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Friends,

In July, I wrote about educating our kids about Israel and preparing them for issues they'll face in college. I cited one of the best books on subject, Loving the Real Israel: An Educational Agenda for Liberal Zionism, by Dr. Alex Sinclair.

On Monday, I spoke with Sinclair about pro-Israel advocacy. Sinclair, currently the Chief Academic Officer of Educating for Impact, an initiative funded by a consortium of European Jewish Philanthropies that seeks to upgrade the quality of Jewish education in day schools and communities across Europe, is on the Editorial Committee of Heart of a Nation. He just completed his first novel, Perfect Enemy, a thriller set in contemporary Israel, and is shopping for an agent, so if you know anyone--let me know.

Does advocating for Israel require us to serve as Israel's lawyers? The theory is that if the American Jewish community does not make the case for Israel, whether Israel is right or wrong, who will? Sinclair rejects this approach, arguing that "ultimately it's self-defeating. I don't think it works, educationally or communally or politically."

Instead, Sinclair recommends authentic engagement--criticizing policies of Israel's government in the context of our love and support for Israel. Some argue that this approach amounts to airing our dirty laundry in public. The fear is that while we might, for example, oppose settlement expansion because we want to preserve prospects for a two-state solution, our condemnation of settlement expansion might be used as support by those who see settlements as part of a deeper problem: Israel's existence.

Sinclair does not dismiss this risk, but the alternative--inauthenticity and losing credibility--is worse. The better solution is to have the conversations and be careful how we frame the conversations. What we cannot do is let the right-wing, either in the U.S. or Israel (Sinclair is Israeli and lives in Israel), dictate the terms of the discourse. "If you have a core confidence in your connection," Sinclair told me, "then you should not be afraid of talking about contentious issues such as settlements or racism in Israeli society."

Liberal Zionism is authentic Zionism. Sinclair emphasized that liberal Zionists must reclaim the Zionist narrative, which is that the Jewish people have the right to self-determination in part of their ancestral homeland and the Palestinian people have a right to self-determination in part of their ancestral homeland. The problem is that, through the ironies of history, Jews and Palestinians share the same homeland--hence the necessity of a two-state solution.

The answer to those who deny the Jewish right to self-determination is not to assert that Palestinians are not a people, which Sinclair says is "nonsense based on a misunderstanding of nationalism in the 19th and 20th centuries. The Jewish people were influenced by nationalism in the 19th century that began to flourish in all kinds of places where it didn't exist before. Jews got on that bandwagon in the mid to late 19th century. The Palestinians got on that bandwagon later," but that should not disqualify them from the right to self-determination, even if their nationalist movement was in part inspired by or a reaction to Jewish nationalism. The response to someone who challenges the Jewish right of self-determination is not to deny that Palestinians are a people, but to engage--to ask why they think that Palestinians have a right to self-determination but Jews do not, and to go from there.

Conditioning security assistance to Israel would be counterproductive. Sinclair cautioned that while we should advocate for a two-state solution and oppose Israeli and Palestinian policies that push a two-state solution further from reach, "it's problematic to condition security assistance on political progress because Israel's security needs are genuine. We're not making up the fact that Hamas and Hezbollah and Iran exist and that many of those players do want to 'drive the Jews into the sea.'" Moreover, when Israelis--or any people--feel threatened or less secure, they are less likely to compromise.

Most Israelis value their immediate security more than a two-state solution even if they recognize the long-term necessity of a two-state solution. By convincing Israelis that we understand that their security is paramount, we can create more space for compromise, and then criticism and pressure from the U.S. is more likely to succeed. Trump made no progress because while Trump did not threaten to cut aid to Israel, Trump failed to pressure both sides to come together.

The best example is Bill Clinton. Clinton brought Israelis and Palestinians closer to peace than any president before or since. "Clinton poured out love to the Jewish people and the Israeli people, and made demands from a place of love, from a place of this is what you need to do and I'm with you as you do that." He worked hard to bring the parties together, and but for an assassin's bullet that ended the life of Yitzhak Rabin, he might have succeeded.

Citing Ben & Jerry's boycott of the settlements but not of Israel, Sinclair said that "the more you can distinguish between Israel and the settlements, the more you can distinguish between support for Israel and deep-seated concern and critique of our decades-long policy in the occupied territories, the better."

Instead of apologizing to the right and to the left for liberal Zionism, argues Sinclair, we need to reclaim the narrative for what is the most authentic form of Zionism, a Zionism that represents the "passionate middle ground." When we allow the narrative of Zionism to be written by those on the right, then that becomes the narrative that those on the left are attacking, and we find ourselves in the middle of a fight between two extremes, neither of which we agree with.

Reflecting on what Sinclair said, I was reminded of the rabbi who responded to an atheist by saying "the God you don't believe in--I don't believe in Him either." The right-wing pro-Israel narrative that the far left attacks? I don't believe in that narrative either. But many difficulties defending Israel stem from the perception that the right-wing narrative is the authentic narrative and from a reluctance among those of us in the center and on the left to call it out.

Sinclair believes that reclaiming the narrative means saying "yes, Israel, the Jewish people, have a right to self-determination, and there's something powerful and joyful and correct about that right. And there's another people who also have a claim to this place. [Acknowledging that fact] doesn't mean that I'm less Jewish...it means I'm more authentically Zionist. The authentic Jewish Zionist approach is a liberal one that listens to others and recognizes the claims and the pain and the narrative of others. We don't have to be afraid of that; if we can make that work there's something beautiful about that. There's something joyful, something very powerfully Jewish about that: to have a Jewish state in Israel, part of whose raison d'etre is to listen to the other, who is there, and to engage with each other and to acknowledge the dignity and the rights of each other. We are not diluting Zionism, we are not compromising Zionism; ours is an authentically Zionist position."

Sinclair's view is similar to that of former Israeli Prime Minister and Defense Minister Ehud Barak, the most decorated soldier in Israel's history. In his memoir, My Country, My Life: Fighting for Israel Searching for Peace, Barak wrote that "The main threat comes from inside [seeking] to redefine Zionism as being about one thing only: ensuring eternal control over the whole of biblical Judea and Samaria, or as the outside world knows it, the West Bank, even if doing so leaves us significantly less secure."

Barak believes that the ultimate aim of Zionism and Zionists was "not to secure every inch of the Land of Israel: it was to redeem, reinvigorate, and rededicate themselves to the People of Israel."

Or, notes Sinclair, as Herzl put it all those years ago: “Zionism, as I understand it, is not just the aspiration to acquire a legally secure piece of land for our wretched people, but also the aspiration for ethical and spiritual perfection.” (Theodor Herzl, Our Hope, 1904) 

Those of us who care about Israel should stop taking a backseat to the right-wing pro-Israel groups who dominate the conversation and reassert our vision of liberal Zionism. We're in good company if we are with Barak and Herzl, and we will be true to ourselves and better advocates for Israel if we do.

Beautiful world, where are you? Sally Rooney is supporting the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement against Israel by refusing to allow an Israeli publisher to translate her new novel into Hebrew. She claims that she'd be "honored" if a "BDS-compliant" publisher translated her novel into Hebrew, but as Anshel Pfeffer explains in this thread, "there’s no such thing as a 'BDS-compliant' Hebrew publisher."

Etan Nechin points out "Since its inception, [BDS] has done nothing to damage Israel's GDP or more narrowly, the economic power of the settlement movement. In its 16 years of existence, it has only managed to hurt academics and independent cultural institutions already marginalized by mainstream Israeli society and government for their dissenting position against the occupation."

As Stav Shaffir told me a few weeks ago, boycotting one side of a two-sided conflict is not progressive. Rooney joins Eric Clapton, Roger Waters, Alice Walker, and too many others in proving that creativity and talent do not necessarily make one see the world more clearly.

Mandatory Viewing. If you didn't read Robert Kagan's vital article on the constitutional crisis we are facing, you owe it to yourself to watch this Bill Maher commentary, regardless of what you think of Bill Maher. It's that important. It can happen here.

Last week's newsletter. Update: Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY) is still blocking the $1 billion replenishment of Iron Dome. Yet no outrage from our Republican friends. Does Israel suddenly not need the money? It seemed urgent when the House overwhelmingly approved it. Or is Rand Paul somehow less threatening than a handful of women of color who, collectively, have far less power than he has? If so, I wonder why? I guess we'll never know, but the silence speaks volumes.

Tweet of the Week. Squid Game Parody.

Twitter Thread of the Week. All 50 ways to leave your lover.

Video Clips of the Week. Start with Boyce & Hart on Bewitched and then keep scrolling forever. If you don't know who Boyce & Hart are, I can't help you.

Upcoming Events. Join me and Dana Gordon on Wednesday, November 3, from 5:30 pm to 6:15 pm CT for an event with Rep. Brad Schneider (D-IL) and special guest David Makovsky, noted Middle East/Israel analyst. As always, contributions are not required, but you must RSVP here to get the Zoom link.

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