Richard Silverstein’s Tikun Olam notes that Israeli novelist A.B. Yehoshua called for removing the U.S. ambassador to Israel and attacked America’s Israel lobby. But he missed a few nuances. I might be the only one in the universe who cares about these nuances, as they touch upon some of the work I’ve tried to do […]
Zionism
For Zionists, the obsession with Jerusalem is a recent phenomenon
The Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations recently “reaffirmed its longstanding position that a united Jerusalem should remain the sovereign and eternal capital of Israel,” according to a JTA story. Some left-of-center groups were against it but they could not stem the tide. Anyone with the slightest familiarity with Israeli-Palestinian negotiations in the […]
Mearsheimer, Walt and what didn’t really happen at Camp David
There is a sentence towards the end of Walt and Mearsheimer’s new book that undercuts some of what they have tried to accomplish with their critique of the “Israel Lobby.†Having rejected the binational, single-state solution as well as Israel’s permanent occupation, they assert: “The United States will have to put significant pressure on Israel […]
What does Wallace Stevens have to do with Zionism?
I am quite certain that the following post will be the first discussion of the Jewish National Fund and Zionism to invoke the poet Wallace Stevens. People who appreciate Stevens tend to be amateur philosophers and a bit nerdy (yeah, I appreciate him), but if neither of those apply to you, please have patience and […]
Postscript on the JNF law: A matter of official Israeli policy, not private whim
Ken Bob, President of Ameinu, is a self-taught expert on the morass of official and semi-official Israeli institutions. For that alone, he deserves a medal. In an email, he cleared up an issue raised in the previous comment thread by “Chris,” who insisted that the JNF is a “private organization:” [The term] “JNF” causes some […]
Time to throw out the little blue JNF box?
My new friend Jerry Haber, “The Magnes Zionist” tipped me off to a shameful story about the Jewish National Fund and proposed Knesset legislation. Here is the Ha’aretz report: Bill allocating JNF land to Jews only passes preliminary reading By Yoav Stern and Shahar Ilan The Knesset plenum approved a bill Wednesday, in its preliminary […]
The Magnes Zionist on “moral” vs. “immoral” Zionism
I have found a rare commodity: a kindred spirit in the blogosphere. “Jerry Haber” is the nom de plume of an Israeli professor whose provocative blog, “The Magnes Zionist,” wrestles bravely with the same issues I am trying to address. Both of us were recently plugged by Mobius in his indispensable “JewSchool.” Judah Magnes, as […]
Checkpoints, the wall and an unexpected message
I think of Hannah often these days, now that I have begun to wade into the difficult task of conversing with the left on Israel. She is from Australia, in her late 50s, and has lived in Israel since the early ’70s. Hannah (not her real name) is one of the brave, tireless, often rather […]
More conversations about one state vs. two states
All right, let’s say you believe everything about Israel is worthy of contempt and insult, and the Jews should never have set foot in Palestine, and the whole Zionist enterprise must be halted. So what do you want to do? Short of throwing out millions of Israeli Jews by force (which, of course, is an […]
The price of demonization
Some wise words from Cecilie Surasky about this little experiment here: I personally find the whole Zionism/anti-Zionism litmus test both distasteful, often offensive, and certainly odd. It’s odd and to me artificial because the definitions are so slippery, the understanding of Zionisms so superficial. In fact, I don’t think I’ve ever had a discussion about […]