Jews possess, to my mind, a propensity to fool themselves. Self-deceivement could be an ethnic trait we may unfortunately have developed within our national organic consciousness. Jabotinsky employed the term of ''chloroformed'' in his June 1939 article (although, to be fair, in 1932 he used it to describe the Italians hysteria over Mussolini):
...I see among Eastern Europe''s Jewish masses - equanimity, fatalism. People behave as if they''ve been condemned and sentenced. I know of nothing like this in history and haven''t encountered such surrender to destiny in novels. What''s this like? It''s like shoving 12 million educated, experienced people into a wagon that is hurtling toward an abyss. And how do these folks behave? One cries, one smokes cigarettes, some read newspapers, another sings. Don''t bother looking for one person to take over the controls and reroute the wagon. That''s the mind-set. It''s as if a great enemy came and chloroformed everyone''s brains.
That character trait seems to be apparent in the stalled reaction by some American Jewish establishment leaders faced with two Obama appointments quite inimical both to American and Israel interests. One of them was quite unique, calling the candidate for Secretary of Defense as anti-Semitic but then announcing he wouldn''t oppose the selction. What he was doing, as are others, was chloroforming his fellow Jews, a worse sin of leadership. [And now this from J Street: "Hagel will be valued voice of reason in Obama Cabinet...he has been a staunch friend, standing with our community on the critical issues. Hagel has demonstrated that he is committed to Israel''s security and its future"]
Some, though, aren''t cowed. Here''s from the NY Sun editorial:
By what deep principles is Senator Hagel guided in his long years of hanging back from anything that could be construed as helpful to the Jewish state or unhelpful to her enemies? He’s made no life’s work of sound money. He’s made no life’s work of constitutional fundamentals. We can’t think of a single over-riding principle in his career, save for an abiding sneer at Israel, in which he seems to take a certain mischievous glee....[Obama] has gone and selected one of the most worrisome figures for defense. It looks like Mr. Hagel’s anti-Israel record is the very raison d’etre of the nomination. It looks like the nomination is about the President’s determination to block Israel from going to its own defense against a regime that, in Iran, is preparing, by its own account, an attempt to annihilate the Jewish state. Imagine what Mr. Hagel would be like if he actually did have a problem with the Jews.
Some of us publishing and blogging opposed Obama over four years ago. We pointed to the falsity of a democratic Egypt. We claimed there was but an illusion of an Arab Spring. And on the matter of Disengagement bringing peace through unilateral surrender we claimed it was wrong.
But Jews, as a collective, seem to know otherwise.
For example, there is now, a new (?) group, purporting to be the "Jews for Palestinian Right of Return" who have clarified for us all exactly what the Arabs of the former Mandate area think.
Some excerpts from their manifesto which not only presents a warped view of historical fact but also the extreme demands that are really at the core of the Arab unwillingness to accept any compromise proposal that Netanyahu, or Livni or even Zehava Galon could offer:
For more than a century, Zionists have sought to construct a “Jewish state” through forced removal of the indigenous Palestinian people...Since 1967, Israel has also occupied and colonized the remainder of historic Palestine. Today, this relentless ethnic cleansing continues — armed and financed by the U.S. and its allies — on both sides of the 1948 “Green Line.”...To hide these crimes and shield itself from their consequences, the Zionist regime officially denies the Nakba, the ethical equivalent of Holocaust denial...Return — one of the key demands of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) campaign — ...cannot be renounced or abandoned by any body or representative; it inalienably attaches to Palestinians, both individually and collectively...solidarity means unconditional support for the just aims of those resisting oppression......The moral response is clear: “There is one geopolitical entity in historic Palestine,” writes Palestinian journalist Ali Abunimah. “Israel must not be allowed to continue to entrench its apartheid, racist and colonial rule throughout that land.”