That's the nugget in the entire well-written piece. The battle between the "Never Again" (Nationalists) and the "Teach Tolerance" (Universalists) is actually a battle about faith. Believers vs. Humanists. Visionaries vs. Blinders-On. They have opposing worldviews.
To so many Jewish liberals, Israel is coded with the dangerous message that Jews are no longer committed to the great humanitarian revolution and the dream of a better world. That they would rather claim a chunk of real estate and protect it, than join the workers and peasants of the world in the ranks of the social justice movements, that they would rather cling to a narrow identity than melt into a borderless brotherhood of man.
That was why Israel was controversial long before 1948. It was why everyone on the left from Lenin to H.G. Wells denounced the idea and denounced the Jews as selfish counterrevolutionary bastards for wanting such a thing. It is why it is still controversial today.
I didn't know that about H.G. Wells until I read this article!
>>I didn’t know that about H.G. Wells until I read this article!
Me too! It’s just a bit of trivia, I suppose, but of course Daniel knows all about it. :-). He must be research non-stop.