PROPAGANDA ALERT!

“Everyone knows that American Jews and Israel are drifting apart . . .”

Everyone does “not know” because it isn’t the truth.

I am an American of Jewish descent.

I don’t speak Hebrew, but I belong to a synagogue. While I am as interested in being an American without a hyphenate, and in the United States of America, that is possible, I am not only comfortable being Jewish but democratic, humanist, liberal, and pro-Zionist.

The propaganda that starts with an assumptive phrase, “Everyone knows” often goes on to “about the Jews”. Most American Jews well know the history of the invocation of such phrases and the persecution of the Jewish People that continues apace without regard to possession of the Hebrew language or religious passion (Hitler, I believe, set the mark for “genocide” for one-fifth “Jewish blood”).

I don’t really want to take on the genetics crowd, but Jewishness, believing (in God) “ethical monotheism” and appreciation of cultural customs and holidays and rituals appear all over the world, from Cuba to the Asian subcontinent (include China and Africa . . . everywhere) through the Jews. Regardless of real race — talk about “rainbow coalition” — the vast majority of Jews recognize the significance, promise fulfilled, and powerful function of the possession of a real spiritual — and functional and functioning — homeland. Our culture — our way, our ethics, morality, our arguments . . . in fact: no Moses — no Muhammad — knows the land from whence it came, and in that most all share.

Ask a Baloch, a Kurd, a Pashtun (“B’ni Israel”) about his relationship with the Land of The People.

The response may be no different for the Hebrew People and Jewish People of the global diaspora. We know the land from whence we’ve come — and we know what we have had to overcome to get there. We are not drifting from that land: we are drifting the world closer to it.

Never mind the forum — the source of irritation:

http://mosaicmagazine.com/essay/2016/04/if-american-jews-and-israel-are-drifting-apart-whats-the-reason/ (4/4/2016 – a progressive book review by Elliot Abrams, no less).

So Jews argue (and the cliche goes: “two Jews, three opinions”).

Call what we do intellectual freedom combined with the ambition to learn and explore ethics, law, and psychology and much else without limits.

We’re not drifting apart: we’re drifting more together, and not only the Jews, but with the same “mixed multitude” that Moses led out of Egypt.

As regards the business of establishing a “Palestinian state” — and BackChannels’ editor endorses a two-state solution or, if unachievable, suzerainty — resides with the creaking old absolute-power enthusiasts: the PLO / PA and Hamas, both apparently incapable of change (on this blog, have a look at “Why the Jews“) and chained themselves (by money most of all) to the Moscow-Tehran axis, post-Soviet, neo-feudal, and relentlessly piratical, both of them.

The opener, “PROPAGANDA ALERT” may have ironic meaning for some (bigots), but it refers to the tack taken in the first paragraph of the Abrams review and might apply to liberal gloss throughout lauds the excessive criticism of Israel as programmatic in “saving Israel” (from those blasted far right wingers) while barely touching on the perfidy of the Jewish State’s sworn enemies –and not the Palestinians but the Palestinian leadership.

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