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I won’t lie: my pelt got raised a bit when Stephen Walt referred to Obama’s recent meeting with Jewish leaders as a meet with the "Israel Lobby." Why use a singular phrase to describe both Abe Foxman and Jeremy Ben-Ami? What singular phrase could possibly usefully describe two men of such different perspectives on Israel, Palestine and peace?
To Walt’s credit, he addresses the differences of opinion between the attendees of Obama’s trip to the shtetl, attributing "significant changes within the lobby" to "an evident rift between those who think the United States should continue to the same ‘special relationship’ with Israel, and those who believe that it would be in Israel and America’s interest if Washington adopted a more candid and nuanced policy toward the Jewish state." Ehh, that makes J Street and Americans For Peace Now sound too status-quo oriented for my taste, and if what Walt means is that sharing certain platitudinous foundational principles — Israel and the U.S. are/ought forever be allies — then it does a disservice to the emerging progressive American Jewish infrastructure’s brotherly clash with the status-quo elements. But perhaps I’m being too sensitive.
This, however, is right on:
[T]he United States has lots of experience putting pressure on the Palestinians and the Arabs — in fact, one attendee at the meeting quoted Obama as saying that U.S. pressure on the Arabs is a "dog bites man" story — so that will not be hard to do. Pressuring Israel, on the other hand, has been a much rarer occurrence, but it is now necessary if Obama hopes to move toward a two-state solution and foster lasting peace between Israel and the Arab states around it.
Right on. And it’s the answer to conservative Jews who fret that Obama is too abrasive in pressuring Israel, or that he singles out Israel for too much criticism. It’s the complaint of the never-disciplined child who’s suddenly told he needs to clean his room like his brothers do. American Jews are so used to thinking of the Palestinians as the intransigent party that they don’t consider Israel’s own intransigence. Hamas even stopped some Palestinian Islamic Jihad militants from firing rockets into Israel from Gaza today, so it’s simply not the case that intransigence exists only on the Palestinian side. I’ll entertain arguments that Obama’s pressure on Israel is counterproductive to reaching a peace deal, but not that it’s inappropriate.
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Here’s the thing that doesn’t get talked about enough. I am very sympathetic to Palestinian statehood. But one of the largest reasons that I am is that it is clear to me that the only sustainable path for Israel is to embrace Palestinian statehood. The Likudniks don’t have a corner on the market for caring about a viable Israel, and it doesn’t take an IR genius to figure out that the current path will lead to a de facto apartheid and that Israel, for all her value, will go the way of South Africa.
They don’t WANT us to be able to argue that we’re trying to SAVE the Israeli nation from it’s own paranoid excesses, but after Lebananon and Gaza it’s pretty hard to argue otherwise.
Yes. The Palestinian Authority has to get it’s house in order. But any rational outside observer who reaches the conclusion that the Palestinians have ANY power to affect the outcome is deluded.
I know we’re not supposed to say this, but the current Israeli government represents neither the mainstream Israeli outlook nor any realistic agenda for a peaceful and prosperous future. Indeed, the current Israeli leadership is dependent on an artificial state of perpetual threat to retain power. Interestingly, much like a recent American government.
Obama needs to force concessions from both sides, and accept as legitimate whoever the Palestinian electorate votes into office. It may not lead to peace and a final settlement, but it will show the world that America can be an honest broker and a leader in peace, not just in war…
There are problems with accepting whomever the Palestinians vote into office, just as there are problems accepting this recently elected Israeli government.
Herding these cats ain’t gonna be easy. Obama should “force” a big bunch of concessions, but how far can he push them along before the force disintegrates?
Nah. You’re down 6-3 in the bottom of the eighth, with one out and a runner on first. You’re PROBABLY not going to win. Do you bunt? Or swing for the fences? If you strike out, nothing’s really changed. But if you hit a home run, you’re back in the game. If Obama’s serious he pushes both sides HARD. He’s got very little to lose, as nothing is expected to happen anyway.
And accepting popularly elected governments you don’t like is like human rights. If you want other nations to accept YOUR legitimacy as an elected government, you accept theirs. If you think people in other countries don’t recognize the hypocrisy of doing otherwise I’d have to suspect you haven’t lived in other countries…
mikey
Both the original paper and the book made very clear that the term “Israel lobby” did not refer to a homogeneous ideological group. The fact that the very different people and groups you mention are willing to meet with and address Obama as a group more than justifies viewing them en masse, albeit with the clear understanding that there are clear differences among the constituent parts. J Street is clearly part of the Israel lobby, as different as it certainly is from AIPAC. They clearly want to distinguish themselves from AIPAC on methods and means, but it is plainly true that at the broadest level of aims — a secure Israel at peace with its neighbors in a strong relationship with the U.S. — J Street and AIPAC share a goal. Am I wrong?
I.e. – do you really think that saying that J Street and fellow travellers “believe that it would be in Israel and America’s interest if Washington adopted a more candid and nuanced policy toward the Jewish state” is really using language that underplays their true views by all that much? Wouldn’t Abe Foxman have a cow at that kind of language? If you do in fact think that that language underplays the J-Street critique significantly, then I am readily willing to defer to you and grant that Walt should represent that series of positions as accurately as possible. What language should he have used?
I do think it’s insufficient. What distinguishes J Street is that it lobbies for policies that consider peace to be a positive-sum benefit for both Israel and Palestine. AIPAC and some affiliated groups want the U.S. to adopt policies — to put this as sympathetically as I can — that secure peace through Israeli dominance. That’s why you see J Street supporting Obama on the settlement freeze and AIPAC and its allies… well, if not opposing him, expressing angst about it. J Street’s positions are reminiscent of some of the hard-learned lessons that the U.S. picked up in Iraq (though this is my reading and not theirs): a peace predicated on justice and dignity for the Palestinians is the surest path to a secure Israel.
This is a distinction with a serious difference, and I don’t think simply saying “these are two different wings of American Jewry” has much utility for explicating it.
So why was Ben-Ami there? What did he need to be reassured about? The ‘Jewry’ thing is kind of hard to deal with, btw. I made no such implication. This is about how much pressure is being applied where and in what direction.