Jerry Slater has a wonderful analysis here of how the "moral collapse" of Israel and the failure of the peace process have been aided by American peace groups, Americans for Peace Now and J Street, because they are not giving the real news about the situation over there to the American Jewish community, which is the most important community politically. Instead of denouncing war crimes, these groups have chosen to preserve "cherished mythologies" inside the Jewish community. Slater singles out APN for giving a platform to Yossi Alpher, who justifies the Gaza onslaught; J Street for failing to criticize Gaza; and the Israeli human-rights group B’Tselem for not supporting Goldstone forcefully.
(To Slater’s analysis, I would only add that it describes the left wing of the Israel lobby, that portion of the liberal Jewish community that, out of ethnocentrism or generational fears of anti-Semitism or romantic ideas about Jews as righteous outsiders in American life, has failed to publicly repudiate neoconservatism because the liberals recognize it as an expression of the Jewish community, and they’ve got neocons in their family, and on the board.)
Read the whole piece. Here are excerpts:
Even those who deny the existence of an Israel lobby that dominates U.S. policies towards Israel are not likely to deny that the Jewish community is the most important sector of American public opinion on all issues pertaining to Israel. Consequently, domestic politics ensures that there will be no change in American government policies in the absence of strong Jewish support for sustained pressures on Israel. And if they are to have any chance of success, those pressures must include making U.S. diplomatic, economic, and military assistance of Israel conditional on major changes in its policies…
[T]he Israeli government is getting worse and worse, and the Obama administration has essentially surrendered. We may be winning the battle for the hearts and minds of a small minority, but we are still losing the much more important battle: to persuade the dominant majority in both the U.S. and Israel of the need for radical changes in Israeli attitudes and behavior towards the Palestinians. Indeed, even the Israeli attack on Gaza last year and the subsequent Goldstone report (hereafter referred to as Gaza/Goldstone) have failed to turn around U.S. public opinion and government policies….
[T]he failure of the peace groups is not simply a strategic one but one of understanding and analysis as well: an inability to fully confront the overwhelming evidence that demolishes the most cherished mythologies in Israel and the American Jewish community. This is clearly the case with Peace Now in Israel and APN in the U.S. and there are signs that it may also be true of J Street…
Two months ago, Alpher summed up his views on Gaza and Goldstone in his regular interview with APN. From the strategic point of view, Alpher said, the consequences of the war had been “a decidedly mixed bag.” On the one hand, it did add to Israel’s “deterrence,” as evidenced by the marked drop in Hamas attacks in the last year which, along with the fact that during the war there were few Israeli military or civilian casualties, had made the war “far more tolerable for the Israeli public.” On the other hand, Alpher conceded, the large numbers of “enemy” civilian casualties had “radically exacerbated…the [international] drive to delegitimize Israel–a drive that the Goldstone report, probably unintentionally, played into.” (emphasis added)
Moreover, Alpher continued, “Goldstone singled out Israel at a time when far worse civilian casualties were being inflicted by the United States and its allies in Iraq and Afghanistan and by Sri Lanka in Jaffna, with few if any international questions asked. But nobody wants to hear these Israeli responses. Nobody wanted to hear that very true and courageous statement by British Colonel Richard Kemp, veteran of the Afghan war, that ‘the IDF did more to safeguard civilians than any other army.’"..
Pragmatism, indeed. The finest moment of Israel’s Peace Now organization—and perhaps, for that reason, its greatest influence—came when it led mass public protests against the 1982 Israel attack on Lebanon that resulted in the killing of an estimated 10,000 Lebanese civilians, as well as the complicity if not the collaboration of the Israeli army with the terrible Lebanese massacres of Palestinian women and children in the Sabra and Chatilla refugee camps in Beirut. What Peace Now objected to was not that the massacre of innocent civilians was “counterproductive,” [an Alpherism] or even that it harmed Israel’s “image,” but that it was evil.
In short, so long as its de facto chief political analyst is Yossi Alpher, APN can provide no guidance to those who think that the moral issues in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict should be taken seriously and analyzed coherently….
….[L]ike Americans for Peace Now, and J Street, B’Tselem has largely marginalized itself on the Gaza/Goldstone issue.
What accounts for B’Tselem’s depressing descent towards irrelevance on what is the most important human rights issue in recent Israeli history? Perhaps its leaders simply are unwilling to acknowledge even to themselves the full extent of Israeli criminality. That would appear to be the case for Yael Stein, but it seems unlikely to be true of Jessica Montell, particularly in light of her previous statements about Israel’s policies in Gaza.
It seems more likely, then, that B’Tselem has decided that the domestic political climate in Israel is such that it must move to the right. If so, that is certainly understandable, in light of the fact that since the Gaza attack and then the election of Netanyahu, the Israeli government, with the backing of a majority of its citizens, is increasingly pressuring and even repressing not just the Palestinians or Israeli Arabs–that’s old news– but even Jewish peace and human rights groups.
If you are trying to say tha the USA regime, over the last 40 plus years, and its enablers under the AIPAC umbrella, are costing the USA it’s hard-won good world reputation paid for by US blood and treasure during WW2, you are correct. What remains to surface in any effect way is that average US citizens smell that coffee. Meanwhile, those citizens just keep paying the price, both in terms of US military in the Middle East, and the cost of same, even as the
US grows poorer by the day.
Color me cynical, Citizen, but I’m not sure that’ll ever happen. I think the implosion of the US economy, followed quickly by the sundering of the federal government, is a far more likely course. Sure, then people will wake up, but by then there will no longer be a United States to be citizens of.
The farce of a health care reform debate is the foreshadow of greater catastrophes to come.
“If you are trying to say tha the USA regime, over the last 40 plus years, and its enablers under the AIPAC umbrella, are costing the USA it’s hard-won good world reputation paid for by US blood and treasure during WW2, you are correct”
The USA lost that reputation over a period of sixty years, and not all in connection with Israel.
Much of it was lost when it became clear in the 1950s and 1960s that the US would support any dictator, no matter how corrupt and brutal, who claimed to be anti-communist. (Nor did that policy seem to change in the 70s and 80s.)
Much of it was lost in the McCarthy persecution. (Yes, this did have an international impact. I was a schoolboy in Australia, and I knew about McCarthy.)
Much of it was lost by the continual oppression of blacks in the 1950s and 1960s. (Yes, this did have an international impact. As before.)
And of course, Vietnam destroyed even more. The Zippo lighter had been the symbol of U.S. troops fighting against fascism and Nazism. It became the implement U.S. troops used to set fire to peasants’ huts.
There wasn’t much of that reputation left forty years ago.
Yes, all you describe didn’t help Uncle Sam’s reputation, for sure. Whatever was left of it sure has not been helped by Shrub’s invasion of Iraq and our special ally’s treatment of the natives in the former mandate land. Too, just look at all those tyrannical Arab regimes we’ve been propping up all these years.
But remember, the evildoers hate you for your freedoms.
I think we should be careful about marginalizing many of these groups with our own actions and rhetoric, but then again, this article makes a very valid point.
If they’re willing to remain silent about — or worse, endorse — what Operation Cast Lead represented, it calls into question just what else they’ll stand aside and let Israel do to the Palestinians. Or anyone who isn’t “chosen,” for that matter.
What we see by way of attack upon human rights groups, whether in the USA or abroad when it comes to Israel, is their willingness to blink. It is the mark of all predators, that when they smell fear, to attack. Whenever anything was truly accomplished here or abroad, is when the people (in any various form) were willing to sacrifice everything and ofter did to accomplish what was necessary. If this is not extent in these groups, one need not wonder why Israel still stands and moves full speed ahead toward the final stages of genocide of the Palestinians. If that is not important enough for them to move, well, than what can I say?
One of the basic maxims of Sun Tzu was to leave a clear exit route for the enemy. The exit route for would-be critics of Israel is the Netanyahu government – BYahoo himself, whom no one likes, and his right-wing allies. Lieberman, Yishai and that whole lot are a target-rich environment for critics.
When people find that they are able to target specific ministers, their criticism seems more political and less possibly anti-semitic. “We love Israel, but this government has to go, for Israel’s sake.”
Good advice. Criticize policy and practices, rather than demonize.
Now if only you would take it, Witty, vis-a-vis the Palestinians.
Or Iran. Or Naomi Klein. Or Phil Weiss.
Oh. Or Norman Finkelstein. Or Max Blumenthal. Or B’tselem. Or Gazan children. Or UN humanitarian aid workers.
Shall I go on, sir?
You think that I believe that Phil or Norman or Max Blumenthal don’t have a right to communicate, that they should be silenced by force?
My criticisms of their comments, when I differ with them, are clear, specific, rational.
“Is there any hope at all? The best chance for peace, of course, would be a sea-change within the Israeli public. However, Israeli peace groups have not succeeded in convincing mainstream opinion that their country’s policies are both a moral and a long-term security disaster. ”
The best chance for peace is a sea-change within the Israeli public.
“the Palestinian political leadership in the West Bank has never been more impressive and more anxious for a two-state peace settlement;”
“Consequently, the primary function of the leading U.S. peace groups—Americans for Peace Now (APN) and, more recently, J Street.—must be to PERSUADE American opinion that those traditional policies are detrimental both to the best interests of Israel and U.S. national interests.”
“In light of both Israeli and American mainstream opinion, it is undeniable that the peace groups in both countries confront a strategic dilemma. On the one hand, an open acknowledgement of the true depth of Israel’s moral collapse and even its capability of recognizing and acting on its rational self-interest might backfire: if the peace groups move too far to the left of the mainstream they may well be seen as illegitimate and lose even more influence. On the other hand, the situation is desperate, requiring a more forthright strategy, whatever the risks: if the peace groups continue to be too timid in their criticisms of Israeli policies and the complicity of the United States in them, they will become increasingly ineffectual and irrelevant. ”
Good points, especially the need to persuade.
“Of course neither Goldstone nor any other serious critic of Israel has argued that Israel wanted to kill as many civilians as it could: the charge is not genocide, merely war crimes. ”
He obviously doesn’t read this blog’s comments section.
“Perhaps a two-state settlement following negotiations with all relevant Palestinian parties, including Hamas—or even a unilateral Israeli withdrawal from the occupied territories? Fein does not discuss these possibilities.”
That strains credulity. He’s smarter than to assume that that wouldn’t spin out.
In the effort to condemn, he’s strong. In the effort to persuade he is still reaching an abyss where the distance across the abyss is only 60 yards, but assuming that one can simply “bridge it”, when no engineer has been able to yet (maybe for lack of trying, maybe for objective impossibility).
Better that he talk to engineers, those that can or could design such a bridge, not just the drawing of a hypothetical bridge.
I’ve got to add Phil, that your headline AGAIN exagerated and misrepresented both the article that you were summarizing, and reality.
“have made themselves irrelevant”.
I guess that could be a goading, “improve”. Or, it can be a giving up.
Anyone else get the impression that all Witty does is read the headlines? Small wonder he’s totally ignorant on articles here that detail IDF assaults on nonviolent protestors, schools, cultural venues, etc.
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It is a completely preposterous suggestion that one separate what someone does from their person, especially in in a colonial setting where peoples lives are being lost by the moment. You cannot have a colonial enterprise without the agreement and eager participation of the majority of the population within the group of offenders (whether they be a majority or minority within the makeup of the population). Certainly you can abhor the acts and try to save the person in a criminal setting, but you do not forgo the penalty. What an absolutely ridiculous sentiment, abhorring the acts while they continue with impunity – it would be like verbally reprimanding serial killers only to allow them to continue their atrocities (because this is what “legal” activity murdering the indigenous population is in the colonial setting, to justify serial criminality).
If you are going to isolate the criticism to just the “right wing” (as if there were any left or right wing when it comes to murdering Palestinians and further stealing the land in the old settler state colonial tradition), you will be sorely disappointed because anyone who studies this situation long enough finds out the so-called “left wing” IS MANY TIMES MORE ATROCIOUS THAN THE RIGHT WING! Some people need to come to the conclusion soon that we are not dealing with merely an isolated element in Israel, but an entire state apparatus which functions in the same fashion no matter what the exterior political proclivities might be. You either come to that conclusion or you can just twiddle your thumbs and go “duh” as the machine moves on.
It’s true, VR.
I am still reeling after a couple years ago, hearing a “progressive” zionist reply to a report that there is an increase in Israeli domestic violence that it was the fault of palestinian terrorism.
Today I wouldn’t even flinch, but back then I was more idealistic.
You know Sunyata, in our communities (because the subject here is the impact that these groups that say they are against occupation have, understandably Jewish for the most part), we seem to end at one of two dire straits – either we have the apparatus like J Street without the right message or goals, or we have the right message and goals without the proper apparatus. It makes you wonder at times whether this occurs by design or just is a natural scenario. Why can’t the design have the impact of both apparatus and message with goals?
So I have come to a specific conclusion, that those who are able to create the apparatus have the money to do so, and they decidedly pine for an Israel which will never materialize – or, they have a wrong or stilted view of what Israel is and does. Than you have the other which has the right message and goals, but the rest of the community (with the wherewithal) sits shiva on them because they call them extreme, not believing their assessment of Israel and its designs is reality (or, they are so beholden to the community, and think they have so much to loose, that they do not want to move).
Therefore, you have this endless stalemate, and no one wants to step into the breach and bridge the two (those with apparatus and no effective message or goals, and those with no apparatus and the correct message and goals). Which brings me to a third way, that a sort of “hit team” (for lack of a better term) be devised. It certainly cannot reduce down to a single individual addressing all of these issues and activities which try to promote the undesirable status quo in Israel, even if he/she had the ability to be Sherlock Holmes and go to each meeting – a single person cannot be in all place at once to address all of these assaults. So I propose a hit team that all can defer to, an adequate group which has the right message and goals with an adequate apparatus that both sides of this divide can invest in.
It might just be a dream, but one thing is for sure – it does not matter in the community if this divide is created by design or occurs naturally, the result we be the same – a failure to address this vital issue, the eventual demise of the Palestinian people, and the worsening of Israel as it devolves into a total genocidal machine. I think we are at a crossroads and it is time to put up or shut up, so if those with apparatus just want to be a useless appendage that accomplishes nothing, so be it. If those with the right message and goals want to be a mutual admiration society, splintered and ineffective, than more power to you. For those that want to address this in earnest I suggest you consider what I am saying, and that we put it into action.
It will require more than that.
It will require those with justice in their hearts to do what is right, rather than sit around content with their comfortable lives. In other words, it requires everyone.
Which, I’m sorry to be the wet blanket, I don’t ever see happening. I see the United States sliding into ruin. Our government no longer has the strength to climb out of the well into which we are falling.
My consolation, little though it is, is that without US support, Israel will quickly fall as well. Like apartheid South Africa, back when the American people were still capable of acting in the name of justice, even if it was abhorrently sluggish in doing so. (The US government and corporate America were big supporters of apartheid South Africa, right along with Israel, right up until boycott gained so much steam that they couldn’t afford to. I fear that there are altogether too many Zionists and Israelis in the US government and corporatocracy to hope for that sort of resolution. But I would love to be proven wrong.)
It not only needs to be done, it can be done – we can do it
WITH A LITTLE HELP
(hopefully this is something a few generations can identify with)
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The best hope for all concerned is a “sea-change” (love the phrase) in US policy which requires Israel to remove all the settlers and all the wall, and does so BECAUSE of international law.
(The USA could, of course, merely require these removals, without offering any reason at all, but that would be big-imperialist-against-little-imperialist, and no points to the USA for decency, standards, international consensus, etc.).
Let’s face it: Israel needs help. The political power of the settlement movement means Israel can never [by itself alone] reverse the settlement process and can never, therefore, offer or concur in any “peace” which the Palestinians can concur in. The help Israel needs is a change of outside circumstances, a tsunami if you will, big enough wash all the settlers and all the wall out of the West Bank. Only the USA can be that tsunami.
As for American Jewish groups, it’ll soon be crunch time.
Most ‘progressive’ Jewish groups in the USA have not made a clean choice between the old strategy of maintaining inter-Jewish ties by espousing “Israel, my country right or wrong, my mother drunk or sober” and a newer strategy of espousing “truth, justice, and peace, and in that order” and espousing international law and human rights concerns for Palestinians (as well as for Israelis). With Gaza/Goldstone and settlements and assassinations and BDS and all the kill-the-messenger stuff now coming out (like the anti-BDS stuff and the “lawfare conference”), there soon won’t be any sidelines to stand on.
So, I hope that J-Street can seize the moment to make the change in attitude, and become a Jewish Lobby for American Jews actively working for a just and lasting peace instead of merely talking about “peace” (without, as I recall, any “just” or “lasting” part). And J-Street is not the only group that must make its choice.
Hard times.
Just pointing out that there’ve been a lot of earthquakes in the area, and Israeli officials have said they are not prepared for a big one, a wall-toppler.
Slater’s article is a must-read. It is in the outline form of criticism of various Israeli and Jewish peace groups, but it offers much more comprehensive analysis than that. Above all, it demonstrates that the most prominent counter-weights to AIPAC and Israel militancy are at best inconsistent and more often clueless.
Above all, it demonstrates that the most prominent counter-weights to AIPAC and Israel militancy are at best inconsistent and more often clueless.
David, these so-called peace and reconciliation liberal Zionists, are not inconsistent or clueless by chance. They have made a decisive choice, one which perpetrated the callousness and arrogance of the Israeli people and US foreign policy for decades, of deflecting any criticism and flouting any responsibility towards international law. Their agenda has always been to act as a PR front for Israel and/or America. As more and more atrocities are coming out on the surface, these organizations, most prominently J-Street (the self-proclaimed voice of peace among the warmongering Israel lobby) will find it impossible not to distinguish themselves from the real organizations consistently and transparently working for peace (ala Jews Sans Frontieres) and others providing immunity to Israeli crime accountability.
I can’t say I agree with that. I think the vast majority of people in these groups want genuine peace and reconciliation, and do not see themselves as “deflecting any criticism and flouting any responsibility towards international law,” or having an “agenda has always been to act as a PR front for Israel and/or America.” They genuinely feel that their path is one that could lead to a just resolution. You make it seem like the so-called “peace camp” is deliberately trying to pull the wool over our eyes. It may be your perception (and mine) that these groups do defelect criticism and act as Israeli PR, but there’s simply no evidence that this is a nefarious plot to act as fake liberals. The problem with your attitude is that these are people who must be reached. They already have taken a stand that sets them apart from many in their community, and are therefore amenable to being persuaded that something is rotten here. Very few people dramatically shift their opinions overnight; it’s more of a gradual process. Why dismiss those who have taken the first steps as fakers?
This is why I proposed another way (11:39 above), but it is a very difficult road to travel. Requires a lot of suppressing of egos, and adjustments of views.