Reform leader: U.S. Jews must insist Israel halt settlements

[Classical_Liberal]

eform leader: U.S. Jews must insist Israel halt settlements

By Nathan Guttman, Haaretz Correspondent



NEW YORK - Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, has issued a call to American Jews to exert their political influence in the U.S. in order to make the American administration prompt Israel to freeze all settlements immediately, regardless of what the Palestinians are doing.

"Continuing to build settlements is to threaten the Jewish character of the state and is to undermine the Zionist dream," Yoffie told Haaretz in an interview in his New York office.

Yoffie added that the goal of the settlement effort is to create a reality that is irreversible. "That's what scares me most of all," he says.

For Yoffie, the settlement issue is currently the most important issue on the agenda, because it is hastening the moment when the Jewish population across the Green Line will make the solution of two states, Israeli and Palestinian, no longer attainable......

http://www.haaretzdaily.com/hasen/spages/364558.html

[edzontar]

1. Well said....

nt

[no_hypocrisy]

2. Great idea in theory. Put that idea into practice and you are saddled

with the cliched moniker of "self-hating Jew". Somewhere along the line, to prove proprer devotion to the faith/religion, Jews adopted a commitment to Israel without question to governmental policies.

This is generalization. Some secular Jews, Reform Jews, and extremely fundamental Jews who don't accept the existence of Israel challenge the policies of the Knesset.

However to publicly challenge the settlements is to invite derision and condemnation from within. That's why I don't see this principle being embraced wholesale. I wish it were otherwise.

[no_hypocrisy]

3. Great idea in theory. Put that idea into practice and you are saddled

with the cliched moniker of "self-hating Jew". Somewhere along the line, to prove proprer devotion to the faith/religion, Jews adopted a commitment to Israel without question to governmental policies.

This is generalization. Some secular Jews, Reform Jews, and extremely fundamental Jews who don't accept the existence of Israel challenge the policies of the Knesset.

However to publicly challenge the settlements is to invite derision and condemnation from within. That's why I don't see this principle being embraced wholesale. I wish it were otherwise.

[Classical_Liberal]

4. There were alot of jews that criticized this in the

80s and 90s. Things can turn around again. You can't stop a neocon from spouting the self loathing jew bs anymore than you can stop Ann Coulter from calling people traitor. You can get the political upper hand on them. What has happened since the 80s and 90s is a strangle hold of pundit opinion on the part of neoconservative elements helped along by media consolidation. What has been done can be undone.

[ThorsteinVeblen]

5. Beautifully stated

The path Sharon is walking destroys the possibility of a two state solution.

The 2 only possible outcomes of Sharon's path are:

1.) The ethnic cleansing of non-Israeli Arabs from the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.

2.) The emergence of a secular democratic state encompassing the entire population of Israel, the West Bank and the Gaza Strip effectively destroying the Jewish State.

The first solution brings full circle the evil inflicted by the Nazis on the Jewish people. Oppressed becomes oppressor.

The second solution puts Zionism to death. Simultaneously creating hope and danger for Jews and the world. Could a secular, democratic state in the middle east guarantee the safety and freedom of a minority Jewish population?

[ex_jew]

6. A nice first step...

It's about time Reform Jews realize that their religion has NOTHING to do with the fundamendalist crazies in Israel. Zionism has been in league with anti-Semitism for the longest time now, to the great detriment of Jews who wish only to live a decent life in the country where they were born. Signing on to the Israeli project, in any form short of a secular, majority-ruled state like all the other ones where Jews thrive, is just a deal with the devil. Before you know, you're forced to rationalize starvation, torture, apartheid, occupation, spying, pre-emptive strikes, alliances with highly unsavory characters, etc., etc. It's not just a matter of freezing the settlements. How about, for a second step, getting the hell out of Gaza, where 40% of the most densely-populated land on earth is reserved for a few thousand "settlers" ? But enough for one day...