Naomi Ragen is a prominent American-Israeli writer and playwright about to visit Melbourne for the writer’s festival. She is a typical, radical Zionist who believes that “terrorists” should be killed by the Jewish state. “We need to kill these people”, she told the Sydney Morning Herald today.
Her message of peace? No withdrawals from occupied, Palestinian territory, no prisoner swaps with the Arabs and presumably more settlements in the West Bank. In other words, the same, failed policies that Israel has pursued for its entire existence and achieved a status as one of the most loathed nations on earth. Quite an achievement in only 60 years.
Then, this paragraph is included in today’s lead article:
While never quite confessing to a desire for a debate with Antony Loewenstein, the co-founder of Independent Australian Jewish Voices and author of the polemical My Israel Question, she seems, despite herself, to regret the lost opportunity. “Bring it on. Those kind of people are easy. They say one lie after another. He’s a typical self-hating, ignorant Jew.”
I’ve never met Ragen nor communicated with her. Why my position on the Middle East is included is anybody’s guess, but her response is highly instructive. Zionists have used these smear tactics for decades, damning people, especially Jews, who dare challenge the Israeli state and its occupation policies. And who ends up looking profoundly insecure in the process?
Tragically, the mainstream Jewish Diaspora regards a person like Ragen as an intellectual and voice of reason. It’s an indication of how deluded the Jewish community has become that a woman who openly opposes ending the occupation and demonising the Arab population is admired. They truly have no idea how the wider community views such people. It’s the kind of militant Zionism that supports the Iraq war, bombing Iran, re-invading Gaza and never leaving the West Bank; a Zionism that is killing the Jewish state.
Yet further evidence of Zionist cluelessness.