The Jewish Divide Over Israel: Accusers and Defenders
Paul Bogdanor
Language: English
Pages: 310
ISBN: 0765803275
Format: PDF / Kindle (mobi) / ePub
Before 1967, Israel had the overwhelming support of world opinion. So long as Israel's existence was in harmony with politically correct assumptions, it was supported, or at least accepted, by the majority of "progressive" Jews, especially in the wake of the Holocaust. This is no longer the case. The Jewish Divide Over Israel explains the role played by prominent Jews in turning Israel into an isolated pariah nation.
After their catastrophic defeat in 1967, Arabs overcame inferiority on the battlefield with superiority in the war of ideas. Their propaganda stopped trumpeting their desire to eradicate Israel. Instead, in a calculated appeal to liberals and radicals, they redefined their war of aggression against the Jews as a struggle for the liberation of Palestinian Arabs. The tenacity of Arabs' rejection of Israel and their relentless campaign--in schools, universities, churches, professional organizations, and, above all, the news media--to destroy Israel's moral image had the desired impact. Many Jewish liberals became desperate to escape from the shadow of Israel's alleged misdeeds and found a way to do so by joining other members of the left in blaming Israeli sins for Arab violence. Today, Jewish liberals rationalize violence against the innocent as resistance to the oppressor, excuse Arab extremism as the frustration of a wronged party, and redefine eliminationist rhetoric and physical assaults on Jews as "criticism of Israeli policy." Israel's Jewish accusers have played a crucial and disproportionate role in the current upsurge of antisemitism precisely because they speak as Jews.
The essays in this book seek to understand and throw back the assault on Israel led by such Jewish liberals and radicals as Tony Judt, Noam Chomsky, George Steiner, Daniel Boyarin, Marc Ellis, Israel Shahak, and many others. Its writers demonstrate that the foundation of the state of Israel, far from being the primal sin alleged by its accusers, was one of the few redeeming events in a century of blood and shame.
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The German philosopher charges the spirit of Judaism with negating the fundamental unity of man and nature which had been the sublime achievement of Greek civilization, and choosing instead to deepen the rift between man and the world. The patriarch Abraham appears as the archetypal alienated figure: Abraham, writes Hegel, chose to cut himself off from his homeland and his dearest relations, from his ties to people and nature, in order to reinforce within himself the spirit of “self-maintenance.
“A.H.” named in the title), who has been hiding since the war deep in the South American jungle. On their way back to San Cristobal, where he is to be tried, the soldiers succumb to illness and exhaustion. Fearing they may not reach their destination alive, the Israelis decide to try their captive in a field tribunal. Over the objections of their commander, who has warned them against Hitler’s hypnotic rhetoric, they allow the defendant to speak in his own defense. The speech, which appears in.
Theories.” But she apparently believes that her conspiracy theory—in which Barak single-handedly beguiles both the PLO and the Israeli public, not to mention the State Department, the international community and virtually every other living soul on the planet, apart from Tanya Reinhart—is not nearly absurd enough. For the truth of the matter—revealed to us exclusively by the linguistics professor from Tel Aviv— is that Barak and Sharon are running the conspiracy together! Although they “have.
Aggression, “the Nazis justified the genocide against the Jews as an act of self-defense… Even the murder of Jewish 135 136 The Jewish Divide Over Israel children was rationalized by Himmler… on defensive grounds.” Meanwhile, the absence of anti-Arab racism among Israeli soldiers merely parallels the discovery that “contrary to widespread belief, abusive force was not truly integral to the Final Solution.”5 What more do we need to establish the fundamental parity between purity of arms and.
“there would be no reason to deny the Arab inhabitants full and equal rights as a national entity.”14 But Finkelstein is unmoved. In his eyes, Jews are not a people, they have no common identity, no historical homeland, and no national claims; they have to right to band together for self-defense, and they have no right to return to their country of origin. The demand for Jewish statehood merely “duplicated the reasoning” of antisemites, who “invoked the same argument to justify Jewhatred.”15 With.