10 October 2017

Haaretz: American Jews: If You Really Want Pluralism in Israel, Drop the Palestinians

But fighting on two fronts simultaneously doesn't work. The time has come for U.S. Jews to make a decision: Push for peace with the Palestinians, or push for a pluralistic Jewish state. There's only room for one item on the agenda.  [...]

By campaigning in parallel on Palestinian human rights and the advancement of the two-state solution the U.S. movements are misaligned, not only with the current right-wing government, but with vast swathes of Israeli public opinion. That public opinion, whilst generally center-right (rather than hard right), certainly holds significantly more hawkish (some might say more realistic) views than those being promoted by the Reform movement and its affiliates (or indeed the New Israel Fund, which also promotes a multi-faceted agenda along similar lines). [...]

Worse than this, liberal Jews' dovish opinions on political issues are frequently used as a rod by Israel's political leaders, as the basis for questioning their support for Israel and/or Zionism, undermining Diaspora Jewish claims to patriotism. [...]

Politics is all about creating influence and shifting the levers of power in order to promote decisions and policies. At the end of the day it has be measured against change and results. It is a hard-nosed game and should be fought out based on being focused on the potential for positive outcomes. 

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