Wednesday 14 September 2011

Whose Empire State?

The Republican Party has just captured the formerly safe Democratic seat vacated by Anthony Weiner. But is that really because of opposition on the part of that district's largely Jewish electorate to the Obama Administration's acceptance of reality in relation to the Holy Land, an acceptance so reminiscent of Eisenhower, John Foster Dulles (for all his faults), James Baker and even George W Bush, though also of J William Fulbright and Jimmy Carter (again, for all his faults)? If so, then that amounts to an overriding allegiance to a foreign power, fundamentally incompatible with allegiance to the American Republic. American Jews did not used to be like that.

The Orthodox regarded Zionism, a wholly atheistic and largely Marxist creation, as a blasphemous presumption, a position which a few of them still articulate, while it remains telling that even the adherents of the much more recent Religious Zionism make a point of living on land which, whatever else it may be, is undeniably not at present part of the Zionist State, against whose teenage conscripts of both sexes they will happily use armed force. The desire to live in the Land of Israel is manifestly something quite different from the desire to live in the State of Israel.

And the American Reform (not quite the same thing as the British Reform) defined Jews as a religious community, not as an ethnic group, while seeing America as the polity most shaped by Jews and best embodying what they identified as Judaism's political aspirations. They actually assisted Fulbright in seeking to classify pro-Israeli lobbyists as foreign agents on American soil. There is a quiet revival of that sort of Americanism underway among those taking a renewed interest in Classical Reform. But apparently, it has not yet reached New York's Ninth Congressional District.

Israel is a land of highly socialised medicine and of ostentatiously homosexual street parades. Of which of these does the Republican Party now approve? Moreover, if there cannot be a Palestinian State, contrary to the position of the last Republican President, then with whom and with what have the Israelis ever been negotiating? Those interlocutors do not seek recognition of a Muslim state; on the contrary, the Palestinian Authority already operates a Christian quota without parallel in Israel, though corresponding to similar arrangements in Jordan, Lebanon, Syria and Iran. They do not even seek recognition of an Arab state. Ever since 1993, they have recognised Israel within her borders before 1967, and they seek nothing more than recognition of Palestine in the territory captured in that year, the home of everyone who lives there, and if anything an emerging or emerged Orthodox Jewish refuge from godless Zionism.

The only problem is with recognising Israel as "a Jewish state", condemning to the second class citizenship from which the Israeli Constitution theoretically protects them (however different the practice may be) a fifth of the population, including the world's most ancient Christian communities, now variously Catholic, Orthodox, Anglican and Lutheran. Truly, a cause to unite WASPs and the German or Scandinavian Midwest with all the old "white ethnics" except, perhaps, one. In which case, the Republican Party would be welcome to that one. Has it really come to this, either for that party or for that ethnic group?

10 comments:

  1. 1) it is certainly true that the majority of orthodox Jews in the 19th century and up till WW2 were against Zionism, but it is not true that all are, expecially before Herzl polarised matters of religious lines. Substantial historical revisionism by both anti-zionist and zionist religious Jews obscures what is a rather fascinating and complex subject. I don't expect you to be in any more interested or expert in this subject than I am in the filioque clause, but since it falls under that one of the many areas of human experience that you claim competence to pronounce upon with dogmatic confidence, you might wish to.

    2) The majority of Orthodox Zionists (i.e. orthodox in Judaism not zionism) do not live in Judah and Samaria and about half of all Jews who live there are not Orthodox Zionists (some are anti-zionist charedim who got cheap land int he 70s and some are non religious). The majority of Orothodox Zionists who do live there are fanatically loyal to the state. While you do correctly idetify a sort of zionist anti-zionist tendency among the Orthodox Zionist consituency, there number is actually rather small, though on the increase. I personally would like it to be rather larger since I regard the placing of a human state before divine law to be idolatry, but the reality is that only a very small minority agree with me. Zionism is incompatible with certain expressions of orthodox Judaism, and compatible with other forms.

    More importantly.
    3) Whatever factoids you can point out that might suggest otherwise, the simple fact that is that Christian population is declining every where acorss the Middle East: except Israel. Again, to be frank, this brings me no great joy: I would prefer more Christians in Britain (and Lebanon for that matter) and less in Israel. But the facts remain the facts. If you care about the survival of Christianity in the Middle East your best bet is to support the Israeli state with control over as much territory as possible.

    4) It is odd that a recusant feels so comfortable in impuging the loyalty of other minority groups. You commit praemunire literally every time you attend Church, owe your loyalty to a foreign monarch who claims both personal infalliblity and the right to depose other princes, and think that mental reservation can void oaths of loyalty. Now, of course, you can provide an explanation of how in reality you are very loyal, despite appearances to the contratry, and so can American Jews, in their case with rather more plausibility since the blunt partisanship of minority groups to their country of origin in foreign poilicy is, for better or worse, a normal feature of the American polity.

    5) Poll after poll after poll shows the majority of Americans do not want a Palestinian state, for whatever reason (probably for the perfectly sensible one that it won't benefit them in any way at all and may damage them if the territory goes the normal way of decolonised states in the 20th century). Despite the much vaunted success of the Israel lobby this has not been translated into the official position of either the Democrat or Republican parties which both seek with Wilsonian zeal the establishment of nation sate run by a Marxist terrorist outfit cum kleptocratic protection racket, which was still in 1970s admitting that the Palestinians as a separate entity don't exist.

    6) Israel as Jewish state condemns no-one to anything more than England as an Anglican state, an outcome I would welcome, would.

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  2. 1. Most American Orthodox were at best ambivalent about Zionism until the 1967 War, a generation after the Holocaust. But then, both the large Jewish presence in America and the Zionist attempt to take over Palestine were several decades old by the time that Hitler appeared on the scene. Neither the American Jews nor the Zionist underground thought that the goings on in Germany and her Occupied Territories were much to do with them at the time. Seizing on all of that after the event was pure opportunism in the Zionist case, while hardly anyone in America ever mentioned the Holocaust until 1967. Since then, though, Hollywood, in particular, has become completely obsessed with it. Hollywood has always been very Jewish, yet it never used to have that particular preoccupation.

    2. If the Orthodox settlers on the West Bank are fanatically loyal to the State of Israel, then they have a very odd way of showing it. The people who really are, Avigdor Lieberman and his supporters, take much the same view. And imagine the reaction to any other country on earth if it had a party like his in its government. Or, for that matter, a party like Shas.

    3. The Christian population was not declining in Iraq until the Israeli proxy overthrow of that population's protector. It was not declining in Palestine until 1948. One could go on. As for any increase in Israel, who are they? Russians who will not east kosher food and who insist on taking their IDF Oaths on the New Testament alone (nothing to do with Russian Orthodoxy, which keeps Old Testament figures as Saints and which venerates icons of them), and Americans who must be distinctly surprised at Tel Aviv, but then they believe in a five-act play in which the Jews disappear at the end of Act IV. Not the two-thousand-year-old population of what was once a post-Constantinian Roman province, a Byzantine province, and the Latin Kingdom of Jerusalem.

    Israel recognises Sharia as the law of the land for people born into certain ethnic minorities, whether they like it or not, and even appoints and pays the Sharia judges; there is no comparable provision for Christians. No wonder that Raed Salah's stronghold of Umm al-Fahm voted overwhelmingly to stay in Israel rather than transfer to the Palestinian Authority with its Christian quota that mirrors the reserved Christian seats in Jordan, the Christian-majority provinces and the Christian festivals as public holidays in Syria, the reservation of the Presidency and of half the parliamentary seats to Christians in Lebanon, and the reserved seats for Armenians and Assyrians (and Jews) in Iran. Again, nothing remotely comparable to any of this exists in Israel.

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  3. 4. If American Jews are voting in a Congressional election based on the perceived interest of a foreign state (a state with hardly any trading or migratory relationship with America, and which has never participated in any American-led war, but which is nevertheless kept going by a gigantic American subsidy, much of which pays for an enormous spy network on American soil), then the conflict of loyalty is inescapable. It never used to be an issue. But it is now. Only they themselves can do anything about that.

    5. Since when were these decisions made by opinion poll? American administrations certainly never used to do that! And those poll results only reflect American public ignorance of Christian Palestine (as previously of Christian Iraq, and as now of Christian Syria), also a British trait, and in both cases a product, not of stupidity, but of having been, and still being, lied to an epic scale.

    Perhaps no one did indentify as Palestinian, as such, before the creation of the State of Israel. By definition, no one identified as Israeli, either. Israel has made that particular section of the Levantine Arabs, Christian and Muslim, into Palestinians. If the Israelis, who are not all of the world's Jews and who are not all Jewish, are entitled to a state, then so is their twin people, the Palestinians. And if that included the West Bank Haredim, then so be it. They would find Palestine a lot more conducive than the land of Dana International.

    6. Ask the non-Jewish citizens of Israel if that is the case. And are you really saying that the Jews are a religious community, not an ethnic group? That has been the argument of anti-Zionist Reform Jews for a very long time. It is, of course, perfectly true; in fact, my own main objection to a Jewish state, as such, is to Judaism as an intellectual system, with its denial of Original Sin, with its unfulfilled Messianic hope and expectation, and with its roots in the anti-Christian polemic of the Talmud. But objections at least as important and interesting have always come from people who signed up to all of that.

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  4. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/06/
    26/us/26religion.html

    “What is numerically true, thus not open to debate, is that only a tiny proportion of American Jews have ever rejected exile here to emigrate to Israel.”

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  5. Said Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise, laying down the principles of Reform Judaism in 1885: "We consider ourselves no longer a nation, but a religious community, and therefore expect neither a return to Palestine nor a sacrificial worship under the administration of the Sons of Aaron, nor the restoration of any of the laws concerning the Jewish state."

    Said the late, great Rabbi Elmer Berger: "To demonstrate that Judaism as a universal religion has depth and vision and appeal . . . There need be no nationalistic accouterments or trappings, no secular separatism or isolationism of an allegedly unique 'people' to attract and hold a child to the faith of his fathers ... The child who is educated in the faith and eternal verities of Judaism will become—and remain—a devoted and practicing Jew."

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  6. A friend of mine has just published the first ever full-length biography of Berger, a review of which will form part of Book Three or Book Four, depending on how things turn out.

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  7. "The Christian population was not declining in Iraq until the Israeli proxy overthrow of that population's protector."

    That's what I said: factoids. And in this case wrong on two counts. First, the Christian community was declining just not as fast as it is now, secondly, the Israeli government advised the U.S. not to invade Iraq, immune, as they are, from the democratic universalist delusions of the neconservatives. And even if that were correct, it wouldn't change the fact that in every other Arab country the Christian population is declining as well.

    *

    "If the Orthodox settlers on the West Bank are fanatically loyal to the State of Israel, then they have a very odd way of showing it."

    You are confusing certain people who you have seen on T.V. or read about with the mainstream orthodox settler community, which remains, as I said, fanatically loyal to the Israeli state, which is why, for example, Israel successfully ethnically cleansed the Gaza Strip of 10,000 Jews without a soldier hurt.

    *

    "And imagine the reaction to any other country on earth if it had a party like his in its government. Or, for that matter, a party like Shas."

    Well most European countries will eventually have to include populist right wing parties in their government, so I imagine that in time we will find out. What your problem with Shas, who are just Jewish versons of Chrsitian Democrats is, I don't know. Though for some reason your general apporval of patriotism doesn't apply to Jews.

    *

    "Again, nothing remotely comparable to any of this exists in Israel."

    And again, you can huff and puff and huff and puff, but the Christian population of Lebanon and Syria and everywhere else in the ME continues to decline and ISrael's continues to rise.

    *

    "Perhaps no one did indentify as Palestinian, as such, before the creation of the State of Israel. By definition, no one identified as Israeli, either. Israel has made that particular section of the Levantine Arabs, Christian and Muslim, into Palestinians. If the Israelis, who are not all of the world's Jews and who are not all Jewish, are entitled to a state, then so is their twin people, the Palestinians."

    And yet the Marxist gangsters you support still didn't believe that into the 1970s.

    *

    "They would find Palestine a lot more conducive than the land of Dana International."

    Nope, I don't thin they'll find yet another kleptocratic hellhole run by demented thugs more congenial than even the land of Dana international. Indeed, the highest immigration rates to Israel are now among Haredim, even higher than among Sub Saharan Christians in fact. But keep dreaming. If only traditionalist Roman Catholics were in such rude healthh.

    *

    "It is, of course, perfectly true; in fact, my own main objection to a Jewish state, as such, is to Judaism as an intellectual system, with its denial of Original Sin, with its unfulfilled Messianic hope and expectation, and with its roots in"

    You can object to Judaism all you wish, but yoru view that it has some origin in Talmufid anti Christian polemic is classic protectionism. Even if we take out the hysterical obsessive rantings of a Chrysostom there is simply no comparison between the anti-Jewish polemic of the Church Fathers (who are, after all, the Christian analogue to the Talmudic sages) with the sparse and sporadic anti-Christian snippets of the Talmud. The overwhelming attitude of the Talmud is blissful insularity, some elements of which you may wish to take on board yourself.

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  8. "Rabbi" Elmer Berger is no authority on anything. The Reform Judaism of his age was a slightly eccentric offshoot of liberal Protestantism - Unitarianism taken to its ultimate conclusion - which appealed largely, though by no means exclusively, to ex-Jews. It has dwindled into nothingness with the general decline of the 'mainline' demoninations and been mostly replaced by a barely related faith that mixes appropriated orthodox Jewish cultural tropes (that the older Reform abhorred) with post 60s liberalism.

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  9. David is recognised, if quietly, by Palestinian and other Middle Eastern Chrsitians as one of their most redoutable allies. Ask them if about the Iraq war and its impact on their numbers. Or about the occupation since 1967 or even 1948. As David has repeatedly pointed out, the Syrian government would not be expensively restoring Jewish holy sites unless there were also lots of *Jews* living happily in Syria, whatever the Israelis might claim. As for Israel being against the Iraq war, I have heard it all now, pull the other one.

    The Talmud is not analagous to the Fathers. It is analagous to the the Gospels. The Talmud is the foundation of Judaism. David, like the Fathers, objects to Judaism on a strictly intellectual or ideological level, and for the same reason. The basis of Judaism is the rejection of Christ and His Church, as the obscenties is the Talmud make painfully clear. There is a direct line, in a way that does not exist between any Christian text and Hitler, from the text of the Talmud to Larry David urinating on a picture of Jesus on Curb Your Enthusiasm, among the numerous pornographic or scatalogical insults directed towards Him and His followers, as such, by the American entertainment industry.

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  10. Is Rabbi Isaac Mayer Wise "no authority on anything"? Classical Reform, including Berger's views, are enjoying a quiet renaissance. American Jews' actions, after all, speak for themselves: most of them no more want to return to Palestine than they want to restore animal sacrifices. Otherwise, they would go. Or they would have gone by now.

    More broadly, the definition of Jews as a religious rather than as an ethnic community, and the emphasis on the prophetic call for justice rather than on the Law (a false dichotomy in my view, but then I have the completion of both), have never lost their appeal, and are very much extending it at the moment.

    The organs of American Jewish opinion are heavily dominated by people who would wish and pretend that such developments were not happening. But that does not mean that they are not. My friend's biography (and I don't think that he is yet 30 - if he is, then he is only just) of Berger is very much a sign of the present and future times.

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