From Shmuel Rosner at Contentions:
If Jews really “worry for a living,” as Aaron David Miller, a former Clinton peace team official contends – Miller now gives them another reason for worrying. Writing for Time, he predicts:
[T]he days of America’s exclusive ties to Israel may be coming to an end. Despite efforts to sound reassuring during the campaign, the new administration will have to be tough, much tougher than either Bill Clinton or George W. Bush were, if it’s serious about Arab-Israeli peacemaking.
[Aaron David Miller: Obama Must Get Tough With Israel]
Leftist Jewish groups, including the Progressive Jewish Alliance, J Street, and Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, echo Miller’s call for America to “toughen” its role in Israel’s national security actions and policy.
The PJA had this to say, when calling for a forced ceasefire with Hamas:
“[E]scalation of violence runs counter to Israel’s long-term security interests and will continue to exacerbate tensions throughout the Middle East while doing nothing to achieve a comprehensive resolution of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. The time has come for the U.S. to lead the Quartet and other global allies in reestablishing a cease-fire, ensuring a permanent end to rocket attacks against Israel and allowing humanitarian assistance to reach the residents of Gaza.
If only they would explain how Israel’s war with Hamas, a terror organization determined to destroy the state and its inhabitants–that has been launching rockets aimed at civilians on a daily basis into Southern Israeli towns– “runs counter to Israel’s long-term security interests.” These groups and their leaders live in an alternate reality, where facts are meaningless and peace and love always overcome.
Israel is a sovereign nation with a duty to protect it’s citizens from the savage murders grabbing at their throats. The United States has no “veto” over Israel’s military decisions, and shouldn’t. Its ludicrous that “progressives” would oppose the liberation of millions of Iraqis, while calling for imperialist control over our free, democratic ally.
BTvShalom says:
“There is no doubt that Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens. But Israel’s only hope for survival as a secure and democratic Jewish homeland lies in a diplomatic — rather than military — solution, and in a negotiated peace agreement with the Palestinians.”
Really? Have there been any rockets launched from Lebanon since the war with Hezbollah? Suicide bombers from the West Bank? Any type of hostility at all from Syria, Egypt or Jordan? Didn’t think so… Their certainty that military action is useless is clearly indefensible.
If such leftist groups held tightly to their principle of tikun olam, they would support the liberation of the hundreds of thousands of innocent Arabs held hostage under Hamas’ terror regime in Gaza, and the liberation of all peoples living under tyranny around the world; they would support, rather than antagonize, the US and Israel in the war on terror.
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