Blinken tells J Street Biden will change nothing

The liberal, pro-Israel lobbying group, J Street held its first full, in-person conference since the onset of the COVID-19 pandemic this week. While the conference was more subdued than some of the past, it was, in many ways, the most significant one J Street has held since its first one in 2009. 

Just before the conference, J Street unveiled its new motto, adding “pro-democracy” to its long-time tagline of “pro-Israel, pro-peace.” The change might have appeared trivial at first, but the substance of this year’s conference showed it represented a strategic shift and an acknowledgment that the two-state cause was out of reach, both in Israel and the United States. 

Phil Weiss summarizes J Street’s shift very well in his analysis of J Street President Jeremy Ben Ami’s opening address to the conference. But it is notable that Ben Ami’s welcoming address drew polite but tepid applause from the audience. That response was reflected throughout the conference.

The atmosphere at the Omni Shoreham Hotel in Washington, where the conference was held, was muted. Long-time veterans of the fight for Palestinian rights, a two-state solution, or a vision of liberal Zionism that I spoke with all recognized that times were grim. While speakers spoke passionately about the need to resist despair, that feeling hovered over the proceedings. As Ben Ami’s own talk reflected, the hope that many of these people felt—unrealistic as it might have been—that the Oslo process backed by successive U.S. administrations until it died under Barack Obama and was buried under Donald Trump, could bring a state of Palestine alongside Israel was gone. For others, who had been skeptical or opposed to that approach from the first, there was no joy in being proven right as Palestinians throughout the region continue to suffer with ever dimming prospects of serious relief. 

Ben Ami is justified in his attempt to redirect J Street’s focus. A dovish pro-Israel lobbying group can and must counter the malign actions of AIPAC in the domestic sphere. If it cannot substantially change policy toward Israel, it can at least try to defend against the right-wing utilization of Israel and its network of deep pocketed backers in the right-wing Jewish and Christian worlds to destroy what democracy we have left in the United States.

But J Street was created not as a Jewish communal organization but as an advocacy group for an end to Israel’s occupation of the West Bank and Gaza Strip. It can’t abandon those roots completely. So, there were many perfunctory statements about “keeping the door open” to a two-state solution and, unfortunately, an implication that the two-state solution envisioned by the Oslo process is the only possible route to a resolution. As a group that was created with a single-minded focus on a two-state solution that cannot imagine alternatives, this view is inevitable for J Street but also contributes to the pessimism that permeated this conference despite the joy old colleagues and comrades felt being able to see each other in person once again. 

Meanwhile, the most prominent speaker at the J Street conference, U.S. Secretary of State Antony Blinken, could not have made it any clearer that the administration he is part of is no friend even to J Street’s moderate politics, let alone the broader struggle for Palestinian rights. 

Blinken served up a dish of platitudes and cliches that echoed the failed policies of not only the current administration but also those of Barack Obama, George W. Bush, and Bill Clinton. He summed up the U.S. approach under President Joe Biden, as, “…working to advance the shared interests and values at the heart of the U.S.-Israel relationship in what is a very consequential time. By strengthening Israel’s security, recognizing that no peace is possible or sustainable without a strong, secure Israel; deepening Israel’s integration in the region, and in the world; holding firm to the vision of two states for two peoples; opposing acts that diminish the long-term prospects of achieving that goal; and taking immediate steps to improve the lives of Israelis and Palestinians alike.”

That cookie cutter language could have come from a representative of any administration since Clinton, with the exception of Donald Trump’s. Once again, Blinken made it clear straightaway that Israel’s “security concerns,” whether serious or fantastical, would always take absolute precedence over Palestinian rights. The myth that strengthening Israel’s military capabilities would make it more likely to move its boot off the Palestinians’ neck has been thoroughly contradicted by Israel’s actions for decades. It’s a mark of how stale and disingenuous the two-state approach has become that no one really buys this line of reasoning anymore, and yet the Secretary of State continues to spout it. Worse, it is one of the pillars of argument in defense for U.S. military support for Israel’s occupation, siege of Gaza, and apartheid and colonial policies. 

In stark contrast to Ben Ami’s suggestion that it might finally be time for oversight of the aid we send Israel every year, Blinken touted the military aid, saying, “Our investment is crucial to guaranteeing Israel’s qualitative military edge in the Middle East, buttressing Israel’s right to defend itself against the ongoing threat posed by Hamas and other terrorist groups bent on taking the lives of Israeli civilians.  Our security assistance to Israel is sacrosanct.”

“Sacrosanct.” The word leads directly to two questions raised by Peter Beinart: “Why should the US feel a quasi-religious obligation to give Israel billions of dollars to buy US weapons irrespective of how it treats the Palestinians under its control? Why does the Biden administration deem it unjust to apply international law to the Jewish state?”

Blinken did not address these questions, and for good reason. They are irrelevant to the Biden administration. Just as irrelevant as Palestinian rights. But there are more questions that are obviously raised by making weapons giveaways to Israel a “quasi-religious obligation.” Why should Israel adhere to U.S. laws if the U.S. won’t enforce them? That’s all that congressional oversight would mean: that, like all the military aid we give to any other country, Congress would monitor the use of that aid to ensure it comports with U.S. law. There is no honest way that anyone could object to that, yet Blinken, Biden, AIPAC, and their fellow travelers do so anyway. Another question is, given this grave concern over the lives of Israeli civilians, where is the concomitant concern for the 152 Palestinian civilians killed by Israeli forces and settlers in 2022? More directly, how can Blinken defend the cover-up and his State Department’s refusal to press Israel on the death of Al Jazeera journalist and Palestinian-American Shireen Abu Akleh?

BDS was a subject largely avoided at J Street, and for good reason. The attack on it has become increasingly characterized, correctly, as a right-wing assault on the right to boycott in general. Indeed, the right-wing lawfare organization, the American Legislative Exchange Council (ALEC), has already drafted model legislation that would severely compromise the ability to boycott, not only Israel, but potentially any corporate or governmental target of boycotts. 

Because the anti-BDS campaigns have moved in this direction, standing athwart the First Amendment, it’s a more difficult space for J Street, which now says it supports the right to boycott Israel but disagrees with BDS against Israel (as opposed to the settlements), and it remains opposed to the BDS movement. The practical effect of this is that J Street just isn’t talking nearly as much about BDS. But Blinken sure is. 

“While we fully respect the right of all to freedom of expression – and actively defend and promote this around the world – we continue to reject the global Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions movement for unfairly singling out Israel,” he told the crowd, drawing moderate applause. 

This is a tired line which Palestinians and advocates for Palestinian rights have heard countless times. It is, of course absurd on its face; after all, BDS is a movement of Palestinian civil society, which has generated support all over the world. Whether one supports or opposes BDS, the idea that a Palestinian movement is “singling out Israel” simply provokes the response “Who should Palestinians be boycotting? Belgium?”

Blinken trotted out other tortured complaints, such as the alleged bias at the United Nations. And he listed a few very minor pieces of charity the U.S. has given the Palestinians, all of which combined are dwarfed by just one installment of the annual $3.5 billion the U.S. provides Israel every year. 

Blinken outlined a policy of failure that he and his boss clearly do not intend to change. It is the latest version of U.S. support of Israel and neglect or even outright hostility toward Palestine. And, while Blinken certainly did make it clear that the Biden administration is concerned about the incoming, far-right Israeli government, there was no hint of anything other than what Biden has been doing: making bland statements that Israel knows it can ignore. 

Blinken’s speech to J Street sent a very clear message to this audience that no matter what the new government of Benjamin Netanyahu, and his fascist allies Bezalel Smotrich, Itamar Ben Gvir, and Avi Maoz do, the Biden administration will pick up the slack and make sure that Israel will get its money, its military cooperation, and the diplomatic cover that only the United States can provide. He told J Street that their new direction didn’t impress the self-proclaimed Zionist in the White House and that they could expect nothing but deference to Israel, outside of empty statements, no matter how it treats Palestinians. 

The latest reports are that the Biden administration is busy trying to figure out how to avoid dealing directly with Smotrich and Ben Gvir, the idea being to deal only with Netanyahu and other Likud ministers directly. For Biden and Blinken, this is an example of isolating Israel’s “extremists.” But really, it legitimizes Netanyahu, a corrupt leader whose own extremism is not so far removed from that of Smotrich and Ben Gvir. This is the approach that Blinken was paving the way for at J Street. 

While AIPAC is the villain supporting election deniers and the American far right, the Biden administration’s direction on Palestine and Israel is now closer to them than it is to J Street. That’s thanks in some measure to J Street’s shift in focus, a shift that is even more important now that Blinken made it clear that the administration’s chief concern is maintaining business as usual with Israel no matter how deep into fascism it sinks. But more than that, it is a reflection that even the moderate ideas of J Street are just too much for “pro-Israel” Democrats. The truth is, they always were.