On Israel
I want to say something carefully, because I know it will be misread by people who are looking for a reason to misread it.
I no longer support the strategic defensive alliance between the United States and the State of Israel.
I say this as someone who remains unequivocally opposed to antisemitism in every form. I say this with genuine respect and affection for my Jewish friends and for the Jewish people. I say this with full acknowledgment that Israel has the right to defend itself. None of that is in question.
What is in question is this: the government of Benjamin Netanyahu has conspired with the executive branch of the United States to prosecute an illegal, unconstitutional war — a war that no Congress authorized, that no declaration of war sanctioned, that proceeds in direct violation of the founding constitutional doctrine of this republic. Israel did not merely benefit from this action. It participated in planning it. It launched strikes in coordination with it. It is a co-author of this constitutional violation.
I have spent this week arguing that the ends do not justify the means. That the means are what we live in. That rule by exception is fascism. I cannot now exempt Israel from that argument because I find the Iranian regime repugnant — which I do. The Iranian regime is a theocratic dictatorship that has murdered its own people by the thousands. If the Supreme Leader is dead this morning, I will not mourn him. But my gladness at the death of a tyrant does not give me license to abandon the constitutional principles I have staked this publication on defending.
Benjamin Netanyahu is not a legitimate leader acting in good faith. He is a man under criminal indictment in his own country for corruption. He is a man whose government, by credible and well-documented reporting, funneled Qatari money to Hamas as a divide-and-rule strategy — deliberately sustaining the very threat he used to justify this war. He is a man who has repeatedly acted to advance his own political survival at the expense of regional stability, American interests, and the lives of both Israelis and Palestinians.
A government that conspires to draw the United States into an unconstitutional war of choice is not a friendly government. It is not acting in American interests. It is acting in the interests of its own survival and its own agenda.
I withdraw my support for the strategic alliance on that basis. Not because Israel has no right to exist. Not because the Jewish people are not owed safety and security. But because this government, in this moment, has demonstrated that it does not share the constitutional values upon which the American republic is founded.
The alliance, as it currently stands, is not between the American people and the Israeli people. It is between Donald Trump and Benjamin Netanyahu. And I did not consent to either of them.
I’m a proud Jew, Mike, and I agree with every word that you posted.
Make no apologies. I have expressed this view as have others once seeing the blind destruction of life, limb, and property vis-a-vis American military support to Netanyahu. What amazes me and upsets me to the point of anger is hearing from Jews who have favored this utter destruction as a desired goal for all of those in Israel and for Jews around the world. It is especially mind-boggling to hear a medical colleague and Jew tell me that I have thrown Israel under the bus by being critical of what has happened in Gaza. That is fucking bullshit and reflects an incredible lack of vision, if not blatant stupidity. However, that particular colleague was one of the more inept ones I have come across as a physician in the course of my lifetime, so at least he is consistent: inept in Medicine and Inept in Understanding the Value of Life.
If I am not for myself, who will be for me?
If I am only for myself, what am I?
If not now, when? — Rabbi Hillel - (30 BC-9AD)
The parallels between two nations, both having Presidents that prioritize (putting it mildly) power over humanity, are clear. Trump and Netanyahu will do just about anything to stay in power. Both are Ahabs that lack an empathy gene and who see human life and Nature as "nichivo," nothing, a trivial. Women, children, elders-- cares? That's their mental set. My name is Strum, it was Sztrum. My mothers maiden name was Hamburski. Both from Poland, with my father's family from Galicia near the Ukraine border. My DNA is predominantly Ashkenazi but with added Sephardic and Ukrainian heritage. Much of my mother's ancestors (and mine) who were teachers, scholars, etc. died in Auschwitz-Berkenau, Chelmno or elsewhere. I would have been one of those if not for my grandparents immigration to the US.
Trump is about Deals. Everything is a fucking deal. Our POTUS is a conman, grifter and was well-known in NY circles from back in the 80s along with Giuliani. Read Wayne Barrett's books that are intensely researched about the corrupt Trump family- a Father and Son story.
What Trump did to enable Netanyahu in the wholesale destruction of life and property in Gaza is monstrous. My hatred of anything Nazi is so deeply entrenched and I cannot conceive of how any Palestinian who lost a loved one would feel other than enraged, wanting retribution. And, our POTUS supplied the weaponry without restriction not solely to protect Israel and its people but to blitz the life out of everything in Gaza.
The alternative could have been tried first.
⫸ Leaflets dropped by Israel informing all Palestinians that we, Israel, will send in ground forces to wipe out Hamas. If you hide those in Hamas or abet them in any way your life will not be our concern. You will likely die. But we are here to liberate your country from the terrorism that is Hamas. Then Israel sends in its tactical ground forces and sees what occurs, and acts based on how the vast majority of the civilian population acts.
You do not murder for expediency's sake. That is not how real Jews think or behave.
Do not equate Netanyahu with the totality of the Israeli citizenry, as you would similarly not equate Americans like me with Trump-- a thing I detest as a symbol of death and destruction.
The pathetic thing is the realization that many in the world and many in the US do not see the enormity in missing this distinction. Do not confuse a despicable leader as being representative of the people.
The real Jew is not different in any way from the authentic Christian, the Christ. The real Jew loves thy neighbor as thyself. We can thank some of those in organized religion for creating differences, for setting people apart. So we have now many who do not see the absurdity of anti-Semitism, although Jesus, the Holy Family, John the Baptist, the Apostles, were all born Jewish, lived Jewish, and died Jewish. This is what humanity or human unity is supposed to be. Not looking for differences and fighting to death over them. But, as an observer and a keen one, for 80 plus years, I am never surprised at the stupidity of the human species.
A minority of such ignorant people and their ability to effect disastrous changes in the course of humanity is the major pockmark of Homo sapiens.