High stakes power politics. Jeremy Ben-Ami of J Street has written a very good letter challenging Michael Oren, Israel’s ambassador to the U.S., to come to the J Street conference in late October. Oren has evidently declined earlier overtures– and warned that J Street is acting against Israel’s "interests."
Here Ben-Ami takes up the challenge. You say J Street is hurting Israel? We say Israel is hurting American Jews! You will see that his letter is strong about the dangers that Israeli militancy poses to the U.S. and to Jewish identity.
We too have our own serious concerns over the policies of the present Israeli government and its impact not just on Israel’s interests but on our interests as Americans and as American Jews. As Jews who care about Israel, we fear that, on Israel’s present path, we will see our shared dream of a Jewish, democratic home in the state of Israel slip through our fingers.
As Americans, we worry about the impact of Israeli policies on vital US interests in the Middle East and around the world.
Finally, as American Jews, we worry that the health and vitality of our community will be deeply affected by what happens in the region, how the world perceives Israel and by how our community here at home deals with increasingly complex conversations around Israel.
I think that J Street will win this tactical war. It’s more sophisticated than Oren. Those "increasingly complex conversations"– hey, Oren, who has the Maccabees forever in his mouth (as Kafka said of Zionists) is incapable of them. So Oren won’t show up, and it will further alienate liberal Obama Jews from the current Israeli government, and that government will ultimately fall. My point is that Oren needs J Street more than J Street needs Oren. A friend points out that Oren has passed up an important opportunity to speak up for Palestinian human rights:
The dynamic against voicing a word of concern about how Israel’s policies negatively affect Palestinians must be very strong as he passed up a definite opportunity here. It’s all about harm to Israel’s interests and American interests while ignoring that that harm is being caused by very real harm to Palestinians.
