Jewish Loyalty Should Not Be Questioned

Amid the never-ending fusillade of Trumpifications, it is hard to keep up with the outrage of the moment that requires comment. Perhaps most upsetting to me is the tumulter-in-chief’s assertion that Jewish Americans who vote for Democrats—in other words, any Jew who doesn’t vote for him—are dumb and guilty of disloyalty to America, to Jewish people and to Israel.

For the better part of a year several high school chums and I have engaged in email debate on Trump, Israel, which party to support, and social values in general. It has gotten so intense, at times, that one of the group no longer wants to read my blog or my responses to what I consider some of his outlandish beliefs. 

Recently another fellow theorized that secularism has become the new religion of American Jews who vote Democratic. To which the first one piled on by stating, “Their parents raised their children to be just like any American child. They (many, not all), made sure to speak English at home so the children would not talk like “greenery”. They wanted their children to assimilate into the American culture. Just like the Israelis stoke (sic) the Yemenite children from their parents, the European-born Americans removed their Judaism from their children. Since the parents worshipped FDR, who actually sold out that generation and refused to help the Jews fleeing extermination, the next generation felt they had to uphold their parents’ decision. Many of us woke up and went right; many have remained with the same mindset.

“Trump was right in what he said; the problem was HOW he said it.”

No way I could remain silent after that broadside. I started to type a response: “Secularism seems to be the reason given for Jewish support of Democrats. I guess they identify with civil rights. With labor and union rights. With voting rights. With environmental rights. Not too many Republicans favor those initiatives these days. I guess it didn’t hurt that Truman, a Democrat, recognized Israel. Maybe they didn’t like the fact Eisenhower forced Israel to give back the Sinai in 1956.”

As for blaming FDR for slamming the door on Jewish refugees, it behooves us to look to the proponents of the 1924 immigration bill that restricted immigration from southern and eastern Europe. The sponsors were Congressman Albert Johnson and Senator David Reed. Both were Republicans! Who fought against it? Rep. Emanuel Celler, a Democrat! 

I was about to continue when another high school buddy asked for comments about an article in Tablet magazine on American Jews and whether the Democratic Party is becoming unsalvageable (https://www.tabletmag.com/jewish-news-and-politics/289871/democratic-party-becoming-unsalvageable?utm_source=tabletmagazinelist&utm_campaign=ed6da33e59-EMAIL_CAMPAIGN_2019_08_22_04_40&utm_medium=email&utm_term=0_c308bf8edb-ed6da33e59-207772409). 

Here’s what I wrote: 

It is unacceptable what some—some—Democrats are saying and the failure of leadership to strongly admonish them, including removing them from committee assignments. 

That said, a few bad apples will not destroy the Democratic party. Just as McCarthy and Goldwater and Nixon and Agnew and Bush II didnt destroy the Republican party. 

The Israel of today is not the Israel Democrats embraced. As I think about it, it increasingly resembles Republican traits—discrimination against segments of Jewish society (Ethiopians), discrimination against Israeli Arabs, forced expulsion of foreign workers, repression of Palestinians (we can argue if that is justified at least part of the time), efforts by the government (of Bibi Natanyahu) to fear monger votes based on Arab-Israeli voting, actions by Bibi to try to curtail the rule of law by reducing the power of the Supreme Court, cozying up to autocrats and despots. The list could probably be expanded but that’s enough for starters. 

So without denying that Palestinian intransigence is the reason no peace has broken out between the two groups, let’s keep in mind that the Camp David accords were signed when Carter was president. The Oslo accords when Clinton was president. Clinton again for the Camp David summit which Arafat sabotaged. The point is, Democrats have labored hard to broker a deal. 

Trump and before him Bush II unchained Sharon and then Bibi to do as they please. 

Israel today has a public relations problem. It needs to transmit to the world, daily or at least weekly, the following statistics:

*How much food is sent into Gaza assuring no one is starving. 

*How much medical supplies are provided Gaza residents. 

*How many Palestinians are treated in Israeli hospitals and doctors’ offices. 

*How many Palestinian workers from Gaza and West Bank work in Israel. 

*How many Palestinians attend universities in Israel, Gaza and West Bank. 

*Examples of the anti Jewish curriculum taught in Palestinian elementary schools and beyond. 

*How many acts of terrorism are perpetrated throughout Israel daily/weekly/monthly. 

*How many times Palestinians rejected specific peace proposals. 

*How speeches in Arabic are different than what Palestinian leaders say in other languages. 

*How Palestinian newspapers and radio/TV/internet sites portray Israel and Israelis. 

*How the standard of living and employment and education in the West Bank and Gaza compare to those in Egypt, Syria, Jordan and Lebanon. 

I am sure there are other statistics that would all but eliminate the impression that Israel has been a repressive ruler. To change perceptions this data must be constantly transmitted. Letting the world know about its high tech industry, its agricultural and ecological gains, its scientific and medical advances, etc., will not change the trajectory of opinion on Israel as long as it has the image of a cruel oppressor.  Congressional visits must be targeted at Palestinian actions to show that they live better than under Arab leaders and that it is not Israel that holds them back. 

The American people time and again have supported freedom fighters around the world. The challenge Israel faces is to flip the narrative that the Palestinians seek freedom and Israel doesn't.  

Congresswoman Tlaib and other Democrats are winning the pr war because Israel is losing it by failing to tell its side and because Bibi is doing all he can to stay in office including embracing actions that turn off non orthodox Jews around the world. He is drying up the reservoir of good will Israel has among tribe members. 

So, in short, Democrats don’t want to abandon Israel. They want Israel to live up to the ideals of its founders and the early pr success it had as a country of limitless possibilities for all. 

Two-State Solution Only Way to Avoid Discrimination and End of Jewish State

Donald Trump says he will leave it to the Israelis and Palestinians to decide if there will be one state or two in the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River. What may appear to be quite accommodating on his part as he strives to become the ultimate presidential deal maker of a peace between the two parties would in fact be a recipe for a destiny of disaster and discrimination.

Trump’s sideways embrace of a one-state solution emboldens hardliners on both sides of the intractable problem. Israeli right wingers will see it as a wink and a nod toward usurpation of more and more Palestinian land. The inevitable outcome of such a land grab would overturn democratic principles long cherished by Israelis and their supporters abroad, both Jewish and non.

To retain its Jewish identity after taking over land where 2.7 million Palestinians live, Israel would either have to expel them to neighboring Arab states or deny them equal rights, keeping them as a permanent, disenfranchised underclass. Otherwise, within decades voting age Palestinians would outnumber Jews within an enlarged Israel.

It is inconceivable to me that Jews, who for millennia suffered expulsions and inferior status, would countenance such actions upon another people, that they would spurn the natural desire of another people to have their own homeland.

Hard line Palestinians favor a one-state solution because of the demographic balance of power and the long-game calculation that, as with South Africa, the world will not tolerate their suppression. No matter how many patents Israelis register that improve human life, at the end of the day the Jewish state will be trampled under the weight of history.

A single-state solution simply and tragically solidifies the worst, most intolerant sectors of Israeli and Palestinian societies, those who want hegemony not compromise, those who savor hatred not enmity, those who view religion as a cudgel not a balm for mankind.

Bibi Netanyahu’s unequivocal demand that Palestinians recognize Israel’s right to exist as a Jewish state and that Israel retain security control of the land west of the Jordan River is appropriate and in no way should thwart Palestinian participation in any peace talks, given what transpired in the Gaza Strip after Israel withdrew from the captured territory.

A two-state solution can and must be hammered out. Trump’s ambivalence toward endorsing a distinct Palestinian state may be a negotiating ploy but it sends a counterproductive message to extremists on both sides of the conflict. 

American Jews are conflicted, torn between two countries they most care about–Israel and America—and the democratic, progressive values both countries have long espoused. A nation cannot claim democratic values while denying rights to those within its areas of jurisdiction.

The United States experienced its defining moment more than 150 years ago. Patriots—and they thought of themselves as patriots—argued for, fought for, and died for the right to keep another human being as property. Southerners were wrong to believe people of color were inferior creations.

Seven decades ago prejudice-almost-two-millennia-old culminated in a holocaust also based on a belief that a group of people were inferior creations.

Today Israel, the only true democracy in the Middle East, must confront its future amid dangers within and without its borders.

Outside its borders the threat is evident. Inside, however, the threat is equally real from hardline right wingers whose zealotry demands an expansive Israel in the West Bank. At the same time, ultra Orthodox religious zealots deny the validity of divergent sects within the Jewish faith. They are pursuing an exclusive theocracy that Netanyahu has permitted in his determination to remain prime minister. His spineless response to discriminatory religious provocations erodes support of Israel from Diaspora Jews.

No one should underestimate the existential threat posed by Palestinian and Arab intransigence towards its existence, particularly not during this time of Islamic terrorism that condones, even encourages, suicide missions. It is safe to say Israel’s borders, whatever they may ultimately be, would be the most vulnerable in its history.

But that does not provide justification for keeping nearly three million Palestinians in a condition lower than second class citizenry. It does not provide justification for its legislature and executive branch to override a judiciary ruling forbidding expropriation of Palestinian property. It does not provide the moral high ground Israel once deserved and was accorded.

It is impossible for Israel to negotiate a two-state solution, peace and mutual recognition with no one on the other side of the bargaining table. But it is equally impossible for Israel to continue indefinitely as the governing authority over West Bank Palestinians. Annexation of territory is not a long-term solution. New settlement construction on disputed land is not a long-term solution.

Asking the military to enforce a politically divisive position undermines Israel’s national character. Remember Vietnam. An unpopular war tore America apart.

It bears repeating: A nation cannot claim democratic values while denying rights to those within its areas of jurisdiction. 

Gazing Over Gaza

One week ago today, from a hill in the Israeli moshav of Netiv Hasara, the northern Gaza Strip unfolded before my eyes. It was a sunny, quiet day.

Six times over the last two days rockets fired from that same region fell inside Israel. No one was injured. Israel retaliated with an air strike. No one was reported injured.

The Gaza Strip I looked out upon, along with Gilda, our friends Dave, Gemma, Phil and Margie, is a rolling stretch of houses and fields, with no outward indication of unyielding conflict. Except, to gaze at Gaza your eyes have to first pass over a security wall, perhaps 25 feet high, topped by machine gun turrets.

There’s a constant breeze in your face as you stand on the hill, a nagging thought in your mind that a sniper could easily pick you off if so inclined. You joke you’re thankful you’re not the tallest one in your group.

We were in Israel the first 11 days of July primarily to attend a wedding and tour the country with Dave and Gemma, best friends from Britain who’d never been to Israel. We traveled to the Sha’ar Hanegev (Gates of the Negev) region to visit with first responder trauma care providers who visited New York in May of the last two years as part of a rest and relaxation program sponsored by Shalom Yisrael, a volunteer group I joined last year (http://nosocksneededanymore.blogspot.com/2011/05/well-deserved-rest-relaxation.html).

After a day of touring several kibbutzim, we dined in Kfar Aza, at a home several paces from the spot a mortar shell landed three years ago, killing a neighbor, a father of three and Israel’s national engine-powered paragliding champion. Jimmy Kedoshim, 48, died while tending the garden in front of his home.

I have no doubt there are people on the other side of that fence who want friendship and amity, if not actual peace. Before Gaza became a synonym for incessant, random rocket and mortar fire, there were many friendly exchanges between the two Semitic peoples. As related by my hosts, workers from Gaza routinely came across the border to work in Israel’s fields and factories. Israelis brought their cars to Gaza for repairs. They visited the beaches of Gaza. When a Palestinian fell in love with an Israeli, he sought refuge with his Israeli employer to avoid the death threat his family imposed on him, a sentence eventually rescinded when the affair ended.

It is one of the ironies of this seemingly intractable conflict that people who live in the shadow of terror are among the most pacific of their fellow citizens. Time and again they expressed an affinity for the residents of Gaza, people they mingled and traded with before Hamas took control and turned the narrow strip of land into a missile launching pad.

On the other hand, one of my retired military friends from Tel Aviv has hardened his dovish position of years back. He now fears a Hamas-led Palestinian state on the West Bank—he has no doubt Hamas would take over there from Fatah, as it did in Gaza. Such an eventuality would make Israel’s population centers vulnerable to missile, rocket and mortar fire, would make air travel into and out of Ben Gurion airport hazardous because of ground to air missiles.

In Sha-ar Hanegev, settlements are picturesque villages of single family homes inhabited by hundreds to several thousand residents. On the other side of the fence, multi-story apartment houses dominate the landscape. Its among the most densely populated areas on earth. Yet, Gaza is not a blighted ghetto. Consumer goods abound. Ample food and medicines arrive daily in trucks from Israel.

One wonders what Gaza could become if peace, true peace, settled over the area. Gaza has beautiful beaches, an industrious, educated population.

Fanatics have co-opted the dialogue, on both sides of the fence. Ordinary people just want to live in peace, without fear. Perhaps, in our lifetime, it will happen. As the Arabs say, “inshallah,” God willing.