J Street’s national conference starts this upcoming Sunday (yes, we’ll be there) and we could pretty much fill this website with stories about the rightwing smear campaign against them between now and then. In our Nation article, we wrote about J Street’s effort to navigate the right and left in the American Jewish community, and the right is certainly coming out in full force against it. The attack has been rather relentless, from the necon shitstirrers at the Weekly Standard trying to force congresspeople from the conference to this Lenny Ben-David McCarthyite screed in pajamas media. Remember, Ben-David is an ex-AIPAC employee and former diplomat in Israel’s Washington embassy. If nothing else, this shows that Netanyahu’s supporters in Washington are nervous.
Unfortunately, the attacks seem to be working. J Street has folded under pressure against a poet who was to be featured in a "Culture as a Tool for Change" program at the conference. The poet, Josh Healey, has been attacked for drawing comparisons between Guantanamo Bay and Auschwitz, and questioning whether the "chosen people" have been, "chosen to recreate our own history, merely reversing the roles with the script now reading that we’re the ones writing numbers on the wrists of babies born in the ghetto called Gaza?” In response, J Street has cancelled the event.
Healy in Haaretz:
In an interview with Haaretz, Josh Healey didn’t conceal his disappointment. "I had a conversation with ‘J Street’ staff, and they explained that they are playing the game – Washington politics, and seeking legitimacy. And they are not willing to fight this battle. I was born in Washington, so I’m not surprised to become Van Jones of J Street," (U.S. President Barack Obama’s "green jobs czar" who resigned over the controversy about his past political associations). . .
"I told them I don’t think it’s the legitimacy they want, because it’s not the legitimacy that makes change. When you’re trying to make change, you must expect that some people will push back. But they kick out their allies – and I still consider myself an ally. I’m not personally offended – I’m politically disappointed. It’s ironic that we were invited to perform and be a part of the dialogue at the track ‘The culture as a tool for change.’ But we can’t even have this dialogue. The Jewish community acts like children, with smear campaigns and name-calling. I am not surprised by the right wing attacks – but that J-Street went along with it and accommodated it."
Healy ends with a challenge: "If J-Street are not willing to have debate with people who believe in solidarity and humanity, I don’t know what legitimacy they want, because it’s not a moral legitimacy."
A month ago Phil did a post about how J Street is situated firmly between the left and right of Jewish life in the US and it’s exactly where they want to be.That doesn’t mean it’s a comfortable place to be, and it clearly puts it in the position of being both an insurgent and gatekeeper in the Jewish community. Cecilie Surasky at Muzzlewatch sums up:
In its important efforts to challenge AIPAC and reclaim the center of Jewish liberal opinion, J Street walks an increasingly difficult line, demanding a more open discourse about Israeli policy for liberal Zionists, while simultaneously drawing a line in the sand between that which is kosher and that which is treyf (unclean): Jewish-staters and Congressional lobbying in, agnostics and one-staters and BDS out.
In the end it’s contradictory and self-serving to demand that the debate open to include your own perspective while shutting others out. I bet this double standard isn’t lost on many J Street supporters who were drawn to the organization in the first place out of a disgust with the iron fist the major Jewish institutions wield over any discussion of Israel/Palestine. This also represents a question for J Street: Does the support it gains by adhering to the narrow confines of "acceptable" discourse in the Jewish community outweigh the potential support it alienates? Many hoped, and still do, that J Street would represent a change in both the substance and style of American Jewish debate over Israel/Palestine. While the group’s substance is predictably liberal Zionist, its style is still being formed. Here’s some good advice from Josh Healy, "If you’re trying to be an alternative to AIPAC – don’t behave like AIPAC."
