AIPAC v. J Street, The Ongoing Saga
23 October 2009 3:07 pm by Taylor Marsh
–updated–
… I think that the notion is that there should be a homeland that is a Jewish homeland. That is the founding principle of J Street. The question is, how do we preserve it? That’s where we seem to be getting attacked. Our view is that in order to preserve this, there just simply has to be an independent state for the Palestinians next door, and that’s where they will live. And we live in Israel and we live there and there’s always going to be a minority in Israel that is not Jewish and we need to treat them like equal citizens and value their participation in our democracy, but it is a Jewish home. This is the Jewish homeland. – Jeremy Ben-Ami
The pissing contest debate continues, compliments of Goldberg, Goldfarb & Co, which includes Mitt Romney, whose column today in the UnionLeader gets his Israeli bonafides lined up for 2012. As an Irish-Scots broad whose mother brought me up decidedly Christian, but also because I grew up in Truman’s Missouri, the first president to formally recognize the state of Israel, the age old conflict between Israel and the Palestinians has always been part of my consciousness, even as I obviously remain reporting from the outside looking in. So to balance out Goldbarb’s prejudice, it’s only fitting that I also highlight this amazing piece from Foreign Policy by Rebecca Abou-Chedid, “Nightmare on J Street.” Because to quote Ms. Abou-Chedid, “Why can’t Arab Americans work for peace, too?”
This week, former AIPAC and Israeli embassy official Lenny Ben-David published an article revealing that I had given a donation to the “pro-Israel and pro-peace” organization J Street. Because I am of Lebanese descent, this clearly indicates that my dollars must be intended to advance some pernicious anti-Israel agenda — and that J Street must be the vehicle for those aims.
I would be only too happy to ignore Ben-David’s article as a collection of cheap innuendo and loose associations, but the stakes are too high. With J Street’s inaugural conference less than one week away, opponents are desperate that it fail. The attacks on the organization, its founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, its staff, and their supporters have taken on an all too-familiar form — eschewing substance to malign the motives and associations of those they disagree with. Ben-David and his supporters are now attacking J Street for accepting contributions from Americans of Arab descent. The donations in question are largely symbolic, many of them in amounts between $30-$100, but his point is loud and clear — an organization that receives Arab-American support must, by definition, be suspect.
The section in bold pretty much gives you the atmosphere in a nutshell.
Jeffrey Goldberg’s does an interesting interview with Ben-Ami just days before J Street’s first national conference is set to kick off. But you’ve really got to read the “Seinfeldian” exchange between Goldberg and Ben-Ami on “intermarriage” to believe it.
Jeffrey Goldberg channels Michael Goldfarb off the top:
Jeffrey Goldberg: Let’s just go right to the Stephen Walt question. Why do you think Walt (the co-author of the book “The Israel Lobby”) likes J Street?
Jeremy Ben-Ami: I don’t know and I don’t care. One of the reasons why I won’t answer your call to quote-unquote renounce him is that it really smacks of witch-hunts and thought-police. It’s not my business to “renounce.”
As anyone who pays attention to the right’s Are You A Real Jew quiz knows, it begins with denouncing Stephen Walt and the book he co-wrote, “The Israel Lobby.” If Ben-Ami hadn’t had his talking point patter nailed tight he could have been nailed from the top. Though Goldberg revealing his prejudices up front, for those who haven’t previously be aware (both of you), does do a service to the unsuspecting.
Golberg also asks why he thinks Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren isn’t coming to the conference:
JB: I think there has been a pattern to the behavior of this Israeli government of pushing back strongly against all who disagree with them. It’s a way of acting and behaving that characterizes everything about this government and I think it is counter to the long-run interests of the state — I think that you have to speak to those with whom you disagree, I think you have to find ways and language and places to speak with not only your enemies but just those who disagree with you. So I don’t even know that it’s just about us — it’s kind of the character of the entire foreign policy of the government at the moment.
Then Goldberg gets down: “On another subject, you’re giving some space at your conference to a group of bloggers who range from the anti-Zionist Max Blumenthal to the anti-Zionist Helena Cobban.”
TO ADD… I got in touch with Max, whose book ad on BlogAds is being sponsored by TM.com, and here was his response: “I guess there is no such thing as a free lunch.” Perfect.
But for my money, the Peretz – Goldfarb slap is the perfect ending salvo, with Ben-Ami not about to miss the opportunity:
JG:You believe that you’re at the center of American Jewish thought?
JB: I believe that we are at the center. The Marty Peretzes and the Michael Goldfarbs and the Lenny Ben-Davids are on the right, to the far right, and there are people to our left, and we are in the middle trying to put forward a thoughtful, moderate, mainstream point of view about how to save Israel as a Jewish home.
Again, I realize I’m an outsider on this, but as a serious foreign policy watcher I also know that solving the Middle East deadlock is imperative to U.S. foreign policy across the Middle East, but also Central Asia, but also to bolstering Israel’s long-term viability. The conference begins on Sunday and I’ll be checking it out next week.
