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The End of Liberal Zionism
LONDON -- Liberal Zionists are at a crossroads.
Aug 24, 2014
LONDON -- Liberal Zionists are at a crossroads. The original tradition of combining Zionism and liberalism -- which meant ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, supporting a Palestinian state as well as a Jewish state with a permanent Jewish majority, and standing behind Israel when it was threatened -- was well intentioned. But everything liberal Zionists stand for is now in doubt.
The decision of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to launch a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has cost the lives, to date, of 64 soldiers and three civilians on the Israeli side, and nearly 2,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians.
"Never do liberal Zionists feel more torn than when Israel is at war," wrote Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian's opinion editor and a leading British liberal Zionist, for The New York Review of Books last month. He's not alone. Columnists like Jonathan Chait, Roger Cohen and Thomas L. Friedman have all riffed in recent weeks on the theme that what Israel is doing can't be reconciled with their humanism.
Read the full article at the New York Times
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Antony Lerman
Antony Lerman, a former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, is the author of "The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist."
LONDON -- Liberal Zionists are at a crossroads. The original tradition of combining Zionism and liberalism -- which meant ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, supporting a Palestinian state as well as a Jewish state with a permanent Jewish majority, and standing behind Israel when it was threatened -- was well intentioned. But everything liberal Zionists stand for is now in doubt.
The decision of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to launch a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has cost the lives, to date, of 64 soldiers and three civilians on the Israeli side, and nearly 2,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians.
"Never do liberal Zionists feel more torn than when Israel is at war," wrote Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian's opinion editor and a leading British liberal Zionist, for The New York Review of Books last month. He's not alone. Columnists like Jonathan Chait, Roger Cohen and Thomas L. Friedman have all riffed in recent weeks on the theme that what Israel is doing can't be reconciled with their humanism.
Read the full article at the New York Times
Antony Lerman
Antony Lerman, a former director of the Institute for Jewish Policy Research, is the author of "The Making and Unmaking of a Zionist."
LONDON -- Liberal Zionists are at a crossroads. The original tradition of combining Zionism and liberalism -- which meant ending the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, supporting a Palestinian state as well as a Jewish state with a permanent Jewish majority, and standing behind Israel when it was threatened -- was well intentioned. But everything liberal Zionists stand for is now in doubt.
The decision of Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, to launch a military campaign against Hamas in Gaza has cost the lives, to date, of 64 soldiers and three civilians on the Israeli side, and nearly 2,000 Palestinians, the majority of whom were civilians.
"Never do liberal Zionists feel more torn than when Israel is at war," wrote Jonathan Freedland, The Guardian's opinion editor and a leading British liberal Zionist, for The New York Review of Books last month. He's not alone. Columnists like Jonathan Chait, Roger Cohen and Thomas L. Friedman have all riffed in recent weeks on the theme that what Israel is doing can't be reconciled with their humanism.
Read the full article at the New York Times
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