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Most Progressive Israelis Are Zionists

(Jerusalem Post) Daniel Gordis - Almost all of Israel's wars have been about Israel's right to be. Battles with Hamas, which remains sworn on Israel's destruction, are no different. In recent weeks, IfNotNow released a manifesto titled "Five Ways the American Jewish Establishment Supports the Occupation." Though the lengthy document assails Israel's violation of Palestinian rights and the American Jewish establishment's ostensible support of those violations, nowhere does the report detail decades of Palestinian violence against Israel, the thousands of rockets Hamas has fired - and continues to fire - at Israeli towns, the fact that playgrounds in Israel around Gaza are constructed with bomb shelters under seesaws and slides. In other words, nothing about the Israeli reality that Hamas has created. I know more than a few of the members of this group, and I believe that they believe that they are well-intentioned. But telling a narrative that omits the question of how it started or the fact that Palestinians are still sworn on Israel's destruction is to spin a narrative which can only utterly delegitimize Israel. There's no other possible outcome. Why would they do that? Most progressive Israelis are Zionists. Most progressive Israelis have daughters and sons who serve in the military. Most Israelis would also like to end the conflict, but have no idea how to do that. No Jewish group that refuses to endorse the principle of Jewish sovereignty is going to get the attention of many Israelis. In failing to express any sympathy for Israelis or their predicament, IfNotNow members have made themselves not merely marginal to the Jewish story but hostile to their own people. The writer is the Koret Distinguished Fellow at Jerusalem's Shalem College.
2018-11-02 00:00:00
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