10 | JUNE 10 • 2021
guest column
Left in Silence
A
s a progressive Jew
growing up with an
Israeli father, I’ve
always had a complex relation-
ship with Israel. There was a
saying that my
dad loved and
that made an
impression on
me: “Don’t be so
open-minded
that you fail to
choose your own
side in a fight.
”
So many years later, I feel this
tongue-in-cheek truism has
something important to teach
progressives as we navigate the
latest Hamas terror attacks on
Israel as well as the troubling
fallout here in America.
If you are following any of the
online conversations, you can
see that many younger mem-
bers of the liberal community
are calling for strong public
statements condemning Israel’s
response to the 4,000-plus rock-
ets as too harsh or even as some
sort of war crime. At the same
time, older congregants and the
Israeli community have been
pressing for a clear stance in
support of Israel with no equiv-
ocations or apologies. The result
from many left-leaning orga-
nizations, such as the Reform
movement, has been a sort of
muted, even-handed stance that
tries to please both sides — or
at least offend neither.
PUTTING IT IN
PERSPECTIVE
Let me share a perspective
with the younger constituency,
many of whom have char-
acterized Israel’s actions as
criminal or worse. For those
of us who voted Obama in for
a second term and continue
today to cheer him on as one
of the most admired figures
in America, we might take a
look in the mirror of recent
history. We all shrugged off
Obama’s heavy-handed cam-
paign of drone strikes around
the world as a necessary evil.
No one suggested that he was
a war criminal or that the
several thousand deaths in
Pakistan alone over his pres-
idency meant that America
was a “terrorist state.” We
dismissed civilian deaths with
the Orwellian term “collateral
damage,” and certainly never
did the kind of macabre math
that is being directed at the
IDF requiring, heaven for-
bid, a minimum number of
American casualties so that the
enemy deaths would be pro-
portional. Nor did we suggest
limiting the use of American
might or technology to allow
anything resembling a “fair
fight” as post after post is now
suggesting Israel must do.
Considering that we accepted
a years-long drone campaign
waged against potential threats
from literally across the globe
where cutting technology was
used to eliminate our enemies,
it seems the height of ludi-
crousness for us to decry Israel’s
11-day operation to stop rocket
squads who were launching
thousands of rockets in real
time at Israeli civilians just kilo-
meters away.
We who have never in our
lifetimes waged a war on
American soil might try a
reality check before tossing
accusations of war crimes at
Israel when we let our own
lethal campaign, not to men-
tion an ongoing 20-year war
in Afghanistan, continue over
drastically more distant and
theoretical threats.
ANTI-ZIONISM IS
ANTISEMITISM
Another strategy that has
emerged in our community is
to try and distinguish between
Israel and Jews. “Don’t equate
Jews around the world with
Israel” reads many a Facebook
post or TikTok sound bite.
“
Attacking Jews in New York
or Los Angeles is antisemitic
because you are blaming the
Jewish people for how the coun-
try of Israel is behaving.
”
Unfortunately, we need to
understand the inverse message
we are sending with these kinds
of statements. Defending our-
selves as not to blame for Israel’s
actions implies that attacking
Israel isn’t antisemitic — only
attacking American Jews. In
Cantor
Michael
Smolash
DANNY SCHWARTZ
PURELY COMMENTARY
“WE SHOULD NOT BE BULLIED INTO
CONCEDING THAT ANTI-ZIONISM IS
ANYTHING BUT ANTISEMITISM.”
Members of
the Metro
Detroit Jewish
community
rally for Israel
May 14 in West
Bloomfield.
continued on page 12