Thread by @bungarsargon

Polling from Gallup finds that 95% of American Jews have favorable views of Israel. Anti-Zionist Jews are of course part of our wonderfully diverse community. But they are a tiny minority. Non-Jews should avoid using them as cover to offend the other 95%.

news.gallup.com/opinion/pollin…

If you only have room in your movement for the 5% of Jews who don't have a favorable view of Israel, your movement effectively doesn't have room for Jews in it. Something I urge people to keep in mind.

That may be a calculus some people want to make. But a better idea would be to talk to Jews about why Israel is so important to them. You'll find that despite this support, most American Jews object to the same injustices you do.

You're not going to solve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict from Twitter. But you might succeed in making the vast majority of American Jews feel like they can't participate in the progressive causes they long to be part of because of who they are. I urge you to think about that.

American Jewish support for Israel is deep, complicated, and fraught; it contains within it the desperate desire for Palestinian rights - and perhaps the only pathway to ensuring them one day. Why cut that off?

If you love a community and truly want to influence them, you can only do that from within. You can only do that with love, with kindness. Understand, experience, respect their fears. Then maybe they will respect you, too.

The Jewish American community is both deeply attached to Israel and deeply critical of it. There is such a deep, important lesson there - for everyone. I urge people to learn it, instead of to make Jews feel cut out unless they disavow that attachment.

Btw the Gallup poll is not an outlier. A Mellman poll from 2018 found something similar: 92% of American Jews identified as "pro-Israel" while just 3% said they are "generally not pro-Israel." And only a third of Jews were supportive of Bibi's government:

mellmangroup.com/wp-content/upl…

Some folks say that being "pro-Israel" isn't the same as being Zionist. I can't really take that seriously. Do people really think there are anti-Zionists who would call themselves pro-Israel? Can they produce one for me? I promise to reevaluate.

I'll just end with the most important things: Stand up for Palestinian rights. Oppose hate wherever you find it, not just when it's convenient. And most important of all: MORE KINDNESS.

One more thought on 95% of American Jews having a favorable view of Israel: This is probably less than the number who would call themselves Zionists. I've met a lot of Zionists who have a negative view of Israel. I've yet to meet one anti-Zionist with a favorable view of Israel.

Zionism for most Zionists is a very minimal proposition: It's the view that planet Earth should have a Jewish state. That's it. It's not support for Netanyahu or the occupation, though that's how anti-Zionists define it. I explored that difference here:
forward.com/opinion/423069…

Zionism becomes fraught when the Jewish state acts in a way that contravenes Jewish values. But for the vast majority of American Jews, the answer isn't to abandon Israel but to influence with love. It's truly remarkable, something other Americans have totally forgotten how to do

Worthwhile piece by @jh_swanson that disagrees with me on historical and definitional grounds:

https://twitter.com/jdforward/status/1167449394117009409?s=19