Declaring in the LA Times that “the problem is Zionism,” novelist Ben Ehrenreich opens his article with a 1944 quote from the then President of the American Council for Judaism describing the goal of a Jewish state as a “Hitlerian concept.” This is yet another display of what is fast becoming a tiresome rhetorical technique; that words uttered against Zionism by a Jew contain intrinsic merit and privileged insight.
Imagine an African-American writer who argued that slavery improved his people’s work ethic, or an Indian writer who insisted that the Raj imparted an unprecedented sensitivity to the value of punctuality. Both would be dismissed with a contemptuous snort. Yet Jews like Ehrenreich, who want to eliminate what has been, in the form of the State of Israel, the principal guarantor of Jewish security since 1945, are making it onto the op-ed pages of serious newspapers. So why this discrepancy? Might Ehrenreich have a point after all?
To the inevitable chorus of “Yes!,” I would counsel against the intellectual laziness of monocausal, essentialist explanations. If only “Zionism” is the problem, then every other element in this sixty-year old conflict by definition is not. And just because a small minority of Jews have opted for that account doesn’t make it any more valid (as an aside, I would be wary of citing the American Council for Judaism as an authority on anything. Its most famous export was the truly nutty, now deceased, Alfred Lilienthal, who spent most of his life vilifying Israel while lauding the Saudi regime.)
Ehrenreich’s article is actually a rehash of two standard anti-Zionist themes. One, that a Jewish state is not viable because it is a Jewish state. Two, that a Jewish state is necessarily discriminatory because it is a Jewish state.
To the first point, even if the worst caricatures of the meaning of a Jewish state were actually true, there is no reason why it couldn’t survive. Syria has been under the heel of the Alawi minority for decades. In Bahrain, a Sunni minority rules over a Shi’a majority. There are many other similar examples, from inside and outside the Middle East. Authoritarian states which are inflected with a particular ethnic or confessional identity rely upon force, not consent, to remain viable.
To the second point, Ehrenreich clearly believes that Israel is the worst state in the world - why else would he say that the comparison with the former apartheid regime in South Africa is now “charitable?” Once we’re on this kind of territory, one really has to wonder whether there is any further purpose in argument. Israel is more worthy of opprobrium than Burma or Zimbabwe or Sudan. This isn’t any moral universe that I recognize - what’s flabbergasting is that the LA Times apparently believes it is one worth introducing to its public.
So there’s a certain irony in the way that Ehrenreich falls back on the ideas of Brit Shalom, a pre-State organization led by intellectuals like Martin Buber and Judah Magnes which examined federalist and binational forms for the future independent state in Palestine. Magnes was not a supporter of the mainstream Zionist movement, but neither did he argue that a Jewish state was “racist” or “Nazi,” in the way that today’s anti-Zionist automatons do. In fact, Magnes was one of the founders of the Hebrew University in Jerusalem, which means that, were he alive today, anti-Zionists would have to do the right thing and boycott both him and his institution.
Brit Shalom was not the only organization in Palestine’s Jewish sector to entertain binationalism; as Walter Laqueur points out in his magisterial A History of Zionism, so did the avowedly Zionist Hashomer Hatz’air movement. Moreover, opposing a Jewish state did not mean endorsing an Arab one. For that among other reasons, Brit Shalom failed, because it could not find interlocutors able to rise above Arab chauvinism at a time when the pro-Nazi Mufti of Jerusalem, Haj Amin al-Husseini, was calling the shots. Revealingly, Laqueur quotes Magnes wearily observing in 1941 that “there would be no possibility of reaching an agreement” other than on the basis of the Jews remaining a minority in Palestine.
That is even more the case today - because on the other side of Ehrenreich’s little fantasy lies an organization called Hamas. There is a wealth of evidence to demonstrate that its intentions are genocidal. Ehrenreich might want to take the risk of testing those intentions, perhaps while wearing a T-shirt declaring “Not In My Name!” But he should note well that among Jews and non-Jews who understand the Middle East, he and his co-thinkers are a minority, too loud at the present time to be ignored, but loud enough that they will be scorned.
I believe that these comments which I posted elsewhere also belong here in as much as Ehrenreich uses moral absolutist language.
There is an important article against academic boycotts on the NY TImes website by Stanley Fish:
“To Boycott or Not to Boycott, That Is the Question”
http://fish.blogs.nytimes.com/2009/03/15/to-boycott-or-not-to-boycott-that-is-the-question/
I posted the following response.
“What should not be in dispute is that those actions, however salutary and productive of good results, were and are antithetical to the academic enterprise, which while it may provide the tools (of argument, fact and historical research) that enable good and righteous deeds, should never presume to perform them.” Professor Fish
While I agree with Professor’s Fish’ final point, I don’t see why the other corollary arguments are not also valid.
The issue of double standard is pertinent here. Why boycott Israeli academics and not say Chinese ones whose oppression of Tibet is much worse than anything Israel did? Moreover, the Tibetans have not randomly killed Chinese nor have they threatened to eliminate China from the map.
The reason given in the past by some pro boycott people is that pressure on Israeli academics would work while not on Chinese ones. So the standard they use for deciding who to boycott is not truth but efficacy of action. By such reasoning the powerful should never be censured for the gross injustice they commit while the less powerful should be censured even the violence they are involved in the result of self defense measures they had taken after being attacked.
It’s clear that reason and logic isn’t what drives the boycotters and yes we should look at other explanations. Whether they acknowledge it or not whether they call themselves Jews or not antisemitism is one such explanation.
“Ben Ehrenreich opens his article with a 1944 quote from the then President of the American Council for Judaism describing the goal of a Jewish state as a “Hitlerian concept.” ”
This is disgusting.
I am not familiar with either “American Council for Judaism” or with the work of its former president btu I wonder how much he knew about the Holocaust in 1944 when he made that libelous comment.
That Ben Ehrenreich would quote it approvingly shows how anti Zionists have to disregard history in order to make their “case” such as it is against Israel.
To these folk it’s as if the Holocaust never happened and if they mention it it’s only accuse Israel of being as bad as the “Nazis.”
There comes a point when argument fails and people have to resort to action.
I hope the Jewish community protests vehmently to the LA Times and if there is no response forthcoming mounts a boycotts
of the paper in the Jewish community.
I hate to see any more papers disappear, but if it’s a choice between no paper and papers that print libelous articles I prefer the former.
This is an appeal of sorts.
Zmag, “the online progressive magazine”, broadly reflecting the views of that part of the Left close to Noam Chomsky, regularly publishes texts by Jewish anti-Zionists, who inevitably use their Jewish origins as a argument which, they imply, proves the validity of their attacks against Israel. Below are excerpts from the latest example by Sol Landau. I am asking all interested persons to confront and refute, vigorously and cogently, statements like Landau’s. I would even suggest joining the Znet forum to do so.
Znet may have a small direct following, but regular contributors include influential intellectuals like Chomsky.
Mar 16, 2009 By Saul Landau
Saul Landau’s ZSpace Page / ZSpace
“Most Jews I know get little pleasure from the existence of Israel; just the opposite. They feel disgusted by the behavior of their tribal kin toward Palestinians. This antipathy doesn’t concern Israel’s right to exist, a phony argument still maintained by hard line Zionists. Israel exists, period. Most of the world recognizes that. Anyone wanting to eliminate it belongs in the loony bin or prison.”
“My grandfather taught me, growing up during the Holocaust, that Jewish tradition teaches each person to strive to become a pillar of ethics, learn the law and behave so as to answer to God for transgressions - not to rulers of a so-called Jewish state.”
“…I don’t belong to that state {Israel] and despise its policies of constant war and occupation.
Count Israel’s wars: 1948, 1956, 1967, 1973, 1982, plus civil wars against two Intifadas in the 1980s and 2000, and finally the invasions of Lebanon in 2006 and Gaza in late 2008, the latter leaving in its wake 1,300 plus dead Palestinians, most of them civilians and less than 20 Israelis, some from “friendly fire.” “
Andy the best way to deal with people like Saul Landau is through parody.
Here is my take on his hateful screed:
“Most Jews I know get little pleasure from the existence of Jews; just the opposite. They feel disgusted by the behavior of their tribal kin toward non-Jews. This antipathy doesn’t concern the right of Jews to exist, a phony argument still maintained by hard line proud Jews. Jews exist, period. Most of the world recognizes that. Anyone wanting to eliminate it belongs in the loony bin or prison.”
“My grandfather taught me, growing up during the world war 2, that Socialist tradition teaches each person to strive to become a pillar of ethics, learn the law and behave so as to answer to his fellow man for transgressions - not to rulers of the so called Jewish people.”
“…I don’t belong to that people and despise its policies of feeding social and political corruption.
Count the wars against the Jews: the Khmelnytsky Uprising in the 1600’s, attacks on Jews in Iran from the 9th century on, Arab massacres of Jews at various times, the Tsarist pogroms of the 1900’s, the White and Red army’s murders of Jews, the Nazi anti-Jewish war, the Stalinist onslaught, the Arab expulsion of Jews in the 40’s and 50’s, plus many more expulsions. Can you blame socialist Jews like myself to feel so disgusted with Jews?”
This in essence is what Landau is really saying.
Let’s face it Jews throughout their history have always had to struggle to survive usually at a disadvantage at least in Israel they can fight fire with fire.
This is what the Landaus and Chomsky’s of the world really hate.
Saul Landau,
Sad, that the Arab neighbors do not demand from their leaders to be “pillar of ethics”. Antizionists who as rule which have nothing to say to the constant antisemitic incitement by the Palestinian official media, are blaming only the Jewish state for what is happening in the region and show how prejudiced they are.
Can you explain why all those antizionist moralists did not say a word about the Iran-Iraq war, when about 1 million were killed, when Muslims killed Muslims?
Why don‘t they say a word about the more than 200.000 Muslims in Darfur killed by Muslims, about the more than 2 million Muslim refugees from Darfur, who were expelled by their Muslim brothers?
“My grandfather taught me, growing up during the Holocaust, that Jewish tradition teaches each person to strive to become a pillar of ethics, learn the law and behave so as to answer to God for transgressions - not to rulers of a so-called Jewish state.” Saul Landau
Aside from being stupid, it’s a red herring since no one is asking non Israeli Jews to be answerable to “rulers” of Israel. There are no ‘rulers’ in Israel, btw, only elected officials answerable to the law, as the former Isralei President Katzav and many other elected official know.
Landau’s snide use of language, which parrots the language of the Muslim rejectionist block, also puts him on the side of antisemites like David Duke.
Besides, is Landau the friend of Chomsky really religious? Does he believe in God and all of his commandments to the Jewish people? Is he a member of Naturai Karta?
I doubt it. Hence his aguments are vain and misleading.
Here are some additional ideas to refute the “discrimination” accusation.
1. Israel’s law is mostly secular, based upon British Mandate administrative law.
2. Those parts which are not secular (Law of Return) use the religion of Judaism solely as a proxy for Jewish ethnicity. As a distinct ethnicity, Jews have asmuch right to aJewishstate as Greeks to a Greek state or Armenians to an Armenian state.
3. Ethnicity is used as a basis for nationality by dozens of states, shown by this list.
4. Ethnicity was even used as a formalised basis for the Greco-Turkish population exchange which followed the Treaty of Lausanne. The parallel holds to the de facto Israeli-Arab population exchange (750k Arabs left Israel, 1m Sephardim-Mizrahim left Arab countries).