Dear Rabbi Shmuly Yanklowitz,
You criticize Israel for "...the treatment of Palestinians, the plans to deport thousands of African refugees..." and lament that these are the reasons "we are rapidly losing young American Jews to the allure of anti-Zionist movements on college campuses."
African migrants are no more than opportunist illegals. How dare you reside in your lily-white American neighborhood and dictate to Israel how to deal with these infiltrators who are preying on the local population of Tel Aviv, endangering the streets, committing violent crimes and defacing long standing synagogues and Jewish Houses of Study. Interesting that all those criticizing Israel's attempts to deport these undesirables are people who reside in elitist areas while those begging for the deportations are locals who endure daily suffering from this unwanted population.
How dare you blame Israel for the victimization of Jewish students on the American college campuses, the anti Zionist sentiments on the campuses and the movement for BDS! It is not Zionism that is at fault. It is the success of years of well funded, well orchestrated anti Jewish and anti Zionist propaganda. Where has the American community been? Where is Bnai Brit and their ADL? Simon Wiesenthal? American Jewish Committee? American Jewish Congress? Where are all the multiple Jewish organizations that compete with one another and raise billions of US? Kindly point your blaming finger at yourself and your colleagues and your so called Jewish infrastructure. And I would also include the closed Orthodox organizations of OU and National Council of Young Israel among others, of shirking their responsibilities to make their views known and heard on campuses across the US.
The Israeli people and the members of the Israeli military are among the most compassionate, generous, giving, considerate people on the face of this earth and how much more so, the Zionist Orthodox among them. They are not a light unto the nations, they are a veritable LED globe. Treating enemy citizens and their children in hospitals, sending out emergency rescue crews to countries in need, shipping portable, well staffed hospitals to countries experiencing disasters, and so many, many more examples.
The rabbi's article contains so many false assertions, self serving to a new age writer embracing "isms;" multiculturalism, feminism, etc. It would demand too much time wasted answering the positions individually, save one. How dare you make reference to our treatment of Palestinians! Israel has for the most part done everything possible to reach out to Palestinians but they would rather terrorize us and collect martyr money than cooperate with us, create an infrastructure and a prospering economy.
To sum it up, Rabbi Shmuly, you are no different than the German Jews who blamed the Oust Juden for Hitler's anti-Semitism. You are uncomfortable with the anti Semitic and anti Zionist accusations you are experiencing in the diaspora and you are blaming Israel for your discomfort. If only Israel behaved better, was more moral, more ethical, more whatever so that the GOYIM don't point at me Shmuly and complain.
Sorry. It is not Israel's responsibility to relieve you of your discomfort but you can escape it. Pack your bag, get on a plane, come here to live.