Dorothy Online Newsletter

NOVANEWS

Posted by: Sammi Ibrahem

Chair of West Midland PSC

Dear Friends,

The final item of the 6 in this message is quite long, but ever so important.  If you don’t find time to read it now, please do later.  I will come back to it in a moment.

Item 1 is another case of Israeli racism.  It seems that more and more Israelis are going right, and this is frightening.  It is frightening because of what it can lead to.  However, Israel’s policies and  racism are working against it, as item 2 claims, and 6 shows.

In item 2 Zeev Sternhell criticizes Israel for its recent legislations and turn to the right.  In his view these are causing Israel to become an anachronism.

Item 3 shows that Israel is worried!  Netanyahu goes to Ban Ki Moon to ask him to stop the Freedom Flotilla 2 which is planned sometime in May.  Of course Netanyahu’s depiction of the flotilla is quite different from how its supporters depict it, as item 4, which is from its supporters, shows and also presents background on the flotilla, which apparently will number some 15 ships.

When I heard yesterday the news that item 5 reports, I didn’t know whether to laugh or to cry.  Israel is considering building an artificial island outside of Gaza, replete with hotels, an airport, bridges to the mainland, and so on and so forth. And all of this for Gazans!  The plan raises 2 issues: Gaza and the West Bank are both Palestine!  Gaza must be connected to the West Bank, not blocked from it. And 2, has this plan anything to do with the gas fields in Gaza’s territorial waters and which Israel wants so desperately?

Item 6 is important because it indeed shows that amongst American Jews, particularly the younger ones (though not only), Israel is indeed an anachronism, and worse, it splits the Jewish community.  Please read. This is something that I have seen coming for some time.  I believe that in Europe, many Jews also are anti Israel.  Well, if Israel loses the Diaspora, it has absolutely no justification for being.

All the best,

Dorothy

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1.  Ynet,

April 1, 2011

Neighborhood Watch

Marzel: Infiltrators beware Photo: Yaron Brener

‘Team Marzel’ targets Tel Aviv migrants

Extreme rightist arms volunteers with tear gas, krav maga, uniforms, and Kahane-brand ideology in battle against foreign workers’ Tel Aviv ‘takeover’

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4050385,00.html

Akiva Novik

They stand in a big yard in the Tel Aviv neighborhood of Kiryat Shalom, forming a circle around a large punching bag. They hold stickers and signs supplied by extreme rightist Baruch Marzel, and wear shirts that say: Israel is ours.

The object: Southern Tel Aviv’s migrant community. The weapon: Tear gas and krav maga training. The inspiration: Rabbi Meir Kahane.

Two months ago MK Michael Ben Ari (National Union) opened an office in the nearby Hatikva neighborhood, and was immediately swamped by southern Tel Aviv residents complaining of the wave of migrants swamping the area.

The residents claim the migrants are violent and often involved in crimes such as theft and even attempted rape. They claim they are living in fear while police stand by.

But Ben Ari had an idea. He was reminded of the Jewish Defense League, which Rabbi Kahane established in the US in the 1960’s. The league of vigilantes served as protection for American Jews, and its members were often said to have used violent means to achieve this aim.

The MK decided to appeal to Marzel, who heads the Our Land of Israel organization and was previously a member of the JDL.

The latter took up the cause immediately and decided to establish a local neighborhood watch. He organized lessons in the Israeli martial arts form krav maga, equipped volunteers with tear gas and uniforms, established an emergency phone line and distributed a volunteer list. He also promised the occasional assistance of other right-wing activists, his followers.

The first patrol, which will mobilize some 200 volunteers, is scheduled to take place in the coming days. “We have a lot of ex-soldiers, and unlike the police we will establish order,” says Haim, one of the volunteers.

In addition to the means at their disposal, the volunteers also plan to make use of citizens’ arrests in order to detain those caught committing a crime until police arrive. “If needed, we will use reasonable and minimal force,” Haim explains.

“We don’t want fistfights, but rather to make migrants despair of being here. We will show up with 20 people, knock on their doors, and make it clear that we want them to leave,” says Meir Turjeman, a member of the Hatikva neighborhood committee.

In addition to southern Tel Aviv, Marzel plans to establish units in other cities with large migrant populations, such as Eilat and Arad – “any city in which there is a need”, he explains.

Members of neighborhood watch team (Photo: Tzvika Tishler)

‘Provocateurs igniting area’

“We are living in fear,” says Suzy, a resident of Kiryat Shalom. “In the past month alone there have been more than 20 break-ins and many attacks – so as a last resort we are taking matters into our own hands.”

But police are less enthusiastic. “This is a group of provocateurs with the sole aim of igniting the area,” said a police officer familiar with the matter.

But Marzel believes the “rules of the game” are changing. “Those who should be afraid are the infiltrators,” he says. “Anywhere in Israel where people are afraid – of migrants or Arabs – will know that there are people to rely on for security. As a former member of the Jewish Defense League I can say that the passion here is reminiscent of what was there, and even more.”

The volunteers’ slogan – “those who believe do not fear” – hints at their proximity to the ideology of Kahane’s Kach movement, which enjoyed great success in the ’80s.

“With this shirt I am not afraid,” says Suzy. “Now I have the strong support of the watch and Baruch Marzel, and his political views do not interest me in the least.”

Lev Melayev, also a member of the team, tries to explain his fears as well. “My friend, a soldier in basic training, went to the central bus station this week and on the way saw an Arab and a Sudanese man who cursed him off and yelled, ‘Hey Jew, come over here’,” he recounted.

“The Arab tried to take his phone and when he objected pulled a knife out and stabbed him. He has a cut on the side of his stomach and only a miracle saved him from being stabbed in the heart.”

Karin Galili, whose mother was killed by a drunken migrant, also expressed her frustration. “Lives are destroyed every day here, and we will do everything we can to stop it,” she says.

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2. Haaretz,

April 01, 2011

The extreme right turned Israel into an anachronism

Unlike Europe, where the right has significantly grown but is still not in power, in this country the racists, the extreme and clerical right is the government, with only a vacuum opposing it.

http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/opinion/the-extreme-right-turned-israel-into-an-anachronism-1.353451

By Zeev Sternhell

Slowly but surely Israel is acquiring the status of an anachronistic entity. The legislation that passed in the Knesset that dark night last week, which makes ethnic inequality a legal norm, has no parallel in democratic countries because it contradicts the very essence of democracy. In terms of the principle on which it is based, institutionalized discrimination against the non-Jewish population takes us back to the early days, when Israel’s Arab citizens were under a military government.

This had a far-reaching effect on Israeli society. Aside from the desire of Prime Minister David Ben-Gurion and the ruling elite not to limit their freedom of action, it was the ethnic and institutionalized discrimination that rendered impossible the writing of a constitution. In that way the Israelis, who for the first time became citizens in their own country, learned that independence did not require equality and democracy did not include respecting human rights.

In the year after Israel canceled its military government in Arab areas, the great disaster of the Six-Day War took place, and a military government was established in the territories. Over time, with the settlements, a colonial regime has been created that does not even try to conceal its nature. At a time when all Western countries have stopped ruling over other nations, Israel is creating a colony for itself, and even transferring the norms that reign in the occupied territories across the borders into the state itself.

Does the West have any such anachronism? The settlement colonialism is the main reason today, usually the only one, for the opposition, sometimes bordering on hatred, that Israel arouses among much of the Western intelligentsia. It’s not the enemies of Zionism and the anti-Semites who are delegitimizing Israel, but Israel itself, with its own two hands.

Although the extreme right has become stronger in Europe too, and the last word has yet to be said, racists don’t rule there, and they are considered a repugnant minority not only to the left, but to a substantial part of the liberal right as well. In this country, however, the extreme and clerical right is the government, with only a vacuum opposing it.

The disgraceful flight from a confrontation with the right in the Knesset will not soon be forgotten, and the center’s moral bankruptcy will be recorded as a disgrace. The greatest enemies of democracy and the sources of fascism’s strength have always been not the radical right’s independent power, but the opportunism, conformism and cowardice of the center.

And what would we say if in a Catholic country in Western Europe, the church leaders controlled political parties and dictated entire chunks of national policy? How would we react to the sight of a party leader and important government minister kissing the hand of a robe-wearing cardinal and running to carry out his instructions in the public arena? And how would we accept the news that to attain one of the most important positions in the country − chief of the Shin Bet security service − the clergy’s consent was required?

Of course, such sights would generate scorn and disgust, but in this country we have long gotten used to the fact that the settlement rabbis’ “halakhic rulings” can openly reject the rule of law and the state’s authority, and the hilltop youth are allowed to declare de facto autonomy in the areas they control. We have also gotten use to figures like Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman, Interior Minister Eli Yishai and MK David Rotem, the chairman of the Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, whose ilk in Europe are part of a history many people are ashamed of. It’s sad to see how one of the great hopes of the 20th century has become an anachronism before our eyes.

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3.  Haaretz,

April 01, 2011

Netanyahu to UN Chief: Upcoming Gaza flotilla must be stopped

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tells UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon that the flotilla, scheduled to head toward the Gaza Strip in May, is a provocation and goods can easily be transported to the strip via land.

http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/netanyahu-to-un-chief-upcoming-gaza-flotilla-must-be-stopped-1.353536

By Barak Ravid

Tags: Israel news

Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu called on UN Secretary General Ban Ki-moon Friday to stop the impending flotilla that is supposed to set sail to the Gaza Strip in May.

The Israeli prime minister told the UN Chief that the flotilla is being organized by extreme Islamists that are interested only in provocation. He added that the ship’s key goal is to fuel tensions, particularly in light of the fact that the Gaza Strip is open to all types of goods brought in via land.

“Hamas is a terrorist organization and Iranian proxy,” Netanyahu said, adding that “it was just recently revealed that part of Iran’s efforts is to arm [Hamas] and smuggle weapons into the strip.”

The prime minister then reminded the UN Chief of the recent incident of the Victoria ship earlier this month, upon which tens of tons of weapons from Iran were found and confiscated by Israel. Netanyahu told Ban that this is proof that Israel must act aggressively against the flotilla.

The Israel Navy intercepted an estimated 50 tons of weapons from Iran earlier this month aboard the Victoria, a cargo ship bound for the Gaza Strip, including sophisticated land-to-sea missiles that could have enabled Palestinian militants to hit ships at Ashdod Port or at sea, or other Israeli targets like a crude oil depot or a gas drilling rig.

The shipment also included instruction manuals in Farsi, and there were other clues that explicitly showed Iranian involvement.

Israel began a public campaign this month against the Turkish IHH organization as well as other left-wing European organizations who plan on sending a flotilla to May. Fifteen ships are expected to head towards the strip.

The exact departure date of the ships is still undecided, however the Foreign Ministry expects it to be sometime between May 15, Naqba Day, and May 31, the one-year anniversary of when Israeli naval forces boarded the Mavi Mara, destined for Gaza in an attempt to prevent it from breaching the blockaded on the strip. Nine Turkish citizens were killed.

The organizers of the upcoming flotilla have named it the “Freedom Fleet”.

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4.  22 March 2011 11:10

http://www.lifeline4gaza.org/2011/03/22/israel-campaigns-against-gaza-bound-freedom-flotilla-ii-planned-for-may/

Tania Kepler for the Alternative Information Center (AIC) — Israel launched a public campaign Tuesday (22 March) against the international organizations planning the Freedom Flotilla II aid convoy, set to sail to Gaza in May of this year.

Israel’s Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon plans to meet with foreign ambassadors at the ministry on Tuesday to seek their help in stopping this year’s flotilla, reported the Israeli news daily Haaretz.

The Foreign Ministry has also been asking foreign governments, including Spain, Britain, Ireland and Sweden, to publish travel advisories warning their citizens against sailing to Gaza. Britain and Ireland have in fact done so, according to Haaretz.

The Freedom Flotilla II will sail for Gaza sometime between May 15, in commemoration of the “Nakba” (“catastrophe”), and May 31, the first anniversary of the deadly 2010 flotilla mission, which left nine activists dead.

Activist groups from more than 10 countries have said they are sending at least 15 vessels to join the Freedom Flotilla II: Italy, France, Germany, Netherlands, Greece, Sweden, Ireland, Austria, Switzerland, and Turkey.

The International Coalition of the Freedom Flotilla II met in Madrid, Spain from the 4-6th of February to discuss the upcoming journey. The meeting, organized by the host delegation Rumbo a Gaza, was attended by delegates from organizations in Algeria, Canada, Scotland, Spain, France, Greece, Holland, Ireland, Italy, Jordan, Kuwait, Malaysia, Norway, Sweden, Switzerland and Turkey.

“We have at least 15 different groups right now at one or two boats each,” said Huwaida Arraf, chairperson of the Free Gaza Movement, one of the leading nongovernmental organizations in the effort. “Every meeting we have, we get one or two new country-based networks or coalitions that want to join.”

Israeli Special Forces attacked the Freedom Flotilla convoy in 2010, boarded the Turkish ship the Mavi Marama, and killed 9 Turkish citizens and injured dozens more.

Israel’s Military Intelligence has established a new unit responsible for tracking groups abroad, and in the West Bank and Gaza which are aimed at “delegitimizing the State of Israel”.The push to create such a unit apparently came in response to the Israeli military’s deadly attack on the Freedom Flotilla aid convoy to Gaza in May 2010.

The research division of the country’s Military Intelligence also created a department several months ago dedicated to monitoring left-wing groups and will work closely with government ministries. The head of the new unit has been taking part in discussions in the Prime Minister’s Office about how to prepare for the possible arrival of a Gaza-bound flotilla in May, Haaretz reported.

The situation in Gaza, which has been dire for some time due to the Israeli military blockade, significantly worsened following Israel’s military attack Operation Cast Lead. The 22-day military strike reduced much of Gaza’s infrastructure and homes to rubble, and killed some 1,400 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians. The population is still reeling and in desperate need of supplies.

According to the UNHRC’s “Report of the Special Rapporteur on the situation of human rights in the Palestinian territories”, published in January, Rapporteur Richard Falk notes: “the situation of the civilian population in Gaza continues to be of critical concern. In 2010, Israeli uses of force resulted in 58 Palestinians killed in Gaza (including 22 civilians) plus 233 Palestinians injured (including 208 civilians).”

“Israel has declared a buffer zone that extends for 1,500 metres into Gaza from the border fence (comprising 17 per cent of Gaza), and Israeli military personnel fire at farmers and children who are pursuing normal peaceful activities close to the border,” the report continues. “These characteristics of the ongoing Israeli relationship to Gaza are strongly confirmatory of the legal and factual assessment that Gaza remains an occupied territory.”

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5,  The Guardian,

30 March 2011 20.30 BST

Israel may build artificial island off Gaza Strip coast

Environmentalists says plans, which also include hotels and a marina, are ‘complete madness’ and warn public to be sceptical

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2011/mar/30/israel-artificial-island-gaza-coast

Conal Urquhart in Jerusalem

Israel’s prime minister, Binyamin Netanyahu is said to approve of the £6.2bn proposals. Photograph: Getty Images Israel is considering plans to build an artificial island off the coast of the Gaza Strip to house a sea and airport, and encourage tourism in the area.

Yisrael Katz, the Israeli minister for transport, said the plan had been under consideration for many months and had been encouraged by Binyamin Netanyahu, the Israeli prime minister. He said it would also relieve Israel of the obligation to be the transit point for goods into the enclave.

The Gaza Strip has no sea port and its airport was destroyed. The area is the sixth most crowded place in the world. Since 2007, Israel, which controls the majority of Gaza’s borders has only allowed limited kinds of goods into Gaza and allowed very few exports out. Gazans have got round restrictions by smuggling goods from Egypt through tunnels.

Katz said he expected the island would be under international control for at least 100 years to ensure Israel’s security. “We have built models and there are many entrepreneurs who are interested and prepared to invest billions and make money,” he told Israel Army Radio

A spokesman for the Israeli ministry of transport said the main aim of the plan was to improve the quality of life for Palestinians in Gaza while ensuring Israel’s security. “The island would be three square miles and it would be linked to Gaza with a three mile-long bridge which could take vehicles, trains and pipes for oil and gas. The island would have hotels, tourist areas, a marina with yachts and an airport and a seaport.”

He estimated that the project would cost up to $10bn (£6.2bn), create 100,000 jobs and take up to 10 years to complete.

Environmentalists and Palestinian officials, however, described the venture as “fantasy” and “madness”, and accused the minister of political opportunism.

A spokesman for the Israeli Ministry of Environmental Protection said they had not been consulted about the project. Previous plans for a deepwater port in the Gaza Strip have stalled, partly because of Israel’s security concerns, but also because any developments could cause massive damage to the whole coast of Israel.

Gidon Bromberg, director of Friends of the Earth Middle East, described the project as “complete madness”.

“This sort of thing makes no sense whatsoever,” he said. “The environmental implications would be felt along the coast of Gaza and Israel. Even the building of a marina caused a two-mile scar of beach erosion in Israel which the developer’s planning had not predicted. The public should be very sceptical.”

Ghassan Khatib, spokesman for the Palestinian Authority, said that if Israel wanted to improve the lives of Palestinians there were lots of simpler measures they could take. “This is pure fantasy and it is not the concern of Israel. If they want to help Palestinians, they must end the siege on Gaza, and allow the reintegration of the West Bank and Gaza and the establishment of a Palestinian state. Then they are welcome to make proposals.”

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6.  Haaretz,

April 01, 2011

Our brothers, ourselves

Will American Jews be able to continue to support Israel if it maintains its current political, social and religious orientations? Yes – and no – it depends on whom you ask

http://www.haaretz.com/weekend/magazine/our-brothers-ourselves-1.353502

By Noam Sheizaf

Nobody expected a routine political discussion in Newton, a wealthy suburb of Boston, one-third of whose residents are Jewish, to become the talk of the town among the American Jewish community. About four months ago the rabbi of a local Reform synagogue organized a discussion with the participation of J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami. Events of this type – political debates, public discussions and lessons in Jewish topics – take place daily in synagogues all over the United States, and the rabbi of Temple Beth Avodah, Keith Stern, didn’t think there was any cause for concern. “The understanding was that it was going to be what I considered to be an honest and open conversation with a liberal Jewish organization,” he explained to The Boston Globe after the fact.

Shortly after announcement of the event, “a small, influential” group from the community, as Stern described it, began to express firm opposition to hosting the head of the left-wing Jewish lobby. The synagogue’s administration met with representatives of the group in an attempt to find a compromise, but in vain. At the last moment, the discussion was transferred to a nearby elementary school. This time the protest erupted from the other side, with claims of bullying and prevention of open discussion. The dispute “threatened the fabric of the congregation,” said Stern, explaining his decision to cancel the encounter.

Youngsters in New Jersey, two days after the declaration of the State of Israel, 1948.

Photo by: Bettmann/CORBIS

For weeks afterward there were articles and columns about the subject in the Jewish press and on blogs. Some were angry at the synagogue, others at J Street, and most of all, there was a sense that Israel has become a fraught and very complex subject for American Jewry. The fact that a discussion about Israel threatened the congregation “says more about the congregation than it does about J Street,” wrote Jesse Singal, a contributor to The Boston Globe, summing up the affair on the newspaper’s website.

The incident in Beth Avodah prompted such widespread reverberations because it represented a growing phenomenon, especially in the Reform and Conservative parts of the community: a genuine difficulty in talking about Israel. In certain synagogues, the boards or the rabbis have reduced their scope of Israel-related activities, for fear of crises that will threaten the community.

There have also been genuine political conflicts between various Jewish organizations, including boycotts, threats and even violence. A few months ago the Anti-Defamation League published its list of the “Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in America,” including one called the Jewish Voice for Peace (see box ). Furthermore, so as to prevent Israel’s fiercest critics from using its on-campus facilities as a forum, the Hillel association of Jewish students issued guidelines concerning which organizations and speakers are considered acceptable. Plus, a few months ago posters were affixed to the home of a Jewish activist in Los Angeles, declaring that he is “Wanted for treason.” And so on.

Jewish magazines and newspapers have carried articles accusing Jewish journalists and bloggers who criticized Israel of anti-Semitism and self-hatred – and equally harsh responses to them have also been published. Everyone interviewed for this article spoke of instances in his own milieu where discussion about Israel escalated to the point of strident remarks or worse, or where people specifically were asked “not to mention Israel at the table.”

One of the most dramatic incidents took place about a year and a half ago surrounding the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival, the oldest and most important cinematic event in the American Jewish world. Among the 70 films that were screened at the festival was “Rachel,” about the life and death of Rachel Corrie, an activist in the International Solidarity Movement, who was killed in Gaza in 2003 when she was hit by a bulldozer during the demolition of a house in Rafah. What ignited the atmosphere was the invitation to Rachel’s mother, Cindy Corrie, to join the discussion following the screening. The Israeli consul in the city called the invitation a “big mistake,” and two large foundations that support the festival published an ad accusing the organizations behind the event of anti-Semitism. Jewish newspapers and organizational leaders were flooded with protest letters; on the other hand, Jewish peace activists protested what they saw as prevention of free speech and censorship concerning anything connected to Israel.

As a compromise, a representative of the Israel advocacy organization Stand With Us was invited to the discussion, but according to journalists in the audience, he found it difficult to talk because of the boos and shouts from both camps in the crowded hall. The uproar led to the resignation of the president of the festival administration along with five board members.

“The furor is much larger than this one film or this one speaker,” summed up Peter Stein, the executive director of the festival, in an article in the SFGate (a website). “It reveals a rift in our community.”

Another victim

A similar but smaller blowup occurred last month, after a performance at Theater J in Washington, D.C. of the play “Return to Haifa” by Tel Aviv’s Cameri Theater. The play, written by Boaz Gaon and based on a novella by Ghassan Kanafani, who was a member of the Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, is about a Palestinian couple from Ramallah who return to their home in Haifa after 1967 to discover a Jewish woman and her soldier-son there; they believe the young man may be the son they abandoned in 1948. The performance caused several donors to discontinue their donations to the local Jewish Federation, which supports the Jewish theater.

Michael Steinberg, one of the donors, explained to The Washington Jewish Week that “Theater J has begun to stage ‘a truly vile series of anti-Israeli plays.'”

That was not the end of the affair: The Federation was angry at publication of the item in the Jewish Week – which it owns; according to reports, the editor paid for that with her job. The debate over Israel claimed another victim.

“Israel has become a very polarizing subject for Jews in America,” says Rabbi Sheldon Lewis of Palo Alto, one of the veteran, well-known rabbis in the San Francisco and Silicon Valley area, which is home to about half a million Jews. Lewis served as a congregational rabbi there for 33 years, retiring four and a half years ago. Since then he has been devoting his time to a program designed to teach the local Jews how to conduct a political discussion about Israel without losing control.

“Our communities have really been torn apart surrounding Israel,” says Lewis. “People have attacked each other personally, friendships have ended, people have left synagogues because of it and have even disappeared entirely from the community. When I was a community rabbi I experienced that myself. The film festival may have been the most dramatic and well-known incident, but things have been going downhill for years.”

Lewis himself maintains close ties with Israel and has led some 20 trips there for community members. Over the years he has had good relations with both left-wing groups and the Israeli consulate in San Francisco.

“We’re all in favor of Israel, and we tried to initiate activities to represent the entire range of opinions,” he notes. “Israeli journalists and representatives of the consulate in the city came to us, as well as right-wingers and people from Rabbis for Human Rights. But we were unable to find the balance that would prevent the rift. To this day there are people who won’t speak to me – friends to whom I can’t turn because of things I said or initiated.” Sometimes, adds Lewis, the solution was simply not to talk about Israel at social events or large family meals: “We often simply preferred to avoid the subject.”

“The discussion about Israel touches on the foundation of Jewish existence here,” explains Rabbi Ed Feinstein of Los Angeles. “The debate about Israel is the debate about the future of the Jewish people. Israel symbolizes the Jews’ hope and fears, and that’s why emotions regarding it are so strong in both directions.”

Torn from within

“I used to adhere to a personal rule: Never discuss Israel or Palestine with anyone,” wrote American journalist and author Eric Alterman in an article in a recent issue of the Jewish magazine Moment. But then Alterman, a Zionist, violated this rule.

“I gave a lecture at a university a few hours outside New York City on the topic of ‘American Jews and Israel: The Burdens of Irresponsibility.’ My argument, an extremely moderate one backed up by statistics, I might add, was that substituting pro-Israel activism for religious study is not good for Jews, or even for Israel,” wrote Alterman. But when he arrived in the auditorium a surprise was awaiting him: Instead of young students, the room was full of elderly Jews who had come to confront him.

“During my talk, audience members frequently interrupted to challenge my statements of fact. During the question-and-answer period, elderly Jew after elderly Jew insisted that I was completely wrong, misinformed and biased on pretty much every point … Weeks later, these people were still trying to set me straight.

“I really meant it when I said I did not want to talk about Israel,” says Alterman, a few weeks after his lecture. “When it comes to the Jewish community, and also when it comes to the anti-Zionist American left – no fact about Israel matters. Everything you say is framed within one of the narratives, and you end up just annoying people or strengthening their prejudices. I’ve never seen anyone saying, ‘Yes, I’ve changed my mind.’ On the other hand, I’ve attended many dinners that were spoiled because of a conversation about Israel.”

Isn’t this something that always existed within the Jewish community?

Alterman: “We always had problems. There was Sabra and Chatila. There were always things that broke our hearts. But as Jewish liberals, we have always thought that there is another Israel – that of A.B. Yehoshua, Amos Oz, David Grossman. The Israel which we were attached to. But this Israel is getting smaller and smaller, and frankly, it seems that it looked bigger from the U.S. than it really is. ‘Our Israel’ is narrowing, and the real Israel is becoming a foreign place for us.”

“These experiences – public controversies, endless debates in the Jewish media, quarrels within the family about Israel – are entirely typical of the Jewish community today,” says Joel Schalit, a political scientist who is an expert on Israel and author of the book “Israel vs. Utopia,” about the attitude of American Jews to the state. “It wasn’t like that in the past, certainly not as intense. To a great extent Israel in recent years has been turning into what in California they would call a ‘bummer issue.’

“It’s happening more in the liberal community,” Schalit continues, “although even in Orthodox and Conservative circles people are no longer happy to talk about Israel, unless everyone in the room shares exactly the same opinions. That doesn’t necessarily mean that they’re leftists, but simply that the subject is so sensitive that they prefer not to discuss it. Both on the left and on the right there’s a similar feeling. American Jews are indifferent or angry about Israel today, and many of them have begun to see Israel less as something identified with hope and pride, and more as a problem. That’s a tremendous cultural change, and that’s why it arouses so many emotions.”

“In the past, you could say to liberal friends who criticized Israel ‘What would you do if you were in their place?'” says Alterman. “After all, no country would agree to undertake security risks [like] those that are required from Israel. But in recent years it’s more and more difficult to say it. It’s much more complicated to justify the raid on the Turkish flotilla, or the way Israel handled Gaza, or the attacks on human rights organizations. It looks like we we’re reaching a point where liberal American Jews will be forced to choose between their values and their emotional attachment to Israel. And many, alas, are going to stick with their values. There’s a sense of failure of an idea with regards to Israel. This is something very painful for me to say.”

The debate about Israel typically takes place in the liberal wings of the community, and particularly among the younger Reform and Conservative generation. The Orthodox, who constitute about one-fifth of U.S. Jews, tend not to criticize Israeli policy, especially in public.

“For the elite of the non-Orthodox community, Israel has become a very complicated subject,” confirms Prof. Steven M. Cohen, director of the Berman Jewish Policy Archive at New York University’s Wagner Graduate School of Public Service; he is a sociologist specializing in the American Jewish community, who divides his time between New York and Jerusalem.

Cohen feels that “these Jews are torn between two instincts: They want to protect Israel from destruction and threats, mainly from the outside and occasionally from the inside, too; but many of them see many Israeli actions as undermining their basic values as Jews, as Americans or as human beings. Israeli policy seems to them xenophobic, chauvinistic, ultra-religious, non-pluralistic and discriminatory toward foreigners. And the identity of these people is progressive, Reform or Conservative, feminist, internationalist. In every area that defines them as human beings, Israel seems to be opposed to them, and even insults and hurts them. They’re torn between their concern for Israel in terms of security, and their ethical concerns. The result is that the communities are unable to reach a consensus. You see it all the time, you can smell it in the air, it’s something that’s becoming stronger. They have a hard time with Israel.”

The result, Cohen explains, is that many prefer not to discuss Israel in the context of the community, in order to head off disputes and rifts.

“Among young Jewish leaders there’s a tendency to adopt a ‘Don’t ask, don’t plan activity’ (about Israel ) policy, because they’re committed to the consensus,” he says. “They have more important objectives for the community, and the Israeli question will lead to internal tensions that will harm those objectives. Bringing Israel into the discussion will undermine the ability of Jews in the community to worship with one another, to study with one another, and to comfort one another.”

Different crises

Even without the political dimension, some say the connection between American Jews and Israel has diminished over the years. According to recent surveys, only 30 percent of American Jews feel deeply connected to Israel and follow what is going on, and the numbers drop even more among young people and especially those who have married non-Jews. At the same time, even among the Reform and Conservative communities there is an elite that follows the news from Israel relatively religiously, and many who have also spent extended periods in Israel (Cohen estimates that they constitute 10 percent to 15 percent of the community ). These are the people who are now suffering an identity crisis regarding Israel.

The problem with Israel doesn’t only center around the peace process and the occupation. For many, internal developments in Israeli society are actually of greater importance. Liberal U.S. Jews are disturbed by the persecution of human rights organizations, the separation of women and men on buses in Jerusalem and local rabbis’ declarations: No fewer than 1,000 American rabbis signed a protest letter in response to the prohibition by Israeli religious figures against renting apartments to Arabs. Two other subjects that have gained considerable publicity among U.S. Jews receive almost no attention in the public discourse in Israel: the Conversion Law, which would grant a monopoly on conversions to the Chief Rabbinate, and has already created a feeling in Reform and Conservative communities that they are being left out; and the arrest, most notably a year and a half ago, by the Jerusalem police of members of Women of the Wall, who wanted to pray with a Torah scroll, as is customary in their own congregations, at the Western Wall in Jerusalem.

Many women in the U.S. Jewish community have joined the protest against the treatment of the Women of the Wall. In the Reform Congregation Kol Ami in White Plains, New York, for example, women were photographed with a Torah scroll and they posted the pictures on a special page on the Internet. “There’s a feeling that Israel is moving in the direction of very ultra-Orthodox, very limited Judaism,” says the rabbi of the synagogue, Shira Milgrom. “This is an Israel with which it is very difficult for us to identify.”

Milgrom, who has served in her position for the past 25 years, remembers other times: “Once it was easy, when everyone had their head in the sand and didn’t understand the situation. There are still people who want to talk only about ‘Exodus’ and ‘the only democracy in the Middle East,’ but younger Jews, students, grew up on other stories, and they have a very tough conflict between the Israel they know and their sense of Jewish ethics. To a great degree it’s a generational debate.”

“There are people, especially many young people, who do not participate in the Jewish community because they feel that the community is afraid to criticize Israel and that silence implies agreement with Israeli policies,” says Rabbi Julie Saxe-Taller of Congregation Sherith Israel in San Francisco. “On the other hand, when Jews do criticize Israeli policy, we are often met with very vocal, harsh responses. I have experienced this. My synagogue doesn’t avoid events connected to Israel as certain communities do, but we do feel the polarization on the subject, and it’s worrisome.”

“The synagogue in America is not like [the synagogue] in Israel,” says Rabbi Feinstein. “In America the synagogue is a community center and a cultural center. It’s the place where the political discussion has to take place, too.”

Feinstein has served as the rabbi of his Los Angeles congregation since 1993, speaks Hebrew and regularly conducts events that deal with Israel.

“The problem is that when you take the Israeli discussion to America it narrows and becomes very extreme. In Israel you can say things that in America are forbidden, and that’s also true of the Israelis in our community. Something happens to them when they move to the U.S. Their culture of discussion is different and emotions come to the fore. We had harsh quarrels in the synagogue. As far as I’m concerned, as long as I infuriate both the right and the left equally, I know that I’m okay,” explains Feinstein.

Shmuel Rosner, author of the new book “Shtetl, Bagel, Baseball: American Judaism for Israeli Dummies” (in Hebrew, published by Keter ), agrees that discussion about Israel has become more public and more polarized these days.

“The debate about Israel can cause American Jews to get angry and even to slam the door in fury,” says Rosner, a former correspondent for Haaretz in the United States, who is now a columnist and a fellow at the Jewish People Policy Institute. “In the past, even at the height of the second intifada, it was easy for Jews to understand who was the ‘good guy’ and who was the ‘bad guy’ in the story, but now the situation is more complicated and confusing, and the complexity leads to polarization.

“It’s important to emphasize that there are no unequivocal data on the subject, for one because it’s hard to measure emotional attitudes. What is evident is a very profound cultural gap between Israel and American Jews. For American Jews political liberalism is to a great extent part of the religion. They have embedded their liberal political values so deeply into their Jewish experience that it’s very hard to tell where politics ends and religion begins. The occupation and the Palestinians are a much less important reason for the sense of distance from Israel, although there are quite a number of people with vested interests, who for their own reasons are creating the impression that that is the main problem.”

Remembering ‘the camps’

The U.S. Jewish community is composed for the most part of descendants of Eastern European immigrants, who arrived there in the late 19th and early 20th centuries. The Jews were identified almost from the time they arrived with the left-liberal side of the American political map. They tended to vote for the Democrats already in the 1930s; in the 1950s they were among the prominent supporters of the human rights movement (in the famous pictures from the period, communal leaders are seen marching alongside Martin Luther King, holding a Torah scroll ); in the 1960s and 1970s Jews were prominent in their opposition to the Vietnam War, and according to a 2009 Gallop poll, even today they are the most liberal group in America.

No fewer than 41 percent of U.S. Jews identify themselves as liberals, and only 20 percent – the lowest proportion in their country’s population – see themselves as conservatives. Jews tend to support gay rights, gun control, abortion and even euthanasia, more than any other religious group in the States. For many these are not political values, but a personal interpretation of what Jewish identity means.

“When people on the Israeli right are surprised by the liberal bias of the Jewish community in the United States, they simply don’t understand that this community spent almost 100 years trying to construct a unique political space for themselves,” explains researcher Schalit. “The political experience of the Jews in Eastern Europe was of life under nondemocratic regimes, and what was so amazing about the American example was that Jews managed to change the tradition of the regimes from which they had come [to a point where there were] such liberal and multicultural attitudes. It’s hard to explain how liberal members of the American Jewish community are when it comes to American political issues, how much they believe in civil rights, or why 78 percent of them voted for Obama, although they had questions regarding several of his positions.”

The Bush years “made Israel pay a price in [terms of] its ability to connect to American Jewry,” Rosner observes. “In Israel affection for [George W.] Bush steadily increased, while most American Jews felt total contempt for him. It is very hard for the Jews to identify with someone who considers [former Alaska Governor] Sarah Palin an ally. For them she is almost a demonic figure, while in Israel she receives a royal welcome, and rightfully so as far as Israel is concerned.”

One of the central events symbolizing the profound rift in the community over the question of attitudes toward Israel was the establishment a few years ago of J Street – a liberal Zionist lobby that is trying to promote the two-state solution, and is meant to serve as an alternative to American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the veteran pro-Israel lobby. As opposed to the Jewish Voice for Peace, J Street operates within the confines of the community, and it does not coordinate activities with Palestinian organizations or support a boycott. On the other hand, it is doing something that no other Jewish organization has ever done: lobbying in Washington against the settlements in the territories, to the dissatisfaction of the government in Jerusalem. The result: a serious conflict with the veteran Jewish establishment, which is filtering down to the local communities as well.

“People want to avoid the subject, because it’s so difficult and complicated,” says Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street. “Many rabbis I speak to are unable to conduct a discussion about Israel in their synagogues. They’re concerned for their jobs. If they don’t invite all sides in the debate, someone will get angry and there will be an uproar. If they do invite everyone, then there are threats to funding, and they worry that half the congregation may leave the synagogue.”

Why is the discussion so polarized?

Ben-Ami: “Because Israel is part of people’s identity. When someone criticizes Israel, people who worked all their lives defending the country feel that they are being attacked personally. This isn’t simply politics or policy. It’s not a debate about health care. It’s about who we are as a people and who we’ve been for 50 years. It’s personal. So you see emails that say, ‘People like you are the ones who sent us to the camps’ or ‘You’re aiding the enemy,’ or ‘You’re on the side of those who want to kill us.’ Sometimes we even find ourselves dragged down to the level of personal attacks – so that recently we even apologized for the way we responded to a member of the House of Representatives who attacked us.”

There are some who claim that unless there is a serious attempt to deal with the debate over Israel, the integrity and unity of the entire Jewish community will be in danger. Few articles rocked the Jewish community in recent years like “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment,” written by the former editor of The New Republic, Peter Beinart, in The New York Review of Books early last summer. Beinart harshly attacked the Jewish establishment and the damage it is causing the community by its automatic support for Israeli policy.

More than just its message, the power of the article stemmed from its timing and the identity of the writer: 40 years old, Orthodox, a prominent American Jewish intellectual and a Zionist from the center of the political map, who has never been considered part of the far left. “For several decades, the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at Zionism’s door, and now, to their horror,” he wrote, “they are finding that many young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.”

Dozens of columns and articles were written in response to that piece, and since then Beinart has become a popular speaker, who repeats his message from every possible platform, including in Haaretz Magazine last year. Now he is also working on a book that will discuss the crisis between the Jewish political establishment, the community and Israel. If they want to preserve the connection of the younger generation of American Jews to the Jewish state, the leaders of the local communities must support intellectuals who oppose the current Israeli government, as well as the Israeli civil rights organizations and the Sheikh Jarrah demonstrators, claims Beinart.

“We must find a way to interest them and to give them an opportunity to talk about Israel,” says Rabbi Milgrom. “You sometimes hear from the American leadership a desire to say: We have other objectives for the community, we can’t devote all our time to dealing with Israel.”

“The community is consolidating around two poles,” says Jeremy Ben-Ami. “At one pole are the Orthodox, who are more politically conservative and often have a closer connection to Israel. Around the other are the non-Orthodox, who feel very Jewish, but in a more personal, less religious way. My greatest fear is that the discussion around Israel will become so difficult, so heated, that some of these American Jews will find it easier to walk away from Israel and from the Jewish community. That would be very bad. So the discussion we’re having is not just about Israel or about policy – it’s about the soul of the Jewish community here in the States.” W

Avigdor Lieberman as ‘pure evil’

“Some Israeli groups have no respect for American Jews,” says journalist Eric Alterman. “There are things that people here find hard to accept: the arrests of the Women of the Wall, Israel’s attitude to the Reform and Conservative movements, or the religious rulings against renting houses or marrying Arabs. If there’s one thing that shocked American Jews it was the appointment of Avigdor Lieberman as foreign minister. He is a racist; he does not believe that Arabs should have same rights as Jews. And now he is the face of Israel.”

Many liberal Jewish spokespersons would agree with that sentiment. Indeed, more than any other person, Minister Lieberman seems to have become a symbol of everything that puts Jews off vis-a-vis present-day Israel. J Street distributed a video clip devoted entirely to Lieberman and his opinions, and Peter Beinart devoted a substantial part of his article in The New York Review of Books to Lieberman.

“One of the only subjects that even many conservative Jews agree on is the lack of affection for Avigdor Lieberman and the politics he represents,” claims researcher Joel Schalit. “He’s Faust. He’s everything that is bad in Jewish politics for American Jews, even if they aren’t really capable of separating it into components. His political image is threatening, and they see in him something of the racism of the U.S. South. Former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon also had something of that, but Sharon had a good relationship with Diaspora Jewry, and even during a period when many Israelis despised him, in America he wasn’t hated. Lieberman is not a complex figure. For U.S. Jewry he’s simply pure evil. Personally, I believe that Lieberman deserves all the negative baggage that he attracts, but to be honest, people have to ask themselves why he of all people has become such a symbol for them of everything evil.”

J Street storm

In a stormy session of the Knesset Committee on Immigration Absorption and Diaspora Affairs last Wednesday to discuss the “breakdown of norms regarding the relations of Diaspora Jewish communities to Israeli governments,” the positions of the 3-year-old J Street lobby were discussed and it was deemed to be an organization whose love for the Jewish state is conditional, which disqualifies it from being “pro-Israel.”

Although the committee has no legislative authority in parliament and J Street is entirely beyond the bounds of Israeli dominion, president Jeremy Ben-Ami used the hearing as an opportunity to come to Israel and formally introduce J Street to the government in Jerusalem. However, the debate was largely trumped by internal politics between Likud and Kadima MKs, who levied personal attacks at each other.

MK Otniel Schneller (Kadima ) – who called for the session – and committee head MK Danny Danon (Likud ) claimed that J Street acts against Israel, citing such examples as its opposition to the U.S. veto of the recent UN resolution condemning the settlements. The two also accused the lobby of opposing sanctions against Iran, which it has not done.

Several MKs from Kadima and other parties argued that shunning J Street would hurt Israel’s image. They stressed that J Street is not advocating against Israel, but rather against the Netanyahu government’s policies. MK Danon ended the debate by concluding that J Street should be referred to as a “pro-Palestinian” organization. (Mairav Zonszein )

Boycotting and boycotted

The Anti-Defamation League, one of the flagship organizations of U.S. Jewry, issued a press release last October with a list entitled “The Top Ten Anti-Israel Groups in America.” Surprisingly, it included a Jewish organization, Jewish Voice for Peace. Abraham Foxman, the executive director of the ADL, claims that this group is more dangerous than other leftist organizations, “because they have a larger audience.”

JVP was founded in 1996 in Oakland, California, and it claims its activism is “inspired by Jewish tradition to work together for peace, social justice, equality and human rights.” The organization calls for halting military assistance to Israel until the end of the occupation, and for a boycott against companies that profit financially from the occupation. As opposed to J Street and other leftist Jewish organizations, JVP also operates outside the confines of the community, in cooperation with other American leftist organizations.

In the 1990s JVP was a small organization, but during the past decade it has grown substantially; the turning point, according to the organization, was Operation Cast Lead. At the time its mailing list of members grew from 20,000 to over 100,000, the number of branches jumped from seven to 27, and the budget increased by almost 50 percent.

“Apparently the intensity of the attack in Gaza caused many people to begin to question Israeli policy, and they haven’t stopped since then,” says Rebecca Vilkomerson, the executive director of JVP.

In the two years that have passed since the operation in Gaza, controversy surrounding the activity of the organization has also steadily increased. Last November, activists from the pro-Israel Stand With Us organization burst into a JVP meeting in the San Francisco area, and sprayed two persons with pepper gas. The JVP office in Oakland was covered twice in recent months with graffiti and stickers with slogans such as: “Long live Baruch Goldstein,” and “A Jewish voice for the Palestinians.”

For their part, members of the organization interrupted the speech of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu in September at the traditional General Assembly of the Jewish Federations of North America in New Orleans, before being removed from the hall with great force. The activists carried signs saying “The Loyalty Law delegitimizes Israel,” and “The settlements delegitimize Israel.”

The other attendees, community leaders and veteran Jewish activists, were shocked by the unprecedented incident, and a minor uproar ensued; at its height, one of those present tore a protest sign with his teeth.