Rosner's Domain: Support for Israel, not for "the people" of Israel

Take Rosner's Election Projection Survey!!!  

A co-blogger for Contentions, Rick Richman also maintains his own blog, Jewish Current Issues. Last week, linking to the Goldberg-Rosner interview, Richman got a comment from reader (Doris Wise Montrose, president of Children of Jewish Holocaust Survivors Los Angeles) and asked me to respond to the comment she's made. Richman posted my initial comments (in the Goldberg interview), Montrose's comments, and my response - and then added some of his own. If you want to read this exchange in full, do it here.

Or - you can read a much shortened version here:

The key sentence in my initial comments:

I do not want them [American Jews] to be criticizing Israel in public and trying to pressure Israel on matters of policy and trying to "save Israel from itself" and all that condescending crap.

And here is Montrose:

Should American Jews support the Israeli people or the Israeli leadership? Because from where I sit, it does not look the same.

And my reaction:

Dear reader, here's a news-flash:   Israel is a democratic country in which leaders are elected by, well, "the people".  This means that yes, "Israeli leadership" represents "the people".  There's no such thing as "supporting the people but not the leadership" (no matter where "I sit").  What you're really saying is this: "I want to support the political causes of my choosing, no matter what the democratic majority of Israelis want".  Of course, I can't prevent you from doing this, but I can surely argue that this is not "support for Israel" -- it is "support for my political camp in Israel" -- a totally different thing.  While Jewish American support forIsrael is most welcomed and necessary, American Jewish support for specific political causes in Israel is much less appreciated.  It is also morally problematic.  It is also, in most cases, barely an educated political decision. 

Richman sums it all up at the end, and I was sorry to notice that he also fell prey to this "Israel's leadership - Israeli people" theory. The example he uses - Gaza disengagement:

Where a leader is elected based on a campaign promise not to withdraw from Gaza, ridicules his opponent for thinking Israel could safely withdraw without eventually putting the country at risk, and then -- once in office -- decides not only to withdraw unilaterally but to do so after ignoring the results of a party referendum he called on the issue (and promised to respect) and then refusing to hold a public referendum, I am not sure it is sufficient to say the government’s decisions should be supported on grounds the government was elected.  

Sorry, but that's nonsense. Richman is obviously upset with Disengagement (not an unreasonable position), and the way for him to cope with Israel's decision to do such thing is to blame the government and let "the people" off the hook. As if the government was acting against the "people". Again - that's nonsense. Most Israelis, according to all polls, supported disengagement; the Knesset voted for disengagement; the government voted for disengagement, not once but three times. Moreover, it's very easy for the Israeli parliament to get rid of the Prime Minister if it doesn't like his policies - a way for "the people" to have impact on policies even between (scheduled) elections. Sharon wasn't ousted by the representatives of the "the people".

To sum - "the people vs. the leadership" claim is absurd - and the reason for which critics from both right (Richman) and left (the J Street gang) use it is embarrassingly obvious: it's a way for them to "support" Israel without actually supporting it.

Update: You can read Rick Richman's response to this post here (Richman vs. Rosner: Gaza disengagement decision was not democratic) 

Take Rosner's Election Projection Survey!!!