Last month, Eric Fingerhut, the director of Hillel International, backed out of an appearance at the liberal Zionist group J Street’s conference in Washington because he said that the Palestinian negotiator Saeb Erekat, who was also speaking there, had made “highly inflammatory statements against the Jewish state”– for instance comparing it to the Islamic State. Five hundred members of J Street’s campus organization then marched on Fingerhut’s office in protest.
Well now, an anonymous Hillel director reached out to Derek Kwait of New Voices to say that Fingerhut wanted to go, but he was under pressure from big donors:
“Eric Fingerhut wanted to go to J Street, but he couldn’t because he knew that millions of dollars or his job would be on the line.”
This Hillel director said he or she had been on a conference call with Fingerhut in which Fingerhut urged others to attend the conference. But J Street is regarded as outside the pale for many in the establishment Jewish community, so Fingerhut couldn’t go himself. The anonymous director then described the insurgent position inside the Jewish community:
There are a lot of Jews in America who understand what’s at stake in the need for two-states, just not enough of them are on the board at Hillel. As was mentioned at the conference, this is a problem across the Jewish world, but Hillel is bearing the brunt of it.
The story raises an important question: How conservative is the big Jewish money that everyone seems to want a piece of?
When the New York Times writes about all the Republicans supporting Israel and its colonies on the West Bank because of pro-Israel donors; or when the Times reports that Sen. Robert Menendez, even under indictment, has maintained a deep reservoir of backing from “the expansive pro-Israel community, including prominent Jewish Democrats concerned about the direction of White House negotiations with Iran;” or when we learned yesterday that Senator Chuck Schumer, the most powerful Democratic senator, is bucking the White House on the Iran negotiations by backing legislation to give Congress a say over the matter– it raises the same question.
How much of Democratic Party giving comes from older Jews who don’t want a word of criticism of the occupation? In a word, the AIPAC crowd, as opposed to the J Street crowd. “Between now & June 30th, AIPAC will be letting Congressional supporters of #IranDeal know that there subsidies could be cut off,” MJ Rosenberg says. Don’t forget, Bill Clinton ran to incumbent President Bush’s right on settlements in 1992, and he won.
Salon today has a piece by David Palumbo-Liu deploring the “radical appropriation of the political process” by big donors who support Netanyahu and oppose BDS (boycott, divestment and sanctions). The piece quotes Emma Rubin of the International Jewish Anti-Zionist Network saying that these rightwing givers have influence at liberal institutions:
“Even foundations which purport to represent the whole Jewish community are deeply implicated in practices many Jews find reprehensible.”
Fingerhut’s craven stance reflects the power of those contributions in our politics.
I realize that I cannot stay away from the issue of Jewish donors. But I think the power the Jewish community grants these donors is something we must overcome if the Jewish community is going to regain its sanity. Let me relate an incident from my recent trip to Jerusalem that explains what I mean.
In the old city I met a Palestinian merchant who had been expelled from his house in Baka, West Jerusalem as a boy in 1948—the kind of Arab home that is advertised as such in the real estate columns when Israeli Jewish owners are trying to get top dollar. I asked him if his family had ever been compensated for the theft in any way? No. Well, you should be compensated I said. He got angry. He said, I will never take any money for that house. Why not? I don’t want the money; I want my house back, he said. Besides, I cannot take anything so long as there are Palestinian refugees still living in the camps in Syria and Jordan and Nablus and Bethlehem.
I related this conversation later to a Jewish friend, who also got angry at me. Don’t you see, it’s not about money! he said. But you are playing into the very worst Jewish stereotype: oh, let’s just give them money, and take care of it.
I recommend this lesson to Hillel International. Some things are a lot more important than money. Like the principle of open discussion, and questioning the effect of Zionism on the Jewish community.
P.S. And speaking of liberating yourself from the donors, Eli Clifton reports that Gary Samore, the neoconnish director of United Against Nuclear Iran, received $500,000 from Sheldon Adelson and yet has come out in favor of the Iran deal. Samore says that the real danger to Israel is the occupation:
Samore ended [an Israel Policy Forum] call warning that “in terms of Israel’s isolation with other countries, I think the Palestinian issue and settlements is a far more dangerous concern to Israel’s legitimacy than the Iran nuclear issue.”…
Sheldon Adelson may be wondering what exactly his $500,000 contribution to UANI went to support.
My rant (in this subject anyhow) is that the AIPAC, The Lobby ™ consists of very, very few very, very rich Jews (I believe that the pro-Israel Evangelicals don’t do the money thing) and thus is as unrepresentative of (what might be called) Jews in America as the CEOs of all the big banks might be, as an example of another set of oligarchs in America’s oligarchy. Doesn’t matter if they are Jewish (except to antisemites). Only matters that they are Likudniks.
However, these bozos have evidently captured not only the Congress (or most of it) but also all the so-called major American Jewish organizations, and most synagogues, etc. Follow the money. Who pays the piper calls the tune.
So you have a bunch of arch-Likudniks with enormous disposable wealth — some Americans, some who-knows-what, does it really matter? — calling ALL the MSM-visible shots for Jewish America. A religion (to the extent that Jewish America is religious) wholly-owned by these bozos.
Think of American Jews as field-hands on a plantation owned by a big boss, AIPAC.
And Phil asks, I think, what it will take for them to break free. Well, if your Hillel offends you, cut it off (Open Hillel). If your synagogue lies down and pants before the big Likudnik donors, quit the synagogue. If your Jewish charity gives to support things you don’t like, don’t contribute to it. Cut your ties.
But be noisy about it. Join SJP, JVP, Not In My Name, , etc., and write 1000 letters saying so to NYT et al.
Although it is laudable that some take Adelson’s money and then “bite the hand that feeds them”, those are too few to really matter. The more interesting things that are happening include this strange idea that merely by passing a statute, Congress can somehow tie the hands of the president. Corker’s idea, which Shumer has all too eagerly approved, is a constitutional non-starter. Obama can safely ignore it unless Shumer and his new Republican best friends wish to impeach Obama. Instructive would be the impeachment case against Andrew Johnson where the Congress also tried to impeach and convict a president for ignoring a trespass on his rightful constitutional powers. If Shumer wishes to foment a constitutional crisis then one wonders why he would even want to be the Democratic leader and I would think it would be a disqualifying act in and of itself. You can either be Israel’s senator or the Democratic leader, I doubt the party would accept him being “both”. Obama only needs Congress to lift statutorily imposed sanctions, otherwise he could tell them to suck eggs. And I would submit, if he laid it out like I have, the majority of Americans would overwhelmingly support him.
In addition, this agreement is not a treaty therefore Congress has absolutely no say in the matter. Although Obama can hold out the specter of diplomatically recognizing the Iranian regime, something he hasn’t done until now. Frankly, that threat would frost all those Zionist supporters for it would definitely place Iran on a par with other countries, instead of maintaining the diplomatic farce, like non-recognition of Cuba, which has continued far too long. It still wouldn’t be a “treaty” but it would hold out the intriguing possibility of Congress actively advocating diplomatic recognition so they could become involved. Bring that idea up to Shumer and his ilk.
This “negotiation” is, in reality, a UN agreement wherein the US is merely one negotiator among many, and not the most important negotiator either. Funny how we refuse to go back to basics and think about the reality of both the policy and the politics. Instead, we argue about the garbage analysis promoted by the MSM and some brain-dead ill-educated members of Congress.
You can’t let the plebs know about this stuff, Phil.
RE: “Fingerhut boycotted J Street because ‘millions of dollars’ were on the line”
MY COMMENT: That may be, bit I still think Fingerhut’s furniture is really classy! ! !