Dueling Loyalties?
by Theodore Samets
Among the many back-and-forths between current American, Israeli, and Palestinian leaders is the demand that Palestinians recognize Israel not only as a nation but specifically as a “Jewish state.”
Yesterday on Time’s Global Spin blog, Tony Karon, a Jewish but notoriously anti-Israel commentator, asks: “Is Israel the ‘National Home of the Jewish People?’”
Karon uses a heated debate to try and draw distant conclusions. One can certainly make the argument that Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu’s demand, supported by President Obama, that Mahmoud Abbas accept Israel as a Jewish state, is unnecessary. Some commentators have gone even farther and attempted to point out flaws in this goal.
Yet this is not what Karon is asking in Time. Instead, he’s challenging the basis for Zionism altogether, and making statements that, were he not Jewish, some might label as...
