Progressive-Left Jews and Progressive-Left Enemies of the Jewish People

Karam

Progressive-left enemies of the Jewish people have thrust liberal Jews into the position in which they can choose to be progressive or they can choose to favor Israel, but they cannot choose both. The reason for this is not that supporting Israel violates progressive principles, but because the progressives, themselves, are abandoning the Jewish people in favor of their Palestinian-Arab enemies. Despite our long-standing support for the progressive movement, and our centrality in the history of that movement, the progressive-left has betrayed the Jews.

Since Israel successfully defended itself from genocidal Arab aggression in the 6 Day War, western progressives portray the Jewish state as a “colonialist, racist” villain. We see this day in and day out throughout progressive media. Anti-Semitic anti-Zionist leftists tell Jewish progressives that they are apologists for racism, colonialism, apartheid, imperialism, oppression, genocide, and outright murder.

It is true, of course, that only a small percentage of western progressives are hate-filled, acidic anti-Zionists of the type that we find on places like Daily Kos. The problem is that the rest of the progressive community has accepted anti-Semitic anti-Zionism as part of the larger coalition and are, day after day, convincing themselves that the anti-Zionists are right. It is for this reason that Jewish progressives are being slowly, but surely, demonized and pushed out of the progressive movement.

One of the mistakes that pro-Israel progressive Jews are making, therefore, is in continuing to support a political movement that doesn't care if we live or die. How can any Jewish person who cares about Israel simultaneously support a political movement which seeks to erode the legitimacy of that country or dissolve it as a Jewish state? Every time that a progressive Jew donates money to a progressive cause, or otherwise supports the progressive movement, they are supporting and bolstering people who ally themselves with those who salivate after Israel’s destruction.

This is the first horrendous Jewish liberal mistake. How ridiculous must one be to support people who have no interest whatsoever in supporting you? It is, quite simply, moronic. I wish that it were not so, but it is so and pretending otherwise only supports Israel's enemies. And this leads us to another horrendous liberal Jewish mistake. We have absolutely got to stop thinking that progressive preferences ipso facto represent the truth. It simply doesn’t work that way. A terrific recent example of this is when presidential hopeful Newt Gingrich said that the Palestinians are an “invented” people. This is, of course, true of all peoples, but the difference is that the Palestinians are, as a people, the most recent addition to the community of nations and were, therefore, “invented” only within living memory. The truth of this is not dependent upon one’s politics, but upon the facts of history. If I am wrong, then I am sure that someone can hand me a text of “The History of the Palestinian People in the 18th Century.”

No one can possibly do so because there was no “Palestinian people” in the 18th century, nor, in fact, through most of the 20th.

It is also true that the “Palestinians” were born from the greater Arab nation as a weapon against the movement for Jewish sovereignty in the land of Israel. Were there no Israel, were there no Zionism, then today there would be no Palestinian people. Period. Even Rashid Khalidi acknowledges that the driving force behind Palestinian nationalism was Arab opposition to Jewish self-determination. The mistake that liberal Jews are making is in bolstering Arab claims to Jewish land by catering to this fantasy of a "Palestinian" presence in Israel since "time immemorial."

Does this mean that the Palestinians are not a people? Of course, not. What it means is that their claims on Israeli land are paper thin. Does this mean that the Palestinians should not have a state? Again, of course, not. While there are no people on the planet less deserving of a state then the genocidal Palestinians, they should get one, nonetheless, in order to eliminate their bogus claims on Israel. In the meantime, liberal Jews who care about the state of Israel do themselves no favors by pretending that "Palestinians" have a long and ancient history on Jewish land.

They don’t and anyone who says otherwise is either lying, ignorant, or malicious.

Pick two out of three.

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