Liberal Zionists Are Finding Our Voices Again

Gradually, we are rejecting the false dichotomy between "opposing" and "supporting" Israel.

Since October 7, millions of American Jews have felt unmoored, adrift, and buffeted by one shock after another.  This has been particularly true for basically liberal to moderate Jews who support Israel but oppose the hard-right elements in its current government, and who still hold out hope for a just and sustainable peace between Israel, the Palestinians and the rest of the Arab world. 

The shocks were many. At first, of course, there were the horrors of the attacks themselves, followed by an eerie silence among many of our friends and fellow liberals, and by antisemitic and extreme statements by many on the farther left.  Even before the war in Gaza started, it seemed to many liberal Jews as if Jewish lives didn’t matter in the same way other lives did, that the mass murder and rape of over 1,200 Jews not only didn’t inspire solidarity among progressives, but brought on a wave of blaming of Israel.  We didn’t get a chance to grieve. To say this was disorienting is a vast understatement.

Then, as the war in Gaza unfolded, liberal American Jews felt an even more disorienting concoction of emotions: horror at the civilians killed in Gaza, but dismay at the tenor – often antisemitic and often merely extreme and brutal – of anti-Israel rhetoric on the Left.  We felt politically homeless, as most of those opposed to the war demanded an Israeli surrender (under the guise of a unilateral “ceasefire”) and offered no path toward security or accountability, while many of those supporting the war demanded absolute, unquestioning support of the Jewish state, even as senior ministers and military officials used inexcusable language of ethnic cleansing and the death and devastation mounted.

Over the last few weeks, I’ve noticed in personal and organizational spaces that this situation has at last begun to shift.  Liberal Zionists have reawakened.  There is a growing articulation of this ambivalent, centrist position: supporting Israel’s right to self-defense, supporting some military action in Gaza, and yet opposing the extreme ways in which this war is being carried out.  And for once, we are aligned with leadership in Washington.

Take, for example, the December 21 press release from J Street, which describes itself as “the political home of pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy Americans.”  The statement begins by repeating J Street’s support of “Israel’s right and obligation to defend its territory, provide security for its citizens and bring to justice those who perpetrated this barbaric attack.”  Unlike the Left’s embrace of language like ceasefire and genocide, liberal Zionists understand that any nation on the planet must respond militarily to the massacres and rapes of its citizens, especially one with numerous hostile adversaries (Iran chief among them) fighting proxy wars on all sides.

“However,” the statement continues, “the civilian death toll and humanitarian crisis in Gaza that the Netanyahu government’s military operation have caused are unacceptable and out of line with American interests and values.”

This, sadly, is surely true. Quoting various US military experts, the statement notes that Israel is not using “intelligence-led precision strikes with precision munitions, and special operations forces” but broader, shock-and-awe type tactics that seem, from the outside at least, not to properly balance the tactical objectives of the war and the loss of innocent civilian life.  Gigantic munitions; shelling areas where civilians had been told to shelter; using food and medical aid as a bargaining chip – all this (and more) combined with extreme statements from some in Israeli leadership lead to the inevitable conclusion that Israeli leadership either doesn’t sufficiently care about the loss of innocent  Palestinian life or actually wants to cause it.  Even the tragic incident in which Israeli soldiers mistakenly shot two escaping hostages suggests (though we may never know the details) that the rules of engagement have not been set down in a way that pursues Israel’s strategic objectives while minimizing the loss of life.

This is not to conclude that Israel has committed war crimes; that will be decided in the years to come.  Nor are the rules of law written in black and white. In this kind of war, there are hundreds of decisions every day that take place in various shades of gray.  And according to knowledgeable sources, the IDF still have lawyers approve every major strike for compliance with the proportionality and other requirements of the laws of war. 

Yet the magnitude of the destruction, death, and displacement is staggering – I heartily recommend the moving essay on Mary Gaitskill’s

Out of It

on facing this devastation head-on, even when it means questioning our values, rather than turning away from it.  Moreover, the repeated statements by the Netanyahu government that the fighting will continue for some long, undetermined period of time – and that a long-term Israeli occupation of Gaza will follow it – seem not to recognize that neither the world nor the majority of Israel’s friends in the United States will accept such an unsustainable situation.  We cannot and will not tolerate this much death for much longer.

Finally, Israeli leadership seems to be prioritizing its strategic goals in Gaza above the release of the remaining hostages held by Hamas.  The Netanyahu government has refused to enter into another round of negotiations for a pause in the fighting, placing it at odds with a significant portion of the Israeli population, and aligning it with the hard-right ministers in its government who want to maximize, not minimize, the devastation wrought on innocent Palestinians.

In response to these developments, the J Street statement makes four demands of the Biden administration: push for a second pause for hostage release and humanitarian aid, take a more balanced line on Israel at the UN, draft a “Marshall plan-style effort” for the future of Gaza and the West Bank, and require Israeli compliance with international law when it uses weapons purchased with US taxpayer money.

AI prompt: Rothko gray stripe black white Jewish star

J Street is not alone in staking out this moderate space in between the hawks and the doves, but its statement is representative of what may yet emerge as a consensus for liberal-but-not-radical American Jews. We support a military operation, but not this military operation.  We support Israel, but not the far-right members of this Israeli government.  We support a campaign against Hamas, but not if it is a cover for the ethnic cleansing of Gaza.  And finally, we are traumatized and enraged by the murder, rape, torture, and inhumanity of October 7, but while that evil does warrant a firm and serious response, we will not allow it to harden our hearts to the innocent people suffering on a terrible scale in Gaza.

I don’t have quantitative data to assess how much this view is penetrating the American or American Jewish consciousness.  Anecdotally, I see it everywhere I look.  Obviously, those on the hard left or hard right have long since made up their minds.  But in between, I sense a growing disquiet among those of us who, on the one hand, feel emotional and other ties to Israel and, on the other, a dismay at the cruel way in which this war is being prosecuted.

No, we insist, the war is not genocide, and Israel is not a colonialist power.  The phrase ‘river to the sea’ is at best problematically vague. Antisemitism is real, and while the charge is levied too often, there is too much elision between legitimate anti-Israel protest and bigoted antisemitic discourse and harassment. And Hamas is evil, sacrificing Palestinian and Israeli lives in the service of a nihilistic, theocratic rage.  (The Al-Shifa hospital did, as Israelis said, contain a Hamas military installation.)

And we also insist that too many in power in Israel are either calling for or tolerating ethnic cleansing; that Israel’s tactics are more brutal than military experts say are necessary; that there is not enough effort to negotiate the release of hostages; and that innocent lives are not being adequately protected. 

We are not naïve; we are aware that Israel’s situation is precarious; we remain profoundly shaken by the violence of October 7; and we harbor no delusions about the difficulty of the road ahead.  But we also know that the allure of brute force is itself a delusion, and that it has sunk far larger countries (and empires) than Israel.  Indeed, October 7 itself showed that states can not bully their way to security. 

Is this “both/and” position too nuanced for our age of memes and rage-tweets?  I hope not.  For what it’s worth, it is close to the policy of the Biden Administration, which is supporting and pressuring Israel at the same time.  It’s also a sane alternative to the weaponization of Jewish grief by the Right, and the dismissal of it by the Left.

We do not have to pick a side in this false dichotomy.  We can both grieve for the victims and the hostages and also say yesh gvul, there’s a limit to what we will support, a line between legitimate and illegitimate, and this Israeli government is dancing on its edge.  We reject the false choices offered by the far Right and the far Left.  And after a period of silence, we are finding our voices again.

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I hope you’ve appreciated these reflections. After a winter break focused on meditation, poetry, and rest, I’ve been writing on Israel/Palestine again, most recently a viral article in the Forward about how the Right weaponized Jewish grief to attack higher education. Oddly, that piece has prompted more hate mail than anything else I’ve written lately. Comes with the territory.

Meanwhile, I’m gearing up for a series of book events in New Jersey (January 21), Boston (February 21), Brooklyn (February 24), and New Orleans (March 21). Info will be shared soon. It’s been wonderful to hear from folks who have read the book, especially some super-informed neo-kabbalists in the press. Who knew?! If you’re up for leaving a review on Goodreads or Amazon, that would be super appreciated.