"This is an immensely valuable read, it's a panoramic view of the debate among Israel supporters on how to represent Israel to the world."

One of the biggest problems Israel has is its own leftist intelligentsia which keeps representing Israel and Zionism as the problem.

I have been recently watching scores of Israeli films by such respected directors as Amos Gitai and for anyone interested in accurate historical representation these film could not but leave on depressed.

The same is true with the work of many leading novelists although their work is not as one sided as that of the filmmakers.

If, I ask myself, this is what the intellectual world at large sees and reads about Israel, then I am not surprised that many of them have turned against the Jewish State.

The problem then isn't just W&M, Jimmy Carter, the media, etc., it's primarily an Israeli intellectual problem which sees its own countries as the core of the problem.

I hope the conference will also discuss the Israeli intellectual scene and its willful distortions of Jewish and Israeli history.

The conference did address these issues somewhat tangentially, but I would say most of the participants agree with your understanding of the problem, it was clear to me that was an unspoken context for (many of) their remarks.

Shriber, Israel isn't the problem, but Zionism is.
The "Global Battle for Civil Society" in the conference title says it all. Civil society obviously means a century of scheming against the country's indigenous population. What country? Israel or Palestine, call it what you will. Now how civil is that?

"Shriber, Israel isn't the problem, but Zionism is."

Alan, your comments show me that you have no deep knowledge of history.

First you can't separate Israel from Zionism nor Zionism from Jewish history. Those that do are usually ultra Orthodox Jews who have their own brand of Zionism which is theological.

You may condemn Zionism which is to say condemn Jewish history and culture but that is another matter.

Your second point is equally specious:

"Civil society obviously means a century of scheming against the country's indigenous population."

If you knew anything about the history of Israel and Zionism you would know that there was no "scheming" against the "indigenous" population which by the way also included Jews.

Leaving aside the issue of whose land it really is, and the Arabs also conquered the land and are not really "indigenous," the Jews hardly schemed to get the land.

Zionism was the most public movement in history. There is no period in which thousands of books and articles didn't debate every aspect of the movements' goals.

Moreover all the land pre 1948 on which the Jews built their towns and villages had been bought.

After 1948 which is to say after the Arab States and the people in Mandate Palestine rejected the UN partition plan and made war on Israel they lost some of the land to the victorious Jewish armies.

The Jewish victories by the way took the Arabs and the world by surprise. Everyone expected the Jews to be defeated.

In any case, when a country invaded another in the hope of wiping it off the face of the map and it loses some territory in a war there is no reason why the winning side should return the land to the aggressive nations.

This was true in almost all wars in the recent past. It was true of WW1 and WW2. Should Poland and the Czech Republic return land to Germany? Are you familiar with the Turkish Greek wars of the 1920’s and the refugee problem there, or the Pakistani Indian wars and refugee problems of the 1940’s?

In both above cases there millions of people displaces and ejected from their homes. There were populations transfers in the millions and there was no talk of refugee camps manned by the UN nor of compensation.

Israel took in about a half million Jewish refugees from Arabs lands while the Arabs refused to take in a equal number from Mandate Palestine.

Only in the case of Israel does the world want to play by different rules.

Judith I don't know if you are familiar with the
Yale Univerisites smeinar series: ANTISEMITISM IN COMPARATIVE PERSPECTIVE

http://www.yale.edu/isps/seminars/antisemitism/index.html

which is being broadcated on the video and posted on the internet?

What do you think are the chances that these seminar lectures and discussion will be broadcasted on the internet?

The problem is not leftist intelligencia. It is leftism period. A philosophy so stupid only an intellectual could believe it.

It doesn't carry any weight with economists any more.

However, Israels biggest problem is the "tired of fighting" spirit. Another legacy of the left. The left works hard at undermining home front morale. Morale is the main weight in war. An army can be militarliy strong and undefeated on the battle field, yet be easily captured if it loses its will to fight.

You can see it shaping up. Gaza, Lebanon, Syria. This summer.

Shriber brings up a fascinating point. Leave aside the Ionian Greeks and Salonikan Turks after World War I--the lowest estimate I've seen of displaced peoiple in Europe after World War II is forty million--none of them are in refugee camps. The number of Hindus and Moslems who left Pakistan and India after 1947 can never be known but is estimated as well past ten million. None of them are in refugee camps. And the number of Jews who were forced out of Arab countries after 1948 is, coincidentally, about the same as the Arabs who left Israel for whatever reason.

And of all those people, absolutely none are still in refugee camps except the Arab Palestinians. It's not as if the Arabs lack the money or space.

Some comments supporting points above:

shriber wrote, "One of the biggest problems Israel has is its own leftist intelligentsia which keeps representing Israel and Zionism as the problem."

Exacerbating the problem is the habit of many journalists to cover other countries by contact only with those who speak their language. Thus foreign journalists covering Israel receive an inaccurate impression because they unwittingly tend to have greater contact with the intellectuals who speak, say, English or French, rather than with the average Israel speaking Hebrew or (God forbid) an actual Mizrahi speaking Hebrew and Arabic.

Alex, I have some personal relation to the south Asian partition. The number of refugees exhcanged is often estimated at 14.5 million.

Alan's comment, "Israel isn't the problem, but Zionism is" is the core of a profoundly anti-Semitic weltanschauung. I will always insist that Zionism is neither more nor less than the movement for self-determination of the Jewish people, who are as much or more entitled to that right as every other people on the globe.

Simon wrote, "The problem is not leftist intelligencia. It is leftism period. A philosophy so stupid only an intellectual could believe it. It doesn't carry any weight with economists any more."

Simon, this is nonsense; most of Europe (including Israel) remains profoundly socialist. Indeed, a secular country's domestic policy is mostly independent of foreign (or security) policy, and many of us support both domestic socialism and a hawkish foreign/security policy vis-a-vis Islam and other threats.

Further, one might argue that a number of socialist countries -- Denmark, Austria, Ireland, Israel -- are doing far better than the USA, with its massive foreign-account deficit and hollowing-out economy.

In fact, Judith's sub-heading -- "hawkish liberal" -- may not be far from what I'm suggesting -- a leftist domestic policy allied to a hawkish foreign/security policy. Judith?

"a leftist domestic policy allied to a hawkish foreign/security policy. Judith?"

Well, some of us also reject "liberal" domestic policy if it means socialism or welfare state, by liberal we mean closer to libertarian relaxed attitude abnout diverse lifestyles and mostly market-based approaches to social and environmental issues.

But "hawkish foreign/security policy" at minimum.