Here's an old trope of mine that I haven't wheeled out for a while: the Elian Gonzalez moment for the Israel lobby. Today's Christian letter to Obama saying this conflict has gone on too long made me pull the old trope out of the drawer.
The Elian Gonzalez moment means a moment when the whole country suddenly focuses on a situation where a special-interest controls policy–and some sense is restored. In the Elian Gonzalez case, the Cuban community of Miami actually thought they were going to get away with keeping that child here after his mother died at sea. There were huge demonstrations in Havana on behalf of the Cuban dad, and lo, in a spasmodic and fleeting attack of principle, Bill Clinton sided with the father, with the backing of such Republicans as Steve Largent, the Hall of Fame football receiver then an Oklahoma congressman. And American public opinion was on the Cubans' side: give the boy back to his father in Cuba.
The Israel lobby is in its post-classical/decadent phase. Because nothing lasts forever in history, because J Street is a fracture, because the lobby overplayed its hand with the Iraq war, Walt and Mearsheimer and Carter were real blows, the next generation of Jews aren't drinking the Manischewitz, etc etc. And now Obama's election is a sea change for American political culture: resounding evidence of a new American worldliness. On NPR today they are talking about Obama's victory in Mumbai as a signal of political change elsewhere. Once again we are a light unto the world; and we like that spot.
The lobby cannot sustain the high degree of orthodoxy it has maintained in American leadership culture on behalf of apartheid, not in the age of Obama. And Jews know it. What I'm getting at is that we're approaching a crisis for the lobby. Maybe a year from now, maybe 3. And don't expect it to give up with fireworks. The exchange will be a quiet one. But something's changing. Hold me to it.
