Undemonizing Endeks on Partial Expulsion of Jews Finkelstein

Knowing Too Much: Why the American Jewish Romance with Israel Is Coming to an End, by Norman G. Finkelstein. 2012

Most Israeli Jews Want Israeli Arabs Expelled, Just as Pre-WWII Endeks Wanted Poland’s Jews (Partly) Expelled

This book is primarily about certain Jews’ objections to the conduct of the State of Israel. I instead focus on deeper issues.

LIKE POLES LIKE ISRAEL JEWS: WANTING A MINORITY GROUP TO LEAVE ONE’S NATION

Author Norman G. Finkelstein points out that most Israelis, if forced to make a choice, would prefer to live next to a mentally ill person than an Arab. In addition, in the last twenty years, 50%-70% of Israeli Jews have supported the use of State inducements to rid the Jewish state of its Palestinian inhabitants. (p. 14). This parallels the attitudes of many Poles to the huge Jewish population in pre-WWII Poland.

THE QUESTION OF SOCIAL JUSTICE

On another issue, Finkelstein focuses negative attention on the large income disparity between wealthy and poor Israeli Jews. (p. 9, 357). In doing so, he follows the liberal view that income disparity, by itself, constitutes inequality, and that it is the government’s job to engage in income redistribution in order to remedy it. How does one define “the poor?” In addition, consider the fact that very-successful people the world over are disproportionately Jewish. Why is it surprising that the gap between very-successful and less-successful Jews is perhaps larger than that between their respective counterparts in other nationalities?