Sunday, July 11, 2010

Isolation II – My American cousins


Sarah Honig
Another Tack
10 July '10

When one of the world’s more influential economists, Nobel laureate Paul Krugman, took pains on his recent visit here to dissociate himself personally from Israel’s obvious odiousness, I was hardly surprised. I couldn’t quite put my finger on what in Israeli statecraft incurred Krugman’s displeasure, but his annoyance seemed de rigueur.

Why? Because Krugman sounded so much like my own blood relations in Obamaland. It was from them that I gained incipient insight into Israel’s isolation – even within the Jewish context.

It began to dawn on me during the worst years of the second intifada, when buses here blew up, supermarkets were dangerous places, fast-food eateries became frequent targets and just going out meant you might be putting your life on the line. Most of my American family – comfortable, self-satisfied, assimilated and resplendent in impeccable liberal credentials – didn’t appear much perturbed about our well-being. Concerned inquiries usually came from non-Jewish friends.

But the very same kin were aghast to discover before the last American presidential election that we didn’t share their ebullient enthusiasm for Barack Obama. Indeed I quickly concluded that, even when severely goaded, it’s best not to exercise my freedom of speech. We, the uncool and benightedly reactionary Israeli branch of the clan, were anyhow already frowned upon, disapproved of and exceedingly close to familial excommunication.

I kept uncharacteristically mum when a once-favorite cousin fulminated in unambiguous rebuke: “You people liked Nixon. He was good for you but he was awful for us.”

I couldn’t decide whether she only addressed her provincial Israeli relatives or perhaps all Israelis collectively, but I was reminded of the Passover Haggada’s emblematic Wicked Son.

He’s the one who intones: “What is this service to you?” In other words, he detaches himself from the Jewish collective, relishing in the role of an objective observer, who standoffishly passes judgment on fellow Jews rather than identifying with them.

(Read full story)

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