Security guards blocked the doors to several of the panels at J Street's first annual conference this week – because the rooms were so packed it would have been illegal to let any more people in. A discussion entitled "The need for a regional comprehensive approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict" was so popular that the organisers decided to repeat it. (One of the speakers, Jordanian ambassador Prince Zeid Ra'ad Zeid al-Hussein, remarked that it was the first time in decades of panel participation that he'd been asked for an encore.)
J Street's staff had planned for 1,000 attendees but midway through the conference's first day, they had 1,500, with more arriving. A great many American Jews, attached to Israel but sickened by its government and its knee-jerk American boosters, have been waiting for something like this.
J Street was formed as a liberal alternative to Aipac, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, whose name is virtually synonymous with America's Israel lobby. In some ways, it's odd that such a group as J Street didn't already exist, and that past attempts to create one failed. After all, American Jews are generally far more liberal than their putative spokespeople, and are largely opposed to the neoconservative foreign policy espoused by the Israel lobby. Some 77% of American Jews voted for Obama. J Street is premised on the idea that, when it comes to the Middle East, there was a huge body of Jewish public opinion without a tribune. The success of the conference suggests it was correct.
Still, there remains a real tension between liberalism and Zionism, and even with the advent of J Street, it's only growing. It is a tension that goes deeper than opposition to Israel's current government. How does a liberal justify the fact that a middle-class American, like me, has the right to become an Israeli citizen tomorrow, but that Arabs refugees born within its borders don't? If you don't believe in biblical claims, or in blood and soil nationalism, what's left is the fact that history has shown the necessity of the Jewish state, and Israel is the only one there is, and that not all political ideals are reconcilable.
Certainly, there's much for a progressive to love in Israel – the vitality of its cities, the richness of its intellectual life, the sheer human achievement of those who created a nation out of a 19th-century ideology. Yet there are contradictions that many liberal Jews see but don't like to talk about. We recoil when people like Pat Buchanan bewail the fact that white Christian Americans are becoming a minority in the United States, but we insist that Jews remain a majority in Israel. We demand to live in a secular state where all races and religions have equal claim on American identity, but no one has yet figured out how Israeli Arabs might enjoy similar rights without dismantling Zionism.
Among younger American Jews, largely spared anti-Semitism and thus the anxiety that they might need to seek refuge in Israel, these contradictions seem especially stark. A 2007 study, co-authored by one of the leading sociologists of American Jewry, found that among non-Orthodox Jews under 35, only 54% are "comfortable with the idea of a Jewish state." American Jews and Israelis are growing apart, their values ever more divergent.
To plenty of people on the left, and not only on the left, there's an easy solution to the Israel dilemma: a single, bi-national state. Like Communism, this seems just in theory but would be catastrophic in practice. Who really believes that the Israelis and Palestinians could coexist in a way that Serbs, Croats and Bosnians could not? The end of Zionism would merely be the beginning of a new nightmare for Jews and Palestinians alike.
Yet Israel is doing much to make even the pained, conflicted love of liberal Jews impossible. Without a two-state solution, the country will soon consist of a Jewish minority ruling over an oppressed Arab majority. Comparisons to South Africa will become ever more apt. And when the Arabs living under Israel's thumb demand their vote, they'll have justice and the sympathy of the world on their side. The idea of liberal Zionism will become an outright contradiction.
Most of the Jews who came to the J Street conference love Israel, but not with the kind of militant, unquestioning love one finds in the Aipac crowd. Most of them don't love Israel more than they love righteousness. The irony, though, is that right now, Aipac and its right-wing allies are supporting policies that will doom Israel as a Jewish democratic state, and poison the relationship between Israel and the Diaspora, a relationship essential to Israel's security. An end to the settlements and the creation of a coherent Palestinian state are absolutely fundamental to the future of an Israel worth supporting. Liberalism may sit uneasily with Zionism, but it's the only thing that can save it.
Brian Whitaker's best blogs and analysis from the Middle East
From Saudiwoman's Weblog
Comments in chronological order (Total 100 comments)
28 October 2009 1:04PM
A sensible take on the subject, I think.
28 October 2009 1:13PM
This is exactly the kind of love Israel needs. Its sometimes impossible to speak with US jews about Israel, and to advocate the idea that Palestinians too need and deserve a state. They view it as treason, or capitulation to terrorism. J street offers a much more balanced view. I am so proud of them, and thank them for keeping the idea of two people for 2 states, and settlements being counter productive alive. Because here in Israel, the left no longer has a voice.
28 October 2009 1:14PM
Good article. It's heartening that J Street appears to be doing so well.
28 October 2009 1:21PM
J Street is premised on the idea that, when it comes to the Middle East, there was a huge body of Jewish public opinion without a tribune.
So exactly like the idea behind the IJV which prove to be such a runaway success. After CIF had whole week of love-in for this group, did anyone hear of them again?
You have the same problem they had ,your building on the idea that Jews are not allowed to have different opinion on Israel which is totally false , and two that your ideas do not meet with wide spread argument because your being suppressed when in fact its because people dont actual agree with them.
Your merely one voice amongst many, ask a question of ten Jews and you will get 20 different opinions.
28 October 2009 1:21PM
Israel was attacked with rockets yesterday from Lebanon
why no mention in the Guardian
28 October 2009 1:24PM
I find the numbers quoted here:
Very cheering. Despite what many of the posters here would have us believe, they do not represent the views of Jews everywhere. I hope that J Street can continue to offer an alternative to silence for those people who don't think Israel is always right, never wrong, always the victim, never the aggressor, and has an unlimited right to all the land in the area.
It is these reasonable people who offer the greatest hope for a peaceful resolution of the conflict.
28 October 2009 1:26PM
I find this very encouraging.
I am only sorry that we are about to witness an onslaught on these pages of people telling you that these are "self-hating Jews" and such like.
The future of the world has to be based around co-operation, not confrontation. The more people who recognise this and take steps towards making it a reality, the better.
28 October 2009 1:27PM
According to Wikipedia 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab. Yet you say that Arabs refugees born within Israel's borders don't have the right to citizenship. Am I missing something?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Arab_citizens_of_Israel
28 October 2009 1:29PM
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28 October 2009 1:33PM
I am glad that J Street is doing well. Thank you for telling us, Michelle. The world's patience with Israel is burning out (or has burnt out), and J Street's arrival on the 'scene' is therefore perfect timing. I am astonished to read, over the last few weeks, the vile reactions by Israel or by Aipac with regards J Street.
The Palestinians want their homes and their farmland back, which is only just. It is high time that this Middle Eastern problem gets sorted out.
28 October 2009 1:45PM
whats even funnier is that one of the heads of J Street compared it to the kadima party.
Ha Ha! is that what you are fighting for Michelle?
Cifers do some research!
28 October 2009 1:49PM
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28 October 2009 2:00PM
BrigateGrosee
Had to look it up myself but i see your point.
Although i am sure michelle will argue that there is a difference.
Turkeys and Christmas.
28 October 2009 2:02PM
On the biblical side of things, it might have been a matter of 'blood and soil nationalism'. But given that numbers were relied on to push the 5% of Jews in Palestine to a numerically significant force prior to pushing for an 'Israel', it is more like 'numbers and soil nationalism' with the added advantage of the aforementioned.
I wouldn't say much about 'Israel's' intellectual life though. Too often we value our produce not only on the basis of what has been produced within a culturally-validating status quo without wondering after what more could have been produced within a relatively integrative milieu. That is the downside of fascism. The upside is that people wouldn't know better - via integration - to know better. The same thing is happening in Tibet, Xinjiang and Singapore(where it has already been successfully implemented by its BNP-style government that has been ruling for 50 years.)
ed
according2ed.com
28 October 2009 2:04PM
.
The rooms were so packed that the security guards were forced to expel some of the paid participants too - naturally those who diddn't agree with the (J) street thugs.
http://www.jstreetjive.com/
28 October 2009 2:05PM
Great article - am glad that J Street is out there.
28 October 2009 2:07PM
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28 October 2009 2:07PM
blankedout: Probably it wasn't considered newsworthy because the rocket didn't cause any damage or hurt anyone. As far as I can see from Google, no British newspaper reported the incident.
28 October 2009 2:17PM
At last, some good news for Israel.
28 October 2009 2:19PM
I believe in fact that a whole ideology around which the traditional lobby thrieved is slowly crumbling (see my post in the other thread, link bellow). This doesn't mean that changes are easy or are easily coming. The more the traditional stories propagated by the Israel lobby and by the hard line propaganda looses the credibility, the more fanatical its old adherents will become. Old habits tend to persist, older people don't consider changing their views.
At the same time, the critical attitude towards, and discontentment with AIPAC grows to a surprising extent.
Papalagi 28 Oct 09, 10:33am
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/26/j-street-lobby-israel?commentpage=4&commentposted=1
28 October 2009 2:19PM
camdencarrot
28 Oct 09, 1:27pm (43 minutes ago)
According to Wikipedia 20% of Israeli citizens are Arab. Yet you say that Arabs refugees born within Israel's borders don't have the right to citizenship. Am I missing something?
Yes. Arabs who lived in Palestine, and were driven out by the Israelis in 1948, are not allowed to return as citizens of Israel. Hence "Arab refugees born within Israel's [current] borders don't haev the right to citizenship". See below
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Palestinian_right_of_return
28 October 2009 2:20PM
blankedout
28 Oct 09, 1:21pm (42 minutes ago)
Israel was attacked with rockets yesterday from Lebanon
why no mention in the Guardian
Israel is kicking Palestinians out of their homes in Hebron to make way for jewish extremists?
Why no mention in the (enter as applicable)?
28 October 2009 2:21PM
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28 October 2009 2:25PM
I said this on another artcile regarding them, that their policy towards Israel and Palestine is a just and noble one, and something people who purpot to support human rights, equality, freedom, justice, and peace should support.
Im just surpised, there hasnt been a similar organistaion beofre, or if there was why it was not successful.
28 October 2009 2:25PM
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28 October 2009 2:27PM
good article, hope j street's voice is heard in israel.
28 October 2009 2:27PM
@camdencarrot,
Any Jew on earth and all the Arabs currently living in Israel are citizens of Israel. But there are millions of Palestinian Arab refugees who were born within the borders of Israel but who were forced out and have no right to live in Israel, or anywhere else.
The situaiton in the West Bank is even worse: there are milions of Jews building houses and living in a country which no-one, not even the Israeli's say is 'Israel', but the Israelis dont stop them.
28 October 2009 2:29PM
@camdencarrot
The Arabs who have Israeli citizenship are the decendents of those who didn't flee Israel, or weren't forced out of Israelm, when the state was established in 1948. If you are an Arab born in Israel of non-Israeli parents (even if your parents lived there at the time) you would not get Israeli citizenships.
28 October 2009 2:34PM
One thing's for sure: this piece is notably lacking the kind of vicious vocabulary employed by Isi Leibler recently.
First we had the Lerman article praising J Street, then there was Leibler's desperate smear of a piece and now in turn this.
So what's up next in the alternating series - a hatchet job from Elisabeth Wurtzel?
28 October 2009 2:36PM
We are now in the 61st year of the "Peace Process". The myth of the Israeli left is being replaced with the myth of the Liberal alternative - all the better to win the support and continued funding of Israeli expansion by the Obama administration. The truth is what is happening on the ground in the Middle East - that is reality. This has not changed.
28 October 2009 2:41PM
I have severe misgivings about JStreet, being that over all, they're not much more than a re-branding exercise of AIPAC-lite. This by Philip Weiss who is covering the conference is worth reading.
http://mondoweiss.net/2009/10/impressions-from-1st-full-day-at-j-street-conference.html
28 October 2009 2:43PM
No, but it would make developments towards peace that much easier. If the Palestinians were offered a genuine state in the West Bank and Gaza (which contrary to AIPAC mythology, they were never offered before), they'd probably take it. Even Nasrallah has said that if this happens, he would have to respect their decision.
28 October 2009 2:51PM
a very insightful piece - well done.
28 October 2009 2:54PM
At the risk of becoming a Cifwatch favourite, could you please stick to the subject that the article addresses, instead of going over old I/P ground.
28 October 2009 2:56PM
BrianWhit
But Brian, no other British newspaper has this obsession with Israel and everything that happens there has it?
So shelling of Israel is ignored because it shines a negative light on our neighbors. That rocket could have killed tens of Israelis Brian.
Imagine if Israel had fired a similar rocket into Lebanon.
28 October 2009 2:57PM
BellaM,I should give it up if I were you.
You are on a hiding to nowhere.
28 October 2009 2:58PM
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28 October 2009 2:59PM
Brianwhit
"....Probably it wasn't considered newsworthy because the rocket didn't cause any damage or hurt anyone. As far as I can see from Google, no British newspaper reported the incident...."
Sounds like that's an indictment of the entire British media. The "intent" was to "kill". Maybe if the press reports all such incidents, then the better "informed" public can then understand the "disproportionate" responses.
Besides, its not like the Guardian hasn't shown a disproportionate interest in the I/P conflict - such as this article. Selectively?
28 October 2009 3:02PM
@ camdencarrot
Yes. The author specifically referred to Arab "refugees" born within Israel's borders, i.e. those of the est. 700,00 still alive.
Then again, her phrasing is unfortunate; she presumably means Arabs born in what would become Israel.
@ Covenant
But are these people refugees? Either way I'm not sure exactly what scenario you're talking about there. Please do clarify.
28 October 2009 3:03PM
The argument is going badly, acklothandsashes, so you change the subject. Or are you suggesting it's all JStreet's fault?
28 October 2009 3:07PM
Moeron, were I JStreet I would feel distinctly nauseated by your support, and for heaven's sake don't start referring to what yuo think "the whole world" wants which is evidence that your arguments are tendentious.
And yes, TomWonacott, it is an indictment of the British media that the continuing shelling of southern Israel does not make the news.
I am not surprised that it doesn't make the Guardian, however.
28 October 2009 3:10PM
BrianWhit
"......But whereas transforming a regime of institutionalised racism, or apartheid, into a democracy was viewed as a triumph for human rights and international law in South Africa and Northern Ireland, it is rejected out of hand in the Israeli case as a breach of what is essentially a sacred right to ethno-religious supremacy (euphemistically rendered as Israel's "right to be a Jewish state")....."
Why would you moderate my comment when the Guardian publishes this by Ali Abudimah?
28 October 2009 3:11PM
@Converse325:
I did, and I've drawn upon it extensively in my own research. Whether that in itself leads to betterment is questionable, but popularity is not the determining factor of worth.
where precisely does the article say that nationalists/neo-conservatives are not entitled to their opinions?
@blankedout/BrianWhit:
It was mentioned in Al Jazeera:
http://english.aljazeera.net/news/middleeast/2009/10/20091027181128690733.html
quite how it relates the article's subject here is mystifying. I had a blood test this morning - why hasn't that been mentioned in any medical journal? Why are they trying to suppress my decidely wussy relationship with needles? For shame.
@Camdencarrot:
aside from a more energetic approach to research than consulting the most unreliable source on the net? c. 1 million of Israel's population are of arab ethnicity; c. 4 million Palestinian Arabs are currently stateless refugees - c. 1 million live in Gaza in appalling conditions. They were turned into refugees by the 1948, '67 and '73 wars; but the numbers are so high because of the 4% per annum birth rate. c. 800,000 were dispossed in 1948 - and they have steadfastly been refused re-entry into their former homelands. It is arguably the most contentious issue within the mid-east conflict - it stirs arab nationalism no end; and it's borne a particularly seamy line of misinformation on the theme of 'Jewish refugees from Arab land's - Mizrahim Jews who, while featuring in Israeli attempts to obviate restitution to Palestinians, are themselves treated like second-class citizens within Israel. Most of the recipients of Hamas' missiles are Moroccan Jews in southern Israel who are too poor to move elsewhere. It's led to protest groups like the Tent Movement, which haven't yielded much.
A viable Palestinian state would be the most credible solution to the Palestinian crisis, but it would require Israel to adhere to UN resolution 242 and withdraw comprehensively from the West Bank and East Jerusalem, which its governments and their US advocates have no intention of doing.
Strangely enough, Michelle Goldberg's mention of a bi-national state is not a new idea, it was the original vision for Israel/Palestine back in 1947 - but neither side really wanted it; and Palestinian gestures in that direction seem rooted more in desperation than desire.
@Pretzelberg:
Like she reads newspapers.
No, the guardian tend to be in the habit of publishing vindictive pieces by people defaming their own articles. Leibler is a savant by contrast to some of the personalities featured.
@Susarohl:
no, they're not. They are a liberal group, not a neo-conservative one; and if they can be a figurehead for a more truthful account of matters then that's hardly a bad thing. That said, groups like AIPAC et al were themselves fairly liberal at one point - the ADL grew out of B'nai Brith: a socialist organisation. The right-ward turn began in the seventies. See Peter Novick's book 'The Holocaust and Colective Memory'. Plus, 1000 people may sound impressive, but within America - and even among America's c. 3 million Jews - it's a tiny number. These things are never simple or easy.
@beautifulburnout:
true, but blogs would suffer badly. If all people did was agree with each other, the world would be a nicer place. People would be happy and peaceable; blogs would be redundant.
28 October 2009 3:12PM
BrianWhit
But the BBC is reporting it today. It is a ratcheting up tension, and a violation of the UN resolution to demilitarize the border. I would have thought the Guardian, with its relentless focus on Israel, would have thought that fairly important, but I guess you'll wait till Israel retaliates, and just print that, if I'm not mistaken.
28 October 2009 3:16PM
acklothandsashes: Exactly. Israel did fire back and that wasn't reported either. As international news goes, it was a pretty minor story.
28 October 2009 3:17PM
TomWonacott. The Israelis have, with just one F16 killed more Palestinian children than all the rocket attack deaths in Israel combined. That is why the recent slaughter is considered, by many, to be "disproportionate".
28 October 2009 3:20PM
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28 October 2009 3:22PM
So J Street has the support of Peres (remember his chilling statement: "Palestinians don't love their children like we do") and the support of Livni ("There's no humanitarian situation in Gaza" as the white phosphorous rained down on school playgrounds). Both Peres and Livni were invited to attend the J Street conference but declined (maybe fear of arrest, who knows?)
Anyway, what's new really? I am not fooled by all the hype.
28 October 2009 3:24PM
worktimesurfer
Comments like yours quickly make these threads worthless:
Even the Arabs agree that about 750,000 fled Israel in 1948, so there couldn't have been "millions born within the borders of Israel"
There are not "millions of Jews building houses" on the WB (which I think is what you mean when you call it " a country which no-one, not even the Israeli's say is 'Israel'"). There are in total about 300,000 Israelis living mainly in two or three towns/suburbs on the WB, and the WB is not a "country".
28 October 2009 3:32PM
BrianWhit
But the initiation of hostilities and the response to hostile fire IS important. In this case, Israel is exercising her right to self defense. That's an important distinction.