There is no inherent contradiction between liberalism and Zionism, but there is an obvious contradiction between liberalism and the Palestinian movement. Why, then, do so many liberals support it?
“Why, then, no leftist handwringing over the inherent contradiction between liberalism and Palestinian nationalism?”
Why indeed…. What a perfect example of the devastating effect of infection with the insidious and constantly mutating antisemitism virus , which turns all working brain cells to mush.
Ezra Klein is a traitor to the Jewish people. Giving Mahmoud Khalil a platform to espouse his nonsense and spew lies. Daniel May is too, conflating the evil ideology of Kahanism with Zionism. There is absolutely no contradiction at all between liberalism and Zionism. Israel was founded not on the Torah or the Hebrew Bible, but on the principle of classical liberalism. Based on liberal and western values. The father of classical liberalism John Stuart Mill in turn believed strongly in uniting the members of one nationality under one flag and one government of their own. He also believed that free institutions were impossible in a country with no clear ethnic majority and full of a bunch of squabbling nationalities. Nationality he explained can be generated by various causes including a shared descent, language, religion, geography, and history. Diverse nations that managed to be successful like Switzerland, exist but are exceedingly rare. The norm in human existence is that for a nation to succeed it must have a strong majority of one nationality. Thus, the David Ben-Gurion quote provided by Ezra Klein backfires on him because Ben-Gurion was absolutely right and acknowledging reality. Mills' case is only boosted by the many historical examples of states with squabbling nationalities that fell apart or are doing quite poorly. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Sudan, the Soviet Union, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon are all examples of this in real life. Furthermore, the founding fathers of Israel always intended it to be Jewish and multicultural state. It would have a Jewish majority, but it wouldn't just be open to Jews. Anyone who wanted to come and live in the future Jewish state. Theodor Herzl outlined this in his 1902 book The Altneuland. This included welcoming the local Arabs into the Jewish state with full equal rights under the law. David Ben-Gurion and Ze'ev Jabotinsky echoed this desire for a Jewish state that would welcome Jews and non-Jews alike.
Klein and May don't have a clue what their talking about. Ben, you have absolutely embarrassed them in this article and anti-Zionists cannot refute what you've written here. Kahanism and Zionism are not the same thing. Kahanism calls for an authoritarian theocratic state that would be for Jews. Thus, it calls for an actual ethnostate. Meir Kahane was a monster and the other side of the coin to someone like Ismail Haniyeh or Yayha Sinwar. He didn't believe in classical liberalism. He sought to expel all Arabs from the holy land, ban intermarriage between Jews and Arabs, to fuse church with state, and get rid of democracy. Herzl, Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky would have been shocked and appalled by Kahanism and condemned and excommunicated Kahane from the Zionist Movement. The actions of Baruch Goldstein, who murdered twenty-nine innocent Muslims in the bloody and horrific Cave of Patriarchs Massacre in 2006 would also have horrified and drawn condemnation from the founding fathers of Israel. It is not Zionism that is at odds with democracy, it is Kahanism. Don't conflate those two as they are not remotely the same thing. I myself am a liberal Zionist. I believe a vibrant Jewish and multicultural state that has a robust liberal democracy, a free-market capitalist economy and a strong social safety net, where church and state are not too closely mixed together. I believe in fighting discrimination against women, Arabs, blacks, Mizrahi Jews, immigrants, foreign workers, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people. I believe in helping uplift the poor. I believe in unionization and working-class people being able to earn a decent wage for an honest day's work. I believe in protecting Mother Earth and all the creatures within it. I believe in a two-state solution and Palestinian statehood. I believe in sweeping the likes of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich into the dustbin of history. That is not at all inherently contradictory with classical liberal principles. Rather it is the very definition of them.
GOOD. I'm glad you wrote this about Klein.....he is overwrought about his perception of Israel's alleged crimes....unmoved by KM's framing of barbarism as "necessary."
I don't get it. What is wrong with an ethno-religious Jewish state? What is wrong with any country being inhabited by a people who are of the same ethnic group and the same basic religion? These stupid liberal ideas are destroying us all. It's high time they were scrapped. What they want is a people united by atheism (basically a hatred of God) and having nothing in common at all - no ethnic traditions, no family ties, no history at all - WHAT is so great about that? I'm sick and tired of hearing such rubbish. The so-called "enlightenment" should be called the "endarkenment", and one day it will be. In the West we turned away from the light of Christ to the darkness of atheism and agnosticism, and we can see the results. And they're NOT good.
Have we forgotten Psalm 137? עַל נַהֲרוֹת, בָּבֶל--שָׁם יָשַׁבְנוּ, גַּם-בָּכִינוּ: בְּזָכְרֵנוּ, אֶת-צִיּוֹן.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Lets take a trip down memory lane... Zion/Zionism - thanks to the Jew hating Russians /Czar and the Eastern Orthodox Church whose Ohana wrote the ficticious protocols of the elders of "Zion" in 1903 (while they wre murdering Jews in Kishinev), and the UN in the mid 1970s resolution depicting Zionism as a FAR RIGHT wing cabal /controlling racist organzation, Henry Ford and other fine people in the USA including the American german Bund didnt help much either.
Some of our our very own Jews in the western world do not know their/our history.
Every Arab country in the ME and most if not all European countries including the newly formed project 2025 Christian Nationalist United States of Maga have either Christianity or ISLAM as their majority and "church"
We have our homeland back and the majority is Jewish - yes and so what????? Do we force gentiles living in Israel to not eat pork, like I was forced as a child in the USA to eat FISH on Fridays in a PUBLIC school? What is Israel a suburb of Indianapolis?
Our minority population is 27 % either Christian/Muslim or "other" - the figure is far more then galut Jews in their respective countries of domicile - we are just 16 million in the world - do we all know why? If not, either read or listen to what former priest James Carroll has to say about what has been done to Jews by Christians for 1800 years and continues to be done. Watch Ken Burn's documentary about FDR and the Jews -or read about Jan Karski (a gentile Polish Diplomat ) who addressed FDR about the Jewish genocide taking place in Europe, and spoke of the indifference and blatant antisemtism in the USA and Canada.
Pointing fingers to just the left is erroneous- as a JEW I take the middle path (Tifferet) and recognize the USA's maga party far right wingers double talk.
Pete Hesgeth who is the the secretary of defence under trump - has a nice BIG Crusader CROSS tattoo with the words in latin "Deus Vult" (Latin for 'God wills it') a Christian motto historically tied to ideas of divine providence and individual interpretation of God's will, was first chanted by Catholics during the First Crusade in 1096 as a rallying cry as they murdered Jews on their way to and in the "Holy Land"
He also attends the project 2025 (Heritage Foundation) of the ideal American Church of choice comprised of White Christian Nationalists - the CRUSADER CROSS symbol is part of the neo nazis symbolism and ideaology. During Trumps first term there were millions of memes of him dressed as a crusader and riding his hourse with a red cross- there were numerous JESUS SAVES signs at the January 6 2021 insurrection (can we all say Beer Hall Putsch?) while neo nazis and their right wing friends wore camp auschwitz sweatshirts. I suspect that those attendees were the great grandchildren of the 20 K American nazis who attended and rendered their sieg heils at the Feb 20 1939 nazi/patriot rally in Madison Square Gardens in NYC - in Hebrew we say Lador Vador - from generation to generation . (see photos below.)
Down Memory lane 1939
Feb 20, 1939 twenty thousand American “patriots” /nazis including Charles Lindburgh, attended a "pro" american rally with the German American Bund at Madison Square Gardens on President Washington’s birthday - a large portrait of Washington was on stage in the center and was flanked by swastikas on each side. They recited the pledge of allegience and sang the Star Spangled Banner.
This was AFTER Kristallnacht Nov 9, 1938, and several concentration camps were already built and up and running. (Dachau (1933) Sachsenhausen (1936) Buchenwald (1937) Flossenbürg (1938) Mauthausen (1938 Austria) Ravensbrück ( May 1939)
Start reading Yekheskel 38/39.
Watch this short clip of Hesgeth's ridiculous mealy mouth explanation of his tattoo to Senator Cramer
This is a very distressing discussion. Judaism is Zionism to me and, I believe, a majority of Jews follow this belief. I do not see “liberalism” to be a valid choice over Judaism/Zionism. To choose the irreligious concept of “liberalism” over supporting Israel is bizarre and frightening. It is literal “suicide”. To think that any Jew making this choice, makes me shudder, and nearly to tears. In essence, this entire essay is an unnecessary journey to nihilism, and an attempt to promote us, as Jews, to the destructive path of self loathing. I hate to say this, but I am infuriated at the entire premise of this essay. Liberals today are unhinged brats, with no concept of the privileges that Western civilization has been literally handed to them on a silver platter. NO, “liberalism” and Judaism do not mix well. What our parents and grandparents endured in more than the last 100 years, cannot be forgotten. To throw our Jewish culture to the wind is, in my thinking, a mortal sin.
Ezra Klein is wrong on so many things and very, very blind to his own inconsistencies and biases. I’ve listened to around 12-13 episodes of his podcast before before stopping - wanted to give him a chance, but the lack of self-awareness is rough.
Daniel Gordis comprehensively explains the current rift between (predominantly liberal) American Jewry and Israelis in his 2019 book, “We Stand Divided.” He sums up the tension between the two groups as comparing “What Israel DOES versus what Israel IS.” A worthwhile, if sobering, analysis of an ever-widening chasm.
The newest slander from the Anti-Israel Industrial Complex is accusing Israel of "ethnocentrism" and "ethno-nationalism"—a charge they never seem to level against all the world's mostly ethnically and/or religiously homogenous nations, and certainly never against the Islamic Republics of Iran or Pakistan, as in the Western liberal imagination Muslim societies only exist as props to be weaponized or victims to save.
But the "ethno-nationalism" charge and its concomitant insistence that societies not based on universal humanitarianism are ipso facto bigoted (cue the Nazi analogies) is based on a level of privilege that is the unseeable water Western liberals swim in. These arrogant children of the 21st century (who can be any age) are completely ignorant of all the history that created liberalism and its supplanting of blood ties with the rule of law and constitutional governance: Protestantism, Enlightenment, various wars and Revolutions, free markets, and a culture of inquiry that gave us modern science and all its branches from anthrolopolgy to aviation to zoology. The Western liberal who sits safe and prosperous protected by the US military, police depts, cultural norms, plus a strong legal system can never admit that his exalted status is the gift of many prior generations and is culture-specific, not to mention backed by enormous wealth and resources.
The "ethno-nationalism" charge reminds me of a rich kid who looks out his penthouse window wondering why all those lesser humans are fighting over scraps and only feel safe surrounded by their own people—when his parents have friends from all over the world, who are always gentle and polite. Tribalism is the default mode of humanity and to ask the Jews of Israel to risk their lives for someone else's (unearned) principles, is to once again demand that Jews be more Christian than the Christians, and turn the other cheek to the angry tribes that surround them and want to murder them.
Simple question: does a country have the right to protect and defend its culture and its values? This is not limited to Israel as unrestrained immigration in Europe has made clear and was ( is) doing the same in the US. Ezra Klein is a putz.
Do the Arabs have the right to democratically, peacefully become the majority in Israel? The answer will define if you are a liberal or a Zionist and there is a contradiction.
Assuming to be true what needs to be proven true is committing the logical fallacy "Begging the Question. As if that weren't bad enough, the 20C greatest ad man said “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." That would be Josef Goebbels. The "big lie" here is that the Likud and Netanyahu are far-right extremists. It is universally taken by friend and foe alike as gospel. No proof, just a claim as if it were its own proof. May be politically expedient, but factual it ain't.
"Israeli Far-Right parties" are also popularly labelled extreme right wing parties. The media often point to Smotritch and Ben-Gvir forproof positive of its extremism.
As AI defines it, "Extreme far-right ideologies are characterized by a rejection of democratic principles and fundamental human rights, coupled with a belief in racial superiority and a strong, often authoritarian, state. They frequently promote nationalism, xenophobia, and racism, and often espouse conspiracy theories, particularly antisemitic ones. Violence and hatred are sometimes seen as legitimate tools to achieve their goals."
Does that place the likes of Smotritch and Ben-Gvir more in Roosevelt's camp on Dec. 8, 1941 and Churchill's on June 4, 1940 or in Fritz Julius Kuhn or Sir Oslwald Mosley's camp?
"Zionism was founded in reaction to the plight of Jews as a persecuted minority. Given the historical record, it’s no surprise that Jews would fear being a minority in a state established to escape that fate."
Correct when applied to political Zionism. However, just like American or French patriotism, or the patriotism of citizens of any country, Zionism is national pride in the homeland, and it is longing for one's homeland when expelled, conquered, occupied.
"stateless Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been denied the liberal right to self-determination."
Where to begin? The so-called West Bank has for millennia been called Judea and Samaria until Jordan renamed it in 1950 to efface any Jewish connection to it. The world at large eagerly embraced this rebranding, unfortunately, as did many Jews / Israelis.
One is stateless if one has had a state. There has never been a "Palestinian" state. Now to be heretical, Palestinian is a political designation. They are not a race as they are no different morphologically from other mid-Eastern peoples. They are not a religion. That would be Muslim. They are not an ethnicity. That would be Arab, or as they refer to themselves, the Ummah. They are not a distinct culture as that would also be Arabic, similar Syrian, Lebanese, and Jordanian cultures. They would also not be a nationality as they never formed a nation. According to the Cambridge dictionary, a nationality comprises "a group of people of the same race, religion, traditions, etc." As just explained, they do not fulfill any of these criteria. Indeed, as Zuheir Mohsen, leader of the Ba'athist As-Sa'iqa faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) between 1971 and 1979, — and if anyone, he should know— stated:
"The Palestinian people does not exist … there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese there are no differences. We are all part of one people, the Arab nation [...] Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons[...] Once we have acquired all our rights in all of Palestine, we must not delay for a moment the reunification of Jordan and Palestine".
Mr Ben Koan, nice moniker....."diasporic Jewry" is according to the far left like Klein, our "natural" state of being....where assimilation and deJudaizing,....and now for Klein deZionizing is the the most advanced and progressive state of the Jews. A hundred or more Arab ethno-religious states would not cause him to shudder. Yes, Jews had to immigrate in large numbers for a critical population to form an independent state. As with other minorities or Blacks Africans in South Africa, adjustments had to made for centuries of Muslim domination, oppression, humiliation and apartheid.....that was Zionism" cause....Ben Gurion...that causes Mr Klein to shudder. He also evinces no outrage when interviewing K Mohammad who in a small and quiet and plaintive voice tell Klein why the barbarism and atrocities especially Oct. 7th were necessary. SHAME, Mr. Klein, SHAME.
Israel and God's people were established on Torah and God's plans and promises from the beginning of time. It's only when God's people do not follow the Torah and steer off into their own devised ideas, that they rear off onto a path that God never intended for us to be on, hence Liberalism being a counterfeit of false narratives that are not based upon Truth or Truth of Tanakh.
Liberals are most definitely not following Tanakh or the Torah at all. Lately I keep being reminded from Tanakh that Leadership should be set from the right for a reason, rather than the left, with the right meaning spiritual, while the left meaning physical.
Right Side: The right side symbolizes divine blessing, strength, and authority. The left side often indicates judgment and vulnerability. There are consequences for those who are on the left side.
Historical interpretations of left and right were deeply rooted in cultural practices, with right signifying honor and left often viewed negatively. The right hand is associated with strength. In Psalms 118:15, it’s mentioned as the hand of salvation, highlighting God’s protective nature. The left is sometimes linked to weakness. Proverbs 10:2 states, “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing,” suggesting that choices made from folly lead to emptiness.
Vulnerability: Being on the left side can indicate a state of being unprotected or outside God’s favor, highlighting the importance of choosing the right path.
“Why, then, no leftist handwringing over the inherent contradiction between liberalism and Palestinian nationalism?”
Why indeed…. What a perfect example of the devastating effect of infection with the insidious and constantly mutating antisemitism virus , which turns all working brain cells to mush.
Ezra Klein is a traitor to the Jewish people. Giving Mahmoud Khalil a platform to espouse his nonsense and spew lies. Daniel May is too, conflating the evil ideology of Kahanism with Zionism. There is absolutely no contradiction at all between liberalism and Zionism. Israel was founded not on the Torah or the Hebrew Bible, but on the principle of classical liberalism. Based on liberal and western values. The father of classical liberalism John Stuart Mill in turn believed strongly in uniting the members of one nationality under one flag and one government of their own. He also believed that free institutions were impossible in a country with no clear ethnic majority and full of a bunch of squabbling nationalities. Nationality he explained can be generated by various causes including a shared descent, language, religion, geography, and history. Diverse nations that managed to be successful like Switzerland, exist but are exceedingly rare. The norm in human existence is that for a nation to succeed it must have a strong majority of one nationality. Thus, the David Ben-Gurion quote provided by Ezra Klein backfires on him because Ben-Gurion was absolutely right and acknowledging reality. Mills' case is only boosted by the many historical examples of states with squabbling nationalities that fell apart or are doing quite poorly. Czechoslovakia, Yugoslavia, the Austro-Hungarian Empire, the Russian Empire, the Ottoman Empire, Sudan, the Soviet Union, Iraq, Syria, and Lebanon are all examples of this in real life. Furthermore, the founding fathers of Israel always intended it to be Jewish and multicultural state. It would have a Jewish majority, but it wouldn't just be open to Jews. Anyone who wanted to come and live in the future Jewish state. Theodor Herzl outlined this in his 1902 book The Altneuland. This included welcoming the local Arabs into the Jewish state with full equal rights under the law. David Ben-Gurion and Ze'ev Jabotinsky echoed this desire for a Jewish state that would welcome Jews and non-Jews alike.
Klein and May don't have a clue what their talking about. Ben, you have absolutely embarrassed them in this article and anti-Zionists cannot refute what you've written here. Kahanism and Zionism are not the same thing. Kahanism calls for an authoritarian theocratic state that would be for Jews. Thus, it calls for an actual ethnostate. Meir Kahane was a monster and the other side of the coin to someone like Ismail Haniyeh or Yayha Sinwar. He didn't believe in classical liberalism. He sought to expel all Arabs from the holy land, ban intermarriage between Jews and Arabs, to fuse church with state, and get rid of democracy. Herzl, Ben-Gurion and Jabotinsky would have been shocked and appalled by Kahanism and condemned and excommunicated Kahane from the Zionist Movement. The actions of Baruch Goldstein, who murdered twenty-nine innocent Muslims in the bloody and horrific Cave of Patriarchs Massacre in 2006 would also have horrified and drawn condemnation from the founding fathers of Israel. It is not Zionism that is at odds with democracy, it is Kahanism. Don't conflate those two as they are not remotely the same thing. I myself am a liberal Zionist. I believe a vibrant Jewish and multicultural state that has a robust liberal democracy, a free-market capitalist economy and a strong social safety net, where church and state are not too closely mixed together. I believe in fighting discrimination against women, Arabs, blacks, Mizrahi Jews, immigrants, foreign workers, LGBTQ+ people, and disabled people. I believe in helping uplift the poor. I believe in unionization and working-class people being able to earn a decent wage for an honest day's work. I believe in protecting Mother Earth and all the creatures within it. I believe in a two-state solution and Palestinian statehood. I believe in sweeping the likes of Itamar Ben-Gvir and Bezalel Smotrich into the dustbin of history. That is not at all inherently contradictory with classical liberal principles. Rather it is the very definition of them.
GOOD. I'm glad you wrote this about Klein.....he is overwrought about his perception of Israel's alleged crimes....unmoved by KM's framing of barbarism as "necessary."
I don't get it. What is wrong with an ethno-religious Jewish state? What is wrong with any country being inhabited by a people who are of the same ethnic group and the same basic religion? These stupid liberal ideas are destroying us all. It's high time they were scrapped. What they want is a people united by atheism (basically a hatred of God) and having nothing in common at all - no ethnic traditions, no family ties, no history at all - WHAT is so great about that? I'm sick and tired of hearing such rubbish. The so-called "enlightenment" should be called the "endarkenment", and one day it will be. In the West we turned away from the light of Christ to the darkness of atheism and agnosticism, and we can see the results. And they're NOT good.
This is an outstanding piece.
Outstanding “piece” of what, I wonder?
Why?
Have we forgotten Psalm 137? עַל נַהֲרוֹת, בָּבֶל--שָׁם יָשַׁבְנוּ, גַּם-בָּכִינוּ: בְּזָכְרֵנוּ, אֶת-צִיּוֹן.
By the rivers of Babylon, there we sat down, yea, we wept, when we remembered Zion.
Lets take a trip down memory lane... Zion/Zionism - thanks to the Jew hating Russians /Czar and the Eastern Orthodox Church whose Ohana wrote the ficticious protocols of the elders of "Zion" in 1903 (while they wre murdering Jews in Kishinev), and the UN in the mid 1970s resolution depicting Zionism as a FAR RIGHT wing cabal /controlling racist organzation, Henry Ford and other fine people in the USA including the American german Bund didnt help much either.
Some of our our very own Jews in the western world do not know their/our history.
Every Arab country in the ME and most if not all European countries including the newly formed project 2025 Christian Nationalist United States of Maga have either Christianity or ISLAM as their majority and "church"
We have our homeland back and the majority is Jewish - yes and so what????? Do we force gentiles living in Israel to not eat pork, like I was forced as a child in the USA to eat FISH on Fridays in a PUBLIC school? What is Israel a suburb of Indianapolis?
Our minority population is 27 % either Christian/Muslim or "other" - the figure is far more then galut Jews in their respective countries of domicile - we are just 16 million in the world - do we all know why? If not, either read or listen to what former priest James Carroll has to say about what has been done to Jews by Christians for 1800 years and continues to be done. Watch Ken Burn's documentary about FDR and the Jews -or read about Jan Karski (a gentile Polish Diplomat ) who addressed FDR about the Jewish genocide taking place in Europe, and spoke of the indifference and blatant antisemtism in the USA and Canada.
Pointing fingers to just the left is erroneous- as a JEW I take the middle path (Tifferet) and recognize the USA's maga party far right wingers double talk.
Pete Hesgeth who is the the secretary of defence under trump - has a nice BIG Crusader CROSS tattoo with the words in latin "Deus Vult" (Latin for 'God wills it') a Christian motto historically tied to ideas of divine providence and individual interpretation of God's will, was first chanted by Catholics during the First Crusade in 1096 as a rallying cry as they murdered Jews on their way to and in the "Holy Land"
He also attends the project 2025 (Heritage Foundation) of the ideal American Church of choice comprised of White Christian Nationalists - the CRUSADER CROSS symbol is part of the neo nazis symbolism and ideaology. During Trumps first term there were millions of memes of him dressed as a crusader and riding his hourse with a red cross- there were numerous JESUS SAVES signs at the January 6 2021 insurrection (can we all say Beer Hall Putsch?) while neo nazis and their right wing friends wore camp auschwitz sweatshirts. I suspect that those attendees were the great grandchildren of the 20 K American nazis who attended and rendered their sieg heils at the Feb 20 1939 nazi/patriot rally in Madison Square Gardens in NYC - in Hebrew we say Lador Vador - from generation to generation . (see photos below.)
Down Memory lane 1939
Feb 20, 1939 twenty thousand American “patriots” /nazis including Charles Lindburgh, attended a "pro" american rally with the German American Bund at Madison Square Gardens on President Washington’s birthday - a large portrait of Washington was on stage in the center and was flanked by swastikas on each side. They recited the pledge of allegience and sang the Star Spangled Banner.
This was AFTER Kristallnacht Nov 9, 1938, and several concentration camps were already built and up and running. (Dachau (1933) Sachsenhausen (1936) Buchenwald (1937) Flossenbürg (1938) Mauthausen (1938 Austria) Ravensbrück ( May 1939)
Start reading Yekheskel 38/39.
Watch this short clip of Hesgeth's ridiculous mealy mouth explanation of his tattoo to Senator Cramer
https://www.pbs.org/newshour/politics/watch-sen-cramer-asks-hegseth-about-jerusalem-cross-tattoo LEST WE FORGET.
Excellent response. This article is strange to say the least.
This is a very distressing discussion. Judaism is Zionism to me and, I believe, a majority of Jews follow this belief. I do not see “liberalism” to be a valid choice over Judaism/Zionism. To choose the irreligious concept of “liberalism” over supporting Israel is bizarre and frightening. It is literal “suicide”. To think that any Jew making this choice, makes me shudder, and nearly to tears. In essence, this entire essay is an unnecessary journey to nihilism, and an attempt to promote us, as Jews, to the destructive path of self loathing. I hate to say this, but I am infuriated at the entire premise of this essay. Liberals today are unhinged brats, with no concept of the privileges that Western civilization has been literally handed to them on a silver platter. NO, “liberalism” and Judaism do not mix well. What our parents and grandparents endured in more than the last 100 years, cannot be forgotten. To throw our Jewish culture to the wind is, in my thinking, a mortal sin.
Ezra Klein is wrong on so many things and very, very blind to his own inconsistencies and biases. I’ve listened to around 12-13 episodes of his podcast before before stopping - wanted to give him a chance, but the lack of self-awareness is rough.
Daniel Gordis comprehensively explains the current rift between (predominantly liberal) American Jewry and Israelis in his 2019 book, “We Stand Divided.” He sums up the tension between the two groups as comparing “What Israel DOES versus what Israel IS.” A worthwhile, if sobering, analysis of an ever-widening chasm.
The newest slander from the Anti-Israel Industrial Complex is accusing Israel of "ethnocentrism" and "ethno-nationalism"—a charge they never seem to level against all the world's mostly ethnically and/or religiously homogenous nations, and certainly never against the Islamic Republics of Iran or Pakistan, as in the Western liberal imagination Muslim societies only exist as props to be weaponized or victims to save.
But the "ethno-nationalism" charge and its concomitant insistence that societies not based on universal humanitarianism are ipso facto bigoted (cue the Nazi analogies) is based on a level of privilege that is the unseeable water Western liberals swim in. These arrogant children of the 21st century (who can be any age) are completely ignorant of all the history that created liberalism and its supplanting of blood ties with the rule of law and constitutional governance: Protestantism, Enlightenment, various wars and Revolutions, free markets, and a culture of inquiry that gave us modern science and all its branches from anthrolopolgy to aviation to zoology. The Western liberal who sits safe and prosperous protected by the US military, police depts, cultural norms, plus a strong legal system can never admit that his exalted status is the gift of many prior generations and is culture-specific, not to mention backed by enormous wealth and resources.
The "ethno-nationalism" charge reminds me of a rich kid who looks out his penthouse window wondering why all those lesser humans are fighting over scraps and only feel safe surrounded by their own people—when his parents have friends from all over the world, who are always gentle and polite. Tribalism is the default mode of humanity and to ask the Jews of Israel to risk their lives for someone else's (unearned) principles, is to once again demand that Jews be more Christian than the Christians, and turn the other cheek to the angry tribes that surround them and want to murder them.
Simple question: does a country have the right to protect and defend its culture and its values? This is not limited to Israel as unrestrained immigration in Europe has made clear and was ( is) doing the same in the US. Ezra Klein is a putz.
Do the Arabs have the right to democratically, peacefully become the majority in Israel? The answer will define if you are a liberal or a Zionist and there is a contradiction.
Love the obvious logical comparison and question. When you get an answer from any one of those 'useful idiots,' please let us know.
Assuming to be true what needs to be proven true is committing the logical fallacy "Begging the Question. As if that weren't bad enough, the 20C greatest ad man said “If you tell a lie big enough and keep repeating it, people will eventually come to believe it." That would be Josef Goebbels. The "big lie" here is that the Likud and Netanyahu are far-right extremists. It is universally taken by friend and foe alike as gospel. No proof, just a claim as if it were its own proof. May be politically expedient, but factual it ain't.
"Israeli Far-Right parties" are also popularly labelled extreme right wing parties. The media often point to Smotritch and Ben-Gvir forproof positive of its extremism.
As AI defines it, "Extreme far-right ideologies are characterized by a rejection of democratic principles and fundamental human rights, coupled with a belief in racial superiority and a strong, often authoritarian, state. They frequently promote nationalism, xenophobia, and racism, and often espouse conspiracy theories, particularly antisemitic ones. Violence and hatred are sometimes seen as legitimate tools to achieve their goals."
Does that place the likes of Smotritch and Ben-Gvir more in Roosevelt's camp on Dec. 8, 1941 and Churchill's on June 4, 1940 or in Fritz Julius Kuhn or Sir Oslwald Mosley's camp?
"Zionism was founded in reaction to the plight of Jews as a persecuted minority. Given the historical record, it’s no surprise that Jews would fear being a minority in a state established to escape that fate."
Correct when applied to political Zionism. However, just like American or French patriotism, or the patriotism of citizens of any country, Zionism is national pride in the homeland, and it is longing for one's homeland when expelled, conquered, occupied.
"stateless Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza have been denied the liberal right to self-determination."
Where to begin? The so-called West Bank has for millennia been called Judea and Samaria until Jordan renamed it in 1950 to efface any Jewish connection to it. The world at large eagerly embraced this rebranding, unfortunately, as did many Jews / Israelis.
One is stateless if one has had a state. There has never been a "Palestinian" state. Now to be heretical, Palestinian is a political designation. They are not a race as they are no different morphologically from other mid-Eastern peoples. They are not a religion. That would be Muslim. They are not an ethnicity. That would be Arab, or as they refer to themselves, the Ummah. They are not a distinct culture as that would also be Arabic, similar Syrian, Lebanese, and Jordanian cultures. They would also not be a nationality as they never formed a nation. According to the Cambridge dictionary, a nationality comprises "a group of people of the same race, religion, traditions, etc." As just explained, they do not fulfill any of these criteria. Indeed, as Zuheir Mohsen, leader of the Ba'athist As-Sa'iqa faction of the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) between 1971 and 1979, — and if anyone, he should know— stated:
"The Palestinian people does not exist … there is no difference between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians, and Lebanese. Between Jordanians, Palestinians, Syrians and Lebanese there are no differences. We are all part of one people, the Arab nation [...] Just for political reasons we carefully underwrite our Palestinian identity. Because it is of national interest for the Arabs to advocate the existence of Palestinians to balance Zionism. Yes, the existence of a separate Palestinian identity exists only for tactical reasons[...] Once we have acquired all our rights in all of Palestine, we must not delay for a moment the reunification of Jordan and Palestine".
Another excellent article
Mr Ben Koan, nice moniker....."diasporic Jewry" is according to the far left like Klein, our "natural" state of being....where assimilation and deJudaizing,....and now for Klein deZionizing is the the most advanced and progressive state of the Jews. A hundred or more Arab ethno-religious states would not cause him to shudder. Yes, Jews had to immigrate in large numbers for a critical population to form an independent state. As with other minorities or Blacks Africans in South Africa, adjustments had to made for centuries of Muslim domination, oppression, humiliation and apartheid.....that was Zionism" cause....Ben Gurion...that causes Mr Klein to shudder. He also evinces no outrage when interviewing K Mohammad who in a small and quiet and plaintive voice tell Klein why the barbarism and atrocities especially Oct. 7th were necessary. SHAME, Mr. Klein, SHAME.
Israel and God's people were established on Torah and God's plans and promises from the beginning of time. It's only when God's people do not follow the Torah and steer off into their own devised ideas, that they rear off onto a path that God never intended for us to be on, hence Liberalism being a counterfeit of false narratives that are not based upon Truth or Truth of Tanakh.
Liberals are most definitely not following Tanakh or the Torah at all. Lately I keep being reminded from Tanakh that Leadership should be set from the right for a reason, rather than the left, with the right meaning spiritual, while the left meaning physical.
Right Side: The right side symbolizes divine blessing, strength, and authority. The left side often indicates judgment and vulnerability. There are consequences for those who are on the left side.
Historical interpretations of left and right were deeply rooted in cultural practices, with right signifying honor and left often viewed negatively. The right hand is associated with strength. In Psalms 118:15, it’s mentioned as the hand of salvation, highlighting God’s protective nature. The left is sometimes linked to weakness. Proverbs 10:2 states, “Treasures of wickedness profit nothing,” suggesting that choices made from folly lead to emptiness.
Vulnerability: Being on the left side can indicate a state of being unprotected or outside God’s favor, highlighting the importance of choosing the right path.