Philadelphia — It is a familiar pattern. A well-known diaspora Jewish figure speaks out in a secular news outlet denouncing Israeli policies.
While the majority of Jews gasp at the chutzpah, commentators and journalists speak in hushed tones about the trials and tribulations the dissenter will be subjected to for breaking with Israel. But most of the reaction will center on the “courage” that the Israel critic has shown.
All of which will be pure bunk. Far from having to pay a price, the critic will be showered with praise and spend the rest of his or her public career having unique access to the opinion pages of secular newspapers and being the favorite source for prominent journalists searching for a Jewish voice to use against the Jewish state.
This routine has recently been played again in Britain, where no less than the highly respected chief rabbi of the United Kingdom, Jonathan Sacks, earned applause for telling the Guardian — England’s most notoriously anti-Israel newspaper — that Israel’s self-defense against a two-year war of Palestinian terror makes him “feel very uncomfortable as a Jew.”
Headlined “Israel Set on Tragic Path,” Sacks confided to the Guardian that “the current situation … is forcing Israel into postures that are incompatible in the long run with our deepest ideals.”
Predictably, Sacks expressed support for Israel, and later said his remarks were taken out of context. But most of the commentary after the fact centered on how gutsy the rabbi had been to question the morality of Israeli actions.
Many precedents
Sacks is hardly the first, nor will he be the last to go this route. American Reform movement leader Albert Vorspan earned his “courageous” label by bashing Israel in The New York Times Magazine in 1988 at the start of the first intifada.
A group of five prominent American Jews who journeyed to Sweden to embrace Palestinian Authority President Yasser Arafat at the end of that year were also lauded for their “courage” in that pathetic farce, which helped set the stage for the first official recognition of the terrorist Palestine Liberation Organization.
There is no shortage of contemporary examples. The latest is the astonishing letter sent by the executive vice president of the Reform movement’s Central Conference of American Rabbis to President Bush.
Rabbi Paul Menitoff urged Bush to cut off all “diplomatic, military and financial support” to Israel (as well as to the Palestinians) if it refused to hold a referendum on a peace agreement with the Palestinians that would impose the draconian terms agreed to in 2000 by Arafat, former Prime Minister Ehud Barak and former President Bill Clinton.
Just to make sure that those terms were enforced, and that the Israeli people were sufficiently intimidated into giving half of Jerusalem and 95 percent of Judea and Samaria to the terrorists who have been slaughtering Jews in record numbers for the past two years, Menitoff said that U.S. troops should be stationed in Israel during the referendum and continue their occupation until an agreement is signed.
I will not waste space pointing out how ridiculous or contrary to the spirit of Zionism, Jewish unity and democracy this “plan” is. Fortunately, Menitoff was speaking only for himself and not for his movement. His “plan” was disavowed by even the dovish-leaning leaders of Reform. But none denounced Menitoff. Nor is it likely that he will face any consequences.
Let me clearly state that I do not believe any such statements — however egregious — should set in motion a process by which dissenters are silenced. The overwhelming majority of Jews who support the Israeli left and urge Israeli concessions in peace talks are sincere in believing that such moves are in Israel’s best interest.
A critical stance toward any Israeli government’s policies does not make someone “anti-Israel.” That is a lesson those of us who were critical of the disastrous policies of the Israeli governments who signed the Oslo accords should have learned.
What price dissent?
But let’s be honest about the “price” dissent from the left on Israel imposes on those who indulge in it. Anyone who knocks Israel in public will get his or her share of abuse from Jewish loyalists.
But those brickbats are generally insignificant compared to the wide acceptance and generous praise their stands will earn from a non-Jewish world eager to embrace Jews who break with Israel.
Ask yourself how many times prominent Jewish critics of Israel get prime opinion-page space in newspapers like The New York Times in comparison to the space given there to Jewish supporters of Israel.
Rather than showing courage, the dissenters are just showing us how to get published. Opportunists who desire notoriety know all too well that bashing Israel is a ticket to secular acceptance as surely as support for Israel will assure obscurity.
So, while I am utterly opposed to those who would create “blacklists” against dissenters, I am equally disinterested in hearing another word about their supposed “courage.”
Instead, what all of us, on the right and the left, need to do is to weigh the consequences of our words more carefully.
Those who use over-the-top rhetoric to denounce the dissenters should calm down and lower their voices. Cherems — excommunications — do nothing to reinforce Jewish unity or help Israel. Reasoned debate will usually vanquish the critics on the merits and do not feed into the myth of their “martyrdom.”
But those who use their right to free speech to bash Israel when it is assailed from all sides with vicious anti-Semitic libels as it seeks to defend itself from a two-year campaign of bloody terrorism should also rethink their actions.
Those Jews who choose to join the mob calling for pressure on Israel are not only not being brave, they can materially aid the process of delegitimizing Zionism and Israel. And that I would call gutless.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of the Jewish Exponent in Philadelphia.
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