Here’s a fun job to have. Hannah Rosenthal, former head of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, started this week as the State Department’s Special Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism. Oh joy.
Tablet Magazine asks her to respond to critics (and note how many times she has to say she loves Israel, just to keep everybody happy):
My entire adulthood has seen the same thing over and over and over. I love Israel. I have lived in Israel. I go back and visit every chance I can. I consider it part of my heart. And because I love it so much, I want to see it safe and secure and free and democratic and living safely, where children don’t have to learn where every bomb shelter is. That’s my vision of what the future is, and if we keep the current policies and the current strategies that will not happen.
I don’t think questioning any policy, foreign or domestic, makes somebody an anti-Semite or an anti-anything. It makes them someone who wants a thoughtful discussion. I think J Street needs to be at the table, and I think other organizations representing many strategies all need to be at the table, because the status quo in the Middle East is totally unacceptable. And the people who are doing name-calling, and apparently taking me on—I have made a point of not reading them. My sister said I would need a bodyguard. I said it’s just the blogosphere.