Israel’s problem is the settlements, not J Street (Carlos Strenger)

[Violet_Crumble]

It needs to be made clear that the choice is not between a safe Israel that occupies the territories and an unsafe Israel alongside a Palestinian state.

by Carlos Strenger

The Netanyahu government’s refusal to meet with the leadership of J Street during its visit this week reflects a deep and truly worrying process, in which Israel’s government and the Knesset are progressively locked into a deep bunker with no communication with the outside world. The assumption is that J Street creates a problem for Israel, and that if Israel delegitimizes J Street, the problem will go away.

But Israel’s problem is not J Street. The problem is that an ever greater proportion of U.S. Jews feel that they are forced to choose between their values and their involvement with Israel. Their identities are defined by the idea of universal human rights and the equality of all human beings beyond race, religion and gender.

Since Israel violates these ideals, and demands unconditional support for its policies, these Jews basically have two choices: Either they adhere to their ideals or support Israel. The result, as Peter Beinart has argued in a much quoted essay, is that many Jews of the younger generation simply disengage from Israel.

J Street tries to solve this problem by giving America’s liberal Jews another option: you can be engaged with Israel, and it can be central to your Jewish identity even as you criticize Israel’s actions. It doesn’t take rocket science to see the logic behind this; true friendship often involves voicing frank and direct criticism. Nobody would have said that those who criticized U.S. policy during the McCarthy era or human rights violations of the G.W. Bush administration delegitimize or hate the U.S.

http://www.haaretz.com/blogs/strenger-than-fiction/israel-s-problem-is-the-settlements-not-j-street-1.351831

[LeftishBrit]

1. Good article!

'The problem is that an ever greater proportion of U.S. Jews feel that they are forced to choose between their values and their involvement with Israel. Their identities are defined by the idea of universal human rights and the equality of all human beings beyond race, religion and gender.'

Yes, and that includes other Diaspora - and Israeli - Jews too. Frankly, if Israeli politicians were on a mission to alienate as many of their natural Diaspora supporters as possible, they would do exactly what they are doing now.

'Nobody would have said that those who criticized U.S. policy during the McCarthy era or human rights violations of the G.W. Bush administration delegitimize or hate the U.S.'

Now that is the one sentence that's incorrect - because sadly, that is exactly what people did say! In fact this was a key tenet of McCarthyism, and to some extent of Bushism ('whoever is not with us is against us'). And these very examples should be a cautionary tale to the Israelie Right.

[azurnoir]

2. true enough but they did not use the term 'delegitimize'

a word which my spell check constantly 'delegitimizes' as not being a word and a word that always makes me think more of the goings on during the rule of Henry the 8th

[shira]

3. The problem with J-Street is that they believe Israel is the reason there's no peace.

Great article here describing it...

http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2011/03/contra-jeffrey-goldberg-lozowick-is.html

I have gone to war for this country. Both of my sons have, too, as we raised them to. I have been in favor of a Palestinian state alongside Israel since the late 1970s. Just for context: back in those days Jeffrey may have been too young to have an informed opinion on the matter; Barak Obama almost certainly was, and for all I can tell, so was Jeremy Ben Ami, the boss of J Street. Also, the late 1970s were more than a decade before the PLO grudgingly began talking about the two-state solution; as late as 1989 their official and practical position was that Israel must be destroyed, preferably by the force of arms.

Also, I have been against the settlements for all those years, and am against them till this very day - though I know the large settlements that straddle the Green line will never be removed, and I'm strongly against the division of Jerusalem which will cause war, not peace. So far as I can tell, these are the positions of a large chunk, and probably a significant majority, of the Israeli electorate; contrary to what Jeffrey seems to think, no-one is shutting my mouth, banning me from saying what I think, or branding me a traitor for saying it. Nor do I need faraway outsiders such as J Street (or President Obama) to inform me what's good for Israel.

I am also a historian of Nazism, and a student of history. I know that words are dangerous things, since they are the tools with which we formulate ideas, and ideas are what motivate people to do things, and justify their actions for them. Persecution of Jews over many centuries was because of anti-Jewish words and the ideas expressed and disseminated in them. Call them a series of Big Lies about Jews. The freedom and equality enjoyed by America's (and these days, by Europe's) Jews are the result of words and ideas. Call them Rational Enlightenment. The war against Israel is also first and foremost because of words. Because of a new set of a Big Lie.

The Big Lie of our day has a number or versions. The Jews are not a nation and deserve no state. The Jews have no historical rights to the land they call Israel, and even if they do, they're anachronistic and cannot justify harming the Palestinians. The Palestinians have been in their homeland for time immemorial, and were pushed out by the Jews. The Jews continue to aspire to ever more control of the land, and to ever more oppression of the Palestinians. The Jews' way in war is uniquely evil and cruel. The Palestinians yearn for peace, but the Israelis refuse to allow it, because they haven't finished taking Palestinian land, or because they don't recognize the Palestinians as equally human. The Jews protect their nefarious projects through sinister control of power-brokers, most importantly the United States.

One of the odder parts of the story is of course that the most important propagators of this Big Lie are not only Jews, they're Israelis. No one persecutes them for their malice: we're not Islamists, not Arab dictators, not Argentinian generals or Bolshevik commissars or Gestapo or anything of the sort.

Do Jeremy Ben Ami and his J Streeters believe in the full set of lies? No. But remember, the Knesset member who lead the hearing against him last week, Otniel Shneller, is from Kadima, not Likud; moreover, he's a settler who openly espouses the dismantling of settlements - probably including his own - if that's the price for peace. What distinguishes him from Ben Ami, therefore, isn't the idea of partition and dismantling settlements; what distinguishes them is the idea that Israel is the reason there's no peace; that pressure must be brought to bear on Israel to force it out of Palestinian territories; and also, alas, Israeli willingness to use force to protect its interests.

In other words, what distinguishes Otniel Shneller from Jeremy Ben Ami is that Ben Ami and his organization agree with parts of the Big Lie about Israel, and promote it. If in response a significant segment of Israeli society wishes to ostracise him and his organization, this seems to me a moderate and measured response.

In his final sentence Jeffrey seems to be saying that there are many American Jews attracted to J Street's message. This may be true - I'm too far away to judge. If so, it's a serious problem - first and foremost, of those American Jews who prefer the Big Lie to the Jewish State.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

4. The problem with Zionists is that they don't admit that that's the case.

The irony is that most of the things you list as "big lies" are fairly close to the truth.

> The Jews are not a nation and deserve no state.

The Jews are a nation in some senses of the word, but not in the only sense that justifies a Jewish state - ie "the people of the land ruled over by that state"



> The Jews have no historical rights to the land they call Israel, and even if they do, they're anachronistic and cannot justify harming the Palestinians.

Is absolutely 100% true. Who lived where 2000 years ago is entirely irrelevant to land rights; what is relevant is whose parents and grandparents and greatgrandparents lived where in the past century or two (or who bought legitimately from people whose parents etc lived where on that time frame.)



>The Palestinians have been in their homeland for time immemorial, and were pushed out by the Jews.

They have been there for a lot longer than the Jews, and they most certainly were pushed out by the Jews.



> The Jews continue to aspire to ever more control of the land, and to ever more oppression of the Palestinians.

By no means all Jews; the majority of the Israeli electorate, however, do.



> The Jews' way in war is uniquely evil and cruel.

Nonsense.



> The Palestinians yearn for peace, but the Israelis refuse to allow it, because they haven't finished taking Palestinian land, or because they don't recognize the Palestinians as equally human.

Pretty much true.



> The Jews protect their nefarious projects through sinister control of power-brokers, most importantly the United States.

Not really true - the main Israeli influence in the US comes from far-right Christians. Israel certainly exploits that to protect nefarious projects - i.e. the settlements - though.

[oberliner]

5. The problem with people who think they know everything

is that they don't.

There is essentially no Democrat in Congress, in the cabinet, or in the White House who agrees with your assessment (i.e. that Israel is the reason there is no peace).

And this is ostensibly a board for people who are fighting/have fought to make certain those Democrats get there.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. Sadly, you're fairly close to right on that.

Although I note that given how unpopular condemning Israel would be in the US, the fact that Democrats refrain from doing so is not strong evidence as to their beliefs.

But yes, most Democrats are strongly anti-Palestinian.


Incidentally, you're - obviously - wrong if you think I know everything. I don't know the answers to most hard questions. But most questions about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are *not* that hard, it's just that many people don't like the obvious right answers.

[shira]

7. "Fairly close to the truth" half-truths and hyperbole are still lies....

These hateful big lies, like big lies throughout history that hurt Jews, should never be uttered by enlightened individuals - whether against Jews or Arabs.

Why is this so difficult to grasp?

[King_David]

9. Its irrellavent if you think 'The Jews are a nation in some senses of the word, but not in the only

`The Jews are a nation in some senses of the word, but not in the only sense that justifies a Jewish state'

The Jewish state is fact,it will never be undone.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

10. Yes, but it's not irrelevant that it's true. N.T.

[oberliner]

11. Bizarre that you think it is true

In spite of the fact that it is been repeatedly shown to be false in this forum and elsewhere.

There must be a word for someone who insists on clinging to erroneous information in the face of clear refutation.

[shira]

12. true believer syndrome. n/t

[shira]

8. Checked again: Still anti-J Street

A number of people, some quite thoughtful, disagreed with my position against J Street yesterday. Since I spent part of the day doing Pessach cleaning, I was able to listen to some of the sessions of the recent J Street conference. I heard Rabbi Saperstein, Jeremy Ben Ami, Peter Beinart, Bernard Avishai, Daniel Levy and Roger Cohen, and was also able to hear when the audience applauded for which statements.

Daniel Levy at one point made a statement about how if it were to be proven that the Arab world really isn't willing to live in peace alongside Israel "then Israel wasn't such a good idea, was it?" but then he went on to say that of course, the Arabs are willing. You'll pardon me if I don't feel compelled to regard Levy as a fellow Zionist in any form or way, even if he was once an aide to Yossie Beilin.

Apart from Levy, however, here's what I found.

These J Street speakers and guest speakers are more or less aligned with the positions of Meretz, perhaps a shade to its left. Meretz, of course, is a legitimate Zionist party, even though it has lost almost all its Israeli voters and hovers near extinction. Yet J Street isn't Meretz, it's something much more troubling, and worthy of our disdain.

First, Meretz positions sound different and more acceptable from Israelis. The reason the party has lost most of its voters is that we've empirically tested its proposals, and lots of people have died as a result - not once, but repeatedly, in 1993-6, in 2000 (twice, once in Lebanon and once with the Palestinians), in 2002, in 2005, and in 2006; arguably also in 2008. Having its basic assumptions serially disproved has discredited Meretz, but if after all that some Israelis still wish to hang on, that's their right; the rest of us don't take them seriously, and that's our right. It's actually surprising how very little animosity Meretz generates these days, especially when compared to their heyday. They're an oddity, and one doesn't get aggravated about oddities; one pities them, or suffers them for the color they add.

The J Street people seem not to have noticed any of this, which is either very peculiar or very disturbing. If they've simply not been watching, what gives them the right to have an opinion about life and death matters they can't make the effort to understand? If they've been watching and refuse to accept what is there to be seen, how exactly do they portray themselves as being on our side?

Second, there's a consistent tone of disdain of Israeli society coming from these people which I find arrogant and very distasteful. Americans left and right have lost their civility in political discourse; Israelis, admittedly, never had it. Yet there are codes in language, deeper than mere words, and the subtext of these J Street spokesmen when discussing Jews from Russia, religious Jews and centrist Jews, is ugly. I find no other word for it. Just as their compassion for Israel's Arabs (the citizens) is odd. There's a level of identification with them which is totally lacking when they talk about the majority of the Israeli Jews. I say this as someone who wishes only the best for Israel's Arabs.


more...
http://yaacovlozowick.blogspot.com/2011/03/checked-again-still-anti-j-street.html