A new memoir by Israeli peace activist Miko Peled, the son an honored general, details a far different history from the one most Americans are familiar (or comfortable) with.
Parting Ways is Butler’s attempt to construct a Jewish narrative that coheres with her philosophical and political sensibilities as well as her allegiance to her Jewish heritage and lineage. As a Jew for whom religious practice and the Jewish textual tradition do not constitute her Jewish core, hers is a secular narrative of Jewishness outside the orbit of Zionism. Butler’s concern for Israel is that she believes its present construction is “Jewishly” indefensible (in the terms she develops in her book) and the muscularity with which Zionism is proffered squashes any alternative narrative of diasporic Jewish identity.
What does it mean for the possibility of a military strike on Iran that Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu has consulted Rabbi Ovadiah Yosef whose remarks in the past have caused a great deal of embarrassment for Israel?
Half the fight against bigotry might just lie in showing up. When Abraham Hassan stood up at Thursday night’s CNN debate, he introduced himself as a Palestinian-American and a Republican.
Plainly, that’s not what I expected to hear.
Recently, Mitt Romney has been referring to the Israeli Prime Minister as ‘my friend,’ and invoking memories of the short period when the two ambitious young businessmen were working for the same Boston consulting firm in the 1970s. The elder Netanyahu’s death has given Romney yet another opportunity to position himself as ‘pro-Israel’—or in his words, a champion of “all who care about Israel.”
