Filed under: Israel
Why Israel Is Losing the Liberals
The Hour
THE FORWARD
http://www.forward.com/articles/15097/
By Leonard Fein
Wed. Feb 04, 2009
Other articles by Leonard Fein
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You squirm, you wriggle, you deny, you denounce the methodology, but eventually there’s no escape: The data show quite decisively that here in America, Israel is considerably more popular among conservatives than among liberals.
The most recent confirmation of that comes from the highly regarded Global Attitudes Project of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press; their findings are based on a survey taken during the fighting in Gaza. (more…)
Filed under: Israel
Thank you once again Mr. Fein for expressing the silent sadness of many American Jews. This liberal American Jew, painfully, no longer considers Israel as ‘the Jewish State.’ Yes, a state for Jews but not a state that expresses the values of my Judaism. Yes, a state for Jews and others within the pre-1967 boundaries. No, not “The Jewish State” because that state makes a mockery of my Judaism by corrupting the concept of “Btzelem Elohim”; the precept that every person is created in God’s image and therefore every person is equal in the eyes of god. There’s no place in my Judaism for a state that has for 60 years discriminated against its own Arab citizens and for 40 years oppressed and slowly destroyed the spirit of the Palestinian people. My Judaism is a Judaism that confronts injustice and speaks truth to power. I suspect that many liberal Jews feel some of these same feelings but are not yet able to say not my ‘Jewish State’
