By Jonathan Miller, on Mon Dec 3, 2012 at 10:00 AM ET
We’re proud to announce The RP’s latest gig — a semi-regular columnist for The Times of Israel. As the Jewish State finds itself in the headlines following the Gaza conflict and Palestinian maneuvers before the United Nations, The RP dispels the myth of Israel’s illegitimacy being pounded by the mostly-liberal Blame Israel First crowd.
Here’s an excerpt:
My column last week in The Huffington Post, “Why My Fellow Liberals Should Support Israel in Her Conflict with Hamas,” provoked the predictable hackles from the Blame Israel First crowd.
Within their excuses and rationalizations for the Hamas regime’s abhorrent actions — such as the targeting of Israeli civilians and the employment of Palestinian human shields — ran a familiar argument: That all means are justified, since the Jewish State is legally and morally illegitimate.
You may have heard their historical narrative: The Great Western powers, triumphantly basking in the aftermath of World War II, were paralyzed with guilt for their failure to prevent history’s most horrifying genocide. The Allies decided to resolve the “Jewish problem” by carving up the Arab-dominated Palestine to create a Jewish State because of the Chosen People’s mythical, Biblical ties to the land. Just as with the imperialist colonization of Africa and Asia; here, white-skinned, European, self-important and self-righteous conquerors patronizingly tried to “civilize” — and, if that failed, they’d violently displace — dark-skinned, indigenous peoples… all along ironically justifying their actions as a pursuit of justice and freedom and democracy.
It’s a powerful story that tugs at the heartstrings and plays to the deepest biases of many American liberals. For most progressives, our foreign policy worldview was defined by Vietnam, during which the old liberal guard launched a misguided quest to further the cause of global freedom, resulting instead in the inexcusable loss of hundreds of thousands of lives — mostly innocent, native Southeast Asians. The mindset was reinforced more recently in Iraq, where a neo-con Bush/Cheney Administration played upon popular insecurities to wage an unnecessary and brutal war under the false pretenses of promoting democracy.
And hey, what liberal doesn’t love a good underdog story; whether it’s a minority group championing civil rights, or a tiny nation battling an imperial power?
It’s no wonder that this Bizarro-Bible myth of Israel as Goliath and Palestine as David plays smack dab into the liberal wheelhouse. And it confirms to some progressives that it’s the Israeli imperialists — greedily grasping onto their colonial territories — who are the key obstacle to peace in the Middle East.
The trouble with this narrative is that it’s entirely untrue.
Whether or not you believe that the Hebrew Bible (Old Testament) and/or the Christian Scriptures (New Testament) should be accepted as literally true — I don’t — it’s important to understand that for millennia, Jews and Christians have proclaimed Israel as their ancestral homeland. The city of Jerusalem and the land of Zion are mentioned more than 800 times in the Hebrew Bible, and in over 100 instances in the Christian Scriptures. Contrast that with the Koran; even though Jerusalem is spiritually significant for Muslims, the city is never mentioned in Islam’s holiest text.
But even those who reject any discussion of the holy books in this context must concede that the objective, independent historical and archaeological evidence is overwhelming: There has been a sustained and vibrant Jewish presence in the land of Israel for thousands of years.
Over the past few centuries, archaeologists have made a series of extraordinary discoveries that establish that a distinctive Jewish religion and culture was developed around 4,000 years ago in Israel, and that Biblical figures such as David, Solomon and Jesus were the focus of considerable attention by the Jews of antiquity within Jerusalem and throughout the holy land. Further, Martin Gilbert, a widely-respected historian, has demonstrated, through a dispassionate examination of the historical record, that for more than 1600 years, Jews formed the “main settled population” of what now is considered the modern state of Israel.
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, a Friend of RP, and the Founder (and for many years, the President) of the highly influential The Israel Projectwrote an op-ed in today’s The Times of Israel in response to The RP’s widely read column this week in The Huffington Post: “Why My Fellow Liberals Should Support Israel in Her Conflict with Hamas.” We cross-post it below with the author’s permission:
Jonathan Miller’s op-ed supporting Israel in its conflict with Hamas in the liberal Huffington Post was right on the mark. In it he does an outstanding job in the vital role of defending Israel’s moral obligation to protect its citizens from Iran-backed Hamas. However, he also says that American liberals should stand with Israel because of Israel’s “feminist approach to the empowerment of women.”
While it is true that Israel is a bastion of feminism compared with other nations in the Mideast, the Israel of today has a long ways to go on women’s rights.Israel’s female Prime Minister, Golda Meir, served a long time ago. Sadly, the Israel of today is experiencing a gender-fairness crisis that endangers both its progress and security.
Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi
When Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu pulls together his inner-cabinet to make critical decisions, he calls together a group of nine men, no women. The full cabinet is 30 men, two women. I don’t know of any women on the prime minister’s senior staff, or in Israel’s senior ambassadorial posts at this moment in time. Indeed, when U.S. Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton arrived in Israel for meetings, did any women meet with her who did more than pour her coffee?
The majority of Israelis are women. Yet where are they in Israeli public life?
Elections will be held in Israel on Jan 22nd. Unless something dramatic changes, it is unlikely those gender numbers will change much in Israel’s leadership, if at all.
I am grateful that Israel exists. I am praying that the ceasefire may last so that innocent lives can be saved on both sides. I have dozens of friends in Israel who I consider family. When their children are called up to the reserves, or they run to their “safe rooms,” or a bus blows up, I feel as if a member of my immediate family is on the front lines as well.
Read the rest of… Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi: Women’s Rights in Israel are a Core Security Interest
As an American liberal who loves Israel because I’m a liberal, I’ve been disturbed by the recent diminishing trend of American progressive support for the Jewish State in its decades-long conflict with its increasingly hostile neighbors.
A recent CNN/ORC poll concerning the Gaza conflict intensified my anxiety: While a plurality of self-identified liberals and Democrats support Israel’s right of self-defense in taking military action against Hamas, Democrats were three times more likely than Republicans to believe that the Jewish State is “not justified” in its targeted bombing campaign.
The roots of liberal sympathy for the radical, fundamentalist, brutal Hamas regime are as complex as they are troubling. We liberals love the underdog, and a media that rewards conflict over context has helped promote the perverse notion that the tiny nation with the Star of David on its flag is really the Goliath in the popular Biblical metaphor. This problem was exacerbated in Campaign 2012 when my fellow progressives watched a coterie of unlikeable, right-wing GOP presidential hopefuls proclaim their uber-passionate support for the Jewish State and try to use it as a political wedge against our beloved progressive President.
But amidst the shouting and finger-pointing, the fundamental reason behind the decline of American progressive support for Israel relates to a profound misunderstanding of the facts on the ground. When confronted with an accurate accounting of the differences between the two sides in the conflict, a true liberal must be compelled to embrace the Zionist cause.
Here are but a few examples:
Israel Values Human Life; Hamas Does Not
There’s no moral value more important to American liberals than the preciousness of human life, particularly the lives of those in our society who are most vulnerable: As Hubert Humphrey elegantly framed the liberal credo, “The moral test of government is how it treats those who are in the dawn of life, the children; those who are in the twilight of life, the aged; and those who are in the shadows of life — the sick, the needy and the handicapped.”
Israel’s current intervention in Gaza is a living example of this principle. Understanding that any military action would provoke its international enemies, Israel simply could no longer tolerate the danger posed to its citizens — Jews and Arabs — by the many months of unprovoked bombing of civilian targets in Southern Israel by Hamas militants. Accordingly, Israel has engaged in a painstakingly-measured, precisely-targeted bombing campaign, using the most modern technology to carefully dismantle military targets and avoid civilian casualties. On Monday, for example, the Israeli Defense Forces (IDF) used pinpoint accuracy to destroy the second floor of a Gaza City office building, killing only the Islamic Jihad military leaders who had been responsible for training terrorists, planning attacks on Israeli civilians and manufacturing weapons.
By Nancy Slotnick, on Fri Nov 2, 2012 at 12:15 PM ET
I am Katniss Everdeen and I approve this message. Ok, I’m not her. But I read the trilogy and I know she would be with me on this. Trust me.
Hurricane Sandy did this to my house.
And still when I heard that Mayor Bloomberg endorsed Obama because of his stance on global warming, I thought, “That’s great, maybe something good will come of this!” But I didn’t think much about global warming. Then Senator Schumer said it. And still I thought- they’re politicizing the issue. We just need some FEMA assistance right now. I couldn’t wrap my head around global warming. Maybe I was scared. It was Halloween after all. And we just lost our house.
Global warming is such a lukewarm phrase anyway – it has no bite to it. All I can think of is people who want a cause to complain about. Like Chicken Little with old “the sky is falling” thing. I love the smell of Chicken Little on my grill in the morning. Especially the grill I used to have in Fire Island. We called it circle chicken- because it was on the rotisserie- and it was so good. But I digress and I am getting sad now.
Then BAM– and it hit me. When I started pondering whether we should re-build our house at all, since our house is on a barrier island, I realized– We are destroying our planet and I’ll be lucky if NYC is around when my son grows up. This storm brought the most powerful city in the world to its knees. Way worse in devastation and vulnerability than 9-11. It’s true that because of great decisions on the part of the Mayor and others there were minimal lives lost. But when we lose whole communities, this is bigger than we realize. To anyone who’s even still considering voting for Romney after this—I hope that your roads are flooded and you can’t make it to the voting booths. I hope a fallen telephone pole blocks you from getting to the poll site.
Read the rest of… Nancy Slotnick: What Sandy Did To My Home & My Closing Argument for Obama
By Michael Steele, on Wed Oct 31, 2012 at 3:00 PM ET
Contributing RP Michael Steele, Former Democratic Senator from Arkansas Blanche Lincoln and USA Today’s Susan Page talk about where President Barack Obama and Mitt Romney are Tuesday and how Hurricane Sandy could impact the last week before the election:
Imagine a political party “really” wanting America governed progressively. Imagine its platform stressing social justice, human and civil rights, peace, disarmament, and other populist policies. The two-party duopoly may say they support progressive values but upon closer analysis they are actually spurned.
Presidential candidate, Dr. Jill Stein of America’s Green Party believes another United States is possible but another party is necessary.
She fully embraces the Green Party’s ‘Green New Deal’ platform. The Green New Deal is the only detailed program from any political party for moving America quickly out of crisis into a secure, sustainable future.
Inspired by FDR New Deal that helped us out of the Great Depression of the 1930s, the ‘Green New Deal’ will provide similar relief and create an economy that makes our communities sustainable, healthy and just.
Here are some but not all of the policies Dr. Stein and the Green Party proposes.
Dr. Stein believes our country cannot truly move forward until the roots of inequality are pulled up, and the seeds of a new, healthier economy are planted. Thus she supports an economic bill of rights that ensures all people:
1. The right to employment through a full employment program that will create 25 million jobs by implementing a nationally funded, but locally controlled direct employment initiative, offering public sector jobs when private sector jobs are not available;
2. Workers rights including the right to a living wage, to a safe workplace and to organizing a union without fear of firing or reprisal;
3. The right to quality healthcare achieved through a single-payer Medicare-for-All program;
4. The right to a tuition-free, quality, federally funded, local controlled public education from pre-school through college;
5. The right to decent affordable housing, including an immediate halt to all foreclosures and evictions by creating a federal bank with local branches to take over homes with distressed mortgages and either restructuring the mortgages to affordable levels, or renting the homes by expanding rental and home ownership assistance;
6. The right to accessible and affordable utilities, expanded Internet for all, and public transportation through democratically run, publicly owned corporations that operate at cost and not for profit;
7. The right to fair taxation distributed in proportion to earnings and one╒s ability to pay. In addition, corporate tax subsidies will be made transparent by detailing them in public budgets where they can be scrutinized, not hidden as tax breaks.
Everyone says – and the polls suggest – that this year’s election is going to be close. Normally any candidate who keeps his money overseas and who has made his living sending jobs overseas wouldn’t even stand a chance of being elected to the highest office in the land, especially at a time of grim economic times.
Romney may win this election, despite all of his flaws, mainly because Obama has done such a mediocre job the last four years at best.
Instead of dismantling all of the Bush Era policies, he let them all ride. Many of my Democratic friends are less than enthusiastic about their President because of this.
But, I would simply point out to the American people, especially the undecided voters to think about the points that I considered before making up my own mind.
Obama did inherit the worst economy since the Great Depression. George W. Bush took a 5 Billion dollar surplus that Clinton left him and in his first few months in office, squandered it all and turned it into a 5 TRILLION DOLLAR Deficit. The only way he could have ruined the country this badly is if it were intentional. I believe, Bush was the worst President in US History for that reason. To me, it was even a treasonous Presidency far worse than any other treason in our history. And the damage that Bush did is still not fully appreciated. The Wall Street FatCats that sold the world trillions in fraudulent paper are still doing it. Another shoe is yet to drop.
Obama faced the greatest resistance to getting any of his bills passed than any other President in history and I believe it was a Racial Bias on the part of the Republican Party. They even admit that their primary job was to defeat Obama. Actually their job is to get things done and try to fix problems. SO, in effect, the Republicans were the BIGGEST protaganists of EXTENDING the Bush Treason.
Obama is an imperfect man. He would be the first to admit it. I think his humility is his greatest downfall. But, I believe that his experience in his first term has honed him, like a sword that is forged in the fires of the Hell and that he now has the strength and wisdom to make his second term astonishingly good.
And, last but not least, you must consider this: Whoever gains the White House will inherit the worst economy since the one Bush handed to Obama.
The challenges will be extreme. The next administration will have to make huge cuts in everything. Do you want a Republican making the cuts, which will be mainly in social programs. OR would you prefer the cuts to be in THE PENTAGON, Oil Company Subsidies, Tax cuts for the wealthy and HUGE WASTEFUL programs like that? The choice is really that simple.
Do you want more of your countrymen to go hungry, lose their homes, suffer and die? If you do, vote for Romney because he says he will increase Defense spending. That will only come from the Social Programs and also ultimately RAISE your taxes.
OR would you rather take money from the guys who wasted TRILLIONS of your money in Viet Nam and Iraq, Afghanistan, etc? IF you are not a war-mongerer, like the Republicans then you must vote for Obama.
The choices are GRIM either way. It’s only what you feel you can support as the least grim choices we must make.
That is the way you should make your decision this year. And it always helps to remember at election time. Which side of the bread is your butter? Do Republicans ever give you or your family anything to make your lives a little better?
Or is it the Democrats who do that?
THINK about your own family for a while before going to the polls.
Mike Mathiesen is the Founder of Go Foods Global, Santa Cruz, CA
It’s a powerful story that tugs at the heartstrings and plays to the deepest biases of many American liberals. For most progressives, our foreign policy worldview was defined by Vietnam, during which the old liberal guard launched a misguided quest to further the cause of global freedom, resulting instead in the inexcusable loss of hundreds of thousands of lives — mostly innocent, native Southeast Asians. The mindset was reinforced more recently in Iraq, where a neo-con Bush/Cheney Administration played upon popular insecurities to wage an unnecessary and brutal war under the false pretenses of promoting democracy.
