Which side are you on?
Which side are you on?
A Lebanese-American man who drove his truck into a Detroit synagogue this week, was exacting revenge for the killing of his family during Israeli raids on Beirut that week.
Meanwhile, Israel is feeling some heat. It’s seeking to diminish its own role (1,000 Lebanese dead) in inciting the attack, by claiming that one of the victims was a Hezbollah commander. It neglects to mention the other family members killed as well:
The mayor of the Lebanese town of Mashghara…told CNN that Ayman Ghazali’s brothers, including Ibrahim, were killed in an airstrike March 5. Ibrahim Ghazali’s children were also killed in the strike, the mayor said.
For Israel, acceptable collateral damage. For Ayman Ghazali, not so much.
The synagogue attack is blowback from Israel’s slaughter in Lebanon. Its willingness to provoke regional war in Iran, Gaza and Lebanon drags the US into the mess. The survivors of these attacks are now motivated to take out their rage on us here in the US. That includes Zionist institutions like Temple Israel. This is a simple, yet troubling and incontrovertible fact. When Israel terrorizes nations, the Zionists who support it may pay a price.
The alleged Hezbollah affiliation somehow absolves Israel of inciting the rage that provoked the attack. It associates the Michigan attacker with Hezbollah and makes him a terrorist as well. Not a survivor, nor a human being bereft at the murder of his family.
About the IDF report, it originates with its Arabic spokesperson, a serial liar who incited the murder of Refaat al Areer. He is a thoroughly disreputable source. Note also, he provides no evidence to support his claim, another standard feature of such IDF allegations.
The synagogue truck-ramming has been universally denounced. But along with these heartfelt emotions, there’s the performative statements from the usual suspects: Israel Lobby groups like the ADL and J Street, politicians, and more.
Despite the shock of such an attack, it must be seen in the context of events in the Middle East over the past three years. Israel’s genocide in Gaza along with its ongoing attacks against Iran and Lebanon, have left a trail of blood and tears throughout the region. It’s provoked outrage. Hatred against Israel. Calls for revenge. Muslims and Arabs feel they, their families, and their religion are under attack by a murderous state claiming to act on behalf of the Jewish people. Anyone, in their eyes, who associates themselves with Zionism, automatically becomes associated with Israeli crimes.
Despite their suffering, Arabs and Muslims aren’t allowed to take revenge. Their acts are considered terrorism, while Israel’s are self-defense. Actually, there are two sets of terrorists, but only one is the aggressor responsible for initiating the conflict.
Judaism ≠ Zionism
For years, I have warned against equating Judaism and Israel, or Jews and Israelis. I’ve also repeatedly pointed out that this conflation of the Jewish religion and Zionism is anti-Semitic.
A recent poll indicates that a majority of American Jews do not consider themselves Zionist. Further, there are more Christian Zionists than Jewish Zionists. Social media users have reacted mostly with understanding, which is heartening. Though I might add there are those who continue to blame Jews for Israel’s crimes.
With every child murdered by Israel in the name of Zionism and the Jewish people, it becomes even more urgent to distinguish ourselves as Jews from the slaughter. However, a portion of world Jewry cannot do this because it it has declared its allegiance to Zionism. For them, Zionism represents some fairy tale of Jews living in harmony in their own homeland: a joyous ingathering of exiles.
However, Israel has never represented this. It has, from its inception represented ethnic cleansing, apartheid, land theft, and now, genocide. How long can Zionist Jews continue under such a pall of willful delusion? As long as they continue defending Israel and proclaiming its righteousness, they have made their bed with the killers. Now they must lie in it.
What does Judaism have to do with Zionism? Is it a religion of apartheid? Of genocide? Of holy war? If it isn’t, then it must not be exploited to bless Israel’s sins.
In truth, there are strains of hatred and bloodletting in the Bible. They include the extermination of the Amalekites, the slaughter of Israelite tribe against tribe, and other similar incidents. Despite the invocation of Amalek as justification for the Gaza genocide, Jews must nevertheless renounce such representations of our religion. We must reject ancient hatreds in favor of modern mutual respect. If Israel chooses to go the way of mass murder, it must not take us along with it.
What should we expect the victims to do? To make a distinction between Israelis and Jews that Zionists refuse to make themselves? I used to criticize those who attack Jews and Jewish institutions for Israel’s crimes. I used to say they are just as bad as those whose crimes they’re avenging. I wish I could still believe this.
When Israel Lobby groups denounced the murder of two staff members of the Israeli embassy in Washington DC, I could find little sympathy. Every representative of this genocidal government is implicated in its crimes. None are innocent regardless of how young, handsome or sweet they may be.
Again, I wish things were as clear and innocent as they once might have been. But they aren’t. Innocence is dead. If you work for the killers, if you serve them in any way, you share their guilt.
When a Syrian father and son killed 15 celebrants on Hanukah in Bondi, Jews expressed global outrage. But left out of the coverage, was that the event was sponsored by Chabad. It is rabidly pro-Israel religious sect, several of whose rabbis are Kahanist enthusiasts. The rabbi who officiated was a rabid settler rabbi, known for his hatred of Palestinians. You must know as a Jew that if you participate in events hosted by Chabad, you are implicated in its incitement of hatred and violence.
There is a belief among Jews that they enjoy some sort of immunity from Israel’s crimes. That they can support Zionism without any responsibility. They express outrage at attacks like the one on Temple Israel. They say: how can they blame us for something we didn’t do? They are all anti-Semites. They all hate us.
That is a pernicious delusion. It infects the entire political discourse. Senators, Congress members, presidents: they all rise in performative outrage on behalf of their Jewish constituents. We must call out this self-righteousness as disingenuous and misguided. If the political class really wants to support Jews, they should distinguish them from Israel. Create a moral distinction.
Congress should defund Israel. Cut off military aid. Stop protecting Israel in the UN Security Council. And Zionist institutions must be forced to deal with collapsing support among Americans in general, and Jews in particular, for Israel and Zionism.
Thx mr. Silverstein for your thorough academic knowledge on the issues you cover, and the time for rebuttals on this thread.
It’s simply more convenient and more compatible with materialism to say, “I support Israel so that the Holocaust doesn’t happen again,” rather than fighting the patterns of behavior that led to the Holocaust. Ultimately, it is yet another form of chauvinism to pretend that a certain group—defined by culture and perhaps even by blood—is not inherently monstrous, even when it behaves as such. Ultimately, Zionism is about “having,” not “being,” to put it in the words of Erich Fromm. People kill for this “having”—to take something away from others, the evil Arabs. That, to me, is Zionism.
Describing zionism as only having and not being is quite simplistic as well.
Having a state (and we can argue about how it should look like) for many many jews is actually being – being alive, being jew, being safe.
You could argue that arabs could just be, and not pretend to have a state beyond the 22 they already have. They too, feel that having guarantees their being
@ Jose: You may post 1 comment per thread.
I am a Jew and do not need or want a state. I am alive as a Jew where I live and where I was born. That “Arabs have 22 states” is so old & tired. Palestinians are indigenous to Palestine and have a right to a state, unless you want a single state with Jews & Palestinians, which is fine with me.
I am glad you find yourself happy and safe where you are.
The truth is not all jews felt that way specially during the last century. They felt the need to find a safe place, and it was logic to go back to their homeland. Your own feelings or desires can not dictate other’s.
Arabs in Palestine didn’t have a state project till after Israel was founded. Not when ottomans rules and certainly not when Jordanian ruled.
Regarding the single state, for some people that’s an option that might solve the problems. I personally dont think it’s viable but I might be wrong of course.
Thanks
@jose: You don’t need to school me on Jewish life in the 19th, 20th or any century. I assure I know more on the subject than you ever will.
In fact, Zionism was a minority view among most Jews in the US and western Europe until 1945. So no. The only region in which a significant number of Jews embraced Zionism was eastern Europe. Even then, many other eastern and central European Jews rejected it (ie. the Bund).
Palestinians had a national identity as early as the 1850s, which predates Zionism. You’d know that if you knew anything on the subject. Clearly, you don’t.
Glad to see that your arguments are only based on a distortion of reality, a handful of handpicked facts and a lot of lies.
All that certainly do not help solving the conflict in any way.
@ Jose: If you really want to “solve the conflict” you might instead address the party that caused it & perpetuates it.
Hi. Who that might be Mr Silverstein?
I wonder if the right approach should be to talk about two parties having their own interest and narrative…
Thanks
“your arguments are only based on a distortion of reality, a handful of handpicked facts and a lot of lies”
Such as what ?
Unfortunately, Zionist activism is what many, probably most, diaspora Jewish institutions busy themselves with.
Intensifying Israeli atrocities, relentlessly digging deeper into bottomless evil, are under-reported and often ignored by mainstream international media. Those – other than the proud Judeo-Nazi friends and families of the perps – who do hear of these atrocities are either the ever dwindling few who read the Hebrew edition of the only Israeli broadsheet, Haaretz, and the friends and families of the victims.
It’s hard for those in the know to practice more tolerance towards those rallying around the Zionist flag these days than to those rallying around the Swastika one.
is every synagogue a zionist institution ? are there exceptions?
@ Robert: No, not every one. But there are very few that are not Zionist. I would estimate perhaps a handful in the entire country. Further, most Jewish communcal institutions are Zionist as well. To be clear, most individual, rank & file American Jews are not Zionist. They either have no opinion, don’t care, or don’t define themselves. Some of course do identify as anti-Zionist.