Erika Dreifus

Again, current events compel me to share with you another batch of essential reading. (And if you’ve missed them, you might also wish to check the first two installments I shared this week.)

From Jeffrey Goldberg:
“Israel, then, is faced with three enormous and difficult tasks. It must do a much better job of minimizing Palestinian casualties as it fights Hamas, because this is a moral necessity and a strategic imperative. It must also do something it hasn’t done well at all, which is to create an alternate reality on the West Bank, one that shows Palestinians a different and brighter sort of future than the one promised by Hamas. And — and this is its main task at the moment — it must ensure that its citizens aren’t kidnapped and murdered by a group that seeks not an equitable two-state solution but the annihilation of their country.” (more…)

There is so much important writing appearing this difficult week that I must provide a follow-up to Monday’s post.

From Liel Leibovitz:
“Anyone with a genuine commitment to human rights—not to mention sympathy for the Palestinian cause—should join Israel in its efforts to rid the world of such sheer evil and topple Hamas. To leave Hamas in power is not a moderate solution to anything. It is to become complicit in the agenda and the actions of a terrorist organization in inflicting terrible and continuing pain not only on its neighbors but also on its own people.” (“Some Concrete Facts About Hamas,” Tablet)

From Rabbi Daniel M. Cohen:
“At the same time, while there are indeed, ‘many strong opinions,’ not all opinions are equally valid. And while I know it is not politically correct to say so, some opinions are simply wrong.” (“Sorry, Jon Stewart, There Are Opinions, and There Are Facts,” New Jersey Jewish News) (more…)

“The anti-Semitic tropes in these statements are not subtle. But even if they were, I wonder why the academic left, which is usually so attuned to the subtlety of racism and sexism, puts up such a high bar for anti-Semitism. Suddenly ‘But I said Zionist, not Jew’; or ‘I’m a Jew, so I can’t possibly be in league with haters of Jews’; or ‘Yes, I’m focusing on the Jewish state and no other state, but so what?’; or ‘Sure, I’m echoing standard anti-Semitic tropes, but they’re really applicable here’ are incontrovertible arguments, and it becomes bad form to suggest that anti-Semitism is at work unless someone is screaming anti-Semitic slogans.”

Source: Jonathan Marks, “‘Zionist Attack Dogs’? The MLA’s Debate on Israel Might Go Viral,” on The Chronicle of Higher Education‘s “The Conversation” blog. (Please do read the whole thing. Then, you’ll see why I’m not at all unhappy that I’m no longer an MLA member.)