I’ve hesitated in writing about this story reported yesterday in Haaretz since allowing potentially good news to go to your head is a fatal mistake regarding Middle East politics. Optimism always seems to be repaid with a harsh slap in the face. But the NY Times is also reporting the story today so I figured what the hell–if war breaks out tomorrow then we’ll all have egg on our faces.
Syria and Israel are making all the right noises about being prepared to make peace with each other. The Turkish prime minister carried a message from Ehud Olmert to Bashir Assad that the former was prepared to return all of the Golan in return for peace. A Syrian newspaper reported the story yesterday and today a Syrian minister repeated it. When Olmert’s office refused to deny (or confirm) it, it became big news.
It is ironic Olmert now feels comfortable acknowledging (tacitly) his willingness to compromise with Syria in return for peace. In this blog, I castigated him roundly last year for his tortuous attempts to deny the validity of negotiations conducted by Alon Liel with a Syrian interlocutor, in which they attempted to map out the contours of an agreement. Things now have gotten more serious and Olmert has stopped playing the fool.
There is of course one problem: the two countries are negotiating by press release or third parties instead of face to face. Politicians can say pretty much whatever they want as long as they don’t have to commit to anything. But when you sit down to negotiate in earnest, that’s when you have to get serious.
So what’s stopping them? A weakened Israeli governing coalition, for one. Olmert has a lot of things on his plate including a right-wing Opposition leader breathing down his neck and looking for weakness and opportunities to exploit them. But it is a good sign that Olmert is at least refusing to deny the reports.
And the most significant impediment to negotiations is the ideological rigidity of the Bush Administration. They would rather punish Syria and its ally Iran than do either of them any favors. To Bush-Cheney, peace between Syria and Israel seems too much like a reward that Syria doesn’t deserve. Of course, they neglect how critical peace would be for Israel, our supposed ally. The neocons would rather have a war that bled an ally than a peace that rewarded their foes. It’s called cutting off your friend’s nose to spite his face.
Syria wisely is insisting the the U.S. play a role in expediting whatever talks happen. If the former is to give up it protective alliance with Iran, it expects that it will gain something from the U.S. in return. Unfortunately, I seriously doubt the Bush Administration is willing or able to play such a role. This could doom a peace agreement to being stillborn; at least until a new president takes office. Let’s hope Syria and Israel haven’t gone to war before then…
Finally, there are indications from Hamas that it may be close to accepting Egyptian proposals negotiated with Israel for a temporary Gaza ceasefire. This does not, however, appear to be the longer-term ceasefire many people have long awaited that might lead also to freeing Gilad Shalit and 400 Palestinian prisoners.
I have two new Comment is Free essays published over the past two days. The first, Carter’s Principled Mission, on Jimmy Carter’s mission to Hamas and the second, Massive Attack, on Hillary’s threat to “obliterate” Iran if it attacks Israel.
I’ve missed all the smears emanating from the Jewish right about Obama and his alleged “softness” toward Israel. Nothing’s come out along those lines in, oh say–at least the last two weeks. I wonder what’s keeping all those neocon Jewish elves slaving away in the devil’s workshop? Undoubtedly, there’s more in store, especially if it starts looking like Obama will win the nomination.
Hat tip to Dan Sieradski for turning me on to this website.
The following is the Comment is Free article published last Tuesday when J Street launched. Before you read it, if you haven’t already visited the J Street site to join its mailing list, please consider doing so. And even more important, consider making a generous donation so J Street can begin to make a difference in Congress by promoting candidates who will engage with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and pressure our next president to make every effort to promote peace, not war. Now is the time for all good people to come to the aid of their country if we are ever to see peace between Israelis and Palestinians.
Recently, I attended a private Seattle dinner featuring J Street co-founders Daniel Levy and Jeremy Ben Ami. On April 15th, J Street will launch. It will be the first American Jewish PAC dedicated to promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace:
For too long, the primary and often only voices policy makers and politicians have heard regarding American policy toward Israel and the Middle East have been those of a vocal minority at the far-right of American society.
…Neoconservative, right-wing Jewish leaders and radical Christian Zionists have turned their definition of “pro-Israel” into a driving force in the American political process…
These voices do not…represent the mainstream of American Jews or the broader community that cares about Israel or American interests in the Middle East. Their efforts have skewed American policy, undermined Israeli and American interests, and constrained the domestic political and public debate about American foreign policy.
It is time for the mainstream of Americans–Jews and others–to establish a bold, political voice that advocates for the best interests of the U.S. and Israel, including a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the 1967 borders with agreed reciprocal land swaps, and for American policy that will lead to real security for Israelis, Americans and the entire Middle East.
J Street proposes an overarching U.S. approach to the Middle East that eschews military conflict and embraces diplomatic negotiation; that advocates multilateralism over unilateralism; and dialogue over confrontation. It proposes negotiation with Syria and Iran rather than diplomatic isolation and threats. And it will advance these goals both in the legislative and electoral process as well as the media.
Daniel Levy is a British Jew and son of the leading fundraiser for Tony Blair’s Labor Party, Lord Levy. The younger Levy made aliyah to Israel in 1991, where he worked on the peace process with Labor governments. He moved to DC two years ago to become a senior fellow with the Center for American Progress, where he writes the well-respected blog, Prospects for Peace. Levy is the passionate, thoughtful, philosophical member of the duo. He is the deep thinker who ponders the big questions. Ben Ami, a former deputy domestic policy advisor in the Clinton administration is the operations chief. He knows the campaigns and the politicians. He is inside the political process. They make a good team.
J Street plans to do two things. First, it will be a traditional PAC raising funds to support a limited number of candidates for Senate and Congressional races. Second, it will lobby for and against Israel-related bills and legislation. Regarding the PAC portion of its mandate: in its first year (the current election cycle), it hopes to raise around $300,000 to funnel into three to five races in which it can make a significant impact in swing districts. According to the co-founders, it sees no benefit in going after long-serving Democrats who take doctrinaire pro-AIPAC positions because they are too entrenched. Rather, J Street sees its best efforts devoted to choosing races in which there is a weak incumbent with an anti-peace agenda running against a candidate who is open to J Street’s political agenda. Norm Coleman is someone high on the group’s list since he is such a weak incumbent and is opposed by Al Franken, who is already sympathetic to a pro-peace agenda regarding the I-P conflict.
In the following (2010) election cycle, J Street hopes to raise several million dollars and target a slightly larger number of races. Ben Ami noted that he and Levy had studied two critical AIPAC campaigns against Cynthia McKinney and Earl Hilliard. By cross-checking the donor lists they discovered that AIPAC wields an enormous amount of clout with a rather limited amount of donations (in the low millions).
However, it should be noted that AIPAC has a reach that extends far beyond merely punishing those it deems hostile to Israel. After all, it has a $60 million annual budget along with a deep volunteer base. Its power flows in many directions. In this sense, J Street really has its work cut out for itself.
The new group is studying AIPAC’s example and plans to use its tactics while turning them inside out on behalf of peace. Both co-founders reinforced that this effort is not meant to oppose, criticize or attack AIPAC. The idea is that there is room for AIPAC in this political debate while there is also room for a variety of other voices, including J Street.
Ben Ami, who was deputy domestic policy advisor in the Clinton administration, said they’d sounded out scores of politicians and their staffs about how J Street would be received. He is convinced that its message is welcomed with open arms almost universally. Of course, there will be some dyed in the wool Old School holdouts. But he believes that J Street is something the DC pols have been waiting for for a long time. They’ve been eager to break away from heterodoxy but needed the political cover to do so. J Street would help provide it for them.
In talking about what J Street planned to do differently from the mainstream Israel lobby organizations, I was heartened that it planned to pay lots of attention to voices of young people especially those represented by bloggers like Ezra Klein and Matt Ygleisias and others. Ben Ami sees the younger generation as the hope for the future as they haven’t yet bought “their father’s Oldsmobile” in terms of embracing the stereotypes and accepted wisdom of the established groups. The Israel lobby groups are heavily populated and led by the older generation and Jewish opinion surveys show that the younger generation is both more liberal on Israeli politics and more turned off by the Israel-centric issues dear to the heart of the Old School.
The J Street leaders also addressed their relationship with the three existing Jewish peace groups: Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek. They said that J Street would not duplicate their efforts nor was it meant to replace them. Rather, J Street is the next logical step in the development of a pro-peace political agenda in which candidates would be encouraged to take an independent look at the I-P conflict and throw out old orthodoxies.
Levy, in his talk to the dinner group, emphasized that while Israelis realized that they were primarily responsible for resolving the conflict, that they also needed a good swift kick in the rear end from an energized American Jewish community and U.S. president. An Israeli prime minister like Olmert might welcome pressure coming from America to adopt a more forthcoming approach to the idea of compromise. He could then turn around to the Liebermans (Avigdor, not Joe) on his right and say: “If you want to buck our American friends, be my guest. But where will you turn once you do and they’ve abandoned you?” Levy believes that this narrative will resonate in Israeli political circles.
In fact, the group has recruited a group of distinguished Israeli academics, political analysts and former senior military officers to sign a letter of support for J Street. Among others, it includes former IDF chief of staff Amnon Lipkin Shahak, former foreign minister Shlomo Ben Ami, and former directors general of the foreign ministry David Kimche, Alon Liel, and Uri Savir.
It’s always important with efforts like this to examine the board member names. There are of course leaders of the main American Jewish peace groups. There are rabbis and academics. But most important there are heavy hitter political donors (Alan Solomont), policy wonks (Rob Malley), U.S. ambassadors to Israel (Samuel Lewis), high level political operatives (Eli Pariser of Moveon), Hollywood liberals (Robert Greenwald), business leaders, George Soros’ top aide (Morton Halperin), and even a former Republican senator (Lincoln Chafee) and former Congressman (Tom Downey). The major political donors and business leaders are critical to provide the funding necessary to have an impact on political campaigns.
The group founders believe that Barack Obama and his staff “get” J Street’s perspective while they believe a Clinton candidacy might not advance J Street’s mission as aggressively. In particular, Ben Ami mentioned Tony Lake, Obama’s chief foreign policy advisor as someone who was probably responsible for the candidate’s bracing Cleveland speech in which he admonished American Jews not to believe that a pro-Israel presidential candidacy need also be pro-Likud.
I came away from the dinner heartened by the J Street effort. Trying to be a realist after feeling burned by previous similar efforts, I’m not yet firmly convinced it will succeed. But it is bold, ambitious, well thought out, and doable. Many other dovish political efforts in the past had one or even two of those qualities going for them, but few have had all of them. That is in J Street’s favor.
One big question will be how AIPAC responds to the new initiative. As the big kid on the block it has the most to lose from J Street becoming a major success. So it’s got to feel threatened in some way. My only question is whether it feels defensive and threatened enough that it would take on J Street in its infancy. Already, AIPAC’s former director Morris Amitay has denounced J Street in the pages of the Jewish Forward. Amitay seems to be a surrogate for the group, which doesn’t want to lay down a marker in public yet on the matter. It remains to be seen how the big guns of the right-wing Israel lobby like Malcolm Hoenlein and Abe Foxman will react. If they do, they will only be endorsing the idea that J Street is a force to be reckoned with.
I was just reading the NY Times account of the Philadelphia debate and I read something that piqued my interest regarding Clinton’s response to a question about an Iranian attack on Israel. Then when I read the transcript it blew my mind:
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Clinton, would you [extend our deterrent to Israel]?
SENATOR CLINTON: Well, in fact, George, I think that we should be looking to create an umbrella of deterrence that goes much further than just Israel. Of course I would make it clear to the Iranians that an attack on Israel would incur massive retaliation from the United States, but I would do the same with other countries in the region.
There you have it. Israel is merely an extension of the U.S. itself, a member of the greater commonwealth if you will. I find such a comment deeply disturbing. Of course, I find the notion of an Iranian attack on Israel disturbing as well. But the idea that we would react to an attack on Israel as if it were an attack on ourselves ties me up in knots.
We are not the same as Israel. We have our interests. Israel has its own. What if Israel attacks Iran first in an attempt to knock out its nuclear program and Iran counterattacks? Is Clinton then bound by this statement to retaliate massively against Iran though Israel was the aggressor? You can see where this is going and it isn’t anyplace good.
Of course, this plays right into the hands of AIPAC. It’s meant as red meant for Pennsylvania’s Jews, who Clinton believes want to hear a battle cry against Iran. This despite the fact that all public opinion polls say that Jews don’t want to rattle sabers with Iran. They want negotiation instead. Of course, what I’ve just forgotten is that Clinton doesn’t care so much what the average Jew thinks. She’s playing to the AIPAC donors & Jewish PAC money crowd who are more hawkish than the Pope, er Ehud Olmert.
Compare Clinton’s over the top response to Obama’s modulated one:
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: Senator Obama…Iran continues to pursue a nuclear option. Those weapons, if they got them, would probably pose the greatest threat to Israel. During the Cold War, it was the United States policy to extend deterrence to our NATO allies. An attack on Great Britain would be treated as if it were an attack on the United States. Should it be U.S. policy now to treat an Iranian attack on Israel as if it were an attack on the United States?
SEN. OBAMA: Well, our first step should be to keep nuclear weapons out of the hands of the Iranians, and that has to be one of our top priorities. And I will make it one of our top priorities when I’m president of the United States.
I have said I will do whatever is required to prevent the Iranians from obtaining nuclear weapons. I believe that that includes direct talks with the Iranians where we are laying out very clearly for them, here are the issues that we find unacceptable, not only development of nuclear weapons but also funding terrorist organizations like Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as their anti-Israel rhetoric and threats towards Israel. I believe that we can offer them carrots and sticks, but we’ve got to directly engage and make absolutely clear to them what our posture is.
Now, my belief is that they should also know that I will take no options off the table when it comes to preventing them from using nuclear weapons or obtaining nuclear weapons, and that would include any threats directed at Israel or any of our allies in the region.
MR. STEPHANOPOULOS: So you would extend our deterrent to Israel?
SENATOR OBAMA: As I’ve said before, I think it is very important that Iran understands that an attack on Israel is an attack on our strongest ally in the region, one that we — one whose security we consider paramount, and that — that would be an act of aggression that we — that I would — that I would consider an attack that is unacceptable, and the United States would take appropriate action.
Who would you want answering that telephone at 3AM? Trigger Finger Clinton? Or Deliberate Obama? A president who promises “massive retaliation” or one who promises the U.S. “would take appropriate action?” And let’s not make the mistake of thinking this is merely parsing words. Lately, we’ve had an Administration willing to go to war at the drop of a hat. Lest you think that Clinton might not initiate a regional war if Israel is attacked, think again.
And if you read her response further you’ll see she advocates a regional security umbrella of nations opposed to Iran. An attack on ANY OF THEM would be the same as an attack on the U.S. So now you have us becoming the gendarme of the Middle East willing to go to battle at the least flare-up between Iran and any number of neighbors with whom it might have a dispute. That scares me.
One final note: George Stephanopoulos makes a huge assumption in claiming Iranian nuclear weapons “would pose the greatest threat to Israel.” As distinguished an Israeli military analyst as Martin Van Creveld has written that Iran wants nuclear weapons to defend itself from attack by one of its immediate neighbors (remember the Iran-Iraq war of the late 1980s?). Israel is far back on the list of nations Iran is thinking of when it thinks of the reasons it needs such weapons.
November 5, 2006 at 1:23 am · Filed under Mideast Peace
I have started to tranlsate David Grossman’s remarkable meditation (Hebrew original) on the state of the Israeli State which he delivered yesterday at the 11th annual commemoration of Yitzchak Rabin’s assassination. He delivered this profound address before 100,000 Isaelis gathered to mark Rabin’s untimely death. Here is the first part of the translation. Please excuse a few rough edges below. It’s been 23 years since I was a grad student in Hebrew literature. If I have the strength to continue, I’ll post the rest tomorrow:
David Grossman speaking at Rabin memorial (credit: Dan Keinan)
The annual memorial for Yitzchak Rabin is the moment in which we stop a little, remembering Rabin the man, the leader. And we look at ourselves, at Israeli society, its leadership, at the nation’s spiritual condition, at the condition of the peace process, and at our place as individuals confronting the great national questions. It is not easy to look at ourselves this year. There was a war, Israel flexed a mighty military muscle, but hiding behind it were [Israel's] shortcomings and vulnerability. It became clear to us that the military might at our command could not in the end guarantee by itself our existence. Essentially, we discovered that Israel is in a deeper crisis than we surmised than any point of its life.
I speak here tonight as one whose love for this land is a tough and complicated one. Despite this, it is single minded. And as one for whom the eternal covenant with the people of Israel turned, to its sorrow, into a blood covenant. I am an utterly secular person. Nevertheless, in my eyes, the creation and existence of the State of Israel are a sort of miracle that happened to us as a people–a political, national and personal miracle. I never forget this even for one moment. Even when many things in the reality of our lives rise against and depress me, even when the miracle is divided into little bits of routine and misery, of corruption and Zionism, even when the reality seems like a bad parody of this miracle, I remember always. And from the midst of those emotions I speak to you tonight.
“See oh earth that we were terrible sqaunderers” wrote the poet Shaul Tchernichovsky in Tel Aviv in 1938. He complained that in the lap of the earth in the land of Israel we hide away our young people at the height of their blooming. The death of young people is an awful waste which screams out. But no less awful is the sense that for lo these many years the State of Israel has been wasting, in a criminal manner, not only the lives of its children, but also the miracle that happened to it; the great and rare opportunity which history provided, the opportunity to create here a reformed, enlightened and democratic state, which would conduct itself according to Jewish and universal values; a state that would be an international home and a refuge. Not only a refuge, but a place which would give new meaning to Jewish existence; a state, which would be an important and intrinsic part of Jewish identity, deriving from its Jewish ethos would be a relationship of full equality and respect for the non-Jewish inhabitants.
“See what happened. See what happened to the young, daring land, full of the passion and soul that was once here. And how as in a process of rapid aging, Israel leapt from the stage of infancy, childhood and youth to a reality consisting of constant irritability, weakness and bitterness. How did this happen? When did we lose even the hope that at some point we would live different, better lives? More than that, how do we continue to stand by the side and look, as if hypnotized, at a terrible seizure, the coarseness, the violence and racism which came upon our home? I ask you: how could it be that a people possessing such creative, renewing and life-giving powers, such as our people, a people that knew to establish itself as if from ashes time after time, finds itself today, precisely when it possesses such great military power, impotent. It is a situation in which it is once again a sacrifice, but this time essentially a sacrifice of itself, its fears and its lack of vision.
One of the difficult things which the last war brought into sharper focus was the sense that in these days there is no king in Israel, that our leadership is hollow. Our military and political leadership is hollow. I’m not even speaking here of obvious screw-ups in military administration, of losing one’s head, nor about the large and small corruptions. I’m speaking about the people who lead Israel today who are not suited to bind Israelis to their identity. And certainly not to the healthy, revivifying and healing parts of this identity; to those parts of its identity, memory and purposeful values which will give us hope and strength, and would provide immunity against this withering of mutual recognition, of the disposition of the land, which would provide any meaning to the wearying, depressing struggle for existence.
Billmon is writing some of the most incisive analysis of the Lebanon conflict in the entire blogosphere. He's outrageously cynical (which is unfortunately perfectly warranted), but brilliantly so. Tonight's post, The War Party, is no exception. It covers so much ground that it's hard to summarize briefly.
Suffice to say, he begins with Ned Lamont's senate campaign and the presumed demise of Joe Lieberman's political career. But he warns that while Lamont is against one war, he's not against every war. In other words, Lamont has hitched himself to the Aipac wagon just as securely as Lieberman. Lamont will not dare take a critical view of Israel's Lebanon war and any other war that ...
July 16, 2006 at 12:17 am · Filed under Mideast Peace
First it was a bold guerrilla strike against IDF forces resulting in eight dead and two kidnapped soldiers. Then, yesterday saw the rocketing of an Israeli ship resulting in four dead sailors. Today, Hezbollah continues to ratchet up the pressure as it rained Katyushas down on Haifa (which had never been hit before by such fire). Each day sees a further. seemingly calibrated escalation from Israel's enemy. Haaretz reports:
At least eight people were killed Sunday morning as Katyusha rockets fired from Lebanon hit three cities along Israel's northern coast, including Haifa.
Most of the fatalities were in an Israel Railways garage located near an Israel Electric Corporation installation on Haifa Bay, according to the Magen David ...
May 27, 2006 at 12:12 am · Filed under Mideast Peace
Some major developments on the Palestinian side of the Mideast conflict. Mahmoud Abbas, in a move that has managed to shock both Hamas, Israel and the U.S., called on Hamas to accept the Hadarim peace proposal formulated largely by Marwan Barghouti and his fellow prisoners in Israeli jails (including many Hamas prisoners). The Hadarim proposal in turn is closely modeled on the 2002 Saudi/Arab League peace initiative which Israel never seriously entertained at the time. It calls for Israel to return to 1967 borders in return for full recognition of it by all Arab states. It also calls for a Palestinian state with East Jerusalem as its capital and for a "just solution to the Palestinian ...
All I can say is thank God for American Friends of Peace Now (and Brit Tzedek and Israel Policy Forum). They're leading the charge against The Palestinian Anti Terrorism Act of 2006 ((HR 4681), a piece of draconian anti-Palestinian legislation that would further erode the already miserable quality of life for average Palestinians. It will tie Pres. Bush's hands if he wishes to provide humanitarian aid to the Palestinians. It will prohibit paying the salaries of the 160,000 Palestinians who work for the Palestinian Authority, effectively starving them if not to death, then to a state of perpetual want.
According to the ...
Tony Kushner: a Jewish David Duke?? (photo: Performlink.com)
Let it not be said that we Jews don't have the same types of bilious and vengeful folk who are also known to frequent the evangelical movement. The James Dobsons and Pat Robertsons of the Jewish world are channeled by Mort Klein, eternal president of the Zionist Organization of America. Klein firmly believes that any Jew who criticizes Israel is anti-Semitic. And so, his attack against Brandeis University for awarding an honorary doctorate to Tony Kushner. Kushner's sin? Previous statements he's made about Israel which Klein deems beyond the pale. Here's how The Forward characterizes ...
Obama Menace Dress-Up Doll (
David Grossman speaking at Rabin memorial (credit: Dan Keinan)
