Open Letter to President Bush
The increase in the desecration of synagogues and Jewish graves (and the like), verbal abuse and assaults on Jews are a pointer. So, too, is the growth of on-line abuse of Jews. But there is something far more sinister. It’s what a growing number of Gentiles, middle to upper class people in particular, are thinking and now beginning to say behind closed doors and at dinner parties..What do they say? “These fucking Jews!” And it’s grown, this antipathy, in response to Israel’s arrogance of power and the correct perception of Israel as the oppressor. And the more it becomes apparent that Israel is the obstacle to peace on any terms most Palestinians and other Arabs and Muslims can accept, the more this antipathy will grow, with the real danger that it will bre
ak out, become unsuppressed, and manifest itself as violent anti-Semitism. As things are, and look like going, Holocaust II, shorthand for another great turning against Jews, is a real possibility in a foreseeable future. It’s also my view, which I know is shared in private by not a few eminent Jews, that if the monster of anti-Semitism goes on the rampage again, it might well start its journey in America.
The paragraph above is the context for my earlier statement that there is a very good reason why it is important for you, Mr. President, to understand the difference between Zionism and Judasim. It’s only when citizens know the difference that they can understand why it is wrong to blame all the Jews of the world for the crimes of the hardest core Zionist few. The people of America need to know this and you could tell them.
Knowledge of the difference between Zionism and Judaism is also the key to understanding why it is perfectly possible to be passionately anti-Zionist (opposed to Zionism’s colonial enterprise) without being in any way, shape of form anti-Semitic. If there’s to be informed and honest debate in America about who must do what and why for peace, Americans need to know this too. And again, Mr. President, you could tell them.
I’ll conclude by saying why I think George “Dubya” Bush is well placed, and perhaps uniquely placed, to be the American President who ended the conflict in and over Palestineby requiring Israel to end its occupation of all the Arab territory it grabbed in 1967.
If you were running for a second and final term in the White House, confronting the Zionist lobby and putting the necessary pressure on Israel would be a mission impossible. Because you cannot run for that most powerful of earthly offices again, you have no need of Zionist lobby organised funding or votes. Simply stated, in your last year as President you are a free man, free to do what is best for America’s real interests and also those of all of humankind.
There is also (is there not?) what could be called a legacy reason to tempt you to do the right thing. As things are, and perhaps because you listened too much to the really crazy peple around you (those led by the real Dr. Strangelove, I mean Vice-President Cheney), you are going down in history as the most deluded and dangerous American President. But it’s not yet too late for you to turn the legacy tide. If you have the courage to stand up to the Zionist lobby and tell it (in private would be best!) that the people of America have had enough of its subversion of democracy, and if you then use all the leverage you have to require Israel to withdraw from all the the Arab territory it grabbed in 1967, you will go down in history as the greatest of all peacemakers. As they frequently say in 24, “It’s your call”.
Mr.President, if you do the right thing for peace in the Middle East, you will have the thanks, respect and support of not less than 98% or even 99%” of all Arabs and other Muslims. And because the Palestineproblem is the cancer at the heart of international affairs, a peaceful resolution of it would vastly improve the prospects for marginalising, isolating and defeating violent Islamic fundamentalism.
I also believe that doing the right thing for peace in the Middle East would cause you to be admired by an easy majority of Jews in the world, many if not most of whom loathe what Israel has become but are too frightened to speak out. One who is not frightened is Gideon Levy, Israel’s best and most courageous journalist. On 6 January, in an article for Ha’aretzunder the headline A hostile president, he wrote the following about you (my emphasis added):
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