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Guest Column
Editorial
J Street: It's Our Duty
To Criticize Israel
Jews must speak up but be sensitive.
Washington
S
ince joining J Street two months
ago, one of the most frequent
questions I am asked is whether
it's right for Jews in the diaspora
to criticize Israel.
My answer is that it is not
only our right, but our duty to
speak up where we think Israel
is mistaken — as long as such
criticism is delivered with due
sensitivity
Historically, Jews around the
world have been partners with
Israelis in building and main-
taining the Jewish homeland.
The relationship between Israel
and the world's Jews is unique. As former
Prime Minister Ariel Sharon once said:
"Israel is not only an Israeli project. Israel
is a Jewish, worldwide project!"
Of course, I am only too aware that we
living in the United States do not bear
the risks and burdens of our brothers and
sisters in Israel. My own sister lives near
Beersheba and often has to scramble for
shelter when rockets and missiles are fired
from Gaza. She has four sons. Three have
already served in the IDF and the fourth
recently began his service.
Those of us who can only imagine living
with that constant anxiety should always
keep it in mind. We do not send our sons
and daughters to serve; neither do we give
up years of our lives to military service
and nor do our taxes pay for that defense
burden.
And so we recognize that Israel's citizens
alone must make the decisions about the
country's policies and direction. Only the
Israeli people know what it is truly like to
live under constant threat from terrorism,
rocket attacks and frequent incitement
to violence against them. It is the Israeli
people alone who choose Israel's leaders
and Israel's leaders who decide when and
how Israel should act.
It is perhaps for that very reason that
Israelis living or studying abroad cannot
vote. Unlike the United States and many
other democracies, Israel does not permit
absentee voting other than for diplomats
and soldiers stationed overseas. The think-
ing presumably is that one must live the
daily realities of Israel to enjoy the right to
determine its future.
However, I do believe that as conscien-
tious Americans committed to Israel's
44
March 14 • 2013
future, we have a civic duty to be involved
in the U.S. policymaking process. And as
members of the Jewish people, we have a
right and obligation to be honest about the
circumstances in which Israel now finds
itself. As friends and family, we
have an obligation to offer our
perspective and our advice out
of love.
Israelis tend to agree. A
poll last June by the Anti-
Defamation League found that
61 percent of Israelis believed
American Jews had the right
to freely and publicly criticize
Israel and Israeli policies.
Given these views, why is it
considered controversial when
groups like J Street criticize policies, such
as the relentless expansion of Israeli settle-
ments in the West Bank that threaten
peace and the prospect of a two-state solu-
tion? Why is it so difficult to even discuss
this issue within our community?
I understand that when Israel is so
often criticized in the United Nations and
elsewhere by groups and countries hos-
tile to its very existence, our first instinct
is to circle the wagons. We fear that our
criticism will supply more ammunition to
Israel's enemies and weaken the country
we love.
This is understandable — but mistaken.
Our criticism, unlike theirs, is intended
to be constructive and offered out of our
deep concern. When we as family, friends
or concerned neighbors see someone we
care about indulging in destructive behav-
ior — chain smoking, drug abuse, drunk
driving, hanging out with the wrong
types, making foolish financial decisions,
failing to seek appropriate medical care
— shouldn't we speak up? That person
has no obligation to heed our advice, but
if enough people speak up, perhaps they
will.
When Israel behaves in ways that make
peace less likely and endanger its future as a
Jewish and democratic state, we must make
our voices heard. Israelis may or may not
heed our words — that's up to them. But
for me, keeping silent is not an option and
future generations of Israelis will not thank
us for failing to speak up.
❑
Alan Elsner is vice president for communica-
tions at J Street, an organization that advo-
cates for Israeli-Palestinian peace based on a
two-state solution.
Mideast Textbook Study
- A Misleading Exercise
A
new comparative study of Palestinian and Israeli schoolbooks
concludes that Palestinian texts are not as inciting toward
Israel as popularly believed. The study lauds Israel and also
the Palestinian Authority, whose terrorist-harboring Fatah party gov-
erns the West Bank, for publishing textbooks virtually free of "dehu-
manizing and demonizing characterizations of the other." The study
challenges both sides to improve textbook-portrayed negative images
of the other.
For years, the Israeli and Western drumbeat has
been Palestinians teach kids to hate Zionism and
its proponents – meaning political negotiations
over Palestinian statehood seem doomed given
inbred Palestinian hatred toward Israel.
The findings of "Victims of Our Own
Narratives" should seem good news for
Israel supporters. But the reality check is
that the report, funded by the U.S. State
Department in 2009, clouds a continued
demonizing tenet of Palestinian texts,
according to Palestinian Media Watch
(PMW), a respected Israeli watchdog. That tenet: P.A. teachings about
Israel throughout the school system totally reject Israel's most funda-
mental right – its right to exist. As an example, PMW points to a 12th-
grade book's definition of Israel as a racist, foreign, colonial implant
and thus subject to "armed struggle" under "international law" and in
the name of Islam – P.A. "justification for all killings of Israelis by ter-
ror since 1948."
Yale University professor Bruce Wexler convened the study team,
which was headed by Daniel Bar-Tal of Tel Aviv University and Sami
Adwan of the University of Bethlehem. The study is a product of the
Council of Religious Institutions in the Holy Land, a multi-faith alliance
that includes the Israeli Chief Rabbinate, the Palestinian Islamic Waqf
and the heads of Christian churches in Israel and the West Bank. The
Israeli government did not formally take part; the P.A. did.
PMW brands the study "a flawed analysis," starting with its "inac-
curacies" with methodology and for giving seeming equal weight to
the ultra-Orthodox school system in Israel and the mainstream state
schools.
The study ultimately fails, according to PMW, by diminishing how
strongly the P.A. educational system promotes hate and violence.
"This hatred, together with the hate and terror glorification expressed
by the daily actions and messages of the P.A. leaders and through
their controlled institutions," declares PMW in a Jerusalem Post com-
mentary, "is rapidly condemning the next generations to continued
conflict."
The study finds few positive portrayals of the other side in ultra-
Orthodox and Palestinian texts, but does find some in Israeli state-
funded schoolbooks. In an important passage, the study challenges
both sides to better explain "the other's religions, culture, beliefs and
activities," but doesn't point out that only Israeli state schoolbooks
advocate peaceful resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Lost in any discussion is that a state of Palestine would include not
just the West Bank, but also the Gaza Strip – run by Hamas, the ter-
rorist organization dedicated by charter to Israel's destruction. Only in
2010 did Fatah remove language from its still-strident charter calling
for Israel's destruction.
At a press conference to release the 2007 PMW report on P.A.
schoolbooks, then-Sen. Hillary Clinton said: "These textbooks do not
give Palestinian children an education; they give them an indoctrina-
tion."
Little has changed, the new study aside.
❑