I spent half the time at the J Street conference with my eyes misting over and the other half wishing that Code Pink would come in and disrupt the proceedings with angry protest. And that’s without even going to see Ehud Olmert, the man who launched the Gaza massacre, last night. I couldn’t bring myself.
This is the third year I have been to the J St conference and every time I find myself inspired. This year I saw Mustapha Barghouti speak repeatedly of apartheid in a room jammed with 500 people. You could hear a pin drop. I heard several Palestinians explain patiently to American Jews the insult in the idea that Israel should be a Jewish state, I heard one Israeli Knesset member, Zehava Galon, call repeatedly for a democracy in Israel without saying Jewish democracy. I watched in awe as an Israeli activist named Amitai ben-Abba did what no American Jew could bring him or herself to do, but start shouting at a member of Knesset about the ethnic cleansing of Al-Arakib and finish with the scream, that he should end the racist Jewish National Fund. I heard repeated descriptions of racism and extremism in Israeli society and of the necessity of dealing with Hamas.
I almost never heard the word Iran. I saw a crowded room discuss the one state solution with respect, a mile from Capitol Hill. I heard several speakers call for targeted boycott of the settlements. I heard Jane Eisner of the Forward urging Jews to “absorb” the fact that we are no longer a victimized minority but “a group with extraordinary wealth, social status and political power.” Amen.
These are all expressions of the enlightened and moral movement inside progressive Jewish life. If you are going to pull together hundreds of Jewish youth and talk about the Jewish future, well–you had better be talking about racism in Israel.
But make no mistake: J Street is not a democratic organization. As Bruce Wolman (who also attended the conference and will be writing about it here) said, The early Zionist congresses were democratic affairs; there is not a shred of democracy in J Street. J Street is an organization that exists to gain access in Washington and shift the policy. And the deciders are not the people in the one state discussion, they are the rabbis and other community elders who still govern the Jewish communal discourse in the U.S. and by extension the larger political discourse on the Middle East. This group is enormously conservative and they don’t want change, and J Street has to placate them.
So J Street’s official face is conservative. On the main stage, a rabbi named Donniel Hartman, says that Israel lives in a “difficult, crappy neighborhood” (sorry rabbi, that’s racist) and a Nation contributor and former Democratic operative, Ilyse Hogue, laments that the Gilad Shalit deal gave power to Hamas.
And of course the keynote speaker last night was Ehud Olmert, who launched the Gaza slaughter and is almost certainly guilty of war crimes for indiscriminate attacks on civilian targets that resulted in the killings of over 300 children. (Not so different from Assad’s methods, for which we all believe he should be in the dock.) And J Street’s leader, Jeremy Ben-Ami, made a point of opposing boycott just before the conference began in an interview he granted to the Israeli mouthpiece Jeffrey Goldberg, thereby opposing Peter Beinart, one of the conference’s star attractions. We can be sure that Ben-Ami took Beinart aside and said, “Peter, I had to say that. You know personally I’m on your side.” Such is the nature of the monolithic Jewish discourse.
I should be thankful to J Street, and I am, that it did not go in for Jeffrey Goldberg’s Iran fear mongering and Netanyahu pandering. Today J Street lobbyists are hitting the hill asking Congressmen to sign a letter that calls for diplomacy with Iran. J Street is working hard to stop the next crazy war. (Though J Street has not opposed Aipac’s militant letter; and its two state letter takes pains to describe the one state solution as an extremists’ concoction, both right and left).
I am thankful to J Street that it filled a room with more than 500 Jews to hear about the one state solution, and that those people were utterly quiet as Mustafa Barghouti described apartheid, over and over again. That moment was liberating. It will allow Jodi Rudoren, the next Times correspondent, to write about apartheid on the front page of the New York Times (mark my word).
Still I am not entirely sure what J Street’s game is. The Obama administration sent up Tony Blinken, Joe Biden’s foreign policy adviser, to address the crowd and when J Street complained about the insult, sent along Valerie Jarrett, Obama’s longtime political aide. Jarrett and Blinken are chopped liver next to what AIPAC gets, the president himself and Hillary Clinton, an ambassador or two, and the whole Democratic leadership grinning and kneeling. The Democratic Party and the Obama administration are crapping on J Street– J Street which was born to give Obama his back when he took on the fight.
So J Street has been loyal to Obama through thin and thin and Obama has done nothing to breathe political life into this organization.
J Street is the opposite of Astroturf. It has the movement in the halls, but the movement doesn’t get to vote. If the people in the rooms got to vote on targeted boycott they would carry it by 60-40 or 70-30, was my impression. But they don’t get to vote. The leadership of J Street is using the movement to do its outreach, to grow its membership, and meanwhile it plays an inside game, in an attempt to leverage the Jewish establishment to the left by standing a step to the left of AIPAC. It is permitting far more freedom of speech on Palestinian human rights and the role of the lobby than the Center for American Progress ever would, but what it is doing for the movement? AIPAC buys off the young by promising to help them with their careers; and AIPAC can point to rewards it has brought to student government presidents. While J Street is seeking to give these young people spiritual and emotional rewards, by allowing them to believe in moral Jewish engagement on Israel’s pervasive racism.
But I think they could get that feeling other places, without being passive as they are required to be here, with some actual power. And really the question is why they put up with it. Well, the students change from one year to another, the students move on, and as for the older people, there seemed to be fewer of them this year than ever. Some have responded cynically, J Street just wants to replace AIPAC on the left. It refuses to step outside the Jewish community and engage in real leverage on Israel– say by calling for an end to American aid, which would be hugely popular with the American people (as Wolman reminded everyone he spoke to at the conference).
But that would be grassroots, and J Street loves the Washington power game. I’m going to stop on a very positive note. J Street is doing its best to prevent an Iran war and thus to keep Netanyahu from taking the Israel/Palestine conflict off the table for another five years. And Mustafa Barghouti is deeply grateful to J Street for giving him a forum in D.C. to talk about nonviolent struggle. To say the word resistance again and again, a few steps from Capitol Hill, and to have American Jews listen. That is real progress.
Bruce Wolman and I will have more reports from J Street panels in days to come.
I had a few hours to kill and spent them on one single panel at their website where they livestreamed the whole thing.
It was a panel entitled “Christian Zionists, hawks, neocons and Casino Magnates”.
It was apparently aimed at exploring the various alliances in the Likudnik circles.
I learned quite a bit about the right-wing Evangelicals(which isn’t the same thing as ‘Christian Zionists, but the topic was only about the farthest-right). In fact… the panel was just about only about the Christian Zionists.
Not a single word on the last section, like Sheldon Adelson. He was only mentioned once where in passing it was mentioned that he funded Newt’s chances at becomming president. That was it.
I can’t talk about other panels, but it appears that Beinart’s appeal to speak about the ‘ethics of Jewish power’ went unheard. Instead, they all bashed the easiest target to attack in progressive circles – namely Southern, conservative hard-right Christians.
These people make up a significant portion of the alliance but they are they groundtroopers. It’s the donorbase which is important. I can understand if J Street(or rather, it’s panel, Michelle Goldberg, Sarah Posner, some guy from Media Matters(Jewish lastname) feel uneasy about this topic. Fine. But if the panel wants to explore alliances, what’s the point by talking 99 % about Christian Zionists?
There is still a widespread fear on these topics, which I can understand, but you should and could at least broach them gently. Afterall, we’re talking about a specific subset of the donorbase of a small number of right-wing Jews. Adelson is very colorful and people focus on him but you have guys like Seth Klarman(behind the new right-wing ‘Times of Israel’) and others like him who are not as visible but still keep an important presence. And what about Haim Saban?
But I guess it’s simply much easier to overinflate the important of John Hagee and totally ignore the real power-brokers, for reasons we all know. Expected, but I had hoped at least a more thorough discussion on all these groups. After all, the title of the panel gave the impression of even balance, something which didn’t occur.
Another thing: I didn’t like Ben-Ami’s throwing of Beinart under the buss when it happened just before the convention. Even if he said he welcomes different viewpoints it was done in an acid manner and the phrases used “I never said I agreed with him on anything” and such gave an impression of a more strong distancing.
Some people dismiss J Street as AIPAC lite. I’m not sure. I think there are genuine liberal elements and they had quite a bit of influence in the early days. But Ben-Ami has been steering the organization further to the right as time has gone on.
“I spent half the time at the J Street conference with my eyes misting over and the other half wishing that Code Pink would come in and disrupt the proceedings with angry protest.”
Phil, you never fail to make me smile in the middle of discussing serious issues. You have a real gift, which I always appreciate.
Thank you for this insightful post and for sharing your emotional reaction as well as your analysis – clearly a mix of hopeless and hopeful, counterpoints that are infinitely frustrating.
But take heart. From the long view, everything has a place and every little bit helps. This battle isn’t going to be won on the basis of one individual, one organization, one initiative, one anything. Cliche aside, the whole is greater than the sum of its parts. Everything is moving forward (exponentially, I’d say) and there is net gain.
Theodore Parker in “Of Justice and the Conscience” (1853) stated: “I do not pretend to understand the moral universe; the arc is a long one, my eye reaches but little ways; I cannot calculate the curve and complete the figure by the experience of sight; I can divine it by conscience. And from what I see I am sure it bends towards justice.”
Inspired by Parker’s words, Martin Luther King, a century later, summarized it in his famous phrase, “The arc of the moral universe is long, but it bends towards justice.”
I believe it.
It’s the one thing that sustains me through my anger, frustration, impatience, and moral outrage.
“On the main stage, a rabbi named Donniel Hartman, says that Israel lives in a “difficult, crappy neighborhood” “.
Like Phil, I reject the rabbi’s characterization. But allowing it, arguendo, as proof of speaker’s attitude:
My goodness! How ever did that happen? What could the Ben-Gurions of this world have been thinking when they chose this neighborhood? What a surprise! What an imposition!! How could those nasty neighbors have crowded in upon little clean-living Israel! (Little, but growing! And dirtier all the time!) And why do the nasty neighbors hate us Israelis so much, when some (very few) of us lived among them peacefully for centuries (albeit without taking over their country and expelling them — details, details).
I guess Israel was supposed to do a job of urban renewal, yuppitudinization on the neighborhood. Cleanliness, which is why [apart from Israel’s sinister desire to expel remaining Palestinians by denial of water] Israel uses 80% of WB’s water and uses water, per-capita, like Europeans rather than like Middle-Easterners, who have learned over many centuries of living there — right there! — (sorry Joan Peters!) how to live with the environment they have available.
Rabbi, rabbi, what do you answer?
“If the people in the rooms got to vote on targeted boycott they would carry it by 60-40 or 70-30, was my impression. But they don’t get to vote.”
No. J-Street is not democratic. Of course, we Americans are used to oligarchy, corporate ownership of government, so why shouldn’t AIPAC-like (or AIPAC-lite) folks “own” J-Street? sure, they should.
But the “people in the rooms” and all those who weren’t there need a movement to represent THEM and THEIR views. They should jump ship from J-Street and from all top-down dictatorial Jewish organizations and join a group that is EITHER democratic i its workings OR AT LEAST represents their views.
JVP’d be my guess.
RE: “And that’s without even going to see Ehud Olmert, the man who launched the Gaza massacre, last night. I couldn’t bring myself.” ~ Weiss
MY SNARK: How could you possibly pass up an opportunity to see the man from the “Holy Land”/Holyland?
SEE: New Olmert indictment keeps focus on political corruption, By Linda Gradstein, JTA, 1/08/12
ENTIRE ARTICLE – http://www.jta.org/news/article/2012/01/08/3091047/new-olmert-indictment-keeps-focus-on-political-corruption
P.S. I hope Olmert had some constructive things to say about how Israel’s descent into madness can be reversed. Needless to say, an indictment is not proof of guilt.