Israel is not only threatened militarily by her enemies, she is locked in an ideological war of words and ideas to capture hearts and minds, that is every bit as real and threatening as the military threat.
Israel is not faring all that well in the ideological war.
By virtue of the weight of much world opinion typified at the anti-Israel UN and great pressure from friends and allies to force Israel to singularly make concessions to bring about the proverbial (some call it mythical) 2 state peace solution, Israel has been seriously disadvantaged in advancing her own historical and legal rights and best interests and in defending herself. Her efforts in both respects have been restrained, to say the least. Obviously Israel can use all the help she can get from her fellow diaspora Jews.
Diaspora Jews and North American leading major Jewish organizations should be asking themselves, are they doing all they can, to stand by and defend Israel from her enemies and detractors in this war of words and ideas, which often descends to anti-semitic rhetoric that also impacts each and every diaspora Jew?
The question can be more meaningfully put if expressed in a way that touches on our own personal life experience.
If you or your best friend were unfairly ganged up on, falsely and maliciously slandered by intractable enemies/detractors, attacked or unfairly treated and pressured, even by so called friends and allies to satisfy their interests over yours or your best friend’s, would you stand up for yourself or your best friend and fight back with all your might?
If you know what’s good for you and your best friend and you truly are a best friend, you bet you would.
This however, is sadly not the case for our major North American Jewish organizations when it comes to their defending Israel and Jews in this ideological war. Their pro-Israel and pro-Jewish advocacy, like Israel’s, in the face of these threats and pressures, is also restrained.
That restraint of major North American Jewish organizations, including Hillel, in passionately, unashamedly and unreservedly defending Israel, has been evident in a number of areas, 3 of which are:
1. Pro-Israel advocacy to counter anti-Israel advocacy;
2. Expressing sympathy for the Palestinians’ plight and conceding validity of a number of Palestinian claims, in spite of Palestinians and their supporters’ continued intolerance of Israel and refusal to compromise on anything;
3. Reaction to unfair treatment of Israel by her so called friends and allies.
1. Pro-Israel advocacy to counter anti-Israel advocacy/activism
We have witnessed a substantial increase in anti-Israel advocacy and activism on our campuses, in the main led by Muslim student associations and cheered on by the left wing. Events such as Israel Apartheid Week and various other similar seminar forums often descend into Israel bashing and anti-semitic rhetoric. Tolerance for, if not outright fostering of anti-Israel opinion, has been increasingly experienced on campuses and in university classrooms.
We have also witnessed increased anti-Israel advocacy/activism amongst a number of other sectors of society, be it various Muslim organizations, some churches and some unions.
The major Jewish organizations’ advocacy philosophy and consequent specific strategies and pro-Israel messages are in the main intended to promote positive images of Israel, reminding and educating North Americans that Israelis share democratic values with them, are allies against common enemies and extolling Israel’s wonderful accomplishments and contributions to the world.
Largely and deliberately excluded from Israel advocacy philosophy of major Jewish organizations are counter-offensive advocacy/activism strategies that are intended to directly, specifically and unequivocally counterattack, discredit and undermine specific anti-Israel propagandists and supporters and their anti-Israel messages including Palestinian/Arab revisionist narratives and histories, alleged, but disputed Palestinian rights, demands and positions and pointing out various Palestinian/Arab cultural values that are antithetical to Western Democratic values.
Defending Israel by only saying don’t listen to the anti-Israel messages and emphasizing appeals to see just how good Israel is, just is not good enough.
The general fear is that to so aggressively and unreservedly counter anti-Israel advocates, could generally turn society off to Israel’s case and worse still, move some to become anti-Israel.
This reluctance carries over to avoiding pro-actively, boldly and unreservedly stating Israel’s narrative, historical and legal rights, citing accepted authoritative history of the region and stating Israel’s best interests, where such statements would come into obvious conflict with well known hot button issues and positions taken by the Palestinians, their supporters and even friends and allies.
Major Jewish organizations have also been fairly accused of being excessively influenced by political correctness. Taken to such extraordinary lengths, political correctness is anything but politically astute. It only obfuscates and confuses truths and undermines the power and persuasiveness of pro-Israel advocacy.
This thinking by our major Jewish organizations is in part the product of a shtetle mentality, which phenomenon I examined in some depth in my earlier April 7th, 2010 article, Jews Must Leave their Ghettos and Shtetle Mentalities Behind.
Major Jewish organizations can of course rightly claim some successes in the political arena where things do count for more, then at say university campuses. To be satisfied with that is however, being terribly shortsighted.
Our political leaders of tomorrow will come from our youth of today and most of them are coming from campuses where anti-Israel sentiment is pervasive and freely expressed.
To sum this point up, our major Jewish leadership’s Israel advocacy philosophy and approach, leaves little room for strong defensive and counter-offensive strategies and tactics to staunchly, passionately and unreservedly, fight back and defend Israel from the ideologically based assault by her enemies, detractors and even sometimes from friends and allies.
2. Expressing sympathy for the Palestinians’ plight and conceding validity of a number of Palestinian claims, in spite of Palestinians’ and their supporters’ continued intolerance of Israel and refusal to compromise on anything.
Israelis and North American Jews live in multicultural societies that value freedom of speech, respect and tolerance for people of opposing views and different cultures and the belief that through sincere, honest, reasonable and respectful discussion and compromises, we can bridge divides between us and thus settle our differences.
Looking again to our own life experiences, where parties are embroiled in a dispute, usually one of the parties will make the first conciliatory move to induce an equivalent response from their adversary and thus get the ball rolling towards working out a compromise settlement.
Common sense tells us that where such conciliatory move does not generate an equal conciliatory response from an adversary, there is no point in continuing to be conciliatory, compromising or conceding.
In fact to continue to offer compromises and make concessions in such circumstances, without a quid pro quo, defies common sense and flies in the face of accepted negotiation principles in seeking to settle disputes.
It can also be counter productive where your adversary sees your unilateral concessions as signs of weakness and desperation. Thus their expectations rise to believe that by holding tough and even demanding more, they will ultimately force you to concede everything for the sake of peace that a settlement brings and they will have to give up nothing in return.
The obvious common sense strategy to combat an uncompromising foe and force them to seriously approach negotiations to reach a compromise settlement, is to give them nothing at all. Instead the way to peace is to take positions that increase their discomfort level until the point is reached where they are forced to become conciliatory and amenable to sitting down to reasonably work out a compromised settlement.
The history of Israel vs. Palestinians/Arabs since 1967 has seen Israel remaining conciliatory in seeking peace with her neighbors and making substantive and painful concessions to that end. The Palestinians repeatedly paid for those concessions with broken promises. They have not compromised on their maximum demands and have even increased them.
The question of whether the Palestinians have legitimate grievances and rights as they allege against Israel, is a matter to be determined by serious study and discussion. While they certainly do have many baseless claims, they may indeed have some valid points. If so, the question is whether such valid points prevail over conflicting Israeli valid positions on historical and legal rights, grievances and Israel’s best interests?
Common sense says that no concessions to the Palestinians and their supporters in this regard should be made by Jewish organizations or even conceded to Israel’s friends and allies, without demanding and getting fair value in return.
History is a great teacher, if only one opens their eyes to the lessons history teaches.
It is sad, but understandable that given the extreme pressure Israel is under from world opinion, her friends and allies and the volatile situation in the region and Middle East, that Israel has remained conciliatory for the sake of peace and made concessions to that end, in spite of the Palestinians’ string of broken promises and has thus far been very restrained in her own defence.
What pressure however, are major Jewish organizations under that would cause them to be so conciliatory towards anti-Israel factions when such approach derives no beneficial change in attitude from the anti-Israel factions?
What pressure are major Jewish organizations under that causes them to align with Western positions regarding Israel that are not or at least are questionably in Israel’s best interests and which positions, Israel is opposed to agreeing to?
What pressure are major Jewish organizations under that causes them to continue to be so restrained in their defence of Israel against Israel’s enemies and detractors?
There seems to be no good reason to justify our major Jewish organizations’ conciliatory positions in the face of intransigence and no good reason at all for their failing to staunchly, unreservedly, unashamedly and passionately defend Israel and assert her rights and best interests with all their might against Israel’s enemies, detractors and even Israel’ so called friends, when those friends unfairly pressure or speak out against Israeli interests and concerns.
3 Reaction to unfair treatment of Israel by her so called friends and allies.
The most recent and infamous example of this relates to the Obama vs. Netanyahu-Israel controversy over the announcement in early March, 2010 while VP Biden was in Israel for talks, by an Israeli Planning Department functionary of residential construction in Jerusalem planned to commence several years hence.
Obama in spite of previously successfully pressuring Netanyahu to cease settlement construction in the West Bank, Obama doubtless continued to unsuccessfully pressure Netanyahu to cease construction in Jerusalem. Any Jewish construction in Jerusalem therefore was a touchy issue.
We all know the details of Obama going ballistic on Netanyahu and imperiously making harsh demands on Netanyahu and Israel. Obama’s sustained angry behavior was humiliating and insulting, not only towards Netanyahu and Israel, but it also amounted to a slap in the face of all American Jews.
No American President has ever treated an enemy, adversary or competitor nation, let alone a friend and ally in such a shameful, disdainful, insulting and humiliating fashion as Obama did PM Netanyahu and Israel last March, 2010.
The best that AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations (CPMJO) could muster was to express serious concerns and a call for easing tensions.
To his credit, former New York Mayor, strong Democrat and Obama supporter, Ed Koch was rightly incensed at Obama’s behavior towards Netanyahu and Israel and he dared to express it.
Koch pulled no punches in several articles where he took not only Obama to task for his outrageously insulting, humiliating and scurrilous treatment of Netanyahu and Israel, but he was critical of the major Jewish organizations for their meek reaction to Obama’s said behavior, of the less then unified and strong objection by Democrats, Congress and the Senate to Obama’s aforesaid behavior and of the lack of incensed reaction from America’s grass root Jews. See:
http://www.realclearpolitics.com/articles/2010/03/29/never_again_will_we_be_silent_104961.html
http://www.worldtribune.com/worldtribune/WTARC/2010/ss_israel0229_03_22.asp
http://news.zionism-israel.com/2010/04/ed-koch-on-obama-and-israel-dangerous.html
In so doing, Ed Koch proved himself to be an unashamed, passionate and courageous defender of Israel.
Sadly, America’s major Jewish organizations again revealed they were not up to the task of passionately, unashamedly and unequivocally defending Israel by speaking out against Obama, of speaking out against the liberal media’s seeming support for Obama in that regard or to try to lead, motivate and inspire the American Jewish grass roots to do the same.
Sadly as well, the American Jewish grass roots were not moved on their own to speak out en masse by word and deed, such as mass letters, petitions and street rallies against Obama’s shameful treatment of Netanyahu and Israel which, as was previously noted, amounted to a slap in all their faces.
To conclude, our leading and major North American Jewish leadership have, in the foregoing 3 respects, shown that their pro-Israel advocacy, as adept as it may be in promoting a positive image of Israel, is sorely deficient in staunchly, unashamedly and passionately defending Israel from Israel’s enemies and from anyone who by their words and deeds unfairly attacks Israel, her leaders and even all North American Jews.
Its not too late for major Jewish organizations to learn the lessons of history, to make the other side of their Israel advocacy coin, being defence of Israel, as important as the pro-Israel side and to follow the example set by Jews like Ed Koch as to what it means to be a passionate, unreserved, unashamed and staunch defender of Israel and advocate for Israeli rights and best interests.
In fact, the time for major Jewish organizations to become such strong, courageous and unashamed advocates for and defenders of Israel and to fight back with all their might against Israel’s enemies, detractors and even so called friends of Israel when those friends are unfair, is right now!
Bill Narvey
Please do forward this article on to your family, friends, acquaintances and e mail lists and encourage them, as I encourage you to think seriously on and discuss these issues.
If you concur, please make your concerns known to others including your national and local Jewish organizations.
no url, email to me
No comments:
Post a Comment