Gloria Greenfield's Speech

This is the video that I took of Gloria Greenfield (aka one of the producers of the movie version of The Case for Israel) and her remarks after the movie was screened. If you want to hear my thoughts on her remarks, click the link below. Sorry about the poor sound, I was sitting pretty far away, and it cuts out suddenly because it could only be ten minutes in length.






What struck me about Ms. Greenfield's comments straight up were that she seemed to be scare-mongering a little bit. It's true, there is anti-Israel activity around the world as well as in the US, but in my personal experience it is still relegated to the extremes of society and there is no immediately threat of it spreading further. I personally think that this is something that American Jews should be aware of and working to prevent, but scaring them into doing so isn't the right way to do it.

You may have seen it in the speech, but she characterized Israel's enemies as "Jew haters" and "Israel haters." Though I prefer to use the term "anti-Zionist" for the most extreme of Israel's critics on this blog, I didn't personally like her use of this kind of black-and-white thinking. College students who participate in "Israel Apartheid Week" might be anti-Semites, but they also might be misguided, misinformed, or simply doing what is fashionable. They can still be saved, in other words.

More importantly, labeling everyone who disagrees with them is something that Israel's enemies do, not Israel's friends. I don't want to see American Jews taking on that "you're with us or you're against us," kind of mentality. It has always been the significant strength of the Zionist, in my opinion, that we are open to compromise and hearing the other side's point of view. I'm sure if I called Ms. Greenfield out on this, she would say that she was only talking about extreme critics of Israel, but just from the nature of her speech, it sounded that way to me.

I will say this: Thank goodness for Ms. Greenfield and those people like her. They do innumerably valuable work. I may disagree with on some things, but that is just because I want to combat the threats to Israel and the Jews most effectively.