—– Original Message —–
From: Jeffrey Blankfort
Sent: Saturday, February 03, 2007 2:26 PM
Subject: Mbrs of Congress express fear ofThe Lobby to Michael Lerner
Regarding the on-going debate about the degree of the Israel Lobby’s
influence on US foreign policy, and whether US support for Israel is
consistent with any definition of US interests, Prof. Ed Herman sends
along this interesting statement by Michael Lerner.-JB
Ed Herman wrote:
What is most interesting about this Lerner piece is his statement on the
foreign policy effects of the Lobby campaign:
“But the most destructive impact of this new Jewish Political Correctness
is on American foreign policy debates. We at Tikkun have been involved in
trying to create a liberal alternative to AIPAC and the other
Israel-can-do-no-wrong voices in American politics. When we talk to
Congressional representatives who are liberal or even extremely
progressive on every other issue, they tell us privately that they are
afraid to speak out about the way Israeli policies are destructive to the
best interests of the United States or the best interests of world
peace-lest they too be labeled anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. If it can
happen to Jimmy Carter, some of them told me recently, a man with
impeccable moral credentials, then no one is really politically safe.”
Ed Herman
—–Original Message—–
From: Rabbi Michael Lerner [ mailto:RabbiLerner@tikkun.org]
Sent: Friday, February 02, 2007 2:24 PM
To: hermane@wharton.upenn.edu
Subject: The Jewish Right’s Assault on Jewish Liberals for Being
Anti-Semitic
What’s “new” about the alleged New Anti-Semitism?
Dear Edward S,
Would you please give this a read and let me know if you’d bring this to
the attention of your community and to the media? Many blessings, Rabbi
Michael Lerner RabbiLerner@tikkun.org
There is no New Anti-Semitism
by Rabbi Michael Lerner
The N.Y. Times reported on January 31 about the most recent attempt by the
American Jewish Community to conflate intense criticism of Israel with
anti-Semitism. In a neat little example of slippery slope, the report on
“Progressive Jewish Thought and the New Anti-Semitism” written by Alvin H.
Rosenfeld moves from exposing the actual anti-Semitism of those who deny
Israel’s right to exist-and hence deny to the Jewish people the same right
to national self-determination that they grant to every other people on
the planet (the anti-war group International Answer is a good example of
that, though Rosenfeld doesn’t cite them)-to those who powerfully and
consistently attack Israel’s policies toward Palestinians, see Israel as
racist the way that it treats Israeli-Arabs (or even Sephardic Jews), or
who analogize Israel’s policies to those of apartheid as instituted by
South Africa.
The Anti-Defamation League sponsored a conference on this same topic in
San Francisco on Jan.28, conspicuously failing to invite Tikkun, Jewish
Voices for Peace and Brit Tzedeck ve Shalom, the three major Jewish voices
critiquing Israeli policy yet also strong supporters of Israel’s security.
Meanwhile, the media has been abuzz with stories of Jews denouncing former
President Jimmy Carter for his book Palestine: Peace or Apartheid. The
same charges of anti-Semitism that have consistently been launched against
anyone who criticizes Israeli policy is now being launched against the one
American leader who managed to create a lasting (albeit cold) peace
between Israel and a major Arab state (Egypt). Instead of seriously
engaging with the issues raised (e.g. to what extent are Israel’s current
policies similar to those of apartehid and to what extent are they not?)
the Jewish establishment and media responds by attacking the people who
raise these or any other critiques–shifting the discourse to the
legitimacy of the messenger and thus avoiding the substance of the
criticisms. Knowing this, many people become fearful that they too will be
labeled “anti-Semitic” if they question the wisdom of Israeli policies or
if they seek to organize politically to challenge those policies.
Yet there is nothing “new” about this or about this alleged anti-Semitism
that these mainstream Jewish voices seek to reveal. From the moment I
started Tikkun Magazine twenty years ago as “the liberal alternative to
Commentary and the voices of Jewish conservatism and spiritual deadness in
the organized Jewish community” our magazine has been attacked in much of
the organized Jewish community as “self-hating Jews” (though our editorial
advisory board contains some of the most creative Jewish theologians,
rabbis, Israeli peace activist and committed fighters for social justice).
The reason? We believe that Israeli policy toward Palestinians, manifested
most dramatically in the Occupation of the West Bank for what will soon be
forty years and in the refusal of Israel to take any moral responsibility
for its part in the creation of the Arab refugee problem, is immoral,
irrational, self-destructive, a violation of the highest values of the
Jewish people, and a serious impediment to world peace.
What the Jewish establishment organizations have done is to make invisible
the strong roots in Judaism for a different kind of policy. The most
frequently repeated injunction in Torah are variations of the following
command: “Do not oppress the stranger (the ‘other’). Remember that you
were strangers in the land of Egypt.” Instead, the Jewish establishment
has turned Judaism into a cheer-leading religion for a particular national
state that has a lot of Jews, but has seriously lost site of the Jewish
values which early Zionists hoped would find realization there.
The impact of the silencing of debate about Israeli policy on Jewish life
has been devastating. We at Tikkun are constantly encountering young Jews
who say that they can no longer identify with their Jewishness, because
they have been told that their own intuitive revulsion at watching the
Israeli settlers with IDF support violate the human rights of Palestinian
civilians in the West Bank or their own questioning of Israel’s right to
occupy the West Bank are proof that they are “self-hating Jews.” The
Jewish world is driving away its own young.
But the most destructive impact of this new Jewish Political Correctness
is on American foreign policy debates. We at Tikkun have been involved in
trying to create a liberal alternative to AIPAC and the other
Israel-can-do-no-wrong voices in American politics. When we talk to
Congressional representatives who are liberal or even extremely
progressive on every other issue, they tell us privately that they are
afraid to speak out about the way Israeli policies are destructive to the
best interests of the United States or the best interests of world
peace-lest they too be labeled anti-Semitic and anti-Israel. If it can
happen to Jimmy Carter, some of them told me recently, a man with
impeccable moral credentials, then no one is really politically safe.
When this bubble of repression of dialogue explodes into open resentment
at the way Jewish Political correctness has been imposed, it may really
yield a “new” anti-Semitism. To prevent that, the voices of dissent on
Israeli policy must be given the same national exposure in the media and
American politics that the voices of the Jewish establishment have been
given.
We hope that the creation of our INTEFAITH Network of Spiritual
Progressives (NSP at www.spiritualprogressives.org) can provide a safe
context for this kind of discussion among the many Christians, Muslims,
Unitarians, Hindus, Buddhists and secular-but-not-religious people who
share some of the criticisms of Israel and who will eventually try to
challenge the kind of anti-Semitism that might be released against Jews
once the resentment about Jewish Political Correctness on Israel does
explode. Even better if we could succeed in creating a powerful
alternative to AIPAC. Unfortunately, that path is not so easy. When we
approached some of the Israel peace groups to form an alliance with us to
build the alternative to AIPAC we found that the hold of the Jewish
Establishment was so powerful that it had managed to seep into the brains
of people in organizations like Americans for Peace Now (NOT the Israeli
group Peace Now which has been very courageous), Brit Tzedeck ve’Shalom
and the Israel Policy Forum or the Religious Action Center of the Reform
movement–and as a result these peace voices are continually fearful that
they will be “discredited” if they align with each other and with us to
create this alternative to AIPAC. Meanwhile, while they look over their
right shoulders fearfully, the very people that they fear will “discredit”
them for aligning with each other and with us are ALREADY discrediting
them as much as they possibly can.
Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun (www.tikkun.org), author of the
2006 NY Times best-seller The Left Hand of God (Harper San Francisco), and
national chair of the Network of Spiritual Progressives
(www.spiritualprogressives.org). RabbiLerner@tikkun.org … web:
http://www.tikkun.org email: community@tikkun.org
Copyright © 2005 Tikkun Magazine. Tikkun® is a registered trademark.
2342 Shattuck Avenue, #1200, Berkeley, CA 94704
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