The myth of the "self-hating Jew" is a slander against many American Jews who do not march in lockstep to the Likud drummer. Do not dismiss it lightly. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu is reported to have made just this accusation against two of the highest-ranking members of President Obama's White House staff. The mythical part, of course, is the precept that any Jew -- especially an American Jew -- who does not unconditionally support the government of Israel is ipso facto a "self-hater."
Those in power in Israel understand how vital it is to their interests to keep American Jews in line. The solidarity of American Jews behind the shield of Israel is seen as a mighty dam holding back a possible flood of anti-Semitism. Israeli leaders fear that any crack in that base might begin a wholesale reappraisal of US policy as it relates to Israeli interests. The "self-hating Jew" becomes a powerful and effective symbol. Israel seeks to make it the equivalent of the Scarlet Letter no Jew wants to wear. Its detrimental force has kept many American Jews from expressing their reservations about Israel, particularly its recent policies and actions.
The myth, however, cannot overcome the free and determined conscience of any man. Phil Ross, a journalist/author and psychotherapist, writes to me about the changing nature of American Jewish feeling about the State of Israel. This is important. Here is what he tells me:
I am a Jew, secular to be sure, but culturally tender at the Jewish bone. I was bar mitzvahed. In college I spent time on a kibbutz. During the Six Day War, I volunteered to fight for Israel. A few years later I did some publicity for The United Jewish Appeal. As a freelance journalist, I wrote a cover story for a major magazine on the Israeli government's daring rescue at Entebbe. Every year since my birth my family has an informal Seder. I know a little Yiddish and I know a lot of Jewish jokes.So, in this time of Passover, I ask the following four questions:
How did it happen that the person I have described above has become so alienated from the country for which he was prepared to give his life 43 years ago?
How has it come to pass that when I read about Israeli and Palestinian deaths in the never-ending conflict, I no longer tilt emotionally to one side?
Have I become someone who no longer sees the interests of his country and of Israel's to be irrevocably joined?
Lastly, how in this season where Jews celebrate their release from slavery do I identify with today's Palestinians as the people yearning to return to their promised land?
My answers are that I have become so transformed because I believe the idea of a Jewish homeland which I so ardently supported as a youth has evolved into something which I do not recognize as being Jewish. Israeli, yes -- like Chinese or Pakistani or, may my grandmother forgive me, Iranian or Saudi. Players on the world stage. No more. No less. No longer victims. No longer representing the highest ideals of Judaism I learned as I grew up; ideals like the importance of empathy and compassion for others. What I see instead is a hard-nosed convergence of political, military and religious right wingers who lean on the holocaust and the Old Testament to drive toward their expansionist agenda the way Bush/Cheney used "weapons of mass destruction" to justify their goals for Iraq.
Let me emphasize that not for one second do I view the Palestinians, their leaders and their outside supporters as embodying righteousness. Not any more than when I marched on Washington to protest my country's presence in Vietnam I thought that a Ho Chi Minh poster should hang on my wall or that the Viet Cong were paragons of virtue.
My anguish and anger in the Middle East focuses on Israel precisely because I am a Jew. It is the same Jew in me that is more outraged by a Bernie Madoff than I would have been had this criminal been named Kelly or Rodriquez. It is the Jew in me who longs for an Israel that can produce an Anwar Sadat. I am the Jew who wishes for an Israeli leader who can take the initiative and bring his people and the Palestinians to a lasting peace.
Once, on a Judge Judy Show, the plaintiff was a woman who clearly had the judge's sympathy as she described how her ex-boyfriend had dented her car with a bat after she refused to let him into her home. When Judge Judy learned that the man had served several months in prison for violating a previous restraining order obtained by this woman, she lashed into him -- asking why, after serving time, he was so stupid as to think she still wanted to see him. The defendant was confused. Confused? About what, Judge Judy asked in disbelief. "Well, if she didn't want to see me," the man replied, "why did she send me naked pictures of herself when I was in jail?"
After confirming that the plaintiff had indeed done this, there was a long silence. Then Judge Judy uttered these words to the woman: "You're losing me!" she said. "You're losing me!"
For Israel to lose me, and others like me, is not funny at all. Not for me. And more important, not for Israel.
I know that Phil Ross is a good man, a loyal American, and a good Jew. He's no "self-hater." He ended his note by reminding me that a lifetime of Passover Seders had always included the hopeful phrase: "Next year in Jerusalem." With Israel announcing further expansion of its settlements in that holy city, Ross hoped that this Passover, somewhere, there would be those expressing these same wishes for the Palestinians.
Michael Gould-Wartofsky: Liner Notes for a Freedom Seder: 4 Questions for the Jews This Passover
Before Passover is over, then, let's not pass over the would-be pharaohs of the present age. Let's ask (at least) four more questions, and in asking, remember what history asks of us:
I might add, that calling Righteous Jews who are justifiably outraged at the depredations enacted 'in their behalf' - 'self hating' has backfired and is motivating them to take action to rectify this long standing injustice.
You might want to consider a new headline.
As an aside: If you imagine you have a tough run of it criticizing Israeli policy as a Jew--try doing it as a non-Jew! See how far you will get in the U.S. media, in U.S. politics and so on. Look what happened to even the former U.S. president and Nobel Peace Prize winner who actually uniquely helped Israel achieve a lasting peace, Jimmy Carter! It is insane.
It's essential that those who CAN sway policy not be intimidated, and DO so.
I don't see you condemning the terrorist actions of illegal Jewish settlers. Another indication of who you support.
But there is a group of American Jews who rabidly follow in the footsteps of Zinn and Chomsky and their virulent anti-Zionist hatred. These Jews -- exemplified by the extreme leftist Amy Goodman for example -- would eagerly join the Arabs and Palestinians in literally driving the Israeli Jews into the sea!
Someone ought to educate Goodman, et. al., to the fact that while Israel makes plenty of unintentional as well as calculated mistakes in its self defense -- some resulting in loss of innocent life -- what Israel does NOT do is take young bar mitzvah boys and strap explosives under their clothes sending them off to blow up Arab civilians at a Palestinian wedding celebration!
Not once.
Who really thinks that Israel would be willing to offer land for peace if the Palestinians had not had the tactic of violence to use against Israel? I don't like war, and I think suicide bombings are horrible, for both victims, and perpetrators. But Israel has cultivated the kind of hate in the Arabs that has led to suicide bombing. Hatred for Israelis does not occur in a vaccum.
The bombs and rockets that Hamas and Hezbullah lob at Israeli civilians is exactly like those nude pics sent to that poor schlub in jail. Designed to provoke a violent response in order to pretend to be victims.
Most "self-hating Jews" don't hate themselves, they hate the rest of us.
the majority of bombs are headed for the occupied territories, not Israel
when was the last time a Palestinians demolished an Israeli home, or forbid a Jew from returning to his lawful home?
No matter what Obama thinks and does, he can't redistribute new cards!
That was a false report. It was his brother. Try again.
So many commenters here, as well as the author of this post, have swallowed the disinformation spread by the media on Israel/Palestine. They don't know that 50 percent of Israel's Jews were driven out of Arab and Muslim countries by anti-Jewish hatred and had their property and possessions stolen. For those who say, 'two wrongs don't make a right', it's the same fundamentalist bigotry that drove these Jews and other non-Muslims out of the Arab world that is driving the Muslim/Arab war against Israel.
I'm not denying that this happened, I'm saying that you're majorly overestimating the proportion they make of the population of Israel.
Also, I would ask you what prompted those countries to expel large parts of the Jewish populations which had lived in those countries for hundreds, if not thousands of years? If it was all about hating Jews and wanting to steal their property they could have done it at any time, like England or Spain. Why did this do it around the midway mark of the 20th century?
It was a response to the creation of the State of Israel. I'm not going to argue that it was the right response, but given that Israel was engaged in activities like removing all Palestinians from a zone along the Lebanese border, it is somewhat understandable.
"Jews existed worldwide for more than 2,000 years without a homeland and they flourished and were successful." Wherever that happened they were severly punished for doing so. Well, we could start with the Holocaust, and before that, there was the riots of the Dreyfus affair. The Jews were viciously oppressed by the Russians, the Germans, the Persians, Neopolitians....on and on and on....If you think that being second class citizens and getting beaten up by authorities is "flourishing" and good, then you do indeed hate the Jews.
Without Israel the numbers of Jews around the world would have decreased and lowered to null. In few generations most of the US Jewish communities will vanish and only some few Orthodox Jews still will attend synagogues in Jewish holidays.
If you personally don't care that your successors will inherit your Jewishness too, it's OK. But you can speak only for yourself and not in the name of other Jews, not even those who share some of your political ideas.
What will happen to US Jews in one or two generations ahead when Anti Judaism will flourish there because of the fundamental people hood changing occurs even now?
Israel is the sunshine of the world and of the diaspora Jews too!
That being said, dotmafia's comment is beyond ridiculous and shows no understanding of recent or pre-20th century Jewish history.
Your getting more delusional every day.
Passover restrictions affect Palestinians
http://www.maannews.net/eng/ViewDetails.aspx?ID=272576
Israel cuts off West Bank villages for 6 months
http://www.middle-east-online.com/english/?id=37850
Care to try again? This time with the truth.
Israel has never been generous
None of the so called generous offers were remotely generous.
The Pals have already ceded 78 per cent of their original homeland, how can they be expected to give up more.
Your problem is that you think the Pals should settle for Jordan. Admit it, you know its true.
Suicide?? NO!!