Hoenlein
People routinely ask, If American Jews are overwhelmingly left-liberal, why is the Israel lobby so rightwing? And the answer is that for two generations, even liberal American Jews have passively ceded their power to the rightwingers out of higher concerns: Jewish unity and safety.
There are now many cracks in the monolith, but the revealing thing about the interview below that Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations gave to the Israeli hotel magazine, Inbal (not online; I have the print version) is his rejection of J Street as posing a threat to Jewish unity and safety. He is warning: Jews must speak in one voice to the powers that be, and J Street is not a constituent of mine.
Bear in mind that this organization that is beyond the pale, J Street, is a Zionist organization that has had the temerity to criticize the settlement project, mildly (it opposes boycott efforts), and that has called on Obama to pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution.
Inbal: However today on the Jewish communal landscape is a relatively new kid on the block– ‘J Street.’ They are not exactly up your street. How do you deal with them?
Hoenlein: I don’t; J Street is not a member of the Conference.
Inbal: Can they afford to be ignored?
Hoenlein: J Street initially made a splash but their ripples are less visible these days especially since its opposition on such issues like Congress’ resolutions on the Goldstone Report, Cast Lead, foreign aid and on imposing sanctions on Iran. Many of their initial supporters have seen the real nature of J Street and others are questioning whether it’s a responsible vehicle to give expression to their concerns.
While everybody has the right to examine and comment on the issues, we have to be careful as our words have consequences, and when you criticize the government of Israel, you have to consider the consequences. Those that are not taken seriously can largely say what they want and are disregarded. Organizations that count have to weigh their words and actions very carefully.
Inbal: Are there lessons to learn from history?
Hoenlein: Unity has always been vital throughout Jewish history.. When we stand together, we can overcome every challenge. Sadly, when we are divided, history records we have paid a heavy price.
Hoenlein goes on to talk about his father’s escape from the Holocaust. This is the psychic backdrop to his attitude and that of most Jews of his generation. He learned early on that “Jews needed to be active in politics… for survival.” In his traditional view of the world, Jews are a ghettoized hated community, on our own– and not an empowered American group supporting a militant state.
Another insight into these attitudes comes from Chemi Shalev in Haaretz, explaining the extremist demands that Israel’s rightwing government imposes on supporters out of the same imperative– unity, survival.
So opposition to settlements, for all intents and purposes, is now tantamount to delegitimization; advocating a peace agreement based on the 1967 borders is like “throwing Israel under the bus”, as Israeli sloganeers dictated to Republican candidates; and sympathy for the Palestinians is, let’s face it, no different than same sympathy for the devil. And it is through this distorted and disturbed prism that President Obama can be cast as a Muslim collaborator bent on destroying Israel and Western European countries depicted as hotbeds of Jew-haters only once or twice removed from Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Third Reich.
The same mindset that governs the Jewish world is at play in its view of the external arena. The same refusal to countenance criticism that causes Jews to push other Jews “out of the tent” and into the arms of true anti-Zionists…
Next month Peter Beinart will publish a very important book seeking to revive the J Street-center-left discourse. And good for him. But I believe he is too late. There is only the right and the left in this discourse. And if it is a choice between religious nationalism and democratic values, how will young Jews respond?
http://jstreet.org/blog/j-street-statement-on-goldstone-report/
http://jstreet.org/blog/j-street-responds-to-judge-goldstones-washington-post-op-ed/
J Street lobbied for the passage of strong sanctions against the Iranian regime. http://jstreet.org/iran/
and here is j streets Statement in response to Israeli Ground Invasion of Gaza
http://jstreet.org/blog/statement-in-response-to-israeli-ground-invasion-of-gaza/
malcolm hoenlein calls for jewish unity in support of the zionist entity’s occupation of palestine?
despite its slaughter of palestinians in operation cast lead?
despite its apartheid government?
despite its brutal occupation of palestine being the reason “they” hate us?
he expects jewish-americans to rally round the zionist entity as if it were our country, right or wrong?
even though the blowback from israel’s ongoing violence against palestinians (not to mention a u.s.-backed israeli war against iran) could put not only us jews but all living beings at risk?
hoenlein obviously hasn’t thought out the possible consequences of the zionist entity run amok
or doesn’t he care?
israel firster that he is
and self-hating jew
Phil asks: “And if it is a choice between religious nationalism and democratic values, how will young Jews respond?” Never mind “young Jews.”
The USA does not enjoy a unified religious nationalism (unless the near-religious fear and hatred of “terrorists” is such), but there are the Jewish religious nationalists (who wish to preserve Israel and the Jewish people and who appear to be Israel Firsters, whilst claiming that this is equivalent to being USA/Israel Firsters, and hence, with a sigh of relief, ALSO USA-patriotic); the evangelical end-of-days religious folk who wish to see a catastrophic war at Megiddo after which all Jews will become Christians or go to Gehenna in a great end-of-world conflagration, and are thus not nationalists at all, but awfully and terribly — in the old meanings of those words — “religious”), and all the pro-Israel and pro-war folks who are worshipers of the almighty dollar and ask “how high” when AIPAC’s dollar-brandishing lobbyists. “ask” them to “jump”.
And the USA, once fairly democratic, now legalizes detention of anyone deemed (but by whom?) a “terrorist” without trial or contact (family, lawyers); affects to legalize assassination of anyone (even Americans) and regularizes torture; legalizes its non-public use by government prosecutors of secret (so-called “national security”) evidence without cross-examination of providers of such evidence at trials; legalizes its refusal to release secret (so-called “national security”) evidence to non-government litigants; and no doubt produces still other wonders, each more amazing than the last, to those who wish to call USA a “democracy”.
Can OWS and its progeny, save the 99% from these manifestations — chiefly — of the power of the 1%, among them prominently BIG-OIL, BIG-WAR, adn BIG-ZION?
Far left and far right: united in seeking the end of a small Israel, united in seeking to erase the political space that J Street inhabits, united in wanting to prevent the emergence of a Palestinian majority state. So sad.
I’m not so sure if the leadership is that far to the right of mainstream Jews.
What I know is that Jews of interfaith heritage tend to be more liberal on the Israel question. Jews with parents who are both Jewish under 30 are quite hawkish, a lot of polls show this. Beinart’s right that there has been an erosion, but it’s in large part due to the decline, across the board, of Jewish life which has meant the increase of intermarriage, assimilation etc.
But Jews who have interfaith parents intermarry at a rate between 80-90 %. Within a generation or two, most are gone forever from the Jewish faith. And the Jewish population makeup is slowly changing. Among kindergarten children, Orthodox(modern as well as ultra) are a much larger share than, say, just 30 years ago. Estimates vary but I’ve seen some pretty good numbers pointing to around 40 %.
And if you look at children in kindergarten where both parents are Jewish, that share increases even more.
And Orthodox Jews vote republican on domestic politics at a rate of about 80 %. Still, it will take at least 20 years for these changes to wash through, if not slightly more. People in their 20s are notoriously bad voters. The best voters are old people, so this will take time but the change is underway.
What I’d also say is that you have people like, say, Jeffrey Goldberg who play the liberal role, or Marc Tracy. These people are essentially neocons. The thing a lot of people miss is that the neocons have a Republican as well as a Democratic side.
After all, if you look at the Republican neocons’ position on issues like immigration, abortion and so on, they are actually often much closer to the Democrats. Israel is their guiding star. A lot of them have friends on Wall St so they look out for the oligarchs too, but that isn’t a broadbased economic conviction they have, rather than out of necessity.
Goldberg has quoted Netanyahu’s father in positive light. Netanyahu, who is supposed to be the bane of liberal Jewry. His father, who David Remnick(editor of the New Yorker) sat down with a few years ago and had dinner with. His impression? An unrepentant racist and the “biggest reactionary I’ve met in my life”.
This man is somehow who Goldberg quoted last year or so when on a panel discussion (on Iran, I think, but I don’t remember for sure. He was the moderator for the neocon conference organized by FDD, a new neocon outlet) when he said that Benzion had ‘deeply affected him’.
So I mean, it’s not like the “liberals” like Goldberg are somehow tricked into this or scared into obedience. He’s on it the full throttle.
Or take Leslie Gelb who, like Goldberg, sometimes does tepid ‘criticism’ of the Republican side to try to shield his own biases but now his colors are out. He’s all but accusing of Iran and the Obama administration of being in cahoots with each other, trying to stop Israel.
Again, this is the ‘liberal’.
So I’m not sure I buy your innocent-liberal-bystander theory, Phil.
I wish it was true, but the sad truth is, Hoenlien and co aren’t as isolated as people think. People like Eric Alterman, who I consider a true liberal Zionist(with all it’s conflicts) don’t have any influence with this crowd at all, because he isn’t for show. He is for real.
Beinart’s somewhere in-between. He covers for Goldberg and the liberals on a regular basis, in order too keep letting them have credibility in the wider liberal community. It’s working right now, but you know there was a time when even Alan Dershowitz was deemed as a genuine liberal. Now all that’s gone.
Goldberg’s next to go, he’s smoother than the Dersh, but inside it’s the same thing.
The question is, what will Beinart do? The man has genuine liberal instincs but he keeps covering for fakes who don’t. At some point, if not already, that will start to undermine him as Goldberg slowly moves from the mainstream. It won’t be as abrupt as for Dershowitz, but both have a similar style of ad hominem. Both are deeply in favour of the Commentary crowd. Neither is a liberal.