Allow me to clarify one thing– what I mean by a passionate, energized, mainstream position is in reference to organizational philosophy, not policy.

Not being a New York local, I can’t say that my commentary of the RNC will be close to relevant. But I would like to offer my view, as a Canadian.
I know, as a Canadian, I should be the last one to check in on American politics, especially with the recent condemnation of the war on Arabs (I’m calling a spade a spade). But as far as the portrayl of the either political party, the media (both CNN and the blogsphere) has given me ample coverage to help me form my own views.
During the first week of August, the Democratic National Convention saw the nomination of John Kerry and John Edwards for Presidential and Vice Presidential candidates, respectively. There were no protestors out side, razor blades stashed in their shoes. There were no Police dodging urine-bombs. The only signs being waved outside read something to the effect of, “Money for education, not occupation.” All in all, everything seemed to be peaceful.
So why was there such a huge turn out to protest the RNC?
Looking back to 1968, shortly after the unfortunate assisnation of Robert Kennedy, the Democratic National Convention opened it’s doors and looked to nominate a new Democratic candidate. The unfortunate outcome of these protests is that it showed the world that the DNC condoned the force used by the officers protecting the candidates. The Republicans won that election, with Richard Nixon taking the presidency.
Flash back to today… I’m sure many of the protestors are hoping for the same sort of thing to occur. They toss a pissbag, the cop beats them with their club, the nation views the Republicans as a bunch of authoritarian hatemongers, and every leftist is happy. But, and as the media will attest, there have been no brutal beatings. Just crowd control.
Ronen, as you’ve opined, “Those that came to protest Bush’s policies are being drowned out by those who just hate Bush.”
While having lunch at a deli in SF in early July, I sat at a table with the machers of a Piedmont shul and listened to their take on the upcoming election. Three of the seven had been registered Democrats before Kerry’s anticipated nomination, and had recently changed their registered status. There was no way that they would associate themselves with the Democratic party anymore. They mentioned something that shocked me, but didn’t surprise me. “Michael Moore was write when he endorsed (General Wesley) Clark. Clark was a blessing. He was just Right enough to sway those who felt that Bush was bad, while still remaining true to his party’s ideologies.”
There will be a collective condemnation come election day, but it won’t be of Bush. So unless GWB gets caught with a cigar and an intern, we’ll see four more years.

J: I don’t actually think I’m special, but I wanted to express the source of my alienation. Bush just confirmed that, seeing as he expressed a desire to expand liberty (unless you are gay), reaffirmed his opposition to reproductive rights, and laid out a bunch of policy initiatives without explaining how he’ll pay for them (but Kerry is still crazy for wanting to tax the wealthiest Americans).
Jason: Clark lacked experience. My candidate was Joe Lieberman, and not because he’s Jewish. He was the only candidate who could appeal to Americans concerned with security, values and economic moderation while pursuing a iiberal social agenda. (I did disagree with him on some points too)
PG: If every radical in the country gave $10 or $20 to a well organized group, their operating budget would probably exceed AIPAC’s annual $16 million (AARP has around $540 million yearly by point of contrast). Maybe Sean Penn and Michael Moore can kick in a few bucks too.

ronen, i feel the same way with practically everything you said 🙂

ronen thank-you for such a well thought out article. between this and the note on the beer’sheva attacks i have been able to see where you stand and explain it, in an intelligent and forthright manner.
your discomofrt in this political system, is also many of our’s. as a libertarian, i am loathe to check th republican box on election day, though in many ways i feel like i have no choice. i all the issues that matter to me, most are ignored by both, so i am forced to rely on one or two. Bush’s stance on israel is perhaps the only thing swaying me to vote for him, while i am still dissappointed with a plethora of other things, his admiistration has bungled. the only interesting thing about election day this year, will be perfecting my electoral math. either way, even if bush does win, i’ll still feel unmotivated, and discouraged with government. but as another fellow mentioned, if the other side won, it would be a sharp pain i’d feel instead. anyways, keep up all the observations, you speak for alot of us.

Ronen,
It must take balls to post an anti-anti-Republican piece like this.
This extreme stance which shows that you’re standing up for your right not to hate Republicans will certainly stand out as the “farthest Right” post over here.

I’m not understanding a few things from the brain-slug version of John Brown’s comment.

great piece.

well, the people i was near were chanting “long live the intifada, free, free, palestine.”
i went over to them and asked if they didn’t think that “long live the intifada” was a stupid chant, given its implications that: 1) the intifada must go on for a long time because it fails, 2) the intifada must go on for a long time because oppression in the territories continues, 3) the violence, bloodshed, heartbreak, and economic damage of the intifada tp palestinians should be extended.
i didn’t get a very good answer, so i decided to go march near the code pink chicks, who had more style.

“The kind of leftist vehemence I saw had me worried that Bush was in physical danger during his address. And the protestors that did sneak in to MSG made the left look disrespectful of the political process– that’s a shame, because they will only harm the effort to replace Bush.”
The protestors’ behavior would seem odd if we assumed it was rooted in an honest attempt to improve the government and country, but it makes perfect sense as a form of self-centered moral exhibitionism (and for the naked ones, just plain exhibitionism). Before I get flak for questioning motives rather than policies, let me note that I’ve tried to discuss politics civilly with such people on numerous occasions, and only rarely were they able or willing to respond in kind.
I would like to thank them, one and all, for their assistance in re-electing a man who understands how to deal with the world’s barbarians, and who has a better grasp of actual Jewish principles than most Jews.

“…the kinds of social justice issues Jews are supposed to care about. ”
Could you describe what these issues are, and why Jews are supposed to care about them?

Ronen, you said that support for a binational state constitutes an “anti-Israel” position, which I guess is equivalent to anti-Zionism. Are you aware that prior to the creation of the state of Israel, support for a binational state system was just the left wing of Zionism, and was considered by just about everyone to be a Zionist, rather than an anti-Zionist, position?

guess this is all israels fault:
WHEN THE KILLERS COME FOR THE KIDS
BY RALPH PETERS
September 4, 2004 — THE mass murder of children revolts the human psyche. Herod sending his henchmen to massacre the infants of Bethlehem haunts the Gospels. Nothing in our time was crueler than what the Germans did to children during the Holocaust. Slaughtering the innocents violates a universal human taboo.
Or a nearly universal one. Those Muslims who preach Jihad against the West decided years ago that killing Jewish or Christian children is not only acceptable, but pleasing to their god when done by “martyrs.”
It isn’t politically correct to say this, of course. We’re supposed to pretend that Islam is a “religion of peace.” All right, then: It’s time for Muslims to stand up for the once-noble, nearly lost traditions of their faith and condemn what Arab and Chechen terrorists and blasphemers did in the Russian town of Beslan.
If Muslim religious leaders around the world will not publicly condemn the taking of children as hostages and their subsequent slaughter — if those “men of faith” will not issue a condemnation without reservations or caveats — then no one need pretend any longer that all religions are equally sound and moral.
Islam has been a great and humane faith in the past. Now far too many of its adherents condone, actively or passively, the mass murder of school kids. Instead of condemnations of the Muslim “Jihadis” responsible for butchering more than 200 women and children in cold blood, we will hear spiteful counter-accusations about imaginary atrocities supposedly committed by Western militaries.
Well, the cold fact is that Western soldiers, whether Americans, Brits, Russians or Israelis, do not take hundreds of children hostage, then shoot them in cold blood while detonating bombs in their midst. The Muslim world can lie to itself, but we need lie no longer.
The tragedy in southern Russia occurred thousands of miles from the United States, but, in essence, that massacre happened next door. The parents, teachers and students kept for days without water or food in a sweltering school building before being butchered were our children, our sisters, our wives, our parents.
The mass hostage situation wasn’t about Chechen rebels (and at least 10 Arabs) opposing the Russian government. It was a continuation of the universal struggle between good and evil. And there is no doubt which side is evil, scorned though the word may be by our own elite.
How can any human being with a shred of conscience dismiss what occurred in that school as anything less than evil?
The attack in Beslan wasn’t about Russia’s brutal incompetence in Chechnya — as counter-productive as Moscow’s grim heavy-handedness may have been. It was about religious bigotry so profound that the believer can hold a gun to a child’s head, pull the trigger and term the act “divine justice.”
We will hear complaints that the Russian special forces should have waited — even after the terrorists began shooting children. Negotiations are the heroin of Westerners addicted to self-delusion. Who among us would have waited when he or she saw fleeing children cut down by automatic weapons? The urge to protect children is as primal as any impulse we ever feel.
Make no mistake: No blame attaches to the Russians for the massacre at that school. The guilt is entirely upon the Islamic extremists who have led the religion they claim to cherish into the realms of nightmare.
There will be repercussions. Having suffered the hijacking and destruction of two passenger jets, a deadly bombing at a Moscow subway station and a massacre in a primary school all in less than two weeks, the Kremlin will have learned to rue the day it imagined that there was anything to gain by opposing American efforts against terrorists, whether Osama bin Laden or Saddam Hussein.
As they inevitably do, the terrorists reminded the world of their heartless barbarism. Even if France manages to beg the release of its kidnapped journalists in Iraq, it has begun to sense its vulnerability. And all Europeans with a vestige of sense will recognize that the school seizure in Russia could easily repeat itself in Languedoc or Umbria, Bavaria or Kent.
An attack on children is an attack on all of humanity.
No matter what differences Western states discover to divide them, the terrorists will bring us together in the end. Their atrocities expose all wishful thinking for what it is.
A final thought: Did any of those protesters who came to Manhattan to denounce our liberation of 50 million Muslims stay an extra day to protest the massacre in Russia? Of course not.
The protesters no more care for dead Russian children than they care for dead Kurds or for the hundreds of thousands of Arabs that Saddam Hussein executed. Or for the ongoing Arab-Muslim slaughter of blacks in Sudan. Nothing’s a crime to those protesters unless the deed was committed by America.
The butchery in Russia was a crime against humanity. In every respect. Was any war ever more necessary or just than the War on Terror?
And what will terror’s apologists say when the killers come for their own children?

Ronen: You’re not quite correct. Much of Brit Shalom and the Ichud spoke specifically of trying to create a politics that would be blind to questions of ethnic majorities and minorities, meaning that they did, exactly, “conceive of a state without a Jewish majority.” Self-determination, of course, remained the whole point.
Avi: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/pages/ShArt.jhtml?itemNo=473355&contrassID=1&subContrassID=8&sbSubContrassID=0&listSrc=Y

This is something I just posted on my blog a couple days ago, but I wanted to share it with you guys because I think it relates to Ronen’s discussion of the tone of left-wingers in the current political climate:
After watching Fahrenheit 9/11 on the day it came out, my friend and I got into a heated argument about Michael Moore’s battle style. Anyone who’s seen F-911, I assume, can agree that Moore’s tactical appraoch in this movie was ugly. He used extremely clever editing techniques to misquote his subjects. He deliberately avoided an attempt at finding the truth, instead choosing to manipulate viewers with sneaky juxtaposition of images and, at times, misleading narration. My friend was sickened– he used the word “offended”– by Moore’s tactics. I was totally behind Moore, arguing: the times are too tight for fairplay, the hour is too late for nuance, the stakes are too high for the high road.
I have already strongly defended Moore on this site. I can think of no other public figure with the courage of Moore when it comes to confronting those in powerful posts. While the New York Times and the Washington Post, our nation’s two most respected journalistic institutions, played lapdog to the President in the lead-up to to war in Iraq, Moore was a fierce critic of the President’s abuse of power– a true watchdog.
And, for a long, long time, when most of the progressive world reacted to corporate greed and Republican domination with a wimpy, holier-than-thou, they-know-not-what-they-do attitude, Moore was fighting, tooth and nail, against his conservative combatants. While the rest of us turned the cheek, Moore punched back.
Right now, punching back is in among the Left. And, in many ways, our tactics have worked. We are fighting harder than ever before, and we are seeing results. If it weren’t for movies like F-911, radio stations like Air America, magazines like The Nation, and websites like MoveOn.org, Kerry wouldn’t have a chance right now.
Right-wing groups have won the ideological heart of America, not by accident, but because they have poured hundreds of millions of dollars into media outlets, think tanks, and grassroots movements. If you don’t believe me, read David Brock’s book, or Eric Alterman’s book, or, if you’re lazy, Lewis Lapham’s article in Harper’s.
Finally, the Left is realizing that, unless we punch back, we’re not going to stand a chance against the Right-wing propaganda machine. To be honest, I am thrilled that the Left is finally showing some chutzpah, that we’re refusing to be beaten into submission and allow our country’s soul to be corrupted by fanatical Right-wing ideologues.
Frankly, if the cliche “desperate times call for desperate measures” has any meaning whatsoever, it’s here and now. We’re facing a manaical President who is backed by an astonishingly powerful and exorbitantly fanatical cadre of reactionary extremists. We’re dealing with a guy who is making this country an intensely more dangerous place to live in– we’re talking about our lives being at stake in this election. So, if the Left is leaving the high road in order to literally save our lives, I not only accept, but applaud this type of action.
But when is enough enough? When exactly will it be time to return to our tactics of calm deliberation, nuanced examination, and sound conclusions? When can we return to turning the other cheek, allowing those who attack us to look silly, not dignified?
I’m no one special, so I don’t have any real answers here. But I can say this: it has to stop at some point.
While verbal attacks are nowhere near in the same league as physical attacks, I am afraid that neither type of violence leads to ultimately positive outcomes. I’d be an idiot if I said violence was never an effective tactic for oppressed peoples– if we hadn’t risen up violently against the British, we’d still be a colony. On the flip-side of the coin, however, we have King’s Civil Rights Movement, where the sustained non-violent method obliterated the credibility of their foes. By taking the high road, King, and Gandhi for that matter, achieved so much more than they could have with violent means.
Again, I know that the current tactics of the Left are nowhere near the same as a physically violent movement, but the basic instincts behind both tactics–hating your enemies, wanting to take them down, humiliate, and punish them–share extremely similar roots.
And these instincts, I think we can all agree, are bad for America in the long-run.
In the long run, there should only be one focus of true progressives, of those who really want to make the world a better place. When we form ideas and make policy suggestions, we should have one thing in mind. We should abandon ideological dogmatism and strict oppposition to our supposed “enemies'” beliefs, and instead have allegiance to one thing. We should abandon the smears, the hatred, and the anger, and embrace one thing.
The Truth.

Oh yeah — and in case I wasn’t clear, those are just a couple of the reasons I think the binationalism of Buber and others is a better Zionism than the desperate Revisionism hand-me-downs of today. Another is this: Herzl and, I suppose, Ben-Gurion, subscribed to the idea that Israel should strive to be like all the nations. Buber and Magnes thought that no, the Jewish thing to do would be to create something that would *not* just “be like all the nations.” That would be something even worse than the individual assimilation with which the American Jewish community grapples with today — it would be *national* assimilation. For the Jews, national assimilation is a kind of theological death. It’s a kind of chillul hashem. If there’s a utopian, seemingly impossible way to strive for that’s morally superior to the politics of the naitons, then that’s what we have to go for.

Buber was one of the only Zionists able to do the reverse for the Palestinians, and understand that it was inaccurate to label Arab riots “pogroms”, for example. On the surface, it seemed like identical phenomena, but in reality what was happening was completely different.
It depends what you mean by “completely different”, obviously. The Jews being murdered could not place themselves in the shoes of the Palestinians and understand how what they were experiencing was different than the other killing sessions they had been trying to avoid for the past, well, while.
But, then, it also depends on what is meant by pogrom. For many Jews, it referred exactly what was happening on the surface. That’s why we think of “farhud” as a synonym for “pogrom”: not from any sense that 1940s Iraq and 1880s Russia were the same place — there isn’t anybody who thinks that — but because the word’s modern usage quite exceeded the context in which it was invented.
The thing was, the rebuilding of the Jewish polity in Palestine caused a conflict between a particular stream of European history and a particular stream of Middle-Eastern history. The Palestinians could not place themselves in the shoes of the Zionists and understand how what they were experiencing was different than the other European colonialisms the Middle East had been shaking off for the past century.
As to Palestinians’ reactions, it sounds like you are referring to some sort of testimony as to how they perceived Zionists; if you could point me to it, it would make interesting reading.
To your point, though, it’s hardly fair and particularly inaccurate to position Zionism as nationalist therefore European therefore alien to the Middle East. The twentieth-century Middle East’s inhabitants were part of a wave of particularly enthusiastic and hearty European-style nationalism which, among other things, saw the invention of an identity called “Arab”, and which still resounds quite strongly today.
If there’s a utopian, seemingly impossible way to strive for that’s morally superior to the politics of the naitons, then that’s what we have to go for.
You mean withdraw from the earthly realm of politics, wrap ourselves in the spiritual world of moral superiority, and damn the consequences of not participating in the world around us? That’s certainly an approach that some have taken (cf Neturei Karta and their Islamic counterparts).
But it would be awfully hard to convince very many of us that that’s a terribly compelling approach. Many Jews who do not believe that the road is forked at either spitting on the secular or else abandoning our identities.
For the Jews, national assimilation is a kind of theological death. It’s a kind of chillul hashem.
What does this mean — and which aspects of sitting at the table of nation-states constitutes “assimilation”?

for those interested– a few more statistics on life expectancy and mortality in israel. american statistics are probably very similar.
i believe that heart disease, cancer, and car accidents are leading causes of death. most of these deaths are probably preventable (with adequate education, preventive treatment, and health care).

Ronen: “Ok, well, if you’re going to describe to utopian ideologies, there’s really no argument to be had.”
You could have easily told this to Herzl in 1897. Most Jews in the world would have agreed with you and thought you the modest bearer of simple common sense.
I’m just trying to point out that we are dealing with an extraordinary situation here, and that people need to be inspired for any change to happen. The vicissitudes of realpolitik don’t inspire anyone. The resignation of the “clash of civilizations” thesis inspires only fundamentalists who want to strengthen their own identities by opposing them to essentialized others. We need to aim higher. I’m not talking about a society in which people no longer step on each others’ toes, argue about how to divide the budget, and differ bitterly on some social issues. I’m talking about one where people from two different cultures live nearby without killing each other. If I used the word “utopian” it was only because to me that word signifies “justified striving” more than “impossible dream which it is harmful to attempt to access.”
Ronen and 8opus on the Arab riots/ pogroms: The argument I am making here is not that the analogy Arab riots : bad :: pogroms : also bad doesn’t work. The point is that in the Arab riots the Zionists were facing an enemy partially stirred up by their own presence, actions, and economic effects on the Arab population and partially stirred up by politically savvy Arab leaders. The difference is that the Arabs had real grievances *against the Zionists*, to which the Zionists were blind, while the Cossacks had merely been responding to an age-old impulse to scapegoat the disempowered Jews for whatever problems they were facing, while the government looked on. In that situation you had total innocence and therefore a sense of righteous anger, which was stifled due to disempowerment. In the Palestine situation, referring to the riots as “pogroms” called up those feelings, reinforcing the Zionists’ sense of total innocence — a reinforcement which did not help them to understand what was going on and what effect they were having on the Palestinian Arabs, or how they were being viewed. This is why context matters. No, you can’t tell this to a riot victim — but you can tell it to someone trying to learn from the riot, to try to, I don’t know, prevent at least 80 more years of horrific violence.
8opus: Of course Arab nationalism was European-inspired. We’re talking about a European idea that traveled to the Middle East and took a little while to get there. That’s why it always mystifies me when people talk about the late development of Palestinian nationalism like it’s some kind of proof that all the Palestinians are walking around going “hahaha, we are sure fooling the rest of the world that we are a nation! as soon as we kill those Jews, we will go back to being ‘just Arabs’, like we always wanted!” At the time of Zionism’s early days, however, it appeared to the Palestinians that they were confronting not a justified nationalist renewal but an imperialist project, with the Zionists as agents of Europe. There is a lot of interesting documentation on Palestinian reaction to the Balfour Declaration in this vein, for example. I’ll have to dig up some old papers I’ve written for citations, if you want them you should email me at [email protected].
Finally, I’m not talking about disengaging from the world. I’m referring to a specifically Buberian method of engagement by which one continues to get one’s hands dirty and react to developments while never losing sight of the utopian ideal which informs one’s activities. That’s why I support the two-state solution, for example; the exigencies of the situation point to a million reasons why it would be a better deal for everyone.
Oh, and on “national assimilation” — Jews without state: nation apart, remarkable for sustaining themselves over thousands of years of exile by cultivating religion and community (at least until western european enlightenment, at which point much assimilation begins). Jews with state: Participation in power of a certain kind means regular violation of prophetic ideals, on which it is impossible to sustain a state, especially a nation-state. Since this is what pretty much all the other nations have been doing to screw themselves over the course of history, our doing it too constitutes an assimilation on a national scale. One could even muse that it is like the repetition of the sin in the Book of Samuel, of asking for the king in the first place, to be “like all the nations”, ignoring the fact that God is supposed to be our only ruler.

Oh, and on “national assimilation” — Jews without state: nation apart, remarkable for sustaining themselves over thousands of years of exile by cultivating religion and community (at least until western european enlightenment, at which point much assimilation begins). Jews with state: Participation in power of a certain kind means regular violation of prophetic ideals, on which it is impossible to sustain a state, especially a nation-state.
Sigh. On nation-state as the end of Jewish history, no dice. On inability to govern and impossibility of sustaining ideals, see utopianism.

Michael Moore on Israel:
(I’m not sure this is the right spot to post this but I feel I should post this somewhere. This info. comes from Jewish Republicans, but it’s important. The Republicans will try to tie Moore to Kerry though.)
FROM ISRAEL INSIDER, SEPT. 3, 2004
Israel is not mentioned in Michael Moore’s Fahrenheit 9/11. But when Moore showed up as a journalist at the Republican National Convention, the conventioneers were none too pleased. Earlier this summer, a coalition of Jewish Republicans researched his stands on Israel over the past two decades.
Michael Moore dedicated his 2003 book, Dude Where’s My Country? to Rachel Corrie, an International Solidarity Movement volunteer who was accidentally killed when she climbed in front of a caterpillar bulldozer destroying tunnels used by Palestinian terrorists to illegally smuggle weapons from Egypt into Gaza.
Moore expressed his understanding for other victims of the conflict. “Of course, many Israeli children had died too, at the hands of the Palestinians. You would think that would make every Israeli want to wipe out the Arab world, but the average Israeli does not have that response. Why? Because in their hearts,” he explained, [the Israelis] know they are wrong, and they know they would be doing just what the Palestinians are doing if the sandal were on the other foot.”
He had some suggestions for preventing suicide terrorists. “Hey, here’s a way to stop suicide bombings – give the Palestinians a bunch of missile-firing Apache helicopters and let them and the Israelis go at each other head to head. Four billion dollars a year to Israel – four billion dollars a year to the Palestinians – they can just blow each other up and leave the rest of us the hell alone.”
Moore has a long history of supporting, and being rewarded for, anti-Israel stances. In 1987, Moore was honored by the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee for his “courageous efforts in journalism.” He attended and spoke at a June 5, 1990 demonstration protesting the continued Israeli occupation at the Israeli Embassy in Washington D.C. In October 2003, Moore was honored by the Muslim American Public Affairs Council (MPAC) with a media award.
In his book, Stupid White Men and Other Sorry Excuses for the State of the Nation, Moore proposed that Congress give Israel 30 days to end the bloodshed taking place in its name, and if Israel does not do so, funding to Israel should be cut. He also noted that while individual terrorism is bad, state sponsored terrorism is truly evil. Moore proposed that the Palestinians be given statehood and receive twice as much economic assistance from the United States as Israel receives.
In Liverpool, England, Moore paused to contemplate the epicenters of evil in the modern world: “It’s all part of the same ball of wax, right? The oil companies, Israel, Halliburton.” (David Brooks in the New York Times, June 26. 2004) “Anyway,” the Los Angeles Times quoted him (June 22, 2004) as saying, “the support Bush and the Republicans feign for Israel is because Israel is near our oil. If the oil wasn’t there, I bet those same Republicans wouldn’t [care] about Israel.”
In 1990, speaking before the American Arab Anti-Discrimination Committee, Moore announced that he would refuse to attend a screening of his movie, “Roger and Me,” which was being held in Jerusalem. He was quoted as saying that he would not attend until Israel ceased to occupy the West Bank and Gaza. (Arab American News, 1990) According to the New Yorker (Feb. 16, 2004) Moore tried to prevent Fahrenheit 9/11 from being shown in Israel.
About one subject, the Moore had less to say: When questioned about the rumor that members of Hizbullah had been involved in the distribution of Fahrenheit 9/11, he had

ronen
i agree that being pro-israel and being pro-likkud are not mutually exclusive; in fact, i think that if you support the views of a major israeli zionist party, then by definition you are pro-israel. my point was to talk about differences within the pro-israel community. it is not uncommon for pro-israel americans who agree with meretz or labor to be called anti-israel (just like anti-war anti-bush protesters are called less patriotic than war/Bush supporters). This accusation only goes one way: in the US, labor/meretz folks never questions the zionist credentials of likkud supporters. so what happens is that support for likkud is pro-israel while support for labor is anti-israel. this dynamic is exacerbated when likkud is in power, b/c those who support likkud regardless of which party is in power push the labor folks to support likkud in solidarity with the elected gvt of israel.
you say that “I would consider it my fundamental duty to support the *notion* of Israel first– and that means supporting Israel’s democratic process. So if the people living there have chosen a leader and a policy, I want their choice legitimized by America’s leadership.” legitimizing a leader is easy. but what does it mean for america’s leadership to legitimize an Israeli policy? publicly declare its support? are there any israeli policies that the US leadership should not support? how does supporting Israel’s democratic process support the notion of Israel? can one support the right of israel to chose its leader in democratic elections while still opposing the policies of that leader? did some israelis opposition to carter undermine the notion of america? is the notion of Israel about process or outcome?
you said “My opinions on various issues (security, economic growth, etc) I feel are more relevant within the greater Jewish dialogue. If we show a divided front, America will be less willing to support Israel, and American support is exactly what’s good for Israel. Our interests are best served if we can unite around the simpler points on which we agree and then hammer out the details amongst ourselves.” what is the proper forum to hammer out these details? how can this dialogue happen in secret? is the evacuation of settlement a simpler point or a detail? how can we tell when there is consensus if we don’t encourage dissenters to speak up? what would a divided front look like? is it not enough that the community is united as “pro-israel” (using your definition) even if it disagrees how to best acheive peace?
the parallels between likkud/repubicans and labor/democrats aren’t perfect, but i would strongly disagree with your characterization that “there really isn’t much to correlate.” even on the populist issue, the likkud and republicans are faux populists in very similar ways, exploiting class resentment against a “secular, liberal elite.” sharon is definitely a conservative and peres is definitely a liberal.
my point about surviving nixon and carter was not to imply that we should not worry about a strong US-Israel relationship. it is that given the positions of Bush and Kerry, we have no reason to believe either wouldn’t be aredently pro-israel. both candidates for president are clearly friends of israel and not antisemites; there appears to be little if any difference in their israel policies. to overlook bush’s terrible record on issues of concern to most US Jews without any evidence that Kerry would be bad for israel is irresponsible. of course its ok for israel to be one of people’s concerns when choosing a candidate; but what is happening this year goes way beyond that. as for nader, yes, if he were a serious candidate his views on israel would be problematic to most american jews. but he is no where near being a serious candidate. that fact that there could, possibily be a serious candidate at some future date with views on israel innimical to most us jews is a red herring; the community is always taking steps to make sure that day never comes, and if/when it does come, then Jews can and will turn away from that candidate. but that is not the choice we are facing in this election, despite the Bush teams best efforts to convince people otherwise.

Well all of us here breathed a collective sigh of relief as nothing major happened at the RNC. Outside of some minor assaults on officers it was fairly peaceful. Which was a very good thing for the protesters. There were a large contingency of NYPD, FBI, and State Troopers congregated in a secluded location in NYC ready and waiting for the other shoe to drop. The protesters stayed in line. Lucky for us and for them.