Joe Lieberman: Bad For The Jews, Bad For The Country - Michael Lerner (2000)

[WillyT]

Forgive me... and copy it quickly, but...

<snip>

American Jews are among the most liberal voters in America, more consistently supporting a progressive agenda than any other voting bloc. There's an important reason for this--the Torah tradition has a strong commitment to social-justice values and to caring for "the other." Jews who became secular in America carried those values with them, and they became the backbone of the labor movement, the anti-war movement, the women's movement, and other progressive social-change movements of the past hundred years.

But in the past 50 years, a strong conservative voice has emerged in the Jewish world that has had a very different agenda. Forged by the new possibilities of "making it" in America, these more conservative Jewish voices have insisted that the best interests of the Jewish people lie in identifying with America's elites of wealth and power, finding a place within those elites, and, just in case that didn't work out, building a militarily strong Israel to which we might escape should the (in the conservative view) ever-present danger of anti-Semitism reappear here. Cuddling up to the powerful meant subordinating social justice and joining in the celebration of the globalization of capital and the triumph of the ethos of selfishness and materialism.

These same conservatives sought to build American ties to Israel on a new basis--no longer as the exemplar of democratic and human rights values that had been the view of many liberal Jews, but rather as the strong military ally of the U.S., which could fight against communist and post-communist threats to U.S. interests. From their standpoint, the documentation of Israeli torture of Palestinians, the denial of human rights, and the oppression of another people were all irrelevant and uninteresting. Jewish self-interest, from their standpoint, had nothing to do with the triumph of a moral or spiritual reality, either in the U.S. or in Israel. So while most American Jews were critical of Israeli policy toward Palestinians, these conservatives gave knee-jerk support to whatever government the Israelis produced (and to be fair, I sat next to Hadassah Lieberman at the signing of the Oslo Accords at the White House, and she was as willing to support this as she and her husband had been to support previous hawkish Israeli governments).

The sad truth is that Lieberman represents the tendency within the Jewish world to abandon the moral and spiritual vision that led generations of Jews to be the moral conscience of our society. Rather than championing dramatic escalations in spending for social purposes, and to end poverty and oppression, he will champion defense spending. Rather than critiquing Israeli policy and attempting to push Israel toward more significant compromises with the Palestinians, he will exhibit the kind of contempt for the needs of the Palestinian people that is already over-represented by Gore's top adviser Martin Peretz (editor of The New Republic, and one of the most consistently anti-Palestinian voices in American politics).

Some people have imagined that Lieberman's nomination will generate anti-Semitism. I think that Gore should be praised for not allowing that concern to influence him. But there's another side to that, too. The typical anti-Semitic attack on Jews portrays us as having disproportionate power and influence in the world. This is a lie about Jews in general, but it's true about the sector of Jews who Lieberman represents. Had Gore picked one of the many Jews involved in the leadership of the causes for social justice (Sen. Barbara Boxer, for example), he would have highlighted the way that Jews are doing our best to heal and transform this world. Instead, he chose one of the Jews whose power is used to accelerate the interests of the elites, thus strengthening the distorted image of Jews as uncaring and elitist. It's not that a Jew was nominated; it is the kind of Jew that gives some of us concern.

Joseph Lieberman may be a committed Orthodox Jew in his personal practice, but in his role as a public spokesperson he has gone far away from the best aspects of the Jewish tradition. He has none of that prophetic voice that leads Jews to criticize our own Jewish community and Israel in the name of Torah values. He has none of that Jewish sensitivity to the oppressed that would place their needs above the needs of the wealthy. And yet this is the man who will become the symbol of Jews to most Americans.

That's not good for the Jews.

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Link: http://www.commondreams.org/views/080700-103.htm

I was listening to an NPR program a few months back, and a representative from the Jewish Peace Movement in Israel stated something to the effect, "That there is far more open and democratic debate within the borders of Israel as to issues of war, and peace and justice. But that it was the American Jews supporting the more militaristic viewpoint that kept getting Likkud elected, and keeping efforts at peace stymied.

Sorry... Lieberman's vote today brought that out of me.

I will provide other appropriate venom as i finish my next drink.

:nuke::nuke::nuke:

[illinoisprogressive]

1. Leiberman is a traitor and a spy for the repunks.

[Clark2008]

2. My husband went on a pilgrimage to Israel as a Jew and was

appalled by the treatment of the Palestinians so much that it made him question his own faith: he couldn't understand how his people, who knew the pains and horrors of the Holocaust, could do that to another group of human beings. He said the leadership in Israel doesn't want peace - they want a military base.

He also feels Lieberman is this kind of hawk: more interested in the use of Israel as a military stronghold in the Middle East than any sort of homeland for a peaceful Jew.

[neoblues]

3. Joe Lieberman: Bad For The Jews, Bad For The Country; Just Plain Bad...

and lame, pathetic, sleazy, and about a hundred other pejoratives.