A comment on Israel

Posted without a link to the original post (about standing up for Israel), since I don't have permission to link to it.

Nearly all of my exposure to Jewdom has come at Williams. I had a single Jewish friend growing up, but he went to a different high school and I never really talked to him about faith.

So in the Williams world of political apathy and happy dinners at the JRC where I get tastes of Jewish culture, I'm always a little surprised when someone steps out of the apoltical box and defends Israel, or when I learn that Jewishness is a prerequisite for any sort of romantic relationship. The friction comes, I think, because I thought of Jews as a religious group akin to my Baptists, but I think posts like this reflect a deeper Jewishness that I certainly don't understand. I still remember when someone was surprised I didn't automatically know who was Jewish on College Council; there's a common knowledge or culture that I certainly never tapped into growing up. It feels like Jews are acting like a race, weirdly enough, and that doesn't compute for me.

So that means that I'm surprised by these seemingly hidden bonds of Jewdom, and I can feel an internal reaction of bias against you since a line that I grew up thinking to be fairly weak has suddenly risen strongly between us. There's suddenly a club I can't join, and my ego doesn't like it.

Hopefully, that bias is nullified by the fact that it is recognized, but I think it's a factor in what you observed - people don't like the idea of what can sometimes appear to be a global network of people with more than friendly loyalty to a country not their own. It might also reak a little of the Jewish banker stereotype, but I'm not talking about power, but rather allegiance.

Now to your piece. I'm going to post reactions as I read through.

The surprise you expressed at seeing the flyer seemed a little surprising to me. Your wording suggests that you think the flotilla tragedy was the cause of this meeting; I would strongly suggest otherwise. The issues that I have with Israel aren't part of the raid; while I think the loss of life was sad, it was a confusing situation and stuff happens. I find it interesting that Israel got so much flack when the US has killed many more civilians with bombs in Afghanistan.

My issues with Israel, off the top of my head so that I show a gut reaction, are essentially these:

There seems to be an element within Israel that believes the country should be expanded to include the entire West Bank and Gaza Strip. This group violates international agreements by constructing "settlements" that are actually fortified outposts, and takes homes away from Palestinians who have lived in them for generations. There is no justification for ignoring these treaties, since the reciprocal would be someone taking over Jewish land.

What's interesting about this is that the anti-settlement faction within Israel is just about invisible to me, and because of this, I perceive the country as expantionist: going beyond the borders that it agreed to by treaty.

Israel continues to receive a large amount of American aid that I have never seen reason for. That doesn't mean such a reason doesn't exist, but instead that all I hear about is X billions going over to Israel while people I know here are not going to get unemployment because the Senate scuttled it for fiscal reasons. That's another strike.

Lastly, there's a strong feeling that AIPAC is supoer-powerful and controlling; that to speak against is Israel in any way, shape, or form is to commit a sacrilege. If I was interning on the Hill, I would be sufficient scared about AIPAC not to post this for fear of what it might do to my boss. In my mind, AIPAC = Rush Limbaugh; you can't go against it/him without paying a heavy price.

So the three things above combine for me to think that Israel is a state expanding with American dollars that I can't speak against because of it's domestic power. That's a pretty awful perception, and all of the good I know Israel does from visiting its embassy, reading Alan Dershowitz, and reading the news doesn't change the fact that Israel feels like an unjust state.

I'm an advocate for soft power; I think Bush hurts our horribly with his actions regarding rendition and torture, and I think our security was damaged by those perceptions, which I would seek to reverse. The problem for Israel is that for most of its neighbors, those perceptions will never be reversed; without agreement on the right to exist (which I would say is real), so Israel focuses more on hard power than soft power. After all, the perceptions of the people where you are are ultimately much less important than stopping another suicide bomber.

There's a bias in the world to sympathize with the person/group who lacks hard power, and so you end up more vilified than the idiot (I use the term in the classical sense) bombers who imagine their actions to be doing good. That's sad, but Israel seems to have chosen safety at home while neglecting, to some extent, soft power abroad.

So that's how you end up standing in front of a hostile crowd, and I'm sorry that the situation was so uncomfortable. You seem to have conducted yourself quite well, and I commend you for sticking around to talk, and to build bridges of trust over this polarized chasm.

I would also say that generic anti-Jewish bias still exists, and that sucks a huge deal. Holocaust denial amazes me.

But the more you do to argue your point politely and rationally, the more people will see you as the face of Israel, as opposed to the racist Jews who end up on youtube or blogs for spitting on, beating up, and being cruel to Palestinians.