DANIEL GORDIS , THE JERUSALEM POST
It’s been one of those months, with its renewed call for “balance” and “honesty” in discussion of Israel. First there was the Goldstone report, with its accusations that Israel committed war crimes during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza. Goldstone was followed by the J Street Conference, celebrated by many as an opportunity to demonstrate their devotion to Israel by encouraging the US to get tough with it, to force it out of the militant and pro-occupation mind-set it has allegedly forged for itself.
Then there was the appearance in English of Tel Aviv University Prof. Shlomo Sand’s new book, The Invention of the Jewish People, with its claim that the concept of a Jewish people was a late invention, which the Zionists cynically manipulated to justify their taking land from the indigenous Arabs. Finally, verging on the surreal, Donald Bostrom, the Swedish journalist who authored the article accusing Israel of harvesting organs from Palestinian victims of Cast Lead, was invited to a conference in the Negev.
The utterly predictable responses are not terribly interesting. On one side of the divide, there are those who assail Goldstone for unfairness, J Street for allowing its campus activists to drop the “pro-Israel” portion of its “pro-Israel, pro-peace” moniker, Shlomo Sand for shoddy and self-hating scholarship and the Dimona Media Conference, which invited Bostrom, for utter naïveté.
There may be much merit to these accusations, but they have a serious downside, as well. Too often, those who rush to Israel’s defense have no interest in the undeniable suffering on the other side of the border. In knee-jerk fashion, they strive to silence any criticism, even in cases when its policies might well be wrong.
But no society benefits from an absence of criticism, and no nation improves without vigorous debate. Could we be effective parents without letting our children know when they disappoint us? Citizenship may not be all that different. In the long run, support that seeks to suppress debate will do us as much harm as good.
BUT ON the other side of the divide is a growing group so insistent on dialogue that it’s no longer clear to what they are most fundamentally committed. When a group of American rabbis visited Jerusalem last week, one of them remarked that it was unfortunate that Ramallah wasn’t on the itinerary. “Why visit Ramallah?” another member of the group asked. “Because Ramallah is also part of our story,” was the response. “More than Holon? Are you distressed that we’re not visiting Holon?” was the question that followed. To that, the first rabbi had no response.
Why, indeed, should Ramallah matter to us more than Holon? And why hide our pro-Israel position (if that’s really what we are) simply to appeal to more college students? Had Theodor Herzl adopted that stance with the sultan, or had Chaim Weizmann been bashful in London, would we have a state? Had Golda Meir been self-conscious about her convictions in the face of an American community not entirely certain that a Jewish state was a good idea, where would we be? One shudders to imagine.
Have we become so utterly addicted to dialogue with our enemies that we would rather visit their cities than our own? Have we lost the ability to say, “If you breathe new life into the age-old blood libel, we will shun you”? Would we invite Alfred Dreyfus’s accusers here for dialogue, were they alive today? We have real enemies. Have we so lost sight of that that we forget that anything we say, to paraphrase Miranda, “can and will be used against us”?
If those who insist on silencing any critique of Israel fail us because their passion threatens to squelch the debate we desperately need, those passionately committed to open debate suffer from the opposite problem – they do not recognize that they are unwittingly playing right into the hands of those determined to destroy us.
Take Sand’s book, The Invention of the Jewish People. It is, ostensibly, nothing but an academic hypothesis. Why all the tumult, numerous young American Jews have asked me. Perhaps Sands errs in some of his claims, but so, too, do many academic tomes.
What’s so dangerous is clear on the Amazon page for Sand’s book. Take a look at the “Customers Who Bought This Item Also Bought” section. There’s Avi Shlaim, the well known post-Zionist, and his Israel and Palestine: Reflections, Revisions, Refutations. Next to it, sporting a cover with both a swastika and a Star of David, Debating the Holocaust: A New Look at Both Sides, as if there’s actually something to debate. Then, Israeli Apartheid: A Beginner’s Guide. And Palestine in Pieces: Graphic Perspectives.
Surely, Sand must have known how his book would be used.
But there are critics of Israel who genuinely do not wish to do it harm. And these people ought to bear one central fact in mind: In today’s climate, anything we say can, and indeed will, be used against us.
Yes, there is moral failure and dangerous shortsightedness in refusing to hold ourselves and our government to standards of which we, and our children, will be proud. Of course Israel needs nuanced moral critique; no true lover of Zion would want that critique silenced.
But there is also suicidal folly in denying what we know: Were the UN to vote today on the creation of Israel, the motion would fail. The outcome of November 29, 1947 would not be repeated, for the world has decided that Israel was a mistake. No other country anywhere is subjected to debate as to whether it should exist. And that is the fact that matters more than any other.
Given that, the ultimate question is the one that the biblical Joshua posed to the angel (Joshua 5:13): “Are you with us, or do you seek our destruction?” It is frustrating, and tragic – but right now, in the world in which we live, those are our only choices.
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Dr. Daniel Gordis is Senior Vice President of the Shalem Center, where he is also a senior fellow. The author of numerous books on Jewish thought and currents in Israel...
The Jewish State must end, say its enemies, from intellectuals like Tony Judt to hate-filled demagogues like Mahmoud Ahmadinejad. Even average Israelis are wondering if they wouldn't be better off somewhere else. 
Right on.
Right on every point.
Our detractors and enemies are also interested in rights, our last rites.
Dear Danny,
I’ve known you for some time, and within the past few years have come to appreciate your conceptual and moral depth, particularly in regard to Israel and Judaism. I just completed “Saving Israel” and was impressed by the thoroughness of its presentation and the depth of your analysis, a work that can be used in any university course on the status of Israel in the world today from a Jewish perspective.
Needless to say, as you know from our previous corresponsence, I’m in agreement with your strong “pro-Israel, pro-Jewish State” stance, which I feel is both authentic and moderate at the same time.
Concerning the issue of allowing “debate” on both sides of the “pro-Zionist”, “post-Zionist” dialogue, I do have a pragmatic problem. Obviously, we must always be aware of the substance of any disagreement with others, no argument there. However, when one allows oneself to enter debate with another whose point-of-view is clearly both rigid and committed to our being condemned and/or destroyed (whether physically, as in those who no longer see any point to Jewish existence in a “Jewish State”), our need to accomodate to a “dialogue” that is pre-facto destructive is simply an exercise in futility and even self-punitive. In addition, our desire to be loved and accepted even by our enemies will have led to creating the illusion of legitimacy to even those who distort facts and pervert history.
Danny, if we can ascertain that there is a purity of wish to understand and/or a hope to create some sort of accomodation to Israel, to Judaism, and to the Zionist “dream” of “ohr lagoim” on the part of those who disagree, then and only then, does dialogue and debate serve the purpose of mutual enlightenment or clarification. Short of that, I think we must act as if we have convictions that stand on their own, without necessarily the approval of a majority that may indeed not be moral or rational.
Best wishes, Irv
By lumping J Street in with Goldstone and the others you make the same mistake that Michael Oren made when he turned down an invitation to speak at the J Street Conference. Oren could and should have gone and ecxplained why he thinks J Street is wrong and why he thinks J Street may actually be right. Oren, a noted American and Israeli scholar, could easily have handled what would have been a polite if animated Q&A session. By ignoring J Street, by trying to apply the tired old tactic of marginalizing any American opposition to what the government of Israel (or even Israelis in the form of many settlers and haredim) is doing puts at risk the support of the large majority of the next generation of American Jews and American Jewish leadership. AIPAC, Hoenlein, Podhoretz, et al have not figured this out. I expect better from you.
“Too often, those who rush to Israel’s defense have no interest in the undeniable suffering on the other side of the border. In knee-jerk fashion, they strive to silence any criticism, even in cases when its policies might well be wrong. But no society benefits from an absence of criticism, and no nation improves without vigorous debate.”
Dr. Gordis,
Perhaps you will discuss some of Israel’s policies which cause suffering on the other side of the border which might well be wrong, to follow up on your comment above, which — as coming from someone prominent not “on the other side of the divide” — may then be the start of something very encouraging.
– Yosi (not on the other side of the divide)
I don’t see what the problem is with J-Street dropping the “pro-Israel” part of their slogan because they’re not pro-Israel, they’re anti-Israel. Finally, they’re putting a little ‘truth’ in their ‘advertising’.
Excellent! Thanks for sharing, Val.
There is no middle ground between good and evil, between the truth and lies concocted to destroy people. The compulsion to find the middle ground and dialogue between suicide bombers and a military trying to protect citizens only helps the suicide bombers. The compulsion to hear both sides of the argument between Holocaust deniers and historians helps promulgate the lie and gives succor to the enemies not only of Jews but of every allied soldier and country who sacrificed dearly to defeat Hitler.
Unfortunately, the same Jews who tend to be most well-educated, most keenly aware of injustices to victims, and most liberal are also the most likely to lead or join in these “dialogues,” which lends them even more credence.
We have an example close at hand. I know this sounds like a stretch, but Maj Malik’s mass murder yesterday was motivated by his desire to kill Americans rather than be forced by Americans to kill his fellow Muslims. He reportedly equated the suicide bomber with an American soldier who throws himself on a grenade to save his buddies. A reasonable person is likely to react first by saying, “Yeah. I can see that.” Out of generosity and empathy, we seek to find equivalences between the behavior of aliens motivated by totally different cultural assumptions and ideals and our own Western ideals.
But think about how twisted this equation is.
Nonetheless, Mom and I listened to the news last night and we already were astounded to hear the “contextualizing” story form about how Maj Malik’s actions were explicable: he was tormented in the military for being a Muslim. He didn’t want to kill his brethren. He thought the war was wrong. And to top it all, although he was a patriotic American born and bred who signed up to serve his country, he is the child of Palestinian “refugees.” (A conflicting story says his parents were actually Jordanians. Maybe they were Jordanian Palestinians who were living in one of the Jordanian refugee camps.)
You can see where this is going. Among other “reasons” for his incomprehensible actions – discrimination, an unethical war, a strong conscience and allegience to his people – we should blame the Jews, too.
I’m not saying this will be the majority response in the U.S., but listen for how it plays out in Al Jazeera and Europe.
I disagree with you David. I think that going gives false legitimacy to the group. Ambassador Oren made the right choice.
Steven
We’ll have to agree to disagree. J Street is more than legitimate. The organization speaks for many of us in the American Jewish community who have been marginalized for too many decades. Personally, in 1972 I figured out that the settlements were a disaster that would only harm Israel and be nothing more than an excuse for the next war. If nothing else, I, and many other Jews, now have company and the ear of a President. And while such access must always be used responsibly it needs to be used.
While I doubt that Danny Gordis writes with an eye either on the constellations or astrology, once again, he warrants praise for managing an astute, Libra-like balance by pointing out both the importance of bottom-line support for Israel as a nation-state and a people threatened by real machinations, plans and assaults of every possible form by a death-wishing ilk that doesn’t deserve the respect of “polite and quiet attention”, and the possibility that Israel or its people are occasionally fallible and imperfect when civilians among its enemies suffer from its largely defensive actions. Yet, he wisely warns us and others who haven’t yet drawn the logical conclusion that certain debates about Israel and the Jewish People in a post-Holocaust, post-Shoah era are neither civil nor deserving of silent attention. They warrant the same condemnation that would be directed at such ilk calling for the destruction of a single family or tribe or individual, simply because of who he or she is or who their parents are or where they come from or their race or ethnicity.
REMEMBER, eventually, this could and likely will include others who are labelled for destruction. The death-wishers are not sated on the blood of one people. Its just their avenue for the suppression of opposition and the acquisition of power that will be wielded against other minorities who “stand in their way”, while engaging in torture, mock trials, rape and murders of their perceived opponents. While these death-wishing folks and their allies, adherents and silent spectators who fail to rise up in opposition to them are engaging in, aiding or abetting murder plain and simple, they are missing the ultimate flaws in their platform. It would be called child-abuse, parent-abuse, assaults on “innocents” and murder or attempted murder in some other context.
Bravo to Dr. Gordis for again managing to provide his readers with a framework for drawing wise conclusions about the nature of Israel’s and humanity’s enemies.
Allan Levine, Ph. D.
Professor Emeritus, Psychology, Los Angeles Valley College
In brief, Iran and those providing weapons to Israel’s enemies and those who use them whenever possible against Israel, are clearly enemies of more than Israel. Sadly, opponents of these who are silenced by their murders and imprisonment have no voice. Those of us who understand the dangers need to be engaged and give voice, energy and our resources to oppose any progress toward Iran’s nuclearization and its assistance to others bent on Israel’s destruction, such as Hezbollah and Hamas, Al Qaida, etc.
I’m sick and tired of all this self-flagellation and breast beating! Regardless of the problems that the “Palestinians” have, they are self-generated. They are in the position they are in, because they don’t want a state. They want to destroy Israel. How can we discuss anything with people who won’t even recognize our right to exist? The only way they can be made to understand that Israel is here to stay, is to pound them senseless. When they realize that they can’t win, they’ll give in. That is all they are capable of understanding. All this discussion is a waste of time–it just gives them more time to re-arm and try again; and to gain the world’s sympathy.
ENOUGH TALK!!!
As you so frequently write in your well-written articles, you display an attempt at understanding both sides of the political issues that have divided us Israelis over the past 40 years. And as you usually do, you end up showing why criticizing our country’s policies regarding the handling of occupied territories and of our enemies in general is essentially a subversive act.
Your article of November 6, “Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You”, is typical as much as it blatantly shows how you wind your literary way from an attempt at understanding to a total condemnation of those who seek something other than the policies of our government. Biblically you write “Are you with us or do you seek our destruction? ……those are our only choices”.
You engineer a fairly nasty literary analogy by equating J Street to Donald Bostrom. Unfortunately it also shows how narrowly you perceive that part of your biblical quote saying “Are you with us…..”. Your concept of being “with us” means agreeing with policies which others see as detrimental to our national interests and to our Jewish heritage.
You are terribly worried in your article that “Anything You Say Can and Will Be Used Against You” by those nations and peoples that are out to get us. It follows symmetrically that it matters not what we say, it shall always be used against us. Logically it should also follow that we can say to each other what needs to be said, we can agree and we can disagree, without worrying about “what will the Goyim think” for they will always use it detrimentally. Actually, though, our ups and downs with the “Goyim” have little to do with what we “say”. It has mainly to do with what we “do”. But here, too, those who want to “get us” won’t relent regardless of what we “do” , so we may as well find ways of doing what we think is right.
Many of us believe that much of our country’s policies and actions in the occupied trritories are not “right”, but wrong. Many of us believe that our government is manipulating everything it says and does with the intention of holding on to as much (if not all) of the occupied territories as possible. Many of us believe this is wrong. Many of us think that our government does not want any kind of modus Vivendi which will allow for a separate Palestinian State, and therefore constructs its policies and actions in a way that will thwart that possibility. Many of us think that our government prefers the inevitability of more wars and intifadas rather than the loss of part of our biblical real-estate.
While I consider myself a truly kosher Zionist, while I totally support our need to remain militarily Stronger Than Ever, while I know that my grandchildren will still need to stand guard on our survival, I cannot agree to policies and actions which will teach my grandchildren that the main ingredients of morality and justice are “who can be stronger, fight better, subjugate better and oppress more efficiently”. I see our policies and actins as ones that are polluting our Jewish heritage and our national conscience. You would prefer I be silent for “they will use this against us”. If I speak out, you see me as the enemy who is out to “seek our destruction”. Nevertheless, while you continue to worry about those who will use what we say, I will continue to worry about what we are doing to ourselves.
Being a member of the Sarasota-Manatee Chapter of ZOA does not limit my objectivity as Dr. Gordis seems to be alluding. I read his article with much interest and found it to be well written and in the bottom line is very supportive of Israel as a State and in most of its policies. Daily I fear more and more the our current U.S. President and his obvious pro-Arab policies. I personally warned many that this would happen and I daven that they NOW see that I have been right in my thinking.
CORRECTION … Daily I fear more and more about the obvious pro-Arab / anti-Israel policies of our current U.S. President …
The issue of J Street U somehow not being pro-Israel is the result of an erroneous report in the Jerusalem Post. The report was untrue, supposedly based upon a board meeting that was closed to journalists. Hours after that article appeared the president of J Street U Student Board Sophia Manuel stated that “ the national board of J Street U neither discussed nor voted on any action to remove the term “pro-Israel” from our platform, policy or the way we describe ourselves at J Street U’s national conference. We are building this movement because we care about Israel, its future and the future of the entire Middle East. To us being pro-Israel is intertwined with being pro-Palestine, and recognizing this is a vital step in the pursuit of a lasting peace.”
I Hope this clears up the specific point that concerns many people, including myself. That said, the issue of how progressive Jewish students address the challenge to Israel’s very legitimacy on campus is very complex. I have a great deal of personal experience in this area and want to stress that I think J Street U can play a key role in this battle. Precisely because the J Street U students speak the language of the left, they are best equipped to develop the correct tactics to deal with these situations. These tactics might not fit exactly with how we would ideally want the discussion to develop, but I think we have to be sensitive to the fact that these pro-Israel students are on the “frontlines” and are doing a good job. Equally important, by virtue of presenting a progressive view of Israel, they are creating a place for liberal Jewish students to be supportive of Israel while integrating the rest of their world view. If J Street U affiliated groups didn’t exist, more Jewish students would either find their place in the “one state solution” groups or opt out of the entire discussion. I hope we can akk agree that this would be a very bad result for Israel and the Jewish community.
We Americans are too nice and too concerned about eveyone’s”feelings”….sure don’t want
to say or do anything that may cause others
to feel bad….even at the peril of the
existence of Israel….it is time to talk
straight and if others cannot stand the truth, it is theri problem…Isael, as a
mattear of policy, does not hide in churches
hospitals, schools etc…if one does, it is at their peril..
It’s been about a week since Saudi Arabia sent its army into neighboring Yemen to attack terrorists who had been sending rockets across the border into Saudi Arabian towns. A massive attack by the Saudi army together with phosphorus bombs, resulted in many civilian deaths and the capture of almost 300 terrorists.
Shame on the European countries, and shame on those of you who chastised Israel for not tolerating thousands of rockets fired by Hamas into Israeli populations for years. Where are the charges that the Saudi response not proportional? Where are the cries that phosphorus bombs violated the norms of responsible nations?
Where are the crowds in London, Paris and other European capitols picketing outside the Saudi Embassy. Where are the United Nations and Human Rights Watch investigators? Where are calls for another Goldstone Report? Why are there no cries for an emergency meeting of the U.N. Security Council?
Fat chance!
The difference is knee-jerk- anti-Semitic enmity towards Israel.
As long as we are few, the many will have hope that they can destroy us. The solution to a war that may never end is the solution that presented itself for as long as there has been a Jewish people. That solution is for Jews to convert the Gentiles to Judaism. We used to seek converts, and did so successfully. When things are going well for the Jews we will get quantity; when they are not we will get quality. Every major people or religion began with just a few individuals who committed themselves to spreading their culture or civilization- or religion- by means both peaceful and violent. We are not predestined to be a small people. We have a beautiful thing in this Judaism of ours and yet we don’t share it with the rest of the world. If we are serious about prospering as a people and not merely surviving we will do as the other nations do and try to persuade them of both the value and righteousness of not just our cause, but our way of life.
I find this piece pretty disheartening. I don’t think that the world is still debating whether Israel should exist, and it is irrelevant whether the 1948 UN vote establishing Israel would be repeated today. Israel as a state has proven itself quite strong and the Arab League, as well as individual Arab states, have recognized that Israel as a state is here to stay.
Ultimately, the question shouldn’t be “can they use it against us” but “is it true” or is it a fair disagreement. Otherwise there will be no conversation, and ultimately no resolution. And that is the biggest threat to Israel.
re: book of Sand.
I think that Gordis is not aware of Sand’s clear political agenda. We are not talking about popular misunderstanding of an academic thesis, but rather an “academic” thesis with a clear political agenda.
The fact that the history of the Jewish people is far from Sand’s historical expertise and that the outstanding historians have panned the book only amplify this fact.