The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment

A very insightful article sent to me from a friend, written by Peter Beinart in the New York Review of Books thats worth reading.

A quote:

Among American Jews today, there are a great many Zionists, especially in the Orthodox world, people deeply devoted to the State of Israel. And there are a great many liberals, especially in the secular Jewish world, people deeply devoted to human rights for all people, Palestinians included. But the two groups are increasingly distinct. Particularly in the younger generations, fewer and fewer American Jewish liberals are Zionists; fewer and fewer American Jewish Zionists are liberal. One reason is that the leading institutions of American Jewry have refused to foster—indeed, have actively opposed—a Zionism that challenges Israel’s behavior in the West Bank and Gaza Strip and toward its own Arab citizens. For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror, they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.

My response to my friend:

I'll try to keep it short but what it comes down to for me and I think a majority of Israelis is a simple fact: we've tried to be reasonable but the time for that is quickly coming to an end, we've read our history we know what awaits us if we let our guard down, if we don't protect ourselves no one else will save us and while we are not perfect the enemy is at our gates and we will not sit quietly and let ourselves be destroyed.

To make a larger point, I'll quote George Orwell "Turn-the-other-cheek pacifism, only flourishes among the more prosperous classes, or among workers who have in some way escaped from their own class. The real working class, are never really pacifist, because their life teaches them something different. To abjure violence it is necessary to have no experience of it.”

Do I want peace? Yes absolutely but I sit comfortably in America, a land where (at least for now) as Jew I am safe, meanwhile there are those who choose to live in a far more hostile land, the land of our fathers, father, fathers... we to have a right to that land and that right is not recognized by most the world. We all have to make choices in life about where we stand and while I know Israel isn't perfect I stand with her.

But hell maybe this is just a perfect example of what he's talking about in his article.

love you brother, L'shalom