ALGEMEINER
by Seth Frantzman
August 22, 2014
It never fails. Whenever Israel fights a war with Hamas in Gaza, you can be sure of a few things: The world media will condemn us. Diplomats will be broadly sympathetic but will express “concern” for civilian casualties and ask that the IDF be “proportionate”. Last and probably least, some liberal American Jews will complain about how “Israel doesn’t represent them” and how Israel’s behavior “alienates” them from the Jewish State.
The present round is no different. A liberal member of Young Judaea, a “Zionist youth movement in the US,” wrote in the following unpublished op-ed to a pro-Israel writer: “as a Liberal Jew I couldn’t help but feel alienation, shame and frustration reading your letter… instead of actively attempting to hush the voices that are left… you should work to uphold the Jewish and democratic values that went into making Israel… telling others to refrain from criticism jeopardizes the democratic framework of [Israel’s] forefathers… fueling a growing movement of hatred and violence in the Jewish state.” Another American-Jewish “lover of Israel” claims “the current Gaza death toll casts a moral shadow upon American Jews, and unfairly, upon Jewish communities everywhere.” He argues that the death toll of Palestinians is too high, worrying he can no longer “justify” Israel’s need to demolish, in his view, whole civilian neighborhoods.
Perpetually agonizing, perpetually self-absorbed. Where do all these “liberal Zionist” Jews who are constantly “disappointed in Israel” come from? To be honest: lots of places. The term “liberal Zionism” is in truth a catch-phrase and self-identity for a wide range of Jews who claim to be both on the progressive left and also have an affinity with Israel. What epitomizes them more than any other single quality is an internal struggle largely disconnected from the complex reality of the Middle East.
A short stroll through Israel Studies Professor Dov Waxman’s Facebook page (friend approval req.) provides a perfect example of this kind of navel gazing and self-satisfaction: on July 31, he linked to a piece by Jonathan Chait in New York Magazine titled ‘Israel is making it hard to be pro-Israel.’ Next on the menu are pieces by Peter Beinart, Roger Cohen, an article on the “suffering in Gaza”, and of course David Grossman and then Jonathan Freedland’s ‘The Liberal Zionists’ and finally Gershom Gorenberg, Roger Cohen and J Street…..
ArchitectGuy on Israel 