29 December 2014

Jonathan Freedland and the liberal Zionists' support: thanks but no thanks

An open letter (of the kind not to be read and answered, most probably). Still - a kind of a letter and definitely very open.


Jonathan Freedland aka Sam Bourne is a journalist and a writer of eminence and, to be stated clearly outright, a supporter of Israel's right to exist. Which is not saying much, apparently, if you look closely at the way Jonathan - and many other so called "liberal Zionists" in UK and elsewhere - support Israel. If the article Liberal Zionism After Gaza, penned by Jonathan on July 26, 2014, in the midst of the latest war in Gaza, nicknamed Operation Protective Edge, to be a witness to that support.

It is a good thing the article fell (electronically speaking) in my hands with a delay of several months. With a perfect hindsight, in July I would have said and written a few words I may have been loath to repeat today. As it is, even today I have to summarize my (and other Israelis') reading of the article in the following sentence: "Yeah, I am a liberal Zionist and I am kinda supposed to support you all out there, but I am fucking tired of your shenanigans and of what the goyim say about you all, so why don't you simply curl up and die quietly already?"



The article in question starts with a sentence that is already highly contentious: "Never do liberal Zionists feel more torn than when Israel is at war." Normally, if there is a good time to be torn by doubts and to criticize the Zionist Entity, I would say it is during peace time, much better suited to exchange of opinions, to debates and to open eyes, ears and hearts. But no, Jonathan feels otherwise, setting the tone of the article from the word go.

Now comes one of the key statements to be quoted (but to be discussed later):
Even during the grim chain of events that led to this episode, liberal Zionists found themselves facing both ways, switching direction day-by-day, even hour-by-hour.
Now we can proceed to this:
Of course, they, like everyone else, condemned the brutal June kidnapping of three Israeli teenagers on the West Bank, an act immediately blamed on the Hamas leadership (falsely so, it later turned out: the kidnapping was, in fact, the work of a local “lone cell,” acting without authorization).
The statement is based on such an authoritative source (in the link) as some Buzzfeed reporter Sheera Frenkel:
Citing Palestinian sources and experts in the field, Frenkel reported that kidnapping three Israeli teens would be a foolish move for Hamas.
I can't blame Jonathan for repeating what sounded like truth at the moment and later turned out to be wrong, no matter what kind of speculations appear in that NYMAG article Jonathan used. But his unwillingness to wait and his readiness to repeat crappy sources that whitewash Hamas... no, a journalist of his stature should know better.

Further on, the curious switching of positions, already mentioned in the quote above, is stressed again (unwittingly or otherwise):
This constantly dual posture—defense of Israel paired with horror at the violation of liberal values—only became more pronounced as the military operation gathered steam.
Eventually things came to a head for me with this passage:
But the first week of Protective Edge produced awkward statistics. The Palestinian death toll kept climbing while Israel’s remained stubbornly at zero. (Israel’s first casualty came on July 15.)
Now is the time to remember that it's an open letter and to call upon its subject: what is it you really want, Jonathan? That we produce a dead Jew for every dead Arab to make your liberal Zionist soul feel better? Your weather-vane - like consciousness has to be carefully balanced by the "proportional" number of deaths on both sides? What is it in the definition of the word "war" that applies to all other people and doesn't apply to Israelis that you know and we don't understand? Please share it, feel free.

Jonathan is, actually, sharing some of it in the rest of that article. Like this:
For Zionists of the right, repeating these arguments came easily. But liberal Zionists felt conflicted. A death rate that saw civilians account for four out of every five Palestinians killed—and that by July 25, according to the UN, included nearly 200 children—was hard to defend.
No matter that these numbers appeared to be lies later - the readiness to accept the numbers coming from Hamas via UN is telling. The liberal Zionists were made uncomfortable - again! And another good reason for the liberal Zionists to wring hands:
In continental Europe there is another dimension. Defending Israel when Israel is killing civilians by the hundred now exacts a very direct price. In Paris, protests against the war in Gaza spilled over into anti-Jewish violence, with chants of “Death to the Jews” and the attempted storming of two synagogues. In Berlin, an Israeli tourist was attacked during a Gaza-related demonstration.
Jew-haters of Europe, you see, got another pretext to beat up some Jews - and the weather-vane swings around again.

Then comes a confession:
So there is a weariness in the liberal Zionist fraternity.
We can definitely see it. And more:
When Israelis and Palestinians appear fated to fight more frequently and with ever-bloodier consequences, and when peace initiatives seem to be utopian pipe-dreams doomed to fail, the liberal Zionist faces something like an existential crisis. For if there is no prospect of two states, then liberal Zionists will have to do something they resist with all their might. They will have to decide which of their political identities matters more, whether they are first a liberal or first a Zionist. And that is a choice they don’t want to make.
What can I say to you, Jonathan? Much as our dreams about a peace solution and the euphoria brought on by Oslo dissipated in the bloody years of Intifada I, II, ... much as we can blame for it both our own leadership (or the lack of it) and the Palestinians, we can talk about it forever without a clear conclusion. The future, whatever it may be, is uncertain. But let's go back to liberal Zionists and their struggle with the directions of the winds.

Let's take a brief look at what this country is facing:
  • A clear and deep erosion of relationships with our main friend in this world - US of A
  • Gradual but sure worsening of same with European states
  • A growing isolation in the UN, the Dictators Club, where the patients completely took over the asylum
  • A total failure of Israeli (pitiful as it always was) Hasbarah to counter the waves of hate, bigotry and lies produced by the much more numerous and much more financially powerful Muslim propaganda
  • A more and more powerful BDS movement that doesn't do a good work of hiding its eventual goals of dismantling the state of Israel, damn the genocidal consequences
  • More and more successes for anti-Israeli demagoguery on campuses, where the next generation of leaders is being groomed by their leftie professors
  • I don't even want to mention the military threats, existential and otherwise
  • And now a clear beginning of erosion in certain influential circles of Jewish community abroad
And no, I am not trying to say that this here nation and its leaders don't deserve criticism, even severe criticism. Our shit doesn't smell better than that of any other people, I'm certain of it. Please feel free to join us in bashing our many faults and shortcomings.

But, Jonathan, facing all this, what we can do without is the kind of weather-vane behavior you have displayed. This "yes, but..." attitude of our liberal friends in the hour of war eventually becomes a liability instead of an asset, and I hope that you are aware of it. Wringing your hands when the expected number of dead Israelis doesn't materialize is an extreme example of this trait, but you have given enough besides this in one single article to fill a very long books of complaints. And we shouldn't be busy submitting complaints at our brothers and sisters abroad, I suggest. Not now. Not ever, if possible.

The last thing: as if written for this occasion, here is an article by Fred Maroun, a Canadian of Arab origin, who is a more staunch supporter of Israel than many of my Jewish brethren abroad are: Have American Jews Become a Liability to Israel?. While it discusses another group of Diaspora Jews, the lesson is the same. Isn't it, Jonathan?

24 comments:

peterthehungarian said...

Snoopy in Freedland's case you are wasting your time. In his (and comrades) self declared "liberal Zionists" the attribute "liberal" is only a keyword used to keep their lucrative jobs at anti-Zionist/antisemitic media forums like the Guardian. Liberal Zionists are people like me and believe me/us I/we wouldn't piss on Freedland even if he is on fire.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

You know, Freedland had his moments of being quite lucid. He is not a totally lost case, although this specific article may say otherwise. Try to search this blog for Freedland and you shall see some mixed results.

peterthehungarian said...

Let's agree that we disagree. Mixed results in his case (and similar cases) are not good enough according to my liberal Zionist worldview.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Ach, Peter, now you are being relentless ;-)

peterthehungarian said...

I have my weaknesses Snoopy...

peterthehungarian said...

Seriously speaking - I have zero problem with his kind writing in Israel/Jewish friendly papers/blogs like Tablet or similar. But when they reel off their list of woes regarding Israel in openly hostile media giving them the "we are not against Jews/Israel - see the writer is Jewish" credibility then my shit detector goes out of range.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Oh, you are right in general. As for Freedland, he is not known to open his articles with "I as a Jew...".

But of course, that central sentence I quoted, about zero casualties on our side, was a bit more than a normal person could bear.

David Sigeti said...

@peterthehungarian, as another self-identified "liberal Zionist" (and an Hungarian Jew by descent, to boot), I heartily agree.

BTW, in Texas, where I lived for many years, we spoke more elaborately, saying, "I wouldn't piss on him if his guts were on fire."

peterthehungarian said...

He doesn't need to say this Snoopy, everybody knows it. He says "As-a-liberal-Zionist" and everybody gets the point.

peterthehungarian said...

The Hungarian version: "Azzal a féltéglával szeretném fejbeverni amivel a mellét döngeti..."
I want to hit him with the same brick in the head which he is using for his chest banging (Sorry for the Google translation)

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Aha... Árpád is going to take over these here pages, I see. No escape. I can envision other commenters with their guts on fire already ;-)

SnoopyTheGoon said...

OK. I surrender this point.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Here it goes...

peterthehungarian said...

Hungarians have good heart - they will piss on them if they are not Guardinista liberal Zionists.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Understood ;-)

David Sigeti said...

My father once told me that, "they have words for things in Hungarian that we do not even think about in English." This was after he taught me what is apparently the most common curse in Hungarian, which does not have any special words, but certainly invokes something that we are unlikely to think about in English.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

You know, when I see a text in Hungarian, half of the words seem to me to be some extremely elaborated curses... same happens when I hear the spoken language.

InRussetShadows said...

For me the admission that stood out the most was the weathervane bit; I can't imagine how much his life must suck if he treats all incoming data as if it were valid. Where is his common sense? Why can't he figure out that Palestinian sources (and the mass media that relies upon them) are not accurate?

SnoopyTheGoon said...

I would say it is acceptance out of convenience. It goes against his place of employment unwritten policy - to disbelieve what matches its general political line.

Akaky said...

Snoop, Israel's relationship with the USA is not eroding; its relationship with the former junior senator from Illinois has eroded, largely because the former junior senator from Illinois is an oaf, a clown, a poltroon, and a jackass. I suspect that liberal Zionism, especially when it comes from the Diaspora, will be more liberal than Zionist, and exists largely to give the peanut gallery a heckler's veto on what goes on in Israel. As you mentioned in another context, this is the metaphorical difference between the pig and the chicken in the ham and egg sandwich; the chicken has an interest in what's going on, whereas the pig is totally committed. As for July 26, 2014, that was my birthday, an event I celebrated by contracting the norovirus, and so I missed this bit of liberal Zionist world weariness. There is nothing like having to make a beeline to the toilet on a more or less constant basis to to make the cares of liberal Zionists seem small and unimportant. Really. If you want to put anything in its proper perspective, try the norovirus. It works every time.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Akaky, you are probably right at that, which means that we should just be patient for another two years and hope that a more sympathetic person will get into that job.

And you are definitely right about the lib Zs...

One thing I dare to criticize you for is your uncanny ability to capture all kinds of passing viruses, no matter how high or far they are passing. I have a character like that in my own family and I know that mere persuasion doesn't work. So just get out of this habit for 2015, please.

David All said...

Yes, this guy sets a new definition for fair weather friend. He really does fit the wishy washy example of somebody trying to be all things to all people. I am a liberal Zionist, I suppose, and I supported the war against Hamas in the Gaza Strip. I do not take delight from civilians killed, but I blame them on Hamas, not Israel. I do not support everything Israel does, such as the West Bank settlements, though I do agree that Palestinian refusal to recognize the State of Israel, not the settlements are the real obstacle to peace.

PS: I realize this is all very late and I apologize for not posting this earlier, but Happy Hannukah, Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone here at Simply Jews.

David All said...

Please be careful about thinking liberal Jews

in America are as fair weather friends as this one. You will alienate a lot of people by assuming all your friends are on the Right and not on the Left or Center. Demographically the future favors the Democrats, not the Republicans. Remember the Republicans have only won one Presidential election, in 2004, in the last 25 years.

SnoopyTheGoon said...

Thanks, David, for all the good wishes, and the same back to you.

As for the coloring all liberal Zionists by the same brush - you are right, I don't usually generalize, and I know that there are liberals and then there are liberals. And I know that not all the right wing people support Israel.

All the best.