Burning Issues brings our best opinion writers to one podium, where they respond, in brief and in real time, to a question about one of the hottest news topics on the agenda. A link to the writer's most recent column appears after each post.
Mike Leigh (left) and Harold Pinter were among those who signed the letter: "A Time to Speak Out: Independent Jewish Voices"
Photo: AP [file]
Burning Issues 1-23: Last three: Retaliation for Eilat attack, US candidates' Iran stance, Road map relevancy.
Question #24
After a group of prominent British Jews stirred uproar by attacking the country's Jewish establishment - claiming it puts loyalty to Israel before the human rights of Palestinians, some critics claimed that it was illegitimate for Diaspora Jews who have had no real connection with the Jewish community - who are unaffiliated with Jewish organizational, communal or religious life - to publicly express their Jewish identity solely through their views on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Do you agree with this criticism?
Contributions by Jonathan Rosenblum, Isi Leibler, Jonathan Tobin, Calev Ben-David, MJ Rosenberg and Gerald Steinberg
MJ Rosenberg: I'd go even father. I think that anyone, and especially Jews, is entitled to speak out on the Israeli-Palestinian issue. The sad fact is that the occupation is defining the way non-Jews see Jews throughout the world.
The mythical Ari Ben Canaan (hero of Leon Uris's Exodus and played in the film by Paul Newman) was the face of Israel for decades. Now, to a large extent, the face of Israel has become that of the West Bank settler or those Gaza settlers fighting the Israeli army.
Every Jew, worldwide, benefited from Israel's good reputation in the pre-occupation days but today we all are saddled with its bad one. In Europe, Jews who may be utterly oblivious to Israel are attacked because of an anti-Semitic backlash caused by the treatment of the occupied Palestinians. So, yes, even the unaffiliated have the right to speak out.
However, I do not believe that their criticism has the power of the criticism that emanates from those of us who have always stood with Israel. In a sense, we earned the right to speak out. Moreover, because our hatred of the occupation is rooted in our love for Israel, it deserves to be taken more seriously.
But everyone on the planet, and not just Jews, has the right to speak out about a situation that threatens all our kids. The potential for deadly blowback in the Diaspora produced by settlers and the abuse of Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza gives Jews here every right to protest loudly and consistently. And non-Jews too. Thank God there are Israelis who are also doing it.
In Washington: Why not realism?
Calev Ben-David: This manifesto represents the true victory of Zionism. Many of the celebrities on this list have had virtually no connection with the Jewish community or causes at any time in their lives.Yet they are so concerned about Israeli policies that they now want to put themselves forward as an alternative to the British Board of Deputies? Is their opposition to Israel the only way they can express their Jewishness? Then the irony here is that Israel is truly central to their Jewish identity, such as it is.
It is entirely legitimate, both for Jews and non-Jewish, to criticize Israeli policies. And in fact, many of the self-defined "network of individuals" who signed the Independent Jewish Voices (IJV) advertisement have done just that over the years. But to now put themselves forward "as a challenge to the standard concept of the Jewish community" is just laughable.
One wonders just how it is this group defines itself as Jewish. Their manifesto rejects "ethnic or group loyalties", yet the only common denominator between them is they have at least one Jewish parent. If they don't see themselves as in any way belonging to the British Jewish community, why in the world should they care what the Board of Deputies, or the British Chief Rabbi, has to say on any subject, including Israel?
How can one take seriously public figures that have no trouble criticizing Israeli policies, but have had nothing to say publicly in the past year about Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's genocidal taunts and racist Holocaust denial? Are they really concerned, as they claim, as much with Israeli security as they are with Palestinian national rights?
The IJV letter declares, "No one has the authority to speak for the Jewish people." Wrong. Judaism may not have a pope, but those individuals who have dedicated their lives for the well-being and security of their fellow Jews certainly have a degree of authority in this regard, whether one agrees with their positions or not.
But that company certainly doesn't include the likes of dramatist Harold Pinter, actor Stephen Fry, historian Eric Hobsbawm, and many of the others who signed the IJV statement. The truth is, this episode would be funny, if it weren't so perverse and pathetic.
Snap Judgment: Sore losers
Jonathan Tobin: There is no question that the notion of tribal solidarity with their own people does not sit comfortably with many Diaspora Jews, especially those who are on the left. And when the question of balancing the rights of their own people with the claims of a group that identifies itself as part of the "oppressed" peoples of the Third World, it is little surprise that many of these intellectuals are at pains to distance themselves from Israel.
