Israel’s “American Problem”: The Jewish Groups Which Stand in the Way of Peace

By Allan C. Brownfeld

Those American Jewish organizations which frequently proclaim themselves “friends” of Israel may, in reality, constitute a significant roadblock on the path to any meaningful peace settlement.

Indeed, in an article in the May 18, 2008 New York Times, Jeffrey Goldberg, national correspondent for The Atlantic and author of Prisoners: A Story of Friendship and Terror, refers to these groups as Israel’s “American Problem.”

When Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert arrived at a Jerusalem ballroom in February to address the representatives of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, Goldberg reports, “he was pugnacious, as customary, but he was also surprisingly defensive...He knew that scattered about the audience were Jewish leaders who considered him hopelessly spongy—and very nearly traitorous—on the issue they believed to be of cosmological importance: the sanctity of a ‘united’ Jerusalem, under the sovereignty of Israel. These Jewish leaders, who live in Chicago and New York and behind the gates of Boca Raton country clubs, loathe the idea that Mr. Olmert, or a prime minister yet elected, might one day cede the Arab neighborhoods of East Jerusalem to the latent state of Palestine. These are neighborhoods—places like Sur Baher, Beit Hanina and Abu Dis—that the Conference of Presidents could not find with a forked stick...And yet many Jewish leaders believe that an Israeli compromise on the boundaries of greater Jerusalem—or on nearly any other point of disagreement—is an axiomatic invitation to catastrophe.”

When he spoke with Olmert several days later, Goldberg continued, the Israeli prime minister “said that certain American Jews he would not name have been ‘investing a lot of money trying to overthrow the government of Israel.’ But he was expansive and persuasive on the Zionist need for a Palestinian state. Without a Palestine—a viable, territorially contiguous Palestine—Arabs under Israeli control will, in the not distant future, outnumber the country’s Jews. ‘We now have the Palestinians running an Algeria-style campaign against Israel, but what I fear is that they will try to run a South Africa-type campaign against us,’ he said. If this happens, and worldwide sanctions are imposed as they were against the white-minority government, ‘the state of Israel is finished.’”

“What is needed now is a radical rethinking of what it means to be pro-Israel.”

This is why, Olmert has said, his mentor, former Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, turned against the Jewish settlement movement—which men like Sharon and Olmert once saw as the vanguard of Zionism. Now, they view such settlements as a threat to Israel’s long-term identity as a Jewish state.

As former Prime Minister and current Defense Minister Ehud Barak put it in l999: “Every attempt to keep hold of this area as one political entity leads, necessarily, to either a nondemocratic or a non-Jewish state. Because if the Palestinians vote, then it is a binational state, and if they don’t vote it is an apartheid state that might then become another Belfast or Bosnia.”

Discussing efforts by such groups as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) and the Conference of Presidents to enforce what they view as a “pro-Israel” position in the current presidential campaign—particularly with regard to Sen. Barack Obama (D-IL), who is feared as one whose Middle East views are largely unknown—Goldberg writes that “...by the standards of rhetorical correctness maintained by such groups...Mr. Obama is actually more pro-Israel than either Ehud Olmert or Ehud Barak (to say nothing of John McCain and President George W. Bush, who spoke to the Knesset about external threats to Israel’s safety but made no mention of the country’s missteps). This is an existentially unhealthy state of affairs...What Israel needs is an American president who not only helps defend it against the existential threat posed by Iran and Islamic fundamentalism, but helps it to come to grips with the existential threat from within. A pro-Israel president today would be one who prods the Jewish state—publicly, continuously and vociferously—to create conditions on the West Bank that would allow for the birth of a moderate Palestinian state.”

Why, Goldberg asks, won’t American leaders push Israel publicly in the direction of a genuine peace settlement? To him the answer is obvious: “The leadership of the organized American Jewish community has allowed the partisans of settlement to conflate support for the colonization of the West Bank with support for Israel itself...What is needed now is a radical rethinking of what it means to be pro-Israel.…But this won’t happen until AIPAC and the leadership of the American Jewish community allow it to happen.”

Stifling Debate

The fact is, of course, that the Jewish organizations which have largely stifled a free and open debate about U.S. Middle East policy are not representative of the thinking of the vast majority of American Jews, who have long supported the creation of a Palestinian state.

More and more American Jews are expressing dismay over the negative role played by organizations which speak in their name.

Writing in the May-June 2008 issue of Tikkun, Rabbi Michael Lerner declares that, “Jews jumped from the burning buildings of Europe into Palestine...unfortunately, and tragically, we landed on the backs of Palestinians who were already there, and we hurt many of them in our landing. So scarred were we by our own pain—having just witnessed the death of one out of every three Jews alive on the planet—that we were unable to notice or take seriously the pain that we were causing to the Palestinian people in the process...The expulsion of the Palestinians from their homes, some by fear of being subject to terrorist attacks consciously planned by Menachem Begin, Yitzhak Shamiir, and the terrorist groups that they led, and others by fear of being caught in a war zone...”

What is needed is genuine healing between Israelis and Palestinians, argues Lerner, but, “The organized Jewish community in the U.S., prodded by the Israel Lobby, has been one of the major impediments to the kind of discourse, to any peace process that cares equally for both sides. The fact that Barack Obama felt that pressure intensely enough to insert in his speech on race a line about the real problem in the Middle East stemming not from Israel’s relationship to its neighbors but only from Islamic fundamentalism, is only the latest example of the incredible power of the Israel lobby to make questioning Israel’s policies in the U.S. a sure path to political suicide.”

“A More Nuanced Approach”

Seymour D. Reich, president of the Israel Policy Forum and a former chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, and Peter A. Joseph, chairman of the Israel Policy Forum and a trustee of the American Jewish Joint Distribution Committee, wrote in the May 26, 2008 New York Times that, “The Conference of Presidents...and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee...do not represent the views of the majority of American Jews about the peace process or about the Israeli government’s need for flexibility in dealing with such issues as Jerusalem and the settlements. The American Jewish community should encourage presidential candidates to articulate a more nuanced approach to achieving a secure and Jewish Israel, which requires a viable Palestinian state alongside Israel.”

When he was Israel’s prime minister, Yitzhak Rabin viewed AIPAC and other vocal American Jewish groups as hindering his efforts toward peace and, as a result, supported the creation of the Israel Policy Forum. Now, AIPAC is being challenged by a new group, JStreet. In a May 11 interview with The Washington Post, its executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami calls for a whole new definition of what it means to be “pro-Israel.” According to Ben-Ami, “As long as Palestinians despair of a decent and dignified life, Israel will be at war. And as long as the only channel for Palestinian ingenuity is building better rockets, not even the Great Wall of China will protect Israel’s cities from their wrath. Helping the Palestinians achieve a viable, prosperous state is one of the most pro-Israel things an American politician can do.”

If this new definition of what it means to be “pro-Israel” takes hold, Israel’s “American problem” may recede—making it easier to move toward peace.

Allan C. Brownfeld is a syndicated columnist and associate editor of the Lincoln Review, a journal published by the Lincoln Institute for Research and Education, and editor of Issues, the quarterly journal of the American Council for Judaism.