I Love Israel, I Hate AIPAC

I love Israel. I really do. I lived there for three years (1985 - 1988). In many ways, I find it to be a much better society that the one we've got going here.I hate AIPAC. I once, by accident, attended an AIPAC dinner (I was invited to fill up a table). I wanted to retch. They are repulsive

I love Israel, I hate AIPAC

When I lived in Israel I worked for The Israel Diaspora Institute. A group farther removed from AIPAC is harder to imagine. HAMAS is much closer to AIPAC than the IDI is. Israel has much to offer us, and we have much to offer it. None of those offers will amount to anything if we (by 'we' I mean progressive people in the USA) allow the wrongness of some of Israel's actions to color and pollute our view of all of Israel.

Why do I love Israel?

Well, I will admit, part of it is because I am Jewish. Israel is the Jewish homeland. Any attempt to remake Israel into something other than the Jewish homeland is an attempt to destroy Israel. That isn't racist, because the Jews are not a race. That isn't ethnic cleansing, because the Jews are not an ethnic group (you can convert to Judaism, you can't convert to 'white'; also there are two main ethnic groups of Jews - Sephardim and Ashkenazim - with quite different rites, habits, speech, and culture).

That's only part of it. That's the part that most of you - that is, progressives who are not Jewish - cannot share. But there is more. Much more.

Israel is a democracy. In Israel, all citizens can vote. Jews, of course, but also Muslims, Christians, atheists and all others. At present, there are 12 Arab members of the knesset. (see here. That's out of 120 members. In the US Senate, in contrast, there is currently ONE Black member out of 100. And there are about as many Arab-Israelis as Black Americans.

Israel is largely secular. It's hard to get exact numbers, but according to this site between 15 and 37% of Israelis are atheist or agnostic. Having lived there, I can say that it seemed to me that the vast majority of Jews in Israel went to synangogue a few times a year, at most.

Israel has outlawed discrimination based on sexual orientation.

Then there's stuff I noticed, living there. Israel places less emphasis than the USA on sheer materialism. Israel is more of a community than America. Israel has more emphasis on family. And, although many Israelis have very chauvinistic attitudes about sex-roles, nevertheless, it's remarkably egalitarian in how it assigns those roles.

Now, about AIPAC. AIPAC is to Israel what Bush is to America: A blight. A preposterous caricature of the attitudes of an entire nation, reflected through the perverse worldview of bigoted few. Just as Bush harms the USA, AIPAC harms Israel, and for much the same reasons.

Finally, the territories. I do not want to discuss that situation in any detail here; I am opposed to the occupation. I think it's wrong, I also thinks it's stupid. But good countries sometimes do horrendous things.

Update, in the comments, its pointed out that I haven't been very specific about why I dislike AIPAC so much. Well, they stand for the same sort of "Israel is always right, in every regard, all the time" attitude that I object to in many rightwingers in America. They portray the entire mid-East situation in black and white terms; they liken Arafat to Stalin. I am not a fan of Arafat, but Stalin was one of the great monsters of history, and Arafat was not. AIPAC is also a strong supporter of the settlements, which are not the way to peace.