J Street Offers Alternative to AIPAC
Hundreds of Jewish activists from J Street visited congressional offices on March 1 to talk about Israel and the settlements and to present a pro-peace agenda against the dominant views of the most powerful lobby in Washington, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC). The visits followed their second major convention with representatives from all over America giving voice to Jews who want an end to the settlements on the West Bank and a viable peace settlement between Israel and the Palestinians. They also focused on Israel’s government being controlled by its ultra-Orthodox and hard-line, expansionist Likudniks against Jews with modern humanist values. A panel attended by leading Israelis decried the vitriol against them from fanatical fundamentalists in Israel who want more settlements. Indeed, a key panel was titled “Is The Settlement Enterprise Destroying Israel’s Democracy?”
Several members of Congress who participated in one of the panels all thanked J Street for presenting its case and giving those concerned for Israel’s long-term viability another position than that of AIPAC’s pro-occupation and settlement-expansion promotions.
At the closing banquet, founder Jeremy Ben-Ami stated that J Street is now the third largest Jewish organization in America, with chapters in 30 states and on 50 college campuses. Around 2,300 persons attended the conference, including 500 college students. Sixty members of Congress and 84 rabbis attended the final banquet. Just three years after its founding, J Street now has a staff of 50 and a $7 million budget. Ben-Ami stated that J Street was founded to “save the dreams of the founders of Israel.” He deplored how Israel’s government was bringing about ”international isolation and the loss of Jewish values,” a constant theme of speakers on the various panels. Over and over I heard from the panels how Jews should not be expected to “check Jewish values at the door” when it came to Palestinians, that they could not tell their children that Jewish values were dependent upon nationality and circumstance.
The worldly attendees and the fact that Supreme Court Justice Ruth Bader Ginsburg showed her support by introducing the keynote speaker all gave the group national credibility against those who vilify Jews who challenge the violence and brutality of the occupation as “self-hating Jews.”
At the dinner, I sat next to a young woman who had started the J Street chapter at Brandeis University. She told me how the group represented values she had been searching for on campus. She explained how most of her classmates opposed the settlements but feared that any criticism would reduce support for Israel. J Street argues that it is Israel’s actions that have already hurt its moral case and isolated it from most of the world.
A theme stressed in several panels was that the settlements were undermining the whole rule of law inside Israel. Michael Sfard, legal counsel in Israel to Peace Now, a very large group with offices in America, said that the police would not investigate or charge rabbis who ignored subpoenas and otherwise violated the laws and that Orthodox rabbis now say that working on the Sabbath is permitted if done to build settlements. They also are now demanding separate public buses for males and females. On the same panel longtime settlement critic Gershom Gorenberg urged Washington to stop financing the settlements and demand that Israel enforce its own laws.
A documentary film, Between Two Worlds, about the Jewish Film Festival in San Francisco, showed the conflicts among Jews over Israel’s policies. The furor came from the decision to show a movie about Rachel Corrie, the young American woman who was run over by an Israeli bulldozer when she tried to protest its demolishing of Palestinian homes and livelihoods in Gaza. The movie shows the evolution of a Holocaust survivor, his activist wife, and his modern American daughters.
Palestinian
non-violent resistance (which is joined by many Israeli and foreign
Jews) was explained as the most successful way of resisting the military
occupation. A movie, Budrus, was shown about how non-violent resistance
saved a small town in Palestine from being demolished by the path of
the Israeli wall.
At the panels I attended, however,
I heard nothing about the Christian Zionists in America who give political
power and cover to AIPAC and the occupation. Surprisingly, at one
panel, which analyzed voting patterns, the spokesmen were at a loss to
explain widespread and deep support among Republican leaders for the
settlements. Speakers concluded that it must be for campaign donations.
They seemed oblivious to the tens of millions of evangelicals who give
unstinting political support and generous funding to the most provocative
settlements. Their love of Israel has a condition, though: they want
Israel’s actions to help hurry up their God’s second
coming, which will result in the deaths of all the world’s peoples who don’t convert to Christianity.
At the same Washington Convention Center that hosted the J Street meeting,
former Republican congressional leader Tom Delay several years ago
attended a meeting of the group Christians United for Israel.
Questioned about the “end times,” he answered, “Obviously, it’s what
I live for. I hope it comes
tomorrow!” For details on these fundamentalists’ thinking,
see my article “The
Strangest Alliance in History.”
A panel on the “Struggle to Protect Democracy” inside Israel featured several Israelis. Hagai El-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, Israel’s ACLU, complained that “anti-democrats” had opened the floodgates in trying to intimidate and silence those opposed to unlimited government and the rule of law. He called them “proto-fascists” because they physically threatened their opponents who supported minority rights, democratic procedures, justice, and free speech. He said, however, that of 20 bills they introduced in the Knesset, all were defeated. He feared, however, for the future as they were growing more powerful and dangerous. Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund and former deputy speaker of the Knesset, warned that Israel was in a “democratic crisis” and would not survive if it did not sustain democracy. She referred to the demographics of extremely high Orthodox birth rates.
Orthodox Jews get generous government welfare and subsidies for every baby, and they need not work at jobs or serve in the military. Already 27 percent of Israeli children, according to speakers at the 2009 J Street conference, attend yeshiva religious schools that teachonly biblical texts, without any science, math, history, or foreign languages. This, according to a Los Angeles Times report, is done with the intention of “shielding students from secular teachings that might shake their faith.” The report explained how the Israeli government recently capitulated to the ultra-Orthodox and now subsidizes such schools.
Daniel Ben Simon, a member of the Knesset, elaborated on the fight inside Israel between those with Western and humanist values against those trying to turn Israel into a religious state. He said that Russian immigrants were the third largest party in the Knesset and that most were “not helpful” in sustaining democracy. He complained that Fox News only promoted one viewpoint and never reported on the issues he described.
J Street argues
that what is going on inside Israel needs the light of day and full
debate in America’s Jewish community, that the issues are vital to
Judaism, and that the consequences will affect the long-term interests
of Israel and America. It argues that Israel’s viability, freedom, and democracy depend upon achieving a two-state resolution
to the conflict with the Palestinian people.
Read more by Jon Basil Utley
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- Romney, War, and the Republican Base: Libertarians May Split – September 24th, 2012
- Polling the Right Questions on Defense – Voters Get It Right – April 4th, 2012
- Call It the ‘Militarism Budget’ – March 14th, 2011
andy
March 6th, 2011 at 10:02 pm
Why choose at all among the "chosen"? Why should we even be mixed up in any of this?
JoaoAlfaiate
March 7th, 2011 at 3:38 am
This is truly absurd. Zionism is racism and J Street is Zionist. Antiwar is debasing itself. Give me my $50 back.
lizviering
March 7th, 2011 at 5:24 am
J Street may be AIPAC lite, but were one of the first organizations to attack Sen. Rand Paul when he called for eliminating all foreign aid, because it included aid to Israel, which he refused to exempt. So they still want US taxpayers to financially support Israel, militarily and otherwise, and I cannot agree with that. End all foreign aid, including to Israel, and end the tax-exemptions for American's donations to Israel.
JoaoAlfaiate
March 7th, 2011 at 5:43 am
Spot on, Liz !!!!
tomofsnj
March 7th, 2011 at 6:21 am
The Likud is flooding the West bank with illegal settlers. There has been some 400 percent increase in the number of illegal settlement construction since the end of the last freeze. So call it AIPAC or J street they both represent a nation that is invading other lands and I do not see how any one can argue any other point on the matter. They claim that God gave them the land and they retook in in war.
They cry that the USA is unwilling to give our land taken in war back to the native Indians. I feel that is a fair arguement for the Roman having a claim on the area not the zionist. Did the Zionist lose the land to the Romans and thus lost all right to the land.
Another point would be if God, the Almighty, had given them the land would not an all powerful be able to make a mountain or something to declare his intentions. Maybe record the ded with some government office? If that is unreasonable maybe they can explain why God, the almight, apparently has not spoken to any of them for the last 6 ,000 years. Maybe he does not like them anymore. Many parents are disappointed in how their children turn out. I would suspect someone looking down on Gaza would not be happy with the people doing to bad things to the poor old arab woman and children.
Jstreet AIPAC both represent the same likud. The likud is the former stern gang who got such a bad name as a terrorist organization they had to put on a smile face and rename the party.
VietnamWarVet
March 7th, 2011 at 7:22 am
The 'Master Race' – no difference who represents the Zionist Master Race or its criminal behavior.
Do any of the Master Race have any loyalty to the US despite living here – or – are ALL traitors to the US with their only loyalty to Israel?
Are Americans merely the 'goyim' to be used to fight and die for Israel?
MichaelKenny
March 7th, 2011 at 8:21 am
J Street was founded to “save the dreams of the founders of Israel.” Let us at give them credit for being honest! I have always wondered about those Jews who claim to "support" the Palestinians and who seem to "control the discours" in the "support the Palestinians" camp as tightly as AIPAC and the neocons control it elsewhere. We all are who we are and we all instinctively support oor own. That Jews should support Israel, but disagree about which way Israel should go, is prefectly natural. But I am highly suspicious, not of "self-hating" Jews, but of "Palestinian-loving" Jews.
Toliver
March 7th, 2011 at 8:22 am
Does J Street acknowledge the Armenian genocide? Other groups like AIPAC, ADL, JINSA, and AJC do not. They side with Turkey.
So I am wondering if J Street is really much different.
Jerr-Berlin
March 7th, 2011 at 11:47 am
Let's be serious…J Street is Zionism "light" for American consumption…
…I was born in the US in 1954..my father was a WW2 Marine who went through hell and a hand basket…for some reason, I don't believe "any" group should have an undo influence in a "real" republic…I 've worked, lived and traveled all over the world…it's unfathonable to see a "republic"
bend over backwards to a "foreign" country like Israel…
Mark
March 7th, 2011 at 12:36 pm
"But enough with AIPAC – isn't there a **better** way for us Americans to serve dear little precious Israel?"
Why, oh why is this the question???
emsnews
March 7th, 2011 at 1:30 pm
Earth to Ben Simon: Israel's entire existence is…a religious state! Jews are not a tribe, they are a religious group with conversions, for example, as well as all the trappings of a 'religion'. The people calling themselves 'Jews' are of various genetic backgrounds. They are not a tribe except de facto after the fact of declaring themselves practitioners of a religion.
Ergo: the Orthodox are merely more stringent members of this religious state. As for Jewish morals: from day one, that has been a total sham, the hour the Zionists in Europe declared their intentions to drive out the natives of Palestine. That happened well before the first Nazi existed.
emsnews
March 7th, 2011 at 1:32 pm
Worse, they whine about Orthodox Jews living on welfare…when the entire nation is one big Welfare Queen State.
andy
March 7th, 2011 at 2:36 pm
Any difference between J Street & AIPAC is merely one of degree and not of kind. They are both the same Zionist beast, concerned with Israel and not America's best interests.
Shingo
March 7th, 2011 at 5:47 pm
Let's remember that JStreet:
1. Wants to maintain US aid to Israel
2. Rejected the Goldstone Report.
3. Rejects true democracy in the region
4. Opposes BDS
5. Wants Israel to remain militarily superior to it's neighbors.
So while Israel is happy to criticize Israel, it rejects any measures that might punish Israel. JStreet is simply playing good cop while IAPAC plays bad cop.
Gabriel
March 7th, 2011 at 6:47 pm
Difference between AIPAC and J Street as the old African saying goes is the difference between the ears on a donkey.
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