Jew World Order

As Israel faces real challenges in western support, and mainstream Jewish groups rally to its side, the liberal Zionist group J Street has sought to walk the middle way.

In Tuesday’s bellwether race in Ohio between Shontel Brown, a Democratic insider supported by the rightwing Israel lobby, and Nina Turner, a politician more critical of Israel, J Street did not endorse either candidate. In doing so, it steered clear of both the conservative Democratic establishment and the progressive Justice Democrats.

When two leading human rights organizations declared Israel to be an “apartheid” state earlier this year, J Street said, This should be a wakeup call– but it didn’t accept the charge. When the International Criminal Court announced a war-crimes investigation of Israeli actions in the occupied territories, J Street supported “criticism” of Israeli violations of international law, but not prosecution.

When Israel killed 67 children in Gaza in May and the New York Times put their faces on the front page, J Street deplored intensive attacks on civilian areas in Gaza, but said Israel should get full military aid from the U.S. so it can defend itself. After all, J Street is part of the Israel lobby, albeit the kinder gentler part.

J Street has again tried to steer the middle way in the uproar over the Ben & Jerry’s decision not to sell ice cream in the occupied territories. Israeli leaders have urged American Jewish organizations to pressure Unilever to reverse the decision, but J Street has stood up for Ben & Jerry’s, saying the company made a “principled decision about where and how it does business” and called the boycott a “legitimate, peaceful” form of protest against “illegal” settlements.

Though J Street will not go so far as to endorse Ben & Jerry’s decision. That is a line other liberal Zionists have also taken.

And yet J Street seems to want young people to think it supports the Ben & Jerry’s decision. Yesterday it announced a contest on Instagram and twitter to come up with pro-peace flavor names for Ben & Jerry’s ice creams.

You’d think that the Ben & Jerry’s decision is just what liberal Zionists always wanted: Real pressure on the Israeli government to withdraw 700,000 settlers from the occupied territories so there can finally be that two-state solution.

But embracing the move would place a Jewish organization outside the Jewish community. Almost across the board, Israeli leaders are angry about the Ben & Jerry’s decision and demanding action from U.S. Jews. The older Jewish community, and leading Jewish organizations have responded to those demands, and echoed the Israeli government’s outrage.

J Street and Americans for Peace Now and New Israel Fund don’t want to get too far left of that community because it is their community in the end. They are not going to alienate Jews, or their own families in Israel.

Liberal Zionists insist on a distinction between the occupied territories and “Israel proper”– between what New Israel Fund’s Daniel Sokatch calls “sovereign and non-sovereign Israel” — but very few in Israeli leadership make that distinction; and as the right wing site Algemeiner pointedly observes,

“[J Street’s Jeremy] Ben-Ami and Sokatch know how unpopular that position is in the Jewish world.”

It’s a balancing act because J Street does not want to lose young Jews and the progressive wing of the Democratic Party, both of which it claims to represent. A recent poll shows that a stunning 38 percent of Jews under 40 believe that Israel is “an apartheid state”, and another 33 percent say it is committing “genocide” against the Palestinians. The young Jewish group IfNotNow — which J Street has often embraced — reflects those views; it regularly says Israel is practicing apartheid and embraced Ben & Jerry’s move. The Democratic Party base has also turned against Israel, says new polling by Shibley Telhami. By four to one they blamed Israel not Palestine for the May war, and they don’t like where the Congress is on the issue. “Two-thirds of Democrats… say their representatives lean toward Israel more than they do.” 

These progressives want some type of action, including boycott and divestment and sanctions (BDS), to curb Israel’s behavior. As Rep. Cori Bush told Jewish Insider, she voted against the annual $3.3 billion to Israel because “Giving money to militaries with a record of committing human rights abuses is not how we advance justice — nor is it how we keep our country safe.” 

You can see J Street offering lip service to the progressive cause but doing nothing to actually punish Israel for its conduct. J Street justly speaks out in outrage about the killings of Palestinian children by Israeli snipers in the West Bank — and deplores half-naked settlers gleefully killing Palestinians with the backing of Israeli soldiers. But it also welcomed the latest tranche of U.S. military aid to the occupying apartheid nation. Though yes, it has called for restricting U.S. aid so it doesn’t go to killing Palestinians in the West Bank. But not reducing the aid or “conditioning it,” as progressive congresspeople seek to do.

J Street is in the end a Zionist organization, and it opposes any boycotts aimed at Israel. Its gatherings exclude anti-Zionist Jews and supporters of Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions and feature few Palestinian-Americans. Its “Myths and Facts” pages are all about defending itself from anti-Israel charges in the Jewish community. The organization feels no need to defend its pro-Israel positions from progressive critics. Not yet anyway!

There are two reasons for J Street’s conservatism on these questions.

1, The Jewish community consensus. The American Jewish community is overall still very pro-Israel– over 90 percent support the country, say some propagandists — as the answer to Jewish safety in the wake of the Holocaust. Older Jews took an oath to support the Israeli government whatever it does because we don’t live there. That communal deference is what has stopped IfNotNow and Peter Beinart from endorsing BDS, I believe: their parents would be very upset.

2, Older, conservative Jews predominate in the donor class that has exercised a significant influence over U.S. policy and Jewish communal values as well. The rightwing Marcus Foundation, headed by Bernie Marcus of Home Depot, just spent $60 million on sending young Jews to Israel on indoctrination trips. And spent another $2.7 million to establish an “Israel education” program at George Washington University. J Street’s backers are surely to Marcus’s left, famously including George Soros– but Democratic Party stalwarts on the J Street board, Morton Halperin and Alan Solomont, are of Marcus’s generation and are vehemently against BDS.

Pro-occupation Jews are still a major force in the Democratic Party, and oppose any pressure on the country. Look at Democratic Majority for Israel’s anger at the Ben & Jerry’s decision, or Mayor Bill de Blasio’s anger. Or Israel Policy Forum’s. They are all for a two-state solution, but against doing anything to cause Israel to withdraw its illegal settlers from the West Bank and East Jerusalem. So Israel just keeps colonizing the territory, and there will never ever be a two-state solution despite all the lip service, and as even Carnegie Endowment has acknowledged now, There’s one state between the river and sea and the struggle is over whether it will be an apartheid state or a democratic state.

At critical moments, J Street’s pro-Israel instincts have won out over its anti-occupation position. I remember when the official Jewish community and the Congress too rose against Obama’s opposition to settlements in 2009-2011, as Netanyahu demanded that it rise; Obama walked back his opposition and J Street backed off its own anti-settlement messaging, because it felt part of the political/communal consensus, and didn’t want to be isolated on the left.

More recently, J Street has endorsed legislation that describes BDS as an antisemitic campaign.

Now the BDS campaign has delivered a huge victory against the occupation, with Ben & Jerry’s decision, and J Street’s attempt to straddle the issue has risks. The Democratic Party is in flux, and progressives want action– including many young Jews who have turned against the Israel lobby, of which J Street is a part.

H/t Adam Horowitz, Dave Reed and Michael Arria.

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