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Saturday, March 19, 2011

The Jewish Left and Israel

Jerry Gordon has written a thought-provoking article in the New English Review in the wake of the massacre of the Fogel family in Itamar. It covers many areas including the destructive effect left-wing Jewish groups in America are having on Israel. Gordon's article also describes recent events at UC-Irvine and the on-going controversy over the Olive Tree Initiative, of which I have written.

http://www.newenglishreview.org/custpage.cfm/frm/85287/sec_id/85287

I heartily concur with Gordon that elements of the Jewish left in America have forsaken Israel and joined her enemies. The two most glaring examples are Jewish Voice for Peace, which, in my view, might just as well re-name itself "Jews for Jihad", as well as J Street, that George Soros-funded bunch that claims to be pro-Israel but sides with the Palestinians on every issue.

With the turmoil in the Middle East, the above-mentioned atrocity in Itamar, and Hamas lobbing rockets into Israel, it seems to me to be high time to call out those groups on the left that are working to further Israel's destruction-be they Jewish or not.

1 comment:

Siarlys Jenkins said...

There is no "Jewish left." When there WAS a Jewish left, it was heavily involved in building that budding socialist society in the Ottoman cum British area sometimes called Palestine. Those Jews who were specifically Communist turned against Israel in 1949, when Stalin realized it wasn't going to be his satellite state, but then, a lot of Communist Jews left the party at that time for that reason.

What is sloppily referenced as "the Jewish left" consists of middle class culture vultures who wouldn't know the inside of a garment factory if they were handcuffed to a work table inside a fully equipped one in broad daylight.

That said, a choice needs to be made in the propaganda department:

1) If all Jews have a duty and a proclivity to unreservedly support Israel, then those who are violently opposed to Israel are correct to target all Jews, per se, as their Zionist enemy.

2) If Jews living in peace in whatever country where they may be citizens, is a separate issue from support for, or opposition to, the existence of Israel as a Jewish state, then it must be presumed that Jews, like other demographic categories of humanity, have a variety of opinions and attitude, which each individual is entitled to express.

I am familiar with an orthodox Jewish rabbi who is religiously certain that the founding of Israel was a mistake, undertaken my misguided secular Jewish socialists, without divine mandate to do so, BUT, since such a large percentage of the Chosen People currently live there, is militantly supportive of Likud, UTJ, and Shas.

There are all kinds of ways to look at this. As for me, I support the existence of Israel as a state where Jewish people, hitherto and otherwise without a state of their own, may find citizenship as Jews, should they desire it. I believe that this will, in the long run, be impossible without a compromise that allows those Arabic-speaking people most intimately concerned, now residing in the West Bank and Gaza, a vehicle for political and economic self-determination. This can be accomplished without making the unrealistic demand that Israel should disarm, but it does need to firmly restrain those Jews who believe it is their God-given right to build new communities anywhere they want, and appropriate other people's olive orchards. I applaud those Jews who recognize that such behavior must stop.