--Haaretz commentator Yitzhak Laor laments how the media and the liberals in Israel only remember the Arab citizens during election time.**
Americans for Peace Now (APN) commends President Obama for eloquently articulating the strong bond between core American values and progressive Jewish values, and for expressing his frustration with the growing gap between these values and those that are increasingly manifesting themselves in Israeli public life.
In an interview, the U.S. president ties his legacy to a pact with Tehran, argues ISIS is not winning, warns Saudi Arabia not to pursue a nuclear-weapons program, and anguishes about Israel.
On Tuesday afternoon, as President Obama was bringing an occasionally contentious but often illuminating hour-long conversation about the Middle East to an end, I brought up a persistent worry. “A majority of American Jews want to support the Iran deal,” I said, “but a lot of people are anxiety-ridden about this, as am I.” Like many Jews—and also, by the way, many non-Jews—I believe that it is prudent to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of anti-Semitic regimes. Obama, who earlier in the discussion had explicitly labeled the supreme leader of Iran, Ayatollah Ali Khamenei, an anti-Semite, responded with an argument I had not heard him make before.
“Look, 20 years from now, I’m still going to be around, God willing. If Iran has a nuclear weapon, it’s my name on this,” he said, referring to the apparently almost-finished nuclear agreement between Iran and a group of world powers led by the United States. “I think it’s fair to say that in addition to our profound national-security interests, I have a personal interest in locking this down.”
Israel’s new government should be seen as a call to action for anyone who cares about Israel’s future, about its character and about its wellbeing. This call applies not only to citizens of the state of Israel, but also – maybe even mainly – to those who are looking at Israel from outside, and, as outsiders, are best positioned to put a mirror before the Israeli public, to serve as a reality check.
The reality is that this government distinctly represents and expresses what the enlightened world, including progressive Americans who care deeply about Israel, have in recent years grown to resent about Israel’s conservative political elite.
The reality is that this political elite, characterized by a combination of jingoistic nationalism and religious conservatism, ethnocentrism and xenophobia, intolerance of dissent and disrespect for basic democratic principles, represents a set of values that is diametrically opposed to the values that most Americans, particularly young Americans, hold dear. More to the point, the reality is that this combination of reactionary beliefs, often zealously proclaimed in the name of Judaism, is the very antithesis of what most American Jews define as “Jewish values.”
On Shavuot, we celebrate the giving of the Torah and the Ten Commandments.
In the spirit of this holiday, let us all remember that the two-state solution we seek is anchored in a two-slate imperative…
Americans for Peace Now wishes you a Hag Sameah, happy Shavuot.
Please consider making a tax-deductible donation to APN on this holiday, to help us work even harder to advance the two-state solution – the only way to achieve long-lasting peace, security, stability and dignity for both Israelis and Palestinians.
Thank you from all of us at APN.
This week, Alpher discusses whether Netanyahu’s new right-wing governing coalition-of-61 survive, or if it is possible that it will expand to include the center-left; why Labor leader Isaac Herzog angrily condemned the new coalition as a “circus;” how the US and the Palestinians are dealing with the fact that this new government is almost certainly not a candidate for a peace process; were US efforts to smooth ruffled Middle East feathers regarding Iran last week (when President Obama hosted Arab leaders from the Persian Gulf at a Camp David summit and he reassured them about American intentions toward Iran and offered more security coordination) in any way significant; and whether Palestinian economic progress promotes peace.