Abe Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League has, according to Andrew Sullivan, indirectly accused General David Petraeus of “blaming the Jews for everything.” I’m not sure that Foxman had Petraeus, specifically, in mind–or maybe just the vast majority of humans who are concerned about Israel’s continuing colonization of Palestinian lands. This is, after all, the same Abe Foxman, and the same Anti-Defamation League, who accused me of being an anti-Semite a few years ago. The idea that those of us who support Israel, and believe that it will only survive if a supple Palestinian state is created next to it, “blame the Jews for everything” when an extremist Likud government is taking steps that (a) make a Palestinian state impossible and (b) thumbing its nose at the United States and (c) making life more difficult for the US military in the region, as Petraeus said…is well beyond myopic semiti-centrism. It is dangerous twaddle.
Here is a basic rule that should be observed in these matters: We Jews have a fairly difficult time convincing the rest of the world of the justice inherent in the existence of a Jewish State under the best of circumstances. It becomes somewhat more difficult when the arguments we make are ridiculous.
