"My Zionism demands I speak out on behalf of the Israel that remains, in my world-view, the most ambitious project-in-process of the Jewish People. Whereas Israel's 66 short years have witnessed strength and resilience that have redefined Jewish identity in profound ways, the global Jewish family remains interwoven with Israel....
"I ask the enraged critics of Israel's defensive responses to Hamas: Would you have us not respond to this monstrosity? Do you think it's not worth losing the PR battle to retain our humanity and save as many lives as possible? What country would stand by when thousands of terrorist missiles assault its citizens? I, a Jew, have lost 20 of my sons in the last three days, because I will not lose my humanity and stage a careless ground war in Gaza that would cause mass casualties. Though I fight monsters, I will not become one...
"We will do what we must to protect our people. We have that right. We are not less deserving of life and quiet than anyone else."
P.S. 20 percent of Israel's population is non-Jewish.
J Street is caught in the middle, wringing its hands. The liberal Zionist group refused to endorse a rally in support of Israel in Boston; Jeremy Ben-Ami, head of J Street, said he'll attend the rally, but he can't sponsor it because it does not address J Street's concern over Palestinian civilian casualties, or over what Israel is becoming:
"What was missing for us in this rally, and what ultimately precluded our co-sponsorship, was that despite our efforts, there was no space made to raise the issues that follow from our commitment to Israel's Jewish and democratic future. There was no voice for our concerns about the loss of human life on both sides, or the acknowledgement of the conflict's complexity and that the only way to truly end it is through a political solution. Perhaps what was most critically absent was the means to raise the question of what role we as a community of hovevi tzion [lovers of Zion] can and must play to help make it so we are not back here two years from now, again wringing our hands in grief. Incorporating these thoughts and nuances in our communal reaction would have only strengthened our community and its advocacy on Israel's behalf."
Ben-Ami stressed his solidarity for Israel in remarks to 20 Democratic senators yesterday. Though he also referred to Palestinian civilians.
"As others have noted, this is a difficult time for friends of Israel. I was in Israel when the rockets began falling, and J Street's thoughts are with our staff, family and friends who are there and the IDF forces suffering terrible casualties and making tremendous sacrifices.
"We also note with great sadness the tremendous toll being taken on Gaza's civilian population by this present violence -- over 600 dead, many of them non-combatants and children, and over 100,000 of Gaza's 1.8 million people living in shelters."
The liberal Zionist New Israel Fund sent out a fretful email from Rabbi Brian Lurie and Daniel Sokatch that was most concerned with the threat to Israel's Jewish democratic character from rising intolerance. The two employed circumlocution regarding Palestinian deaths:
"We are all paying close attention to the situation unfolding in Gaza. Far too many are living in fear. Far too many have died. Soon, I pray, the fighting will end.
"On the day after the fighting ends -- when Israelis again look inward --- I'm terrified that they will see a society filled with anger and pain, where extremism is the norm and dissent is not tolerated."
Ali Abunimah called out these attitudes as self-centered and callous on Democracy Now yesterday:
"What we have is this liberal Zionist navel-gazing about how to preserve Israel as a so-called Jewish and democratic state. Enough Palestinian babies have been blown to pieces for this insanity. Enough of lecturing Palestinians that their resistance is illegitimate or futile."
Abunimah was debating JJ Goldberg, a liberal Zionist, who described the onslaught as a massacre and observed the shift in Israel's image.
"I think I wrote the wind shifted, and I've written in a couple of tweets and so on that Israel jumped the shark. It went -- it went overboard. It went a step beyond what it had been doing. The ground campaign essentially was a declaration of war on the Palestinian people."
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