Being Pro-Israel can be Progressive!

Recently an apparently well-known British blogger featured on Democracy Now! was denouncing some British politicians for being “Pro-Israel” and from my progressive perspective I was shocked.
I shouldn’t have been…

Holocaust/Shoah... everything gets to be stolen/co-opted! And tragically simplified.

Too many times I have been involved in discussions with individuals who claim to be on the side of “people.” Yet apparently they cannot understand that Jews, besides their historical tie to the land (Why do Jews keep saying “Next Year in Jerusalem”?), have established Israel as the very kind of national liberation struggle that they would “normally” defend.
I know that I open myself to attacks but I will try to interpret their “reasons:”

1. They think the Shoah, yes more than 60 years ago, along with two milleniums of anti-Semitism (expulsions/mass killings/pogroms) – which they may be unaware of – that history is not worth dealing with.
2. They think that a country that is run by right-wing politicians is a country that has no right to exist or that because they are Arab Palestinians, Jewish Palestinians cannot co-exist…
   It may be useful to remember for everyone – considering how Jews (like the endangered species that they have been and continue to be) are scared of criticizing Israel, that the famous Schurz complete saying goes this way: “My country, right or wrong; if right, to be kept right; and if wrong, to be set right.”
   I invite you to read Haaretz (the paper – online too), Martin Buber, Yehuda Amichai, Amos Oz, David Grossman, Yeshayahu Leibowitz, Avraham Burg, Yesh G’Vul/Yesh Gvul/There is Limit, Peace Now/Shalom Achshav, Combatants for Peace, JStreet, The New Israel Fund…  to name a few. The list goes on and on!
3. They carry some (unconscious?) alienation towards Jews possibly because they have not won such a friend’s confidence.
4. They believe their way is the way (and ignore “a Jewish perspective” – something that is by definition [two Jews/three opinions] multifaceted) and possibly don’t understand how they carry anti-Semitic tendencies.

My blog has featured many groups working on peace between Palestinians and Jews (like some of those named above). Please use its search engine (you can also use the tag A-Semitism on the right of this blog).
I would also suggest looking at various posts I have done including Herbert Pagani, Philippe Clay, Gainsbourg (some that come to my mind at this time).

Jews actually have a strong tradition of fighting for the underdog – but who fights for them?
They are too easily denounced as capitalists (“those” Wall Street type) or radicals (“those” famous feminists/Communists/Socialists).

They are an easy target, and for those who seek easy solutions to what they perceive as THE problem, so it seems, an eternal scapegoat.