An important signal of the shift inside the Jewish community (too little too late but still a shift): excellent reporting by Adam Kredo in Washington Jewish Week on the letter to Obama calling on him not to veto a UN Security Council resolution condemning settlements. Among the signatories are liberal Zionist Peter Beinart and Jim Zogby and Walt and Mearsheimer:
While the missive also was endorsed by a fair share of fierce and longtime Israel critics, the new additions led some to warn that continued settlement growth is alienating even the Jewish state’s supporters. “It’s not an easy decision for me” to sign a letter advocating international condemnation of Israel, Beinart said in an interview last week. “It’s not necessarily one I would have come to six months ago.”
What’s changed, he said, is that under Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, the Israeli government has lurched rightward, and flagrantly abandoned the peace process. “The big shift is the end of the peace process,” Beinart said. “The rest of the world isn’t staying still. If there are no serious talks, Israel will grow more and more isolated, and the U.S. won’t be able to stop it.” To prevent this, he added, the U.S. needs to prove it means business. Voting to condemn settlements on the international stage could be a vital first step.
“I don’t like publicly criticizing Israel,” Beinart said. “It doesn’t give me pleasure. But I think one has to be willing to acknowledge that at some point, the other strategies haven’t worked.”
Steve Clemons, the letter’s primary organizer, said he’s noticed a shift within the highest ranks of D.C.’s policy community when it comes to Israel.
While attending a Jan. 14 memorial for the late diplomat, Richard Holbrooke, Clemons recalled that attendees “at the highest levels of government … were chatting about this resolution.”
“If it’s cocktail chatter at a memorial service” for a well-regarded diplomat, “you realize it’s on people’s minds,” noted Clemons, a senior analyst at the New America Foundation.
Simply, he added, “the ecosystem around this [issue] has changed.”
Not so much, however, within the administration, sources said. Several officials indicated that America will veto the resolution…
