Power under Pressure

This article is another discussion of the Israel Lobby and the conflict it creates with the Jewish community. One statement of note is the clear conflict between the position of leading Jewish Organizations on citizenship in the US (and much of the rest of the world) and Israel.

I remember way back when asked a question along these lines Abe Foxman basically said "but the Jews have suffered throughout history so they deserve their own country." Which is to imply that others don't deserve their own country.

A problem here is that American Jewry has allowed itself to be represented by persons who in manner and personality resemble not the Nobel prizewinners, writers and thinkers of whom it has every reason to be proud, but an earlier generation's formidable gangsters, who are not above descending to vulgar ethnocentrism for the sake of defending Israel.

This can be manifest in the tension between the claim of full rights in the (majority-Christian) United States by virtue of the universal principles of citizenship, and the insistence that nothing be done to alter the Jewish character of Israel. It is also apparent in the acceptance of an alliance with fundamentalist Protestants, whose Biblical literalism translates into uncritical support for Israel. Such contradictions can only be explained by a visceral identification with Israel.

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