Israel Between Friends

On fighting with yourself, and your friends. On unilateral disarmament. And on just helping instead.

As someone who has, in my adult life, been both fully Jewish and fully Episcopalian (it’s a story), I have felt both the urge to say:

1. Jewish me: “You’re so right but…do you ever notice how eager you are to tell me how horrified you are by Israel’s actions and how anti-Zionist you are—sort of, if I may, over and over and over again? And how you look to my face to be sure I’m not flinching or perceiving anti-Semitism where none is meant since can’t you be critical of Israel without being anti-Semitic? I’ll grant you it’s a genocide. I’ll grant you Netanyahu has muted the dream of Israel we grew up with—and the dream of a two-state solution. And, further: OK, you’re not an anti-Semite if you say you’re not. But why can’t we, maybe in between talking about Gaza, also talk about, say, the deportations, the kidnappings and renditions, in the U.S.; or the deaths in Syria or Ukraine or Sudan, Congo, Myanmar; or the infants still dying because Trump crushed USAID; or the preventable deaths in Kenya and Haiti and the miscarrying women likely to be charged with murder just this month? No? Just rehearsing again how much you hate Israel but are not anti-Semitic? OK, yes, I’ll listen.”

2. Protestant me: “Can’t I be critical of Israel without being anti-Semitic? And here is my criticism of Israel, delivered with special passion and numbers and photos and the words ‘apartheid’ and ‘genocide’ to beat the band. Here is how I believe the IDF is like ICE is like the NYPD—and fuck them all—because Can’t I be critical of Israel without being anti-Semitic?”