Turkish Forum

Tag: American Jews

  • Why is the US government So Vigilant About Israel, but not Armenia?

    Why is the US government So Vigilant About Israel, but not Armenia?

    The most common question among Armenians these days is: Why did the United States government support Israel so strongly and promptly, but not Armenia and Artsakh?

    This question became more pertinent after Politico disclosed last week that Secretary of State Antony Blinken warned: “Azerbaijan may invade Armenia in the coming weeks.”

    During an October 3 phone call with Cong. Nancy Pelosi, Anna Eshoo and Frank Pallone and others, Blinken reportedly told them: “the State Department was looking at avenues to hold Azerbaijan accountable and isn’t planning to renew a long-standing waiver that allows the U.S. to provide military assistance to Baku.” Blinken added: “the State [Dept.] saw a possibility that Azerbaijan would invade southern Armenia in the coming weeks.” Politico wrote that two other unidentified sources confirmed the phone conversation. Cong. Pallone tweeted on Oct. 11 that “Aliyev is moving forward with his objective to take Southern Armenia.” On Oct. 15, in a written statement to Armenpress, State Dept. spokesman Matthew Miller said that the Politico article “is inaccurate and in no way reflects what Secretary Blinken said to lawmakers.” However, Politico said it firmly stands by its report.

    Surprisingly, Prime Minister Nikol Pashinyan stated on Oct. 11 that the “risk was “extremely low,” and that there was no military buildup on either side of the border. Thus, the Prime Minister contradicted what Tigran Balayan, Armenia’s ambassador to the European Union, said on Oct. 6: Azerbaijan is actively preparing an invasion of Armenia within weeks.

    More importantly, Blinken and other US officials have repeatedly said that they are committed to “Armenia’s sovereignty and territorial integrity.” They have stated that “they are deeply concerned by Azerbaijan’s military action, declaring that the use of force to resolve disputes is unacceptable.” However, the U.S. government not only ignored its own warnings to Azerbaijan, but also the occupation of Artsakh and parts of Armenia proper. The United States, France and Russia have apparently decided that Turkey and Azerbaijan are much important for them than Armenia, regardless of the agreements Russia signed with Armenia and the sympathies of Western countries for Armenians. They have offered Armenians merely sympathetic words with zero action. Such shameful behavior has emboldened the dictator in Baku to move forward with impunity with his expansionist plans. These major powers did not even have the courage to pass a UN Security Council resolution to condemn Azerbaijan or impose sanctions.

    Understandably, most Armenians are furious at the Israeli government for permitting its arms manufacturers to provide 60% of Azerbaijan’s advanced weapons which have killed and wounded thousands of Armenian soldiers during and after the 2020 War.

    The more important issue is: why the United States is so protective of Israel, but not Armenia? The short answer is: due mostly to the activism of the Jewish-American community. There was a time when Jewish Americans were discriminated against in many ways. From the 1920’s until after World War II, American universities limited the number of Jewish students they admitted. After World War II, the United States even refused to accept thousands of Jewish survivors of the Holocaust.

    However, Jewish Americans overcame many obstacles by playing prominent roles in all aspects of American life, such as business, science, arts, literature, music, films, theater, comedy, media, civil rights and politics. As of January 2023, there were 37 Jewish Americans in Congress: 10 Senators and 27 House members. Sen. Chuck Schumer is the Senate Majority Leader. The US government contributed $53.6 million to build the US Holocaust Memorial Museum on donated federal land. Over the years, scores of Jewish Americans have served on the US Supreme Court. Shelley Greenspan is the White House Jewish Liaison. In the State Dept., Ellen Germain is the Special Envoy for Holocaust Issues and Ambassador Deborah Lipstadt is the Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Vice President Kamala Harris’s husband Douglas Emhoff is a Jewish American. There are several Jews serving in high-level governmental positions, such as Secretary of State Antony Blinken, Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman, Treasury Secretary Janet Yellin, Attorney General Merrick Garland, Secretary of Homeland Security Alejandro Mayorkas, Director of National Intelligence Avril Haines, Deputy Director of the CIA David Cohen, Chair of the Securities and Exchange Commission Gary Gensler, Director of the Office of Science and Technology Policy Eric Lander, Deputy Health Secretary Rachel Levine, and National Security Agency cybersecurity director Anne Neuberger.

    80 years ago, when 400 Rabbis asked to meet with Pres. Franklin Roosevelt, they were turned down. But last week, a group of Jewish Americans met with Pres. Joe Biden in the White House which was lit up in the colors of the Israeli flag. They have come a long way.

    In the category of “Israel lobby in the United States,” Wikipedia mentions Christians United for Israel with over seven million members, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) which has three million members and $100 million annual budget, and J Street with an annual budget of $2 million. On the other hand, Armenian-Americans have two advocacy groups: the Armenian Assembly of America and Armenian National Committee of America with limited budgets. Armenians need to hire powerful US lobbying firms to counter those of Azerbaijan and Turkey.

    Armenians should increase their involvement in political campaigns and run for elective office. College students should specialize in political science or international relations. Armenians should increase their contacts with the US media; write letters to the editor and commentaries in local and national newspapers. The community should support financially the Armenian advocacy groups and contribute to the fundraising campaigns of political candidates. By playing prominent roles in American life, Armenians can influence domestic and foreign policy of the United States and help support Armenia and the Armenian Cause.

  • Jewish criticism of Israel

    Jewish criticism of Israel

    Op-ed: While criticizing Israel, US Jews must beware of biased agendas around them

    Yoel Meltzer

    When American Jews are confronted with actions of the Jewish state that they believe to be wrong or immoral, do they have the right to publicly criticize Israel? Moreover, assuming for a moment that they have the right, should they exercise it? In other words, is their criticism actually helping Israel or is it only providing ammunition for our enemies to further harm Israel?

    While American Jews are faced with such difficult questions, not surprisingly their counterparts in Israel are strongly against Diaspora Jewry publicly criticizing Israel in any shape or form. In addition, feeling increasingly threatened and ostracized, Israel now more than ever expects to receive strong support from Diaspora Jewry, especially from the large and powerful American Jewish community.

    What then is the proper path to follow? For starters, since the Jewish nation is comprised of every Jew and the land of Israel, eretz yisrael, belongs to every Jew, then certainly American Jews can speak their mind about events in Israel. No one is suggesting that these two cornerstones of our tradition, namely that all Jews have an intrinsic connection with each other as well as with a common land, be tinkered with. However, since we don’t live in a bubble and the situation is obviously more complex, the subject needs to be further analyzed from both sides of the coin.

    From the Israeli perspective, one argument frequently heard is that American Jews should not speak out against Israel since they have little or no understanding of the reality of life in the Middle East. Bluntly stated, Israel’s neighbors are not Canada and Mexico. This line of thinking helps explain why many left-leaning Israeli Jews are frequently very different from their American counterparts.

    Unlike a Jew living in America, the typical left-wing Israeli has to deal with army service, wars and terrorist attacks. Thus, although he may support certain policies that are considered left-wing, he usually doesn’t do this out of a naïve belief that Jews and Arabs will soon become best of friends or that relinquishing more land will actually bring an end to the region’s hostilities.

    Another common assumption in Israel is that those American Jews who feel uncomfortable about Israeli actions or policies are probably struggling with their own Jewish identity. With assimilation ravaging American Jewry, it’s only natural that one’s Jewish identity frequently takes backstage to other identities that are a part of one’s psychological makeup. For this reason, it should come as no surprise that the most steadfast supporters of Israel usually come from Jews who are more traditional since for them the Jewish component is a dominant factor of their identity.

    Finally, on a psychological level some claim that Israeli activities that appear harsh or unjust would make an American Jew with a relatively weak Jewish identity feel uncomfortable in his non-Jewish environment. Thus, by criticizing Israel perhaps he is subconsciously trying to be accepted by the non-Jewish world around him.

    These are some of the claims from the Israeli angle, in addition to the ubiquitous “if you don’t live here, don’t tell us what to do” claim.

    Nonetheless, in spite of any truth that these arguments may contain, as previously stated American Jews have the right to express their beliefs. True, perhaps they should ask themselves why they are criticizing – to honestly help Israel or to merely alleviate their own uncomfortable situation – but this is a side issue. The point is they can criticize.

    Non-Jewish morality

    Having said all that, perhaps there is something else going on here. Unlike the Middle Eastern culture that has an aspect of tribal affiliation and less internal criticism, American culture is hypothetically based upon an objective pursuit of truth and justice. Therefore, being influenced by the surrounding culture, American Jews tend to give precedence to what they consider the pursuit of truth and justice as opposed to simply granting unconditional loyalty to other Jews.

    On the surface this is quite a noble quality, one worthy of exporting to the rest of humanity. However, this otherwise praiseworthy approach also contains two potential flaws. One is the assumption of objectivity and the second is the very understanding of such terms as “truth” and “justice”.

    The combined effect today of both the media and the many powerful public relations, marketing and advertising firms is arguably more influential than ever before in shaping the mindset of the average person. Together with this powerful group there is the academic world with its own unique ability to penetrate all sorts of ideas into society.

    The problem is that many of the people who have the power to influence are heavily biased when it comes to Israel. For instance, I remember being fed seemingly endless Edward Said and Noam Chomsky while working on my master’s degree in Middle Eastern Studies. Although a small minority of students sensed that something was wrong and that the studies were biased, most did not have the tools to argue with our well published and seemingly brilliant political science professor. For the majority of the students, the professor’s words were simply accepted as irrefutable truth.

    The point is that there are many intelligent and powerful people, be it in the media or in the academic world, with a very biased approach when it comes to Israel and through their positions of influence they easily blow away the assumed theory of objectivity.

    The second problem is frequently just an outgrowth of the first problem since it is people with an agenda that often shape our understanding of what constitutes truth and justice or right and wrong when assessing Israel. Moreover, even in the best-case scenario where this is not happening, the basic understandings that most American Jews have of these concepts usually come from non-Jewish sources. Although occasionally these are similar to Jewish concepts of morality, sometimes they’re not.

    Thus rather than judging the Jewish State based upon the rich tradition of Jewish morality and ethics, Israel is ironically being judged by good-intentioned Jews according to non-Jewish morality.

    To summarize, American Jews definitely have the right to express their opinion regarding the Jewish State since Israel, like any nation, is certainly not absolved from criticism. However, while continuing with the pursuit of the lofty ideals mentioned above, American Jews need to be more cognizant of the fact that both their understanding of these very ideals and of the actual events that transpire in Israel are frequently influenced by people with a very clear and biased agenda.

    https://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-3917694,00.html, 11.07.2010