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