Love of the Land: Age isn’t paranoid, Youth is blind

Age isn’t paranoid, Youth is blind

Fresnozionism.org
04 March '10
Posted before Shabbat

Today a friend directed my attention to an op-ed in the Boston Globe, “The New American Jew on Israel” by Jesse Singal. Singal asks why Jewish college students are less supportive of Israel than in the past, in the context of a talk at Harvard’s Hillel house by J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami. He does not discuss the question of J Street’s lack of legitimacy as a pro-Israel organization, its funding from sources that are anything but pro-Israel, or its recent embarrassment when Israel’s Ambassador Michael Oren refused to attend its convention because he found J Street’s policies to be damaging to Israeli interests.

But according to Singal, its position meshes closely with that of many students. Here’s one horrifying example:

…when asked about the prospect of Iran destroying Israel, Harvard Divinity School student Kenan Jaffe, 26, said he thought it was “unlikely.’’

“I also don’t think it’s directly related to the Palestinian question,’’ he said, “and it is only to the extent that if Israel comes to a final status solution with the Palestinians, Iran will have nothing to say about Israel and no reason to make threats against it.’’

Whether or not the Iranian regime will succeed in its oft-stated goal of bringing about an end to the Jewish state by means of its Lebanese and Palestinian proxies or even directly is certainly moot — it won’t happen if Israel has anything to say about it — but the idea that a ’solution’ of the argument with the Palestinian Arabs, if such were possible, would end the Iranian threat is ludicrous. Iran’s quarrel with Israel has to do with its desire to push out Western influence from the region, its desire to dominate the conservative Sunni states (and their oil), and to unify the Mideast under a Shiite caliphate. There’s clearly no room for a Jewish political entity in this picture.

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Love of the Land: Age isn’t paranoid, Youth is blind