The alternative Israel lobby, J Street, is one year old today. It is celebrating its birthday with a fundraising drive to hire two more staffers and it says it has 100,000 members. It is pretty impressive.
J Street's rise is the reason that several people speak of the Likud lobby now. James North did so on this site yesterday. Chas Freeman did so, even as he blamed the Israel lobby for blocking his appointment to be National Intelligence Council chair back in March. Freeman needed to explain the fact that a lot of Jews came to his side, even as the neocons defeated him. Though let's be clear: J Street never came to Freeman's side. The left came to his side.
I first heard about an alternative Jewish lobby three years ago from my friend Daniel Flesher, realistic dove. Walt and Mearsheimer had just come out in LRB and I loved the piece for the simple reason that it described my reality in journalism, but Fleshler was upset about it. He knew there was a lot of truth in what they were saying, but he was determined to show that the Jewish community was not monolithic and on the wrong side. Today you can say that he was on to something.That alternative lobby is forming. (Though for my part I don't think it's worth it to work within the Jewish community. The only way out of the mess is through a diverse group).
Fleshler is an adviser to J Street and he is about to publish an important book called Transforming America's Israel Lobby. It has a foreword by M.J. Rosenberg, who celebrates Fleshler's program of being "pro-Israel, pro-Palestinian, and pro-American."
There is a lot to celebrate in this book. One thing is the urgency of Fleshler's call for a change in American policy toward the Israeli occupation. This has nothing to do with Iran policy and the forces of "catastrophic Judaism," he writes. The occupation must be ended.
I met Fleshler 36 years ago, in freshman year of college. Back then I recognized him as a fellow Jewish neurotic. Our friendship was renewed, truly, by Walt and Mearsheimer's paper and the Iraq war. The qualities I love in him are literary sensitivity, intellectual honesty and a moral code. When the chips are down, those qualities win in Fleshler, which is why we've stayed friends through a lot of disagreement and turbulent times.
In days to come I'm going to be quoting stuff from Fleshler's book. Here is a great story from his chapter on the left:
Encountering him later, I explained why I thought terms like holocaust and genocide were needlessly inflammatory and also inaccurate, as the Israelis–whatever their flaws–are not going out of their way to deliberately exterminate another people. He didn't buy it. It was particularly infuriating to him, I suspect, that people who toldhim to measure his words carefully also concurred with him on a great many issues. That man had a good heart. He did not believe he was yelling 'Fire!' in a crowded theater. Who can blame him for being frustrated?"
Myself I don't think it's genocide, but I am all for debate of that point, and for people using the word holocaust if it describes what they perceive. War crimes too. And I honor Fleshler's book for giving our constituency a place in the discussion.
