pass quietly in the night.

"there is a groundswell of support for a "move'em on out" permanent solution for the Palestinians"

IF only the poor jews could find a FINAL SOLUTION to their arab problem.

OH yeah, the rhetoric that people use comparing Israel to the Nazis are waaaaaay off base.

"it does reinforce my primal fear that Israel is losing its soul."

It's nice to see that your more concerned with an abstract entity (Israel) losing another abstract entity (it's soul) then you are with said abstract entity's wholesale SLAUGHTER of a group of people. Way to miss the point you asshole.

Oh, and what exactly is wrong with Norman Finkelstein? Is this one of those things where it's so obvious that you don't even have to use an argument? Lot of THAT going around.

If you want to torment yourself, go through with it. Your grandfather couldn't accept living there, neither can you.
If you want to do "good" stay at home and try to change our policy of "carte blanche" that will eventually be the undoing of any good will anywhere.
I can almost guarantee that your wife will never feel safe and will long for the place she will have left.
Rationality must prevail for your and her safety...

What's wrong with Norm Finklestein? I'm not aware that any of his findings have been proven wrong.

His first scholarship focused on showing that Joan Peters was a fraud. This is widely accepted now.

I cannot let these comments go without responding. My daughter made Aliyah 25 years ago, lives on a beautiful Kibbutz with her Sabra husband and two soldier sons.

The Israel you describe is not the Israel I know, nor is it the one my daughter sees. You ran into a lot of right wingers, but there are more Peace loving Israelis who wish only for the two State solution and to live in Peace without Settlers trying to force their ugly views on the rest of the Country.

Certainly the continuing attacks on innocent Israelis by Hamas and Hezbollah, make people afraid but I never hear cries of sympathy from all these bleeding hearts for Israeli victims nor anything about the 60 years of corruption in the Palestinian leadership, their lack of compassion for their own people, their sworn goals to destroy Israel completely.

It's sad that it is necessary for newcomers to Israel to be vetted. It's only that kind of security measure that has kept thousands more Israelis from death by suicide bombing.

You're looking at the wrong things in Israel, Mr. Ledell. Better make your exploration much wider.

JDELL,

This is a great piece you've written. I hope the commentary that you get from it help you with your decisions.

I tend to agree with ClarkBlack, I believe you'll be able to be more effective in the U.S.
The bottom line we condone this behavior and fund it.
Your piece leave me with the feeling that war is immanent.

"Be a hero at home, you'll be more effective... since we fund all the weapons and probably the programs you will be entitled to, you can make a big contribution here by curtailing the biased attitudes now prevailing... you've seen the real situation up close and personal. Write letters to all of our newspapers to let it be known what is going on..."

Take a look at 60 minutes on CBS.

www.youtube.com/watch?v=tor75dMABi8

http://www.youpolls.com/details.asp?pid=4546

JeffB - I saw the original show with Bob Simon and it was a very accurate reflection of life on the West Bank. I just wished they could have shown some of the checkpoints and the demeaning behavior Palestinians are subjected to. It is really awful. In any event, I did respond to J Street's request to send CBS a letter supporting Bob Simon's courageous and accurate reporting.

"The racism, the settlements, the lack of a peace agreement..."

The racism began well before Israel was a state. Some have noticed it over the years, including Jews who have made Aliyah, and been appalled at what they found. Most have found ways to to avoid noticing it, or to excuse it away.

The illegal colonization (aka "settlement") began in 1967 and has not stopped since then. Oslo was little more than a cover to escalate the colonization activity, increase restrictions on Palestinians' freedom of movement, squeeze them into ever smaller, ever more isolated enclaves, and tighten Israel's grip on the OPT, especially East Jerusalem and environs.

The lack of a peace agreement is very much a product of Israel's never missing an opportunity to turn its back on an opportunity. Israeli leaders have always known what they needed to do to live in peace. They have had numerous opportunities to have everything they say they want - peace, recognition, and normal diplomatic and economic relations with their neighbors. They have turned up their nose at every chance, sometimes by simply refusing to acknowledge the offer, sometimes by finding some excuse to refuse to even discuss the offer, sometimes by making their conditions so onerous that they themselves would never accept them.

All these things have been going on for at least four decades, some for more than six. How bad did it have to get before it was worth actually doing something about - until it was too late?

And we have not even mentioned the forty-plus years of clearly illegal colonization and plundering of resources in the Golan Heights.

Israel needs to be in a perpetual state of conflict for a variety of reasons, not the least of which is as a cover for the achievement its territorial ambitions. As Ben Gurion reassured his MAPAI colleagues in February, 1948, "The war will give us the land. The concepts of 'ours' and 'not ours' are peace concepts, only, and in war they lose their whole meaning”"

Although you have a family and cultural connection to Israel, for your safety I would strongly recommend you not move there. Although many people get upset when I say this, Israel has no future for some very rational reasons:

- Israel can NOT be militarily superior to its enemies forever. The world is awash in weapons that are equal to or better than anything Israel has or will ever have. Due to Friedman's "flat earth," all technology is freely available to everyone. As the trite phrase goes, everything now is a "mere mater of software." Due to cheap rockets controlled by cheap CPUs, other countries have effectively trumped the IAF. An AK47 with and RPG works just as well as IDF weapons (ask the US military about how good their hi-tech weapons are against IEDs).

- The US can NOT protect Israel forever. The US is rapidly losing economic and political power to China and Russia, neither of which care one bit if Israel exists. In the not too distant future, the US will turn inward and ignore Israel. Without the US resupply, Israel can't fight a very long war.

- The so-called "moderate" Muslim states will NOT be able to stay "moderate" for very much longer. Everyone of the "moderate" governments will be replaced by anti-US/Israel governments, joining the rest of the anti-US/Israel governments.

And the list of conditions that are turning against Israel goes on and on.

Israel has, at best, another 25 years before it loses its last war against the Arabs. I wish it didn't have to end up this way, but as you have well documented, this is the path the people in Israel have chosen. There is no other rational possibility because no one in Israel has the power to change the path Israel is on. After the fact, everyone will regret the huge number of deaths, but no one has the power, not the desire, to change that today.

Sometimes in life we have to realize our actions are futile and you wasting your life in Israel would be futile. Enjoy life elsewhere and continue to give voice to your thoughts.

Personally, I stay out of war zones if I can, and Israel is definitely going to be a war zone until it loses its last war.

Given our dire economic situation, the huge aid we are giving may not be sustainable.
It's weird anyway. Our great friend Saudi Arabia, is authoritarian, discrimates fully agst women (they aren't allowed to drive! and are arrested if they do), practices bigamy, or is it quadgamy,(the Mormons aren't allowed to do that--and I think their religion permits it), yet we maintain a cozy relationship... and how many of the highjackers are reported to have been Saudi?
The point is, just who are we protecting I agst. I has waged aggression on their neighbors... why? For land. So we have to protect them from the people they have wronged? Are we protecting them from Iran? Goodness knows, Israel seems to be terrified of Iran. Why? Iran sees what has happened with Israeli policies... surely they have the right to object to the outrages...
How long can we support , to the tune of billions, the situation wherein for sure Israel isn't making any friends. And the world sees what is going on... it surely isn't right or just... If someone really looks at the long history, why would someone choose to have a life there?
Stay home, work for justice for the oppressed. You can make a difference here, over there you may end up in prison... help your fellow Americans get out from under this yoke of billions of dollars spent on weapons and support... be American first... we need all the help we can get... and it's not going to come from Netanyahu (he thought 9/11 was just right) and Tippi (the women who worked for Mossad).

"Don’t the Israeli’s realize the diversity you demand for the US would be beneficial to them?"

That diversity would not be beneficial from the point of view of any ethnic nationalism, including Zionism. Ethnic nationalisms by definition reject diversity.

This wishy-washy agonizer about aliya meanders on a tour through the various positive and (more) negative aspects of Israel, even citing a venerable Zionist pedigree, but arrives at the bizarre conclusion that his aliya will depend on our election results. What a pathetic version of Zionism you have, not to mention citizenship in a democracy! Do you have the chutzpa to suggest that Israelis who are dissatisfied with the outcome of today's election should not live here either, as you apparently rationalize your decision to continue not making aliya? I just voted for the umpteenth time since making aliya 37 years ago and I continue to be dissatisfied with election results. That's why we keep having them. You can choose to become part of the solution or keep moaning about the many problems. But get it straight: You make aliya -- if you do -- to Israel, not to a political party, or a particular job, or even a certain neighborhood. The Jewish state is bigger than the sum of its parts.

YMedad - My grandfather escaped from Nazi occupied France in 1943. He was very familiar with German treatment of innocent civilians as a result of acts of sabotage by French resistence. Civilians were indiscriminately shot to make a point about the "cost" of resistence. In Israel one of my grandfather's jobs was to build the explosive donkey carts which were then moved to arab marketplaces and blown up to sow chaos and death amoung the civilian population.

The whole idea was to show the British that it wasn't worth their effort to continue the occupation and to show arabs, the Jews were here to stay. As for the morality of killing innocents, it was submerged to the greater morality of establishing a Jewish homeland. After a while, he could no longer distinquish the tactics employed in France versus those in Israel.

I resent your implication that my Grandfather was somehow a coward. He was far from it. He was a moral man. To plant bombs designed to deliberately kill innocent civilians is NOT moral in my book. There were no excuses like "collateral damage" or "human shields" to blame - it was outright murder and he knew it. So he left for America where he had sent his family to live with relatives in 1939, having seen the handwritting on the wall.

Where were you or your parents in 1948? Did you pick up a gun and fight or did you come later after all the hard work of establishing a homeland was done?

I lived in Israel for ten years during the 1980s, and just barely escaped with just a few intact bones after the Gulf War.While I remain a committed and dedicated Zionist, I agree that until Jews learn to live in peace with Jews, it will remain tough going all the way. There are two things you are taught immediately in Israel: (1) "Savlanut," the Hebrew world for "patience," and (2) Israel is NOT America.
Israel is a very tough country, much tougher than it has to be. Not because of Arabs or the economy, but because Jews are very hard on other Jews, and in Israel, merciless. No quarter given nor asked. The only way it can change is if 1 million American Jews invade the country and take over the Knesset. Only if and when there is a brutally tough American immigrant party can anything change for the better regarding western aliyah. If they want our dollars, they have to learn to respect and genuinely accept us as equals, and not just as "fryers" or Suckers. That is not an easy thing for an Israeli, to accept anyone as his equal. They are bipolar; either total bravado and arrogance, or hopelessly depressed. But only tough Americans who take no "cr*p" will ever change that crazy little country.

Having said what I said about the oleh immigration experience, as regarding the Arabs, Jabotinsky was absolutely correct about his "Iron Wall." Israel can and will only exist as a SPARTAN Jewish state, and the Spartans were not easy on their kids nor on each other, if you know that part of Greek history. The Arabs will NEVER accept the right of a Jewish state to exist, and anyone who dreams otherwise is hallucinating. And turning a Jew into a worker, much less a Spartan, was and is no easy feat! It goes against the grain. Either there will be an Iron Wall, or there will be no Jewish state. Take your pick.