By Bruce Kesler
ENCINITAS, California–I came into this world a few months before Israel; we’re both 62. I’ve had a life thankful to the security in the United States for my and my immediate family who escaped Europe’s persecutions and murders, and the opportunities in the US. I’ve relied upon my exertions to give back in service and sacrifice, in appreciation and selfish preservation of these conditions.
Similarly has Israel. From Israel’s intellectual and military might the world benefits in the sciences, in inventions, and in manning the front-lines against the avowed armed enemies of the West and modern civilization.
Tomorrow, April 20, 2010, is Yom Ha’atzmaut, Israel Independence Day, the day in the Hebrew calendar that corresponds to May 14, 1948. It fittingly begins the moment that ends Israel’s Memorial Day, Yom Hazikaron, Remembrance Day for Israel’s Fallen Soldiers and Victims of Terror. The two are that interlinked.
In my youth in the early 1950’s, it was a common question whether American Jews owed first loyalty to the US or Israel. As bigotry declined in the US and Israel was seen as our firm ally during the Cold War, that question evaporated. Until a new bigotry arose among the extreme Left, viewing the elimination of Israel as another way to deteriorate the West, and the extreme semi-isolationist Right, viewing Israel as no longer worth the alliance in the new Cold War against Islamist terrorism and its national bases.
Many American Jews, incubated within accustomed safety and advancement in the US, have lost sight of their essential link to Israel, viewing it as remote from domestic – mostly liberal — priorities and respect for their position in American society. There is some awakening due to the open hostility toward and undercutting of Israel by the Obama administration. But, the pain of an open break has thus far been only hinted at from the perversion of their caring liberalism by Obama’s imposed statism and his administration’s abdication of the US’ priority traditions of international morality and security – of recognizing the difference between an ally and an adversary.
Hillary Clinton’s best wishes to Israel on its Independence Day notably breaks with UN Resolution 242 that Israel is entitled to “secure” borders, instead calling only for “recognized” borders, which to Israel’s foes and weaklings in the West means retreat to the 1967 lines that Henry Kissinger called the “Auschwitz Line” because they leave Israel so imperiled
So, I’m actually glad to resurrect the question from my youth of whether my first loyalty is with the US or Israel. It is inextricably to both, and the weakening of Israel is the weakening of the US, and vice versa. I’m not loyal to any administration but to my and our security, here and there and elsewhere. Period. Any thing else is irresponsible sophist escapism that will only create the worst consequences for the US and Israel.
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Kesler is a freelance writer based in Encinitas. This column also appeared on the Maggie’s Farm website