It turns out there are some people who still believe in the symbolism and power of full-page advertisements in The New York Times. Among them are a great many Jewish celebrities and rabbis who believe the institution that remains the most important forum for left-wing journalism is the right place to feature their views about the conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Arabs and President Donald Trump’s policies.
So it was to the print edition of the Times that these quintessential “as a Jew” types turned to vent their anger about Trump’s proposal to send Palestinian Arabs out of Gaza. To them, the idea of taking a population primarily composed of people who claim to be refugees out of an area that has been devastated by war and giving them an opportunity for a new and better existence represents “ethnic cleansing.”
It was signed by a variety of “a,” “b” and “c” list actors and celebrities, as well as a few hundred liberal rabbis. You’ve heard of some of them: actors Joaquin Phoenix, Wallace Shawn and Debra Winger and playwright/screenwriter Tony Kushner. The names of others, like Jonathan Glazer, who got his 15 minutes of fame by denouncing Israel at last year’s Oscars ceremony when accepting an award for a movie about the Holocaust, may also ring a bell. Still others have attained a degree of notoriety by being inveterate Israel-bashers and anti-Zionists like writers Peter Beinart, Judith Butler and Naomi Klein.
The rabbis are a mixed lot. Some are still trying to maintain a line between what we used to call “liberal Zionism” and the intellectually fashionable stance of those who are explicit about favoring the destruction of Israel. Some of them gave up that pretense and are among those who seek to give a dubious religious endorsement to a position opposing the defense of the one Jewish state on the planet against genocidal terrorists.
But wherever they fall on that spectrum, they are the contemporary public face of those who seem to think that the essence of Jewish identity is to be found in that disreputable stance.
They are the “as a Jew” Jews.
Full-page ads in the Times may still cost a lot of money, even in an era when the overwhelming majority of those who read news outlets do so digitally rather than in print or only on social-media platforms. But the choice to go that route is more about serving notice to the left-wing political ecosphere that many prominent Jews take the side of those who oppose Israel’s existence and against those, like Trump, who have made it clear that they wish to eradicate Hamas terrorists rather than the Jewish state.
Can Trump succeed?
The feasibility of the president’s idea is debatable.
It’s not clear how it will be implemented, or if any Arab or Muslim nation is prepared to take in and absorb anything more than a token number of Palestinian Arabs, as Jordan’s King Abdullah was strong-armed by Trump to do in a visit to the White House this week. And there’s no doubt that Hamas and its many enablers in the West, as well as among nations in the region, are bitterly opposed to it. They’re against anything that will reduce their ability to use civilians as pawns in their ongoing efforts to turn back the clock to a point in time when the modern-day State of Israel didn’t exist.
If it is to happen, it would be predicated on a resumption of fighting in the Strip, presumably after the ceasefire-hostage release deal inevitably collapses. Despite the green light he received from Trump this week to return to the effort to eradicate Hamas, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu prefers to stick to the terrible deal he was forced into accepting if it means that more of the remaining Israeli hostages are released. But given that Hamas will never agree to give up power in Gaza or its goal of returning the conflict to where it was on Oct. 6, 2023—meaning that it would be free to make good on its pledge to launch more Oct. 7-style atrocities—the war is bound to resume sooner or later.
The existential nature of the battle against Hamas is clear to almost all Israelis, including those who oppose Netanyahu. But it is of no interest to the “as a Jew” Jews, be they film industry figures, anti-Israel scribblers or liberal rabbis.
Their effort is spearheaded by a group calling itself “In Our Name.” Its website states a goal of raising money to help “organizations that support Palestinian-led efforts to build safety, dignity and self-determination in Palestine, and that support solidarity and other organizing among Palestinian and other Arab and Muslim communities in the United States.”
Ignoring the reality of Oct. 7
The language it employs is an effort to distinguish itself from the allegedly more avowedly anti-Israel groups like Not in Our Name, Jewish Voice for Peace and IfNotNow. Even in the first days after the attacks on Jewish communities in southern Israel, members of this group were already fundraising and organizing to oppose Israel’s efforts to defend itself against those who had committed mass murder, rape, torture, kidnapping and wanton destruction on Oct. 7.
But any spin of In Our Name supporters as being somehow more principled or humane than those extremists is a distinction without a difference. Like those who have been demanding a cease-fire from the moment Hamas’s invasion of Israel was turned back, all of these people remain, at best, Hamas’s “useful idiots.”
Those who are raising funds to be employed in Gaza for the purposes stated are, whether they fully understand it or not, essentially propping up what is left of the rule of Hamas over the Palestinians. To speak of Palestinian “self-determination” in the context of the current war or to help bolster the network of pro-Hamas organizations that have spread the message of hatred for Israel in the United States should not be mistaken for neutrality about the terrorist movement that launched this war and seeks to keep it going until Israel surrenders or collapses.
While the supposed stated purpose is merely “humanitarian aid,” the world has seen in the last 16 months that most, if not all, of the money sent into Gaza is used in one way or another to bolster Hamas.
The signers of the letter might disavow any connection to antisemitism. But their willingness to stand behind the anti-Israel movement that has flourished on college campuses and in the streets of American cities is nothing less than an endorsement of the surge of Jew-hatred that has been mainstreamed on the left since Oct. 7.
Woke antisemitism
At the heart of this form of activism is more than the unrelenting hostility to Trump felt by many Jewish liberals and left-wingers. It’s also rooted in the toxic myths of critical race theory and intersectionality, as well as the associated woke catechism of diversity, equity and inclusion (DEI). Trump is successfully opposing these terrible ideas as he seeks to roll back the hold that these leftist beliefs, which fuel antisemitism, have had on American society and governance.
The “pro-Palestinian” movement on the left isn’t a philanthropic effort to help Palestinian Arabs who have been used as props in the futile century-old war on Zionism. If it were, they’d be cheering Israel’s efforts to get rid of Hamas or the concept of resettling the descendants of the 1948 Arab refugees just as the even more numerous Jews who fled or were forced out of their homes in the Arab and Muslim world were long ago resettled.
This was made explicit by their statement in which they specifically support “Palestinian liberation.” They made clear that they don’t believe that working to destroy the Jewish state—something that could only be accomplished by the genocidal plans of Hamas—is antisemitic. They think that liberal Jews can only demonstrate their virtue by joining the left’s crusade to delegitimize Israel’s self-defense.
The push for Palestinian “self-determination” is a thinly veiled version of the idea that Israel is an illegitimate “settler-colonial” and “apartheid” state that should be dismantled. The notion that the conflict can be solved by a two-state solution is a myth that has been debunked repeatedly since 1948 as the Palestinian Arabs have rejected every offer of statehood and independence. They have told us again and again that they refuse to accept the legitimacy of a Jewish state, no matter where its borders might be drawn. To continue pushing for Palestinian statehood after those rejections is tantamount to acquiescence or endorsement of the struggle to destroy Israel, and has absolutely nothing to do with wanting peace.
Real ‘ethnic cleansing’
Moreover, the irony of Jews who think expelling hundreds of thousands of Jews in Judea and Samaria from their homes to create a Palestinian state is a virtuous cause expressing horror about “ethnic cleansing” is lost on the political left.
Equally important, those who claim the Palestinians must stay forever in Gaza aren’t interested in their welfare. Suffice it to say that the real “ethnic cleansing” movement is not the idea of resettling people who claim to be refugees someplace other than one run by terrorists whose only goal is to use it as a launching pad for unending war on the Jews. Ethnic cleansing of Jews from their ancient homeland isn’t just the goal of Hamas. It is inextricably tied up with Palestinian national identity and also backed by other supposedly more “moderate” Palestinian factions.
Post-Oct. 7, to refuse to see this isn’t just a matter of ignorance or deliberate blindness to the nature of a conflict that even most left-wing Israelis understand is about their existence. At this point, to ignore the truth about the political culture of the Palestinians is tantamount to supporting Jewish genocide.
The Times ad doesn’t express the views of a significant number of American Jews or even most liberal Jews. But it does provide a degree of intellectual cover and legitimacy to the antisemitic movement that seeks to label Israel as a pariah state. As such, it is part of the effort to complete the transformation of the Democratic Party into a bastion of anti-Zionism and antisemitism, as well as boost efforts to enshrine it as the orthodox position in left-wing outlets like the Times.
A line must be drawn
That is why the response of American Jewry to this latest iteration of the “as a Jew” phenomenon should not be complacency or ignoring it as insignificant.
As much as many Jews regard Trump as beyond the pale, they need to understand that whatever their feelings about him, opposing his pro-Israel policies and realism about the Palestinians isn’t routine partisanship or liberal idealism. We’ve come to the point that it must be seen as an expression of neutrality or even tacit support for a Nazi-style war against Jewish existence being waged by a bizarre red-green alliance of leftist ideologues and Islamists.
It’s time to tell these “as a Jew” renegades that we will not accept their claim to the moral high ground against Israelis or even Trump. Functional support for Palestinian “self-determination,” which means backing Hamas and its war, isn’t morally neutral or an expression of liberal Judaism’s universalist and humanitarian ideals. It is an immoral stance that puts its supporters on the side of 21st-century Nazis. Such persons deserve to be held up for opprobrium, not lauded for their supposed “courage” for opposing Trump, conservative Jews or Israel. It is they—and not Netanyahu or Trump—who must be treated by all decent persons, no matter their political affiliations, as pariahs who richly deserve our contempt.
Jonathan S. Tobin is editor-in-chief of JNS (Jewish News Syndicate). Follow him at: @jonathans_tobin.