"Transforming America's Israel Lobby" Begins With Discomfort and Innovation
I sat down to write a review of Dan Fleshler’s recently published book Transforming America’s Israel Lobby ahead of schedule because I’d heard the Jerusalem Post had dismissed it as irrelevant. The primary criticism JPost levels against the book is that the ideas of Fleshler’s many involvements — IPF, APN, BTShalom, J Street — have “failed gain traction” because those ideas are unpopular. Giving up land to bloodthirsty Palestinians who “reject peace” is the reason Israel has no choice (no choice!) but to pursue her own security single-mindedly.
But those of us who do the work that Fleshler does, building the pro-peace movement, know the real dynamic. The real dynamic is an American Jewish public that has slowly, over the past 20 years, come to realize that Israel is slowly rotting from within, that her politicians are Bushes and Cheneys, and that her military is beginning to lose its professionalism. The year 1948 is over already, and Israel is the dominating power in the region, her military expenditures and GDP are higher than all her neighbors combined.
This is not 1967 either. The Arab League and the Islamic League (72 nations in total) have offered her sweeping acceptance and diplomatic ties in exchange for the one thing Israel should want the most: freedom from managing an occupied territory. Egypt and Jordan, once Israel’s chief enemies, constantly barter her security in the form of ceasefires and intervene diplomatically.
This is not even 2002. The Second Intifada is over. Terrorism is at an all-time low, even counting Hamas’ rockets. Meanwhile, Palestinians are more impoverished, disconnected and ghettoized than ever before — particularly in Gaza. The barrier, checkpoints, and settlements are more pervasive than ever. The failure to produce concessions from Israel via Fatah’s negotiations has yielded newfound support for Hamas’ terrorism. The real question is, when does the Third Intifada start?
American Jews know this, or rather, they couldn’t give you a list like I just did. But they can feel it. The bellicose bluster emanating from the Conference of Presidents feels…odd. Each time Israel overreacts and directs tanks, helicopters, laser-guided precision bombs, airborne drones, cluster munitions, and white phosphorus against a guerrilla terrorism network that relies on bomb belts and home-made rockets, American Jews squirm inside. The discontinuity is palpable. It’s like wearing an itchy sweater.
The left is growing. We’re already the dominant segment of American Jewry. But translating numbers into political power is the subject of Fleshler’s book. The right wing is deeply single-minded about Israel and they represent the old guard of American Jewish leadership. The new leaders of today are rarely found in the organized mouthpieces that speak in Congress.
Just Wednesday, I participated in a feedback session at the White House organized by J Street and Jumpstart in which 30 representatives of grassroots, innovative Jewish nonprofits met Obama’s office of faith-based initiatives. The 30 orgs in the room represented just 10% of the 300 small orgs founded in the past ten years.
This is the future of the American Jewish community, particularly the 58% of unaffiliated Jews (according to J Street’s poll). This burst of orgs share 400,000 members and a budget over $100 million — if you were the White House, wouldn’t you want to meet an org of that size?
Consider specifically the cornucopia of more progressive groups that exist now that didn’t 20 years ago: Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, JustVision, UPZ (now a part of J Street), J Street and its PAC, Encounter, Jewish Voice for Peace…not to mention over 25 Israeli civil and human rights organizations like Yesh Din, Gisha, ACRI, Breaking the Silence, Ir Amim and B’Tselem. We must learn to become bigger than the sum of our parts, not less, as Fleshler suggests we presently do.
Read Dan Fleshler’s book for a primer on how AIPAC is “not the 800 pound gorilla in the room…just the 400 pound gorilla in the room.” Learn from the past mistakes and triumphs of the pro-peace camp and see how AIPAC’s relations with government have begun to fray over the years. Kick ’em off their pedestal and consider anew the size of the left and why it’s growing.
Fleshler — a life-long advocate of peace since the beginning — is providing a young person like me invaluable perspective on how far we have come. Now the question for us is, what book are we going to write when we’re 50?
Dan’s book is a welcome addition- i was fortunate enough to meet him through friends and even share in Seder at his home. I was taken with the loving and inclusive tone of the Seder. At the time, Dan said that he’d written a book that displeased everybody, but obviously he felt that what he wrote needed to be put before the public.
Why are all of these “peace” organization identify as “Jewish” rather than American since they lobby the American government to change American policy, isn’t that what is relevant?
AIPAC calls itself “America’s Pro-Israel Lobby” and doesn’t have the word “Jew” or “Jewish” on its front page or About page. You wrote some form of the word “Jew” 10 times in your post.
For example from these organizations, “J Street represents Americans, primarily but not exclusively Jewish” and “We believe ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the best interests of Israel, the United States, the Palestinians, and the region as a whole” and “J Street will advocate forcefully [Congress]… and in the Jewish community”. It also calls its support for Israel as the “Jewish homeland”.
J Street et al are Jewish orienated. It is this kind of attachment to Jewish “causes” abroad that makes many isolationist conservatives to perceive AIPAC as dual loyalist even though it doesn’t represents itself as Jewish; J Street et al do.
Don’t get me wrong, I’m a two-state solution supporter of the Israeli Left-Center. I am for American “engagement” in the peace process, though I think it had done it wrong.
My main beef with this post is that you perceive Israel as not being able to take care of itself internally. It is in America’s interest that Israel has good leadership aligned with America’s values, but you don’t think they can do that on its own. Yes, they voted BB in, but the important thing is that they VOTED! For sometime, American officials were uneasy with the Shiite dominated Iraqi government since they were sometimes perceived as close to Iran. But we have to respect that.
It is foolish to think that the Bush administration’s policy towards Israel is at fault. They call its 8 years wasted in the peace process. But what about the previous 8 years? The US and Europe gave billions to a corrupt “former-terrorist” and his cronies so a woman in Paris can go on shopping sprees.
Don’t get me wrong,I liked Clinton, hated Bush. But to blame elected Israeli officials on the stalled peace process is foolish. Maybe the US should promote the diverse views of the Palestinian people. There has to be more than the two options available to Palestinians right now – the corrupt Fatah and the Islamic Hamas.
This is not even 2002. The Second Intifada is over. Terrorism is at an all-time low, even counting Hamas’ rockets
And why is this the case? Defensive Shield; the fence/wall; assasinating Sheikh Yassin and Rantissi; Lebanon II; Cast Lead.
None of this has anything to do with the fact that the Second Intifada is over and terrorism is at an all-time low? Only Israeli Jews feel the effects of force?
The Arab League and the Islamic League (72 nations in total) have offered her sweeping acceptance and diplomatic ties in exchange for the one thing Israel should want the most: freedom from managing an occupied territory. Egypt and Jordan, once Israel’s chief enemies, constantly barter her security in the form of ceasefires and intervene diplomatically.
Are Israel’s relations with Eygpt and Jordan the example of the sweeping acceptance and diplomatic ties we might receive? Egypt most certainly has intervened diplomatically…like when the Egyptian delegation to the U.N. was leading the campaign to exclude Israel from acceptance on various commitees–at the height of the Oslo years.
No doubt that the occupation has been a disaster, and the two-state solution seems the only solution, but must we pretend that the fault lies only with Israel and W. Bush?