I was happy to receive Dan Fleshler’s reply to my previous post about him and other “progressive” critics of Israel. Since the column he wrote for the Forward, which I criticized, definitely gave the impression that he was singling Israel out for condemnation, he indeed did, by his own admission, err in its phrasing.
Still, I would like to pursue the matter with him a bit further. In his answer to me, he makes three points: 1) that he has respect for Israeli soldiers serving in the occupied territories; 2) that he conveys this respect to enemies of Israel on the “far Left” when he debates with them; and 3) that he recognizes that, under the circumstances, these soldiers are doing a necessary job because they are protecting both Israelis living within the 1967 borders and Jewish settlers living outside of them—who, he obviously believes, deserve protection even if he thinks that some of them, located “in the midst of large Palestinian population centers,” have “contributed to the difficulty of solving the conflict.”
What I would ask Dan Fleshler is this: When he communicates with his friends or acquaintances on the far Left, does he just convey his respect for Israel’s soldiers? Or does he also insist, as he puts it in his reply to me, that these soldiers are serving in the territories because they have been forced to do so by Palestinian terror, that the settlers they are protecting are only part of the reason this terror exists, and that those settlers not living “in the midst of large Palestinian population centers” are not an obstacle to solving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
This is not nit-picking on my part. In arguing with anti-Israel extremists from a leftist but “pro-Israel” standpoint like Dan Fleshler’s, it is Jewishly imperative not to concede an inch to them in order to meet their standards of debate or to make them feel that one is, from their point of view, kosher. If, therefore, in calling for an end to Israel’s occupation of Palestinian territories (as Dan Fleshler can, I believe, legitimately do while remaining “pro-Israel”), Fleshler also stands up for Israel by making the same points that he makes in his e-mail to me, I can only say to him: Way to go! If, on the other hand, he is speaking in two different languages—one to his friends on the Left and one to people like me—he is not doing Israel any favor.
It would be interesting to know which of the two it is.
