A Liberal Shame

In the NYTimes recently, Antony Lerman, a former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research and author of “The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist”, is afforded much space to make an argument for "liberal Zionism". He is so liberal that he writes at the beginning:

The decision of Israel’s prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to launch a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza

as if Netanyahu woke up one fine morning and decided.  No rockets or terror mentioned.  Poof! Israel launches a military campaign.


But his warped thinking whic negates any possible input he might think he can contribute is best exemplified but his final paragraphs:

The dissenting left doesn’t have all the answers, but it has the principles upon which solutions must be based. Both liberal Zionism and the left accept the established historical record: Jews forced hundreds of thousands of Palestinians from their homes to make way for the establishment of a Jewish state. But the liberals have concluded that it was an acceptable price others had to pay for the state. The left accepts that an egregious injustice was done. The indivisibility of human, civil and political rights has to take precedence over the dictates of religion and political ideology, in order not to deny either Palestinians or Jews the right to national self-determination. The result, otherwise, will be perpetual conflict.

In the repressive one-state reality of today’s Israel, which Mr. Netanyahu clearly wishes to make permanent, we need a joint Israeli-Palestinian movement to attain those rights and the full equality they imply. Only such a movement can lay the groundwork for the necessary compromises that will allow the two peoples’ national cultures to flourish.

This aspiration is incompatible with liberal Zionism, and some liberal Zionists appear close to this conclusion, too. As Mr. Freedland put it, liberal Zionists “will have to decide which of their political identities matters more, whether they are first a liberal or first a Zionist.”

They should know that Israel is not Judaism. Jewish history did not culminate in the creation of the state of Israel.

Regrettably, there is a dearth of Jewish leaders telling Diaspora Jews these truths. The liberal Zionist intelligentsia should embrace this challenge, acknowledge the demise of their brand and use their formidable explanatory skills to build support for a movement to achieve equal rights and self-determination for all in Israel-Palestine.

Sorry but no patience to note all the ridiculous and unproven assertions above which are unsupported by the historical record as well as the fraudulent argumentation Lerman employs to misrepresent reality.

Such a liberal shame.


P.S.    Good for David Bernstein.

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