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by Peter A. Belmont / 2010-02-05
© 2010 Peter Belmont
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J-Street set itself up as an alternative political movement for Jews (and others) who love Israel and who hope for peace by a “two-state solution”. It purports to be different from AIPAC and in its tone and membership it manifests this difference.
It might be supposed that it is a goal of J-Street to seek to help the US advance beyond the timid steps that US presidents have so far taken in the service of peace.
If this last is actually a goal of J-Street, then it is a distant goal, a deferred goal. At this writing, J-Street fails to advance peace. By failing, it fails the US, fails Israel (or at least fails those Israelis who would welcome peace ushered in by the US), fails its membership, and certainly fails those US Jews who hunger for peace and are tired of the stranglehold that AIPAC and other pro-Israel organizations have put on real motion by the US toward Israeli/Palestinian peace.
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This essay complains about J-Street. Perhaps it may be well, therefore, to mention what J-Street has achieved.
J-Street has made it possible in the US political system to differ from AIPAC and the rest of The Lobby without appearing anti-Semitic. It has made it legitimate to call for Israeli/Palestinian peace as if one really means it without seeming self-hating (if a Jew) or anti-Semitic (if not). It has permitted Jews (and others) who long for a just and lasting peace to discover that they are not alone and even to meet together in lively discussion (the October 2009 J-Street Conference in Washington, DC). It has created a focal point around which Jews (and others) who are unsatisfied with US foreign policy (as to Israel and Palestine) may gather and meet like-minded people.
All this is valuable.
It has not, however, come to grips with the stubborn and unpleasant fact that US presidents need more than kind words of support—they need expressions of “permission” and they need “pressure” to move beyond what they have already done (that is, nearly nothing) to actions which have any hope of changing the political landscape for Israel sufficiently to make Israel realize that peace is preferable to the apartheid-style, undemocratic one-state-solution which has been in place for 20 years and bids fair to last until the cows come home.
My complaint about J-Street is that J-Street has not demanded the sort of US pressure on Israel which alone might create the change that J-Streeters undoubtedly desire. Mere talk will not get the job done. Loving Israel will not get the job done. Handwringing will not get the job done. No combination of these things will get the job done.
To be fair, let me admit that J-Street may have a strategy for real and effective political action which demands delay—perhaps until J-Street’s numbers are greater. I explain my urgent disappointment by mentioning that I have been writing about Israel and Palestine since 1980 and want to see real change in my lifetime.
Also everyone is saying—and perhaps even believing—that the time is short for achievement of a satisfactory “two-state solution”. If time is in fact short, then J-Street must not wait. It must act.
I have my own prescription for what the US should do to advance Palestinian human rights whilst nudging Israel toward peace-making. Jeremy Ben-Ami may not like this idea. But to be effective he must espouse some idea, not no idea.
J-Street has hardly been silent. Among many other things, it has said, quite clearly, that it loves Israel, desires peace, favors a “two-state solution”, and, oh yes, believes that Israel’s settlements are obstacles to peace.
It has not recommended any concrete action to US politicians to take for the purpose of advancing its own vision of a desirable peace. It has not sought to “pressure” the US president. It has not asked the US president to “pressure” Israel.
If J-Street is to be any more than what it is now—a vanity operation for Jeremy Ben-Ami, its founder and sole political arbiter, and a feel-good organization for those who associate themselves with it and think that they have therefore positioned themselves to advance peace—it may not have to become democratic or respond to the desires of its members, but it will have to adopt positions ahead of those normally taken by US presidents. It’s purpose must be to move US presidents forward, not to encourage them to stay stuck in the AIPAC do-nothing mud.
US presidents have for years advanced the idea that Israel’s settlements are “obstacles” and “impediments” to peace, a correct notion, and a notion which evidently passes the test imposed by AIPAC for acceptable political expression by important Americans.
The mere expression of this idea without more has not, however, had any practical effect. Israel has not said, “Oh my goodness, settlements are obstacles to peace, who’d have imagined—we’d better roll them back.” On the contrary, Israel will not even freeze new construction much less roll the settlements back.
American presidents have not felt sufficiently free of AIPAC’s power to take the obvious next step and call for the removal of all (or, for that matter, even of some) of Israel’s settlements. And this is so even though all international law experts agree that the settlements (and the settlers who live in them) are present within occupied territories illegally. Let there be no mistake, Virginia, all 500,000 settlers are present illegally.
OK. Saying that settlements are “obstacles to peace” has gotten the US (and Israel) nowhere along the path, if there is in fact a path, to peace. How does J-Street respond?
Does J-Street take the obvious step of saying that the settlements (and settlers) do not contribute to Israel’s security and are, on top of that, illegal, and moreover do not contribute to the US national interest in any discernible way, so they should be removed, and J-Street says so and tells the US president and other politicians that progressive Jews, who love Israel but desire peace, do not love the settlements and do call on the US to demand that Israel remove the settlers?
No. It does nothing of the sort. J-Street does not help the US president to do anything which AIPAC has not already allowed the US president to do. J-Street has not sought to advance peace.
What, then, has J-street done?
As far as I can see, it has created another “brand” of AIPAC, like a second brand of toothpaste with a slightly different flavor from a first brand made and sold by the same manufacturer, to syphon off a new set of consumers (here progressive Jews who love Israel but desire peace) from the AIPAC “brand” without, however offering them a new politics (or a new toothpaste) or any progress whatever toward peace. A “distinction without a difference”, as lawyers say.
I predict that those Jews who “join” J-Street will quickly tire of the non-democratic and non-responsive leadership, which manages J-Street’s politics with a fine autocratic hand, and try to find or to found another political group which will seek ways to be democratic within itself and to actually promote change toward peace in the US political realm by “giving permission to” (and demanding that) US politicians take steps that go well beyond those which AIPAC and the rest of The Lobby have so far allowed.
Jeremy Ben-Ami says “And I’ve learned one clear lesson—in our democracy, there can’t be real change unless the people in power really believe that the grassroots is behind them. We truly are a representative democracy, and our elected officials know that as fast as they are swept into office, they can be voted back out.”
I think he misunderstands. As to peace between Israel and Palestine, the US is in a long-term holding pattern, a period of absolute inactivity in real terms. For J-Street to be “behind” “the people in power” is, in effect, to support what AIPAC has achieved. Absolute stasis. Passive inactivity. Occasional well-publicized handwringing.
FDR is supposed to have said once to a lobbyist, “OK, you’ve convinced me. Now pressure me.” Makes sense. We will not see a change from the long-term American inactivity unless and until some sort of pressure develops to effect change. Giving in to AIPAC’s power has been a winning strategy for all American presidents for a long time.
There is no reason to expect any change in US policy—unless there is pressure for change. Any more than there is any reason to expect change from Israel until there is pressure (from the US, EU, UN) for change. And any more than there is any reason for J-Street to change (apparently) unless there is pressure for it to do so. That is the lesson of power.
So far, J-Street has merely offered such timidity as to confirm AIPAC’s message even while pretending to differ from it.
For another view, see this, but be warned by be warned by this and this.
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