GA 2009 / What will Netanyahu tell America's Jews?
Prime Minister set to speak at annual Jewish conference, likely to appeal to American Jews to stand with Israel.
By Sara Miller Tags: Benjamin Netanyahu Israel news Jewish GAWASHINGTON D.C. - The speeches by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren and Rep. Eric Cantor at the opening of the annual conference of the Jewish Federations of North America took the same tone Sunday - at the same time pugnacious and conciliatory. The perceived nuclear threat from Iran and the quantifiable danger of Hamas in Gaza and Hezbollah in Lebanon were addressed with cold determination - don't provoke us, or you will be sorry.
But the appeal to the Jewish community was very different. The message in a nutshell: United we stand, divided we fall. The Jews of the world must stand with Israel in the face of many threats. Both cited the delegitimization of Israel, in particular as a result of the Goldstone report on Israel's conflict with Hamas in Gaza last winter. The report, both said, weakened Israel's ability to protect itself, not militarily, but as a sovereign state with the right to defend its civilians from enemy assaults.
Oren told the conference: "We will fight the terrorists, we will protect ourselves from Iran and we will resist attempts to discredit us."
Appealing to the Jewish Diaspora, he drew a direct line from the tribal "nomads" who first found belief in one God three thousand years ago in what is now Israel to the "tiny remnant... rising from the ashes of the world's greatest massacre [who] returned to that land, and [who] reclaimed it."
"Our strength derives from the belief that we have a right to independence in our tribal land, the land of Israel, and that Jews have a right to defend themselves, there and everywhere," he said. "That Jews have a right to survive as Jews and as a legitimate nation."
Cantor was equally succinct: "Our long history as Jews gives us the unique perspective and ability to unite in the face of serious challenges to our country and to Israel. This is what has sustained us as a people throughout the ages, and now more than ever as Israel and America face dire existential threats from the outside. It's what must continue to sustain us now."
Like Oren, he cited the Holocaust as a cautionary tale of what happens when Jews are not vigilant to the threat of anti-Semitism.
"Too many American Jews have become desensitized to the fires that threaten the Jews of Israel and of Europe," Cantor said. "It can't happen to us, they think, as if the anti-Semitic vitriol surging across the internet and spewing across American college campuses has no meaning and that somehow they will be unharmed by the lies spread about Israel and the Jewish people."
So what will Benjamin Netanyahu say? It is difficult to imagine that the prime minister will stray from the party line clearly vocalized by his ambassador, which was met with great gusto by the crowd here. The message will undoubtedly be an appeal for American Jewry to stand with Israel, and its policies, no matter what comes out of the White House. Anything else will result in disaster for Israel.
According to the prime minister's office, this speech will be Netanyahu's "Bar-Ilan speech to the Jewish world" - a reference to his address at an Israeli university in which Netanyahu laid out his diplomatic vision.
Netanyahu's meeting with President Barack Obama, unconfirmed until almost the last minute, may have a very different tone. Obama's secretary of state was quite clear on her recent Mideast tour: the Israeli policy on settlements is not in tandem with the expectations of the White House. While Hillary Clinton acknowledged in Tel Aviv that the latest Israeli gesture on halting settlement construction is unprecedented, it is not enough.
Some at the conference believe that Obama never had any intention of speaking here, and that the terrible massacre in Texas gave him a palatable reason to duck out. Obama is trying to bring Netanyahu and Israel to heel, they say, and his absence at the conference and his reluctance to commit to a meeting with the prime minister are signs of that.
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Netanyahu's hands are tied by his coalition. He has no choice but to resist any changes from the White House. Unlike Sharon, Netanyahu is not a Israeli war hero, does not have grassroots support and cannot change his coalition partners at will.
Netanyah has seriously misjudged the ability of the non-Jewish world to understand the nature of the Israeli occupation. Netanyahu can no longer bluff the world with rhetoric that is nothing more than a cover-up for colonialism and exploitation. Every penney sent to Israel to help construct more settlements is a contribution towards prolonged violence. Every attack on fellow Jews who ascribe to the Jewish heritage of truth and justice but do not agree with Israel is an attack on the Jewish religion. If I were Netanyahu, I would be saying: Let us commit funds to help build a Palestinian nation. Let us turn-over our settlements to house the Palestinians that have been denied housing permits. Let us give technical assistance to strengthen the Palestinian institutions. Let us consider the Palestinians to be our brothers and sisters. Let us stop demonizing all Palestinians for the few that do send rockets. Let us start a new day based on our historic values of truth and justice.
Turns out that Netanyahu was heckled. He joked that he was better received at the UN than at the GA. I don't ever recall an Israeli Prime Minister being heckled at a Jewish Federation of North America General Assembly before. Netanyahu has a way of making enemies, and making enemies for Israel.
With all due respect to the enormous contributions, richness, dynamism and diversity of American Jewry, I think it would be a mistake to continue implying that the diaspora is basically -or only- the USA (and Canada). There is a significant number of Jews in other countries all around the world, and their dynamism isn't negligible. Yes, let's unite, and let's include us in Brazil, Australia, France, Russia, Mexico, Argentina, South Africa, the UK, Italy, Hungary, Spain, Chile or New Zealand. We matter too, even if our communities are smaller.
Albert Einstein said in his last days of life: ?Religions are childish Fairy Tales?. It is mostly false and negative and sets people against each other. It's very sectarian. There is no place for it in modern civilisation. We need minds to be opened and polished and furnished with the great wonderfulness of science and knowledge, not poisoned with the redundant mindless idiotic sewage of horrible ignorant stone age savages.
Yes, Boston citizen, I think you have it right. The writing is on the wall. The times they are a changing.
the same bathos and bombast that he spewed out at the UN. He will pull out every victim card he can think of. His list will go something like this: 1. Iran is the new Nazi Reich and the US must sanction Israel in taking care of its nuclear facitlity since negotiations with Nazis are futile. 2. That the world cannot allow another Holocuast which is what Iran is planning to carry ut. 3. That Israel longs for peace with the Palestinians and a two state solution but the Jews of the diaspora must support Israe in its right for "natural growth" in all its settlements and unrestricted construction in East Jerusalem which is the eternal capital of the Jewish People, on which there can be no compromise. 4.Isarael longs for immediate negotiations but does not believe it is the opportune moment for final status discussions.
Yesterday's article quoted Mr. Oren as saying that the nomads had "come up with the extraordinary notion" of a single God. Today's article has Mr. Oren saying (paraphrased, but not quoted) that the "nomads...first found belief in one God." Much more respectful, no doubt about it. Still, I have to wonder why phrases such as "God revealed Himself to the nomads" were missing from the ambassador's speech? Of course, that's only what I learned as a child--and may no longer be PC.
When a man keeps protesting that he will never leave a woman, he's actually thinking about doing so. When you hear Obama say we will never leave Israel over and over again...