Last night I mentioned an election report from Florida where a guy named Bob Kunst railed about Obama's position on dividing Jerusalem and asked, Where are Jews on this? Jack Ross reports:
I'd note that this Kunst site emphasizes his rightthinking opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the civil rights movement. Which just goes to show: religious issues cut right thru conventional politics, for Kunst is for denying Palestinians their human and civil rights.
As I often say, even J Street is vulnerable to these attitudes. Their constituency is liberal American Jews, but they are careful to say nothing about giving back land or dividing Jerusalem in their latest letter for four candidates:
Nowhere in the letter is there anything the least bit programmatic or issues-related. Just "pro-peace," a signal that land will be traded for peace.
Steve F. defends the mainstream American Jewish position in this note to me:
I hope Steve is right, but I'm not sure. I think there's real intransigence within the Jewish community. And speaking of intransigence, let's remember that for 60 years notwithstanding endless expansion, confiscation, violence, and human-rights violations, sore grievances to the Palestinians, Israel has had a state. While there is always something wrong with the Palestinian leadership. Always. Just as there is always something wrong with Pakistani and Indian leadership. But funnily enough those brown people have had had states for 60 years. Palestinians have never had the right to self-determination. That's the burner left on high under the Middle East.
Kunst is a real piece of work, take it from me. He first came on the scene
in 2000-2001 as a leading Bush-stole-the-election diehard (listen, I
was on the cover of The Washington Post protesting for Gore outside the
first Supreme Court hearing) but after 9/11 was an idiosyncratic
pro-war/anti-Bush nut, in both cases of the first order. I met
the man in New Hampshire in 2004 (a VERY long story) where he had a
table at the MTV/Rock The Vote convention, running a one man campaign
to draft Hillary. He even bought commercials in key primary states of
a very badly animated Hillary as superhero taking back the White House
from Bush and Cheney declaring "Only Hillary beats Bush!"
When I pursued an argument with him to the effect that Hillary might be more hawkish than Bush (remember that this was pre-surge and pre-"ending tyranny in our world"), he first snapped back some unexceptional Dissentnik bromides about Democratic hawkishness before ranting and raving about Iran - I forget if he called for nuking Iran or for attacking Pakistan as well but I do remember it was a big step beyond just calling for war with Iran.
When I pursued an argument with him to the effect that Hillary might be more hawkish than Bush (remember that this was pre-surge and pre-"ending tyranny in our world"), he first snapped back some unexceptional Dissentnik bromides about Democratic hawkishness before ranting and raving about Iran - I forget if he called for nuking Iran or for attacking Pakistan as well but I do remember it was a big step beyond just calling for war with Iran.
I'd note that this Kunst site emphasizes his rightthinking opposition to the Vietnam War and support for the civil rights movement. Which just goes to show: religious issues cut right thru conventional politics, for Kunst is for denying Palestinians their human and civil rights.
As I often say, even J Street is vulnerable to these attitudes. Their constituency is liberal American Jews, but they are careful to say nothing about giving back land or dividing Jerusalem in their latest letter for four candidates:
"Berkowitz, Burner, Lord, and Perriello
are all challenging incumbent Congressmen who have been loyal allies of
George Bush and supportive of his disastrous foreign policy agenda,
which has been bad for both the U.S. and for Israel.... Click here to give $20 to four surging pro-Israel, pro-peace candidates.
Together, we're seriously challenging the status quo in Washington when it comes to Israel and Middle East.
Nowhere in the letter is there anything the least bit programmatic or issues-related. Just "pro-peace," a signal that land will be traded for peace.
Steve F. defends the mainstream American Jewish position in this note to me:
You are living in a
fantasy world if you think that American Jews will oppose real peace in
Israel even if that means dividing Jerusalem. What the AJC poll represents [58 percent oppose dividing J'lem] is a real concern as to whether the division of Jerusalem would bring conflict
to this fairly peaceful city. If real peace is possible, we all know
Jerusalem will be divided. Clinton and Barak proposed this. Clinton
is beloved by the Jews and Barak is still a powerful force in Israel. The
question for America is whether a reasonable peace is possible with the current
Palestinian leadership. If it is not, largely because of bad actors like
Hamas, you risk another Mideast conflict, which is bad for America, if you push
to divide Jerusalem while the Palestinians have hostile leaders
who may use their territory as a launching pad for rockets, terror and
general mayhem. Hamas is the problem on this point, not Israel or American
Jews.
I hope Steve is right, but I'm not sure. I think there's real intransigence within the Jewish community. And speaking of intransigence, let's remember that for 60 years notwithstanding endless expansion, confiscation, violence, and human-rights violations, sore grievances to the Palestinians, Israel has had a state. While there is always something wrong with the Palestinian leadership. Always. Just as there is always something wrong with Pakistani and Indian leadership. But funnily enough those brown people have had had states for 60 years. Palestinians have never had the right to self-determination. That's the burner left on high under the Middle East.
Phil -
You don't address Clinton and Barak, a real life example of J'lem being put out on the table without any Jewish blowback. Please address this, sir.
Read Robert O. Malley in the New York Review of books, on what was really offered at Camp David.
Someday, Israelis and their supporters will, I hope, wake up from the illusions about what is really happening and what has happened in the Middle East.
The fact is that, whenever you try to dispossess people of their land, they fight back. The Irish fought the English from 1550 to 1917 and finally they won, and the Palestinians will win eventually too. Israel can't win in the long term, surrounded as it is by the enemy. It will have to come to some sort of accommodation, now, if there is to be any hope for it's future, because the next 15 years are going to see a much weaker, more inward looking USA, that is not going to be able to ignore its own strategy interests. In fact, the US will only get weaker from here, and oil, despite the recent drop in price, and those who pump it will become more and more powerful.
Richard Nixon, although a royal bastard, was right when he gave the thumbs down when asked whether Israel could survive for the long term. It can't survive in its current form in the long term and it won't.
Does that mean that Jews will not live in the Middle East? No– they will continue to live there in large numbers.
America Jews who care about Judaism don't want the Arabs to desecrate Jewish religious sites in Jerusalem has they did pre-1967. Jews by accident of birth and nothing else. Like Phil Weiss and his compatriots. Don't give a fuck. It is has simple as that.
The question should not be where are Jews on the issue of dividing Jerusalem. The point should be Jerusalem is not within the legal borders of Israel. Israel and Americans, Jewish or otherwise, should have no say on the political and geographical makeup of Jerusalem. The only reason they have any input is because of US arms, which have been used aggressively to acquire territory illegally. Stop the military aid to Israel and issues about what to do with the territories seized through war will fade away.
One of the most important pts you're missing is not what Amer. Jews think about dividing Jerusalem, but what Israelis think of it. And a poll I wrote about in my blog noted that a plurality of Israelis are prepared to divide Jerusalem if it will get to peace.
That settles it as far as I'm concerned.
And I think the earlier commenter's note that asking Amer. Jews whether they favor dividing Jerusalem is guaranteed to get a negative reaction. But if you asked how many would be prepared to divide Jerusalem in the context of a negotiated peace with the Palestinians I bet the number in favor would shoot up considerably.