Last night at Netroots Nation, I had a conversation with Minnesota congressman Keith Ellison, one of two Muslims in the Congress, and after I congratulated him for his outspokenness on Gaza, he told me of his support for the Palestinian statehood initiative in the United Nations.
“We all say we’re for two states. Everyone is for two states. Well for me this is the rubber meeting the road. Why do we oppose it if we are for the two state solution?
“Because,” he said, answering his own question, “we are captured by the Likud and to the right of the Likud. We are not captured by Israel or even by the lobby.” Israel, he said, has a more diverse political discourse than the United States, and as for the lobby in the U.S., it’s more progressive than people give it credit, it’s the Republican right that is making trouble.
“We are captured by the dispensationalists and the dominionists. It’s a myth that the Jewish lobby is doing it. Every single Jewish congressman in the Democratic Party is for two states and for peace. But the Republican party is drivng the debate, and it’s dominionists and dispensationalists who need the Jews of Israel for the end times.”
I disagreed with him. His is the conventional dodge of any Democratic or by extension communal Jewish responsibility for Palestinian rightslessness, when support for Israeli maximalism is imbedded in his own party. I told Ellison about the debate between his good friend Brian Baird, a former congressman, and then-congressman Anthony Weiner in New York in March. “Weiner has said racist and intolerant things, including that there’s no occupation.”
Ellison said, “I don’t think that Anthony necessarily represents where the Democratic Party would be given its druthers.” He said that Jews vote 80 percent for Obama and their concerns are far more diverse than Israel, they have a progressive agenda. Again we differed. I said that opinion polls show that Jews are conservative on the Israel issue, against dividing Jerusalem for instance, and that this is not a trivial area for us, and we’re an empowered community.
“A lot of communities have had you know people who are not tolerant, Every community has its own us versus them going on,” Ellison said, and he included the black community. “But you got to remember 80 percent of Jews voted for Obama.”
He went on to say, “I’ve been to Sderot, I understand the Israeli security need.” He said he has heard some insensitivity toward Israeli concerns from the Palestinian solidarity community.
The fault in Ellison’s thinking is, Rightwingers can’t be driving this debate if they did not have adherents inside the Democratic Party; and they do. Anthony Weiner is hardly alone. The Democratic Party is also extreme. And Obama is, according to the Wall Street Journal and Commentary and the Jewish press, afraid of losing Jewish money, which is likely a majority of Democratic giving, if he say, comes out against settlements in the Security Council or supports a Palestinian state in the General Assembly.
I’m having some great conversations at Netroots, meaning kindred spirits, like Ellison. But in spite of Ellison’s great efforts, this issue continues to be special, even in the progressive community. Yesterday at Netroots, a heavyweight panel including two congressmen (John Garamendi, Jim McGovern) and Darcy Burner and Steve Clemons said that Democratic Party antiwar folks have to make common cause with the Republican libertarians on Afghanistan, so as to get us out of there, by putting pressure on the president. The thrust of the panel was that Obama has become a war president, and we must take him on by talking, from an American national interest, along with Republicans, about how much money we are wasting that we could be spending on education and infrastructure.
There is no panel here to talk about a creative coalition to take on the Republican right on settlements/Palestine. Because support for Israel no matter what is actually embedded in the Democratic Party’s left-prog base.
Though again, I’m having good conversations here, there are a lot of us here. Netroots is like J Street that way. The base is to the left of the leadership. More to come soon.
Update: This post initially said that Ellison is the only Muslim in the Congress. He was the first. Andre Carson of Indiana is the other.
