Labels: 'rabbi' Mikey Lerner, liberalism, tikkun olam
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:38 PM
4 comments
Here’s my question. As Obama donned his yarmulke and embraced your community, did you also catch the hint of a warning? If you did, it was because the president was raising, very subtly, the specter of dual loyalty: the hoary allegation that Jews pursue their tribal interests to the detriment of the wider community or nation. Obama was certainly not engaging in anything so crude as that; nor is he an enemy of the Jewish people. But he did imply that many Jews—that is, Jews who support Benjamin Netanyahu—have indeed placed their narrow, ethnic interests above their commitment to universal humanistic values. In his view, they have betrayed those values. And so the warning was faint, but unmistakable: if Jews wish to avoid being branded as bigots, then they—you—must line up with him against Netanyahu.
“But the president is right,” many of you would no doubt reply. “Netanyahu’s values are not my values.” That may well be the case. Yet this is also why it is a trap for you to accept Obama’s claim that his fight with Netanyahu is a struggle over “values.” The struggle is not over values. Rather, at the core of the Netanyahu-Obama grudge match is one issue and one issue only: the president’s long-sought détente with the Islamic Republic of Iran.
To be sure, there are other sources of tension between the two men, both personal and political. Among them is the Israel-Palestinian issue, which the president dwelt upon at length in his remarks to you—but in the service of a goal that has nothing whatsoever to do with Israeli-Palestinian relations. If this sounds too calculating by half, consider three key points.But the real issue, says Doran, is Iran.
The president’s sophistry demonstrates a simple but profound truth: his commitment to the progressive values of tikkun olam is governed by its own “red lines,” and is entirely utilitarian. Which again raises the question: what was his purpose in stressing this shared progressive commitment in his address to you, and what was his purpose in subtly reminding you of the costs of failing to abide by its terms?
The answer, I hope, is obvious. On June 30, Obama will likely conclude a nuclear deal with Iran. This will spark a faceoff with Congress, which has already declared its opposition to the deal. Congress will inevitably pass a vote of disapproval, which Obama will inevitably veto. In order to defend that veto from a congressional override, however, he must line up 34 Senators—all Democrats. This calls in turn for a preemptive ideological campaign to foster liberal solidarity—for which your support is key. If the president can convince the liberal Jewish community, on the basis of “shared values,” to shun any suspicion of alignment with congressional Republicans or Benjamin Netanyahu, he will have an easier time batting down Congress’s opposition to the deal with Iran.
Progressive values have nothing to do with what is truly at stake in this moment of decision. Only one final question really matters: in your considered view, should the Islamic Republic of Iran be the dominant power in the Middle East, and should we be helping it to become that power? If your answer is yes, then, by all means, continue to applaud the president—loudly and enthusiastically—as he purports to repair the world.Read the whole thing.
Labels: Barack Hussein Obama, Binyamin Netanyahu, dual loyalty, Iranian nuclear threat, liberal Jews, tikkun olam
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 1:47 PM
1 comments
"The loyalty oath de-legitimatizes Israel," a woman holding a placard yelled while standing on her chair, interrupting Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu's speech at the Jewish Federations of North America's General Assembly in New Orleans on Monday.Yes, that's the same 'Jewish' Voices for Peace (I am willing to bet that if we check, we will find that a substantial percentage are not Jewish under Jewish law) that is sponsoring 'Israeli occupation awareness week' at Brandeis this week. And I wonder if that's the same Daniel Friedman who has been sending me emails lately.
She was swiftly escorted out by security. However, moments later, another protester stood on his chair and shouted "the occupation de-legitimizes Israel." The man was also quickly taken outside. But then another, and another, appeared. Six in all. One of them was tackled by participants in the crowd and a short scuffle ensued until security reached him.
The protesters were part of Jewish Voices for Peace, a leftist organization of Jews which helped organize a recent boat that tried to break the Israeli blockade of Gaza and is attempting to pressure the planned Tolerance Museum in Jerusalem to relocated from the current, controversial building site.
"These actions are in part a protest of the Jewish Federations of North America (JFNA) and Jewish Public Affairs Council (JCPA) newly announced $6 million dollar program to target campus, church, peace and human rights groups that are working to end Israel’s human rights violations through nonviolent Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions pressure campaigns," a press release from JVP read. "The Federations and JCPA are calling this initiative the “Israel Action Network.”'
The group's aim was to draw attention to their cause, and to a large part they succeeded. Haaretz, Yediot Ahronot and other Israeli newspapers lead with the sensationalist news on their Websites. But the sentiments of the protesters did not reflect any greater discontent by American Jews with Israel based upon interviews with a sampling of participants after the event occurred.
Outside the plenary hall, it appeared cooler heads prevailed. A young group of Hillel students eating kosher sandwiches handed out by JFNA offered their opinions on the frucus which took part shortly before.
"If we allow five butt-heads to hijack the message here by standing on chairs with their homemade signs we're failing our roles as ambassadors to Israel," Daniel Friedman, a student at UCSD said.
But the group’s pretensions to representing a generational voice, manifested in the publication of a document roughly outlining their positions and titled the Young Jewish Declaration, were called into question by the presence of scores of young, pro-Israel activists in the halls of the G.A.In other words, Code Pink organized this protest. For those who have forgotten about Code Pink's ties to Hamas, go here. For those who have forgotten about its ties to the Obama administration, go here. No, Mr. Mazor, by putting yourselves under the pink umbrella, you have forfeited any right to be viewed as a 'legitimate part of the Jewish community.' Go back to the unitarian universalist church. That's where you belong.
“I think the point is more that there needs to be space for people like us, people who don’t fit into the paradigm that’s been laid out,” said a member of the protest group, Eyal Mazor, 22, a recent graduate of the University of California, Berkeley, who was born in Israel. Though involved in planning the action, Mazor was not one of the activists who disrupted the speech. “We need to be seen as a legitimate part of the Jewish community,” he said.
...
Individual activists said in interviews that they supported the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions campaign against Israel, and JVP supports the right to engage in BDS campaigns, although a document created by the group does not mention BDS.
The Forward was given limited access to the protesters before the disruption on the condition that the information not be published until after the disruption took place.
On the night of November 7, in a Unitarian Universalist church a few miles from the site of the convention, a dozen young activists sat in a room crowded with half-drawn signs, debating the contours of the next day’s protest.
The activists had been based in the building since November 4, two days before the general assembly’s official kickoff. Convened by JVP, the group of 14 had spent two days engaged in training and skills sharing and preparing for their actions. Members ranged in age from 17 to 39.
Activists initially told the Forward that they planned to silently hoist signs. But in the meeting the night before the action, the plan seemed to be shifting. Rae Abileah, a staff organizer for the anti-war group Code Pink, was arguing for the disrupters to shout while being removed from the room. Abileah said that the time between when the signs are taken from the protesters and when they were removed from the room could total 15 minutes — time that could be used to shout slogans.
“We are often far [more] concerned with being polite and being politically correct and being nice than we are with human rights, dignity, justice, and international law,” Abileah said later in an interview. Abileah said that she has participated in similar disruptions at two recent AIPAC conferences.
In the end, Abileah apparently won out. She was among those who rose to interrupt Netayahu.
Communications staff at the JFNA knew of plans to disrupt Netanyahu’s speech as early as the evening of November 6. Staff members became aware that at least one person registered as a member of the press was actually an activist. JFNA staff sought to intercept any protesters going in disguised as press before they could enter the ballroom. It’s not clear whether they were successful.
Asked about the JFNA staff’s concerns about a disruption of the speech hours before the second plenary, Jewish Federation of Greater Los Angeles president Jay Sanderson said, “I would rather my enemy be standing right in front of me than hiding. I’m not afraid of any kind of protest. At least we have an opportunity to respond.” Sanderson has been one of the architects of the Israel Action Network, the new JFNA anti-divestment initiative that has been a focus of the program at the G.A.
After the disruption, Jewish Council for Public Affairs senior vice president Martin Raffel, who is leading the Israel Action Network, said that the disruption demonstrated the atmosphere advocates for Israel face. “Trying to prevent the audience from hearing what the prime minister has to say is in itself a form of delegitimization,” Raffel said.
“I think I’m very much succeeding in practicing tikkun olam and derech eretz by standing up for the rights for all people,” said Hana King, 17, a freshman at Swarthmore College. “It such hypocrisy for these Jewish leaders that I grew up admiring to say that, you know, that the Holocaust was a tragedy but what we’re doing to [the Palestinians] is fine.”Who the hell does this punk think she is and why is she throwing around terms to whose true meanings she is completely oblivious.
“We have to get their attention somehow,” she said.
Labels: Binyamin Netanyahu, Code Pink, derech eretz, Jewish Federation General Assembly, tikkun olam
posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:36 AM
5 comments
I am an Orthodox Jew - some would even call me 'ultra-Orthodox.' Born in Boston, I was a corporate and securities attorney in New York City for seven years before making aliya to Israel in 1991 (I don't look it but I really am that old :-). I have been happily married to the same woman for thirty-five years, and we have eight children (bli ayin hara) ranging in age from 13 to 33 years and nine grandchildren. Four of our children are married! Before I started blogging I was a heavy contributor on a number of email lists and ran an email list called the Matzav from 2000-2004. You can contact me at: IsraelMatzav at gmail dot com
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