Lately I have had conversations with two very-connected Jews that suggested to me the wheels are coming off the lobby’s cart, that the collapse of the talks due to Israel’s intransigence is upsetting American Jews, and some of the grown-ups are getting closer to saying, F-you, Israel, we’re done indulging your disgusting habits. Yes, I know, I say that every other week. But here are those conversations, massaged to remove identifying particulars.
1. I have to say: the deal over there hasn’t worked out. It’s no different from the Northern Ireland situation. You have a religious group of colonizers that went over there a while back and they depended on their co-religionists back in the old country and never made peace with the locals. My kid came back from birthright talking about the Palestinians’ conditions, appalling. Oh but I’m for a two-state solution. For the sake of peace.
2. The whole settlement business is now exposed for what it was, a landgrab. They were just trying to get all the land for the Jews and they treated the locals with complete contempt. The racism is astonishing there now. You saw what the rabbis said about not renting to Palestinians?
Why Obama caved is a mystery. Congress was waiting for him to take the next step after he said the settlements must end in Cairo. Even Hillary was on board. No more construction! When Netanyahu refused to give in on settlements, Obama should have come out and said, OK, you won’t come to the settlement table; you must come to the borders table. He should have increased the pressure on Israel, and the Jewish community wouldn’t have turned on him.
Obama’s advisers have a too-fearful view of the lobby. And yes, there’s something passive about Obama, over-respectful.
There’s only one way to save the two-state solution. The delegitimization argument. Israelis don’t care about anything anyone says because they have the U.S. behind them, but they care about delegitimization. It drives them crazy. We’re being delegitimized around the world! They’re hysterical about it, it scares them.
This is the road that Obama can walk. He can say, You’re delegitimizing yourselves by an illegal occupation.
After the second conversation, I reflected that even liberal Zionist Dan Fleshler now argues that some parts of the delegitimization narrative are accurate (harsh criticism, not demonization). And Noam Chomsky said very similar things many years ago: Israel’s occupation serves to delegitimize it. And who listened? History doesn’t wait around like someone waiting for the 10 bus, history’s a galloping horse, and I do believe history has moved on…
But that’s the news from liberal Zionists…
