Now everyone hates Israel

Chuck Schumer’s historic speech to the Senate on March 14, 2024, stating that Netanyahu must go if Israel is not going to become a “pariah” state. Screenshot.

This was a huge week in American Jewish political history.  First, the director of a movie about Auschwitz, the English director Jonathan Glazer, accepted an Oscar for the film by stating that his Jewishness should not be used to justify the slaughter of Gazans.  Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza — all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist? In saying “We,” Glazer also spoke for his producer Len Blavatnik, a billionaire who stood silently behind him and who just months ago had joined the Harvard donor revolt for alleged antisemitic — actually pro-Palestinian speech — on campus. A revolt that toppled the Harvard president. Glazer’s speech was followed four days later by the “momentous speech” by New York Senator Chuck Schumer, speaking as a Jew and calling on Netanyahu to hold new elections because his rightwing policies are hurting Israel. “As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me, the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel,” said Schumer, the most powerful Jewish politician in American history.  Here too the Gaza slaughter figured largely. Schumer fears that the massive civilian death toll in Gaza, which causes him “anguish,” will cause Israel to become a “pariah” nation.  In coalition with far-right extremists like Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and as a result, [Netanyahu] has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah. The first thing to observe about Schumer’s speech, and Glazer’s too, is that Palestinian lives are finally counting in American politics. The unbelievable onslaught on a captive people that caused Susan Abulhawa to somehow get in there and come back and tell us there’s a holocaust in Gaza that language cannot describe has at last registered for American politicians.  So just as Joe Biden said eight days ago that Netanyahu “cannot have another 30,000 Palestinians dead”– as if the first 30,000 were mere table stakes — those killings, now at least 31,700, are also cracking the conscience of the American Jewish community.  Schumer is at the center of the organized Jewish community. He has long put himself forward as the guardian of Israel– “a bellwether for the Jewish community, who has refrained from sharp criticism of the Israeli government” (as J Street put it)– and his speech has huge significance.  American Zionists are in complete crisis now. They know that Israel is already a pariah state in the eyes of the world. They know that you cannot destroy a territory in the genocidal manner that Israel has — and force the hand of the U.S. president in support of the genocide out of concern for his political donations, and topple Ivy League presidents who allow their students to criticize Israel — you can’t do these things without grave consequences.  Biden may lose Michigan because his hand was forced. American Jews who care about democracy in the U.S. are finally shaking loose. And Jews who see that corrupt Zionist influence is feeding antisemitic ideas about Jews are acting to openly criticize Israel.  Schumer acted out of pure desperation. He sees Biden being hurt politically if the Jewish community cannot pivot and condemn a genocide. He sees Israel becoming a “pariah” state.  There is today no difference between right-wing and left-wing Zionists inside the Democratic Party. They have all now gathered around the Schumer/Biden delusion that if you just get rid of Netanyahu, Israel will be able to curb the slaughter, pursue the two-state solution, and save the Jewish state.  So, we are seeing Zionism in an ongoing public crisis. Because Netanyahu won’t go. Or if he does go, he will be replaced by others who are equally or almost as warmongering and who will be able to do nothing to end the occupation. So Israel will just continue to be a pariah state. And the tsunami of boycotts, long predicted by Israel lovers, will really be upon us. Even Schumer said that the U.S. must restrict aid to Israel if it cannot stop slaughtering civilians.  This is a crisis of Jewish identity. Schumer again and again cited Jewish tradition and conscience as motivators for his speech. “What horrifies so many Jews especially is our sense that Israel is falling short of upholding these distinctly Jewish values that we hold so dear. We must be better than our enemies, lest we become them.”  However cynical you are about Jewish values and conscience — and I’m as cynical as they come — his speech represents a great wake-up call for Jews who care about human rights to take on the genocide-enablers in the U.S. Jewish community. Despite the love he expressed for Israel and the mythologies about its creation and supposed democracy, Schumer’s speech is historic and important on this ground.  Because as more than one critic of Schumer’s said this week, he is giving permission to others. The most powerful Jewish politician in U.S. history is saying, As a Jew I tell America, Israel is doing wrong. Yes, everyone hates Israel now! So Schumer has opened the doors on the Jewish discussion that I and others in the American Jewish anti-Zionist community have long sought: How can we support a discriminatory, brutal state in our name as Jews over there when we absolutely oppose religious nationalism and persecution of minorities here?  This discussion will see the empowerment of a new generation of anti-Zionists, and their ultimate victory. Because the Jewish state will be unable to transform itself to suit American liberal values. And regardless of the political arrangements in coming years in Israel/Palestine — partition into two states, or one state — Israel’s transformation to pariah status is so well advanced now by its own actions that no Zionist will ultimately be able to save its racist apartheid constitution. And idealistic Jews here will help transform that land.  I’d add that in directing Israelis what to do– go have another election!– Schumer exposed a great secret of Zionism: It is an international Jewish ideology that will always cause confusion about national interest. Schumer could well argue that he was justified in directing Israelis because Israel interferes in our politicsall the time, and as Netanyahu did in 2015. “Imagine if, I don’t know, some foreign leader who was ostensibly an ally of the United States, came here and gave an address before Congress that threw the American president under the bus on their key policy item of the times,” as a New York Jewish liberal Zionist put it in praising Schumer’s speech.” Can you imagine it?”  I can imagine just that because Schumer himself said after he voted against the Iran deal, he did so out of Israel’s interest not the American one.  So Zionism has always been a huge asterisk on American Jewish liberal values. This week that asterisk began to fall apart.  Thanks for reading,

Phil Weiss, Founder & Senior Editor Articles / Twitter