Amira Hass and the end of Jewish ethical history

[R. Daneel Olivaw]

http://mondoweiss.net/2014/07/jewish-ethical-history.html

If victory is measured by the success at causing lifelong trauma to 1.8 million people (and not for the first time) waiting to be executed any moment – then the victory is yours.

These victories add up to our moral implosion, the ethical defeat of a society that now engages in no self-inspection, that wallows in self-pity over postponed airline flights and burnishes itself with the pride of the enlightened. This is a society that mourns, naturally, its more than 40 soldiers who were killed, but at the same time hardens its heart and mind in the face of all the suffering and moral courage and heroism of the people we are attacking. A society that does not understand the extent to which the balance of forces is against it.

“In all the suffering and death,” wrote a friend from Gaza, “there are so many expressions of tenderness and kindness. People are taking care of one another, comforting one another. Especially children who are searching for the best way to support their parents. I saw many children no older than 10 years old who are hugging, comforting their younger siblings, trying to distract them from the horror. So young and already the caretakers of someone else. I did not meet a single child who did not lose someone – a parent, grandmother, friend, aunt or neighbor. And I thought: If Hamas grew out of the generation of the first intifada, when the young people who threw stones were met with bullets, who will grow out of the generation that experienced the repeated massacres of the last seven years?”

Our moral defeat will haunt us for many years to come.

Our moral defeat will haunt us for many years to come.

[oberliner]

1. Doesn't this piece conflate Israel and the Jews?

The title seems to, at least.

[Zen Democrat]

2. Isn't Israel a Jewish state?

[oberliner]

3. I don't think one should conflate Israel with The Jews.

Seems like a bad idea. Problematic on various fronts and not especially fair.

[HooptieWagon]

4. Like conflating Palestinians with Hamas?

And killing 80% non-Hamas Palestinians?

[oberliner]

5. Exactly

That's just as bad.

[shaayecanaan]

8. So criticism of Israel is categorically not anti-semitic?

Otherwise, you are conflating Israel with the Jews.

Forget about the old anti-zionism = anti-semitism canard, as well.

[oberliner]

9. Anti-semites often conflate Israel with the Jews

Thus, criticism of Israel can sometimes be antisemitic.

Also some anti-semites have learned if they go with anti-Zionist rhetoric instead they can get their anti-semitic message out since a lot of people do conflate Israel with Jews.

Like you'll sometimes see things about Zionist-controlled media and then a list of Jewish names and other similar types of remarks.

[shaayecanaan]

10. Jews often conflate Israel with the Jews

How many synagogues in the NYC area, for example, would not have an Israeli flag somewhere? Admittedly, they usually don't fly it outside, usually inside alongside the American flag, but if anything that makes it more poignant.

Whenever I see the Australian Jewish News, it usually goes something like this:-

Israeli news

Israeli news

Yay! We just did a charity drive for blind kids in Israel

Little Menachemendel aged 6 just became a chess grandmaster. What took him so long?

Some eastern suburbs Jewish school got soundly thrashed in rugby, as usual. Why bother with further details?

Israeli news.

There's an old Turkish saying, you share in the glory, you share in the shame. Not saying its right or wrong, but it is what it is.

[Spider Jerusalem]

6. So does Zionism, by definition (n/t)

[oberliner]

7. Indeed

I thought, though, that it was best not to conflate the two on a site like this. If "The Jews" are to bear responsibility for the actions of the Israeli government in Gaza - can you not see how that might become problematic?

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. It's problematic, yes

but it's also sort of wilfully ignorant to pretend that the Zionist conflation of "Jews" and "Israel" is completely irrelevant to the any discussions around the issue. Not to mention that, for an Israeli Jew, the connection of "Jewish" and "Israeli" is probably much more immediate and visceral than it is to an American or German Jew; Israel is, after all, "the Jewish state", "the national homeland of the Jewish people", etc.; such an identification of one's Jewishness with one's identity as Israeli seems as though it's probably natural in the context of the article.