On the same day that we learn that Norman Finkelstein has been denied tenure at De Paul University largely because of an aggressive campaign by Israel supporters to silence the (to them) menacing figure of a Jew, son of a Holocaust survivor, as combatively anti-Zionist as Finkelstein is, it is with great pleasure that I welcome Antony Loewenstein as a guest contributor. Antony is a generation younger than me, but he’s further evidence of the fact that the efforts of the nationalists to police Jewish identity in a way that enforces a narrow Zionism are failing — despite their victory over Finkelstein. The sweet smell of Jewish dissent is suddenly everywhere in the air, most recently last week when Avram Burg released his new book, renouncing Zionism and warning of its dangerous consequences for his Judaism and his humanity — it’s not exactly every day that a former Speaker of the Knesset turns around and rejects the very principle of a “Jewish State.” I have a long posting of my own on this in the works. In the mean time, please give Antony Loewenstein a resounding Rootless Cosmopolitan welcome!
Guest post:
Equality, Not Zionism, Will Save Israel
By Anthony Loewenstein
As an Australian anti-Zionist Jew writing about Israel/Palestine, the rules of the game are made clear to me on an almost daily basis. All Jews must support the “Jewish State,” no matter what. Any action carried out by the state is defensible, justified and moral. Any public criticism of Israel will be assumed to be anti-Semitic; if Israel is to be criticized at all, it should only be in hushed tones and in private. Dare to challenge these rules, and you can expect to be bombarded with hate-mail, death-threats and public abuse, invariably from fellow Jews.
The email I received this week from “Steve” in Australia is typical:
You are one of the largest distorters of facts about the Arab – Israeli conflict. The only larger liars about this sensitive issue are the terrorist organisations, Palestinian Authority, Iranian Government and some Arab media.By portraying Israel in such a negative light, which is completely unwarranted, you cause people to be anti-Israel, which more often that not spills over into anti-Semitism. The attacks on Jewish buildings, graves and people would occur less often if the ignorant pricks such as yourself did not write all the shit that you do.
Sometimes I wonder whether you have a learning disability, because you are completely ignorant of the facts. Go talk to the traumatized residents of Sderot, with Qassam rockets falling around them all the time. Go talk to all the Israelis who have lost relatives and friends. Go to Beit Halochem in Israel and talk to the people who have been disabled, often permanently, because of the gutless actions of Palestinian terrorists.
You disgust me, Antony. Stop betraying your own people and do some proper research instead of spreading propaganda.
Sincerely,
Steve
It’s hard to respond seriously to such incoherent screeds, but I recognize where they come from.
As a Jew growing up in Melbourne, Australia, it was simply expected that I would show solidarity with Israel in good times and bad. I didn’t know any better in my early years and it wasn’t until my teens that a sense of inner conflict developed. Why were most Jews able to defend the firing of Israeli rockets into Palestinian refugee camps? How did some Jews not think twice when they heard of systematic abuse by IDF soldiers in the West Bank and Gaza? By time I turned 20, I was no longer the same kind of Jew. I wasn’t able to properly articulate my feelings, perhaps, but I now know that too many Jews used the same excuse that Germans articulated after the Second World War; pleading ignorance or condoning brutal violence against the “other.”
In Australia, the Jewish community is primarily parochial, strongly Zionist and highly insecure. They love Israel, but fear it’s only one step away from annihilation. They detest Palestinians who dare to articulate their own narrative. And they offer platitudes towards a two-state solution and rights for all, but in fact never speak out against the ever-expanding occupation that has negated any prospect for realizing such a solution. Indeed, such positions are the default position of most Diaspora Jewish communities, and those among them who dare to dissent are greeted with ridicule or hysterical howls of treachery. My parents have paid a social price for the fact that I have publicly expressed my views, which they share. They found themselves shunned by old friends, for whom those views were so despicable that those who declined to condemn them had to be excommunicated.
Years ago, the constant abuse I received perplexed and upset me. When it was directed at my partner at the time, who was also Jewish, I knew a line had been crossed, but was unsure how to respond, if at all. The hysteria I had generated told me I was having an effect – rather than seriously debating the issues I was raising, my Jewish critics seemed capable of little more than demagoguery and name-calling. Their rage seemed fueled by the fact of my Jewishness; in their worldview, the criticisms I was making were solely the prerogative of Arabs, anti-Semites, terrorists.
The release of my book in 2006, My Israel Question, and its subsequent best-selling status in Australia – it was released in the US this past April – caused even greater vitriol (from, among others, Australia’s only Jewish Federal MP. I had dared to suggest that robust debate on Israel/Palestine was being stifled by an aggressive Zionist lobby. I argued that an alternative Jewish identity was essential for Israel if it was to survive in the next 50 years.
This meant separating Zionism from Judaism, and recognizing that being a Jew didn’t mean automatic identification with every Israeli action. This Jewish identity had to not be solely defined through what was “good for the Jews”, but on the universal principles of justice as espoused by the Jewish prophets, i.e. by creating a state that treats all citizens as equal. No religiously based state – Muslim, Christian or Jewish – is able to achieve this, and Israel is no exception. Instead, many Jews continue to identify with Israel despite its flagrant violations international norms, denying those or blaming them on the victims. Just last week, on the 40th anniversary of the Six Day War, The Australian Jewish News editorialized that the “continued occupation is mainly the result of Arab intransigence .” Clearly the occupied are to be blamed for building new settlements, restricting their own freedom of movement and imprisoning their own children.
Whatever noble thoughts may have been in the minds of some of its founders, Zionism in the real has always been a racist enterprise, precisely because the majority of people living on the land on which it envisaged building a Jewish state were not Jewish, and their very existence in that space was deemed a “problem.” From its outset, it has been obsessed with attaining and maintaining a “Jewish majority” in that territory, which necessarily required discrimination — and worse — against the Arab population of Palestine. Today, still, when the world has come to recognize the politics of ethnic exclusion as a dangerous anachronism, Israel continues to treat its Arab citizens and the non-citizens who live under its occupation not as fellow human beings who should enjoy the same rights as any other, but as a “demographic time bomb.”
As leading British historian Tony Judt wrote in 2003, “Israel itself is a multicultural society in all but name; yet it remains distinctive among democratic states in its resort to ethnoreligious criteria with which to denominate and rank its citizens. It is an oddity among modern nations not—as its more paranoid supporters assert—because it is a Jewish state and no one wants the Jews to have a state; but because it is a Jewish state in which one community—Jews —is set above others, in an age when that sort of state has no place.”
The obsession with maintaining a Jewish majority in a land that always housed a substantial Arab population was always going to require serious military might and super-power support. How should we explain to Palestinians that they can’t return to the lands of their ancestors, but I, as an Australian Jew, can arrive in Israel and automatically gain citizenship?
I couldn’t be proud of a nation that beat, starved, killed, tortured, raped and destroyed another people. But I do remain proud of my Jewish heritage, although curious as to its most-recently deformed evolution. For articulating a Judaism that strives for equality, one is mocked. When writing about Israel’s apartheid in the occupied territories, one is met with denial. When seeing disastrous U.S foreign policy in the Middle East and Israel’s unyielding love affair with it, one can’t help but note that the Jewish state’s future is seriously in jeopardy until radical changes are made. The Australian Jewish establishment wanted to hear none of this, of course, preferring to talk of Jewish solidarity and Israeli strength in the face of Arab “terror”. I was, in the words of the Australian Jewish News, capable of little more than “Israel bashing.”
I fear that most Jews are unprepared to take the necessary decisions to guarantee Israel’s future. And it appears many Israelis are equally unwilling to understand the cost of their continued intransigence. Israel doesn’t need to commit political suicide, merely, like apartheid South Africa before it, re-define who is an Israeli.
The Israeli peace movement is too divided and weak to achieve these changes alone – during last year’s Lebanon war, Peace Now actually supported the mission. Justice-minded Jews around the world must continually explain why they are in fact the best friends Israel will ever have. Tough love is needed.
The solution to the conflict requires debate and the path to achieving it will be tortuous, but it must be framed by principles of democratic equality. While I once believed a two-state solution was the correct outcome, I have come to believe that in fact a unitary democratic state for Jews and Arabs may yet be the only way to resolve the conflict on the basis of equal rights. In many ways, there is already a single state of Jews and Arabs in the territory between the Jordan River and the Mediterranean, but most of the Arabs live under occupation and Israeli laws in which they have no say because they are denied the democratic rights of citizenship – an apartheid state by definition.
There is clearly an urgency about Israel ending its occupation regime over the West Bank and Gaza. The rest is open to debate and negotiation, and past discussions have shown that compromise is possible between the Israeli side and the Palestinian side on issues such as Jerusalem and the fate of the Palestinian refugees.
Jews around the world have begun debating these issues outside of narrow terms demanded by the Zionist establishment, which is struggling to contain the fires. The recent launch of the UK-based Independent Jewish Voices — I soon co-founded Independent Australian Jewish Voices is a signal that a growing number of Jews is no longer willing to accept the Zionist establishment’s limits on debate over Israel. Many of the adherents of these groups love Israel and believe that the state’s own policies are leading to its destruction. I’ve lost count with the number of Jews who’ve told me about Jewish family members or friends who have slammed them for daring to criticize Israeli policies in public and private. Furthermore, literally hundreds of non-Jews have written to me and expressed exasperation that they feel uneasy discussing Israel because they fear being accused of anti-Semitism.
Public debate on Israel/Palestine in the West invariably revolves around “what is good for the Jews?” The tradition of Judaism has always been about campaigning for justice, not just for our own. What has happened to this humanity? The rights of Palestinians are secondary, if they’re considered at all. It’s far easier to blame Hamas or Mahmoud Abbas or the French or the EU. The fact that the international community is deliberately trying to unseat the democratically elected government of Hamas is justified as a pragmatic reality. Political Islam is a growing force around the world and the Western elite is singularly unprepared for its arrival. During a recent visit to Egpyt, I was struck by the number of Western-oriented intellectuals, bloggers and journalists who simply couldn’t understand why Washington and London refused to recognize the Muslim Brotherhood, the undeniably popular opposition party despite its ban by the Egytian authoritarian regime. They saw it as evidence that the West isn’t really interested in democracy in the Arab world, merely seeking subservience. Likewise in Iran, where I am currently, the Western view of a fundamentalist people led by a Jew-hating leader is utterly removed from reality. As a human being first, and Jew second, I believe that a more open-minded Judaism is essential if Israel is to successfully move past its current militaristic malaise.
The personal price many of us pay for critically analyzing the Middle East is balanced by the encouraging messages received from university students, high-school children and average citizens who are either curious about the conflict, or studying my book. As is so often the case, the general public is far savvier than the ruling elite give them credit for.
I write as I do because I believe it to be the truth, not because of the associated controversy or fame. As an atheist Jew, I struggle with my identity only so far as I wonder how my religion has been hijacked by a militaristic and exclusionary ideology.
Israelis are not Nazis, but I wonder, as Harvard academic Sara Roy, herself a child of Holocaust survivors, put it , how have children of the Holocaust ended up as brutal occupiers and oppressors? And why do so few Jews speak out against it?
A great piece. The hyperlinks are not functioning.
Thanks for pointing that out, Danny, I fixed
What is it about Southern Jews? Southern as in “from the place where toilets flush the wrong way.” Is it living upside down for so long that makes you guys such troublemakers?
Actually, joking aside, now that I hear about Australia it occurs to me that maybe I was wrong to think that American Jews were uniquely ill-equipped to escape the herd mentality in matters of identity. I attributed this to the US being just about the most consensual country on earth (after the Vatican). Manufactured consent, perhaps, but consent nevertheless.
But maybe, elsewhere, insecurity there plays the role of consent here.
Anyway, thanks, Mr Loewenstein, for a fascinating –if rather depressing– piece. Hope this is the first of many more to come.
Well said Ant, as always.
Pingback: What the other Jews think at Antony Loewenstein
Last week at the anniversary Philip Adams interviewed Michael Oren, a US zionists from a right wing Israeli institute about his book on the 6 day war. Oren agreed that none of the arab states were going to attack Israel and now I have just read that the attack on the Egyptian airforce took 4 years of planning.
Then I watched a video with a UN peacekeeper from the time who said clearly and had film of, the so-called Syrian attack on Israel and that didn’t exist.
Now Norman Finkelstein is saying that another UN peacekeeper in the Sinai wrote that no blockade of the Tiran Straits existed apart from checking vessels for two days.
I have read Norman’s books “Beyond Chutzah” and the Holocaust Industry, Ilan Pappe’s “Ethnic Cleansing of Palestine” and watched Pilger’s film and read his books.
Oren is lying.
Very true indeed, i agree with most of Lowenstein’s Ideas…
It is apparent that many of his questions can be answered very easily and directly..However, he is able to do so because, as he said, he is jewish and his fellow jewish friends cannot denominate him in proposterous terms, whether anti-semite or jew-hater.
If he is honest and thorough about his ideas, i can only welcome a logical and reasoning person as he is.. It is with more people like him that we will reach an understanding of the conflict…And Perhaps, one day, its resolution…
Another great article from Antony Loewenstein, he is an inspiration to many of us in Australia.
Anthony,
I agree with many of your concerns about the tactics utilized to stifle debate within the community in Melbourne. But I do not agree with all of your criticisms of Israel. I just wish we could all sit down and discuss these issues without fear of personal attacks (including attacks on the person) – from both sides. It is the ugliest, most violent political debate around and BOTH SIDES are guilty of dirty unethical tactics.
Viv
From Melbourne
The reason for the occupation is the attitude of the Arabs. Israel gets absolutely nothing from ruling over Palestinians except suppression of the next Arab-Israeli war.
The occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is the result of Arab aggressiveness in 1967 and the follow-on attitude of ‘No negotiations, no peace, no recognition’.
Israel wanted ‘Land for Peace’ to work with the Palestinians as it worked with the Egyptians. Loewenstein knows all of this, of course.
And the Biblical argument about the Prophets and equality is bogus. The Torah doesn’t, after all, mandate equal rights for Amalek, does it?
I think Loewenstein was simply too sensitive, and experienced debate as intimidation. Different people and different families argue differently. Think of your neighbors.
“The tradition of Judaism has always been about campaigning for justice, not just for our own.”
I think this is just wishful thinking based on a few years of prosperity in the 20th century in some places. The last 2000 years of history just haven’t enabled the Jews to campaign for anybody. And in the 1930’s and 40’s they forgot to campaign even for the Jews. Loewenstein is making the same mistake.
Fred says: The reason for the occupation is the attitude of the Arabs.
The settlement population has doubled since Oslo. The logic, I guess, is that if your neighbor has an “attitude” problem you simply move your family into his house. Which is fine because God told you in a private conversation that his house is really yours anyway.
Thank you both for your devotion to justice and reason. But I am curious: what is an atheist Jew and how can an atheist have a religion?
“atheist Jew” seems to reduce the whole thing to the matrilinear lineage. I wonder how they keep the documents over all these millenia.
Or it could be a Jew who became a Buddhist, since Buddhism encompasses theist and atheist views alike?
The full text of the editorial attributing the conflict on Palestinian intransigence actually read as follows:
“Even if one believes, as we do, that the continued occupation is mainly the result of Arab intransigence, there is no discounting the steep price that the occupation has exacted, in both economic and moral terms, as well as the wedge it has placed at the centre of Jewish unity, in Israel and abroad. ”
Point being, the editorial was much more even-handed than Lowenstein led one to believe. It is one thing to reject Israeli policy toward the Palestinian, quite another to be intentionally misleading.
Steven: Thanks for posting the whole paragraph.
“The steep price that the occupation has exacted… in Israel and abroad.”
Hmm….
Maybe I can help them write their next editorials:
1. The tragedy of Vietnam was the lasting damage it caused to the self-esteem of a superpower.
2. The Iraq war has been a catastrophe for US budget deficits.
1967?
How about 3.5 million people in prison for 40 years? Isn’t that worse damage than its attendant blow to Israel’s economy and moral self-image?
I can agree with what was said above…
The suffering of Palestinians have enabled extremists to thrive in their causes to resist and fight, not otherwise. Whoever wishes to believe that at the other end of Israeli violence, there is still a Palestinian willingness for peace, is flat wrong. It is incomprehensible to witness daily settlement and occupation on Palestinian soil, constant violence towards whoever resists, and still expect an oppressed people to want Peace…I’m sure that if Israelis renounced violence themselves and returned the land that was taken since 1967, we would not have to hear about organizations such as Hamas, Islamic Jihad, Al-aqsa Brigade, Fatah and any affiliated Palestinian resistance groups. These organizations feed on violence and humiliation perpetrated by the Isreali Defense Forces. Once you take the desire to occupy out of the equation, these Palestinian resistance movements will not have a reason to fight and quarrel with Israel. The Israeli Palestinian Issue is not a one-sided issue and both have had faults in the last 40 years. We need to understand the right reasons behind each side’s actions and some need to read a little more to do so..
During the British Mandate, the jewish settlers were not avid peace brokers when it decided to use its own terrorists organizations such as Haganah, Irgun and many other resistance movements upon the Palestinians.
If i may travel back in time to the early 20th century, the lands inhabited by Palestinians were inhabited by very peaceful people. As time went on and some jewish immigrants arrived, peace was still present… It only took the era during the British Mandate, where some Jewish extremists had certain plans for the land, that everything complicated.
Why were some first Israeli leaders remembered for their expansionist ideas? What goals were they trying to reach when these same early leaders criticized Palestinians for just being Palestinians?
Palestinians lived from their lands and thrived from their agriculture and trade. It would be foolish to say that Palestinians left at their own accord to live in poor refugee camps. I’ve seen populations around the world leave their homes because they are terrorized from another group and leave because there is no other solution; however, i have not seen on such a scale and for no apparent reason.
Read and ask the right questions…That’s all I may contribute as an advice to Humanity…
Excellent article,interesting links.It should also be said that prior to the British Mandate there were Palestinians of Jewish,Christian and Islamic persuasions coexisting peacefully for millennia .
Sir,
Your article is just about the greatest piece of commonsense I have read for a very long time.
More power to your elbow, and I hope yours is not a voice crying in the wilderness.
Shalom,
Carol Armytage
I’m sorry you get called an antisemite Anthony, although you should expect it as it’s the way of the world. It’s not as if you’re Salman Rushdie and under death threat from governments. In fact Iran just called Britain “Islamophobic” for knighting him and the government of Pakistan has condemned the knighthood with a cabinet minister saying it justifies suicide killings. The email you published from Steve is certainly deprecating of your intellectual capacity and contains two naughty-ish words but is orders of magnitude lower on the vitriol scale than the stuff Irshad Manji receives and publishes on her web site.
It is this exaggeration of your plight that makes me distrust your theses, including your history of Israel. I’ll add that in declaring yourself an “anti-Zionist Jew” you imply you are against the existence of a Jewish state, despite the history of the Jews and the presence in the world of various Christian and Muslim countries, some practicing gross discrimination often involving Jews. Yet you declare yourself an Australian; Australia is a country taken by force from its original inhabitants.
World renowned author though you may be, you’re still a confused little muffin.
Applepi,
Judaism is a religion and nationality (after the tribe of Judea) and that what makes her unique and beautiful. Jew can be atheist in his belief and still be a Jew in nationality. No contradiction at all.
Abe Bird.
Abe_bird@yahoo.com
I’m with “Steve”
Anthony Loewenstein couldn’t prove anything wrong with “Steve” claims. In addition he goes way ahead with false claims against Israel. Loewenstein usws Falsetinian terminologies to bypass the truth, truth that fails to appear in the “progressive” media and sites. Here are some misleading, misinformation and false informationof of Loewenstein, for example:
1. “firing of Israeli rockets into Palestinian refugee camps” – IDF consistently attack terror sites, people after double checking the intelligence or as reaction to terror launching Kassams. The Arab terror groups regularly and by purpose fire on civlians.
2. ” too many Jews used the same excuse that Germans articulated after the Second World War;” – That is disgracing Anti Semitic comment, trying to equate the Jews to the Nazis and the Arabs to Jews. Totally mish mash the facts and historical truth and easing the Nazi guilt and crimes. “Hast thou killed, and also taken possessions?”
The Jews never threaten to destroy Germany or kill all Germans neither to do so to the Arab Palestinians. The Arab Palestinians do threat the Jews and even taking actions. And they insist saying it time and again that even a deaf person hears them clear. Here is their own narrative”:”
3. ” My parents have paid a social price for the fact that I have publicly expressed my views, which they share.” – I’m not surprised at all. Defending those who see Jews as “dogs and camels” is really a shame. Especially when Jew go along side with “their (=Arab Palestinians) own narrative”. You turn your head when you see the truth because you can’t deal with.
4. “Aggressive Zionist lobby” – How aggressive? Taking care of Israel security within the national interests of the US and the free world means “aggression”? The Jewish lobby (not the Zionist) is well based on facts and mutual interests of the free world against the extreme IslamoFascist world. There is no aggression in acting loyalty to defend those interests the same way you do by writing your own saying in a book that earn you some good portion of money that comes from not the good side of humanity. I would be ashamed if my thought would have been so wrong until considered “good” and “proved” staff to be used in Anti Semitic and Nazi sites. Those who like what you write on Israel. Jews and Zionism hate you personally and would prefer you to be dead. Only the existence of the “Zionist Entity” keeps you important and valuable to the Anti Semites. The minute Israel to be destructed the minute all Jews in the world to be in existential danger. You will have no additional asset to them. You dig your own cave for yourself by your deeds.
5. ” by creating a state that treats all citizens as equal” – And what is Israel? Do Arabs citizens are not equal? Although an ongoing war between Jews and Arabs, Arabs are equal to Jews in the Israeli democracy. Of course sometimes it difficult for both sides, of course Arab will feel dually in the midst of the conflict, of course they lose economical opportunities but at the same times they have advantage over the Jews in some areas of daily life (not serving in the Army, business opportunities in the bigger Arab world). The conflict influences their status and the status of the Jews too, in different ways. Stopping the conflict will heal differences. The conflict doesn’t stop because of the Arabs and Muslims. They see their ultimate goal by destroying the “Zionist entity”. Just listen to Ahmadinajad.
6. “restricting their own freedom of movement and imprisoning their own children” – Not the occupation made Israel to “restricting their freedom of movement and imprisoning their own children” But the Arab violence / Intifada / terror etc. Until the Intifada Israel didn’t restricted the movement of the Arabs in the occupied territories. The “territories”‘s economy was one of the most rising economies in the Arab world until they broke out into the Intifada. Think why the economy reacted to the Arab’s violence….
7. ” “Jewish majority” in that territory, which necessarily required discrimination” – I Never heard the Jews talking the way you claim they are talking. They don’t talk about reaching to majority in the territories. And sure they don’t talk about discriminating non Jews. They are talking about freedom of all the citizens of the Jewish state no matter where the borders will curve. I don’t understand your blaming the Zionist for their demand that Israel will ever be the state of the Jews. That a basic essence for any future agreement. Why France, Australia and Britain can be French, Australian and British and Israel can’t be Jewish? Is Jews second degree of humans for you? Do the Jews have no right for their own national state in their own national and historical territory as agreed within the western culture and in the Islamic religious consciousness until the midst of the 20th century (There are some few Muslim scholars and Khadies that believe and except the Jews as the historical owners of Palestine – see for example: Sheikh Prof. Abdul Hadi Palazzi, Director of the Cultural Institute of the Italian Islamic Community.
Abe Bird.
Abe_bird@yahoo.com
correction:
4. ” –> ANTI
I remember reading a heartbreaking story by an Israeli expatriate about why he moved to the U.S. He was called up as a reservist for military duty, but needed to delay his service for compassionate reasons. His wife had just given birth and was suffering from postpartum depression. Because of this he was desperately needed at home. By law the military was required to give him a postponement, since he had all the documentation needed. But his superiors took the attitude, “Your problem, not ours!” and refused to process the paperwork. The man became frantic because he feared leaving his wife to cope with the baby on her own. So he went over their heads and got his postponement. But when his superiors were questioned they lied through their teeth, absolving themselves of any charge of official oppression. No action was taken against them for denying him his legal rights.
Well this rather soured the man on the Jewish Paradise and he moved to Maryland. Now, whenever he gets his reservist military callup papers he says, “Your problem, not mine!”
In a poll taken of North American Jews 98.5% said that they wouldn’t consider emigrating to Israel even if their expenses were paid. Can’t think why.
It is amazing how anti Israel fractions use the US aid to Israel as a tool to demagogically consider Israel as leeching the US and as an excuse to annihilate Israel softly… . The main word here is “demagogically” because those ProPalgandists use only the one side of the equation and they fail time and again to reach the truth. It is all mathematics. The Israeli side of the equation is full of supporting the main US interests, in every kind of field – politically, security, technology, agriculture, science and many more other fields. It’s very understandable why the Anti-Israel activists ignore this reality. That will put their theories at stake.
Even among the majority of Americans who support aid to Israel, many do not appreciate just how close the strategic relationship is between the United States and its democratic ally, and how greatly both countries benefit from that relationship.
The US and Israel cooperate extensively on defense, intelligence and economic matters. By doing so, they advance their common interests of promoting freedom, fighting extremism, and seeking peace and prosperity. Nearly 90 percent of US aid to Israel is military. All of the US aid is paid back by Israel with adequate interest. Much of the money spent on Israel directly benefits the US, with 74% of Israel’s military aid being used to buy US goods. Israel is the only country that pays the US their money back!!!!
The U.S.-Israel relationship is based on the twin pillars of shared values and mutual interests. Given this commonality of interests and beliefs, it should not be surprising that support for Israel is one of the most pronounced and consistent foreign policy values of the American people.
Americans are learning from the Israeli Military (readiness, preparations, exercises, weaponry, tactics and intelligence) experience for the last 40 years. Many Israeli inventions are transported almost for free to the US army – electronic devises, communication improvements, advanced missiles, UAV’s, etc.
Not need to mention that these close ties are straitened by the many individuals that share the same ideals, projects and agreements in both sides. Lot of American Jobs is stayed sure because of the mutual projects and developments especially in science and technology. You cut them; you send tens of thousands of American workers out of work. Unmanned aerial vehicles, decoys to confuse enemy radar, and reactive armor on Bradley tanks to repel enemy fire give extra power to US defense forces. The US and Israel coordinate strategies for combating terrorism and weapons proliferation. They share highly sensitive, often real-time, intelligence.
Joint programs with Israel’s high tech military industry have led to advanced weapons systems, including the Israeli unique technologic invention – the Arrow ballistic missile defense system. This system is the only one in operation that has consistently succeeded in shooting down missiles at high altitudes and speeds. The development cost has been shared equally by the US.and Israel. The manufacture is a joint venture of American and Israeli aerospace industries.
Israel’s economy has been growing and is now essentially self-sufficient. Israel initiated a reduction of US economic assistance in 1998 from $1.2 billion to a complete phase-out in 2008.
Economic cooperation between the US and Israel has increased over the years and now brings important mutual benefits. In 2005 there was $26 billion in trade between the two countries. The US and many states have cooperative agreements with Israel to promote joint research, industrial partnerships and free trade. Microsoft, Cisco, Intel and Motorola and others have located major facilities, mainly research and developments, in Israel.
In 1981, Israeli jets bombed the Iraqi nuclear facility at Osirak against US approval. Most Americans criticized Israel at the time. Less than a decade afterwards most of the Americans said thanks to Israel. That means, that you can not to agree now days with
abe_bird@yahoo.com
….. In 1981, Israeli jets bombed the Iraqi nuclear facility at Osirak against US approval. Most Americans criticized Israel at the time. Less than a decade afterwards most of the Americans said thanks to Israel. That means, that you can not to agree now days with Israel, but later you will thanks her!
Earl Divoky
I don’t believe you nor to that Israeli. This is not the reality in Israel neither do people leave for that reason to America. I recommending you, if the story relies on real incident, to check better the facts. Especially, what this guy has to seek in the US. a job, may be? Excuses can be invented afterwards for penance and denying guilty…..
Earl Divoky
Another reason that I sagest that your story on the Israeli military reservist is a fake story is the false fact you wrote: “Now, whenever he gets his reservist military callup papers… “. Reservist who leave Israel more than 3 month stop getting military calls until reporting coming back to Israel, by the person himself or by the AP check in. Don’t you think that his military unit needs another person to full the job?
I didn’t here about the poll you mentioned have you some link? any way I don’t expect Jews to immigrate in vast numbers from western states to Israel. Only the hard Zionists in soul do that. But that ain’t means that the US Jewry is not pro Zionist.
Dear Abe –
You can flood the whole blog with your standard apologies to Zionist racism but it has little effect – those who agree with you do not need you and those who don’t – have heard this rant many times already and it is exactly why the become anti-Zionist.
The main point is – people are fed up with Zionist lies, what was once a nice make up on a face of a young, attractive girl became thick layers of greasy dirty paint on a face of an old drug queen prostitute. You can pimp her all you want, and some of her older clients still full of memories of her youth can get some movement down there and will open their wallets once in a while, but younger Jews are getting repelled by her witch-y image, bloody deeds, lack of style, racism, her evil anger and her ridiculous self-absorption.
Lowenstein is an atheist, I am deeply religious. He is young, and I am 54. he is Australian and I am former Russian Jew and I have family history of pre 1900 immigration to Palestine, assimilation Jews, high-ranking Bolsheviks, victims of Bolsheviks, post-1948 ardent Zionists, post 1967 militant Zionists (myself included until my eyes opened during my trip to Israel in 1996) dissidents in Soviet Russia, – almost all movements withing European Jewry you can imagine.
And one thing I can tell you – there is a new movement among younger Jews that I can clearly see and it is not really new – it is the return to the traditional Jewish humanitarian values, not as much “left”, because as a Conservative Republican (of what they call now a “paleocon”variety ) I would have smelled that from 10 miles away, but rather coming from the long tradition of Jewish humanism, Jewish enlightenment, Jewish naturalists, scientists, musicians, the Jews who engaged the world, were moved by the world and help the world to move.
Do not feel obligated to answer – I know that my words mean nothing to you – “stiff-necked” we still are as in biblical times… And you most probably believe that its is me who is stiff-necked, I understand…
I feel kind pity for you as I always felt for self-delusions of superiority, be that ideological, the way Soviets were, or racial or religious.
But I wish you all the best in your own life, wholeheartedly.
Alex Chaihorsky, Ex-Zionist
Reno, Nevada.
“Equality, not Zionism, will save the Jews.” I thought that most of the poor fools who believed that were killed either by Stalin or by Hitler. But the Jews are a stiff necked people.
In a world of nation states, you cannot be equal as a people if you do not have a state. It is curious that the same people who advocate the cause of Palestinian nationality so ardently insist that the Jews cannot have a state.
Ami, Israel does not represent “The Jews,” whatever you may fantasize — two thirds of us have freely chosen to live elsewhere, rejecting in practice the idea that we need a state as Jews. Nobody says that the Israelis can’t have a state, but that’s not the same as saying the Jews have a state, because most of us have voted with our feet against that idea…
A crucial (and here neglected) part of Antony’s personal trajectory is an evident draconian socialisation process of the young in a substantial cross-section of Australian Jewish communities. Family (less so in Antony’s case), community (itself rigorously delimited), faith schools in particular.
Tribalism, for which Jewish ethnicity and, indirectly Judaism, provides the glue. It is a religion, albeit in fancy dress. There is one God, and it is Israel.
The end product is not vibrant community but pathological cult.
Its reflections come to us daily in the letters columns of the socialised young, now physically mature, but still within their mental chrysalis – furious, spouting the catechisms learnt by rote, flagrantly oblivious to the historical record, oblivious to the suffering of a subject people, oblivious to the bizarre antimony betwen angst over the historic victimisation of Jewry and a cold-hearted contempt for Israel’s victims.
LIke all cults, backsliders, would-be escapees, have to be denounced, victimised. And for escapees to speak out (enter Antony, stage left), this is behaviour beyond understanding, which must be ruthlessly countered.
The Australian ghetto has pulled up the drawbridge, and nothing has been learnt from Antony’s apostasy.
@ A. Lowenstein,
well done for sticking your brain up over the mental parapet – and having it shot through with arrows is not so bad, if the little holes let in some fresh air which leads to further bouts of clear thinking.
Your confusion re being an ‘atheist jew’ arises, I imagine, from thinking judaism is a ‘race’ rather than a religion like any other – in fact a ‘chosen race’. This dangerously obscurantist religious thinking is probably a mental vestige from your upbringing – but as far as religion goes, I’d recommend you wrap up these little loose ends and ditch it completely, it is simply the most powerful manipulation implement in the hands of politicians/ideologues.
Learn to stand on your own feet, without reference to religion at all. Ignore it and it will go away!
@ Brad Brzezinski, who said to A.L. …
“… you imply you are against the existence of a Jewish state, despite the history of the Jews and the presence in the world of various Christian and Muslim countries, some practicing gross discrimination often involving Jews.”
Brad, this is the ‘logic’ which says: “Hey, Sarge, the guys in the opposite trench are eating each other, why don’t we do the same?” Therefore, you are a confused Puffin – this is the 21st century, not the 18th.
Anthony Loewenstein’s excellent considerations deserve a small but important correction. A better defined and sharply upheld difference between Zionism and Judaism. He mentions Israel as a Jewish state having a Jewish Identity. This is confusing, Jewish in this context should be Zionistic.
Fortunately not all Jews are Zionists (any longer) and more important: the most fanatic Zionists are non-Jews. This implies, that warranted criticism of Israel has – in general – nothing to do with anti -Judaism or anti-Semitism.
we jews should build a man made island in the ocean …..and make it a NEW ISRAEL…..
rabbi silverstein ..wants the israeli goverment to start building a man made island some where in the ocean for the jewish poeple………..for if the israeli goverment and the zoinist truely care about the jewish poeple then thay will claim some part of the ocean like russia just did…..
I am finding this conversation very interesting and informative. I have always believed in G-d, despite strong pressure within my liberal “silent Zionist” upbringing to engage in anti-Hashem rebellion including lack of concern for humanity. I feel it is important for Jews who care about their relationship with the Creator to engage civilly with Muslims and Christians, and leave the liberals to their froth.
We owe a huge debt to the Islamic rule of Jerusalem, it was during this time that Judaism experienced its Golden Era, including writing many of the books we now consider scripture. What we consider Rabbinical Judaism did not exist before we had Muslim Law to bounce off of. In truth we could not exist without Islam. So why fight it? Assimilate. Just like we say, “If you want to live in America, please learn English”: If you want to live in Arabia, learn Arabic please.
I admire your courage and respect your insights. Like the Hebrews of old, you are fighting a difficult battle, but also like them, perhaps the God of Abraham will fight your battles with you and for you. I was coming to see this issue in a clearer light when I happened upon your article. You have helped to open my eyes. I’m an airline captain by profession, but a Hebrew-Christian by persuasion. Thank you for your integrity and your courage.
Norman Finkelstein IS SICK JEW.
ARRON SILVERSTEIN NEEDS 2,000,000 TO BUY A CARGO SHIP….TO BUILD A MAN MAD ISLAND FOR THE JEWISH POEPLE ……IF YOU CAN DONATE ….SEND CHECK TO AARON SILVERSTEIN ..P.O.BOX 1510 ..NEDERLAND .CO 80466 USA
AARON WITH 2 A,S
hi i am homeless in boulder CO usa……can some one please give me like 5 or 10,000 usa dollers so that i can get a plase to stay and a computer so that i can make a good web site for my man made islands for jews idea…..if you can donate please send check to aaron silverstein p.o. box 1510 nederland CO 80466 usa
hi AARON i would give you 10,000 but i need it to by a 40,000 BMW …..sorry
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you say that the jews must criticize israel for occupying the palestenian territories.
Well, obviosly Israel doesn’t want control over those lands, it prefers to give it to a moderate palestinian rule. But how can u give that land when Hamas is in power? when they might just use it to launhc missles to Tel Aviv.
I think the best option is to give the territories to Jordan, its rightfull owner, which Israel conquered in 1967 from Jordan.
You simply can’t give that land to Hamas, a terrorist group which I hope I don’t have to explain to you its glitched logic which does not reckognise Israel or the Jews to live.
My friend on Orkut shared this link with me and I’m not dissapointed that I came here.
Just come accross your blog on digg, whats your favorite social bookmark site?
It’s really good to hear a good analytical article from a Jew born into a culture of fear where any criticism of Israel and Zionism is taboo. But Anti-Zionist Jews are now voicing their dissent as they know it is Zionism which has been the cause of Anti-Semitism all along.
It is time for the Jews of the World to speak out and drown out on every channel the whinings, bluffs and threats of the Doom Merchant Zionists.
Living together as equals, not Apartheid is the only way for people everywhere. The Zionists can be and will be thwarted and disempowered.
What a great insight, it’s rare to come accross an article on the web that goes into this much depth. Fair play for having the time to write this.
Have you ever been to Israel?
I think you would have a different expirence than what you characterize Israel. How would you respond to the protest, Israeli flags waving, Leftist Jews holding flags saying “Zionists are not settlers” and “End the war on Gaza.” These are Israelis, Zionists as a matter of fact with representation in the government. During a tour, our tour guide (a Zionist who had made Aliyah to Israel) went on a triade about the Separation Barrier that would have rivaled might as well have been from Chomsky or Finklestien. Your view on Zionism does not make you a traitor simply a fool. How can you sum up Zionism into simply the current actions of the Isaeli government. Zionism is a philosophical, theological principle of a Jewish Homeland (generally held in Israel). You use the word Zionist like most Israel critcs to differentiate between Jews and Jews in favor of Israel. Some differentiation is definitely needed, but it obscures the true principle of the movement. I can’t say for sure, but I wonder as a Jew if you really have a problem with A Jewish homeland? The current Israeli government is different and its important to keep it in mind that to be anti-zionist and opposed to the current state of Israel are two different things.
that is certainly quite interesting. It presented me some ideas and I’ll be writing them on my websites soon. I’m bookmarking your website and I’ll be to return. Thank you again!