The good news is, Tonight the nation will be watching the bitter race in Michigan between Haley Stevens and Andy Levin, and every reporter who covers the results will be talking openly about what U.S. policy should be toward Israel.
The reporters will be given permission because a fierce battle over policy inside the American Jewish community is in the sunlight. Two segments of the Jewish Zionist lobby are openly differing over Israel and spending tons of money to support their positions– even if they don’t put Israel in their ads for ordinary folks.
So this is a historic moment in American politics. Here are the two camps: 1, There must never be daylight between the United States government and Israel– the AIPAC camp of the traditional Israel lobby that supports Haley Stevens with several million in ads. 2, The U.S. is allowed to condition aid to Israel based on its unending settlement program– the J Street liberal Zionist camp supporting Andy Levin with $700,000.
Polls say that Levin will lose tonight, but the J Street camp deserves credit for bringing about this open schism. J Street organized 14 years ago because it felt that the traditional Israel lobby was not representing pro-Israel Jewish opinion. J Street was embarrassed by the support of the Jewish establishment for the Iraq war, and by the unilateral American Jewish support for rightwing Israeli policies of settlement expansion that were giving Israel the reputation of an apartheid country and threatening the dream of a “Jewish democracy”, so it was offering an alternative.
J Street immediately became a lightning rod for the Israel-right-or-wrong crowd — rightwing Zionists including Jeffrey Goldberg said J Street was providing comfort to antisemites — but it hardly mattered. J Street didn’t have traction on the issue of settlements. Barack Obama followed the AIPAC line throughout his presidency until his feeble abstention on an anti-settlements resolution in the UN Security Council in 2016. And Biden is now following the AIPAC line too, swallowing more Israeli settlements no questions asked.
Still, J Street’s claim that it was representing most American Jews is borne out by polling, the organization has tirelessly built political capital, including by valiantly backing the Iran deal, and over the last four years, a number of establishment Democrats spoke at both J Street and AIPAC events.
Andy Levin did that, too: he backed both AIPAC measures and J Street measures, trying to straddle the branches of the lobby. Though Levin was clearly on the J Street side; he supported a two-state solution act that said that U.S. aid should not be used “for activities that perpetuate the occupation or enable de facto or de jure annexation.”
That was clearly a violation of the traditional Israel lobby position. That there is to be no daylight. And tonight AIPAC intends to make Levin pay for that. There is only one “pro-Israel” candidate in the race, AIPAC says; “@Andy_Levin embraces Israel’s most vocal detractors in Congress.”
I.e., Andy Levin works with Rashida Tlaib.
And AIPAC is spending $4 million to hold the line here, against a former synagogue president who brags “I’m really Jewish” but dares to criticize Israel.
This is a landmark moment because AIPAC used to have to marshal resources to exclude marginal Israel critics like Cynthia McKinney and Paul Findlay. Now it’s going after establishment personalities like Donna Edwards, a beloved figure in Washington progressive circles, and Andy Levin, who is the scion of a Michigan political dynasty.
But where is the movement here? Let’s say that polls are right, and Andy Levin loses– what is the political takeaway? Will these liberal Zionists find it harder to be liberal Zionists? Will more of them walk the Peter Beinart path toward one state with equal rights for everyone?
I think the answer is yes. Israel is politicized as never before. And once the issue is fully politicized, and Democrats get to argue over it, all the energy will come from the left, and liberal Zionism’s political weaknesses will be exposed.
Let’s talk about those weaknesses. J Street has opposed Israel’s politicization in the U.S. It doesn’t try to sell its Israel position to regular voters; Israel is not in its ads. Its strategy has been to operate inside the establishment, the Israel lobby, and seek to mirror Meretz — the leftwing Jewish Zionist party in Israel that opposes settlements.
The problem with that insider strategy is that Meretz is a political afterthought in Israel. It breaks bread with rightwingers and supports the apartheid law — two laws for two peoples in the West Bank. Meretz behaves like that because Israel is a rightwing country, and Israeli leaders reject the “anti-occupation policies” that J Street prescribes.
The American Israel lobby seeks to mirror the Israeli government so it rejects Meretz’s positions too. And even when Andy Levin balances his anti-occupation stance by declaring, “I love Israel, and I’m a Zionist,” that’s not good enough for the lobby. Zionism is the occupation, Zionism is settlements and apartheid.
AIPAC is staying true to that Israeli reality. And so is the BDS campaign. J Street is in the middle, maintaining a fantasy of progress inside the Jewish community against an overwhelming rightwing reality.
The political establishment in our country is fully for Israeli apartheid. Notice that Hillary Clinton endorsed Haley Stevens. She signaled that the Democratic leadership will be on the rightwing Israel lobby’s side because that is where the money is.
Who showed up for Andy Levin? Progressive Dems, including Rashida Tlaib, who has given her utmost for Levin. Here is what Rashida Tlaib said about Israel a few days ago: “Israel is an apartheid state, engaged in racist oppression against Palestinians.”
Anyone who has visited Palestine knows Tlaib is telling the truth. J Street withdrew its endorsement of Tlaib four years ago because she opposes aid to Israel, but wait till her name is mentioned at J Street’s conference this fall. There will be wild cheers. That’s where progressive Democrats are. They lean toward Palestinians, including charismatic politicians like Rashida Tlaib and Ayman Odeh.
Andy Levin has tried to square the circle, to reconcile the Israel lobby with progressive Democrats.
“Even though I’m Jewish, and I love Israel, and I’m a Zionist, and I’m for all our aid to Israel, I will not yield on the simple proposition that the only way to have a peaceful and secure homeland for my people is to fully realize the political and human rights of the Palestinian people,” he said at a rally, according to Haaretz.
I believe Michigan will show that you have to choose. You either love Israel, or you support Palestinian human rights. There is no way to realize the “political and human rights of the Palestinian people” except by Not loving apartheid, by fighting the Israel lobby and cutting off aid to Israel and taking other BDS-like actions.
AIPAC understands that political reality, There is no room for Palestinian rights in Israel today; and liberal Zionists will understand it too.
h/t James North, Scott Roth, Michael Arria.
‘I’m Jewish, and I love Israel’
And I’m supposd to admire this guy.
Until the free ride Jews get for “their love for Israel” ends nothing will change. They should be shamed by their love.
Imagine Catholics saying, “Well you know, priests do get lonely, and some of those altar boys are awfully cute.”
As indefensible as a Jew’s “love for Israel.” The difference, of course, Catholics don’t say it.
The sane Jews versus the sociopathic supremacists.
America as an independent, sovereign nation (able to condition aid), or a controlled servant of Israel (“no daylight”).
“…the only way to have a peaceful and secure homeland for my people is to fully realize the political and human rights of the Palestinian people,”
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Equal political and human rights will likely be the basis on which apartheid ends and a secular state is established. The question is, how to move in that direction.
I’ve never been to a J street conference, but if indeed Rashida Tlaib’s name inspires cheers by the attendees then the rank and file of J street is really antizionist.
Peter Beinart has concluded due to his studies that in the long run, making common cause with the antizionist crowd is the wisest way for the Jewish settlement in The Land to survive. I have no idea if he’s right, but he himself says that zionists who have not reached that conclusion should stay zionists and not join him.
Rashida Tlaib is against the Jews living in the Palestine/Israel region. You can contort yourself into a pretzel and you won’t refute that sentence to any logical degree. Rashida Tlaib will trick you into believing that the defeat of Zionism will be followed by a one state solution of kumbaya. it’s a lie. the defeat of zionism will be followed by a one state solution of hamas. Period. so she is a liar and peter beinart needs to explain how hamas rule is really going to be good for the jews in the region. I don’t believe him. neither do you.