Israel lobby keeps cracking, as two motheaten lions leave

I don’t know what I’m going to do for copy now that David Harris announced he is stepping down after more than 30 years as executive director of the American Jewish Committee. I’ve relied on Harris, 71, to spout tone-deaf statements about young American Jews and Israel. Here’s my favorite bit– Where did we do wrong in our homes and schools!

Every time I hear in a Jewish meeting concerns about our children and their lack of interest in Israel, their apathy about Israel, their hostility to Israel, those friends of theirs who are involved in anti-Israel activity on their campuses or in their schools– to me it’s extraordinarily painful, and I ask myself, Where did we go wrong? Where did we go wrong?… What is it that brings shame among some? What are we doing wrong in our homes? What are we doing wrong in our schools?

Here’s what you did wrong, David Harris: you turned Judaism into Jewish nationalism, and made American Jewry the foreign ministry of the so-called Jewish state– thereby undermining Jewish safety/future everywhere.

Harris, who makes only $737,000, hears the generational footsteps.

Now, after more than three decades, I believe it’s time to pass the baton to a successor, as our Jewish story, I’ve always thought, is a kind of relay race. 

I’ll bet anything his successor will be someone that downplays the Zionism and makes friends with Black Lives Matter, which cares about Palestine. That’s where the Jewish community is headed.

Another motheaten lion, Rabbi Michael Miller stepped down as the ceo of another Zionist organization, the Jewish Community Relations Council of New York. The JCRC exists to resolve differences between rightwing Zionists and liberal Zionists, by declaring, We all hate BDS. And it ferries New York officials to Israel– propaganda trips that are coming under more and more pressure from critics of the Israel lobby.

Miller, 72, (who pulled down $208,000) complained last year to the Jewish Insider that progressive star Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez would not meet with him. Then this spring he got 38 minutes with Ocasio-Cortez (who was vague/disappointing to progressives when he brought up the “prickly” issue of Israel).

In an interview, Miller says he’s stepping down because when it comes to the New York progressive community, “I have seen the evolution.” Translation: “I have seen the revolution.”

Zionist leaders are panicking because they see that revolution inside the Jewish community too. Nearly 40 percent of Jews under 40 say that Israel is an “apartheid” state, 20 percent of them don’t think Israel has a right to exist. Overwhelmingly Jews of all ages are for restricting aid to Israel.

And the only answer the American Jewish Committee has is to say the kids need more brainwashing because they aren’t sufficiently educated about their cousins in Israel. No, young Jews know enough about Israel not to want to have a close relationship. The vibrant youth org IfNotNow says that Israel education should tell young Jews about “apartheid”

Anti-Zionism is being redeemed in many quarters of Jewish progressive discussion. Joshua Leifer at Jewish Currents: “What if instead of lamenting & denouncing the fact that 1/4 US Jews think Israel is an apartheid state, Jewish communal leaders decided to incorporate into their teaching the library of Jewish anti-Zionist thought and dissenting voices on nationalism?”

Shaul Magid makes similar points in the pro-Israel publication Tablet.

Israel’s propaganda industry is failing miserably. It… simply doesn’t stand a chance against the present media—or against history. The half-century occupation has arguably become de facto annexation. … Many younger Jews—often progressive in politics, and questing after Jewish spiritual identity—find that a presumption of reflexive support for Israel as an occupier insulting.

Let me point out that the American Council for Judaism, and notably the ACJ writer Allan Brownfeld, has been keeping the anti-Zionist flame lit for 50 years of Zionist captivity, without any company.

Though the big political question is: Now that the rightwing Israel lobby is breaking up and moving to the Republican Party, what happens to liberal Zionists? Their home is the Democratic Party, but the Democratic base is increasingly critical of Israel. Chuck Schumer was afraid to be too pro-Israel during the recent Gaza onslaught because he knows the base might take him out next year. The leading liberal Zionist organization, J Street, now looks conservative in its positioning on “robust” military aid to an apartheid state whose soldiers humiliate Palestinian women. In a recent shocker, J Street stalwart Randi Weingarten refused to condemn union locals that have endorsed BDS. She sees the writing on the wall.