One wonders if the fanatics that want to steal Palestinian land in the West Bank
or drive Israel into the Sea even bother reading the Bible or the Koran.
Even worse when right wing Christians misread Revelation and think once Israel grabs the West Bank that Jesus will return for the Second Coming and the world will end. Of course those believers will then go to heaven.

Once you cross the rubicon and tell youngsters that its ok to displace people from homes you create a moral gray area.

I very much appreciate your sharing your thoughts and feelings with us! I know these feelings are shared by many Jewish parents.

The “matzav” is so complex, I’ve come to the conclusion that it is difficult for anyone to evaluate what is fair, what is true.

However, how you end your essay is the very one thing that is true: “Disagreement with Israel doesn’t mean not loving Israel, just as being upset with your own children doesn’t mean you don’t love them.”

So — what is it that you _do_ know? “Israel is mine” — Israel is yours, and mine, and all Jews. (And I’m not making any specific claim to land here.) I’m just saying Israel and the Jewish people are _ours_ because Israel is threaded into our Torah, our history, our collective consciousness. Israel is part of us.

So– all you have to do is teach your kids to love Israel and the Jewish people. That doesn’t mean being blind to facts or debate. But it does mean fostering an emotional connection.

So how do you do that? As Steve T. writes, there is so much to be proud of and celebrate about Israel, not only historically but in modern Israel. Learn and share.

Of course, there are many things to be ashamed of too –just like any people and every country — because Israel is made up of human beings, who makes mistakes, don’t always to the right things. But, nu?, who doesn’t? So talk about these things too, and America, and Palestine, and all peoples everywhere who have conflict. It’s life.

You know what to do: engage. Have faith that even with all the yuck of matzav, there is plenty to love about Israel.

I am a conservative Jew, but I love my liberal brothers and sisters. Together we form the wonderful tapestry that makes us all strong. But there is also something I hate on both sides. What I hate is intellectual laziness and intellectual cowardice. Both sides tend to get passionate over sound bites, and never take the time to read their history. They are lazy. And many feel awkward about learning the other’s side – it’s outside the comfort zone. That really bothers me.

Sadly Marjorie, you are not debating your ideas with people like me. If you were to start, you would find a wealth of pride in learning that the history of Zionism is rich with the same exact values that you live by. Values that led to the doubling of the Palestinian Arab population from 1922 to 1936 through dramatic improvements in ARAB health at the hands of Jewish doctors. Values that led to Arab universities and intellectual development. You would learn that the only massacres and almost all the murders in early Palestine were of Jews, not Arabs. You would learn that Jews bought land legally, and only with war did the refugees run. I would paint context for you, and compare that tragedy to the recent 4 million Iraqi refugees who also fled because of war, not ethnic cleansing. I would challenge you to challenge the stories you are being fed.

You owe me nothing, but you owe your children and their grandparents something. That something is truth. Marjorie, what if I’m right? Peace.

Let’s just take this last incident and look at it in it’s simpliest form.

A boat (6 in fact) with aid wants to come to Gaza but a blockade is in effect. They can stop at port and be checked for contraband and if clear have their aid delivered. Simple huh? NO they reject this and try to run the blockade and violence ensues! IF aid was the reason for the trip they would of came into port. The fact that they rejected all chances to be checked for contraband and that people on board were from terroist organizations make this an open and shut case!

I don’t see where debate is of any use. Israel is a Nation. They can protect themselves.

If people would learn the history of the land and the people this would not be an issue.

Think of it like this, If everyone around the state you lived in wanted to annihlate you how would you react?

I love Israel and stand proud with her!

This thoughtfully articulated article about the issues of teaching kids about a situation that is polarizing, politicized and so unbelievably complex to even the most educated international scholars, should be welcomed. Not everyone is going to agree with you and when you come in to say these thoughts are unwelcome in the community, you only will open the door, push out those who support a Judaism that welcomes the stranger, supports the widow and the orphan, pursues justice and walks humbly with our God.

Next, you can tell your children about the Altalena Affair. It is often forgotten today, but be sure to tell your children about it. You can explain that a country can only have one army. A second or third army is nothing but trouble. You might want to tell them a little about our own Civil War. Also be sure to mention the Fatah-Hamas clashes of 2006 and 2007 that killed over 600 Palestinians. If you’d like, you can add some of the details of the Black September (September 1970) clash between the PLO and Jordan in which thousands died. Oh, yes, I’m sorry, perhaps we shouldn’t mention all of the Arabs who have been killed by fellow Arabs. You can tell them that the Hezbollah forces act as a second army in Lebanon, and that’s very bad.

Next, tell your children the story of President Carter agreeing to
return the Panama Canal to Panama back in the late 70s.
Then, tell them that presidential candidate Ronald Reagan didn’t like it one bit. Reagan, though, was a loyal American. He spoke out against the deal, but he didn’t urge any violence. The canal was returned to Panama peacefully. You can contrast this with potential peace agreements that have been proposed. The Israelis might not be happy about all of them, but they go along. Many of the Arabs want to make peace, but the bullies in their midst (much like the playground bullies your kids know) just want to make trouble. They loudly threaten violence any time a peace deal is proposed. Those Arabs who want to make peace–there are a lot of them–are scared of the bullies!

Please don’t forget to mention Hezbollah, Hamas, and
and Iran! If you want to tell your kids that Hezbollah, Hamas,
and Iran are peaceful at heart that’s up to you, but deep down we all know that this isn’t true. You can mention that every time a peace plan is discussed, all three do everything they can to mess things up. It’s like the mean bullies that try to get between you and kids you want to be friendly with. If you and your kids have strong stomachs, you can tell them what Hamas says about Jews–even Jews who don’t live in Israel.

Finally, please mention that a lot of peace plans have been proposed. The Israelis and Arabs can be very creative, and come up with a plan that is fair to everyone. Please mention, though, that some of the loud and mean bullies (with their “second” armies) don’t want Israel and the Palestinians to have peace with each other.

Yes, Marjorie, this is how I’d explain it to my kids!

First, Ms. Ingall, your bus analogy is inappropriate – at least you used it. We did not get up from our seat on the bus and expect to have that same seat back. A more apt analogy would be getting kicked off the bus entirely, walking to the next city, then the next, then the next, and then finally catching up with the bus and demanding simply a seat. As we know, with the destruction of the Hurva, and even the fact that a mosque sits atop our holiest site [at which we were forbidden to even pray!, *long* before Zionism even was a word in Herzl's mouth], we are not demanding the same seat. If we were truly demanding the “same seat on the bus”, we’d be demanding territories from the Euphrates to the Med, from mid-Lebanon through all of Sinai, and would have exiled people from Iraq, Syria, Lebanon, Jordan, Saudi Arabia, and Egypt. I am not defending Israel here. But if you’re using a bus analogy, at least let us ride.

Second, let’s deal with the fact that we are not actually “engag[ing] in an informed debate”. Such a debate would, as a precedent, deal with the fact (as you described it) that there are two “peoples [who] feel they have a legitimate claim to the same land.” In Arab media, Jews have no claim to the land whatsoever. None of it. Not even a claim to being able to pray at the base of the Wall — pursuant to decree, long before such “modern” decree was made official in 1929 [let alone that we'd have a right to live *near* such wall!]. Debating the merits of “Palestinian rights” is SURELY a just cause, (even if you ignore the idea that “Palestinian” is what many of us used to call ourselves until 1948 and which moniker the local Arabs did not formally adopt until 1967…). After all, “If I am for myself alone, what am I?” But while we debate such merits, Arab states and all of Israel’s neighbors and almost all of the United Nations do not even recognize the viability of a debate ab initio. To them there is no debate. We are trespassers. And Israel is a trespassing entity, ever since the “Nakhba” — the “Catastrophe” — as the whole of the Arab world defines Israel’s establishment in 1948. We Jews argue and debate. To most of the rest of the world, there is no debate; nay, we are not even afforded the opportunity to present evidence in a debate. If we cannot reach the Arab citizen (in any of these countries) to show that we would prefer to coexist with them, how can *any* debate be considered “informed”?

I have not defended nor deplored Israel here. I have, frankly, done both, at times, when each was appropriate. I, too, am liberal. But if you are going to hide behind the idea that the State itself is deplorable to “Palestinians” in the “territories”, as justification for failing to discuss the merits of the State of Israel itself, you, yourself, Ms. Ingall, are preventing the debate from even being “informed” — from a Jewish perspective or otherwise. And Socrates would be ashamed. That you are willing to finally discuss it now (“If not now, when…?”) — this is at least a step in the right direction! But we should at least inform ourselves of our own position, and our own reasons for being in the Land. After all, “If I am not for myself, who will be for me?” If you look at the world’s media, the answer is clear.

I watched from the sidelines. I read the comments. Then kept choosing not to make my own. I didn’t want to get the flack that Marjorie was getting. I had made my own waves — on a much smaller scale — in the midst of Jewish controversy, among Jews and non-Jews.

I had seen — and — experienced, personally, how challenging and painfully Jews can so disrespectfully treat one another for simply giving voice to views with which they disagree.

I have contributed a great deal (on a local level) to Jewish dialogue within the “tribe” as well as with non-Jews. It didn’t succeed. And I got judged and ostracized for the effort.

Though that’s not the only way that Jews treat one another. It is, unfortunately, very much a part of generic traditional Jewish culture to have rational debate that ignores the heart in the service of righeousness.

I applaud Marjorie’s ability to articulate her heartfelt views and perspectives. And, her courage in being able to put herself so much on the front line and take the heat from it. I thank her for it.

Today I can no longer be silent. Israel’s attack on the boat delivering aid to Palestinians is just too much! In my worldview there is no excuse for taking the first steps toward another round of violence.

But its history like every country has it is own share of “warts.” Slavery, Japanese “internment” camps and the shameful treatment of native Americans come to mind.

Are you afraid to talk to your children about these things. How will you teach them about these issues or civil rights. What will you teach them about the Civil War. If you can’t talk to your children about these things than you have serious issues that need to be dealt with.

The point is that America like Israel has good and bad. One of the basic distinctions is that the US has had more than 200 years to work on these issues and Israel has not. That obviously doesn’t take into consideration some of the unique challenges that Israel has faced during that time.

Nor does it take into account the other lessons/questions that you can bring up in a discussion about Israel, such as how other countries were created out of “nothing.” Or have you forgotten about Jordan.

Israel can and should be criticized like every other country. And frankly it is.

I want Martin Buber and Sholem Aleichem (“The Wrong Way”) back…

A letter to the editor on this column states, “In place of this precise slander and imprecise imputation, Bloom might have noted that some of the most robust left-wing discussion of Israeli policy has come from members of the British literary and academic establishment who are also Jewish (Tony Judt, Harold Pinter, Mike Leigh, Jacqueline Rose).”

Israel, while hardly the worst player in the world – what about the Australian aboriginals? The Kurds? The East Timorese? has been singled out for the most invective and when Jews jump aboard it is a signal to the world that Israel obviously is horrific if even Jews say so.

This says it all.

Ehy don’t you become a Christian or a Muslim and stop pretending to be “Jewish.”

Interesting how you attract so many antisemitic posters who are not ambivalent about Israel at all: they hate the Jewish State and wish it to be abolished.

You are a hypocrite, Marjorie.

Consequently, political Zionism in its simplest form runs like this: Jewish history from the medieval period to the present is a series of massacres and pogroms; Jews have not had political sovereignty since the destruction of the Temple; without a nation of their own, Jews will always face anti-semitism and need a safe haven that will protect them; American Jews are cut off from reality and blissfully unaware of the true nature of things, but they too will be in danger some day; assimilation in America is so great that Judaism is no longer recognizable as Judaism; American Jews are likely to disappear within a generation; the Palestineans are brutes; and finally, anyone who disagrees with this narrative must be a self-hating Jew who cares too much what the goyim think.

This classical Zionist narrative was born of great pain and suffering, and is deeply felt. It does not, however, demonstrate genuine insight into the American Jewish experience. It does not recognize that Jews have had political rights here since the time of the drafting of the US Constitution, and does not acknowledge that Jews have been in America for 350 years with nary a pogrom. It also takes a selective reading of Jewish medieval history, ignoring, for example, the Jews were self-governing in medieval Poland (the Council of the Four Lands), that Jews were highly integrated into Spanish society during the Golden Age of Spain, and that some of our greatest cultural treasures come from periods of ecumenical creativity. And it is often blind to the possibility that Medinat Yisrael isn’t always absolutely in the right. 

So, am I a self-hating Jew obsessively concerned with the opinions of the goyim for pointing out these weaknesses in classical Zionism? Hardly. 

Am I observant? Yes, most definitely. Have I spent time in Israel? Yes, I’ve lived there. Am I knowledgeable about Judaism? Yes, I’ve earned two graduate degrees in Jewish studies from accredited Jewish institutions of higher learning. Am I involved in Jewish life? Yes, I’m affiliated with a congregation and teach in a day school.

We need to create a new narrative, one that supports Israel without indulging in rigid us-versus-the-world absolutes. 

1) This is what happens when you live in the East Village.

2) “Baby-boomer Jews seem wedded to a sepia-toned image of Jews as victims—in the shtetl, in the Holocaust, in Israel’s early wars. But in real life, victims can turn into bullies.” Or they can turn into real citizens of a real country; apparently, one you visited some years ago. How come you don’t say anything about your actual experience of actual Israelis? Did you just hang out with other liberal Americans? How long were you there? Your portrait is just as sepia-toned, and you’re the one flipping the Jews from victim to bully. As several people pointed out, Israel isn’t about you. or Peter Beinart.

3) If after reading that book, Josie’s take on the conflict is: “You can’t just push someone out of their seat, and you can’t just leave your seat and then come back to it after a long time and just expect the person who is sitting there now to give it to you.”…then the book told her lies. “The Jews left and came back after 2000 years to push the ancient Palestinians out” is one of the major myths propagated by the people who don’t just want to criticize Israel but delegitimize its existence.

An accurate sentence would be: “If lots of big bullies push someone out of their seat over and over, and they always manage to at least keep their toe on it, and keep coming back and sitting in it, no matter how many times they get shoved out, and 2000 years later they manage to sit on it again, you should recognize that they went to a lot of trouble and got beaten up to keep their seat.” I’m sure Josie can relate to that. Then you can get into sharing it with people who fairly recently decided they are a) a nation and b) want it and DON’T want to share it at all, and join the bigger bullies to continue to beat up the original owners real bad.

(Like you I am a Jewish New Yorker who “does Jewish” but isn’t observant. Coincidentally I write this from a cozy little bedroom community near Haifa. I go home next week. I like visiting Israel. As a tourist. I like Israelis, I like their culture, their creativity, their energy. I like them because they are Israelis, not because they are holding my place till Moshiach comes. YMMV, but you have no excuse for not writing about Israel as a real place.)

I hope you give Robin’s comment above a close and thoughtful read. Beinart hopes for a revival of a liberal and critical Zionism, but I suspect it is already too late. Four decades of settlement construction under Likud and Labor alike have rendered a just two-state solution almost impossible. Sadly the “peace process” was never anything more than a delaying device for the purposes of grabbing more Palestinian lands. Recognizing this, the percentage of Palestinians who prefer a single bi-national democratic secular state has exploded over the past several years. When they find a credible leadership and begin to demand one person, one vote more and more American Jews will break ranks with the bullies. You can take pride in having had the foresight and courage to blaze a path for them.

Again, thank you.

Personally, I too am uncomfortable with the current trends in Israel – just as I was uncomfortable in the U.S. with our last president’s actions or even Ronald Reagan’s vision of the U.S. But that didn’t mean that I felt that the U.S. did not have a right to exist – which is the hypocritical goal of the ISM and others. Like any other situation, your child(ren) will come to understand that the world is not black and white and that they will have to determine which shade of grey they can live with. If you fail to give them “our” side however, they will be left to fill in the gaps only from the “other” side.

http://reider.wordpress.com/2010/02/23/tel-aviv-presents-municipal-program-to-stop-jewish-girls-dating-arabs/

Or a very thoughtful critique of how Zionism and liberalism are incompatible at their core, just as much as Jim Crow and liberalism were:

http://humanprovince.wordpress.com/2010/05/19/zionism-and-liberalism/

Even Israelis are not safe from their own armed forces, if they choose to be activists for Palestinian rights:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6Pl9fksjPpY&feature=related

Zionists will no doubt claim that all of this is smearing Israel by taking isolated incidents as characteristic of an entire country. Well, no, no more than murders of prisoners at Bagram and the black site at Guantanamo are smears of the U.S. military. They are not the whole picture but an important and disturbing portion of it.

Indeed America and Israel have some striking parallels, as both become authoritarian states in which the rule of law and principles of justice corrode under a endless search for safety through military dominance.

I am not Palestinian, Arab, or Jewish. I am not religious. My approach to this issue was originally as a person of the left, concerned with American foreign policy in several different theaters. I don’t know if this is the most important issue in the world today (I certainly think it is an important one). But I do know that I have never been more certain of where I stand, or of what is right (and wrong), than on this issue.

And what is right? Human rights, and equal rights. For everyone.

While I found your thoughts and inclinations to be humane and admirable, I hope you can take another step in looking at the meaning of an Israel which is defined by its supporters (and its own laws) as a “Jewish State”. Can a state which spells out its essence in those terms ever offer full human rights, and fully equal rights, to its citizens and subjects? Could an official “White State” do so in North America? Or a “Protestant State”? (The terms of comparison are important here, since “Jewish” cannot refer to citizenship/nationality in the sense of “American”, “British”, or “French” or even “Israeli”. The meaning is racial and/or religious, as it is in Israel’s own criteria.)

And if the state defines itself as essentially Jewish, won’t it then be required, as self-preservation, to keep Palestinians out or kick them out if they become too numerous? Or use other means to keep them from power?

Because as it happens, that is the situation in the territory of Israel/Palestine. Palestinians (something like 85% of them) were kicked out of Israel in 1948, as they needed to be, to create a Jewish State in an Arab-majority land. Most are still barred from setting foot in their homeland. Their descendants, who have always considered Palestine their home, have no less connection to the land than Jews who make aliyah. And they too are kept out. Palestinians subject to full Israeli sovereignty in the West Bank and de facto sovereignty in Gaza, are kept from power and denied any form of civil rights. And even Palestinian citizens of Israel, the privileged few, face severe discrimination from the state unlike anything else in the Western world.

As people with uniquely strong political, economic, and in some cases ethnic ties to this system, the moral responsibility is on us to change it. Our task is to bring Israel in line with the most rudimentary standards of liberal democracy — principles to which it already pays endless lip service. In reality, nothing could be more moderate. (Unfortunately, mainstream Zionist and even American discourse classifies these ideas quite differently: as a beyond-the-pale extreme. “Redefinition of the state of” becomes “destruction of the nation of” Israel.)

I trust your judgment to recognize that most of the arguments posted here to attack the Palestinians (and you by extension for humanizing them) amount to (a) mass demonization and (b) historical rewriting/denial. But I also understand that there is legitimate concern for the safety of Jews in Israel, especially after so many years of tension and violence. And I can promise you that the caricatures are wrong. Palestinians are capable of tolerance and forgiveness, as I believe all people are. And they have demonstrated it too many times to count, even though the stories rarely get told.

But most importantly, human rights are not for Palestinians to earn. They are simply inalienable. I would no sooner tolerate the denial of Jewish human rights, no matter the rationalization. And what’s more, oppression undermines security and stability, for everybody involved. It has not made Jews safer. Jewish-Arab relations are most stable within Israel proper, where Palestinians have the most rights. Discrimination and abuse by the more powerful party does not allow for an end to conflict.

You may have noticed that I do not refer specifically to two states or a single state as a goal. That is because, to me, the most important thing is not how the territory is divided. It is that no one face discrimination, abuse, or violence. In any part of it. In principle, that does not rule out a two-state solution. But in many cases I would have to question whether support for partition is in the interest of preserving, rather than ending discrimination.

I hope that you keep searching for greater understanding of this issue, as I will also try to do. And I hope that you reach a more confident sense of your own role in finding an end to the hurts and injustices of Israel/Palestine.

If there had been an Israel in 1939, its very likely I would have grown up to meet my grandparents. But there was no safe haven for them. So they lie now in Auschwitz, a physical part of that place.

The trouble with many American Jews is that things have gone too well for them here. They have lost touch with their own history. So much so, that they state that they are “ambivalent” about their own safe haven.

Why is this? To quote Mel Brooks, “Who knows? Jews are crazy.”

Indeed.

“We need something similar to foster one-on-one connections between American and Israeli kids.”

Better:

We need something similar to foster one-on-one connections between American kids, each with both Israeli and Palestinian kids.

without the torah, jews have absolutely no right to the land. none.

and you and your daughter would be correct…they would be bullies.

with the torah, jews never lost their seat on the so called bus.

it is our land…end of story.

Do you really think you are in any way helping your child by reducing the difficulties at hand to the level of the latest “self-help” book of platitudes about “buses” and “victims can be bullies too” (whatever next, “a frown is just an upside down smile”?). It is one thing to think of the language through which to explain things to children, it is another to believe in your own infantalising of the situation.

You want to do something constructive, then do it. But that means thinking about the problem in a mature way, one that, whilst it makes yourself key to such thought and action it means reliquishing your self-serving position of being at the centre of everyone’s world. If you care as much as you say about the Palestinians, they are owed at least that much by you.