And just who does Rabbi Eric Yoffie think he is to decide who may or may not speak up for Israel?

I deeply regret that I didn't think up the headline of Richard Baehr’s article on the conservative website American Thinker--"Rabbi Yoffie Excommunicates Pastor Hagee." Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism, thinks that Evangelical Christians’ support is bad for Israel.  He thinks Pastor Hagee and similar enthusiasts for Israel should be ostracized by Jews in Israel and the United States:  Jews should neither attend Hagee’s events in support of Israel, nor invite Evangelicals like Hagee to demonstrate their support of Israel.
Yoffie wants Hagee out of debates regarding Israel’s future because Hagee is likely to be an effective and committed advocate of views that Yoffie doesn’t like.

Yoffie’s attitude is insufferable on at least two levels.  First of all, because of its blatant bias.  It’s not as if Yoffie thinks that Pastor Hagee is actually out to harm Jews or Israel.  No, he wants Hagee out of debates regarding Israel’s future because Hagee is likely to be an effective and committed advocate of views that Yoffie doesn’t like.  For Hagee believes that Israel should be the state of the Jews and that the Jews should control Eretz Yisrael.  Such views do not jive with the “two-state solution” that Yoffie prefers.  Yoffie would like to pretend that his views represent a consensus, but rather than argue for them he prefers to leave challenging interlocutors like Hagee out of the debating hall, in the cold.  Yoffie’s position is  intellectually dishonest. 

Now I happen to agree with the elements of Pastor Hagee’s positions cited above.  To be consistent, Yoffie has to regard me and people like me as a threat to Israel’s well-being.  If people’s views are what disqualify them from participation in the debate, then it cannot matter that I am Jewish, live in Israel, have Israeli citizenship, have sons that do reserve duty, and vote.  I’m as big a threat to Israel as Pastor Hagee is, and in Yoffie’s world view Israel would be better off if I were to just disappear.  Perhaps I’m fortunate that Yoffie lives in New Jersey and is not Prime Minister of Israel or head of its secret service. 

Which brings us to the second level on which Yoffie’s position is outrageous:  Who does he think he is anyway?

Long ago, American Jews used to debate whether they had a right to speak out on Israeli foreign policy.  After all, the argument went, American Jews were there, in the goldeneh medineh, and not here in Israel.  It wasn’t their lives and sons at stake.  Such decisions were best left for Israeli Jews to settle at the ballot box. 

That sentiment is long gone.  Partisans of unilateral retreat and pursuers of the will-o-the-wisp of a democratic
In our debates in Israel Yoffie is an outsider. He participates in our debates on sufferance. The last thing he should assume is that he has the right to decide whom to let into our debating hall.
Palestine have no problem lecturing Israelis ad nauseam, and using their influence to induce the American government to pressure Israel to act in ways most Israelis now think is against their country's best interests. 

Now in fact, I think American Jews have the right to talk about whatever they want.  It’s a free country.  Yoffie has solid Zionist credentials, having done much to legitimize Zionism among American reform Jews as head of the Association of Reform Zionists of America.  Nonetheless, if anyone has a right at this late date to pass on the propriety of participation, even as a kibitzer, in Israel’s critical debates, it’s me, a Jew in Israel, and not Eric Yoffie of New Jersey.

Yoffie seems to think that because he was born Jewish he was also born with a right Pastor Hagee doesn’t share, the right to nag me about my illiberality, inhumanity and violations of human rights.  Well, Yoffie's wrong.  A Zionist Yoffie may be, but in our debates in Israel he is an outsider. He doesn’t live here and nothing really vital to him is at stake.  He participates in our debates on sufferance.  The last thing Yoffie should assume is that he has the right to decide whom to let into our debating hall.

So why am I willing to tolerate Yoffie's presence in the debate?  First of all, because even though I am (apparently) a benighted warmonger whose opinions harm Israel, I am a more genuine liberal than Eric Yoffie.  I don’t seek to exclude people from debates simply because they disagree with me.

And second of all, because there are other Israeli Jews who want Yoffie in on the debate.  I have bitter
Pastor Hagee and Christian supporters of Israel are going to remain in the debate because I say so. I want them in the debating hall. Together with Amos Oz and Ehud Olmert, I own the hall. And I am going to seat Pastor Hagee in the first row.
disagreements with these Jews.  I think they are running the country to ruin.  I think they violated the rights of their fellow citizens during disengagement, thereby compromising the legitimacy of the Israeli state.  But they are here, their sons serve, they vote, and I owe them the courtesy of listening to Eric Yoffie.

And that is why Pastor Hagee and Christian supporters of Israel are going to remain in the debate, whether Eric Yoffie likes it or not:  because I say so.  I think Evangelical Christians' views on Israeli foreign policy are right where Yoffie’s are wrong, I think these Christians' Zionism is worthy of respect, that they have valuable contributions to make to Israel’s survival both in Washington and Jerusalem, and I want them in the debating hall.  Together with Amos Oz and Ehud Olmert, I own the hall.  And I am going to seat Pastor Hagee in the first row.  Shift over a seat, Yoffie, and let the man sit down.