I'll join everyone in linking to Peter Beinart's excellent essay on American Jews and Zionism.
I knew that the American Jewish establishment was in bad shape -- by which I mean, cut off from the reality of American Jewish politics -- when they put Elliott Abrams on the road as a featured speaker at fundraising events. But to find out that they're hiring Frank Luntz to conduct focus groups...well, that's just pathetic (especially since what they get for their trouble is typical Luntz garbage about jettisoning the word "Palestinian" for the word "Arab").
The elephant in the room that Beinart doesn't discuss is that Israeli leaders may feel that they don't need Jewish support in the United States, because they can substitute Christian evangelical support, with the latter less likely (or at least perceived to be less likely) to produce any sorts of constraints on the Israeli government. Personally, I think shifting from a American base of American Jews to a coalition of Orthodox Jews, evangelical Christians, and ideological neo-cons would be a tragic mistake for Israel...but I can certainly understand the appeal for Likud politicians.
A coalition of Jews and people who are using Jews to bring about the End of Days? What's not to like?
ReplyDeleteWow. I guess Israel should abandon those who support it and instead genuflect endlessly in front of pampered Jewish liberals, who don't understand Israel's problems and wouldn't really care if Israel disappeared altogether trying to uphold some "moral ideal", which doesn't exist anywhere on the planet, including USA.
ReplyDeleteRather than a knee-jerk "Frank Luntz is Republican, so he bad" response - look at the data he produced through these focus groups as well as the hard introspection required to hire him - not sure why someone would label that "pathetic". His findings were pretty enlightening and a decent part of Beinart's piece - which you called excellent.
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