Bradley Burston writes:
Ahead of a New Orleans address to the General Assembly [GA] of the Jewish Federations of North America, sources quoted Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as having said that there is fundamental support for Israel within the United States.
“We may have lost Thomas Friedman, but I don’t think we lost America,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying.
I was getting ready to leave for the airport, when my wife caught me unawares. This was the first inkling I would have of something I was to learn again and again:
Where it comes to any issue of the Mideast conflict, and where it comes to questions relating to the complex relations between the U.S. Jewish community and Israel, you can either answer in three hours, or in one sentence. This was hers:
“You know what it is – American Jews are divesting from Israel.”
This is what I was to see in Los Angeles, San Francisco, Marin County, Portland and Seattle. It’s not that they’re getting involved in significant numbers in the divestment movement. It’s that American Jews are divesting emotionally. They are quietly – but in terms of impact, dramatically – withdrawing altogether.
Not just Jews. Americans. And the younger they are, that is, the more crucial they are to Israel’s future, the more likely they are to divest.
“We may have lost Thomas Friedman, but I don’t think we lost America,” Netanyahu was quoted as saying. What did dear Tom say to bring this on? Why haven’t I seen it in the NYT? How long, O Lord, how long, before people with Tom’s readership (persuades his publisher to) publish editorials saying that Israel’s safety is not threatened and holding on to the West Bank (including East Jerusalem) does not make Israel safer — rather the contrary, as it prevents peace.
I confess: I do not believe that I have ole Tom’s readership.
America has already been lost. When the youth refuses to go along with the rhetoric, then it’s a lost cause. Pipe dreams. Why should the Americans, regardless of ethnicity, back with blood, a regime that hasn’t moved beyond the snivel & whine stage for all these years? In the end, the actions take by Netanyahu & the radical right, will be on them, not on the rest of the World. The United States would serve all of the middle east a service to pull the plug on Israel before they destroy it.