J Street has found a wedge issue: support for "60 Minutes"' amazing broadcast last Sunday on the end of the 2-state solution. J Street is driving the wedge here, crying out to all American Jews to celebrate Bob Simon's work, thereby crying out, Which side are you on?? Camera is taking the other side: Simon's Smear.
J Street is too middle of the road for me, but its power can be witnessed in this attack by the New Republic, reflecting the simple fact that J Street has connections to the Obama administration--several of J Street's funders/advisers were big fundraisers for the President-- and TNR fears that J Street will sway Obama toward a new hearts-and-minds approach. I.e., there is a fight to define a new middle ground. At last.
Another sign that the battle has moved left: AIPAC's paralysis. Lately AIPAC has failed to take a stand on things that in the bad old days it would get righteous about. Like, George Mitchell's appointment. Is this a good thing or a bad thing? You'd expect AIPAC to either welcome Mitchell or condemn him. Not a word. It is paralyzed between two poles: pleasing the new administration and its own neoconservative base (Sheldon Adelson), neither of which it can afford to alienate. AIPAC did with Mitchell what it did lately with Obama's Al Arabiya interview: basically cherrypicked his statements to find the one neocon statement in them, about Iran. Thereby misrepresenting the essential thrust of the new administration--olive branch--so as to give its diehard followers red meat. The bottom line: a loss of the ability to frame the debate in the Jewish community, and thereby a loss of influence. (Phil Weiss)
J Street is too middle of the road for me (Phil Weiss)
– marvellous quote.
Really perceptive about AIPAC's paralysis: fabulous development.
J Street is perfect for the current time.
The left and left-right are too condemnatory to realize change.
They are great for "I told you so", but accomplish very little.
Weiss: "AIPAC is paralyzed between two poles: the new administration and its neoconservative base (Sheldon Adelson), neither of which it can afford to alienate."
I question whether the Obama administration, which has two hard core Jewish Zionists in Rahm Emanuel and David Axelrod at the helm, is the opposite pole of the Zionist neoconservative base. But no question that J Street has opened up a small breach in the levee that heretofore pretty much forced all Jews into a quasi-fascist stance on the question of Israel and the Jewish nation's "right" to treat occupied Palestinians however the hell it pleases, including treating them like concentration camp inmates if it so chooses.
Now that "liberal" Jews have new permission to behave as human beings, let's see how far they take it. It seems to me they had plenty of freedom to undertake such steps under Clinton, and instead chose to tighten the stranglehold and expand the expansionism. But times they are a changin' fast. We may be in another paradigm. And "survival" may now entail humanization.
J Street: Defend 60 Minutes for Telling the Truth About Israeli Settlements in the West Bank
J Street reports- the CBS news program 60 minutes is under attack for stating the obvious about Israeli settlements in the West Bank: there can be a two-state solution, or there can be Israeli settlements in the West Bank, but not both.
Send a quick note to CBS to counter the right-wing flak.
This promises to get interesting because the end of the two-state solution might precipitate a split in the Jewish/Zionist ranks. On the one hand, you'll have those (AIPAC) who will not have a problem with Israel as a permanent apartheid state and/or even the ethnic cleansing of Palestinians out of the West Bank (and even Gaza?). On the other hand, there will be increasing numbers who won't be able to reconcile that level of blatant racism and inhumanity, but who are also still committed to the Zionist cause of having a Jewish state (J Street). The end of the two-state solution will be the end of the possibility of claiming to be both a Zionist and committed to peace.
For a "one-stater" like myself, It doesn't matter that much to me. I think that all Jews and Palestinians should be able to live wherever they want in all of Israel-Palestine, so long as they're willing to lawfully and peacefully obtain possession of their properties. Proper compensation should be paid to those Palestinians who were dispossessed of their lands by the settlers, and/or in some cases where feasible, possession should be returned to them, but for the most part, under a one-state solution I would expect that religious, Zionist Jews would continue to settle the West Bank, and I don't have a problem with that. Again, so long as they're willing to obtain possession legally and peacefully (and, assuming that in a one-state solution, any prohibitions on selling land based on ethnicity/religion would be illegal and unenforceable as they are in the U.S.).
I think with a one-state solution, Israel would end up looking a lot like Lebanon (when its at its best and not having to deal with shit-stirrers), which isn't a bad thing given the alternatives.
The question is, would organized Jewry be satisfied with a mixed-race state with meager geopolitical power and influence, or is it hell-bent on parading Jewish "greatness" and triumphalism before the world?
Jewish "Greatness" has been on parade for centuries.
You're a legend in your own minds.
would organized Jewry be satisfied with a mixed-race state with meager geopolitical power and influence, or is it hell-bent on parading Jewish "greatness" and triumphalism before the world?
Probably the latter, but eventually democracy spreads either by choice or by force, and the former will be the result.