Israel Forum Panel Asks, “Does the Jewish State Have a Future?”

By Jane Adas


Tony Judt at an April 20 Israel Forum panel (staff photo J. Adas).

TONY JUDT’S article, “Israel: The Alternative,” in the New York Review of Books last October, and circulated widely on the Internet, generated a storm of controversy. To address issues raised by the ensuing debate, the Israel Forum sponsored an April 20 discussion at Columbia University on “Does the Jewish State Have a Future? Debating Israel in America.” Joining Judt, director of New York University’s Remarque Institute, were Israeli author and historian Amos Elon; Raef Zreik, an Israeli Palestinian lawyer associated with Adalah, the Legal Center for Arab Minority Rights in Israel; and Prof. Alan Brinkley, provost of Columbia University.

Judt began by saying that, contrary to the impressions of some of his critics, he was neither suggesting Israel should disappear nor promoting an alternative to the Jewish state. Instead, his article asked what kind of state Israel is becoming, and poses three options facing it. The first is that Israel return to its 1967 borders and remain a Jewish democratic state (the two-state solution). The second option is that Israel incorporate all the occupied territory, but no longer be a Jewish state (the one-state solution). The third is that Israel keep all the territory but, in order to remain a Jewish state, ethnically cleanse the Palestinians.

Since Judt’s article appeared, President Bush, notwithstanding international law, has backed Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon’s unilateral plan to withdraw from Gaza in return for Israel retaining several large settlement blocs in the West Bank and East Jerusalem. Those settlements, Judt said, will never be removed and will continue to expand—making the first option, as well as a viable Palestinian state, impossible. The third option, he noted, in addition to being repugnant, might also be impossible because the two peoples and the one-and-a-half economies are too interwoven to separate. This leaves the one-state solution, Judt said.

Perhaps the most contentious statement in his October article was that “Zionism is an anachronism.” This referred, he explained, to Israel’s self-definition as an ethno-state of all Jews everywhere. Such a definition not only makes Israel unique, Judt argued, but leads to pathologies that are a curse both within Israel and on its defenders. The consequence, he said, is that Israel is bad for Jews. If Israeli leaders purport to speak for all Jews, then why should they be surprised when Jews elsewhere are attacked?

Judt cited as an example of pathological thinking Israeli cabinet minister Effie Eitan’s speech in London last March. Addressing the “demographic shortfall” of Jews within Israel, Eitan suggested allowing non-Israeli Jews to vote in Israeli elections and government-provided “relocation packages” for Arabs.

Judt said his article would not have been published in Israel because Israelis consider the topic too banal. It could have been published in England or France, he said, but would only have confirmed already held views. Only in the U.S. was it controversial. Judt described Israel as an almost wholly subsidized client state of the U.S., yet, he noted, the U.S. has a self-inflicted impotence vis-à-vis Israel. According to Judt, a British Jew, the silence in the U.S. on the topic of Israel corrodes public discourse. It has resulted in what he described as “breathtaking American ignorance” about how the U.S. is in no way perceived as an honest broker, and about how important the Israel/Palestine issue is to the rest of the world.

The Jewish community in the U.S. is the most prosperous and secure in history, Judt noted, yet it is dominated in space by Israel and in time by the Holocaust. He quoted David Frum, the former Bush speechwriter who coined the phrase “axis of evil,” as saying that to suggest Israel not be a Jewish state is the “moral equivalent of genocide.” Judt accused American supporters of Israel of exaggerating to the point of mischief the extent of anti-Semitism in the rest of the world, in spite of the fact that a 2003 B’nai B’rith survey found that there is far more discrimination against Arabs than against Jews. American Jews who justify Israel’s human rights violations do so from “an appalling ignorance of the situation,” which Judt maintained is abetted by self-censorship in the U.S. media. America, he concluded, is entering an age of zealotry and conformity where public space is shutting down.

Amos Elon still favors a two-state solution, but fears Sharon and Bush may have pre-empted the possibility. Suggesting that it is either too late or too early for a binational state, he added that it is almost a law that the weaker party opts for the one-state solution. Herzl and other early Zionists wanted a binational state when Jews were a minority in Palestine, he noted, and prior to the Oslo process, the PLO promoted one secular democratic state. Before a single state is possible, however, Elon said, the two sides must first divorce. They must sort out their own pathologies and disentangle themselves from what Elon characterized as the fanatic morons on both sides.

Raef Zriek credited Israeli historian Benny Morris for saying forthrightly that the idea of a Jewish national state was always unthinkable without the displacement and destruction of Palestinian culture. The West Bank and Gaza effectively are inside Israel, Zriek argued—Israelis can live and build there, use the water and other resources. The Green Line appears only when Israel wishes to avoid its obligations toward Palestinians.

Zriek maintained that there exists a fourth option, which he described as the basis for the Oslo process: to create a situation where the Palestinian Authority is responsible for the people while Israel controls the land. The Palestinian “state” can have a flag and stamps, but no control over resources, land or borders, much as Iraq can have sovereignty so long as the U.S. controls the oil.Such, Zriek said, is the logic of separation. What is altogether missing, he said, is the ethical dimension and the recognition that it is a mutual problem for both peoples.

To listen to this event online, please click here.

Rami Khouri Discusses U.S., Arab Media in Time of War


	Daily Star editor Rami Khouri (staff photo J. Adas).

Rami Khouri, executive editor of Beirut’s Daily Star newspaper, spoke on “Embedded or Enraged: a critical view of the U.S. and Arab media in a time of war” at the City University of New York on April 15.

The media issues at stake are not new, he noted, but have grown more intense, and peaked in the last two years. As news has become more commercially driven, Khouri argued, it caters to public opinion in order to get a market share of the audience to attract advertisers. No longer about information or holding public officers accountable, Khouri said, it has become entertainment—and gone from Walter Cronkite to Michael Jackson.

Related to this, Khouri added, is the segmentation of the media. In the past, news services tried to reach wide audiences. Today, however, programs target specific segments of the population. The Jordanian journalist cited as an example Fox News, whose viewers may never be made aware that conflicting narratives exist.

Because of the huge imbalance in economic and military assets between the Arab world and the U.S., Khouri identified the media as almost the only level battlefield where there is some parity, where Arabs can respond to the U.S. in their own language. Media, therefore, has become an instrument of warfare, he stated. The U.S. government, in addition to manipulating public opinion through spin doctoring and “background briefings,” has targeted the media—sometimes literally. Officials at the highest level, such as Secretary of Defense Donald Rumsfeld, regularly accuse the Arab media of incitement.

The U.S. also has responded by spending millions of dollars to create its own Arabic-language media: Radio Sawa, which offers pop music and “news,” al-Hurra television, and Hi magazine. This, however, is a wasted attempt, in Khouri’s opinion, because it is based on an incorrect analysis of the problem, which is the contradiction between American values and policy. If Arabs understood good American values, Khouri said, they would get even angrier because they would see them undermined by bad policies.

Khouri described the U.S. and Arab media as mirror images of each other, both pandering to their own public. He acknowledged that al-Jazeera, for example, goes out of its way to report civilian casualties, especially of children, and the destruction of homes. These are not manufactured images, he stressed, but emphasizing them reflects a clear ideological line, just as the U.S. uses media to promote an image of its goodness. Both sides are reflecting public opinion, he argued, rather than leading or informing it.

In both the Arab world and in the U.S., Khouri said, what drives policy, public opinion and media is what he called an unprecedented convergence of motivating factors: fear, anger, revenge, and extremist ideologies combined with the willingness to kill many. Khouri said he senses that both George W. Bush and Osama bin Laden view the conflict as an existential battle. When both men speak of “good versus evil,” he explained, they are expressing a fantasy world. Both Bush and bin Laden are massively rejected in world opinion polls as ideologically extreme and morally unacceptable.

On both sides, according to Khouri, the media are in reactionary modes. Many in the U.S., including in the government, believe there is a global Islamic strategy, he noted, while Arabs see the U.S. engaged in a neo-colonial project to take over the Arab world. Both are professionally delinquent, he said, in exploring the full context and underlying reasons for what is going on. Khouri said he has never seen such a massive collective dereliction of duty. Neither side addresses the critical issues of why: Why was the U.S. attacked? Why did the U.S. invade Iraq? Why is there so much anger directed against the U.S.?

The biggest weakness on the part of the U.S., Khouri said, is an almost total inability to examine whether its actions, such as unqualified support for Israel or Bush’s divine mission to bring freedom to the world, contribute to anti-American resentment. For its part, he noted, the Arab world has failed to examine the root causes of violence, both against its own people and against foreigners.

The U.S. is wonderful for Americans, Khouri explained, but a problem for the rest of the world, especially as the sole superpower. It can’t see that its policies deal with the world as “markets or targets,” or that the world doesn’t want the U.S. to come make them free. What the world wants, Khouri concluded, is for the U.S. to be a law-abiding country. And, he added, people want dignity.

Donald Wagner Addresses PAC Banquet on Christian Zionism


Donald Wagner, author of Anxious for Armageddon (staff photo J. Adas).

Donald Wagner, the keynote speaker at the Palestinian American Congress annual banquet in Newark on April 25, describes himself as one of 80 million to 100 million American evangelical Christians. About 20 percent of these, he said—perhaps 20 million—are fundamentalist Christian Zionists. Wagner, formerly national director of the Palestinian Human Rights Campaign, is definitely not among them. In fact, he considers Christian Zionism a heresy that has emptied Christianity of its message of love in favor of idolatry of militarism and the nation state.

As Wagner explained, Christian Zionism actually predates Jewish political Zionism. It began in England around 1800, he said, another centennial year. After the American and French revolutions, some Christians turned to the Bible from a conservative, literalist perspective. John Nelson Darby founded a movement called “Dispensationalism,”and preached that the Bible predicts “end times,” which will be heralded by the ingathering of all the Jews in the world to Israel. That would be followed by the Rapture, the rise of the Antichrist, the Battle of Armageddon, and the end of the world.

Wagner pointed out that Lord Balfour and Prime Minister Lloyd George were Christian Zionists who considered that Zionist leader Chaim Weizmann had been sent to them by God. The first Christian Zionist conference supporting a Jewish state in Israel took place in 1890, seven years before the Basle conference.

Christian Zionism was slower to take root in the U.S., Wagner said, but after the creation of Israel in 1948, some conservative Christians believed that the clock of prophecy had been set in motion—an attitude that seemed confirmed by the 1967 war. In Christian Zionist eschatology, the next steps that must take place are total Jewish jurisdiction over Jerusalem, the destruction of the Mosque and the Dome of the Rock, and the building of the third temple.

Israel has taken advantage of Christian Zionist fervor, Wagner told his audience, describing two factors that turned Israeli attention to fundamentalist Christians: in the 1970s Israel was losing support from mainline churches, while at the same time charismatic churches were rapidly growing; and in the 1990s financial support from American Jews was declining due to tensions between Orthodox Israeli Jews and Reform and Conservative American Jews.

Among the organizations formed to promote what Wagner described as a mutually exploitative alliance were the International Fellowship of Christians and Jews, and the Israel Christian Advocacy Council, convened by former Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu. The relationship has benefitted Israel, Wagner said, and gentiles may now contribute more private financial support to Israel than American Jews.

During his father’s 1992 presidential campaign, George W. Bush was assigned to deliver the vote of the Christian right—a difficult task, given Bush Sr.’s decision to freeze Israel’s request for $10 billion in loan guarantees. Bush Jr. failed—but, according to Wagner, learned an important lesson: it is necessary to have both Jewish and conservative Christian support, and that requires never criticizing Israel. In the 2000 election, Wagner noted, 40 percent of Bush’s votes came from evangelical Christians.

Since 9/11, the alliance between fundamentalist Christians and the pro-Israel lobby has been widened to include the neoconservatives—whom Wagner described as having captured the right wing of the Republican Party—and multinational construction firms, such as Haliburton. They are now at the peak of their power, Wagner said, and must be challenged. He suggested that Christians form alliances with Muslims and progressive Jews, and work to wake up the churches in order to liberate Israelis from Zionism and Palestinians and Iraqis from occupation.

Jane Adas is a free-lance writer based in the New York City metropolitan area.