An interesting article in last week’s New York Jewish Week (that I can’t find on-line) explores why, with the peace process finally looking up, “mainline” Protestant groups have decided to start a campaign of divestment from companies doing business with Israel. The article concludes that the main reason is not hostility to Jews or even Israel per se, but hostility to the Christian right and to George W. Bush. The Christian right is friendly to Israel, as is President Bush. Operating on the theory that the friend of my enemy is my enemy, liberal Christian groups have decided that Israel is the enemy, and that going after Israel is a relatively painless (though, it strikes me, rather ineffective) way to stick it to evangelical Christians and conservative Republicans more generally. Moreover, there is, it seems to me, the implied threat that if traditionally liberal Jewish groups and voters continue to increasingly pursue detente with the right, the American Christian left will join the international left in opposition to Israel. I can’t be sure how big a role such considerations are playing in the divestment campaign, but I’m quite certain that I don’t recall such overt hostility to Israel from the Christian groups during the Clinton administration. As with the Harvard faculty vote against Larry Summers, this is evidence that the results of the 2004 elections have left many traditionally powerful folks on the left very frustrated, and looking for targets to lash out against.
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