mondoweiss (why not solidarity with Jews?)

Phil- It seems to me that you are in fact talking to those Jews who already agree with you (mostly in the Diaspora) and you exhibit few signs of attempting to communicate with those who disagree with you.

Firstly, the word “psychosis”. Maybe after three years in individual therapy, a professional might offer the word gently to his patient with whom he has developed an intense relationship and find some purpose in using the word. (Even then I doubt it.) Otherwise the word only serves the purpose of gaining the approval of those who agree with you and alienating those who disagree with you.

Secondly on the validity of the use of the word: It is difficult to tell where irrational fear based on previous experience begins and rational fear based on the current situation begins. (I don’t think a professional would use the term psychosis for a fear based on previous “recent” experience, but you’re a journalist/blogger and not a mental care professional.) The current situation does contain a rational fear that the Jews will be kicked out of I/P. If Helen Thomas’s statement proves anything besides the unfair limits placed on free speech on people in important places, it proves that the Jews who live in I/P should fear being kicked out of I/P. The constant evocation of the possibility or the inevitability or the innate justice of a one state solution on this blog means that such a solution is not an irrational fear. And a journalist such as Robert Fisk has stated that he does not think it unreasonable to expect that there would be no room for Jews in such a one state. So if this is a reasonable fear, however much previous experience in Europe is irrelevant to this fear (and the copy of Mein Kampf displayed in Amman and photographed by yourself shows that there is some “connection” if not causal, then certainly ideational), to label the reasonable fear as psychosis is misplaced.

But the other question besides your terminology is your place in Jewish society. You feel that Zionism has distilled Jews- with ethnocentric Jews landing in Israel or supporting a Jewish state (two states and no right of return) and others like yourself landing in the aggregate of intermarriage and integration. It is unclear how those who have intermarried and integrated can communicate with those who have chosen marrying-in and ethnic identity. Are you saying, “We both read Kafka, therefore we do have something in common, so you should listen to me.” Are you saying, “I use a Yiddish phrase every now and then, so you should listen to me.” You are saying, “We both respect Schwerner and Goodman, so you should listen to me.” But it seems to me that if you take the need for talking Israeli Jews away from the precipice, it will have to be someone other than yourself who does so, or else you will have to develop a common language and avoid alienating terminology if that is really what you are trying to do. Just saying, “Please listen to me,” will not work.