A Medad / J Street Dialogue

Over at Brandeis' The Justice.


Me:-

Mr. Sherer advocates a "brand of Zionism, which advocates an end to the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and subsequent creation of two states for two peoples. It holds that the eventual boundaries of the state of Israel must respect the Green Line (Israel's pre-1967 borders) and that both Israelis and Palestinians and the Jews, Muslims and Christians among them must enjoy equal access to the holy city of Jerusalem."

May I suggest that this is not quite Zionism but a personal belief system based on a political orientation that is far left-of-center. I hasten to add that it is legitimate to express such views but it would seem tobe a precarious position. Take the last point: under no other control in the past 1800 years has there been more equal access to Jerusalem, so much so that Jews are the only ones permanently banned from praying at the site they consider there holiest. How's that for backbending for peace? Moroever, the Green Line was never Israel's border but a cease-fire line that had no international recognition. If we're adjusting lines on the map, and Jeremy supports territorial compromise, what territory will the Arabs yield to Israel for all its aggressive terror in the 1950s (the fedayeen, you know, before the Fatah) and of the Fatah which began in 1965, two years, incidentally before the Six Days War when Israel assumed administration of Judea and Samaria and Gaza, areas which international law had decreed to be Jewish land back in 1922.

One last issue: the two states for two peoples? Why are the so-called "Palestinians" a different people from the Jordanians or vice versa? Both live in the area of the former Palestine Mandate. Why are there to be two Arab states in the former Mandate territory (although it seems there may be a third one, Hamastan, in Gaza) in which no Jews can live but there is only one Jewish state which must share itself with a 20% Arab minority? Cannot a 20% Jewish minority live in the area of the Palestine Authority? Why must there be an ethnic cleansing of Jews, especially after the last one in 2005 from Gaza proved a disaster?

Jeremy Konar:-

Mr. Medad,

Your comment is exemplary of the kind of attitude J Street U hopes to address. We also have facts and figures, and our members have a strong knowledge of the complexities of the Palestinian-Israeli and Arab-Israeli conflicts. Many of us also have deep personal connections to the state of Israel. We have started this organization at Brandeis in order to combat the idea that a person must support all of Israel's policies to be a Zionist -- a proposition paramount to the idea that we all needed to support President Bush's war in Iraq in order to be true Americans. We understand that there are many perspectives in this issue, and that yours is valid. But we interpret policies differently, and J Street U was not created at Brandeis in order to sling facts and figures back and forth between groups of different opinions.

It was started so that all students on this campus understand how problematic your implication is: that Jeremy Sherer does not hold truly Zionist views but rather "a personal belief system based on a political orientation that is far left-of-center." Zionism is a movement derived from individuals with a personal belief system, and within that movement we find that there are all types of Zionism. Jeremy Sherer, like all the other members of J Street U at Brandeis, want more than anything to see the state of Israel prosper peacefully. We also don't want to allow ourselves or any other student at Brandeis to be told we aren't real Zionists because our opinions are too "left-of-center," to be told we don't support the same cause because we don't approach the issue from the exact same perspective that you do.

As Jeremy pointed out, multiple voices and varied interpretation has always been and always be central to the culture of Judaism. I hope you will realize that Jeremy's post was not an argument about our positions on specific issues with the Israeli-Palestinian debate, but a commentary on the refusal of some American Jews to recognize the growing number of voices who do not feel adequately represented in the American Israel lobby, and the quickness with which people are willing to dismiss a legitimate point of view because it is not the one that so many have hung tenuously to for so long with obscure results. In that sense, your comment is the very reason Jeremy wrote the article, and the reason that J Street U at Brandeis' first meeting met with such excitement.

Me again -

Excited? What's to get excited about helping Israel lose its way, lose its security, lose its support, and perhaps have Jews lose their lives?

That's a gut reaction. Now to a few counterpoints: "a person must support all of Israel's policies to be a Zionist" you claim I advanced. Nope. Not all. If I get beaten by an Israeli policeman, or I cannot exercise my legal right (and civil liberty) to pray at the the Temple Mount or Arabs in Um El-Fahm throw rocks at me to prevent me from being in "their" town (don't worry, that's just an example, I am not one of those), I would hope you wouldn't support those. A bit overarching there with your putdown of me, no?

Another: you write - "J Street U was not created at Brandeis in order to sling facts and figures back and forth between groups of different opinions". Well, thank God for that. Who needs facts and figures when J Street is the truth? And how can you arrive at an opinion if you have the wrong facts & figures?

And I can't wait to find out just really who is funding J Street and why and why your Iranian connections are hidden. Since I worked with jeremy The Other (Ben-Ami)'s father on his book, I won't go into any psychological theories. It's enough the political are irrational.

If you want any details on that last paragraph, please look me up.