Leading American Zionist Now Says, “In Every Way, Israel Has Failed.”

Israel is “a failure,” the Zionist dream has “curdled into Jewish selfishness,” a major Jewish leader writes in an important article in Tikkun (Feb. 23, 2016). “After a life and career devoted to the Jewish community and to Israel, I conclude that in every important way, Israel has failed to realize its promise for me,” states Rabbi David Gordis.

Gordis is a former executive at the American Jewish Committee, former president of Hebrew College and a former vice president of the Jewish Theological Seminary. He is now a Senior Scholar at the State University of New York at Albany.

From Israel’s creation, Gordis writes, he believed in Israel but that the spiral of that society into occupation and Jewish particularism has caused him to change his mind. It is, in his view, a political, spiritual and religious failure: “Israel is distorted by a fanatic, obscurantist and fundamentalist religion which encourages the worst behavior rather than the best.”

His indictment includes American Jewish leaders: “The establishment leadership in the American Jewish community is silent in the face of this dismal situation, and there are no recognizable trends that can move Israel out of this quagmire.”

Gordis writes: “The Israel of today is very far from anything I dreamed of and worked for throughout my career … On the positive side, Israel’s accomplishments have been remarkable. Israel has created a thriving economy, and has been a refuge for hundreds of thousands of the displaced and the needy. Israel has generated a rich and diverse cultural life and its scientific and educational achievements have been exemplary. In spite of these achievements, however, Israel in my view has gone astray. And it is in the area for which Israel was created, as a Jewish state, embodying and enhancing Jewish values, that I see this failure.”

Israel’s occupation of the West Bank is nearing a half century in duration, notes Gordis, and Prime Minister Netanyahu’s “facts on the ground” steps “make a two-state solution impossible … and there still appears to be no significant opposition to these policies in Israel itself. A number of smaller organizations supporting a two-state solution have emerged, notably J Street and Americans for Peace Now, but recent steps by the Israeli government to delegitimize these groups are proceeding. The bottom line as I see it: the Right has triumphed. The left has been defeated.”

Gordis writes that, “Present day Israel has discarded the rational, the universal, and the visionary. These values have been subord¬inated to cruel and oppressive occupation, an emphatic materialism, severe inequalities rivaling the worst in the Western world, and distorted by a fanatic obscurantism and fundamentalist religion which encourages the worst behaviors rather than the best.”

“Most depressing of all,” declares Gordis, “is that I see no way out, no way forward which will reverse the current reality. Right wing control in Israel is stronger and more entrenched than ever. The establishment leadership in the American Jewish community is silent in the face of this dismal situation, and there are no recognizable trends that can move Israel out of this quagmire … Israel has failed to realize its promise for me. A noble experiment, but a failure.”

Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of Tikkun, says he published the article as submitted by Gordis because he shares his views: “We publish it with the same sadness that Gordis expresses at the end of this article, because many of us at Tikkun magazine shared the same hopes he expresses for an Israel that would make Jews proud by becoming an embodiment of what is best in Jewish tradition, history and ethics, rather than a manifestation of all the psychological and spiritual damage that has been done to our people, which now acts as an oppressor to the Palestinian people.”

In Israel, Haaretz columnist Chemi Shalev decries “the deafening silence of most American Jews in response to the waves of chauvinistic anti-democratic legislation and incitement in which Israel is increasingly drowning. The authoritarian campaign includes legislative assaults on free speech, incitement against dissenters, the withholding of govern¬ment funds for regulatory measures against and greater government control over television and other media, compulsory changes to school curricula, reinforced Orthodox hegemony over religious affairs, and repeated attacks on the Arab minority.” •