Scott McConnell writes:
I’m just back from spending parts of two days two days at Churches for Middle East Peace annual grassroots advocacy conference in Washington. I’ve always wondered why CMEP, a splendid and wise organization, isn’t larger. Everything about the conference was first rate: the center, the planning, the speakers, the people attending. It’s the first time I’ve gone, so I can’t make easy comparisons, but it seems this incredibly underfunded group—I believe its annual budget is less than one percent of AIPAC’s—is beginning to hit its stride. I met nothing but smart people, some longtime “peace and justice” advocates, some newly minted ones.
CMEP will (soon I hope) post the speeches on its website, so I will only make some ancillary observations. Daniel Levy, who gave one of the talks, was correct to say, actually to plead, that liberal Jews can’t wage this battle by themselves. “You have a stake in this fight.” He talked of his recent trip to Gaza, and the Israeli fighters overhead, which ten year old Palestinian children loudly identified as “F-16 Amerikishi.” Every time Israel bombs a school, we, Americans, are directly implicated.
Secondly, boy is Christian advocacy ever careful these days. I attended one workshop on how to build interfaith coalitions and heard earnest women from the Midwest say they were very careful to never to use terms like “occupation” that might upset Jews in their community. The spell was thankfully broken by a Jewish guy who said “You’ll never get anywhere if you let Jews hold your group hostage.” But there are aspects to this problem I hadn’t thought of—Lutheran clergyman from Minnesota (the heartland, along with Wisconsin, of American antiwar progressivism) say that it was very difficult for a Lutheran to say anything critical of Israel—there are Martin Luther’s anti-Semitic words to live down, and the German ancestry of many Lutherans as well. I think that explains a lot—but Lutherans are incredibly active in the Holy Land in positive ways—Augusta Victoria Hospital in East Jerusalem is a hive of medical and social services. Time to get over the guilt for things you had nothing to do with. I thought many times of John Murray Cuddihy’s fine book “No Offense” about contemporary American Protestantism—and how tragic it would be if that impulse left American Mideast policy in the hands of Neocons, the Israel lobby, and their Christian right yes-men.
Third, if you listen to some Congressional staffers, the more flamboyant criticisms of Congress’s fealty to the Lobby seem confirmed. One Congressional aide, addressing another workshop, stated that one should always strive to present whatever one proposed as “in Israel’s interests” to have any chance of getting heard in Congress. I wonder if this seemed as odd to other people as to me.
Today was Lobby your Congressman day, and since I live in DC, I’ve decided to enlist Donna Edwards to represent me. Six of us traipsed to her office, and met with a young staffer. I’m less worried than Phil that she will get the Cynthia McKinney treatment—there were lots of people at the conference who knew her and her record, who live nearby and would volunteer to canvass for her or raise funds. I have the feeling that McKinney was more radical than Edwards, and certainly more likely to associate with black figures who would alienate whites, or be made to appear Farrakhanite or something. Edwards is courageous, certainly, but also a political pro accustomed used to operating in modern multicultural, multiracial politics. I must have met a dozen people people there willing to canvass and raise money for her—white, Asian, Hispanic, middle class, politically active. I don’t think Cynthia McKinney had that.
