There is a distinct point of disagreement between the Elder of Ziyon and Vic Rosenthal of Abu Yehuda that seems worthy of discussion.
I follow both of these writers for the obvious reason that both write for the EoZ, as do I.
Rosenthal has a piece from Monday, July 4, entitled, "How to talk to Jews about Israel."
In reference to the overall pro-Israel discussion, Rosenthal writes:
Quite a few years ago, I went to a meeting in San Francisco about Israel advocacy, sponsored by the ADL (when the ADL was still interested in Israel advocacy). One of the speakers suggested a form of triage: there are those that are strongly against us, those that are strongly with us and those that haven’t decided. Talk to the ones that are undecided, he said. {My emphases - ML.}Four points.
There are:
1) Those that are strongly against us.
2) Those that are strongly with us.
3) Those who haven't decided.
Conclusion:
4) Talk to the ones who haven't decided.
This is precisely what the Elder and Michael Burd of J-AIR's Nothing Left radio broadcast concluded if you click through onto about the 22 minute mark.
However, in his recent piece Rosenthal believes that he was mistaken to try to convince the "undecideds."
He writes:
My personal approaches were, if anything, more frustrating. People were polite, but noncommittal. As time went on, I realized that they weren’t uninterested; rather, they sensed that my position wasn’t shared by many Democratic politicians, NPR and the New York Times. They suspected that I was influenced by Republican ideas or even becoming a Republican myself. I realized, in 1960s slang, that they were shining me on.
Anything I said was tainted and could be ignored."Shining me on"?
That's a phrase that was not used when I was coming up, but the point is well-taken.
Rosenthal directly contradicts the Elder and Michael Burd because believes that few such creatures known as the "undecided" exist via the conflict.
It soon became clear that there weren’t very many ‘undecideds’. There were those that were pro-Israel, those that were against us, and those that would not listen because being pro-Israel was out of their political comfort zone.Therefore, Rosenthal concludes that pro-Israel / pro-Jewish advocates should de-emphasize - at least somewhat - the Jewish tendency to reason with unreasonable people.
He writes:
The best thing that pro-Israel American Jews can do is to exemplify Jewish pride, self-respect and self-reliance (like the Jewish state itself). Trying to be ‘Americans of the Mosaic persuasion’ is not a good strategy, as Jewish students are discovering. They should act like Jews, representatives of the people whose roots are in ancient Judea.So, the question is, do we as pro-Israel / pro-Jewish advocates seek to convince the "undecideds" or do we stiffen our spines and exemplify Jewish pride?
Or is that a false dichotomy?
Thesis > Anti-Thesis > Synthesis.
I say we do both.
