Jews Should Join the Debate about Israel, Not Just Defend It, Declares The Economist

In an article entitled “Israel and the Jews; Diaspora Blues,” The Economist of London (Jan. 13, 2007) declares: “What is a Jewish state for, and what should it be like? Jews have been debating that for 200 years. Even today, with Israel already 58 years old and taken for granted by most of the rest of the world, they still cannot agree ... In Israel secular Jews found Israeliness a handy substitute for religious observance. Some religious Jews, for their part, revived the previously fringe creed of messianic Zionism, holding that to settle in all the biblical land — including the lands Israel captured after 1967 is a God-given duty ... Meanwhile, diaspora Jews have developed an even more eclectic mix of Jewish culture and attitudes to Zionism. And that is partly because, as the threat of genocide or of Israel’s destruction has receded, a growing number of diaspora Jews neither feel comfortable with always standing up for Israel, nor feel a need to invoke Israel in defining what makes them Jewish.”

At the same time, The Economist notes, “...the big Jewish diaspora institutions have not caught up. Their relationship to Israel is still based mainly around supporting it in times of crisis and defending it from critics. This is true of the big umbrella groups for Jewish communities, but especially so of the pro-Israel lobby groups in America, formed to influence American foreign policy in Israel’s favor. Often these lobbies have ended up representing not Israel but its right-wing political establishment, with American defenders of Israel accusing critics of being ‘anti- Semitic’ for saying things that are commonplace in Israel’s own internal debate.”

This attitude persists, in The Economist’s view, “because the lazy way to defend Israel is to suggest that its critics, even legitimate ones, are anti-Semites; and partly because the pro-Israel lobbies have formed an unholy alliance with evangelical Christian groups who believe, like the religious Zionists, that the ingathering of the Jewish exiles will bring forward Judgment Day. In their fervor, these evangelical Christians are more uncompromisingly Zionist than most Jews. That they also believe that Judgment Day will entail the destruction of Israel and the deaths of a great many Jews does not seem to bother the Jewish lobbies; that, after all, is the theology of the future, and their job is the politics of today. This knee-jerk defensiveness of Israel does not help the Jewish diaspora, at least in terms of keeping young Jews from leaving the faith. Some find the uncritical attitude to Israel distasteful; others simply find Israel irrelevant. Some strike out on their own, finding new and creative ways to explore their Judaism. But many are simply drifting away.”

Beyond this, argues The Economist, “The tendency to stand by Israel right or wrong brings a second problem. It locks diaspora Jews out of the fateful and often bitter debates that rage inside Israel itself. Israel is an increasingly divided society. Secular and religious Jews used to have more beliefs in common ... but for decades their interests have been diverging. They disagree on most basic questions: borders, who is a Jew, the role of religion, the status of non-Jews ... Helping Israel should no longer mean defending it uncritically. Israel is strong enough to cope with strong words from its friends. So diaspora institutions should, for example, feel free to criticize Israeli politicians who preach racism and intolerance, such as recently appointed cabinet minister Avigdor Lieberman. They should encourage lively debate about Israeli policies. Perhaps more will then add their voices to those of the millions of Israelis who believe in leaving the occupied territories so that Palestinians can have a state of their own, allowing an Israel at peace to return to its original vocation of providing a safe and democratic haven for the world’s Jews.”

The Economist concludes: “Israelis may still speak of the gola; but the Jews who fled to the Hellenistic world after the destruction of Jerusalem’s Second Temple in 70 AD deliberately adopted the Greek word diaspora, ‘dispersal,’ because it was more neutral. ‘Diasporism’ — the idea that Jews are better off outside the Holy Land — is a tradition that began with the prophet Jeremiah and still exists among a few ultra-Orthodox Jews. But increasingly, today’s young Jews see the future not as a choice between Zion and exile, but as a fruitful fusion of both.”