Gematigde Joden?

[Cees Binkhorst]

REPLY TO: D66 at nic.surfnet.nl

Gematigde Joden?
We zullen ze wel laten zien!
Een paar checkpoints en muren later, zullen ze wel anders piepen.
Zo nodig sturen we een paar soldaten met een paar stenen. Niets overtuigt
zo goed als een paar gebroken botten.

Groet / Cees

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1122104.html
Dovish Jews? They love Israel? Excommunicate them
By Bradley Burston
Tags: Israel News, Bradley Burston

We don't need them. They'll never see things our way, no matter what. Let
them go.

It's a new Israeli approach which borrows from the very worst of our aging
instincts. It says: We're moral, our enemies are out to exterminate us
along with our state, that's all you need to know. No modifications
necessary. Stay the course. Concede nothing. Ease no siege. Give no
ground. Ever.

It is a radical redefinition of Postmodern Zionism, this time from the
right. Over the past weeks, it's been test-run in our relations with
Turkey, with the Goldstone Commission, with Mahmoud Abbas - and with
consistent results.

Now it's about to be tried on North American Jewry, some 6 million strong,
a community at a critical crossroads, one that will have lasting and - if
mishandled - dangerous consequences for Israel.

The opening shot was fired this month by the former chairman of the
Governing Board of the World Jewish Congress, Isi Liebler, who declared it
"our obligation to confront the enemy within - renegade Jews - including
Israelis who stand at the vanguard of global efforts to demonize and
delegitimize the Jewish state."

"Such odious Jews can be traced back to apostates during the Middle Ages
who fabricated blood libels and vile distortions of Jewish religious
practice for Christian anti-Semites to incite hatred which culminated in
massacres," Liebler wrote in the Jerusalem Post. "It was in response to
these renegades that the herem [excommunication] was introduced."

Citing the example of Jewish communists who applauded Stalinist executions
of fellow Jews on trumped-up charges, Liebler added, "Like their
contemporary counterparts, some of them attempted to depict themselves as
devoted Jews championing 'world peace.'"

Among these counterparts, it develops, is J Street, the new dovish
lobbying organization which describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace.
Writing ahead of J Street's first annual national conference, which begins
on Sunday in Washington, Liebler argued that although J Street and other
U.S. Jewish groups critical of Israel may describe themselves as Zionist,
"their prime objective is to pressure the U.S. government to use 'tough
love' against Israel - a euphemism for demanding that the Jewish state
make further unilateral concessions to neighbors pledged to its
annihilation."

Israel's official response to J Street, which though less than two years
old has been described as a counterweight to AIPAC, has been measured but
far from welcoming. The embassy has neither accepted nor rejected J
Street's invitation to Ambassador Michael Oren to speak at the conference.

Last week, with the invitation still unanswered, Israeli Embassy spokesman
Yoni Peled was quoted as expressing concern over J Street positions at
odds with those of the government in Jerusalem.

"While recognizing the need for a free and open debate on these issues, it
is important to stress concern over certain policies [of J Street] that
could impair Israel's interests," an apparent reference to such J Street
stances as backing for President Barack Obama's call for an absolute
freeze on settlements and the group's opposition to immediate sanctions on
Iran.

Soon after, J Street renewed its request that Oren speak to the
conference. It noted research which has shown younger Jews increasingly
alienated from the Jewish community and from Israel, and increasingly
questioning many of Israel's right-wing policies, public statements, and
actions.

The erudite, often outspoken Oren has been uncharacteristically mum in
response to the request, despite, or perhaps because of, the long list of
some 150 U.S. senators and members of Congress which J Street has
published as honorary hosts of a gala dinner during the conference. The
list has apparently dismayed both AIPAC and conservative commentators.

The ambassador should accept the invitation. He should speak forthrightly
on the ways Israel's government views the future differently from J Street
and the other dovish groups co-sponsoring the gathering. Together, they
represent a growing segment of the future of U.S. Jewry, a community with
which Israel cannot afford to lose touch.

To slight the conference is to dismiss the deep love of Israel felt by
many of its critics abroad. To send a low-level diplomat in place of the
ambassador sends a message which in some respects can only please Isi
Liebler, and the subtext of his message: These doves, they're not really
pro-Israel. They can't be. They're doves. And they're not really Jews. How
could they be? Not only are they doves, most of them aren't even Orthodox.

Liebler, meanwhile, has another plan. Because Benjamin Netanyahu is
"currently riding a wave after his superb United Nations address," Liebler
writes, he should convene a global Jewish solidarity conference of Jewish
leaders, opinion makers, philanthropists and activists "in order to
demonstrate the unity of the Jewish people."

And what of J Street and the spectrum of Jewish leftists and peace
advocates? The world unity conference would deal with them as well.
According to Liebler, "in addition to encouraging millions of Jews in the
Diaspora who remain committed to Israel to become more actively engaged in
our struggle, such a gathering would also provide an opportunity to
exorcise the renegades from our midst."

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