Response to Esther, continued

Okay, it’s technically tomorrow. I promised to argue some things, and I hopefully will. But this post is going to concentrate on one paragraph of Esther Kaplan’s essay that, when I was reading it, really dragged me to a grinding halt. I have enough to say about this one paragraph to fill an entire post, and I very well may do just that.

Kaplan has focused intensely on the issue of what she considers to be the exaggerated and detrimental mutual identification of Israel and world Jewry. It’s clear that she, personally, isn’t so comfortable being included in that identification. Fair enough. But in that vein, she asserts:

This identification between Jews and Israel is reinforced by Israeli leaders and by most of the major Jewish organizations in the United States. At the height of Israeli incursions into the West Bank this spring, Sharon called the troop actions “a battle for the survival of the Jewish people.”[fn]

Yes, and there’s a reason for this, which Ms. Kaplan seems conveniently to have either forgotten or overlooked. While Jews come from many different places that we call home, there is only one Jewish homeland, which is Eretz Israel, the Land of Israel. It has always been and always will be our homeland, whether or not Jews continue to live there (as they always have) and whether or not Jews continue to rule there (which for many centuries they did not). Today, it’s once again a sovereign nation to which we can return if we choose, in which our laws and customs are the norm, in which our calendar and our holidays govern the daily rhythm of life. There’s no other place like that on earth, nor will there ever be. And there’s no other place on earth where Jews have the right and the responsibility to defend themselves. That’s what Ariel Sharon means when he says that the defense of Israel is a battle for the survival of the Jewish people. We have no other defender or protector, other than by the whim and caprice of others. And we’ve seen all too often the consequences of relying on such whims and caprices.

As for “incursions into the West Bank," what exactly does that mean? The “West Bank” is “occupied territory,” right? “Occupied” by Israel. How do you make “incursions” into territory you’re already allegedly “occupying?” I guess maybe the way you do it is that you withdraw completely from that territory and hand it over to someone else based on the promise that they’ll prevent people there from coming over to your place to murder you. So when they don’t keep that promise and you have to go back there to do it yourself, you’ve made “incursions.” See? I get it.

Here at home, ADL’s Abe Foxman, is fond of saying “anti-Zionism is anti-Semitism, period,”[fn] while the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations push a hawkish pro-Israel politics on Capitol Hill that is out of step with the propeace American Jewish majority—despite the fact that the conference claims to represent the entire American Jewish community.[fn]

Mr. Foxman is “fond” of saying that only because it’s true, and Mr. Foxman, unlike many of the other individuals that Ms. Kaplan chooses to quote, is “fond” of telling the truth. But what exactly is it that Ms. Kaplan is trying to say here? What exactly is the “propeace American Jewish majority?” It’s a given that the majority of American Jews want peace in the Middle East. The same is true of Israeli Jews, and no one has sacrificed more in the attempt to reach peace than they have. But Ms. Kaplan’s claim that Jewish community leaders who pursue “hawkish pro-Israel politics” are “out of step” with this majority is ludicrous. Quite simply, the majority of American Jews support the right of Israel’s democratically elected government to defend her citizens and her existence as it sees fit, even if they aren’t always comfortable with the result. It’s Ms. Kaplan who’s “out of step” here.

In any case it needs to be said: Though identification with Israel is at least as intense for many Jews as identification with Palestine is for many Arabs, not all Israelis and diasporic [sic] Jews support the occupation or Sharon’s escalating brutality.

Well, it obviously needs to be said by Esther Kaplan, but the reasons are unclear. First of all, didn’t she mean to say, “…identification with Israel is at least as intense for many Jews as identification with Palestine is for many Palestinians…”? As I said before, the Jews have one country and that country is Israel. The Arabs, on the other hand, have twenty-two, and then there’s the hoped for twenty-third Arab state that would be called “Palestine.” It strikes me as extremely odd that Ms. Kaplan would refer to those people who “identify” with “Palestine” as “Arabs.”

But maybe it was an ideological slip. It’s my belief (though clearly not hers) that there is in fact a pan-Arab “identification with Palestine” for the simple reason that it’s always been the intention of the Arab world to replace Israel with that entity and thus remove the ultimate offense of a non-Arab (and especially Jewish) nation from their midst. That’s because, you see, they aren’t racist. And then there’s this. Although it’s most certainly true that not all Jews support what Ms. Kaplan and her self-defined “propeace” crowd are fond of calling “occupation” and “brutality” (as opposed to simple and restrained self-defense), it appears that there are pitifully few Arabs who are willing to express equivalent reservations about suicide bombings and the cold blooded murder of 5-year-olds in their beds. Now that’s what needs to be said.

To be continued . . .