J Street’s national conference starts this upcoming Sunday (yes, we’ll be there) and we could pretty much fill this website with stories about the rightwing smear campaign against them between now and then. In our Nation article, we wrote about J Street’s effort to navigate the right and left in the American Jewish community, and the right is certainly coming out in full force against it. The attack has been rather relentless, from the necon shitstirrers at the Weekly Standard trying to force congresspeople from the conference to this Lenny Ben-David McCarthyite screed in pajamas media. Remember, Ben-David is an ex-AIPAC employee and former diplomat in Israel’s Washington embassy. If nothing else, this shows that Netanyahu’s supporters in Washington are nervous.
Unfortunately, the attacks seem to be working. J Street has folded under pressure against a poet who was to be featured in a "Culture as a Tool for Change" program at the conference. The poet, Josh Healey, has been attacked for drawing comparisons between Guantanamo Bay and Auschwitz, and questioning whether the "chosen people" have been, "chosen to recreate our own history, merely reversing the roles with the script now reading that we’re the ones writing numbers on the wrists of babies born in the ghetto called Gaza?” In response, J Street has cancelled the event.
Healy in Haaretz:
In an interview with Haaretz, Josh Healey didn’t conceal his disappointment. "I had a conversation with ‘J Street’ staff, and they explained that they are playing the game – Washington politics, and seeking legitimacy. And they are not willing to fight this battle. I was born in Washington, so I’m not surprised to become Van Jones of J Street," (U.S. President Barack Obama’s "green jobs czar" who resigned over the controversy about his past political associations). . .
"I told them I don’t think it’s the legitimacy they want, because it’s not the legitimacy that makes change. When you’re trying to make change, you must expect that some people will push back. But they kick out their allies – and I still consider myself an ally. I’m not personally offended – I’m politically disappointed. It’s ironic that we were invited to perform and be a part of the dialogue at the track ‘The culture as a tool for change.’ But we can’t even have this dialogue. The Jewish community acts like children, with smear campaigns and name-calling. I am not surprised by the right wing attacks – but that J-Street went along with it and accommodated it."
Healy ends with a challenge: "If J-Street are not willing to have debate with people who believe in solidarity and humanity, I don’t know what legitimacy they want, because it’s not a moral legitimacy."
A month ago Phil did a post about how J Street is situated firmly between the left and right of Jewish life in the US and it’s exactly where they want to be.That doesn’t mean it’s a comfortable place to be, and it clearly puts it in the position of being both an insurgent and gatekeeper in the Jewish community. Cecilie Surasky at Muzzlewatch sums up:
In its important efforts to challenge AIPAC and reclaim the center of Jewish liberal opinion, J Street walks an increasingly difficult line, demanding a more open discourse about Israeli policy for liberal Zionists, while simultaneously drawing a line in the sand between that which is kosher and that which is treyf (unclean): Jewish-staters and Congressional lobbying in, agnostics and one-staters and BDS out.
In the end it’s contradictory and self-serving to demand that the debate open to include your own perspective while shutting others out. I bet this double standard isn’t lost on many J Street supporters who were drawn to the organization in the first place out of a disgust with the iron fist the major Jewish institutions wield over any discussion of Israel/Palestine. This also represents a question for J Street: Does the support it gains by adhering to the narrow confines of "acceptable" discourse in the Jewish community outweigh the potential support it alienates? Many hoped, and still do, that J Street would represent a change in both the substance and style of American Jewish debate over Israel/Palestine. While the group’s substance is predictably liberal Zionist, its style is still being formed. Here’s some good advice from Josh Healy, "If you’re trying to be an alternative to AIPAC – don’t behave like AIPAC."
So what’s the basic assumption and function of the gatekeeper aspect of J-Street? And how does it relate to Healy’s challenge to J-Street to debate with people who belive in solidarity and
humanity?
J-Street is already compromised.
I’m on the side of the poet.
Healy ends with a challenge: “If J-Street are not willing to have debate with people who believe in solidarity and humanity, I don’t know what legitimacy they want, because it’s not a moral legitimacy.”
That strikes the nail squarely on the head… and with great force.
J Street is on essentially the same track as Obama – lure in the liberals with false hope, then betray them to the right.
Rights Watchdog, Lost in the Mideast
AS the founder of Human Rights Watch, its active chairman for 20 years and now founding chairman emeritus, I must do something that I never anticipated: I must publicly join the group’s critics. Human Rights Watch had as its original mission to pry open closed societies, advocate basic freedoms and support dissenters. But recently it has been issuing reports on the Israeli-Arab conflict that are helping those who wish to turn Israel into a pariah state.
link to nytimes.com
Witty has provided Mondoweiss readers with a service by connecting these two articles. What they demonstrate is that the Zionist Power Structure (to call it a lobby is like calling the Eiffel Tower a traffic stop) will stop at nothing to protect Israel, from forcing a internal critic perceived as threatening to its knees (J Street) to exhuming the founder of Human Rights Watch (Bernstein) to attack the organization that he headed as part of the US propaganda war against the Soviet Union and its satellites for its criticism of Israel’s barbarism in Gaza. Hell, we’ve already seen what they have done to a popular president.
BTW, Witty, have you ever been to Israel?
Probably not. Not with how often he attacks other people with the “Have you been there?!” line himself. But I suppose we’ll see if he bothers to answer that, or just dodges artlessly from your question.
He’s an outright denier, Witty is. Like you said, he digs up every piece of propaganda and slaps out in front like a rotting meat shield, but refuses to ever address the actual substance — the real, actual dead people, crippled people, those left homeless or orphaned, etc. He doesn’t care. He simply does not care about the human equation.
No, I believe Richard posted that he went there once in the 70s, and liked what he saw.
Don’t you just get a kick out of Richards active concision of history, even in his recollections…lol He remembers everything wrongly (outside of his personal experience), and it always plays the same – magnanimous Israel tried to do good but failed, the Palestinians acted wrongly (Intifada). It is never what Israel has done to provoke a response which was wrong, and that the Palestinians were within their just rights to react. Thanks for the skewed history lesson in recollection of you’re visits to Israel Richard…lol
Mondoweiss is uniquely partisan. To appeal to Mondoweiss readers is to appeal to an extremely small sliver of discussion, bounded by artificially partisan discipline, that distorts the potential power of its content (for its partisanship and name-calling).
Blankfort,
I’ve been to Israel twice in my life. First in 1968 at 13 going on 14, the same summer that Phil and I first got personally acquainted closely. That was the first year that the West Bank and the old city of Jerusalem had been occupied/recovered (depending on who you spoke to), including access to Hebron, many Jewish shrines. My impression was biased. I experienced the Arab sections of Jerusalem as medievil. At the same time, I (at 13) argued with a likud taxi driver giving us a two-family tour of the Golan, that Israel should return it, that any occupation should be temporary, and that Israel did not even have a sentimental connection to the Golan. Twice he stopped the car, and asked me to get out. (My parents and the other family were furious in my defense, not on my comments though.)
The second time was in 1986, at a time when Israel was acting as if it had annexed the West Bank, and when Israel was providing social services and affording relatively free movement to and from the West Bank (with exceptions). During that two-month trip (not on a tour, neither leftist nor Zionist), I traveled freely in the West Bank, and stayed at Palestinian hostels and homes.
It preceded the first intifada. My family was organizers of the Arad folk festival, and the week following the festival they sang with Zionists, Bedouin, Palestinians at cafes in Arad and Beersheba. They informed me that after the intifada, it was no longer possible to socialize with non-Jews in the same manner.
Many Arabs I’ve encountered have also referred to the pre-intifada times nostalgically, ironically, as they could then visit their families across the green line, go to university, get free health care, have reliable electricity.
Mondoweiss is not uniquely partisan. Tell me, Witty, when have you EVER provided a substantiated argument?
Virtually all that you write is in the abstract. You lecture people here, but you don’t cite any examples to substantiate your thesis (whatever it may be at the time, it’s always Zionist).
Phil is not a Hamas or Hezbollah supporter. He does not censor people (that much). He allows a lot of Islamophobia and racism towards Arabs go unchecked here. He clamps down on the antisemitism. He even defends YOU Witty, when people here get vulgar w/ you.
Tell us all, in NON-abstract terms: some concrete examples of writings by Phil and co. that make Mondoweiss ‘uniquely partisan’.
What does ‘uniquely partisan’ entail? You are just trying to insult this blog in the pathetic passive-aggressive way that someone as old and polite (fascist) as you would.
And then you say it’s not representative of many people?
Where?
In the States?
Why is that Witty? For example : is our culture RACIST and bigoted towards Arabs and Muslims?
As the ME been the target of colonialism for 100+ years? Are we supporting corrupt family dictatorships over meaningful democracy?
I mean before making a superficial statement like you did, you should list the catch:
Demonizing an entire people and religion is part of our popular culture. This forms the context to which everyday Americans may be confined to, those ideological parameters. Thinking beyond the stereotypes is difficult in the mainstream. Some movies are coming out that humanizes Palestinians. There is one called ‘Amreeka’ that looks like a typical tearjearker/family film about 2nd generation immigrants but it is an important step for Palestinians and Arabs in general.
Next, is there an HONEST and OPEN intellectual debate in the mainstream in the US on the ME? Fuck no.
So before you TOUT the line that this blog is a ‘sliver’ of the views on I-P – apply some context, you phony.
The truth Witty, is that you are a liar. You lie over and over on this blog, and people don’t take it. They respond to you. You’ve been here for years. Doing the same song and dance.
For someone who has been there your comments reflect the same kind of paternalistic myopia that is visible in your numerous posts. In that period preceding the first intifada, that those you choose to describe as Arabs and not Palestinians, which in itself, is telling, speak of their nostalgia for a time when the occupation was, you suggest, more benevolent despite the more than 1000 military laws restricting Palestinians as to what they could grow and where they could grow while in the background and too often the foreground, Jewish settlers were stealing their land. That wasn’t the West Bank or Jerusalem that I saw on my first trip there in 1983. It was more the sight of Palestinians being harassed routinely simply for being Palestinians by young Israeli punks in uniforms. And not just in the WB and Jerusalem but in Israel, as well.
I’ve been to Israel twice in my life. First in 1968 at 13 going on 14,
Did you get laid, Richie? Some of my friends lost their virginity that way (of course, I shouldn’t make any assumptions about your experience, perhaps you were an old hand by that time) and it made life-long fervent Zionists out of them.
“many Jewish shrines.”
Jews have shrines? I did not know this. And they told me at temple shrines come under the “graven images” prohibition. Maybe you meant “historical or legendary sites”?
Blankfort,
You lied in your representation (mis-representation) of my language.
The intifada, like all assertive social movements (like Zionism) had positive and negative results.
The positive results was the firm communication that Palestinians did not want to be occupied. That combined with the bombing by Iraq of Israeli cities, convinced Israelis that a peace was preferable to constant war, that it was necessary to reconcile, compared to the prior assumption of annexation.
The intifada conveyed the preference of Palestinians for a sovereign separate Palestine.
The consequence of that separation combined with newly escalating terror on the part of militants to stop any reconciliation, and Palestinian/Arab acceptance of any Zionist Israel, isolated Palestinians. You can say that Israel did it, but it came as a direct result of Palestinian militancy, not of Palestinian civil statements.
On Palestinian/Arab identity, you should read more. I just finished Khalidi’s “Origins of Palestinian Identity”. He clearly confirms that Palestinians have varying references (and changing emphases) of identity. It is opportunistic on your part to take a word out of context and infer some disrespect on that basis.
You still neglect to consistently propose, instead choosing the opportunistic approach of condemnation, thereby allowing you to neglect actual work at society building and even consciousness building that stands consent.
The only way that I can see to accomplish consent among such disparate and complex worldviews, is to validate their sensitivities, rather than your approach of suppressive and condemning sensitivities or needs.
This is actually not quite accurate about Bernstein. The truth is more interesting–Americas Watch used to publish hardhitting reports on the massive slaughters committed by US allies in Central America and the Reagan Administration and its apologists would come back with exactly the sorts of arguments that Bernstein presents in this piece–
1) You are guilty of moral equivalence if you report on US-supported atrocities too much
2) There probably aren’t any US-supported atrocities anyway–the supposed witnesses are lying
3) Democratic governments can have mechanisms for self-correction, so stop talking about this. (Aside from the self-contradiction, it’s amazing how people manage to “forget” all the examples of democracies that committed massive human rights violations and lied about it).
Bernstein was on the right side in those days, though you wouldn’t think so from the way he talks now. The way he talks now is the way the Reagan Administration talked then. He’s not only engaged in despicable propaganda now–in effect, he’s revising history against his own good reputation by claiming he was a political hack then. He has really sunk very low.
That piece in Peejays Media (by Lenny Ben-David) is well worth a (quick) gander. Even better are some of the commenters:
J Street hasn’t received a cent from Soros, I believe.
But even at Peejays Media the resistance is making itself felt…
“the roles with the script now reading that we’re the ones writing numbers on the wrists of babies born in the ghetto called Gaza?”
Are the Israelis doing that now? If they are, it’s a distressing and harrowing image, if they’re not, all you do is allow people to think you are making up atrocities in lieu of real ones.
Seems to me plenty of very distressing, harrowing poetry could be written (and is) with reference to only the facts of the Israeli Occupation. Assigning an image from the Holacaust to Israel just for dramatic effect isn’t a good idea.
To be really frank there must be a clarification of what goals there are in a given group, with AIPAC it allows you to cry but you must participate in the same corrupt system – left or right, as long as you agree that you’re loyalties can be proven by holding loosely or tightly the Zionist agenda. It requires (AIPAC) that vacuous position of “liberals” as displayed in Israel proper, and anything which crosses the line is squelched or excommunicated post swift.
Some individuals think that the essence of making an impact within an accepted circle is compromise, the nobility used to think this way in days of old – especially those satellite countries which did fealty to a dominant crown. What was really produced was a “nobility” in those subservient countries that the people despised and eventually overthrew. That is because compromise done many times over makes people slaves, or just a lite version of those they say they are opposing.
So it becomes necessary to see what exactly is the goal of any organization, what is the goal of J Street? Is it “peace,” in the amorphous sense that Uri talks about? Is that adequate? Here is the veteran anti-Zionist in Israel Michel Warschawski of the Alternate Information Center in Israel, who disagrees with Uri’s position which is almost identical to J Streets on the goal of “peace,” and his rejection of BDS -
“A lot in common indeed until we come to Uri’s misrepresentation of his political opponents: “(They) have despaired of the Israelis”. If it were so, why do those Israeli BDS campaigners spend so much of their time in building, together with Uri Avnery, an Israeli movement against war, occupation and colonization? The true debate is not between those who aim to “change the Israeli society” and those who don’t, but how and for what purpose.
The political goal of Uri Avnery is “an Israeli-Palestinian peace”, i.e. a compromise that should satisfy the majority of the two communities, on a symmetrical basis (in another important article, he called it “truth against truth”). Such symmetry is the result of another important political assumption by Avnery: the conflict in Palestine is a conflict between two national movements with equal legitimacy.
Many supporters of the BDS campaign disagree on both assumptions: our goal is not peace as such, because “peace” in itself doesn’t mean anything (almost every war in modern history was initiated under the pretext of achieving peace). Peace is always the reflection of relation of forces when one side cannot impose on the other all that he considers their legitimate rights.
Unlike Uri, our goal is the fulfillment of certain values like: basic individual and collective rights, end of domination and oppression, decolonization, equality, and as-much-justice-as-possible. In that framework, we obviously may support “peace initiatives” that can reduce the level of violence and/or achieve a certain amount of rights. In our strategy, however, this support for peace initiatives is not a goal in itself but merely a means to achieve the above mentioned values and rights.
That difference between “peace” and “justice” is connected to the divergence concerning the second assumption of Uri Avnery, the symmetry between two equally legitimate national movements and aspirations.
For us, Zionism is not a national liberation movement but a colonial movement, and the State of Israel is and has always been a settlers’ colonial state. Peace, or better, justice, cannot be achieved without a total decolonization (one can say de-Zionisation) of the Israeli State; it is a precondition for the fulfillment of the legitimate rights of the Palestinians – whether refugees, living under military occupation or second-class citizens of Israel. Whether the final result of that de-colonization will be a “one-state” solution, two democratic states (i.e. not a “Jewish State”), a federation or any other institutional structure is secondary, and will ultimately be decided by the struggle itself and the level of participation of Israelis, if at all.”
He says much more –
“YES TO BDS!” AN ANSWER TO URI AVNERY
So, you better ask yourself a simple question – what should the goal be in regard to this colonialism, this apartheid, this slow genocidal process? Does the amorphous goal of “peace,” like the “peace talks” really cover it for you? What is going on here?
“Our goal is not peace as such, because “peace” in itself doesn’t mean anything (almost every war in modern history was initiated under the pretext of achieving peace).”
Good stuff. It’s really not about peace, it’s about justice. Peace will follow.
Exactly D., not only that, because now we have to bring it around to the question of where does J Street fit into this scenario. Does it reflect what Michel Warschawski is talking about, or what AIPAC, Uri, and this endless peace process is all about? If it is “…agnostics and one-staters and BDS out…,” what is “in?”
Although Uri has done many good things, when you boil it down to addressing the foundation of the conflict he is “out,” however peace is “in.” So essentially when it comes down to instruments of real change just like Uri is out and turns into a classic Israeli liberal apologist, so is J Street. Is there any difference between the classical liberal Israeli apologist who is Zionist lite, Uri and J Street (who seems to hold the same views at least on what is “in and out”), when it comes to the foundational issues that have to be addressed to bring real change into this current tragedy? To be brutally honest all I see J Street as is a more public face of classic Zionist liberalism in the USA.
Except that you ignore that a commitment to oppose exploitation results in a pendulum swing, as the side that you formerly supported, then exploits in retaliation sometimes less harshly sometimes more harshly.
The appropriate approach is for peace, meaning a reconciliation.
There is peace that is fraudulent in name, but there is justice that is fraudulent in name as well.
A true peace always includes consent. A true “justice” can remain a rapacious pendulum swinging for centuries. Better that we create a peace.
Funny that you can’t bring yourself to bring yourself to criticize Israel for destroying peace. I dare say this dares repeating, because you always try to run from the truth.
link to haaretz.com
That’s all valid enough, though coming from you, the apologist for some of Israel’s war crimes, it rings hollow. Reconciliation advocates should be truthful, honest, non-deceptive. The appropriate approach is not to lie. A true peace advocate does not cover up the crimes of his favored side. A true hypocrite talks of peace, but advocates for war crimes. Better that we create peace.
A fortune cookie tastes better after a good meal, and a rolling stone gathers no moss. A stitch in time…okay, I’m losing the thread here.
For J Street to compliantly adopt the content and style of the far left would equally be a betrayal.
It is doing what it should, maybe it needs support to add volume and numbers and breadth.
Better that you help, than shaft it for not being “anarchist”.
You’re comments Richard help to turn up the volume of what I am talking about, in fact, you’re endorsement of J Street and the “peace” cry without substantive change in the colonial Israeli stance, fits perfectly with J Street. If you want J Street currently you get Richard, and when has Richard ever honestly addressed this subject adequately and without prejudice. No, you see the same emphasis, that you find with Israeli Zionist apologists, Richard, Uri and J Street (when it come to getting to to what is really going on and proposing substantive change action). Thank you Richard.
What time is where you are, V?
Almost 11:00PM. why?
Searching for a Minyan: Our Response to Being Censored by J Street
Kevin Coval
Co-authored by Josh Healey
HuffingtonPost
Posted: October 20, 2009
link to huffingtonpost.com
This is an excellent but very sad article Michael, thank you for sharing it. Not that I want to give grist to the right or far right, but the appeal at the end is very moving (the whole article is very good), and I identify with it –
“So, we are searching for a minyan — a crew of progressives and progressive Jews to build and connect with. We want to have a conversation. Not wait for the conversation to be dictated and have borders and walls built around acceptable topics, but to have a conversation determined by us, Jews That Are Left, that are on the Left. A conversation that is honest and open and genuinely reclaims and considers our progressive past as well as forges the future world. A conversation engaged in the work of tikkun olam for real, the work of repair and healing and wholeness.
Progressive American Jews, where you at? Holla at us! For real: jewsthatareleft@gmail.com. Let’s reshape the conversation. Let’s build a minyan, a coalition of progressive Jews and gentiles who want what is just and right for all people and all people in Israel and Palestine.”
Those that try to be everything for everybody end up being nothing for everyone.
Your assertion is the resistance is effective, while peace-seeking is inneffective or too compromised.
The reality is that in this case resistance has proven to be entirely counter-productive, with the effect of multiplying repression for each resistance effort, especially the ones accompanied by minor and horrific violence.
In contrast, the efforts FOR peace have yeilded productive relations.
Netanyahu is difficult. Every time he has been prime minister, confusions and distrust have escalated.
It is why I describe likud and resistance solidarity as far more allied and similar than opposing and dissimilar.
Both bear the GOAL and practice of preventing reconciliation at the green line or other respectful basis of reconciliation.
George Orwell is rolling in his grave.
Witty, resistance in isolation from the Palestinians against the superpowers and Israel has been ineffective, the peace process has been ineffective and is a proverbial joke. However we are not talking about the loan struggle of an isolated people when we talk about BDS, and world BDS is more powerful than a colonial terrorist state like Israel.
Also, stop trying to isolate the problem to Bibi and Likud, this process of the destruction of the Palestinian people has been the goal of each successive Israeli government since inception in 1948. In other words, both of your premise of argument are fallacious and disingenuous as usual. When are you going to stop this nonsense?
When you stop the nonsense. You speak the same language as all that you criticize “either-or”.
BDS is part of the same.
Time to speak a different language.
Mutual humanization, of ALL the “others”.
No more victimhood for you and I Witty, I am over dosed on victimhood – it has been around all my life. It can no longer be invoked by Israel which abuses it to smother the moral voice of those Israel causes to suffer – the Palestinians. It has been a long time since we have had to change our names in the USA and elsewhere, no one is hunting us (we do a good enough job of making ourselves repugnant). Israel is not a weak “other,” it stopped being this a while back, now it is a strong aggressor. My no’dh is dry of the fantasy tears of us being the victims, and Israel can no longer slap a collective mesusah on property that does not belong to them.
Pingback: Searching for a Minyan: Israel, McCarthyism, & the Struggle for Real Dialogue
Israel is certainly attacked. Israeli civilians are too frequently attacked for being Israelis. And, when that occurs, Israel and Israelis are victims.
It doesn’t diminish the rational argument, that Israel and Israelis also attack and unnecessarily suppress in many ways.
The intelligent response is to inquire what is your goal, and how to get there?
Your conclusion that you are “opposed to Israel” as the sum of the political picture, is morally insufficient, resulting in pendulum swings (as militancy has always resulted in).
I do not know how to say this in a kindly way Richard, read what I have posted if you do not know what my goal is. If you still cannot honestly discover it than get checked for a reading deficiency disorder.
Evil and injustice should always be attacked. To say that this makes evil a victim is a perversion of the term.
And where is that?
Perhaps you can summarize.
I’m late on seeing this post, but great coverage. I’m really interested in seeing how Adam and Phil cover this as it develops. What will J Street give up to maintain inside-the-beltway legitimacy? To what extent is that just “playing the game” and to what extent does that undermine the movement for a more just U.S. policy toward Israel/Palestine?
J Street came out early against BDS (and I believe is including a workshop on how to resist divestment efforts on campus at its conference). It attacked the TIFF protesters. Now it’s given Healy the boot. Will the influence that J Street gains in Washington justify this aggressive attitude toward the rest of the movement? Or will J Street become just another Washington organization patting itself on the back for keeping the term “the two state solution” PC?