a group of people walk down a street of stone buildigns with metal awnings
The Center for Jewish Nonviolence group that Laura Saunders went to the West Bank with walking down Shuhada Street in Hebron (Courtesy/Laura Saunders)

Regarding Laura Saunders’ opinion piece (“Jewish values dictate I work to end Israeli occupation”), in which she describes how her Jewish values compel her to defend the Palestinian Arabs against the Israelis, if she’s so dedicated to Jewish values, why does her article make no mention of God, the Torah or the Covenant, which contains the promise of the land of Israel? Does her version of Judaism not contain these concepts? Saying the Jewish presence in Judea and Samaria amounts to an “illegal occupation” is equivalent to renouncing Judaism itself.

Saunders talks about her Jewish upbringing, but both she and her teachers going back multiple generations have followed a corrupted form of Judaism that rejects its most central elements while attaching supreme importance to artificial social theories that have never been proven to work anywhere.

One of the peculiar features of this corrupted Judaism is its worship of victimhood. Everything is seen through the eyes of the victim. Claiming you’re oppressed grants you instant moral authority, while being accused of oppression makes you unworthy of positive consideration. If Israelis impose harsh measures on Arabs, the only possible explanation is the sadistic pleasure they get from it. Saunders doesn’t consider the possibility that the Arabs might have done something to deserve such treatment, and she seems totally oblivious to the fact that Arab leaders continually cultivate an attitude of murderous hatred against Jews, which is passed down from generation to generation, and that they would slaughter the Jews without mercy if Israel ever let down its guard.

People like Saunders imagine that they’re contributing to peace, but their Arab allies see them as “useful idiots,” working to weaken Israel’s ability to defend itself and preparing it for ultimate destruction.

Martin Wasserman,
Palo Alto

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27 replies on “A corrupted Judaism, worshipping victimhood”

  1. The only people who have EVER used the term ‘ Useful idiots’ are Lieberman and Natanyahu in regards to American Jewry. You have proven, in this obtuse post, just how in tune you are to being that actual useful Idiot than any Jewish man or woman willing to cross those ‘ Out there be monsters’ signs. They do what you are too cowardly to do, they meet the very people who not only do them no harm but welcome them into their homes, to walk in their shoes.

    Remember those stories? Or are those Jewish tales also reserved for ‘useful idiots’?

    Judaism is not yours to dictate to, we all have our own values and those who choose humanity over privilege and living on the backs of others are as traditional as it gets for any Jew familiar with our own history.

    Your post is so transparent and utterly devoid of any real substance. Ego is all I read and refusal to own up to the fact that modern Jewish history is abominable and twisted. The rest of us aren’t remotely intimidated to own the past and our grandparents sins; we actually want a future worth writing about that isn’t dipped in total fiction and exceptionalism.

    What you call ‘useful idiots’ we call ‘ Jewish integrity’. Get some.

    1. You’re saying Jews live on the backs of others? And that Jews need to pay for our grandparents sins?

      Wow you just paraphrased mein kampf.

      1. No, Jews do not, Israel does and that is simply the truth. You can pull all the straw-men arguments all you want, it does not absolve anyone’s role in where we are today. Millions of Palestinians living in the worst Ghettos in our age, just today a child died because of lack of antibiotics, why? Israel denied him treatment and denies Gaza antibiotic shipments in addition to other medical supplies, food, and electricity… and we’re supposed to just accept that? When the roles were in reverse I dare you claim you would. If the roles were in reverse what do you think we would do? Seek history for your answer.

        Palestinians in there millions living as stateless human beings in refugee camps for generations, IN OUR NAME, waiting to return to their homes that await them; denied because they are a demographic threat, how on earth are they when they are HUMAN BEINGS… because they aren’t Jewish? You think that’s remotely a valid justification? When THAT was very much Mien Kampf. Is that who we have become? The very monsters of our own old Jewish horrors? Israel put them in limbo, when they are our very blood; they have more links to Mizrachi than any of us, and we are the ones who are told to just accept that horror, that BETRAYAL? What for? In the name of an antiquated European concept that has no business being in the 21rst century, much less in the Middle East? In the one spot on this earth where all faiths who worship the God of Abraham live together and worship? Just 100 years ago it was open space full of ethnicity’s and peoples; life and freedom. Now its grey, dead, walls, gates, fences, uniforms, identical, boring, artificial, sterile, bombs and bullets and alarms, ghost towns with bones of the dead buried where they were killed and rendered into parks? – -what is this?! This is who you want us to be?

        We’re supposed to love that? We’re not useful idiots when we accept that?

        This is our modern Jewish history. You don’t want to own it? That’s too bad. If you think this is Mien Kampf ;then you are one step closer to waking up to the nightmare we all have been waking up to. The realization of what we have been complacent in. What the likes of Natanyahu have perverted and distorted into total darkness.

        Jews of integrity who follow their good hearts and their humanity will not for one moment stomach this anymore. We are not tools and we are not useful idiots, we’re HUMAN.

        1. Actually nothing is done in your name. You’re an American not an Israeli. You’re only as Jewish as you choose be when you choose to be Jewish. And when your “palestinean” friends decide to start murdering Jews again it won’t be you they go after.

          It’s not your life that depends on making the right choice. Like all lefties you’re completely comfortable risking other people lives for your childish uninformed racist ideas.

          And the decisions and changing political landscape in Israel has more to do with lefty askenazim becoming less and less relevant as mitzachim come more and more prominent. And the mizrachim vote likud. Or for farther right paries. Because they know what jewish life under Arab rule is.

          The myth of lsraelis denying care are just that myths. That child and many other die because the Arabs won’t allow help to be sent in. They’d rather see their children die than take help from Jews.

          And oh by the way Mr don’t know what you’re talking about muslims and Jews don’t pray together. Muslims don’t let Jews pray on our own temple mount. If we try they’ll kill us.

          3. Because you have never been exposed to anyone like me? Should I list to you all the crimes of the state committed against my own Yemenite kin now, for you to wake up? What they regarded us, how they still treat us, what they did to our lineages , and families? Our bodies? Or are our grievances also not something you will own either? Want to disenfranchise all Mizrachi as Jews too? Is there any limit to your inhumanity?

            You want to embrace fantasy and romanticism of the state, when since day one it has been one abomination after another. NO ONE has been sparred.

            I am not a lone voice either. WE are not tools, we are not cannon fodder, we are not ‘animals’ and we not useful idiots.

          4. You are not tools, totally agree. But you are useful idiots. Otherwise you would be fighting for humane treatment of Palestinians in Arab lands: in Lebanon, in Saudi Arabia, in Syria. They live like animals in Palestinian camps over there. Where is your outrage?

          5. WE DO. If you actually cared for them you;d support their right of return to their homes. You do not. So don’t even try to imply you remotely care for their plight in Arab lands. Its YOU who dare to try and pull the ‘ dont pay attention here, pay attention over there.’ And there is one fundamental difference, Palestinians are under OUR boot not Arab boots in the Holy Land. This is what is being done with us running their lives, and are we any better than their Arab tormentors? No. We’re worse because their Arabs tormentors LEARN form the likes of Natanyahu.

            Will you be praying for redemption soon? Ask yourself how you will ever accomplish that with your eyes are welded closed to the very idea that our GREATEST test upon on our return to the holy land was whether we would treat others BETTER than we were treated?

            We have failed so far.

            We have failed so badly. And worse? We try to excuse our failures and even blame those that suffer under us for our failures.

            We will NEVER be redeemed, we will live in exile spiritually and physically if we do not acknowledge what we have done to Palestinians much less our all our other weight. 26 hours of total reflection, reflect on just what exactly is redemption to you Vs the reality around you and how you contribute to that reality Vs what you wish you could actually be.

          6. Lets see. Almost a million of Jews were displaced from Arab lands. Do you see them in refugee camps? Each Jewish family expelled from Arab lands lived in a house and had a key to that house. What about their right of return? 400000 Palestinians (four hundred thousand) were expelled from Kuwait. Did you protest it?

            Don’t worry about my redemption. Just take care of YOUR demons.

          7. Since when PALESTINIANS responsible for ANY of that? Zionism has more to do with all of it than they do. Or do you not see what is being done to Yemen today?

          8. Oh well, lets not talk about Yemen
            for now. It is tragic indeed that no Arab country wants them.
            Egypt does not want them, otherwise Egypt would have annexed Gaga. In fact when Egypt controlled Gaza between 1948 and 1967, Palestinians were restricted to Gaza and were not given equal rights and Egypt never offered to annex the Gaza Strip and provide Palestinians with the support they needed.
            Jordan does not want them. In 1970 thousands of Palestinians and their PLO leaders were forcefully expelled from Jordan in what is known as Black September.
            Kuwait does not want them. In 1991 more then 400,000 Palestinians were expelled from Kuwait.
            In Saudi Arabia Palestinians are relegated to to officially sanctioned second class status incorporated into the legal and social structure of Saudi Arabia.
            They are legally denied citizenship in Arab countries and specifically excluded from immigration laws.
            As recently as 2004, children born to Egyptian mothers and Palestinian fathers were we’re EXCLUDED from a law which granted nationality to children born to foreign fathers and Egyptian mothers.
            Even today, children of both Palestinian parents are denied Egyptian citizenship, making the ONLY PEOPLE In the WORLD who are denied citizenship in their country of birth.
            Now tell me how is Zionism responsible for all of that?

          11. Do you condone Holocaust denial too? Who fled to WHERE? Deny Palestine you deny the Holocaust.

          13. Ah so you’re in fact acknowledging the Nakba. Good. Jews erased an entire country – arent you proud of this new history?

          14. Oh I think you underrate yourself. You are most certainly a tool. I don’t know about the rest of that.

          15. The only people murdering anyone are settlers, today they lynched an old man and hung him off a tree.

            His crime? Being PALESTINIAN.

      1. Israel is not a person its just another name in a region where names comes and go. You might as well go ALWAYS LIVE CANAAN! Fool.

  2. Arab leaders continually cultivate an attitude of murderous hatred against Jews

    And why not?
    The murderous hatred is in the koran and required of all muzlims.

  3. Torah should never be used to justify Israel’s existence. After all, real Judaism believed the New Zion would come in peace. Turns out, the so called Zion of Israel came in violence. Israel is a sovereign nation, with a place amongst the nations, but it is not a new Zion. People don’t seem to understand that fundamental truth.

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