Doni Remba, a peace activist, disputes my claim that the progressive voice in Jewish life has been marginalized by the neocons. He has some evidence: he says he’s getting traction in the Jewish press for his view that there has to be a progressive lobby, to push for a two-state solution in Israel/Palestine. His post follows, below.
I have one important quibble, ahead of time. Remba reflects the conventional leftish pro-Israel view that the dog wags the tail. I.e., that Israel is a client that does as the imperial U.S. wants it to do. The U.S. doesn’t want Israel to talk to Syria; so it doesn’t. His view of the Israel lobby is that it is merely seconding rightwing choices that the U.S. government is making. And so he says:
American choices heavily constrain the Jewish state, eliminating options and creating the environment in which Israel must make its own now far more limited and difficult choices.
That’s where I demur. I believe that Israel has made its own choice not to speak to Syria, for years, and that its friends in Congress reinforce that line here. I feel like a lot of lefty Jews want to think the dog wags the tail: the Stephen Zunes line, that neocon Zionist Jews have had only minor influence over a rightwing administration. Or here is Shlomo Ben-Ami, in the latest Commentary, making the same point (I’m afraid it’s not online yet, but I just got my issue in the mail):
“[T]he interplay of factors that truly make up American foreign policy [are] strategic considerations, imperial ambitions, oil, the arms industry, corporations like Bechtel and Halliburton, ideology, and, last but not by no means least, the political and intellectual profile of the president. Bush’s moral certitude and self-imposed divine mission makes [sic] utterly redundant the need for an ‘Israel Lobby’ to teach him the political gospel it wants him to follow in the Middle East.”
I think Ben Ami is wrong, that he is blinding himself to a multitude of sins under that little word “ideology,” that George Bush had little idea of anything when he came into office. I.e., that neocons are smart guys with a highly-developed belief system; and they also had agency here (yes, along with a lot of other fools who pushed this war).
In fairness, Remba does go after Jewish “communal leaders” choices. A nice way of putting the fact that neocon beliefs about the Arab world have gained wide currency in the erstwhile liberal Jewish leadership. But read Remba’s post (which he was not able to post; problems again, sorry folks):
You write: “I do question the political will of the body of American Jewry; if they feel misrepresented by the Israel lobby and their congressmen, they ought to rise up against them. George Soros says he’s going to start an anti-occupation lobby. Good for him, I’m in his camp. Will he get numbers?”
I’d like to offer two of my recent articles on this subject for your and your readers’ consideration. The first, published in the English edition of Ha’aretz, “Wanted: A Moderate Pro-Israel Lobby,” can be read in Ha’aretz or on my blog at http://tough-dove-israel.blogspot.com/2006/11/haaretz-wanted-moderate-pro-israel.html
The new dovish pro-Israel peace lobby is not a Soros initiative, but an cooperative effort of many liberal/progressive Jews from various Jewish organizations, think tanks, liberal Democratic political activists and funders.
How many supporters will we get? Watch and wait. Many of us are working on it.
As president of Chicago Peace Now (Americans for Peace Now’s Illinois-Indiana Chapter) for the last six years I, for one, have had some success, with the help of many colleagues and friends, in building support for dovish policies on the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts in the mainstream Chicago Jewish community and beyond.
Second, here is an excerpt from my latest monthly column in the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle, which is sometimes syndicated nationally in the Jewish press. Perhaps it will give you a dash more hope to realize that pieces like mine are printed in mainstream Jewish papers around the country. This piece is titled, “Look Who’s Pressuring Israel”:
Writing in the Israeli newspaper Ha’aretz in November, I wondered whether AIPAC would work to promote a US-Israeli peace initiative with Syria or the Palestinians. AIPAC’s Israel spokesperson responded on November 23rd in Ha’aretz that “AIPAC’s mandate is not to pressure the Israeli government to follow a particular course.” Reading these words, I scratched my head. Who said anything about “pressure?” In reality, the Bush Administration is pressuring the Israeli government to refuse peace talks with Syria, according to the testimony of Prime Minister Olmert, his advisors and cabinet ministers. AIPAC, and its allies in the organized Jewish community, who rush to loudly protest any time there is a whiff of US pressure on Israel in favor of a peace initiative, has absolutely nothing to say when the White House blocks Israel from talking with Syria. Even when the US isn’t making overt demands on Israel, US foreign policy choices have so large an impact on the Middle East and the overall strategic context in which Israel lives, that every action the US takes–and those actions it fails to take–casts an iron boot of coercion on Israel. American choices heavily constrain the Jewish state, eliminating options and creating the environment in which Israel must make its own now far more limited and difficult choices.
The Bush Administration’s military escalation in Iraq, which includes raids and arrests of Iranians, may lead the US down the slippery slope to a new war with Iran, warns Kenneth M. Pollack of the Brookings Institution. Bush’s actions may provoke “the Iranians to respond, which in turn would escalate the situation and provide the Bush administration with the casus belli it needs to win Congressional support” for such a war, fears Johns Hopkins University Iran scholar Trita Parsi. Bush’s refusal to bargain directly with Iran, his rejection of the unanimous bipartisan recommendation of the Iraq Study Group for direct talks with Iran and Syria, and his preference for more force, are recklessly pushing Israel and our Sunni Arab allies into an incendiary region-wide conflagration with Iran, Hezbollah and Syria. Neither Israel nor the US will achieve their military or political goals in such a clash, which will give birth to an even more insecure and explosive Middle East in which Israel will have to live.
I called, and I call again, on the Bush Administration to return to sanity: to abandon its failed policy of isolation and implied threats of regime change against Syria and Iran; to explore the possibilities for a grand bargain with both countries which would meet US strategic interests in Iraq, Lebanon, the Gulf Arab states, Israel and Palestine. I call on the President not only to permit Israel to test the waters with Syria through a secret back-channel, but to send American mediators to such meetings to maximize the chances of their success.
Finally, there’s the stifling burden of inaction to which we subject Israel daily: the crushing weight of the Bush Administration’s failure to build a regional diplomatic framework within which Israel can make safe and secure choices for peace with its Arab neighbors; the failure of American Jews to speak up–as American citizens, if not as Jews who are deeply concerned for Israel’s well-being–about what’s best for the national security of the United States and its allies, especially Israel; the timorousness and apathy of so many American Jews who have yet to express their solidarity with the forces of progress and peace in Israel itself, even within the Israeli government. We, the American Jewish community, have massively constrained Israel’s freedom by the many dangerous choices we have let our communal leaders, and our government, make in the Middle East. Citizenship doesn’t end at the voting booth.
Gidon D. Remba is co-author of the forthcoming The Great Rift: Arab-Israeli War and Peace in the New Middle East. His commentary is available at http://tough-dove-israel.blogspot.com/ He served as senior foreign press editor and translator in the Israel Prime Minister’s Office during the Egyptian-Israeli peace process from 1977-1978. His essays have appeared in the Chicago Tribune, the Chicago Sun-Times, the New York Times, the Nation, the Jerusalem Report, Ha’aretz, Tikkun, the Forward, the Jewish Journal of Greater Los Angeles, Chicago Jewish News, JUF News, and the Pittsburgh Jewish Chronicle.
(Gidon) Doni Remba (aka Tough Dove Israel)
P.S. My piece, “Look Who’s Pressuring Israel,” excerpted in my post, was also reprinted by the Jewish Federation of Metropolitan Chicago/Jewish United Fund in their weekly E-Alert. You can’t get more Jewish mainstream than that. It’s slightly encouraging that such establishment outlets are circulating my writing, particularly when I say the kinds of things I say in this piece, including the criticisms of AIPAC, exposing its hawkishness and bursting its propaganda bubble.
I would distinguish the neocon power lite in the USA from zionists pure and simple, in that the neocons are meta-zionists : in the forge of 'creative' destruction they wish to impose upon the world, Israel is merely the anvil, while the USA is the hammer.
In this sense, the actually existing Israel may be seen as victim, or pawn, but it must be borne in mind that the neocons are not anti-zionists, but meta-zionists.
Sorry to interrupt the substantive conversation but I do want to make a marginally important distinction for Phil's fans: I am not Doni Remba. His blog is "tough-dove-Israel." Don't hold him responsible for anything I post.
Now she tells us.
Gidon D. Remba on the Carter book:
The book is replete with major errors of fact, all systematically biased against Israel. Carter never makes a single factual error that works in Israel's favor, or against the Palestinians. He offers an abundance of misstatements and distortions that paint Israel black. Some of the most egregious have already been highlighted by others. But Carter's approach to the Palestinian-Israeli conflict is as one-sided as that of the Israel haters. Though Carter himself is no Israel hater, at times he does an uncanny impersonation of one, serving up a morality tale of Israeli demons and Palestinian angels forced to descend to hell by the depredations of the evil Israelis. Throughout the book Carter unfailingly shows deep sympathy for Palestinian perceptions, while displaying little understanding for Israeli attitudes or needs. The book suffers from a deep and uncritical pro-Palestinian bias that makes a mockery of Carter?s pretensions to fair arbiter and peacemaker.
http://www.engageonline.org.uk/blog/article.php?id=783
(Note the sly bit about Carter's "uncanny impersonation of an Israeli hater." Nudge nudge.)
Here's what Yossi Beilin has to say about Carter in the "Forward".
"In other words, what Carter says in his book about the Israeli occupation and our treatment of Palestinians in the occupied territories and perhaps no less important, how he says it is entirely harmonious with the kind of criticism that Israelis themselves voice about their own country. There is nothing in the criticism that Carter has for Israel that has not been said by Israelis themselves."
In the context of the Israeli-Arab conflict, moreover, Carter has secured his place in history as the man who brokered the first peace agreement between Israel and an Arab nation. The Camp David summit he convened in September 1978, which resulted in the signing of the peace treaty between Israel and Egypt, was a historical watershed for the entire region. It inaugurated the Arab-Israeli peace process, without which the Oslo peace process would not have been possible, nor the 1994 peace agreement between Israel and Jordan.
In light of the failure of the second Camp David summit of July 2000, Carters successful mediation between such starkly different leaders as Menachem Begin and Anwar Sadat is all the more impressive, and his achievement which was a truly personal achievement all the more remarkable.
Every Israeli, and every Jew to whom the destiny of Israel is important, is indebted to Carter for breaking the ring of hostility that had choked Israel for more than 30 years. No American president before him had dedicated himself so fully to the cause of Israels peace and security, and, with the exception of Bill Clinton, no American president has done so since.
This is why the publication of Carters recent book, and perhaps more than anything else, the title it bears, has pained so many people. And I must admit that, on some deeply felt level, the title of the book has strained my heart, too. Harsh and awful as the conditions are in the West Bank, the suggestion that Israel is conducting a policy of apartheid in the occupied territories is simply unacceptable to me.
But is this what Carter is saying? I have read his book, and I could not help but agree however agonizingly so with most if its contents. Where I disagreed was mostly with the choice of language, including his choice of the word apartheid.
But if we are to be fair, and as any reading of the book makes clear, Carters use of the word apartheid is first and foremost metaphorical. Underlying Israels policy in the West Bank, he argues, is not a racist ideology but rather a nationalist drive for the acquisition of land. The resulting violence, and the segregationist policies that shape life in the West Bank, are the ill-intended consequences of that drive.
Of course, there is no appropriate term in the political lexicon for what we in Israel are doing in the occupied territories. Occupation is too antiseptic a term, and does not capture the social, cultural and humanitarian dimensions of our actions. Given the Palestinians role in the impasse at which we have arrived, to say nothing of Arab states and, historically speaking, of the superpowers themselves, I would describe the reality of occupation as a march of folly an Israeli one, certainly, but not exclusively so.
But if we are to read Carters book for what it is, I think we would find in it an impassioned personal narrative of an American former president who is reflecting on the direction in which Israel and Palestine may be going if they fail to reach agreement soon. Somewhere down the line and symbolically speaking, that line may be crossed the day that a minority of Jews will rule a majority of Palestinians west of the Jordan River the destructive nature of occupation will turn Israel into a pariah state, not unlike South Africa under apartheid.
I read an article in The Nation from a collection of nation writings. It was about israel's perception in America and was from I htink 1978. It was amazing how different things were then. I think jews dislike Carter because Israel was actually held to account for it's actions under his administration. Jews seemed genuinly concerned about the direction Begin was taking Israel. Also, the growing perception in America was that Egypt wanted peace and Israel didn't.
The whole tone of the article was completely unlike any article on israel perceptions in the US you would see today. I can't remember the author or title
I've developed a quick test for screening "left" Jewish sites like Mr. Remba's. I look for how many times the word "Palestinian" is used. For example, do they speak of "Israel's war with the Palestinians," or "Israel's war with the Arab world"? Is it the "Israel-Palestine conflict" or the "Arab-Israeli conflict"? Is it "Palestinian security" or "Israeli security" they call for?
On this basis, Mr. Remba's site scores very poorly. You'd almost think he's afraid of the word. ("There is not such thing as the Palestinian people.") In fact the site is not really a peace site at all but just another "J-site." If this is the Jewish left, I'm afraid there is little hope from all Soros's millions.
http://tough-dove-israel.blogspot.com/
(BTW Phil, you are right to indentify Stephen Zunes with the "dog wags tail" school, but you are leaving out its headmaster, Noam Chomsky.)
Trouvere,
People come to the same conclusions for different reasons. There are people, like me, who believe that the Jews need and deserve a state of their own. Some of us also believe the Palestinians should have a state of their own, and one of the main reasons is it will ensure the security and survival of a Jewish state.
That's not the only reason why we favor a Palestinian state. The other reason is that the Palestinians deserve to have a state of their own and to be rid of the terrible burden of the occupation.
You might not care about the first goal, the goal that is based on Israeli needs. Others do. If any political bloc is going to have any positive impact on the plight of the Palestinian people, American Jews like Remba will need to be part of that bloc. They, at least, have a chance to accomplish something –i.e., press the U.S. to press Israel to take the steps needed to give Palestinians a homeland. The far left, which has never had any power in this country and has never had much of an impact on anyone, and which dimisses out of hand anyone who expresses concern about Israel, will never accomplish anything.
I couldn't help but wonder if Gidon Remba actually read Carter's book.
Salvage, I don't believe we have the luxury of noodling over whether we should prioritize Palestinian vs. Israeli rights anymore. This country is on the slippery slope. America needs to call Israel to heel, to fulfill the promises made.
My name is Rowan Berkeley – I post paragraphs like the one below — I accuse Jews of controlling both international finance and communism. But hey — I'm not an anti-semite!
My take on 9-11 is that the demolition of the Towers was performed at least partially by pre-planted explosives. In this context obviously Larry Silverstein is the key player. It is hard to see people like, for instance, Chertoff as any less sinister – but it would be evidence of a puerile racism to imagine that all the core conspirators were Jews. The gravy train created by this thing is vast and there is plenty of gravy for all the "homeland security" gangsters.
Nevertheless, basically, we are looking at a constitutional coup conducted by people of zionist rather than american orientation.
I don't think it is correct to talk about a disinformational campaign in the formal sense, like a concrete conspiracy hatched in a physical smoke-filled room, in many cases. Outside of the core conspirators, there is merely a climate of conformity. It's like under Stalin : you didn't need to send goons to every journalist's doorstep to make the situation clear.
Posted by: Rowan Berkeley | January 27, 2007 3:02 AM
Kushner when will you wake up and see what a cesspool your erstwhile Journo's blog has become?
(btw — I'm a concerned citizen who hates foreign influence (like Rowan's) on our fair country (and City) — I'm not toughdove, nor bill P, nor a political animal at all. Just a normal guy who hates bigotry when he sees it).
"If any political bloc is going to have any positive impact on the plight of the Palestinian people, American Jews like Remba will need to be part of that bloc."
Why? What business is it of theirs?
Noted Neo-Nazi, Rowan Berkeley, tells Mary Rizzo (peacepalestine.blogspot.com, that she is a mossad provocateur!
Those who can read German may find this copybook example of guilt-by-association, is-he-an-antisemite, by someone Shamir claims used to support him and is now a "traitor", typically fatuous:
http://www.freitag.de/2006/06/06…06/ 06061502.php
I mention this because it illustrates the pointlessness of the endless discussion about whether people are 'anti-Semites' or not.
The only effective opposition to zionism, america, or the general imperial charade, will come from now on from people who regard the accusation of 'anti-Semitism' with contempt.
Rowan Berkeley | 04.27.06 – 11:55 am | #