Weiss and Fleshler on J-Street

I have been following with interest the exchange between Phil Weiss and Dan Fleshler on J-Street, the alternative Jewish lobby. Phil has been disappointed, though hardly surprised, by some of J-Street's positions, just as he has been disappointed, though hardly surprised, by some of Obama's statements on Israel. Phil's fate in life is to be disappointed, though hardly surprised. We are in the same club, here. From the moment I jumped on the Obama bandwagon, I had zero expectations from him on Israel-Palestine. True, the news that Rob Malley and Dan Kurtzer, were involved with Obama's policy team, was encouraging. But how far can Obama go, when he accepts, fundamentlly, the Israeli-Zionist narrative – a narrative that has been accepted by every president since Truman and Kennedy? Will J-Street go past the Zionist consensus and reach-out to Jews who are disaffected with political Zionism? Hardly.

Fleshler says that Weiss is wrong on J-Street, but Weiss didn't say he was opposed to J-Street, only that he thought that its positions weren't that far from those of AIPAC. I think he's right, but I don't mind building coalitions with the Zionist Left over such no-brainers as freezing settlements. Neither does he. And it doesn't hurt to have people to the left of J-Street pushing it a bit on the issues, just as it doesn't hurt to have people to the left of Obama pushing him a bit on the issues.

Don't get me wrong. I deeply admire anybody who spends a lot of time trying to get Israel-Palestine out of the mess it is in – if they are effective. But it seems to me that the successes of the liberal Zionists have been miminal, especially during and after the breakdown of Oslo, and they have been slow at drawing lessons from the failure of Oslo – repeating the mantra of peace will not get you very far. On engaging with the democratically-elected Hamas parliament they have been lukewarm at best. Still, the spread of liberal Zionism a la Peace Now and Brit Tzedek ve-Shalom may help provide political cover for nervous politicians (J-Street's goal) and prepare the ground for people to begin to rethink the conventional wisdom of liberal Zionism. But as long as the discourse in America is almost exclusively Zionistic, there is little hope for an even-handed approach to Israel-Palestine. Will J-Street join with AIPAC in opposing politicians like Jim Moran?

There is another important role for progressive Zionist groups, and that is to support the efforts of the human rights NGO's in Israel/Palestine. The emergence of the discourse of human rights, and international humanitarian law, is one of the most encouraging developments in sixty years of the Jewish state. (The emergence of effective spokespeople for the Palestinians is another hopeful sign.) When Dror Etkes left Peace Now's Settlement Watch for Yesh Din, the message he was sending was that there are immediate problems of human rights violation that need to be addressed and publicized. To my knowledge, the American progressive Zionists have been, on the whole, very supportive of the NGOs, from the New Israel Fund, to the smaller groups. Not all – it seems to be that Jeff Halper's Israel Committee Against House Demolitions is still outside of the Zionist consensus, but maybe I am wrong here. If Progressive Zionists join Palestinians and non-Jews in supporting the NGO's then dayyenu – it will be sufficient for us.

 

 

 

Are There Any Grounds For Optimism?

Phil Weiss wrote some amusing posts about the CAMERA conference ("Israel's Jewish Defamers"!) in New York City, which he actually plunked down $40 to attend. According to his report, the atmosphere was heavy with the sort of pessimism that one associates with the Jewish neocons, who believe that Israel, that "tiny beacon of western democracy," cannot survive for long in a hostile desert of Arab Islamofascists plotting the next Holocaust, with the help of their unwitting dupes, the self-hating liberal Jews, and the leftwing antisemites, a.k.a, the anti-Zionists.

Phil was heartened by the fact that the average age of the attendees was around 62. In fact, he was so encouraged that he writes, "The CAMERA people are losing and they know it." In my own mean-spirited review of Ruth Wisse's book (which I also posted on the Amazon website) I wrote:

Wisse should ask why no Israelis are writing Hebrew versions of "Jews and Power," and why there is no public in the Jewish state for such books. Or why nobody in Israel under the age of sixty writes the history of the Israel-Palestinian conflict the way she does, unless associated with Shalem Center or Bar Ilan.

So my question here is: is this indeed a generation thing? Are we looking at a generation of American and Canadian Jewish intellectuals, who, picked on when they were brainy little Jewish kids in their public school in the forties and fifties, not cool because they were Jewish, with lingering guilt over their inability to connect unselfconsciously to their Judaism, as had their parent's generation, bought into the Zionist mythology, appropriated Black victimology, and used their often considerable talents of writing, to fight back against the antisemites and the self-hating Jewish liberals --only to find themselves embraced by Christian evangelicals, shunned by respectable intellectuals, banished to a Commentary ghetto, and belittled by the Israeli establishment?

Has the danger passed?

Part of me says yes. Part of me says that there is just no continuation of the Podhoretz-Ozick-Wisse-Foxman-Klein-Levin generation. Even the rightwingers coming up in the ranks (I see them at ZOA meetings at Hillel) cannot use the same slogans and cling to the same myths as the older group. Ruth Wisse can barely use the term "Palestinian". This indeed is a generational thing.

But let's not be too happy too soon. I fratelli Hazony, David and Yoram, Michael Oren, and a whole bunch of AIPAC youngsters, are still there. The profile has changed -- most of the rightwingers are now products of modern orthodox day schools -- and the talk is now less of "Arabs" than of "radical Islam". There is less idealization of Israel, but just as much demonization of the Arabs (though not of the Palestinians, who are considered whiners and schlemiels, terrorists who can't bomb straight.) More Jewish rightwingers are studying Arabic, and Middle East Studies after 9/11 -- and they are not doing it out of a desire to learn the history of Islam, either They are doing it because of the influence of Lewis, Pipes, Oren, et al., the "Clash-of-Civilization" thang, and the desire to protect the interests of Israel, the US, and the Republican party (no need to assign priority; they are all the same interests)

But why stop there? As readers of this blog know, I am not much happier about the "leftwing" of the Israel lobby, neither the think-tanks like the Brookings Institutions' Saban Center for Middle East Policy and the Washington Institute for Near East Policy, nor the liberal columnists like Tom Friedman and Richard Cohen, nor Democrats like Hilary Clinton (who was recently, and not surprisingly, endorsed by Charles Krauthammer as the "least objectionable of the Democratic candidates", or words to that effect). In short, one generation comes, the other generation goes --to paraphrase Yizhak Shamir -- it is the same sea and the same Jews.

Yes, Walt and Mearsheimer's book is a best-seller, but so is Podhoretz's book (I forget the title -- something like, "How To Start A World War By Bombing Iran," if I am not mistaken) -- and this, even after the ongoing debacle in Iraq, for which Podheretz and Co. should take some responsibility.

I would like to think that things are changing, but I see no light at the end of the tunnel, except for...

Except for the resistance to the Occupation going on in Israel, and supported by people of good will everywhere.

Except for the Human Rights organizations that are recording the daily violations of Palestinian life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness.

Except for the Israelis and Palestinians, and their supporters, who fight injustice within Israel and the Occupied Territories.

Except for the Palestinians, the children and grandchildren of the Nakbah survivors, who are able, despite all odds, to become lawyers, doctors, engineers, film-makers, and then to become articulate spokespeople for their people. And we will be seeing more of them.

Except for the Palestinians who will not leave their land, who cling to it, and who continue to embrace its life. And except for the Israelis, who, willy-nilly, will have to learn to live with the inhabitants of the land and their descendants. Perhaps it will take generations, but the time will come. If Iron Curtains can fall, then so can Iron Walls.

And, finally, except for those Jews who have resisted the temptation to become nationalist Zealots, who do not hold up Simeon and Levi as role-models, who do not forget that according to traditional Judaism, "pride" is a sin and "Jewish pride" an oxymoron.