Some
in the pro-Israel community are having a good chuckle at the feud that has
erupted between Jewish left-wingers in the past couple of weeks. But rather
than laughing, those who care not only about Israel but also the direction of
the conversation about Israel in the post-Oslo era and what it portends for the
future should be concerned.
The
exchange between the anti-Zionist Max Blumenthal and his antagonists among the
ranks of left-wingers who are often critical of Israel but defend its existence
shows how pointless much of the debate that has been carried on between the
left and the right about borders and settlements has been. As risible as the
arguments put forward by Blumenthal trashing Israelis as “non-indigenous” interlopers
in the Arab world who must be made to surrender their sovereignty, culture, and
homes may be, they represent the cutting edge of left-wing thought that has
come to dominate European discussions of the Middle East.
The
dustup centers on Goliath, a
new anti-Israel screed by Blumenthal, the son of Clinton administration figure
Sidney Blumenthal, published by Nation Books. But to Blumenthal’s chagrin, the
magazine (which is no stranger to anti-Zionist articles) allowed columnist Eric
Alterman to write about it in The Nation.
Alterman is himself a fierce and often obnoxious critic of Israel and defenders
of Israel, and has been a major promoter of the myth that the pro-Israel
community has been seeking to silence the Jewish state’s critics. Yet
Blumenthal’s book was so appalling that Alterman took it
apart in the magazine that spawned it. Calling it “The ‘I Hate Israel’
Handbook,” Alterman scored it for its frequent comparisons of the Jews with the
Nazis and its complete absence of any acknowledgement of the Muslim and Arab
war to destroy Israel. As Alterman wrote in a subsequent
blog post, “It is no exaggeration to say that this book could have been
published by the Hamas Book-of-the-Month Club (if it existed).”
To
give you a taste of how outrageous this book is, Blumenthal even has the nerve
to recount a conversation with Israeli author David Grossman who has been an
important figure in the peace movement in which he lectured the Israeli about
the need for the state to be dismantled and for its citizens to make their
peace with the need to rejoin the Diaspora rather than to cling to their homes.
Grossman responds to Blumenthal by walking out and telling him to tear up his
phone number. Blumenthal attributes Grossman’s reaction to Israeli myopia.
But
it gets better. As the Forward’s
J.J. Goldberg writes
in his own column on the dispute, Blumenthal appeared at a Philadelphia
event with the University of Pennsylvania’s Ian Lustick (whose recent
anti-Zionist diatribe in the New York Times
was
discussed here).
Almost
halfway through their 83-minute encounter (minute 34:00 on YouTube), Lustick
emotionally asks Blumenthal whether he believes, like Abraham at Sodom, that
there are enough “good people” in Israel to justify its continued existence —
or whether he’s calling for a mass “exodus,” the title of his last chapter, and
“the end of Jewish collective life in the land of Israel.”
Blumenthal
gives a convoluted answer that comes down to this: “There should be a choice
placed to the settler-colonial population” (meaning the entire Jewish
population of Israel): “Become indigenized,” that is, “you have to be part of
the Arab world.” Or else …? “The maintenance and engineering of a
non-indigenous demographic population is non-negotiable.”
This
is sobering stuff and, as Goldberg, put it, “a chilling moment even for the
anti-Zionists among us.”
The
bottom line here is that the real debate about the Middle East is not between
the so-called “Jewish establishment” and left-wing critics of Israel like the J
Street lobby and writers like Alterman and Goldberg. Rather it is between
anyone who recognizes that Jews have a right to a state and those who wish to
see that state destroyed. The vitriolic nature of Blumenthal’s disingenuous
responses (here
and here)
to criticisms from these left-wing writers is, in its own way, a mirror image
of the way Palestinians and European anti-Zionists have raised the ante in the
past two decades as the line between critiques of Israel and traditional
Jew-hatred have been blurred. Suffice it to say that in Blumenthal’s world,
anyone who believes in the Jewish right to a state even in a tiny slice of
their ancient homeland is a fascist, a Nazi, or a fellow traveler.
This
shows how the discussion of Israel has deteriorated in the last generation of
peace processing. Instead of appeasing its critics, every move toward peace in
which Israel has given up territory has only convinced its enemies that it can
be portrayed as a thief that can be made to surrender stolen property. While
some of Israel’s critics think that conception can be limited to the lands
beyond the 1949 cease-fire lines, people like Blumenthal remind us that this is
an illusion.
For
20 years since the Oslo Accords Israel tried to trade land for peace only to
have each offer of statehood for the Palestinians be rejected. Despite the spin
that is directed at the West by some Palestinians, their culture of hatred for
Israel and the Jews has made it impossible for even their most “moderate”
leaders to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its
borders might be drawn. While Israel’s political thinking has shifted in this
period to the point where even the supposedly “hard line” Benjamin Netanyahu
has accepted a two-state solution, the Palestinians remain stuck in a time warp
in which Fatah and Hamas compete for support based on their belligerency toward
the Jews.
Unfortunately
many American Jews are similarly stuck in the past and cling to the belief that
Israel could entice the Palestinians to make peace via concessions. But rather
than continuing to bang away at each other, as they have for a generation, the
pro-Israel left and the pro-Israel right need to focus on the real opponent:
the growing BDS (boycott, disinvest, sanction) movement that seeks to wage
economic warfare on the Jewish state whose aim is its destruction and its
allies.
Alterman
and Goldberg may think that if only Netanyahu and the overwhelming majority of
Israelis who have drawn logical conclusions from Oslo’s collapse would change
their minds, peace would be possible. But they, like those on the right who see
them and J Street as the real enemy, are wasting their time. The only argument
that means anything in the post-Oslo era is between those who stand with
Israel’s right to exist and those who oppose it. While Blumenthal’s despicable
hate is deserving of every possible condemnation, he deserves our thanks for
reminding us of this.
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