A Note to the Movement for Palestinian Justice

{This is a lengthy comment that I left at Daily Kos to a Palestinian professor who hopes to bring on American Jewish support for his movement.}

Jews represent the single most liberal and progressive demographic in the United States.

And, I have to say, on a personal level, it is hard for me to describe the sadness that I felt when I realized the nature of the movement for Palestinian justice, within the progressive movement.

If you want the help of American Jews there are few things that your movement must overcome before most of us would be willing to throw you our support... but I've told you this before.

I keep hoping that you might start listening, but your failure to do so probably has as much to do with me than it has to do with you.

Here's the thing. Most American Jews would love to see the Palestinian people thriving and free within their own state and at peace amongst themselves and with Israel. Who wouldn't want that?

Well?

Anti-Zionists don't. That's a huge problem if you want to bring liberal American Jews into your movement. We can quibble about what, exactly, "anti-Zionism" means, but virtually all Jews understand that the movement for a single state solution, if successful, would mean the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state.

We absolutely oppose that. We may be liberal, but we're neither crazy, nor stupid. Given the history of the Jewish people there is no way that you will bring large numbers of American Jews into a movement that houses, so to speak, a significant number of anti-Zionists. You'll get some fringe ideologues, such as Jon, but you'll never get significant numbers of Jews to join such a movement.

And then you've got the problem of large numbers of people within your movement who always and forever lay the blame for everything I-P at the feet of Israel. This is alienating for most American Jews, not to mention historically inaccurate.

So, while it's true that we do tend to favor liberalism and humanism, we are also generally pragmatists and care about the future well-being of our children. We will never trust the future well-being of Jews to anyone but Jews, because history has shown us on countless brutal occasions that we cannot. Thus anti-Zionism is anathema.

And while we usually recognize that Israel has most certainly done some rotten things in the past, even in the very recent past, we refuse to wear the hair shirt, if you get me. We expect our allies, if they really are our allies, to be critical of Israel, without demonizing it.

If the movement for Palestinian justice would like more help from the American Jewish community then it needs to dump the anti-Zionists and the haters. Until then, most of us will either stay out of, or actively oppose, your movement.

Posted by Karmafish