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| A new Jewish Glasnost | |
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| Tweet Topic Started: Apr 2 2009, 11:51 AM (178 Views) | |
| kathyk | Apr 2 2009, 11:51 AM Post #1 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Growing Dissent Amoung American Jews This article, although from 2007, hopefully bespeaks a trend in this country - an openness to being able to criticize Israel policy without being castigated an anti-semite (if not Jewish) or a self-loathing Jew (if Jewish). I found it while searching for something by Ilian Pappe - whose book I'm currently reading, a powerful, well-documented account of the expulsion of Palestinians from their land which is beyond eye opening and gives a solid historical context to Palestinian disenfranchisement, powerlessness and the ensuing conflict. I wish everyone would read it. I wish there could be a real debate on topic in this country. Fortunately, I think the tide is changing and that is finally starting to happen. Snips: ------- Cohen's and Kelman's startling figures alone underscore the absurdity of Shepherd's suggestion that to challenge Israel is to "defame an entire people." They also help frame the context for what I would call an emerging Jewish glasnost in which Jewish critics of Israel are increasingly willing to make themselves known. When I arrived in the United States 13 years ago, I was often surprised to find that people with whom I seemed to share a progressive, cosmopolitan worldview would suddenly morph into raging ultranationalists when the conversation turned to Israel. Back then, it would have seemed unthinkable for historian Tony Judt to advocate a binational state for Israelis and Palestinians or for Washington Post columnist Richard Cohen to write that "Israel itself is a mistake. It is an honest mistake, a well-intentioned mistake, a mistake for which no one is culpable, but the idea of creating a nation of European Jews in an area of Arab Muslims (and some Christians) has produced a century of warfare and terrorism of the sort we are seeing now." Unthinkable, too, was the angry renunciation of Zionism by Avrum Burg, former speaker of Israel's Knesset. And, in those days, with the internet still in its infancy, the online Jewish dissident landscape that today ranges from groups in the Zionist peace camp like Tikkun, Americans for Peace Now, and the Israel Policy Forum, among others, to anti-Zionist Jews of the left such as Not in My Name and Jewish Voices for Peace, had not yet taken shape. Indeed, there was no Haaretz online English edition in which the reality of Israel was being candidly reported and debated in terms that would still be deemed heretical in much of the U.S. media. ---- Although I am not religious, I share Burg's view that universal justice is at the heart of the Jewish tradition. Growing up in apartheid South Africa was an object lesson in Jewish ethics. Yes, there was plenty of anti-Semitism in the colonial white society of my childhood, but the mantle of victimhood belonged to others. And if you responded to the in-no-way-exclusively-so, but very Jewish impulse to seek justice, you found yourself working side by side not only with the remarkable number of Jews who filled leadership roles in the liberation movement, but also with Christians, Muslims, Hindus, and others. Judaism's universal ethical calling can't really be answered if we live only among ourselves -- and Israel's own experience suggests it's essentially impossible to do so without doing injustice to others. Israel is only 59 years old, a brief moment in the sweep of Jewish history, and I'd argue that Judaism's survival depends instead on its ability to offer a sustaining moral and ethical anchor in a world where the concepts of nation and nationality are in decline (but the ferocity of nationalism may not be). Israel's relevance to Judaism's survival depends first and foremost on its ability, as Burg points out, to deliver justice, not only to its citizens, but to those it has hurt. |
| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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| Piano*Dad | Apr 2 2009, 12:19 PM Post #2 |
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Bull-Carp
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You do realize, I presume, that this will look like another serious trolling exercise even if it is not. The next round of the mid-east conflict will now begin. Many of us tried to persuade you that Ilan Pappe is a largely discredited extremist. You obviously disagree. There is not much more to be said, I guess. |
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| kathyk | Apr 2 2009, 03:05 PM Post #3 |
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Pisa-Carp
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Discredited by whom? I haven't heard anyone here discredit him other than by saying he's discredited (Oh, duh, gee PianoDad, I guess if you say he's discredited that ends the discussion, huh? ) I guess totally discredited just like Jimmy Carter was for his book. Have you even read "The Ethnic Cleansing?" And am I to be surprised that he's "discredited" in the US where the dialogue has been totally dominated by the pro-Israeli lobby for the past few decades? Frigging Dershowitz has practically made made a career out of "discrediting" anyone who dares tell the other side of the story. Even if Pappe's book is fraught with inaccuracies (and I have no reason to believe that it is, other than the typical small mistakes in any book of its type), it at least gives some balance to the completely one-sided view of the conflict to which most Americans have been exposed. And since when is it trolling to bring up a controversial subject?But anyway, my post wasn't about Pappe; it was about the article pointing out the fact that people are finally beginning to look beyond the white-washed Zionist version that has ferociously dominated the dialogue for so long. Thank heavens for small wonders. |
| Blogging in Palestine: http://kksjournal.com/ | |
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) I guess totally discredited just like Jimmy Carter was for his book. Have you even read "The Ethnic Cleansing?" And am I to be surprised that he's "discredited" in the US where the dialogue has been totally dominated by the pro-Israeli lobby for the past few decades? Frigging Dershowitz has practically made made a career out of "discrediting" anyone who dares tell the other side of the story. Even if Pappe's book is fraught with inaccuracies (and I have no reason to believe that it is, other than the typical small mistakes in any book of its type), it at least gives some balance to the completely one-sided view of the conflict to which most Americans have been exposed. And since when is it trolling to bring up a controversial subject?
4:41 PM Jul 10