Everyone is passing around an article in today’s New York Times, titled, “Iran deal opens a vitriolic divide among American Jews,” by Jonathan Weisman and Alexander Burns. The article deplores the vituperation between Jews over foreign policy and even blames the president for the impasse. Here’s the heart of the complaint:
[L]eaders now speak openly of long-term damage to Jewish organizations, and possibly to American-Israeli relations….
Greg Rosenbaum, the chairman of the National Jewish Democratic Council, raised such concerns this month at a private meeting between President Obama and Jewish groups. At the meeting, other Jewish leaders told Mr. Obama that his own rhetoric — framing the debate as a choice between diplomacy and war, and speaking of the money lining up against the deal — was only accelerating the corrosion.
“We are on the verge of fratricide in the Jewish community, and it has to stop,” said Mr. Rosenbaum, who spoke of Jews’ spurning organizational meetings, and even religious services, simply to avoid discussing Iran.
That desperation is also voiced by Democratic Reps. Eliot Engel and Steve Israel, two Democrats who oppose their president on the Iran breakthrough:
Mr. Engel said. “And there has to be a rapprochement between the United States and Israel. There just has to be.”
But the bitterness of the current debate will make that difficult. Mr. Israel said that Republican leaders had begun exploiting the rift
Do these folks have any sense of accountability? They took on the president, and people believe they did so because of concerns for Israel! They think there shouldn’t be consequences to them or the hard-right Israel lobby they represent? That is chutzpah.
Haaretz today reports that Jewish groups who oppose the deal have poured $100 million into their opposition. That sounds like real money.
Almost $100 million has been poured in by Jewish groups in opposition to the deal. Jewish leaders like Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Bob Cohen from AIPAC and Jonathan Greenblatt, ADL’s national director, as well as a majority of the Jewish Federations have strongly came out against the international accord and are lobbying Congress to vote to disapprove the deal.
$100 million spent against Obama, torquing public opinion in the polling– and Obama shouldn’t talk about money? I say President Obama has a perfect right to take on the forces that are trying to destroy his greatest foreign policy achievement. And it’s an American tradition to talk about corruption of the political process by money, and an American tradition going back to Madison in the Federalist papers to decry the power of a faction in a republic.
The upset at Obama goes back to this statement by the president to Democratic senators quoted by the Times in January:
The president said he understood the pressures that senators face from donors and others.
And to his speech on August 5 at American University on the historic importance of the Iran Deal, in which he called out Israel and Benjamin Netanyahu for opposing the deal and said he has a constitutional duty to work for the U.S.
because this is such a strong deal, every nation in the world that has commented publicly, with the exception of the Israeli government, has expressed support…
as President of the United States, it would be an abrogation of my constitutional duty to act against my best judgment simply because it causes temporary friction with a dear friend and ally. I do not believe that would be the right thing to do for the United States. I do not believe it would be the right thing to do for Israel.
Let me be clear that I think the “fratricide” in the Jewish community is necessary. There is just too much that’s been shoved under the carpet. The liberal Zionists went along with the neoconservatives on the Iraq war, and had substantial influence in that decision process; and the liberals’ regret over that horrifying mistake is one reason they have been so great on the Iran Deal, and working so hard for the president. The liberal Zionists do so in part because when a difference in interest is stated between Israel and the U.S., they will be on the American side. They believe that the neocons are Israel firsters but they won’t say so publicly because that is a traditional anti-semitic charge and because they care too much about the Jewish solidarity that is such a value in the Times piece to have a full-blown civil war.
But the civil war will come. The divisions in this piece will resonate in next year’s campaigns. The Dems and the Republicans will argue over the end of the two-state solution and what to do about Israel’s absorption of the West Bank; and inside the Democratic Party, that same reality will produce a confrontation over BDS between liberal Zionist Jews and anti-Zionists, many of whom are Jews.
All these open divisions are necessary and right because the stakes are so real when it comes to American policy because Jews are empowered. We don’t live in the shtetl with court Jews going to negotiate on our behalf with the powers-that-be. No, we are part of the American establishment, and one segment of our community, operating in what they have described as a “Jewish interest,” pushed a U.S. war with Iraq and now a U.S. war with Iran. And other Jews see a different interest. “Every Jewish member of California’s Congressional delegation except Brad Sherman is supporting the #IranDeal,” J Street crows today.
Eli Lake says the fight over the Deal is over. Another good sign. Samantha Power, US ambassador to the United Nations, wrote a piece supporting the deal in Politico and never mentioned Israel!
Let the monolith fall.
For a break from the ludicrous political theater on the Iran deal, I provide a quote and link to an article at Counterpunch by Ismael Hossein-zadeh which discusses this from a more realistic perspective. I might add that one of the original seven countries on the neocon hit list is Lebanon which is now on the brink of collapse and is barely held together by Hizbollah. War and destruction everywhere, yet Bernie wants Saudi Arabia to become more involved. No joke.
“The second misconception that the war party’s vehement opposition to the nuclear deal has created is that their ultimate goal vis-à-vis Iran is significantly different from that of the Obama administration and other proponents of the deal. In reality, however, the difference between the opponents and proponents of the deal is largely tactical; strategically, both factions pursue the same objective: regime change in Iran.
While the advocates of the deal have in recent years switched their tactics from direct military intervention and regime change from without to soft-power methods of regime change from within, the opponents of the deal continue to insist that overwhelming military force and escalating economic strangulation are the more effective means of regime change in Tehran, that is, regime change from outside.” (Ismael Hossein-zadeh) http://www.counterpunch.org/2015/08/28/behind-the-congressional-disagreements-over-the-iran-nuclear-deal/
It would appear that the mantra of ” victimisation ” is so deeply ingrained in these people that it must be in their DNA.
It is beyond belief that they claim it is all someones elses fault and they are the targets of some outside force that is trying to divide and destroy Jews.
To paraphrase Eljay !!, It,s like the rapist who files suit against his victim for breaking his nose while resisting .
Ironically, one of the Zionist dreams was that Jews could finally be normal citizens of they town country, that the police officer would be Jewish as would be the criminal. Jews could be scholars and farmers and bus drivers.
In fact it will probably be the collapse of Zionism and the split of the Jewish community into the same various camps you find in most groups, that will lead to full normalisation.
I agree with Phil, most importantly its good for I/P and good for America and lastly, btw, good for the Jews.
I agree it’s a good thing what’s happening in the jewish community. When it’s successful it’s cleaned of the neocon crazies. It’s necessary to take on extremists doing great harm to mankind, and when you take on extremists, expect them extreme things to do and cause some troubles, but it’s nevertheless necessary.
One more funny thing from the open letter of the extremist supporters Nita Lowey Lowey, Eliot L. Engel and Steve Israel as quoted in the New York Times:
It sounds as if they feel offended that some people suggest they have dual loyality in the meaning of having any other loyality beside oyality to Israel. I find it quite funny to read it that way.