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Wednesday, July 31, 2024
The official death toll in Gaza is a lie. The casualty numbers are far, far higher
The official death toll in Gaza is a lie. The casualty numbers are far, far higher
https://jonathancook.substack.com/p/the-official-death-toll-in-gaza-is?utm_source=post-email-title&publication_id=476450&post_id=147193809&utm_campaign=email-post-title&isFreemail=false&r=210kv&triedRedirect=true&utm_medium=email
The official death toll in Gaza is a lie. The casualty numbers are far, far higher
The figures have been stalled for months. The goal is to minimise Israel’s barbarism, while lulling western publics into a false sense of complacency
Tuesday, July 30, 2024
Starvation in Sudan As in Gaza, the Deprivation Is Deliberate by Stan and Priti Gulati Cox, The Missing War
https://tomdispatch.com/starvation-in-sudan/#more
Starvation in Sudan
As in Gaza, the Deprivation Is Deliberate
By Priti Gulati Cox and Stan Cox
For months, we've all been able to stay reasonably informed about the wars in Gaza and Ukraine. But there’s another horrific war that's gotten so little coverage you could be excused for not knowing anything about it. What we have in mind is the seemingly never-ending, utterly devastating war in Sudan. Think of it as the missing war. And if we don't start paying a lot more attention to it soon -- as in right now -- it's going to be too late.
After 15 months of fighting in that country between the Sudanese Armed Forces (SAF) and the paramilitary Rapid Support Forces (RSF), experts in food insecurity estimate that almost 26 million people (no, that is not a misprint!), or more than half of Sudan’s population, could suffer from malnutrition by September. Eight and a half million of those human beings could face acute malnutrition. Worse yet, if the war continues on its present path, millions will die of hunger and disease in just the coming months (and few people in our world may even notice).
go to lin to read more of this dispatch.
Monday, July 29, 2024
Khalissee on X: "🇮🇷 BREAKING: IRAN OFFICIAL STATEMENT ON OLYMPIC OPENING CEREMONY - SHAME ON YOU "The insulting representation of Jesus Christ in Paris yesterday was completely offensive and crossed all red lines. France, a country with a major history of Christianity, must be ashamed of https://t.co/7iauXdfPsc" / X
[Salon] Did an Israeli Iron Dome missile cause the Majdal Shams massacre? - Guest Post by ali Halawi, Al Mayadeen English
Did an Israeli Iron Dome missile cause the Majdal Shams massacre?
By Ali Halawi
Source: Al Mayadeen English
28 Jul 2024 23:47
The Majdal Shams strike resulted in the tragic loss of 12 lives, all natives of the occupied Golan. What insights can we recover from the evidence gathered following yesterday's incident?
Israeli regime authorities claimed on Saturday afternoon that Hezbollah launched a rocket at the occupied town of Majdal Shams, killing twelve civilians, including 10 children, in the process.
The Israeli military command even specified the type of rocket artillery shell used in the alleged attack, which it claimed was the Falaq-1 rocket.
On the other hand, the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon - Hezbollah fully denied any involvement and responsibility for a deadly strike on the village in the Israeli-occupied Syrian Golan.
So where does the truth lie?
A brief analysis of the impact site and the video capturing the moment of the strike dismantles the Israeli narrative, bolstering Hezbollah's account.
A few points must be made clear before analyzing the moment of the strike on Majdal Shams and the aftermath caused by the explosion.
First, Israeli officials said the Israeli occupation forces were able to identify the shell used in the attack as the Falaq-1 rocket, reportedly confirming their suspicions.
The Falaq-1 rocket is a rocket artillery shell with the following specifications:
240 mm caliber
1320 mm length
Estimated 10 km range
Maximum flight ceiling of 3.5 km
50 kg high explosive warhead
Solid-propellant rocket
Second, high-explosive warheads usually contain a mixture of explosives alongside components that would act as shrapnel propelled by the pressure caused by the aforementioned explosives. Following the moment of impact with the surface, a crater should be formed.
The size of this crater varies according to several factors, which include the mass of the explosives, the pressure generated by the warhead into the ground, and the surface's composition, among other elements.
Third, the Falaq rocket exhausts the solid propellant less than two seconds after being fired.
Israeli Iron Dome interceptors record multiple failures since October
Another important nuance that would aid Hezbollah's denial of involvement is the failure of Iron Dome interceptors, Tamir surface-to-air missiles, on several occasions in the past months.
This includes a crash of an Iron Dome interceptor in Tel Aviv in early December 2023 and a fire caused by an Israeli interceptor in occupied al-Jalil following a failed interception of a Hezbollah drone on July 25, 2024.
There are many such incidents, with some being captured live on camera, including an event in which an Israeli Tamir missile struck a hospital in Tel Aviv on November 6, 2023.
Several technical issues related to an Iron Dome battery could result in a catastrophic interception failure. These issues include a malfunctioning engagement radar, a faulty radar seeker, a defective self-detonation sensor, and a compromised motor, among other potential problems. The most dangerous of these are faults in self-detonating sensors, which leave operators unable to destroy rogue surface-to-air missiles.
Did an Israeli Tamir missile impact Majdal Shams?
It is highly probable that faults in a surface-to-air missile fired from an Iron Dome launcher just behind Majdal Shams caused the grave massacre.
Majdal Shams, which is among the towns and cities occupied by "Israel" in 1967, hosts a vast majority of Arab Syrian Druze and a minority of Israeli settlers. The town and other similar demographics, where natives are significantly represented, have not come under the direct fire of the Islamic Resistance in Lebanon since October 8, 2023.
Although the Resistance has launched highly precise weapons such as an anti-tank guided missile and drones at Israeli military positions in towns such as Arab al-Aramshe, it never fired unguided rocket artillery weapons at these towns.
Specifically, Majdal Shams has never come under an attack by Hezbollah, throughout the nearly 300 days of intense confrontations near the Lebanese-Palestinian border.
The Resistance has also not been shy of taking responsibility for mishaps in the past, such as an incident in the 2006 war on Lebanon when a rocket launched by Hezbollah fighters impacted a home in occupied al-Nasirah.
The attack took place on July 19, 2006, and the Secretary-General of Hezbollah Sayyed Hassan Nasrallah took the nearest opportunity amid the ongoing war to apologize to the family.
"To the family that was hit in al-Nasirah — on my behalf and my brothers', I apologize to this family," he said.
"Some events like that happen. In any event, those who were killed in al-Nasirah, we consider them martyrs for Palestine and martyrs for the nation. I pay my condolences to them."
A corresponding crater
As for evidence collected from the impact site, the crater formed by the projectile is around 2 meters wide and a few centimeters deep. This indicates that the warhead that detonated in the area is far less than 50 kg and closer to the 10 kg range.
In comparison, a crater formed by a Falaq-1 rocket in Kiryat Shmona ripped through cement and caused extensive damage to nearby infrastructure as seen in the video below.
The Falaq-1 rocket is among Hezbollah's heaviest rocket artillery shells that can be fired from multiple rocket launchers and which can cause extensive damage to targets.
On the other hand, the crater seen in Majdal Shams could be more closely attributed to a Tamir missile.
The possibility that Hezbollah used a smaller caliber munition to conduct the attack is improbable, as it was Israeli authorities who claimed that the munition used in the attack was a Falaq-1 rocket.
Large flames produced by liquid propellant
Another aspect to examine is the relatively large amount of combustion that occurred as a result of the impact on the football field.
High-explosive warheads generally do not produce large fireballs upon detonation. Instead, they create a powerful blast wave and intense fragmentation. The explosion of an HE warhead primarily generates heat, shock waves, and shrapnel rather than a visible fireball. A large-sized and visible fireball is typically associated with the combustion of fuel, such as that found in rocket engines or fuel tanks.
BREAKING: DID ISRAEL KILL ITS CIVILIANS?
REPORTS INDICATE IT WAS AN IRON DOME INTERCEPTOR MISSILE
Israeli media reports more than 50 dead and injured in the strike on Majdal Shams in the occupied Northern Golan Heights.
Confirmed is 14 dead and 34 injured.
Hezbollah has… pic.twitter.com/nfzevLN9Wa
— Sulaiman Ahmed (@ShaykhSulaiman) July 27, 2024
As seen in this footage, the projectile produced a large fireball.
A Tamir missile launched from a nearby position is likely to contain a substantial amount of fuel, as the air defense rocket was designed to fly for around 70 km. This means that the majority of the fuel meant for the missile's flight after take-off detonated and produced the fireball seen in the video.
Despite Israeli assertions of a Hezbollah attack using a Falaq-1 rocket, substantial analysis points towards a malfunctioning Israeli Tamir interceptor missile as the more plausible cause of the explosion. The discrepancies in crater size, the nature of the explosion, and Hezbollah's historical targeting patterns all support this alternative explanation. The true story behind the Majdal Shams explosion remains shrouded, but the evidence presented here offers a compelling case for reconsidering the initial narrative.
UAE, Israel expand spy bases in Yemen’s Socotra under US-sponsorship.
https://thecradle.co/articles/uae-israel-expand-spy-bases-in-yemens-socotra-under-us-sponsorship-report
UAE, Israel expand spy bases in Yemen’s Socotra under US-sponsorship.
Sunday, July 28, 2024
[Salon] THERE WILL BE NO MIDDLE EAST PEACE WITHOUT A PALESTINIAN STATE - guest post by Allan Brownfeld
THERE WILL BE NO MIDDLE EAST PEACE WITHOUT A PALESTINIAN STATE
BY
ALLAN C.BROWNFELD
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U.S. foreign policy for many years, under both Republican and Democratic administrations, has supported the creation of a Palestinian state in the West Bank, which Israel has occupied in violation of international law for more than 50 years.
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu addressed a joint session of Congress in July. He did not say a word about the creation of a Palestinian state. In fact, he opposes the very idea of a Palestinian state and members of his Cabinet publicly declare their hope to annex the West Bank and expel its indigenous Palestinian residents.
Israel is the largest recipient of U.S. foreign aid in history. There is a clear disconnect between U.S. policy and U.S. support for an Israeli government which totally rejects the creation of a Palestinian state and which has created a system on the West Bank which Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights organization, all call “apartheid.”
In July, Israel approved the largest seizure of land in the West Bank in over three decades. Israel’s aggressive expansion in the West Bank reflects the settler community’s strong influence on the Netanyahu government, the most right-wing and nationalist in the country’s history. Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich, a settler himself, notes the Associated Press, “has turbocharged the policy of expansion, seizing new authorities over settlement development and saying he aims to solidify Israel’s hold on the territory and prevent the creation of a Palestinian state.”
Authorities recently approved the appropriation of 12.7 square kilometers (nearly 5 square miles) of land in the Jordan Valley. Data from the group Peace Now indicate that it was the largest single appropriation approved since the 1993 Oslo Accords at the start of the peace process. Settlement monitors said the land grab connects Israeli settlements along a key corridor bordering Jordan, a move they said undermines the prospect of a contiguous Palestinian state.
U.N. Spokesperson Stephane Dujarric called it “a step in the wrong direction,” adding that “the direction we want to be heading is to find a negotiated two-state solution.”
The newly seized land is in an area of the West Bank where, even before the Israel war with Hamas, settler violence was displacing communities of Palestinians. That violence has surged in recent days. Settlers have carried out more than one thousand attacks on Palestinians in the West Bank, causing deaths and damaging property, according to the U.N. That makes 2024 the peak year for land seizure on the West Bank, according to Peace Now.
About 700,000 Israeli settlers live in the West Bank and East Jerusalem, reports the U.N.’s human rights office. The Netanyahu government has promoted settlements, which much of the international community condemns as a violation of international law. Settlers are trying to expand those settlements by building a network of smaller outposts, without government approval and eating into Palestinian land.
Nadar Weiman was an Israeli Special forces soldier between 2005 and 2008 and served all over the West Bank. Now he is deputy director of Breaking The Silence, an organization of Israeli Army veterans that advocates an end to Israel’s military occupation of the territory. Weiman says settlers are stepping up attacks on Palestinian communities while the world’s attention has been focused on the war in Gaza. Since Oct. 7, 16 Palestinian communities of sheepherders have fled. He says, “Sixteen, that’s a number I never thought I would say.”
As of July, the U.N. humanitarian affairs office has recorded 650 attacks by Israeli settlers against Palestinians since Oct. 7. It says settlers have killed at least 9 Palestinians in the territory and Israeli security forces have killed more than 400. In Zanuta, Neiman saw the local school bulldozed by settlers. “why demolish the school?” he asks. “I’ll tell you why. Because you want families to feel they are not safe here. With no school, the kids cannot return. And if you don’t have kids, you don’t have life. It’s not just about stealing livestock. It’s about destroying the sense of being safe.”
Israeli Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich declares: “Each square meter of land we take from Palestinians will never go back to them. It’s a zero sum game.”
B’Tselem, the Israeli human rights group, says tha Israel also restricts Palestinian use of land in the West Bank by declaring areas as military firing zones, nature reserves and archeological sites. Israel uses the zoning to justify its refusal of Palestinians’ building plans for homes linked to water and electricity infrastructure.
Editorially, the Israeli newspaper Haaretz (July 21, 2024) declares that, “Israel’s continued denial of the reality of the occupation will be its ruin…The opinion by the International Court of Justice revealed nothing to Israelis that they do not already know…The opinion shatters the lie that the occupation is only temporary and intended only for security purposes. This is the lie Israelis told themselves during decades of occupation while they seized more Palestinian land and built settlements on it.”
In the view of Haaretz, the decision by the International Court of Justice “bursts this bubble of lies and views various acts of the Israeli government as annexation of the territory…What difference is there between the far right’s calls of ‘sovereignty now,’ Benjamin Netanyahu’s babble about the impossibility of denying ‘the legal right of Israelis to live in their own communities in our ancestral home.’ Gantz’s nonsense about the ‘judicialization of a political-diplomatic conflict’ and the outrageous moralist preaching of Lapid, who declared the opinion, ‘detached, one-sided and tainted by antisemitism and lacking an understanding of the reality on the ground.’”
In the view of Haaretz and more and more Israelis, “Israel’s working assumption that the world will continue to ignore the occupation has been shattered in recent months. If Israel continues to ignore what the world tells it, it may wake up to a reality in which it is boycotted and ostracized like apartheid-era South Africa.”
Few now remember that Israel was a close friend of apartheid-era South Africa. In fact, it was South Africa which provided Israel with the uranium it needed to develop nuclear weapons. South Africa was lucky to have leaders like F.W.de Klerk and Nelson Mandela, who brought apartheid to an end and received the Nobel Peace Prize for doing so. Sadly, Israel has leaders who seek to annex the occupied West Bank and remove its indigenous Palestinian population. Ending the Israeli version of apartheid is the opposite of their agenda.
The speech Prime Minister Netanyahu gave before the Congress, and for which he was enthusiastically applauded, said nothing whatever about his government’s treatment of Palestinians—-what respected Israeli historians such as Benny Morris and Ilan Pappe have called “ethnic cleansing.” He said nothing about creating a Palestinian state, a bipartisan cornerstone of U.S. policy. One congressional observer, Sen.Peter Welch (D-VT) provided this assessment: “This is the moment for the leader of Israel to lay out a vision for the future. He didn’t. He offered no road map. He hadn’t changed a bit.” Sen. Chris Murphy (D-Conn.),
who chairs a Senate committee on the Middle East, said of Netanyahu, “I think his plan for a while has been to have no workable plan.”
For U.S. policymakers to advocate the creation of a Palestinian state but to continue to provide massive U.S. aid to a government which has illegally occupied the West Bank for more than fifty years and openly states that there will never be a Palestinian state, makes no policy sense at all. Finally, the rest of the world is paying attention to the hypocrisy involved in our refusal to advance a policy we know is essential if peace——for both Israelis and Palestinians—-is to be achieved.
##
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Allan C. Brownfeld is a nationally syndicated columnist and is editor of ISSUES, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism. (www.acjna.org).
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Saturday, July 27, 2024
Friday, July 26, 2024
[Salon] REMEMBERING DEMOCRACY’S FRAGILITY AND TREATING IT AS SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED - Guest Post by Allan Brownfeld
REMEMBERING DEMOCRACY’S FRAGILITY AND TREATING IT AS SERIOUSLY ENDANGERED
BY
ALLAN C. BROWNFELD
————————————————————————————————————————-
Our democracy is in real trouble when candidates for public office are unable to debate issues with one another without deteriorating into name calling. When Kamala Harris was announced as the Democratic Party’s candidate for president, how did Republican candidate Donald Trump respond? He called her “real garbage.” A week earlier, he referred to President Biden as both a “fascist” and a “communist.” Without civility, democracy is unlikely to survive into the future.
Our political life didn’t used to be like this. When I graduated from law school and went to work in the U.S.Senate, Republicans and Democrats did not view one another as “enemies,” as many seem to do at the present time. Remember Ronald Reagan, the Republican president, and Tip O’Neill, the Democratic Speaker of the House, becoming good friends. Working together, Republicans and Democrats won the Cold War and advanced civil rights. It was an era when American politics worked.
A common phrase in those days was the need to “disagree without being disagreeable.” During the Vietnam War, I was a member of the staff of the Senate Internal Security Subcommittee. I was the author of the committee’s report on the New Left and traveled around the country debating with critics of the war. In these debates, people on both sides were polite to one another. We often went out for drinks and further conversation when the debate ended. This was a highly emotional issue, but I remember no negative exchanges. In some cases I, as a young person, was even aided by my older debating opponent. In one instance, the Rev. William Sloan Coffin, the chaplain at Yale University, quietly told me that I had gotten several dates wrong in my presentation. Now, in retrospect, my views about the Vietnam War have changed. On some key issues, I now agree with the views of my debate opponents.
Today, unfortunately, politicians who disagree often do so in a way which demonizes those on the other side. At a rally in Middletown, Ohio for Republican vice presidential candidate J. D. Vance on July 22, the speaker who preceded Vance was Ohio State Senator George Lang. He told the audience of an impending “civil war”if Donald Trump were to lose in November. He declared, “I believe wholeheartedly that Donald Trump and Butler County’s J.D.Vance are the Last chance to save our country. Politically, I’m afraid if we lose this one, it’s going to take a civil war to save the country.”
The assault on the U.S. Capitol after Donald Trump’s defeat in the 2020 election, shows us where the unwilllingness to accept the results of a free and fair election can lead. Honorable political leaders like Vice President Mike Pence insured that the rule of law would prevail. And Attorney General Barr made clear that the election was properly conducted. What will happen if there is a similar refusal to accept the results of the 2024 election?
Our country is preparing to celebrate the 250th anniversary of our independence. No other people in the world today live under the same form of government which existed in their country 250 years ago. The Founding Fathers got something right. Earlier democracies, in Athens and Rome, lasted for a limited period of time
and then faded away. That was the prediction that was made for America. So far, we have avoided fulfilling it. But some fear that time is not on our side and a number of current developments are concerning.
The Founders understood some things many of our contemporaries seem to have forgotten. Brown University historian Gordon S. Wood notes that, “They put a heightened emphasis on learned and acquired values at the expense of the traditional and inherited values of blood and kinship. Contemptuous of the pretension and luxury of metropolitan England, they enthusiastically adopted the new, enlightened 18th-century ideals of gentility and public service.”
Dr. Wood cites William Livingston, New Jersey’s first governor, who at the outset of the Revolution set forth prescriptions for proper enlightened behavior: “Let us abhor Superstition and Bigotry, which are like the Parents of Sloth and Slavery. Let us make war upon Ignorance and Barbarity of Manners. Let us invite the Arts and Sciences to reside amongst us. Let us encourage everything which tends to exalt and embellish our Characters. And in fine, let the love of our country be manifested by that which is the only true Manifestation of it, a patriotic soul and a public spirit.”
In Dr. Wood’s view, “These prescriptions for a healthy and civilized society seem relevant today.”
Discussing the decline in civility and the respect for opinions different from our own, Prof. Brian Schrag of Indiana University, in his book “Civility and Community,” provides this assessment: “Modrrn American society is marked by a high degree of mobility, a decline in voluntary civic activities and an emphasis on rights (i.e. what others owe me). The result is rootlessness and detachment from family and friends. Higher crime rates, chiefly among youth, show a strong statistical correlation with lack of self-control, moral disputes are often marked by dogmatism, the inability or unwillingness to see the moral voice behind another point of view.”
In response, argues Schrag, “…the possibilities for improvement include (1) reinvigorating our civic associations, (2) developing self-control, and (3) demanding higher levels of mutual respect and tolerance in the way we speak to and treat one another.”
The American society is something unique in history, though there are some who wish to transform it into just “another country.” It is based on a unique idea of limited government, with a written Constitution, dividing power among three branches of government. Uniquely, it gauranteed religious freedom to all. It is made up of men and women of every race, religious faith, and ethnic background. If you shed a drop of American blood, the author Herman Melville said in the 19th century, “you shed the blood of the whole world.” It is an extraordinary legacy, if we can keep it.
But democracy is fragile and ours is being challenged, both from within and without. Will we properly rise to this challenge as we have in the past? Let us hope that we will.
Yes, Kamala Harris Is Responsible For California’s 31% More Violent Crime And 3x More Homeless
Yes, Kamala Harris Is Responsible For California’s 31% More Violent Crime And 3x More Homeless
Yes, Kamala Harris Is Responsible For California’s 31% More Violent Crime And 3x More Homeless
Jul 26, 2024
∙ Paid
Nearly a full week has passed since President Biden dropped out of the presidential race and threw his support behind Vice President Kamala Harris. In that time, Harris has made clear that she will run on her record as a tough and effective prosecutor.
But anyone who comes to California knows that we are in a crisis. Our violent crime rate today is 31% higher than in the rest of the United States. One out of four San Franciscans say they were a victim of crime last year.
Now, you might think, “Well, you can’t blame Kamala Harris for that. That’s Gavin Newsom’s fault. After all, he’s the governor whereas she’s the Vice President and was a US Senator before that.”
But Harris was the District Attorney of San Francisco from 2004 to 2011 and was the Attorney General — California’s top law enforcement officer — from 2011 to 2017. And it was during those years that crime in California started rising. According to a liberal think tank, the Public Policy Institute of California, violent crime here rose 26%.
And it’s not like Kamala Harris was helpless to do anything about crime while she was a US Senator from 2017 to 2021 or as Vice President since then.
It’s true that, 20 years ago, Harris ran as a tough-on-crime District Attorney in San Francisco. In 2020, Tulsi Gabbard criticized Harris for incarcerating people for marijuana.
But the number of people in prison for drugs was never very large. Even in 1997, the height of the war on drugs, just one percent of all prisoners in the US were in for a first or second nonviolent drug offense. And California legalized marijuana for medical use in 1996 and for all use in 2016, so it was really a non-issue.
And then, between 2010 and 2014, Harris changed. By 2019, she described herself as a “progressive prosecutor.” In 2020, Harris denied that police prevent crime. “For too long, the status quo thinking has been. You get more safety by putting more cops on the street. Well, that's wrong.”
But that’s not a mainstream view among criminologists. In fact, an overwhelming amount of evidence, including studies commissioned by the Obama administration, shows that more police do reduce crime, from shoplifting to murder.
In the same interview, Harris claimed that there is less crime in wealthier neighborhoods because they put money into schools, not police. “By the way, if you want to look at upper-middle-class suburban neighborhoods, they don't have that patrol car. They don't have those police walking those streets. But what they do have — they have well funded schools.”
This is also wrong. The reason police don’t walk the streets of those neighborhoods is because there is less crime. And when there is a crime, you’d better believe that those upper-middle-class suburban neighborhoods want the police showing up immediately.
It’s inconceivable that Harris didn’t know this. She was San Francisco DA. She knows perfectly well that there are more police in poor inner-city neighborhoods because there is more crime there.
Not only was Harris lying, she was doing so in service of making the argument that we should defund the police.
And defunding the police had consequences. Most crime experts agree that the calls to defund the police resulted in police pulling back, thereby emboldening criminals and causing murder and other crimes to rise.
Somewhere around 3,000 black lives were lost to homicide thanks to the defund the police movement.
During the 2020 primary debate, Harris talked of her support for “Initiatives around re-entering former offenders and getting them jobs and counseling.”
But according to NBC News, at least 7,000 former prisoners became homeless in Los Angeles alone in 2019, 2020, and 2021.
Now you might think, Harris isn’t responsible for that. But she mostly was. After all, it was Harris who, as Attorney General, wrote highly biased summaries for two ballot initiatives, propositions 47 and 57, which caused the increase in crime and homelessness.
In 2014, Proposition 47 decriminalized open-air drug dealing, drug use, and shoplifting. And in 2016, Proposition 57 released many prisoners, including violent ones, despite the lack of the rehabilitation and societal re-entry system that Harris claimed to have created.
Together the two propositions, along with incentives for homelessness in the form of cash and free housing, caused homelessness in California to rise 50% over the last ten years, from 113,000 in 2014 to 181,399 in 2023. California today has 12% of America’s population and one-third of America’s homeless.
And I’m not the only reporter to come to this conclusion. Even NBC News, which is pro-Harris, last year said that “California’s reforms created a prison-to-homelessness pipeline, as counties were overwhelmed with an influx of returning inmates.”
The situation Harris created in California means that she cannot claim to be a strong defender of vulnerable people. Of the 25% of San Franciscans who say they were victims of crime last year, 42% of them were victimized more than once, and only half bothered to report it.
And Harris is responsible in another way for the crisis and that’s through her role as a top immigration official in the Biden administration. It’s true that “Border Czar” was never her formal title, but Biden clearly put Harris in charge of dealing with the root causes of immigration, and she didn’t do that.
And now the increase in border crossings from 400,000 in 2020 to over two million, due to the Biden-Harris administration’s more liberal immigration policies, is overwhelming homelessness services in California.
I was on Skid Row in Los Angeles last week and discovered migrant women and children living in dangerous conditions. One migrant mother with a two-year-old child told me that other homeless women had fought with knives outside of her tent.
Experts agree that the increase in the US homeless population last year was a direct result of the influx of migrants from around the world.
Harris should have massively expanded homeless shelters to deal with the influx of former prisoners and migrants to the street, but she didn’t. In May, Harris announced $5.5 billion in new funding, supposedly to address homelessness. But she dedicated just $290 million to homeless shelters and services and just $30 million for addiction rehab and recovery.
Why is that? Why did Harris go from a tough-on-crime prosecutor to someone who called for defunding the police and has starved cities of the money they need for homeless shelters?
It’s clear from looking at Harris’ changing position on crime that she has let her personal ambition and political expediency take precedence over protecting the vulnerable.
In 2020, she should never have suggested that more police don’t reduce crime in order to encourage the defunding of the police. In the 2010s Harris should have created the rehabilitation and reentry system she claimed to have created and didn’t.
And in 2014 she never should have misled the public about the impact of Proposition 47, which decriminalized drugs and shoplifting.
Kamala Harris’ mixture of indifference and ambition is similar to that displayed by California Governor Gavin Newsom. Neither Harris nor Newsom are as ideological as some are in the Democratic Party. Rather, they blow with the winds of public opinion, from tougher to softer on crime.
Both Harris and Newsom may have things in which they truly believe. Both seem particularly passionate about abortion, for example. But they don’t seem to care much about the things that directly impact the most vulnerable members of society, from migrant children to mentally ill homeless addicts to the victims of crime and violence.
Harris’ awkwardness, her tendency to speak in clichés, and her changing positions on crime suggest someone who is constantly seeking to gauge public opinion and appeal to particular audiences, and not someone who has a deep commitments to protecting the public in general and the vulnerable in particular.
When it comes to migration, crime, and homelessness, she has sought policies that would deal neither with the root causes nor the symptoms.
Now that the media is fragmenting and its power declining, it will be harder for Harris to maintain the story that she is someone who the American people can trust to be a tough prosecutor and act with compassion toward the vulnerable.
None of that means she can’t defeat Trump, who has struggled over the last few days to define her. But it does mean that she is highly unlikely to be able to lead the country to deal with its most difficult problems.
Thursday, July 25, 2024
FOR MORE AND MORE JEWISH AMERICANS, ZIONISM LOOKS LIKE A DANGEROUS WRONG TURN
Article Details
FOR MORE AND MORE JEWISH AMERICANS, ZIONISM LOOKS LIKE A DANGEROUS WRONG TURN
Allan C. Brownfeld
Issues
Spring - Summer 2024
In recent months increasing attention has been focused upon developments in the
Middle East. The October 7 terrorist assault on Israel by Hamas and Israel’s
response, which has already cost the lives of more than 34,000 Palestinians,
including thousands of women and children, has focused attention upon the way in
which Zionism has come to dominate American Jewish life.
More and more Jewish Americans are coming to the conclusion that Zionism was a
dangerous wrong turn for American Judaism, as the American Council for Judaism
has argued from the beginning. In the Council’s view, Judaism is a religion of
universal values, not a nationality. American Jews are American by nationality
and Jews by religion, just as other Americans are Protestant, Catholic or Muslim.
Zionism, on the other hand, argues that, somehow, Israel is the “homeland” of all
Jews, and Jews living elsewhere are in “exile.” Zionism has come to dominate
American Jewish life, with Israeli flags on synagogue pulpits and Jewish schools
promoting the idea that emigration to Israel is the highest ideal for Jewish
young people.
Much of American Judaism seems to place the state of Israel in the position of a
virtual object of worship, a form of pagan idolatry much like the worship of the
golden calf in the Bible. This is not Judaism, which is a religion of universal
values dedicated to the long Jewish moral and ethical tradition which declares
that men and women of every racial and ethnic background are created in the image
of God.
Jewish Americans Are Not In “Exile”
Jewish Americans are not, as Zionism proclaims, in “exile,” but are very much at
home, and always have been. In 1841, in the dedication of America’s first Reform
synagogue in Charleston, South Carolina, Rabbi Gustav Poznanski told the
congregation, “This country is our Palestine, this city our Jerusalem, this house
of God our temple.”
Zionism, many forget, was a minority view in Jewish life until the rise of Nazism
in Europe. Even then, many Jewish voices warned against substituting nationalism
for the humane and universal Jewish prophetic tradition. In 1938, alluding to
Nazism, Albert Einstein warned an audience of Zionist activists against the
temptation to create a state imbued with “a narrow nationalism within our own
ranks against which we have already had to fight strongly even without a Jewish
state.”
The prominent Jewish philosopher Martin Buber spoke out in 1942 against “the aim
of the minority to ‘conquer’ territory by means of international maneuvers.”
From Jerusalem, where he was teaching at the Hebrew University, Buber, speaking
at the time hostilities broke out after Israel unilaterally declared independence
in May 1948, cried with despair, “This sort of ‘Zionism’ blasphemes the name of
Zion; it is nothing more than one of the crude forms of nationalism.”
A Rupture in American Jewish Life
In an article titled “The Great Rupture in American Jewish Life” (New York Times,
March 22, 2024), Peter Beinart, an editor of Jewish Currents, notes that, “For
the last decade or so, an ideological tremor has been unsettling American Jewish
life. Since Oct. 7, it has become an earthquake. It concerns the relationship
between liberalism and Zionism, two creeds that for more than half a century have
defined American Jewish identity. In the years to come, American Jews will face
growing pressure to choose between them.”
Beinart points out that, “The American Jews who are making a different choice —-
jettisoning Zionism because they can’t reconcile it with the liberal principle of
equality under the law…their numbers are larger than many recognize, especially
among millennials and Generation Z…The emerging rupture between American
liberalism and American Zionism constitutes the greatest transformation in
American Jewish life for decades to come.”
American Jews, wrote Albert Vorspan, a leader of Reform Judaism in 1988, “have
made of Israel an icon—-a surrogate faith, surrogate synagogue, surrogate God.”
In the years to come, Peter Beinart believes, “For an American Jewish
establishment that equates anti-Zionism with antisemitism, these anti-Zionist
Jews are inconvenient. There’s nothing antisemitic about envisioning a future in
which Palestinians and Jews coexist on the basis of legal equality rather than
Jewish supremacy…For many decades, American Jews have built our political
identity on contradictions. Pursue equal citizenship here; defend group
supremacy there. Now, here and there are converging. In the years to come we
will have to choose.”
No Liberal Rights for Palestinians
Many are in the process of choosing now. Noah Feldman, the Harvard Law School
professor and First Amendment scholar, and author of the book “To Be a Jew
Today,” declares: “Today, many progressive American Jews find it difficult to see
Israel as a genuine liberal democracy, mostly because some 3 million Palestinians
in the West Bank live under Israeli authority with no realistic prospect of
liberal rights.” Shaul Magid, a professor of Modern Jewish Studies at Dartmouth
College, says, “In my view, the Zionist narrative, even in its more liberal
forms, cultivates an exclusivity and proprietary ethos that too easily slides
into ethnonational chauvinism.” Oren Kroc-Zeldin, director of Jewish Studies at
the University of San Francisco, says that “Jewish liberation in Israel was
predicated on the oppression and ethnic cleansing of Palestinians.” He says he
rejects “a monolithic Pro-Israel identity.”
Within Reform Judaism, there have been calls for a move away from Zionism. A
letter signed by more than 1200 alumni and current members of the Union for
Reform Judaism (URJ) addressed to the organization on Dec. 16,2023 declares, “We
grieve for the 1,200 killed during Hamas’s Oct. 7th attack and the more than
18,000 Palestinians killed by the Israeli military—-almost half of whom have been
children —-since then. Israel has cut off water, electricity, fuel and supplies
to Gaza. We are deeply concerned that tax dollars have been so easily provided
to support Israel’s military assault on Gaza, while we struggle for the basic
needs of our communities.”
The letter declares that “The URJ teaches practicing Pikuach Nefeshz, ‘saving a
life,’ and Tikkun Olam, ‘repairing the world.’ An immediate cease-fire is in line
with these Jewish values.”
“Atrocities committed In Our Name”
At the same time, a letter was released from descendants of progressive rabbis
and leaders to express “our horror at URJ’s failure to call for a cease-fire in
Gaza. We are alarmed that the leadership of our community has not demanded an end
to Israel’s devastating violence against Palestinians in addition to the safe and
immediate return of the hostages…A decades-long campaign to dehumanize
Palestinians has hardened the American Jewish community’s hearts. Atrocities are
being committed in our name. We do not consider the killing of thousands of
innocent civilians to be a justifiable consequence of ensuring our community’s
protection.”
The letter concludes: “The URJ continues to actively alienate alumni with its
uncompromising Zionist rhetoric…We will reconsider our and the next generation’s
membership and support for the URJ unless there is a public and dramatic shift in
the way the movement addresses Israel.”
Among the original signers of the letter are Zippy Janas, a descendant of Rabbi
Julius Rappaport, Chana Powell, daughter of current URJ rabbi Talia Yudkin
Toffany, and Zachariah Sippy, son of Rabbi David Wirtschaffer.
Reform Jews for Justice
At the same time, an organization called Reform Jews for Justice has been
established (https//reformjewsforjustice.com). It declares that “As Reform Jews
we stand together for Justice in solidarity with Palestine. We unite in our
values to call for a ceasefire, the release of hostages, and an end to U.S.
military aid to Israel. …We have come together to call on our movement to engage
in Solidarity with Palestine. We envision a Reform Jewish movement that…rejects
the conflation of anti-Zionism with antisemitism…The URJ leaders have unabashedly
demonstrated shameful tactics of ethno-nationalism and tribal political
priorities over simple ethics and the illegitimate and dangerous conflation of
Zionism and Judaism. We have been alienated from the movement that raised us to
ask, ‘If I am only for myself, what am I?’—-through binary language suggesting
that our affiliation is conditional on Zionism. We will not stand by.”
In recent years, there has been a growing effort to redefine “antisemitism” to
include not simply bigotry toward Jews and Judaism, but also criticism of Israel
and Zionism. In May 2022, Jonathan Greenblatt, CEO of the Anti-Defamation League
(ADL) declared that “anti-Zionism is antisemitism.” Ignoring the long history of
Jewish opposition to Zionism, he has been strenuously promoting this false and
ahistoric notion ever since. Some Israelis admit that falsely equating anti-
Zionism with antisemitism is a tactic to silence criticism of Israel. Shulamit
Aloni, a former Israeli Minister of Education, and winner of the Israel Prize,
described how this works: “It’s a trick. We always use it. When from Europe,
somebody criticizes Israel, we bring up the Holocaust. When in the United
States, people are critical of Israel, then they are antisemitic.”
The tactic of equating criticism of Israel and Zionism with antisemitism has come
under widespread criticism. Writing in Slate (April 29, 2024), Emily Tamkin
headlined her article, “The ADL has abandoned some of the people it exists to
protect: For those with the wrong opinions, the group is now a threat to Jewish
Safety.”
Muddying The Waters About Antisemitism
Tamkin writes: “Over the past six months, Jonathan Greenblatt, head of the ADL,
has stressed repeatedly that he is concerned about rising antisemitism.
Unfortunately, he has also made clear that he cares about antisemitism only as he
defines it and as it affects people who agree with him on the definition…The ADL…
is insisting on conflating anti-Zionism with antisemitism and it has made its
conflation central to the ADL’s work. This has not only muddied the waters of
its own antisemitism research, it has also undermined the safety, security, and
pluralism of American Jews.”
One example is the fact that ADL evidently mapped protests for a cease-fire led
by the Jewish groups Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow as “antisemitic
incidents” on its calculation of how much antisemitism has risen. This makes it
more difficult to assess the year-over-year change in antisemitic incidents.
Tamkin notes that, “Of course, an increase will seem more dramatic if you are now
counting incidents, you weren’t before—-but it also arguably undermines the rest
of the ADL’s reporting of antisemitism.”
When it comes to Jonathan Greenblatt, a story in Jewish Currents from 2021
revealed that former ADL employees felt that Greenblatt was choosing defense of
Israel over protecting civil liberties, one of the group’s- stated missions. In
March 2023, Jewish Currents published a report on internal dissent at ADL over
Greenblatt publishing a report comparing pro-Palestinian groups to the extreme
right. Greenblatt has compared pro-Palestinian demonstrations at Columbia
University to the explicitly neo-Nazi march in 2017 in Charlottesville, Virginia.
He likened the group Jewish Voice for Peace to the terrorist group Hezbollah and
called it an “on campus proxy for Iran.”
Younger Jews Disconnected from Israel
In Emily Tamkin’s view, “I wonder how likening a Jewish student group to a
terrorist organization helps stop the defamation of the Jewish people, or scores
justice and fair treatment to all…Younger American Jews are increasingly critical
of and feel disconnected from Israel. The Pew 2020 study on American Jews found
51% of those between the ages of 18 and 29 were not emotionally connected at all
to Israel…Young American Jews were “less likely to view antisemitism as ‘a very
serious problem.’…Greenblatt is failing to stand up for the rights of all
American Jews. He is using his position to make clear that some Jews are more
worthy of protection and political representation than others. He’ll have
powerful allies, including non-Jews who have made common cause with open
antisemites.”
Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu falsely described student protestors on
behalf of Palestinian rights as “antisemitic mobs” and likened the demonstrations
to “what happened in German universities in the 1930s.” Sen. Bernie Sanders
(IND-VT), who is Jewish and lost members of his family in the Holocaust, pushed
back against Netanyahu’s characterization of the pro-Palestinian demonstrations.
He declared to Netanyahu: “It is not antisemitic to point out that your bombing
has completely destroyed more than 221,000 housing units in Gaza, leaving more
than one million people homeless—-almost half the population.”
Sanders continued: “Antisemitism is a vile and disgusting form of bigotry that
has done unspeakable things to many millions of people. But please do not insult
the intelligence of the American people by attempting to distract us from the
illegal and immoral policies of your extremist and racist government. Do not use
antisemitism to deflect attention from the criminal indictment you are facing in
Israeli courts.”
Protesting Against Slaughter Is Not Antisemitism
Robert Reich, former U.S. Secretary of Labor and now professor of public
philosophy at the University of California at Berkeley, writing in The Guardian
(April 3, 2024) makes the point that, “Protesting against this slaughter is not
expressing antisemitism. It is not engaging in hate speech. It is not
endangering Jewish students. It is doing what should be done on a college campus
—-taking a stand against a perceived wrong, thereby provoking discussion and
debate.”
In the view of Robert Reich, who is Jewish, “Education is all about provocation.
Without being provoked—-stirred, unsettled, goaded—-even young minds can remain
stuck in old tracks…The Israel-Hamas war is horrifying. The atrocities committed
by both sides illustrate the capacities of human beings for inhumanity, show the
vile consequences of hate. Or it presents an opportunity for students to re-
examine their preconceptions and learn from one another…Peaceful demonstrations
should be encouraged, not shut down…To tar all offensive speech ‘hate speech’ and
ban it removes a central pillar of education…”
Jewish critics of Israel’s treatment of Palestinians are receiving increasing
attention. The Forward (May 6, 2024) carried a feature article with the
headline, “This 100-year-old Jewish activist is speaking up again—-this time
about Gaza.”
It reports that, “Jules Rabin stood at the busiest intersection of Montpelier,
Vermont in early April with snow still on the sidewalks, protesting the war in
Gaza. Accompanied by about 75 friends and family members —-holding a sign that
asked, ‘How could the Nazi genocide of Jews 1933-45 be followed by the Israeli
genocide of Palestinians today?’ He was celebrating his 100th birthday.”
“A Piecemeal Holocaust”
Jules Rabin, a World War 11 veteran, graduate of Harvard, former Goddard College
professor and a pioneer in Vermont’s bread-making renaissance who, with his wife,
ran a bakery for more than 40 years, appeared on a podcast on the nonprofit
Vermont Digger. He referred to the tragedy unfolding in Gaza as a “piecemeal
Holocaust.” He told podcast host David Goodman that Israel’s treatment of
Palestinians in Gaza “resembles what the Germans did to Jews in the Warsaw ghetto
and everywhere else in Europe.” In Rabin’s view, the Jewish claim for
restitution after World War 11 should have resulted in the Germans awarding
Prussia or Bavaria to the Jewish people. Concerning the latest news from Gaza
and the West Bank, Rabin says, “One can’t look the other way when something
dreadful is going on.”
In May, the U.S. House of Representatives passed a bill that would enshrine a
contentious definition of antisemitism into U.S. law. The Antisemitic Awareness
Act (AAA) passed the House by a wide margin. It mandates government civil rights
offices to adopt the International Holocaust Remembrance Alliance’s (IHRA)
definition of antisemitism. This definition has drawn widespread criticism
because most of its examples of antisemitism involve criticism of the state of
Israel, such as calling it a “racist endeavor.”
If this bill is passed by the Senate, which will consider it at a later date, it
would mean that this definition would apply when officials adjudicate Title V1
complaints alleging campus antisemitism. Opponents say it chills legitimate
criticism of Israel. The bill passed by a vote of 320-91. Opponents of the IHRA
definition include Rep. Jerry Nadler (D-NY), the House’s longest serving Jewish
member. He declared that “Speech that is critical of Israel alone does not
constitute unlawful discrimination. By encompassing purely political speech
about Israel into Title V1’s ambit, the bill sweeps too broadly.”
The Jewish Telegraphic Agency (May 2, 2024) reported that, “Americans for Peace
Now, a dovish pro-Israel group worried that the bill, should it become law, would
be used as ‘a cudgel against the millions of Americans, including many Jewish
Americans, who object to the Netanyahu government’s decisions and actions.”
Jewish Critics of AAA Legislation
Even some members of the Jewish establishment are critical of the AAA
legislation. Alan Solow, who serves on the board of the Nexus leadership Project
and is a former Chair of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish
Organizations, wrote this in The Forward (May 3, 2024): “Distinctions…are vital
for developing strategies to fight this prejudice. If those with whom we
disagree about Israel—-sometimes vehemently—-are labeled antisemitic without
regard to nuance or context —-they will not join us in coalition against anti-
Jewish bigotry…A viable strategy against this scourge…must recognize this….It
cannot ignore…the diversity that exists in this country, a diversity reflected in
an intense debate about Israel within the Jewish community, on college campuses
as beyond…If the Senate passes the AAA, it will alienate our political allies,
including stalwart supporters of Jewish causes and Israel, and narrow the
coalition we need to confront the spread of antisemitism.”
An editorial, “Not in Our Name” appeared in the Jewish journal Tablet (May
3,2024). It declared, “There is no exception for hate speech in the Constitution
—-it is not, according to the Constitution of the United States of America,
illegal to say that the State of Israel ‘has no right to exist’…No governmental
authority has the standing to penalize you for (making such a statement) …That
includes Congress. The fact that a word or idea is annoying or upsetting to you
—-or us! —-does not make it illegal.”
Tablet declares that “This includes the phrase ‘From the River to the sea,’ which
the House of Representatives voted to condemn last month. This is wrong. No
citizen of America, Jewish or not, should support the condemnation of speech by
those whose conditional authority is entrusted to them by the people. You are
American citizens. However noxious your beliefs, as long as they stay beliefs,
they should be done the business of government.”
Danger Of “Weaponizing Antisemitism”
The staff attorney for the American-Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Chris
Godshall-Bennett, who is Jewish, provided this assessment: “In weaponizing
antisemitism by equating it with criticism of Israel, this bill evades the
fundamental principles of free expression and academic freedom. As a Jewish
person, who stands hand-in-hand with my Palestinian brothers and sisters, and who
works daily against anti-Arab hate, I found this weaponization of my identity
particularly disgusting. Criticism of Zionism and of the Israeli government is
not antisemitism and conflating this only serves to provide cover for Israel’s
ongoing human rights abuses in violation of international law…”
The American Civil Liberties Union (ACLU) strongly condemned the House of
Representatives for passing this legislation (H.R. 6090) which, it declared,
threatens to censor political speech critical of Israel on college campuses under
the guise of addressing antisemitism. Christopher Zanders, director of ACLU’s
Democracy and Technology Policy Division declared that “The House’s approval of
this misguided and harmful bill is a direct attack on the First Amendment.
Addressing rising antisemitism is critically important, but criticizing America’s
free speech rights is not the way to solve the problem. This bill would throw
the full weight of the federal government behind an effort to stifle criticism of
Israel and risks politicizing the enforcement of federal civil rights statutes
precisely when their robust protections are most needed. The Senate must block
this bill that undermines the First Amendment protections before it is too late.”
As a recent ACLU letter to Congress made clear, a federal law already prohibits
antisemitic discrimination and harassment by federally funded entities, and the
Antisemitism Awareness Act is not needed to protect Jewish students from
discrimination. Additionally, as the Supreme Court ruled more than fifty years
ago in the landmark decision of Healy v. James, “This Court leaves no room for
the view that, because of the acknowledged need for order, First Amendment
protections should apply with less force on college campuses than in the
community at large. Quite to the contrary, the vigilant protection of
Constitutional freedoms is nowhere more vital than in the community of America’s
schools.”
“Netanyahu Making Israel Radioactive”
Many of Israel’s longtime supporters are expressing dismay over recent events.
In a column, “Netanyahu is making Israel Radioactive” (New York Times, March 12,
2024), columnist Thomas Friedman writes: “Israel today is in grave danger, with
enemies like Hamas, Hezbollah, the Houthis and Iran, Israel should be enjoying
the sympathy of much of the world. But it is not. Because of the way Prime
Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and his extremist coalition have been conducting the
war in Gaza and the occupation of the West Bank, Israel is becoming
radioactive…”.
Friedman argues that “I fear it is about to get worse…No fair-minded person could
deny Israel the right of self-defense after the Hamas attack…But no fair-minded
person can look at the Israeli campaign…that has killed more than 30,000
Palestinians in Gaza…and not conclude that something has gone terribly wrong
there. The dead include thousands of children, and the survivors many orphans…
This is a stain on the Jewish state…Netanyahu has sent the IDF into Gaza without
a coherent plan for governing it after any Hamas dismantling or cease-fire…Israel
has a prime minister who apparently would rather see Gaza devolve into Somalia,
ruled by warlords…than partner with the Palestinian Authority or any legitimate
broad-based non-Hamas Palestinian governing body because his far-right Cabinet
allies also dream of Israel controlling all of the territory between the Jordan
River and the Mediterranean, including Gaza, and will oust him from power if he
does.”
In an important and much discussed article entitled “We Need an Exodus from
Zionism” (The Guardian April 24, 2024), Naomi Klein, a Guardian columnist and
director of the Centre for Climate Justice at the University of British Columbia,
writes: “I’ve been thinking about Moses and his rage when he came down from the
Mount to find the Israelites worshipping a golden calf. It is about false idols,
about the human tendency to worship the profane and shiny, to look to the small
and material rather than the large and transcendent.”
Worshipping A False Idol
In Klein’s view, “Too many of our people are worshipping a false idol once again…
Zionism is a false idol that has taken the idea of the promised land and turned
it onto a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnostate. It is a false idol that
takes our most profound biblical stories of Justice and emancipation from slavery
—-the story of Passover itself—-and turned them into brutalist weapons of
colonial land theft, road maps for ethnic cleansing and genocide.”
The whole concept of a “promised land” has, Klein declares, become “a false idol
that has taken the transcendent idea of the promised land — a metaphor for human
liberation that has traveled across multiple faiths to every corner of this globe
——and dared to turn it into a deed of sale for a militaristic ethnic state…
Political Zionism’s version of liberation is itself profane. From the start, it
required the expulsion of Palestinians from their homes and ancestral lands in
the Nakba…Zionism has brought us to our current moment of cataclysm and it is
time that we said it clearly: it has always been leading here….It is a false
idol that has led far too many of our people down a deeply immoral path that now
has them justifying the shredding of core Commandments: thou shalt not kill, thou
shalt not steal, thou shalt not covet…We seek to elevate Judaism from an
ethnostate that wants Jews to be perennially afraid.”
More and more One-time advocates of Zionism have moved away from this position.
One of these is Daniel Boyarin, professor of Talmudic Culture Emeritus at the
University of California at Berkeley. In his book, “The No-State Solution, A
Jewish Manifesto” (Yale University Press), he writes, “I was a Zionist in my
youth. In those years, I thought of myself as a left-wing Zionist. I was very
active in Habonim (a Socialist Zionist youth movement). I think I ultimately
caught the leftism and socialism more than the Zionism. And when it became clear
to me that I had to make a choice, I finally realized I had to let the Zionism
go. That choice came when Yitzhak Rabin stated that the Israeli Army should
break the legs of Palestinian kids who threw stones at soldiers. I asked at that
time, what is this cruel idea of breaking the arms and legs of little boys? And
somebody explained to me that this was necessary in order to maintain the state.
I said, if that’s necessary…then the state is clearly a wrong thing…I remember
the first time I wanted to say I was an anti-Zionist…. I couldn’t say the words.
That’s how hard it was for me.”
For Dr. Boyarin, “…the dilemma is how to maintain a truly, vital, authentic,
rich, lively and compelling Jewish cultural life without falling into the kinds
of nationalism and ethnocentrism that we find all over the world today.”
Zionism Was a Minority View
Zionism, many now forget, has, before the Holocaust, always been a minority view
among Jews. It seems likely that it is on its way to becoming a minority view
once again. Only during the period of the Holocaust, when Jews were endangered by
Nazism, did the idea of a Jewish state in Palestine gain support. The fact that
Palestine was already fully populated was largely ignored. Deena Dallasheh, a
historian of Palestine and Israel who has taught at Columbia University and Rice
University, told the New York Times ((Feb. 4, 2024) that, “The Holocaust was a
horrible massacre committed by Europeans. But I don’t think the Palestinians
figure that they will have to pay for it. Yet the world sees this as an
acceptable equation. Orientalist and colonial ideology were very much at the
heart of thinking, that while we Europeans and the U.S. were part of this massive
human tragedy, we are going to fix it at the expense of someone else. And the
someone else is not important because they are Arabs. They’re Palestinians and
thus constructed as not important.”
Most Jews historically believed that their Jewish identity rests on their
religious faith, not any national identification. Jews in the United States, the
United Kingdom, France, Canada, Australia, Italy and other countries never viewed
themselves living in “exile,” as Zionist philosophy holds. Instead, they believe
that their religion and nationality are separate and distinct. The God they
believe in is a universal God, not tied to a particular geographic site in the
Middle East.
An early leader of Reform Judaism, Rabbi Abraham Geiger, pointed out in the 19th
century that the underlying essence of Judaism was ethical monotheism. The
Jewish people were a religious community destined to carry on the mission to
“serve as a light to the nations,” to bear witness to God and His moral law. The
dispersion of the Jews was not a punishment for their sins, but part of God’s
plan whereby they were to disseminate the universal message of ethical
monotheism.
Not A Nation but A Religious Community
In 1885, Reform rabbis meeting in Pittsburgh adopted a platform which declared,
“We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community.” In 1897,
the Central Conference of American Rabbis adopted a resolution disapproving of
any attempt to establish a Jewish state and declaring that, “America is our
Zion.” In 1904, The American Israelite declared, “There is not one solitary
native Jewish-American who is an advocate of Zionism.”
To the question of whether Jews constitute “a people,” Yeshayahua Leibowitz, the
Orthodox Jewish thinker and long-time Hebrew University professor, provides this
assessment: “The historical Jewish people was defined neither as a race , nor a
people of this country or that, nor as a people which speaks the same language,
but as the people of Torah Judaism and its commandments…The words spoken by Rabbi
Saadia Gaon (882-942) more than a thousand years ago: ‘Our nation exists only
within the Torah’ have not only a normative but also an empirical meaning. They
testified to a historical reality whose power could be felt up until the 19th
century. It was then that the fracture which has not ceased to widen with time,
first occurred: the fissure between Jewishness and Judaism.”
An early leader of the American Council for Judaism, Rabbi Irving Reichart of San
Francisco, made his first significant declaration of opposition to Zionism in a
January 1936 sermon: “If my reading of Jewish history is correct, Israel took
upon itself the yoke of the law not in Palestine, but in the wilderness at Mt.
Sinai and by far the greater part of its deathless and distinguished contribution
to world culture was produced not in Palestine but in Babylon and the lands of
the Dispersion. Jewish states may rise and fall, as they have risen and fallen
in the past, but the people of Israel will continue to minister at the altar of
the Most High God in all the lands in which they dwell…There is too dangerous a
parallel between the insistence of some Zionist spokesmen upon nationality and
race and blood, and similar pronouncements by Fascist leaders in Europe.”
Zionism: A Dangerous Wrong Turn
In America at the present time, Zionism looks to more and more Jewish Americans
like a dangerous wrong turn. Those who resisted Zionism from the beginning
appear to have been prophetic in their warnings and misgivings. Let us hope that
prophetic, universal Judaism will be restored. *
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