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[chronicle_moderator]

Why is it so difficult for Americans to talk about Israel? In his essay this week, Alan Wolfe comments on the debate that has erupted over the Polish Consulate's decision to cancel a speech by the scholar Tony Judt, allegedly for his critical views of Israel. Is that censorship? What about the numerous petitions in support of Judt, signed by leading scholars and intellectuals around the country? Do they promote free speech or jeopardize it? Has the rise of Jewish "illiberalism" in the United States, as Wolfe argues, made it more difficult to discuss the future of Israel?
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[chronicle_moderator]

Norman Birnbaum replies:

Professor Wolfe raises interesting questions in his customarily civilized and intelligent way. However, I think that he misinterprets the use of the term “solidarity” in the statement I and some 200 other persons issued. We solidarize with Tony Judt, John Mearsheimer, Stephen Walt, against attempts to deny them the right to express their opinions---not, necessarily with their opinions. Perhaps, upon reflection, Professor Wolfe (after considering the lawsuit settled in 2002 by the Anti-Defamation League in a matter regarding  spying on a number of American citizens by ADL employees and agents)  will reconsider his defense of Mr. Foxman’s bona fides.

Meanwhile, isn’t the argument as to whether Israel should become a bi-national state beside the point? Twenty percent of its citizens living inside the 1967 borders are Arabs, and in that respect  alone, Israel is already bi-national. Moreover, since Israel shows no inclination to allow the Palestinians authentic autonomy, the Palestinians in the occupied territories are forced to live in a Greater Israel with vastly restricted rights—rather like the Africans in South Africa under Apartheid.

The essential question, however, is the one Professor Wolfe raises as that of “illiberalism” in the Jewish community. I do not think that we can understand it as a philosophical choice alone. For any number of reasons, a large segment of the American Jewish community identifies its existential fate with that of the state of Israel. These Amerians feel viscerally threatened by threats to Israel, and their inner feelings are so strong that they have set aside (with considerable help from their tongue-tied Gentile fellow citizens) reflection on the contradictory aspects of their situation.  Claiming full rights in a country which is overwhelmingly Christian by virtue of universal standards of citizenship, they act as if these standards do not apply to Israel. Recall the usual injunctions from Israeli ambassadors in Washington in times of crisis (for the ambassadors, that would be any day of the week): it is both the duty and privilege of U.S. citizens who are Jewish to stand totally with Israel. Suppose, however, that there are any number of reasons to be skeptical about the identity of interests of the U.S. with its smaller and at times ungovernable, irrational and self-destructive client state. Where, then, do the interests and loyalties of Americans who are Jewish lie?

The brutal and obsessive quality of  the response of many Jews to criticism of Israel and to dissent from one sided U.S. support for it  is, not least, a defense against dealing with this question.  These Jewish attitudes, of course, have been shaped by historical circumstance. The inability of the American Jewish community to do much to help European Jewry during the Holocaust is a bitter memory. Many American Jews are so immersed in familial and communal settings that they do not quite take advantage of the nation’s multiplicity and pluralism. (When I was growing up in the thirties of the last century, we would have thought it laughable had anyone suggested that there would come a day when the Presidents of Amherst, Harvard, Yale, and Williams, as well as the Chair of the Republican National Committee and—until recently—the Chairman of the Federal Reserve Bank, could all  be Jewish.)  Even some of those in a larger world sometimes act as if they were still in a small Shetel in eastern Europe (think of our esteemed colleagues Professors Alan Dershowitz and Ruth Wisse of Harvard, who have intimated that anti-Semitism was at issue in President Summers’ recent misfortunes.)

Professor Wolfe concludes that the quarrels of intellectuals will influence, in the end, the geopolitics of the Mideast rather little, if at all. Perhaps, but looking back at the Cold War, the assent of a large number of American intellectuals to official dogma about its necessity certainly reinforced the rigidity of the policies of successive American governments. More debate on the question of Israel might, in the end, contribute to opening political possibilities now closed. It would be best, however, if the debate did not degenerate into a Jewish family quarrel. The  discretion of many of our Gentile fellow citizens, who do not wish to be thought anti-Semitic and who do not voice their own doubts and perplexities on this question, is not a service to the nation, and not to their Jewish friends either. Let us hear from them.

Norman Birnbaum, Georgetown University

[pyshnov]

The first thing, and the most insulting one, that I can say is that, in my opinion, American Jews blew it.

I am in solidarity with the authors who, here, are discussing, this time I think, seriously, the question of this thread. At the moment, on my desk is Paul Findley, "They Dare to Speak Out". Since its publication, it was thought that things will come right, no need to pay attention; attention will be counterproductive. Things are going wrong, though: facts neglected, ideas not defined, just hinted at.

As Judt did, I was there also, 1974-1979. American Jews refused to hear what Israel did with the Soviet Jews. The latter run from what we called "our hysterical homeland" to Italy, Greece in tens and hundreds of thousands. It was extremely painful; the "free" world, however, was silent. And the silence, we learned, was the rule when it comes to revealing the truth about Israel. But, how any judgement be made when evidence is suppressed? On the basis of what? "Allegiance"?

It is clear to me that all the party politics, as well as the state politics in US and Israel are irrelevant to any solution. This is not what can be heard by the learned academia. There can be a role for allegiance, but it can not interfere with the evidence.

Judt wrote about "Basing statehood on ethnicity or religion.." Well, this sounds a bit ridiculous: there was no common ethnicity and most were just about to start learning the religion. There was no common language, literature, cultural preferences, music, food, etc. It was to be invented, but it is still not there. Israel perpetrated a hoax, faked a common race, common ethnicity, tried to resurrect what was no longer there after 80 generations being among other peoples. I could never tell an Arab from a Moroccan Jew, and you know such things do not happen just by looking at each other. Israel was always a multicultural state with the most mixed population.

Yet, Israel claims to represent a "chosen people".  It goes further: Israel claims the land given by God to this "chosen people", apparently, not fully relying on the Act by which it was created when a third party took the land from one people and gave it to another.

Israel lives by its own law, with the roots of it still in Ghetto. The most popular joke in Israel is this: Polish King had promised gold to anyone who will teach his dog to talk, and a Jew took the money. When asked how he dared to take the money, the Jew answered: "I didn't say WHEN I will teach the dog to talk". The State of Israel is using this old trick in all its "negotiations". The entire policy of Israel is based on trickery. The State of Israel insists that it has a right to survive and defend itself. But, the correct question should be: Within which borders does Israel have right to survive and defend itself?

You can not indefinitely concoct "justifications" for the wrongs and remain mentally healthy. You need to be really within your rights, or your moral disappears. The solder now plants a million of cluster bombs with sadistic grin on his face and is gettin' out o'there; gamarnu.

"Multicultural" state will not bring Israel much happiness instantly. But, it will certainly bring relief to the Palestinians. There will be new life. And this is the way to go, because right now Israeli sinful dream collapsed, and the utmost care must be given to the Palestinians. It's the Palestinian population that will give the Jews a normal life again, the life out of Ghetto, in a Mediterranean, not much industrial, land, for those who want it. The dream of finding the cure for cancer in the All-Nobel Weizmann Institute has collapsed.

The calculations of birthrate are not just a Nazi idea, the calculations are wrong, because the birthrates change with the lifestyle. The Jews wanted the Holly places. They will not lose them when they are shared.
There is no question, the number of victims of violence will go down.

This right solution needs freedom of speech. The academic discussion must go to the non-academic press right now. Let people breath fresh air. Does the attack on the freedom of speech come from "Jewish illiberalism"? No, it comes from Neo-conservatism but, yes, it is Jewish.

The anti-Semitism myth must be immediately pulled back. Naturally, the hearts will start palpitating stronger than they did in Skokie, Ill. But, I have absolutely no doubt that in exactly the same way as the number of victim in the Arab-Israeli state will go down, so the number of anti-Semites (real ones) will go down too. The number of people who are simply anti-Jewish, not racist anti-Semites, will go down dramatically.

America will win too. The only program that will go is the "War on Terrorism".

You cared about Jews in Israel for 50 years. You are urged, now hysterically, to care more. You were urged to disregard Arabs. Now, you are urged to support "Nuke them all' final solution.

But, it was never considered what benefits can be realized in case this region, the Palestine, becomes a really democratic land, and what tensions and terrible dangers will disappear in a much larger area of the Globe.

I hope you understand history, the events and their likely outcomes better than G. Bush. The practical question is actually this: Israel must undergo a process similar to "Denazification" that was forced upon Nazi Germany after the war. The notions of "chosen people" and "God promised land" should go away from the State policy. You never know, given the alternatives, it just my be that Israeli are quite ready for it.

[paddymick]

I find Alan Wolfe's piece intriguing... but still flawed. He spends the entire piece explaining why his conclusion is incorrect--"We ought to be more focused on enemies without than preoccupied with finding them within.".

When we speak of the Middle East, the only reason that Israel is our ally and most of the other (Arab) countries are not is because of the undue favor we have placed on Israel (both monetary and political). If we are to accept opposing points of view in our discussion of geopolitical events and issues, logic would dictate that we then too must accept and analyze opposing actions. How, then, does Alan reconcile his classification of those countries in the Middle East as "enemies" (or at least "not allies") when their only action has been to protect themselves from the threat of a superior force (funded almost entirely by the Americans)?

How can Alan claim we must accept Judt's criticism of Israel but we cannot accept Iran's. Why is it okay for  Israel (or the US, for that matter) to maintain a nuclear arsenal but it is unacceptable for Iran (Iraq, North Korea, etc.)?

Expressing support of differing viewpoints rings hollow if it falls short of equal political/military treatment.

*Sure, you can say whatever you want, but when it comes down to it, we get the bomb and you don't because we can't trust you with it...*

Who are we to claim that only ourselves and our friends should have WMDs? Logic would dictate that once any country develops such weapons, all other countries should develop them, if only to prevent occupational tyranny of the sort that occurred in Iraq.

And yet we have the gall to criticize Iran for pursuing nuclear development. They would be idiots not to! America very effectively demonstrated that we would preemptively attack any country we *perceived* to be a threat--real or imagined. What message does that send to our nuclear-armed ally in the Middle East (remember... that one that is a sworn mortal enemy of all things Arab)?

Iran is following the only rational course of action available to them. And any Arab country not developing a nuclear capability is setting themselves up as a target.

Talk is one thing but it falls short if it fails to define action. Hearing opposing viewpoints does no one any good if those listening have no intentions toward compromise.

In short, Alan is making some very good arguments but is apparently not listening to himself. This is something I have found very common in academic circles--especially by those who purport that Christopher Hitchens is anything other than a propagandist. It is really easy to take the high road if all you are required to do is describe it rather than walk on it.

The time, however, has long since passed when we should have been acting on these principles rather than just spouting about how we espouse them. There needs to be more than a *discussion* about Israel.  There needs to be an entire reworking of our country's relationship with Israel. Israel needs to be put back on an equal footing with the rest of the nations in that region. America may not be able to force any other countries to do this, but we can certainly make the adjustments with regards to our own treatment of Israel. Our preferential treatment of Israel is probably the single most influential factor in the  animosity against us that continues to boil in the Arab world. Until we address (and rectify) that situation, we will have no hope of ever *winning* this fabrication we call the "War on Terror." After all, it was we who "terrorized" the entire Arab world when we armed Israel.

What we have now in the Middle East is what most country folk like to call "the chickens coming home to roost." We made this problem and we are the only ones who can do something substantial to fix it. Reassessing our support of Israel would be a large step in the right direction.

[solly]

Where do we draw the line?

In May, 1992, David Irving told a German audience that the gas chamber shown to tourists at Auschwitz was "a fake built after the war."
In June, 1992, he was coming to Rome from Moscow. When the plane landed, it was surrounded by police and Irving was put on the next plane to Munich. He was charged under the German law of "defaming the memory of the dead" and fined 3,000DM.
He appealed the conviction and on subsequent appeals the conviction was upheld and the fine increased first to 10,000 and then to 30,000DM, or about $20,000. (The German
legal system provides for increasing the penalty on appeal.
Irving was not the victim of extralegal tactics, nor has he ever claimed this).
In all his appeals, Irving was not allowed to call the director of the Auschwitz museum as a witness to confirm his statement. (The Auschwitz gas chamber is, in fact, a reconstruction built after the war. No one at the Auschwitz museum denies this.)

Irving is currently serving three years in an Austrian prison on similar charges.

At the conclusion of a three-day trial on November 10, 1999, a Mannheim district court found Fredrick Töben guilty on charges of incitement to racial hatred, insulting the memory of the dead, and public denial of genocide, because he had disputed Holocaust extermination claims in writings sent to persons in Germany. Presiding Judge Klaus Kern said that there is no doubt that Töben is guilty of "denying the Holocaust," and that because there is no sign that he would relent his views and activities, a prison sentence was required. The court then sentenced him to ten months imprisonment.

On the first day of the trial, November 8, Töben announced that he would not defend himself against the charges because by doing so he would likely be charged for additional violations of Germany's "Holocaust denial" and "incitement" laws. His lawyer, Ludwig Bock, similarly announced that he would offer no defense on behalf of Töben because he risked being charged himself. "If I say anything I will go to jail myself, and if he says anything there will be another trial," Bock told a reporter.
Prosecutor Klein later confirmed that such fears were entirely justified. "If they [Töben and Bock] had repeated things in this court which are against the law I would have charged them again," said Klein. Bock did however read a statement to the court that compared the prosecution of Töben and other "Holocaust deniers" to the trials of witches in the Middle Ages, and which called Germany's anti-revisionist laws a gross violation of the principle of freedom of speech.

http://www.ihr.org/jhr/v18/v18n4p-2_Toben.html

Monty Python’s “Life of Brian” has a scene reminiscent of this:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?

[pyshnov]

The short answer to the posting by solly is that we do not draw the line.

These lines are drawn by politicians for political purposes, not on the basis of any laws that fit to exist in a free society, and not because there are any victims of the created "hate laws" and "Holocaust denier" laws. It is projected by politicians that there could be victims in the future if certain words, facts or theories find a lot of supporters, and if these supporters will, then, commit real crimes.

However, these words have been heard and read for a long time without any such effects shown. For that reason, I think that these laws do not fit even in the category of "crime prevention" laws, but is a rotten politics of a totalitarian rule. The trials (and solly missed Ernst Zundel) are of Soviet-style in every aspect, i.e. intentional miscarriage of Justice. For a trial to be just, it not only should prove formal violation of law, but also should show the damage to the victim. When the later element is completely absent, the jail sentence is an absurdity, there could be a $1 fine, no more. Yet, we even see prisoners held in jails for a long time before the guilt proven...

It seems to me mind-boggling, why Jews had to make themselves responsible for such injustice, make themselves a notorious and single "exceptional case" in a society where free speech is so valued? Does this aberration a part of the problem which is behind the question "Why can't we talk about Israel?"

But, this item might help us to see an extremely important point in the whole problem: I am quite sure that if the question of "Holocaust denier" laws were put to vote for a broad Jewish population, the answer would be "No, we must not demand an exception in the constitutionally adopted right of people to freedom of speech". And if so, this brings us to an inevitable conclusion: Jewish leaders do not reflect the opinion of Jewish population, but  exert impermissible pressures around the world.







 

[angela]

we talk about israel all the time.  Israel is constantly, unendingly critisized by the western media.  when Wolfe says why can't we talk about it, what he means is why don't you agree with me.  You should agree with me.

Talk like everything else has its limits.  You can talk about affirmative action and explain why it is bad.  But if part of your explanation is that it is bad because blacks are inherently inferior, then you need to shut up. Or at least I think so.  The problem comes when people don't agree where the limits are.  that is when you get into the polarization we are always talking about.  I don't think that the destruction of israel is a legitimate proposal that should be discussed.  I don't think we should debate the merits, should it be destroyed as a jewish state or not. Of course this does not pertain to all discussion.  But Judt should not talk at a university any more than a white supremacist should.

other considerations, the whole discussion is conducted as if the palestinians and arabs are entirely victims. But they have victimized many.  The entire middle east used to be christian and jewish before those areas were forcibly converted.  But we stopped crying about it a long time ago.  If a christian said I hate muslims because of what happened in 900 AD we would think they were ill.  But it appears that muslims are entitled to forever hate jews because of israel.

The arabs have 22 countries, not counting the other countries which are mostly islamic.  The jews should be left to their one country.  Every wrong, assuming there is a wrong, cannot be put right.  In fact the cost of righting this so called wrong would be catastrophic not just for Israel but for the entire world.  It would increase terrorism, increase Darfurs, increase slavery.  Because the bitterness of muslims is based on the fact that they have not become the dominant culture and force in the world.  We cannot do anything about it.

[solly]

Angela.

"But Judt should not talk at a university any more than a white supremacist should."

I disagree. No opinion or theory no matter how loony should be proscribed.
In fact, the crazier the thesis, the sooner it will be abandoned if there is public debate. Suppressing a far out opinion often gives it an undeserved credibility as the antithesis becomes more difficult to find.

"The jews should be left to their one country."

I don't think that there is much disagreement here. The debate is more properly about  the nature of that country. Should it be a State based on ethnicity/religion or should the displaced people of the Naqbah be given a place in it? Should it have properly defined borders and where should those borders be drawn?
Israel has increased it's territory to 78% of greater Palestine from the roughly 50% granted at partition. Close to one million Palestinian people have been dispossessed and the death rate exacted by Israel is currently 76 for every Israeli death.

These are facts that are not "unendingly criticized by the western media".

Tony Judt is the son of a Holocaust survivor who enthusiastically embraced Zionism, went to Israel to be a part of the new Nation and became disgusted with the policies of the Ultra Zionists, in particular, the treatment of Palestinians. He sees these policies as a variant of "white supremacy".

I think his is a voice that should be heard and I suspect the motives of those who seek to muzzle it.

[lukelea1]

I'm not Jewish but don't fault the American Jewish community for behaving as it does.   Everyone has a right to self-preservation and the continued existence of the state of Israel is indeed an existential issue for Jews everywhere.  Put yourself in their shoes for a moment and you will begin to understand why the danger of anti-Semitism -- I mean the felt danger -- is  many times worse when there is no  place of refuge.

As for the suggestion of a "multicultural" Israel, has the poster not been reading the newspapers lately?  Get real.

[solly]

lukelea.

"As for the suggestion of a "multicultural" Israel, has the poster not been reading the newspapers lately?  Get real"

I am not sure to which newspaper/article you refer.Please elucidate.

[pyshnov]

One of the reasons why it is difficult to talk about Israel is the kind of argumentation brought up by angela. I take this example because it is so typical. It combines the naivety of Snoopy with the bold rejection of any law. It sets the standard for the form of discussion that precludes contradiction. In this manner the "discussions" are conducted by ordinary Israeli, by Israeli officials and by people like Dershowitz. They never fail to sabotage logic.

Examples:

Talk like everything else has its limits.

The problem comes when people don't agree where the limits are.

I don't think we should debate the merits, should it be destroyed as a jewish state or not.

The arabs have 22 countries, not counting the other countries which are mostly islamic.  The jews should be left to their one country.

And finally:

Every wrong, assuming there is a wrong, cannot be put right.

I also heard this argument: Other countries had hundreds of years to change their borders. So, Israel is doing this now.

Some people will become instant Jew-haters just after participating in such "discussion". But the problem is not that simple. Israel keeps always-smoldering Holocaust behind it, and it has huge nuclear arsenal in case their manner of "discussion" is finally rejected. They don't really care for logic.

The origin of such situation seems to be as following. Israel is closed to all cultures: there are the Jews and, there are all others with the special derogatory name. Israel wanted only one thing: to go back to its roots. Golda Meir said: "It doesn't matter what G..m are saying, what matters is what Jews are doing." The calculation was that rain will wash the blood and time will erase the memory, but the "facts on the ground", the expanded borders, will remain. Wrong. History tells us that men are forgotten, but the land remains and the borders are never forgotten.

Israel became in fact a new Ghetto, and nobody could really object to this if the people wanted such profound separation from all others. But it was set up on the land that did not properly belong to it. Still, even this would not be fatal, if the Jews had said to the Arabs what they said to the rest of the world: "Please, give us, the persecuted sufferers, a little piece of land". Instead, they went after the lawful inhabitants with ever increasing force and ever increasing claims. They denied Arabs every bit of rightfulness or logic, in exactly the same manner as they now conduct "discussions" with the rest of the world.

I don't think that the "merits" for Israel in the proposal to unite Jews and Arabs in a democratic state are complicated. There is one merit - a necessity to avoid mutual destruction. I have no knowledge of the Arab position in this question.

Right as we speak, Canada is being "destroyed" as an English state. In 1980 I saw the book "The End of English Canada". I asked Why? Who needs it? I got no clear answers. But now it's just happening. I learned that closed cultures have their ups and downs in history, and the new, other peoples can give the country a better life.

[chronicle_moderator]

Alan Wolfe responds:

"L'affaire Judt," as it will inevitably be called, was bound to arouse emotions on all sides of the issue.  In his articles dealing with Israel, Judt raises questions central to how we think about the Holocaust, racial and ethnic identity, the current crisis in the Middle East, claims that foreign policy should be based on the word of God, and the future of liberalism – all of which are also raised by those who have posted comments in response to my essay.  I thank Norman Birnbaum for characterizing my tone as "civilized."  That was my intention.  We need to discuss these issues and we need to do with reason.  On that, Birnbaum and I agree.

I am not going to follow Professor Birnbaum's advice and reconsider Abraham Foxman's bona fides.  It is because I admire the work Foxman has done at the ADL that I joined others in criticizing his role in the Judt controversy. I do agree with Professor Birnbaum, however, that the turn of so many American Jews and Jewish organizations against free-speech liberalism is not a matter of "philosophy."  It instead reflects what I consider to be a short-sighted vision of what Jews in both this country and Israel need.  Jews, wherever they are, benefit from liberal political arrangements.  They ought to be passionate in defense of  them.

Paddymick, in my opinion, fails to appreciate that there are special reasons why an alliance between Israel and the United States developed in the postwar world.  We ought to be allied with a country that shares so many of our democratic values.  I do not agree with ultra-conservative Israelis,  just as I disagree with ultra-conservative Americans, which is one reason why I am not pleased with the Bush's administration's failure to involve itself in any serious way in bringing about a solution to the Middle East crisis.  But it makes sense to me that we favor Israel over Iran just as it makes sense to me that we favor Great Britain over Russia.

Angela seems to know what causes terrorism.  I wish I could be so certain.  I do have the strong feeling, however, that the application of military power by the United States in the Middle East – witness Iraq – certainly seems to breed terrorism.  If I knew how to bring peace to the Middle East, I would win the Nobel Prize.  But surely we are learning that a political resolution to the ugly conflicts in that region of the world would be more likely to reduce terrorism than military action.

The argument between pyshnov and Solly is not one to which I have anything to contribute.

--Alan Wolfe

[martinkimel]

Angela is right:  Israel is criticized all the time (mostly unfairly, in my view).  It's certainly vilified in academia. 

Paddymick says that Israel is the sworn mortal enemy of all Arab states.  That's demonstrably false.  Israel has peace treaties with Egypt and Jordan and wants peace with all its neighbors.

If people here can't understand why Iran shouldn't have nukes but Israel should, all I can say is they're either naive or Israel haters.  Israel hasn't gone around speaking of wiping any other nation off the map (see the Iranian president).  Israel is a democracy.  Israel doesn't arm Islamist militias and terrorists.

It's galling that Israel is still having to justify its existence as a Jewish state.  I don't see people here inveighing against the 2 dozen or so Muslim states in the world.  It's this obsession with the world's only Jewish state that strikes so many of us as anti-Semitic.

As the son of Polish Jews, I'm glad that the Polish consulate canceled the Judt talk.  Poland, by virtue of its history, owes the Jews.   Judt can speak elsewhere.  It's hardly as if he's being "silenced."

[solly]

As a newcomer to this forum I wish to say that it is refreshing to discuss this topic in a reasoned manner.
A couple of points Alan raises deserve comment.

"It ... reflects what I consider to be a short-sighted vision of what Jews in both this country and Israel need.  Jews, wherever they are, benefit from liberal political arrangements.  They ought to be passionate in defense of  them."

I agree....passionately!

The "one State" solution presents a philosophical difficulty for the hard-liners and discussion of it is limited. Whether this is by design or not, I cannot tell.
The difficulty is analogous to the South African experience, i.e. the enfranchisement of those ethnically different to those who currently rule.

Advocates maintain that Israel, given the history of conflict, could never allow a Palestinian State to mature and become strong. For this reason, the two State solution would embed and perpetuate attack and reprisal.
There is merit in this thesis.

Few would consider that the integration of Palestinian Arabs into a single State with Israel would be an easy transition. This was realised in the case of South Africa yet it did not deter the West from applying pressure to bring it about.

This speaks to the one point in which I am not in agreement with Alan:

"We ought to be allied with a country that shares so many of our democratic values."

If the analogy of South Africa holds true, does Israel indeed share our democratic values? It is often said that Israel will not consider formally annexing the West Bank and Gaza as it would bring an unwelcome demographic. Is this not anti-democratic?

Contrary to popular opinion, there is considerable support for such a remedy among moderate Palestinians.

Tony Judt would like to see more debate on this question which makes his a voice, in my opinion, a valuable one.

There is a danger that the Palestine question may become swamped by other events in Iraq and Iran. I think this would be unfortunate as I tend to agree with W Scott Thompson (see article: http://fletcher.tufts.edu/news/2003/03/thopmson.shtml )

Whilst Thompson advocated a two State solution, the point he makes (that Palestine is the key to much of the resentment and hatred of the U.S in the Moslem World) is, I think an important one.

Incidently, I do not think that pyshnov and I are in disagreement on this issue.

One final comment which might seem little off-topic but Alan brought up the subject of Iran. In fact it is very germaine to this discussion. May I simply refer readers who are interested, to the Ahmadineajad pages at:

www.brewerstroupe.blogspot.com/

There are links there to translations of the Iranian President's words which, if accurate, indicate that there is a great deal of spin on the versions given for U.S. consumption.

[terryw]

Alan Wolfe writes, "It is difficult to know why honest discussions about Israel have become so difficult to conduct."

This chain of emails sounds like an honest discussion about why discussions about Israel have become so difficult to conduct.  An honest discussion requires a willingness to follow the truth wherever it leads using evidence and reason regardless of anyone's feelings.  Honest discussion should pick at the scabs until they not longer hurt.

As my contribution, I believe that the Polish consulate can invite whomever it wishes.  But to cancel the talk, in the words of martinkimel, because "Poland, by virtue of its history, owes the Jews" is absurd.  This is the kind of emotional, collective mindset that makes discussion so difficult. 

Yes, Israel is held to a higher standard than the Arabs, and often unfairly so.  This was apparent in the coverage of the Lebanon invasion this past summer when very little was said about Hezbollah placing their weapons in the midst of civilian population centers. 

As for the assertion that there is something wrong with Israel's using ethnicity as the basis for a nation state, do we want to restore the Austro-Hungarian, Turkish, and Russian empires?

It's ironic that the Christian Right is one of the most pro-Israel parts of the electorate.  It's seems to be the liberal, secular Jews who are more likely to be anti-Israel.