Who Are "They"?

In a recent Tom J diary, doodad made a comment about "them," those on the other side of the gaping I-P divide. In response, unspeakable, a pro-Palestinian advocate, asked doodad who "they" are. I've broken "them" down into 5 categories. These are human rights advocates, pro-Palestinian advocates, ideological Israel haters, anti-Zionists, and anti-Semites. Needless to say these groupings are not absolute and there is much cross-over between them. Furthermore, it should hardly need to be said, there is absolutely nothing in this world wrong with human rights advocates or pro-Palestinian advocates. Most of us here are liberals, which is why we came to Daily Kos to begin with. We need human rights advocates and we need pro-Palestinian advocates in order to bring justice to a cruddy world.

The problem, however, is that the movement for pro-Palestinian justice contains any number of people who are also anti-Zionists, ideological Israel Haters, and anti-Semites. That's why DKW created this site to begin with. How in the world can those who care about justice for the Palestinian people ever expect majorities of Jewish people, or those who support Israel, to join a movement that contains those types? It makes no sense to me.

I live in San Francisco and during Operation Cast Lead there was a protest march to Civic Center. Now, I've participated in any number of anti-war rallies, maybe 10, or so, throughout the Bush years. However, when I attended the protest rally against Cast Lead I was met with a number of people holding up signs that blended the Nazi swastika with the Star of David.



At the time I felt as if they might as well be holding up signs saying, "Jews go home" because that is precisely what I did and that is the dilemma that we face. How can those of us who are liberal Jews, or liberal supporters of Israel, who oppose the occupation, join our voices with people who consistently express outright hatred toward the Jewish state or who think that it should be dissolved?

How can we join our voices with those who spit the word "Zionist" as if it is an epithet?

How can we participate in the progressive movement when it also contains any number of anti-Zionists, ideological Israel haters, and anti-Semites? Jews have been at the forefront of the broad movement for social justice for over a century and something like 80 percent of American Jews voted for Barack Obama. We are, for the most part, proud liberals. We supported FDR during the New Deal, as well as Martin Luther King, Jr., during the Civil Rights Movement of the 1950s and 1960s. We were over-represented in the New Left and organizations like Students for a Democratic Society (SDS), not to mention the Women's Movement and the movement for Gay Rights. Yet now we find ourselves in the position of facing a movement, the current progressive movement, that is home to an element that we simply cannot tolerate.

And this, my friends, is a big problem.

So long as the progressive movement, and more specifically, the movement for Palestinian justice, represents a home for those who hate Israel, or who think that Israel should be dissolved as a Jewish state via the single-state solution, it will leave most Jews cold.

And I, for one, am freezing my ass off.

So it goes.

Posted by Karmafish