Ops & Blogs | The Times of Israel » Brent Sasley

In Defense of Liberal Zionism

Brent Sasley — Mon, 10 Dec 2012 15:37:29 +0000

Noam Sheizaf has responded to Leon Wieseltier’s confession that he’s lost hope the two state solution is achievable within his lifetime. Sheizaf argues that when liberal Zionists take that position, their views are “morally and politically wrong.” This is because liberal Zionists are focused on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict as a political issue rather than a [...]

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Israel as a Real Country

Brent Sasley — Fri, 23 Nov 2012 21:15:09 +0000

Rosa Brooks claims in her latest Foreign Policy piece that she’s thankful “America didn’t turn out like Israel.” I must admit I fail to see the purpose of the argument, except as a gratuitous attack on Israel in the context of the recent violence between it and Hamas. Moreover, the piece is devoid of context—not [...]

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Anti-Semitism, ghost stories, and advocacy on Israel/Palestine

Brent Sasley — Tue, 09 Oct 2012 14:14:19 +0000

For a long time, each side of the Israel/Palestine divide has been telling ghost stories about the other side — tales of fear and threat as admonitions of what would happen should the other side “win.” But sometimes these warnings come true. And when they do, the opportunity to reassess the nature and motivation behind [...]

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Daniel Gordis suddenly gets it?

Brent Sasley — Thu, 26 Jul 2012 17:53:56 +0000

Daniel Gordis has just come out with a new piece in Tablet Magazine, wondering about the manner in which Jews talk to each other when they disagree over Israel. It seems Gordis was the target of some nasty accusations because he signed a letter by American Jewish leaders asking Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu not to [...]

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Presidential Conference Takeaway: Peter Beinart Isn’t Evil

Brent Sasley — Thu, 21 Jun 2012 16:01:41 +0000

In January I argued that the dialogue on Israel wasn’t actually a dialogue, but rather just old-fashioned name-calling. Nowhere is this more evident than in the reaction to Peter Beinart‘s arguments regarding Israel and how American Jews should relate to it. He’s been demonized, dare I say hated, in tweets, op-eds, blog posts, and book reviews. [...]

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Jewishness as Ethnicity not Religion

Brent Sasley — Wed, 16 May 2012 12:51:35 +0000

Yesterday the tangled issue of Israeli citizenship and what it means to be a Jew hit the news again. A district court in Haifa ruled that a petitioner, Uzzi Ornan, could not be considered a citizen of Israel based on his birth there (which he preferred, as he considers himself to not hold any religion), [...]

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Detaching Exile from Zionism

Brent Sasley — Thu, 03 May 2012 21:37:52 +0000

What do David Ben-Gurion, Ariel Sharon, and A.B. Yehoshua all have in common? All believe(d) that Jews would always be in danger (physically and spiritually) so long as they remained in exile and did not make aliyah to Israel. In addition to being an outdated assumption, there is a symbiotic relationship between Jews in Israel [...]

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Alternate Parameters for Discussing Zionism

Brent Sasley — Sun, 22 Apr 2012 17:43:18 +0000

There are different ways to discuss Zionism, and in this context I think we should applaud the new blog, Open Zion, for representing one effort to have an open and frank discussion about the movement. But as Yoel Finkelman has noted, the problem at Open Zion is that in addition to tilting heavily to one [...]

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Reinvigorate the World Zionist Congress

Brent Sasley — Mon, 19 Mar 2012 15:42:34 +0000

There are similarities and differences between the state of Zionism today and the way it was in the first decades of its existence. But the underlying feature in both periods is that it was always a boisterous movement, with a plurality of ideas, and a discussion about and by Jews. Today’s cacophony of voices trying [...]

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