Mondoweiss

'Haaretz' runs a piece on anti-Zionist Marc Ellis, when will the 'NYT' get there?

Haaretz runs Glenn Altschuler's fair review, in the sense of giving the author lots of space, of Marc Ellis's new book, Judaism does not equal Israel (alongside the new Einstein book on his opposition to religious nationalism):

Ellis insists that the equation of Israeli and Palestinians "sins" and "rights" distorts "the historical reality." In 1948, he claims, the Israelis were the aggressors, but it is they who now hold a monopoly on power. To restore their precious ethical traditions, "Israelis and their Jewish enablers in America" must confess their sins against the Palestinian people. He hopes, as well, for an admission that the two-state solution "is a fraud." Ellis advocates one state (with Arabs and Jews living together), and the return of Palestinian refugees to their homes and villages in pre-1967 Israel.

Acknowledging that Israel is not likely "to reverse its expansionist course," Ellis ends with mourning - and a warning. No state, he writes, apocalyptically, can exercise power over others indefinitely. As the day of reckoning nears, the children of Israel "will encounter such hollowness at the core of Jewish identity that their distance from things Jewish will increase until, incrementally, the core disappears" and Jewish affiliation dwindles "to the point of no return."

Mourning can be a sign of hope, in which God returns or doesn't, Ellis emphasizes, rather abstractly. And "too late can be right on time - when the time is right." For now, though, he?s a self-proclaimed prophet in exile. His book is often over the top, but Ellis's concerns about the ethical obligations of the State of Israel are, at times, worth listening to, even by those with a powerful urge to doubt, dismiss or destroy him

goody goody gumdrops

set the alarm clock: December 2010.

It's time for Yivo to host a debate with Walt and Mearsheimer

There's a new director at Yivo Institute for Jewish Research. A guy from the Yale Press, Jonathan Brent.

On a few occasions on this site I have challenged Yivo, which conducted a smearfest of Walt and Mearsheimer in 2007, during which they were repeatedly denounced as the second coming of Father Coughlin, to invite these non-Jewish scholars of Jewish history to the Yivo stage to defend their position. Now that David Harris of the American Jewish Committee has baited Mearsheimer to debate, then run from the debate, it ups the ante for Yivo to do the right thing.

There is other pressure on Yivo. A year ago, Jeffrey Goldberg, one of the participants in the Yivo monsters' ball, all but recanted his position, blaming the Israel lobby for the settlements program. Other events have underlined the truth of Walt and Mearsheimer's position: the rise of J Street, as an alternative, inside the Jewish community; and Obama's repeated efforts to trianguate Jewish leadership with a push on the two-state-solution. Not an Arab or Palestinian in sight. No power.

If Jonathan Brent is at all alive to this Jewish moment (in a word, power), he will invite Walt and Mearsheimer to New York.

American Jewish C'tee enjoys slagging off critics, then refusing them a platform to respond

Yesterday John Mearsheimer wrote that David Harris of the American Jewish Committee was refusing his offer to debate him, after Harris had accused Mearsheimer of running from debate. I wrote to Harris's aide, Ben Cohen, today, but have heard nothing. It seems this is not the only case of the AJC liking to slag its critics without granting them a platform.
Ben White writes from England:

Playwright David Zellnik on that 'huge figure,' Theodor Herzl

I've been reading Theodor Herzl (1860-1904) because he's the most important political Jew of the last century or so, giving his short life to a heroic, "tragic" cause (his word) that he never saw come to life, a cause I likely would have joined were I a European of the early 1900s. Herzl is also an amazing character: grandiose and literary, with a desolate personal life, he reinvented himself from being a newspaper feature writer to become the king of the Jews in the space of a couple of years, alienating his professional community and beginning a hellbent and unending tour of European and Asian courts, using baksheesh and journalistic connections to try and win anti-Semitic princes to Zionism.

My interest in this character is shared by playwright David Zellnik. Herzl animates Zellnik's (magnificent) play Ariel Sharon Hovers Between Life and Death and Dreams about Theodor Herzl, which I saw in workshop a couple of years back and keep waiting to see performed. I sent Zellnik an email about Herzl to begin a dialogue. He wrote:

Yes, Herzl is a huge figure, one of the most relevant to understanding the current Middle East. I don’t know why his story is so under-known, under-dramatized. There is a lot to wrestle with and a lot to admire - I have great respect for anyone trying to save lives, which he surely tried to do and surely did. And whatever his flaws, you have to give it to him: he saw very clearly that Europe’s Jews were in grave danger. 

My play is, on the whole, sympathetic to him… although the other major character in it is Ariel Sharon, and the play acts as a dialogue between the two – exploring their great differences but also their connection at opposite ends of the Zionist trajectory. And in doing so perhaps confuses some of the audience’s sympathy for Herzl (more on this later).

Herzl is commonly thought of a self-hating Jew/successful journalist who transformed himself into a Zionist prophet – who in the final 9 years of his life created a movement that would lead to the founding of Israel. My play respects this but does 2 things: it shows him as he often thought of himself – as an overlooked playwright – and also argues that his youthful self-hatred was never abandoned, merely reframed.

Herzl the Dramatist
OK, he was a lousy playwright. But the supreme irony is that while his actual plays tended to be shallow bedroom farces, he understood deeply the theatrical nature of politics. For instance, the First Zionist Congress: he made sure the Delegates wore black-tie formal wear, he “set-dressed” the casino it was held in for better press photos… and he dressed himself to look like a major leader. He knew he was operating without any firm support and so aimed to create an illusion of momentum in order to secure a state.

On a deep level he had a playwright’s desire to recast Jews from supporting players into the leads. Look at this quote from the Zionist journal:

Herzl quotation of the day. Anticipated the Balfour Declaration as result of 'money-givers'

NYT swaddles mildly pro-Palestinian view in turgid prose

Today The Times publishes a slightly-negative review of Dennis Ross and David Makovsky's new book on the unending peace process in which reviewer Howard French employs an indirect style that leaves the impression that he wanted to denounce the authors but was afraid to come out and say so. 

[The book's] greatest intellectual energy, however, is expended attacking the so-called realists, who believe, the authors say, that the United States has been “too close to Israel,” and for whom, in what sounds like another overreach, “it is largely inconceivable that Israel could have a case or that the Arabs and Palestinians might not be living up to their side of the bargain.”

The authors go on to denounce “the realist concept of external blueprints, of pressuring Israelis while offering inducements to the Palestinians,” as “strangely divorced from reality.”

The authors rely excessively for foils on John J. Mearsheimer, a political scientist at the University of Chicago, and Stephen M. Walt, a political scientist at Harvard, who wrote “The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy” (2007) and who are cited frequently. But with the warnings in “Myths, Illusions, and Peace” about pressuring Israel, it is hard to avoid the conclusion that the Obama administration’s initial moves in the Middle East would also fall under the authors’ realist banner.

For many readers another issue that will arise is one of balance. Mr. Ross has led a distinguished career that is all the more remarkable for his staying power in Washington during both Democratic and Republican administrations — as a high-level Middle Eastern troubleshooter, envoy and policymaker. (He was recently transferred to the National Security Council.) At virtually no point in this book, however, are Israeli actions depicted as problematic or troublesome.

Translation: He's joined at the hip to the Israel lobby. This explains the staying power.

The closest the authors come to this is a passage describing mounting Palestinian disbelief in the peace process, in which they write, “They saw Israeli obligations under Oslo flouted — prisoners not released, withdrawals not taking place as scheduled, and the status of the territory constantly being changed to Israeli advantage, in effect prejudging the negotiations and their purpose.”

Elsewhere, speaking of an increase in the Israeli settler population on the West Bank from about 5,000 around the time of the Camp David accords in 1977 to over 300,000 now, the authors employ a counterfactual, saying “things could have been different if the Arabs had chosen a more pragmatic course.”

Counterfactuals and relying on foils and the expense of intellectual energy and for many readers and falling under banners... Can you speak English? Or has the lobby got your tongue?

'Commentary' prints a sparkling gem of '50s anti-Semitism, absent the usual moralizing

Naomi Klein in Bil'in: Boycott Israel

Naomi Klein (pictured right with Iyad Burnat of the Bil'in Popular Committee) visited the West Bank village of Bil'in today to voice her support for the weekly demonstrations against the Separation Wall, and to reiterate her support for boycotting Israel. Her visit it timed with the release of her best selling book, The Shock Doctrine, in Israel/Palestine where it is being published in Arabic and Hebrew. During a press conference held under an olive tree near before the weekly protest, Klein explained her support for the boycott:

"It's a boycott of Israeli institutions, it's a boycott of the Israeli economy," the Canadian writer told journalists as she joined a weekly demonstration against Israel's controversial separation wall.

"Boycott is a tactic ...we're trying to create a dynamic which was the dynamic that ultimately ended apartheid in South Africa,"

"It's an extraordinarily important part of Israel's identity to be able to have the illusion of Western normalcy," the Canadian writer and activist said.

"When that is threatened, when the rock concerts don't come, when the symphonies don't come, when a film you really want to see doesn't play at the Jerusalem film festival... then it starts to threaten the very idea of what the Israeli state is."

The Ma'an News Agency reports that Klein was moved to join the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions (BDS) movement because of the Israeli attack on Lebanon in the summer of 2006. Ma'an also explained the creative approach Klein is taking to selling her book in Israel while honoring the boycott:

As a part of her push for a boycott, Klein is donating the royalties her the book to her local publisher, Andalus, which specializes in translating Arabic texts into Hebrew. She is also working closely with Palestine’s Boycott National Committee (BNC), and refusing to cooperate with Israeli state institutions during what she called an “unusual book tour.”

Klein discussed choosing the Andalus publishing house in her January 2009 article in the Nation. In that article she made the important point that the boycott increases debate rather than cutting it off. The difference is that it forces discussion of the issues that must be discussed, but are frequently ignored. She made a similar point today in explaining her book tour,

“We’re rejecting normalization,” Klein said of her Middle East visit, “We’re rejecting the idea that there can be apolitical cocktail parties and book signings while violence like this is taking place so nearby.”

The AFP reports that after the press conference Klein watched as the Israeli military attacked the weekly protest with tear gas. She observed: "'This apartheid, this is absolutely a system of segregation,' Klein said adding that Israeli troops would never crack down as violently against Jewish protesters."

Herzl versus Whitman