I just learned that Itamar Ben-Gvir, Israel’s Minister of National Security (the position that used to be Minister of Police), is facing a “situation” in New York City.
The Hind Rajab Foundation, the group behind many of the international warrants for traveling Israelis, turned in an urgent request for his prosecution to New York Attorney General Letitia James. They are urging her to meet with New York victims of Ben-Gvir’s “crimes” and initiate an investigation of him. The group Council on American–Islamic Relations (CAIR) had also become involved when it earlier called to bar his entry.
How did I discover that development?
I follow Jewish groups online, even radical, progressive and anti-Zionist organizations—for example, rabbis associated with T’ruah. In their mind, Ben-Gvir’s arrival in the city to attend a July 7 event at the United Nations merits a protest.
So, at noon on Tuesday, they plan to gather at Dag Hammarskjold Plaza at Second Avenue and 47th Street, and they do not figure on being alone. Other Jewish groups can be expected to be present, among them New York Jewish Agenda, Partners for Progressive Israel, Smol Emuni U.S., Israelis for Peace NYC, the Union for Reform Judaism, Arza, New Jewish Narrative and New Israel Fund.
I’m thinking that others will join as the word gets out.
And J Street will be there. Their thinking is that “he shouldn’t be able to walk proudly through our streets without hearing” that his views “do not represent American Jews, and they do not represent millions of Israelis either.”
My first thought was whether they considered it acceptable that when activists of these organizations arrive in Jerusalem or, as they do, travel through Judea and Samaria, interacting with the local Arab population to participate in actions against Jews residing in those areas, that they be greeted with protests there, too?
It’s not that I don’t identify with their right to loudly express themselves on the streets of New York City.
More than six decades ago, I led Soviet Jewry rallies and even a sit-in (actually, it was a sit-outside) at the Waldorf Astoria Hotel against Saudi Arabia’s King Faisal, who was requesting missiles from the United States. We didn’t think to ask for his detention and prosecution at the time, even though the kingdom’s civil-rights record then was a lot worse than Ben-Gvir’s.
What irks me is the automatic fall-in by Jews and Jewish self-identified groups aligning themselves with an effort by pro-Palestine agitators. It’s similar to the concept of ma-yofes, the Yiddish idiom for a Jew dancing for a Polish landowner’s pleasure in a rather servile manner, akin to Jim Crow for another American minority.
My subjective take is that these actions—these very public and show-off demonstrations—are taken to proclaim ‘We’re not him!’ and to appear as if they are taking the higher moral ground.
I cannot remember in the six years of my Zionist activism on Manhattan’s streets in the period before moving to Israel in 1970 with my wife rallying against a visit by Israeli statesmen Abba Eban or David Ben-Gurion, or any Mapai Party member or other left-wing Israeli. We especially despised the Satmar demos, who are still, in some fashion, identifying with a free Palestine.
They just have to go out of their way to have pro-Palestine or progressives see them doing the “correct thing,” and even, perhaps, earn applause. It is an unnecessary character trait. A simple press release detailing displeasure could very well have been a substitute. Unfortunately, it mirrors much of what goes on here in Israel as well.
Democracy these days being what it is, I do not expect any of those groups to rethink their operations. I do, however, hope that they will understand and accept contrary responses to their activities and policies, either in America or Israel.
