Wait, where is the guilt? Oh, don't you see: The guilt of the fact that all these men have spoken with concern about Palestinian human rights. So say the Jewish Democrats, on Arianna Huffington's liberal site.
Now here is my pal Richard Silverstein defending J Street from charges that it is pro-Palestinian:
Caroline Glick, the doyenne of the wild-eyed pro-Israel right, has weighed in with her typical propaganda, labelling [J Street]
“pro-Palestinian.” Which is interesting since J Street’s entire
political agenda is deliberately framed in a context that largely, and
carefully avoids directly addressing the Palestinian issue or
Occupation (a strategy I don’t necessarily approve of but certainly
understand given attacks like hers). [emphasis Weiss's]
I grew up being proud of Jewish achievement in the arts, the sciences, and politics. My mother said the three greatest minds of the previous century were Jewish: Marx, Freud, and Einstein. (God bless my mom, I had no idea who Herzl was).
Well, alongside the other great Jewish achievements, we must put this negative one: For more than 40 years, and really 60, American Jewish organizational life has been dedicated to a simple principle: removing the claim of Palestinian human rights from American public life. That is a staggering achievement, but it took place, and it is underlined by those anecdotes. J Street bursts forth as the alternative Israel lobby (and yes I celebrate a lot of what they've done), but this liberal organization cannot open their mouths about the pogroms against Palestinians. Not a word. If you can find one morally-respectable word about Palestinian suffering, checkpoints, killings, poisoning of goats on their website, please tell me, I will give you a chocolate bar. And then there's Forman of the NJDC endorsing the idea, on a liberal soapbox no less, that Brzezinski and Malley and Bonior and Baker and Scowcroft are bad men–because they are men who cared about Palestinian suffering.
This is the achievement, make no mistake about it. In a country that is supposed to be tuned to human rights abuses in other countries, and often is, to America's great credit, politicians are simply not allowed to talk about Palestinian suffering. Never. And newspapers only occasionally. Walt and Mearsheimer were lashed for doing so, Jimmy Carter was exiled. Arabists in the State Department have been silenced for a long time. The victims are always to blame. And I insist this is a Jewish accomplishment. For it comes out of the Jewish narrative of victimization, combined with Jewish success in the U.S.
Are all Jews this way? Of course not. There are countless exceptions, beginning with the late great Robbie Friedman of the Nation, and Richard Silverstein, and David Bloom who sends me the latest news on abuses of human rights. Righteous Jews. They're growing in number by the day. But organizational life is one flavor. Even white-knight J Street genuflects to that orthodoxy. And not just out of fear of one crazed doyenne, but of 100s of 100os of them, well-connected. Some day this record will be taught in history books, as a tragic herd prejudice.
P.S. A related note: Earlier today I ridiculed Ralph Seliger's claim that Meretz USA has spoken out against the Occupation (it's in a post with Biden in the headline, I've lost my connection to my website). Ralph has written to me in anger about this. Here is my challenge to Ralph: Show me the language. Show me the occasions that your group has spoken out against the pogroms against Palestinians. If you can, I will happily eat my words.
