A good friend of mine, a smart, thoughtful rabbi, recently wrote to chastise me for not sending out email blasts on anything "positive and good that Israel does," for instance, its remarkable relief effort in Haiti after the earthquake. The rabbi was right -- and he might likewise have faulted me for failing to send out stories critical of Palestinians, a charge to which I also plead guilty. The plain truth is, I don't take responsibility for the moral rectitude of other peoples but I do feel accountable for acts committed by Jews or the State founded in our name. As Elie Weisel put it in another context, "Not all are guilty but all are responsible."

Israel is family to me so when she goes astray I feel obligated to speak out in the hope she'll do better - exactly what I would do were any of my beloved relatives to act in ways that brought harm to others or themselves.

Israel's image is not hurt by criticism, it is hurt by cynicism, deception, and the hubris of those drunk on power, whether it's the Israeli Ambassador who vilified an American pro-peace PAC with whom he disagreed, or the arrogant Deputy Foreign Minister who humiliated a Turkish envoy and weeks later refused to meet with a U.S. Congressional Delegation because its trip was sponsored by that same PAC.

For the record, I don't send around pat-on-the-back emails about the United States either. Not because I don't cherish the "positive and good" things our government does to alleviate human suffering, but because I expect America to fulfill its core principles and behave in ways consistent with its founding values. Similarly, I don't see why I should have to congratulate Israel for comporting itself ethically and decently when I was raised to believe that's what Jews DO - or are supposed to do -- especially when we're in positions of power. To my mind, it's incumbent on every Jew to speak out when the strong, autonomous State of Israel oppresses the weak or when Jews in the Jewish State betray Jewish values.

So-called "mainstream" organizations and self-appointed Jewish "leaders" are always bombarding Americans with simplistic "pro-Israel" messages and travel-folder hyperbole. While quick to laud Israel's superior medical researchers, computer scientists, burgeoning economy, and blooming deserts, they turn a blind eye to the coarsening of Israeli society and the deepening erosion of democracy. They gloss over the proliferation of political corruption, violence, racism, religious coercion, separate-and-unequal roads through the West Bank, the normalization of McCarthyite tactics to delegitimate pro-peace or human rights groups, and the silencing of dissent - all of which threaten Israel's soul as much as Iran threatens its physical survival.

Many Jews have chosen to preen about Israel's accomplishments while ignoring its shortcomings. APN belongs to the contingent that protests vociferously when Israel, purportedly a democratic nation, demolishes homes without due process, arrests Jewish women for the crime of praying, and permits blatant land grabs by settlers. It's no surprise that idealistic young people and justice-obsessed progressives are turned off by front page stories about the suffering caused by the Israeli blockade of Gaza, or the IDF's mistreatment of Palestinians at check-points, or the impact of the hulking "security barrier" on Palestinians who are cut off from their families, jobs and schools. As evidence mounts of Israel's flagrant violations of the settlement "freeze," and as the government continues to thumb its nose at international legal norms, I worry that the nation will fall into pariah status and more and more Jews will feel alienated from the Zionist cause and disinclined to identify with Israel's fate and future.

My parents, who were lifelong Zionist activists, took literally the biblical mandate that Israel was to be "a light unto the nations." Sadly, that light is presently buried under a bushel of misguided policy decisions, moral malfeasance, and anti-democratic trends. I applaud APN for illuminating the dark corners.