In declaring a cease-fire Saturday in Gaza, Israel asserted that it had achieved its goals: hurting Hamas' military wing, discouraging rocket fire into Israel and cutting the flow of smuggled arms into Gaza. But Israel had a broader goal: sending a tough message to its arch-enemies Iran and Hezbollah.
All this is utterly delusional. But delusion is all Israel has left.
TEL HASHOMER, Israel -- Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish is a Gazan and a doctor who has devoted his life to medicine and reconciliation between Israelis and Palestinians.
But on Saturday, the day after three of his daughters and a niece were killed by Israeli fire in Gaza, Dr. Abuelaish, 53, struggled to hold on to the humane philosophy that has guided his life and work.
As he sat in a waiting room of the Israeli hospital where he works part time, he asked over and over, "Why did they do this?"
Elsewhere in the hospital another daughter and a niece were being treated for their wounds.
"I dedicated my life really for peace, for medicine," said Dr. Abuelaish, who does joint research projects with Israeli physicians and for years has worked as something of a one-man force to bring injured and ailing Gazans for treatment in Israel.
"This is the path I believed in and what I raised and educated my children to believe," he said.
Against this immediacy, Ezra Klein has an op-ed in Haaretz "What it means to be pro-Israel" that's a further reflection of how things have changed this time around--not enough, certainly for Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish and his family, nor all the others who have died or lost family members in Israel's assault on Gaza, or the millions of Palestinians still deprived of a homeland, but enough to clearly signal that Israel's current path is a road to nowhere.
As dissenting Jewish voices in America are increasingly being heard, as they have long been heard in Israel, the hawkish, rightwing-oriented establishment epitomized by AIPIC is growing increasingly irrational. A rational discussion is trying to break through, but a rational discussion is the last thing that AIPAC establishment wants. There are demonstrations against Israel's attack on across the country tomorrow, in Washington, Los Angeles, San Francisco, New York, Portland, OR, Sacramento, CA, Urbana, Ill as well as around the world.
Even Time magazine's cover proclaims, "Why Israel Can't Win", while the accompanying cover story asks, "Can Israel Survive Its Assault on Gaza?" As with the Wall Street meltdown, the old ideology has visibly self-destructed, yet it's defenders still fight on, not realizing they've already lost. Unfortunately, in neither instance does that mean that sanity has yet won. But debate is spreading where there was only silence before. And the growing outspokenness of Jewish-American opposition to what is being done in our name--as well as to Israel--is a heartening sign. Some examples:
An article in the New York Jewish Week, "Fresh Rift Emerges Over War Response", emailed out by J Street, discussed the heightened level of controversy that J Street has elicited:
"Other peace groups issued statements, but they're not seen as serious people," said the leader of a major pro-Israel group this week. "But J Street includes serious people with serious connections with the new administration, and people are very worried. They don't have much power now, but there's a feeling that they could gain a lot of influence in the new Congress and with the new administration."
Rosanne Barr, loudmouth Jew extraordinaire, kicked off her new local radio show on KPFK Pacifica with a blistering attack on warmongering and bigotry of all kinds taking primary aim on how she feels her faith has been distorted and abused. (Listen here.) It was truly refreshing to hear a pro-peace, anti-imperialist Jewish voice without one second of defensiveness in a 60-minute program. How soon can they start syndicating her?
On Democracy Now!yesterday, Amy and Juan had Former Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk on to discuss his new book, Innocent Abroad: An Intimate Account of American Peace Diplomacy in the Middle East. But they also had on Norman Finkelstein, author of several books, including The Holocaust Industry and Beyond Chutzpah, and Martin Indyk just about had a cow. He was, quite literally, incapable of arguing with Finklestein, and tried to make a virtue of necessity by presenting it as a matter of honor and principle that he would not debate Finklestein. But he lost embarrassingly, anyway. Details--or should I say, morsels--on the flip.
Say you're on a bowling team called "The Ducks," and one of your friends on the team has a drinking problem. Call him "Joe." If Joe asks you to buy him a drink, and you do, does that make you "pro-Joe"? And "pro-Duck"? And if you don't buy him a drink, does that make you "anti-Joe"? Does it make you "a self-hating Duck"?
Those are the questions I have to ask when I see how routinely people seem to misconstrue what I'm saying when I criticize Israel's self-destructive policies against the Palestinian people which have gone on for decades now, leading only deeper into dead ends, denial and despair.
Just to make things perfectly clear, I'd like to call attention to the positions of J Street, the newly formed organization that describes itself as "the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement." J Street has a section on its website, devoted to FAQs on the recent violence in Gaza. The answers they provide there are, I think, far more rational, positive, and objectively pro-Israel than anything you will here from the chest-thumping crowd.
Although I might express myself somewhat differently, and come at some things from a different angle, there is not one thing in J Streets FAQ that I read that I would hesitate to defend. They do an excellent job of demonstrating what a real pro-Israel position looks like. I'd like to underscore a few highlights on the flip.
