The second annual Jerusalem Post Conference, subtitled Fighting for the Zionist Dream, was held in New York City rather than Jerusalem – probably to attract the widest possible audience of supporters of Zionism and Israel.
The highlight of the conference was the speech and later panel appearance by the polarizing senior contributing editor of the Jerusalem Post and editor of Latma, Caroline Glick.
Latma, which is similar in concept to Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show except with satirical songs thrown in, depicts two leftist and clueless television reporters editorializing on the current Israel-related news. Cutting through all the propaganda surrounding events, such as the Mavi Marmara flotilla, the songs can be devastatingly funny and spot-on accurate. The flotilla song We Con the World (sung to the tune of We are the World) drew millions of hits and was worth more to the Israeli side than any hasbara, as it countered the exasperated horror routinely expected from the Arab world and the EU. To say that Ms. Glick is an Israeli national treasure would be an understatement.
Born into a middle-class Jewish home in Chicago, she was raised in a traditional left-leaning liberal environment. After making aliyah to Israel, she claimed to have come to understand realpolitik. To her, leftists are fools who wish for a world that doesn’t and will never exist. For example, the fact that Israelis, Americans, and the European countries want there to be peace in the Middle East and want there to be a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinians, doesn’t mean that the Palestinians or the Arab world wants the same. She believes that the Palestinians will never give up the idea of the destruction of Israel and at best will yield to a two-stage solution in which the Jewish state is first stripped of defensible borders and is then attacked with missiles and bombs until it is defeated, whether it takes decades or centuries. She has a long-term strategist’s view of the Middle East that is not pleasant, but certainly devastating.
Thus, when she speaks even to a pro-Israel audience, she can be condescending, and when she replies to other speakers, she can be dripping with sarcasm and animus. She is like an elementary school teacher who must tell a clueless kindergartner over and over again not to place his wet hand over an electrical outlet. Like the greater public, the student never quite gets the danger even if he is shocked over and over.
Like Snidely Whiplash, the evil enemy of Dudley Do-Right in Rocky and Bullwinkle Show, she curled her lip in a snarl that said it all. Except in this version, she was the hero and Dudley was a dud who didn’t know what he was doing. She is brilliant, incisive, cutting and just a shade paranoid. But in the world she lives in, paranoia can be life saving.
So is she the wunderkind of Israeli politics or just the enfant terrible? Maybe she is just an acerbic Daniel Patrick Moynihan, who, against the wishes of his superiors, railed at the UN against the passing of the Zionism is Racism resolution in 1975. I believe she is a brilliant person – with a blind spot. That is, she doesn’t see that we Americans do see what an impossible and unfair situation Israel is in. Where anything Jews do is biased and under-handed, whereas whatever their opponents do is above-board and laudable. Where suicide bombing and indiscriminate rockets are simply tools of resistance, but Israeli defense is a war crime. Where an American Jew is accused of dual loyalty if he supports Israel, but an Irish American is just supporting his heritage when he supports Ireland. Where 12 million Jews are said to control the world, while a billion Moslems are helpless and a billion Christians wring their hands in silence. In such a world, it is not surprising that Caroline Glick is angry and frustrated. It is only surprising that more of us citizens of the world are not.
Glick does not think too highly of Americans. When she started her presentation, she stated that she would much rather speak on another topic, but that we Americans needed to hear her. She said that the purpose of the BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) movement was the destruction of the state of Israel, not just the elimination of Israel from the West Bank. She asked why Jews are inviting anti-Semites, including former President Carter and BDS members to speak at Jewish forums? Are we fools and dupes?
After the 1973 Israeli–Arab war in which Israel conquered the West Bank, part of Jerusalem, and the Golan Heights, the international left abandoned Israel. Leftist Jews now join with Israel’s enemies to destroy it, while stating how courageous they are. But Israel and American Jews need each other, and might not survive without each other. There is an unwillingness to call things by their names. These are uncomfortable truths. Glick is very angry but still hopeful.
My problem with Caroline Glick is that I think the majority of Americans, including a majority of Jews, do understand Israeli-Arab problems and the unremitting prejudice against Israel from the Arab world, many EU countries, and especially the UN. I see a perceptible turning to Israel even among the twenty-somethings who are traditionally more to the left of the political spectrum. , the contemporary news site of the young, has gotten consistently more pro-Israel in its reader comments. Several years ago, the majority of the readers’ comments were anti-Israel; today, the majority are either pro-Israel or at least understanding of its positions. In fact, I see that Israel today is in a far stronger position than its friends think and its enemies desire.