The Forward prints a frontpage article about the UN and Israel that characterizes support for Israel as the “national liberation movement of the Jewish people” (penned by Eve Epstein, a professor at the Jewish Theological Seminary).
I’m confused by this. I’m a Jew, but I’m a citizen of this nation, the U.S. I don’t feel like I need to be liberated, I’m plenty free where I am. I think the Palestinians require liberation.
This type of confusion is common in pro-Israel policy circles. At a time when Israel’s interests and the U.S.’s are not congruent (we should be opposing Israel’s illegal occupation vigorously to win points in the Arab world), rhetoric like this creates a real question in my mind, and I’m sure in others, of dual loyalty. It is precisely the confusion that the American Council for Judaism warned about more than 60 years ago when it supported Jewish immigration to a democratic multicultural country in Palestine, but opposed the creation of a Jewish state.
