Thread by @YousefMunayyer

A lot of the conversation now around the smearing of @IlhanMN, allegations of antisemitism and the US-Israel relationship are something of a proxy for a bigger, tense divide among Jews in the US and Israel. Some thoughts on this will follow....

@IlhanMN The Jewish community in the United States and Israel are roughly equal sized populations and in many ways embody two different answers to “the Jewish question” and antisemitism - Zionism vs. Multiculturalism

Zionism’s answer is that the only way to ensure the security of the Jewish people is through a Jewish state - a largely homogenous ethno-religious nationalism where Jews dominate the state, the laws and the security apparatus.

Multiculturalism provides a different answer. It sees the security of Jews wound up in the security of other minorities, and responds by trying to build an inclusive society where people can be who they are in safety & security. I.e. civil rights, not ethnic nationalism is key.

This is one reason why the Jewish community historically in the US has been at the forefront of the fight for civil rights and against racism and exclusion. But in Israel, exclusion has always been prioritized over civil rights.

Equal rights, to American Jews, is viewed as a path to security. Equal rights, to Israeli Jews, is viewed as a path to insecurity.

This tension has always been there, but in some moments it can be elevated or diminished. Right now it is very much elevated.

On top of this you have another tension growing in recent years. More and more American Jews view what Israel is doing to Palestinians as fundamentally contrary to Jewish values. At the same time, the Israel govt has doubled down on its entrenchment of occupation and apartheid.

But that is not the end of it. You also have the politicization of the US-Israel relationship, which has been driven by Netanayhu and Israel through a alliance with evangelicals that undergird the GOP. Most American Jews vote Democrat and voted for Obama, twice.

This broke into the open with Netanyahu’s blatant political attack on President Obama,the first Black president, who himself embodied what a multicultural America could lead to.

But, it became far worse with Trump. Trump secured the White House by using racism, sexism, antisemitism, islamophobia, xenophobia and so on. It emboldened White Nationalists and brought a rise in hate crimes.

Then, Netanyahu, the head of the “Jewish State”, responded not by challenging Trump’s antisemitism, but legitimizing it. He said there “was no greater friend to the Jewish people” than the White Supremacist in Chief.

Then you had Charlottesville. Then the Tree of Life, where a lunatic antisemite walked into a synagogue and murdered Jews because he believed Jews were helping to bring immigrants into the US.

His anti-immigrant hatred reinforced his antisemitism and vice-versa, reminding us these evils can not be fought in isolation, as Zionism would suggest, but rather must be opposed together as Multiculturalism would counter.

From longstanding structural realities to dynamics which have emerged over time and in recent years in particular, all this adds up to a perfect storm of growing Jewish American alienation from Israel and increasing criticism of Zionism altogether.

This is a major challenge to Israel because a strong relationship with the American Jewish community is important to US-Israel relations.

So how can you blunt the alienation of American Jews from a right-wing Israel, that has allied with right-wing governments and embraced antisemites in the US which have directly contributed to the insecurity of American Jews?

Well, one way is to send a message to the American Jewish community that even if they might be appalled by the right, don’t think the left will welcome you either. This is done by elevating a narrative that creates a false equivalence between antisemitism on the left & the right

It is a classic Zionist response to American Jews; you are not safe in multicultural society because you are Jews and the only answer is Zionism - both the right and the left have failed you - equally.

I don’t think, in the long or short term, this is going to be particularly persuasive as hard a right-wing supporters of Zionism will try.

But outsiders have an important role to play and that includes rejecting all forms of bigotry, racism and inequality, in the US AND in Israel/Palestine and everywhere between. We must continue to do so. / END