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The Need for Jewish Communities to Draw Lines around Israel

Oct. 30 2017

In recent weeks, Manhattan’s Center for Jewish History and its affiliate, the American Jewish Historical Society (AJHS), have been tangled in controversies involving to what extent Jewish communal institutions should support those who object to the state of Israel’s existence. Jonathan Tobin weighs in on two of these:

The problems began with criticism of the appointment of the UCLA historian David Myers as the president and CEO of the Center for Jewish History. Myers is a man of the left, a supporter of J Street and the New Israel Fund, and this prompted a furious response from the Zionist right. . . . I have little sympathy for his politics and question [his] judgment, . . . [but] so long as Myers, a respected academic, sticks to his job of promoting the study and understanding of Jewish history, there is no reason to take issue with his appointment.

But to table the kerfuffle over Myers is not the same thing as declaring that lines should never be drawn. The American Jewish Historical Society . . . illustrated this [point] by co-sponsoring a panel to commemorate next month’s centennial of the Balfour Declaration organized by Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), where the featured speakers would be a Palestinian critic of Zionism alongside a Jewish one. When the egregious nature of this program was pointed out to the AJHS, it promptly canceled the event as well as an upcoming reading of a play by a JVP supporter.

Predictably, this [decision] prompted a new wave of criticism, this time from the left, which accused the AJHS of “silencing” Jewish dissent and overreacting to the Myers controversy. . . . That sounds reasonable to Jews who see the drawing of lines—especially with respect to debate about Israel—as unacceptable in 21st-century American life. But . . . it is a dangerous mistake to think Jewish institutions should welcome or sponsor those who effectively advocate waging war on Israel and the Jewish people.

For me the line of demarcation is easy to define. Those who may oppose the policies of Israel’s government but support Zionism . . . deserve a hearing even if we disagree with their views. Those—like JVP—who deny the right of the Jewish people to a state and its right of self-defense are on the wrong side of the line. . . . A community that believes inclusion is the only value is one that ultimately stands for nothing.

Read more at Jewish Week

More about: American Jewry, Israel & Zionism, J Street, Jewish history, Jewish Voice for Peace

The Summary: 10/7/20

Two extraordinary events demonstrate something important about Israel’s most fervent adversaries. One was a speech given at something called The People’s Forum (funded generously by Goldman Sachs), which stated, “When the state of Israel is finally destroyed and erased from history, that will be the single most important blow we can give to destroying capitalism and imperialism.”

The suggestion that this tiny state is the linchpin of a global, centuries-old phenomenon like capitalism goes well beyond anything resembling rational criticism. Even if Israel were guilty of genocide, apartheid, and oppression—which of course it is not—it would not follow that its destruction would help end capitalism or imperialism.

The other was an anti-Israel protest that took place in front of New York City’s Memorial Sloan Kettering Cancer Center, deemed “complicit” in Israel’s evils. At organizers’ urging, participants shouted their slogans at kids in the cancer ward, who were watching from the windows. Given Hamas’s indifference toward the lives of Gazan children, such callousness toward non-Palestinian children from Hamas’s Western allies shouldn’t be surprising. The protest—like the abovementioned speech—deliberately conveyed the message that Israel is the ultimate evil and its destruction the ultimate good, cancer patients be damned.

The fact that Israel’s adversaries are almost comically perverse does not mean that they can be dismissed. If its allies fail to understand the obsessive and irrational hatred that it faces, they cannot effectively help it defend itself.

Read more at Mosaic