David Mamet is a remarkable playwright. You may know him from his award- winning Broadway shows: Glengarry Glen Ross and Speed the Plough. His films include House of Games, Things Change, About Last Night and Homicide. Perhaps you have seen his work as a director of TV’s long running drama series, Hill Street Blues. His recent book, The Wicked Son, named after the classic character from the Haggadah, is a thoughtful, thought-provoking and provocative indictment of antisemites, including self-hating Jews whose current manifestation of that pathology includes the increasingly popular anger and hostility toward the state of Israel.

Mamet reserves some of his most scathing criticism toward Jews who find more satisfaction in the causes and identities of other peoples, any but their own. In the past it was those Jews who rallied for Black Power in the 60’s, but found little time to help free Soviet Jewry. Today those who (even inadvertently) provide sympathy and support for groups like Hamas and Hezbollah and other anti-Israel voices are the most shameful of all. Mamet challenges: Why can’t these Jews find meaning in their own identity and people? Is it so difficult to try to see things through Jewish eyes and see the merits and morality of Israel, the people and the modern state?

Disagreement with some of the actions of the state of Israel should never automatically be labeled as antisemitism. In the 1970’s a very popular organization called Breira, (the Hebrew word for choice) attracted support from significant numbers of the American Jewish community, including me. Breira offered constructive criticism of the state of Israel, but always within the context of love for Israel and a deep commitment to its existence and success.

But things have changed. That was a time when there was much more reason to believe that peace was not only possible but more imminent. That was a time when talks with Egypt and Jordan eventually led to treaties that brought a relative peace or at the least a lowering of hostilities to those borders. That was a time when people actually believed that Yasser Arafat was interested in and capable of creating a Palestinian homeland for Arabs.

For many, it appears that too many in the Arab world seem to be more interested in destroying any semblance of Jewish presence in that part of the world than in establishing a state for the Palestinians, which we know could have happened many times since 1948. Advocates of peace in the Middle East have had our hearts broken so many times over these decades, that it is increasingly difficult to remain very optimistic. In spite of all that, Israel continues to search for peace and we must encourage it at every opportunity without being dangerously naïve.

Today much of the world uses a double standard, one for Israel and another for the Arabs. The world expects Israel to live up to higher expectations because it is a Jewish state. But remember that the world in generations past expected the Jews to live down to their image of a wandering suffering people so that the world could look the other way as we continued to wander and suffer.

The Israelis are hardly given credit for the many compromises and sacrifices it has already made in order to invite a peace partner to the table. People have excused the Palestinians by arguing that they are not capable of choosing leadership that has their best interests at heart. Making no moral claims on the Arabs is a kind of reverse racism. While we continue to assume that many Palestinians would also seek peace and agree to live alongside a Jewish state, the majority of Palestinians on the West Bank and Gaza voted in their open elections for Hamas, a group clearly committed to the destruction of the Jewish state. There are consequences to such decisions.

It is a mitzvah for Jews to be compassionate toward those who suffer and we should always try to see "the other side". And as Jews we have the right and responsibility to criticize our brothers and sisters in Israel when we think they are doing wrong, but we need to do so with an accompanying demonstrated commitment to the survival and health of the Jewish State. Jews need to find constructive and safe ways to offer criticism when need be. At the same time we need to be careful not to identify too closely with those who do not include in their criticism an understanding of the situation from the Israelis’ point of view, including former President Carter who frequently misappropriates the truth in his recently published book.

We are Jews who should always try to see things through the eyes of other peoples, and we do this so well. Jews have been part of almost every activist movement, especially when freedom and survival have been involved. Mamet reminds us that we have our own cause and identity and it is incumbent upon us to try to see things through the eyes of Israel, as well. The current controversial issues such as the separation fence and the "settlements" have very good explanations from the Israeli political perspective. The way we see those issues often depends on what we are inclined to see. When people criticize the siege mentality that is sometimes detected in Israel’s actions, why is it so difficult to perceive that Israel is besieged? The Hezbollah war across the Lebanese border last summer is the most recent example.

The world stood by when Hitler conducted his attempted annihilation of the Jews. Ahmadinejab, the leader of Iran, has made the destruction of millions of Jews living in the Jewish homeland his avowed goal. A significant and powerful part of the Palestinians in the West Bank and Gaza cheered Saddam Hussein when he reigned down scud missiles upon Israel during the Gulf War and are now mourning his recent execution. It is no secret who their new hero is.

We need to see our brothers and sisters in Israel as our heroes. We need to do all we can to support them. We need to visit Israel and see for ourselves. We need to support their economy, which is so drained by their defense budget. Some Jews might unconsciously want to avoid being associated with Israel because of all the criticism and hatred it is subjected to. But I like to picture Jewish self haters as those pitiful so-called Rabbis who joined the Holocaust Myth Conference in Teheran, Iran last month. David Mamet exposes the ones who look like you and me.