That is pretty much the message that the Israeli government has sent to American Jewry, in a heavy-handed ad campaign aimed at Israeli ex-patriates.
The ads were produced by a right-wing thug, an Israeli Ann Coulter, who is angry that American Jews would see her ads as insulting.
I suspect that the ads are exactly in line with the thinking of the Netanyahu government: That American Jews are not "real" Jews to them. "Thank you for your money and for persuading your government to send us foreign aid and military equipment, you filthy pseudo-Jews in the the Diaspora." For, as Dana Goldstein pointed out, this isn't the first time that Netanyahu's government has trotted out this line of crap. You can see this type of attitude in past debates, were even mild critiques of Israel by American Jews results in them being blasted for being "self-hating Jews".
A basic rule of persuasion: You don't deepen relationships with friends and relatives by insulting them. If someone has a disagreement with you, such tactics can turn a mild dissenter into an enemy. So if Netanyahu wants to turn American Jews into people who will be more and more willing to criticize him and his country, he is doing exactly what he should be doing.
Not Playing Around With The Playful Signs
51 minutes ago
5 comments:
The whole Israel thing is sort of prone to bigotry towards outsiders and moderates, isn't it?
Joe, Xenophobic wingnuts are the same all over the world.
Joe, there was sort of a reason back when Israel was founded. Something about most of Europe's surviving Jews in 1948 still being in the exact same concentration camps that Hitler had put them into, except with the guns now pointing out to protect them from Europeans who wanted to finish Hitler's job. The problem is that a persecution complex founded on real persecution now has turned into outright paranoia based on imaginary persecution. From the perspective of the Bibis of the world, American Jews are deluding themselves when they look around and see a nation in which they are full participants, America is just waiting for an excuse to do the same thing to American Jews that Hitler did to European Jews. It's the same sort of nuttery that leads the Bibis of the world to think Iran wants to drop atomic bombs on Israel when doing such a thing would be national suicide for Iran... when your entire nation has gone friggin' *nuts* with the belief that everybody and their cat wants to exterminate you despite the utter lack of evidence within the past thirty years that this is so (I mean, all of Israel's neighbors have peace treaties with Israel and absolutely no desire to attack Israel, for cryin' out loud), then these American Jews sitting outside of that bubble saying "whatcha talkin' bout Willis?!" would seem to be the deluded ones, not you.
- Badtux the National-suicide-observin' Penguin
BadTux, my grandmother preached that Jews needed to be able to flee on short notice. Countries were Jews had fully assimilated, even to converting to the local religion, have gone crazy and kicked out Jews.
Heck, look what happened here seventy years ago to Americans of Japanese ancestry.
From the Israeli point of view, all of their neighbors have been more than willing to use Israel as an excuse to paper over their own problems. One of the first things that the post-Mubarak regime did was stir up a mob to sack the Israeli embassy. When leaders in the neighborhood of nations, both religious and political, talk about wiping Israel off the face of the map and "pushing the Jews into the sea", then the tendency of Israel to be paranoid is understandable.
Israel does not have the geography to absorb a serious invasion. They'll never accept a militarized hostile state on the West Bank.
Luckily nobody wants to invade Israel, then. All the neighboring countries are keen to use Israel as an excuse for their (self-inflicted) problems, but that only works as long as Israel continues to exist, doh!
Yes, a persecution complex based on real persecution is indeed a survival mechanism. But trying to run a nation based on imaginary threats with no basis in objective reality always -- *always* -- ends in disaster. It's national suicide. Just look at what the Busheviks (and now the Obamatrons) did to America with the imaginary threat of massive terror attacks (and no, I don't consider 9/11 a massive terror attack... 16 "lucky" losers looking for virgins? Massive? ROFL!). Organizing a nation around imaginary threats takes its eyes off of *real* threats, such as, say, decaying infrastructure, an education system in decline, or a lack of housing for young people, or other things that actually *do* threaten national survival.
Israel has real and fundamental economic and demographic problems that are not being addressed due to Bibi and his ilk insisting upon dealing with imaginary threats. That, not a few thousand sad sacks in Gaza with AK-47's and RPG's, is what threatens Israel's survival. Those morons in Gaza are a distraction at most from the real problems that will cause the collapse of the state of Israel within our lifetimes if something isn't done about it.
- Badtux the "It's the economy, stupid!" Penguin
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