Claims by leftist American Jews that increasing numbers of Jews are distancing themselves from Israel have been dismissed by famous “former Jew” Gilad Atzmon.
Writing on his website in response to an appearance by Professor Norman Finkelstein on a BBC TV show, Hardtalk, Atzmon said that “according to Norman Finkelstein, American Jews fall out of love with Israel.
“In this BBC Hardtalk exchange [below] he argues that they are now so unhappy with what Israel is doing that they want to distance them from the country.
“But is Finkelstein telling the truth here? I think that he is dead wrong! Diaspora Jews are actually more attached to their tribal identity than ever,” Atzmon said.
“For the time being, Israel is the one and only Jewish secular symbolic identifier (culturally, spiritually and nationally). Even the so-called Jewish ‘anti’ Zionists identify collectively with Israel by the means of negation.
“Israel is at the heart of the Jewish collective universe. Most Jews feel strong affinity towards the ‘Jewish State’ and just a very few claim to oppose it.
“I would argue that for Jews to move away from Israel or Zionism a new Jerusalem is needed, I don’t see it happening voluntarily,” Atzmon concluded.
In reality, as Atzmon has pointed out, support for Israel is, if anything, increasing amongst Jews in America and around the world.
Even more importantly, the entire political spectrum in Israel is moving rapidly to the Zionist right. Just a few years ago, Benjamin Netanyahu was regarded as an extremist leader on the fringes of even the Likud Party—yet nowadays he has been praised as Israel’s “best politician” even by writers on the left-leaning Haaretz newspaper.
As recently as last week, Isi Leibler, the former leader of the Executive Council of Australian Jewry said that “it is undeniable that a far stronger consensus prevails amongst Israelis in relation to the government’s approach towards the Palestinians than at any time since the national schism was created in the wake of the adoption of the Oslo Accords.
“Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu has effectively charted a centrist course which is endorsed by most of the nation,” he said.
