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Mohammad Said Kalash, "Offering Reconciliation" exhibit (photo: Ilan Amihai)

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Posts Tagged ‘jeremy-ben-ami’

Can J Street Smear and Not Pay a Price?

Sunday, August 28th, 2011

Over the past few days, I’ve been thinking about the lies that J Street published about me in an official tweet which called my criticism of Jesse Jackson Jr’s Jerusalem Post op-ed “crazy, disgusting and racist.”  I thank Max Blumenthal, Phil Weiss, Gabriel Ash, and a number of others who’ve blogged, tweeted and posted to Facebook about this serious dispute.

Personally, as an alum of the Bill Clinton School of Triangulation, I think Jeremy Ben Ami’s strategy is to point out to his centrist donors how crazy those to his right and left are.  That, he thinks, will leave him smelling like a rose with the fat-cats showering J Street with all that now barely regulated campaign cash.  The only problem with this sort of triangulation is that J Street seeks to co-opt a bit of the rhetoric of the right and a bit of the rhetoric of the left and thinks that somehow that makes it the credible center, when instead it makes it a group full of internal contradictions.  Not to mention that when your group apes the views of an administration whose Israeli-Arab policy is a shambles, you’re consigning yourself to political irrelevance (which is what the current Obama policy is).

So I think Jeremy’s staff figured that smearing me was a good deal for them because making me out to be the crazy left would make them look good with all their liberal Zionist donors who run scared from the sort of ideas I espouse.

Again, the only problem with this is I’m not going to take it.  J Street is a mainstream Jewish organization which adopts the tropes, concerns and concepts of the Jewish community in its organizing and fundraising.  I too take my place as a Jew in the American Jewish community.  I will allow no one, especially not an ostensibly mainstream group like J Street. to lie about me and tarnish my good name in the Jewish community.  If Jeremy Ben Ami wants his staff to smear people like me he picked the wrong Jew.

I have written to Jeremy asking him to take down the tweet about me and apologize in J Street’s twitter feed for publishing it.  He has not replied.  I gather he does not intend to.  When two Jews are embroiled in a serious intractable conflict a good Jewish way to resolve it is by convening a beyt din.  Three rabbis come together, hear evidence and either mediate or judge the dispute.

Of course, I would prefer not taking as serious a measure as this.  There are ways to resolve this dispute short of a beyt din.  But I am thinking that this may be the best way to air the issues involved in this matter so that J Street, it’s supporters and the Jewish community can judge for themselves.

Finally, let me say that I have no problem with those who criticize or disagree with my views as long as they actually read what they’re criticizing and characterize it accurately, something J Street never did.  Also, I have been critical of J Street over the past two years and this is likely why the group piled on after Adam Holland, the pro-Israel blogger attacked me.  But in my criticism of J Street I have always quoted statements or positions with which I disagreed.  I have always characterized positions with which I disagreed as accurately as I could.  I never called J Street or Jeremy crazy, racist or disgusting.  Not even close.

So Jeremy, do we need a beyt din decide this matter?  I await your reply.

To those who support me in this campaign, would you consider loaning your blog, Twitter, Facebook or other social networking account on its behalf and advancing it among your friends?  Jeremy’s Twitter account is here.  Tweet him and ask him why he refuses to defend J Street’s accusations against me.  Why he made them in the first place?  Why he won’t take these lies down?

Gershom Gorenberg is a Liar

Monday, June 20th, 2011

I was shocked today when I saw in my site stats, a visit to this blog from The American Prospect and, following the link, read that Gershom Gorenberg has written an essay in which he’s blatantly lied about my political views, saying they represent “the grim anti-Zionist left.”  His essay is a bit of puffery written on behalf of J Street in which he sets up a false dichotomy between those who attack J Street from the far right (Daniel Gordis) and the far left (me).  Of course, Gorenberg neglects to mention that at one time I supported J Street, donated personal funds, and even organized a blogger panel at its first national conference.  Issac Luria even organized an online debate between Jeremy and I during which I’d looked forward to challenging him with my views of where J Street was going.  They debate never happened because they chose not to do it.  It was after this and a bit of lazy staff work on Luria’s part in response to a request for help in writing a post that defended J Street, that I decided that I was done with the group.  But all this reality would spoil the nice (false) juxtaposition he had going.

Any half-way decent human being whose spent five minutes reading this blog knows what I am, what I call myself, and what other reporters and publications (including Yediot, Walla and Maariv in Israel) have called me when they’ve written about my views. Progressive Zionist?  Yes.  Criticial Zionist?  Yes.  Some have called me a leftist and others liberal.  But the only people who call me anti-Zionist are settlers and their supporters.  Oh and how can I forget cretins like David Abitbol and Aussie Dave whose Zionist credentials are tarnished by their own proclivity for lying.  These hasbarists are going to love Gorenberg too.  I am NOT an anti-Zionist and calling me that is a low blow of the type I didn’t think Gorenberg had in him.

But writers harbor grudges and Gorenberg has one against me because he wrote an essay asking the fraudulent question: why are there no Palestinian Gandhis?  Even The Atlantic which was supposed to publish it, turned it down (wonder whether he peddled it to TAP as well and they turned it down?).  Gorenberg then had to go to The Weekly Standard, where Bill Kristol was happy to publish material by a liberal Zionist attacking the Palestinian movement.  I don’t think Gorenberg forgave me for that, even though I tried to couch my criticism as constructively as I could and confirmed my (then) respect for him.  He was waiting for an opportunity to repay me and now he’s taken it.

I’ve written to the TAP editor demanding a correction of this error and also demanded from Gorenberg that he do so.  Now I await a reply.  If they are willing to correct it then they will show themselves to be honorable people.  If not, then they will further tarnish the term “liberal Zionism,” which has taken an awful pounding over the past decade or so.  As things stand now, Gershom Gorenberg is a liar.  I hope he’s willing to correct himself so that I can acknowledge that when he makes a mistake he’s honorable about fixing it.

The fact that a liberal Zionist like Gorenberg needs to write me out of the Zionist tribe tells you a lot about the bankruptcy of liberal Zionism and almost nothing about my real views.  To some of you this may appear rather academic.  To those of you who may be to my political left it may be even slightly irritating.  But I assure you that when you write about the conflict as an American Jew what you call yourself and what others call you matters.  When someone lies about your views it damages your reputation.  When someone publishing in as respectable a publication as The American Prospect lies about your views it’s even more troubling.

The occasion of Gorenberg’s essay was in part to flack for Jeremy Ben Ami’s shining new opus on the beauty of liberal Zionism to be called: A New Voice for Israel.  Jeremy Ben Ami is not a new voice for Israel.  There is little that is new about liberal Zionism.  And besides, does Israel as currently constituted need so-called progressive voices speaking up on its behalf?  I find it interesting that his new book doesn’t contain the word “peace.”  It’s just “for Israel.”  That says it all, doesn’t it?  How many times do you want to bet you’ll see the word “Palestinian” in that new book of his?

In the weakness of his grasp of my views, Gorenberg doesn’t understand that I actually represent the views of those, if they remain involved, were/are on the left end of J Street’s politics.  At the first conference, which I attended, there were many more participants reflecting my politics than Jeremy’s as evidenced by the boos meted out to J.J. Goldberg and similar liberal Zionist speakers who embarrassed themselves with their Neanderthal reading of American Jewish Zionist thought.

Irrelevance of J Street

Tuesday, May 10th, 2011

jeremy ben ami

Jeremy Ben Ami: losing political relevance

The Yom Kippur liturgy talks about the two goats which marked the Yom Kippur holiday in ancient times.  One goat was sacrificed on the temple altar and the other goat carried the sins of Israel symbolically on its back and was sent out into the wilderness of Azazel.  So the children of Israel purified themselves by ridding themselves of their collective sins.  J Street, it seems to me, increasingly has taken upon itself the sins of liberal Zionism and wanders ever farther afield into political Azazel.

Jeremy Ben Ami was interviewed by Reuters about his views of Bibi Netanyahu’s upcoming visit and speech to the U.S. Congress, and the upcoming General Assembly meeting at which the PA will lobby for the recognition of a Palestinian state.  Ben-Ami’s views continue to show why my past fervor for J Street has been considerably dimmed.  J Street, like the Israeli and U.S. governments, takes a dim view of Palestinian statehood.  They’re in favor of it theoretically, you understand.  Just not in practice. So when a real chance to declare a Palestinian state comes along, its thumbs down.

So what is Ben Ami’s antidote to a General Assembly-recognized Palestinian state?

…The only way to effectively delay the plan and reduce tensions stoked by surrounding Arab uprisings was for Netanyahu to chart a clear path to a two-state deal.

…”We are urging, from our perspective, that the prime minister’s initiative should be a serious plan…”

Ben-Ami said Netanyahu ought to present a deal along lines agreed in past years of negotiations, including proposed land swaps in exchange for settlement blocs Israel would keep.

“Put a proposal on the table that meets a bar of credibility, not a provisional state on 30 or 40 percent of the land, but a real state, and let them decide if they’re serious about peace or not,” Ben-Ami said.

That’s all well and good.  But really, Jeremy, how likely is it that Bibi is going to present anything like what you suggest?  Can we get real here?  Pretending that Bibi is a statesman or has even a minute possibility of being one is a total waste of everyone’s time.  Would you like to believe that Bibi could do such a thing?  Do you want to believe that Israel could be a serious, responsible partner for peace?  Sure, we all do.  But the difference between what J Street wants Bibi to be and what he is is so great that mouthing platitudes as Ben-Ami has done, makes himself and whatever movement or constituency he represents look foolish and ineffectual.

Right now, there is only one serious game in town: the General Assembly proposal and the Fatah-Hamas unity deal.  Yes, it may break down.  But if you compare what Abbas has on the table with what Bibi has on the table, there’s no comparison.  The first offer bears hope, the second bears nothing.

The J Street leaders finally words on the Palestinian proposals once again shows his Pollyanna qualities in stark outline:

Ben-Ami said UN endorsement of a Palestinian state without Israeli agreement on borders could engender violence as the conflict continues.

“Frustration will be higher,” Ben-Ami said. Such sentiment “leads to explosions and all you need is one match on the tinder and we’re very worried about what that leads to.”

You mean creating a Palestinian state would add yet another match on the tinder than the ones Israel has thrown repeatedly over the past few decades?  I also find it interesting that a constructive Palestinian approach that doesn’t call for killing anyone or stealing anyone’s land is labelled by Ben Ami as incendiary; but an Israeli approach that offers nothing but more blood and more conflagration is somehow different and less worthy of condemnation.

Get real, Jeremy.  You’re so divorced from any conceivable reality it makes you and J Street into almost a laughingstock.  You may retain your donors and your constituency, but you’ve lost all political relevance.  Which isn’t surprising considering that your sponsors in the Obama administration have lost theirs as well as far as Israel-Palestine policy is concerned.

J Street and the Death of Liberal Zionism

Sunday, February 27th, 2011

At first glance, it may appear downright curmudgeonly to speak ill of J Street as it triumphantly open its second annual conference.  I attended its first conference in 2009 and hosted an unofficial progressive blogger panel there.  Since then I’ve had a testy relationship with the group which has eventually led me to sever ties with it.  One of my initial disagreements involved its decision to exclude Jewish Voice for Peace from the first conference.  It also excluded Michael Lerner of Tikkun Magazine.

The second time around they’ve embraced some of the previously excluded in ways tentative or hearty depending on how closely they embody the liberal Zionist ethic the group represents.  New Israel Fund, Peace Now and Tikkun Magazine have each received their own panels to showcase their work.  Jewish Voice for Peace, however, hasn’t quite come in from the cold.  Its director, Rebecca Vilkomerson, will participate in a BDS panel with three opponents of the concept.  Jeremy Ben-Ami made some typically condescending comments to Washington Jewish Week in which he reassured mainstream Jews not to worry about Vilkomerson’s views infecting the J Street body politic because merely hearing them at the conference would prove to listeners the error of JVP’s ways:

Ben-Ami…said he is not concerned that the appearance of Vilkomerson might legitimize BDS. Rather, she was invited to air her views, he explained, so that conference attendees who might be “tempted” to embrace BDS will think otherwise after they see its moral and tactical failings exposed in debate.

This is the condescending, dismissive, litmus-test-driven J Street which drives me up a wall.  The Israeli-Arab conflict should be beyond ideology.  It should be beyond deciding for the parties how many states there should be.

I’ve reviewed the speakers and generally (with a few exceptions) I find the American speakers are standard issue liberal Zionist fare including figures like Dennis Ross, Peter Beinart, Gershom Gorenberg, Bernard Avishai, Ken Bob, Daniel Sokatch, Daniel Levy, and David Saperstein.  [UPDATE: a characteristically thin-skinned Gershom Gorenberg  writes to complain that he is Israeli, though interestingly doesn't reject the "liberal Zionist" label.  The fact that Gorenberg was born in the U.S., retains U.S. citizenship and earns a considerable portion of his living in and from the U.S. seems to have been lost on him.  But I promise I'll call him an Israeli-American liberal Zionist next time.]  But the Israelis are a different story.  There are of course the typical Israeli pols, Knesset members who bring little to the table except the ability to flatter J Street that it is hobnobbing with the Israeli power structure.

But there are several young Israeli leaders of the Sheikh Jarrah movement who will speak, notably Assaf Sharon and Sara Benninga.  Also, there is Daniel Seidemann of Ir Amim, Michael Sfard of Yesh Din, Jessica Montell of B’Tselem, Oded Naaman of Breaking the Silence.  This shows that J Street has at least recognized that they represent something vital is Israeli dissident politics.  However, the group’s leaders have over-romanticized the Israeli movement and freighted it with far too much significance.  There is a tendency among the liberal Zionists to view Sheikh Jarrah as the Great White Hope for revival of an Israeli left.  J Street is no exception.  Note that it’s titled the panel on which the Israelis will appear: The Revival of the Israeli Left. Sheikh Jarrah isn’t the revival of the Israeli left.  It is a successful political concept which most likely cannot be grown into a national movement because of its inherent limitations, which make it good at what it IS doing.

An added problem for J Street is that while the Sheikh Jarrah movement is just about the only bright spot on the Israeli left, it is decidedly not liberal Zionist.  So what is left of the Israeli left may appear at this conference, but J Street will find that the Israelis are much closer in spirit and independence to Jewish Voice for Peace than J Street.  What is exciting about Sheikh Jarrah is that it doesn’t toe a party line.  It doesn’t call for an any state solution, one or two.  It is a single issue group and that is it’s power.

J Street has included precisely three Palestinians in its conference program (and two Palestinian-Americans).  One of the former is Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish, who tonight delivered his powerful words of faith and hope.  But a Jewish peace group has to do better than including a smattering of Palestinian voices in its deliberations.

A number of people I like and respect like Matt Duss, Didi Remez and Mitchell Plitnick are either participating in the conference or blogging hopefully about it.  While I continue to admire them I think ultimately they’re wasting their breath. J Street is an empty shell. Yes, they run a good conference.  But what are they when they’re not running a conference?  Where are they on the issues?  All over the place.  They were for Cast Lead till they were against it.  They were for and against the Goldstone Report, a pretty neat trick.  They were against Iran sanctions till they were for them.  Jeremy Ben Ami wasn’t taking George Soros’ money till he was.  They have an identity crisis.

Jeremy Ben Ami specializes in the old Clinton triangulation strategy.  You tack straight down the middle between right and left.  By doing so you gain the respect of the broad middle that eschews tags of extreme ideology or partisanship.  But there’s one big problem with this approach.  There is no “broad middle” that remains in either the American Jewish community or Israel.  There is the far right, which is dominant and the left which is largely quiescent.  So by hewing to a middle road you essentially satisfy very few.

J Street is also a lobbying group that supports liberal Democrats who support Israel and peace.  They contribute substantial funds to Congressional candidates.  But frankly, I don’t see this as being where the action in regarding either the Israeli-Arab conflict or even U.S. policy toward Israel, just as I see the Knesset as an irrelevant institution to political decision-making within Israel.

J Street is largely a cheering section for Obama administration policy in the Middle East.  It is true that it lobbied against a veto of the latest UN Security Council resolution against settlements.  But it lost that round.  And one could argue that the abject failure of Obama’s strategy for Israeli-Palestinian negotiations has left J Street with no horse on which to bet.  The group would have to stake out some independent ground since Obama has been shown to have nothing to offer.

Liberal Zionism is dead and J Street is liberal Zionism personified. It’s like the Sean Penn character in Dead Man Walking.  While it isn’t precisely dead, it is close to being irrelevant.  And in politics that’s as good as dead.  J Street abandoned us.  It is too timid to represent real change or a hopeful message for the future.  It waffles.  It fudges.  It performs ideological litmus tests to determine who’s welcomed inside the tent.  And anyone who believes it represents something vital or hopeful in the long-term is deluding him or herself.

While some may think I’m being overly harsh with J Street if they feel about it as I once did–that it represents a potential for something new in the American Jewish community.  But the truth is that J Street will either eventually embrace ideas it currently labels anathema, or it will rapidly become irrelevant.  Given what I’ve seen, I don’t see it taking the kind of bold positions that are vital to encourage real change on the Israeli political scene.  Israel needs tough love and Jeremy Ben Ami offers parve.

Brad Burston: Jews of the Gate (JVP) vs. Jews of the Wall (Stand With Us)

Tuesday, November 23rd, 2010

Recently, I wrote a post about a talk Brad Burston, the Haaretz columnist, gave in Seattle that was hosted by J Street.  I said some tough things about Brad’s remarks that night and he was open-handed and gracious enough not to take personal offense, as so many large-egoed journalists tend to do.  He actually responded to my criticism and while I think we still have differences it was clear that he retained respect for my views.  That doesn’t often happen.

Brad’s been writing a series for Haaretz about his U.S. visit and the latest column is a good one.  In it, he posits a bifurcation in the U.S. between what he calls Jews of the Wall and Jews of the Gate:

The Jews of the Wall are that minority of Israeli and American Jews who sincerely and unshakably believe in permanent settlement in all of the West Bank. Over time, they have become the vanguard both of Orthodox Judaism and the secular neo-conservative Jewish right, whose power and influence, much of it monetary, has American Jewish institutions terrified of their own shadows.

The Jews of the Gate, meanwhile, comprise the majority of Jews in both America and Israel. They want to see a future partition of the Holy Land into two independent states, a democratic and internationally recognized state of Israel next to a sovereign and independent state of Palestine.

Nothing terribly earth-shattering in this.  But what follows is, at least for a liberal Zionist publication like Haaretz.  Burston talks about attacks against J Street, like the cancellation of a talk by the group’s Jeremy Ben Ami at a Newton, MA synagogue after members went on the warpath about J Street’s alleged ‘original’ anti-Israel ‘sins.’

But then Burston did something really interesting.  He wrote this:

This month, when Benjamin Netanyahu addressed the Jewish Federations of North America in what amounts to its annual State of the Jewish Community speech, a group of young Jews issued a remarkable, stunningly poetic counter-declaration to the general message of Everyone But Israel’s At Fault. While Netanyahu, the conference organizers and many of its speakers focused ire on foreign critics of Israel and – in an especially unfortunate McCarthyite phrase, “fellow travelers,” apparently a reference to Jews who question Israeli policy – for de-legitimizing the Jewish state, the message of the counter-declaration was that Israel’s Jewish critics see themselves and should be seen as part and parcel of the Jewish community.

Concurrently, Emily Schaeffer, a Boston-born American-Israeli human rights lawyer and activist, published an essay which clearly signaled to the wider Jewish community that the Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment movement – singled out by a senior Federation official as an existential danger to Israel – had a much more nuanced and complex side than the cartoon villains portrayed by invited experts to the New Orleans gathering.

…The Tel Aviv-based Schaeffer wrote than “just because a person supports BDS and aspires for major change in Israel does not mean that said person cannot love a million and a half aspects about the life, culture, landscape and even politics of Israel today and historically. Nor does it mean that Israelis need to boycott themselves (something that is neither possible nor part of the Palestinian call). The only thing that is black and white in the BDS movement is that the call will remain in effect until Israel — with a lot of help from its friends — ceases to violate international humanitarian and human rights law.”

…In New Orleans, when members of the Young Leadership Institute of Jewish Voice for Peace heckled Netanyahu and held up signs reading that occupation, loyalty oaths and settlements were delegitimizing Israel, they were manhandled, placed in headlocks, and their signs literally chewed to pieces.

A few days later in the Bay Area, an Israeli flag-draped member of a rightist advocacy group, San Francisco Voice for Israel/StandWithUs, disrupting a Jewish Voice of Peace meeting, pepper-sprayed two JVP members in the face and eyes.

The attack followed the May vandalism of the Berkeley home of Rabbi Michael Lerner, whose Tikkun Magazine had awarded its annual human rights prize to Judge Richard Goldstone. Among the vandals’ messages was one reading “Leftists and Islamofascists are Terrorists.”

To my knowledge, Haaretz has until never published a favorable account of the work of Jewish Voice for Peace with the exception of a surprisingly positive article last week reporting on the group’s Bibi protest at the GA.  Nor have I ever seen anything remotely favorable written about the BDS movement.

Unlike Brad, who is an inveterate optimist (when it comes to Israel and other matters too, I presume), I’m hesitant to read a precedent into these editorial decisions.  But it could be, it just could be that something is driving Haaretz to expand its Israel narrative.  It’s embracing voices hitherto unheard or very rarely heard.  And Brad is one who is helping break these barriers.

Of course, the irony is that J Street itself wouldn’t be caught dead in the same room with JVP and here Brad has put them into the same column!  But that’s J Street’s problem, not Brad’s or ours.  Another example, J Street demonstrated at the Hebron Fund dinner in New York last week and wouldn’t even join a group of fellow protestors that included JVP members and (God forbid) Palestinians!  They had to have a mechitzah so none of J Street’s haters would be able to lump them together as they’re creamin’ to do.

Here is more of Brad’s column worth reading:

The Jews of the Gate drive them [Jews of the Wall] bats. Because the Jews of the Gate face the world. The Jews of the Gate face one another. The Jews of the Gate believe in the possibility of a future. They have broken the Israel Barrier. They are being true to what they believe. They are being true to their Judaism and their love of Israel. They are using the tools God gave human beings to repair the world. Their voices and their hands.

The Jews of the Wall, in their drive for uniformity, rabbinical authority, spiritual and genetic cohesion, stand for exclusion. They face the Wall.

They live the past. They translate compromise as surrender. They believe that God’s Arabic vocabulary consists of the word No. They will tell you that they believe in negotiations, but ceding any of the homeland would rend Israeli society to the point of the destruction of the Jewish state. They will tell you that the Arabs hate us, Iranians, the Turks, Barack Obama, that they will always hate us. Therefore we cannot withdraw. If God Himself tells us to, we cannot withdraw.

The Jews of the Wall believe that the entire outside world is hostile to them. The truth, one suspects, is the exact opposite.

They can’t bring themselves to say what they really mean: The Occupation must persist in order that the settlements grow, and the settlements must grow in order that the Occupation become permanent.

They cannot accept that the Jews of the Gate care about Israel no less than they. And that Israel belongs to the Jews of the Gate every bit as much as it belongs to them. The Jews of the Gate want to see a different Israel, a better Israel. There are many more of them than there are of the Jews of the Wall. And their answers to Israel’s problems, to the cliff up ahead [ed., a reference to the closing scene of Thelma and Louise] , are a great deal more reasonable and a great deal more realistic than ‘Shut Up and Gun It.’

Brad seems to believe that America’s Jewish federations are more Jews of the Gate than Jews of the Wall.  I think it’s more of his optimistic side coming out.  Personally, I think this is a bit too much Pollyanna for my taste.  He even thinks there might be hope for the next GA to invite anti-Occupation groups like JVP to come sit under the big tent.  It ain’t gonna happen.  At least not next year or even any year in the near future.  It may eventually happen.  And if and when it does it will be because of courageous Israeli journalists like Brad.  So like Orwell said about democracy: two and half cheers (well, maybe even two and three-quarters) for Brad Burston!

Washington Times Smears J Street Over Soros Gifts

Sunday, October 3rd, 2010
DAVOS/SWITZERLAND, 27JAN10 - George Soros

George Soros: Israel lobby's Wicked Witch of the East

Before I begin this post let me make a few disclosures.  I once thought very highly of J Street.  I don’t anymore.  I think it’s a useful organization, but little more than that.  At one time, I believed it would be an independent progressive voice for a just Jewish approach to the Israeli-Arab conflict.  Instead, it has become a Jewish rooting section for the Obama presidency and its Middle East agenda or as Jeremy Ben Ami has proudly put it: “Obama’s blocking back.”

At least, that’s what its public statements reveal.  I suspect that its leadership and donors may actually have a more genuinely progressive agenda which they are too cautious to display.  But again, this isn’t the face they show the public so there’s little way to judge whether or not this is so.  All this to say that I have no special axe to grind one way or the other in what I’m about to write.

eli lake

Eli Lake: caught a big fish this time (Washington Time)

The Moonie Washington Times, and its pro-Israel neocon correspondent Eli Lake, have mounted a full frontal assault on J Street and its director Jeremy Ben Ami.  The charges?  J Street, after telling the world at its founding that George Soros would not be a leader or donor, actually accepted $750,000 from him over three years.  Apparently, right-wing Jews like Eli Lake think George Soros is a cross between Beelzebub and the Wicked Witch of the East.  But the last I checked he was a U.S. citizen entitled to fund political groups with which he feels compatible, just as John Hagee is.  Why anyone in their right mind would be scandalized that Soros has funded J Street is beyond me.  And Lake has stirred up a tempest in a teapot.

Besides this, Lake has made egregious errors in his reporting.  He claims that Soros’ gift was “secret” and that the group “repeatedly denied” it.  His proof?  This statement at the J Street website:

“George Soros very publicly stated his decision not to be engaged in J Street when it was launched — precisely out of fear that his involvement would be used against the organization.”

The worst that can be said about this is that it is misleading.  But only the most partisan and uncharitable reading would claim this is a deliberate attempt to conceal Soros’ gifts.  Further, J Street reported the gifts to the IRS, as it was legally required to do, which is how Lake discovered it.  In this day and age, it’s almost impossible to conceal such donors and J Street did not do so from the IRS.

Lake reported the gift was “one-third” of J Street’s overall financial support for the 2008-2009 financial year, when according to figures from J Street published in The Atlantic, it was actually around 20% if you count it towards 2008 around 5% if you count it toward 2009.  Even the 20% number is taken out of context because it only covers a single year of the group’s three-year existence, and not even its most recent one.

Yes, Ben-Ami made a bonehead decision in not publicly revealing that Soros supported J Street (though since 501 c 4 donors are usually not publicly divulged, he may not have had Soros’ permission to reveal his status).  The best approach to these potential controversies is to be transparent to a fault.  If you’re not, you’ll be made to pay.  And Jeremy, telling a group of Florida donors that Soros was a donor at an off the record fundraising event doesn’t constitute full public disclosure.

On a personal note, I want to reveal my own person connection to one of J Street’s major donors, Bill Benter.  Bill is not a mystery to supporters of Israeli-Arab peace though he appears to be a sinister force (see also, More Donations to Radical, Anti-Israel Causes) for much of the right-wing pro-Israel blogosphere that has taken to chanting his name at their covens.  The Wall Street Journal has him pegged as one of the world’s most successful sports bettors, as if this is a grave offense against decency.  They seem to forget that Shelly Adelson and Irving Moskowitz have each raked in more cash from betting than Bill Benter ever lost from their respective gambling empires.  And Bill Benter doesn’t prey on poor addicted saps willing to part with their life savings and ruin the lives of their families for good measure–all for the sake of the big score.  It should be mentioned that Bill has earned his fortune honestly as the CEO of a medical transcription company.

I have met Bill, sat next to him during last year’s J Street conference, and frankly without good souls like him the peace movement would be a shadow of what it is.

Bill solicited a large J Street gift ($800,000) from a Hong Kong resident of whom none of the pro-Israel right have ever heard.  She too is a ‘sinister figure’ liable to have roots in Arab terror if you believe the whisperings of some journalists who’ve reported on this.  It appears that if you are from Hong Kong and wish to support a friend’s philanthropic activities around Israeli-Palestinian peace, you do so on pain of being likened to Suha Arafat.  Again, there is nothing illegal about a Hong Kong resident contributing to J Street.

Here is what Lake writes:

President Obama and the White House have expressed concerns about untraced foreign influence on the U.S. political system through donations to tax-exempt “501(c)(4)” nonprofit organizations in recent months.

First, this gift is NOT untraced since it was fully reported to the IRS.  Second, if there is something wrong with foreign influence on 501 c 4s, then perhaps pro-Israel groups shouldn’t be accepting any gifts from Israeli citizens.  Do Aipac and the RJC wish to claim that such groups with which their donors are affiliated do not do so?  Perhaps they should start looking through their own donor lists to make sure THEY don’t have Hong Kong donors.

Lake further claims that groups and candidates that Soros supports have distanced themselves from him.  The proof?  An assistant to an assistant press spokesperson for the Obama presidential campaign said that in 2008 Obama didn’t agree with an unspecified Soros criticism of Israel, saying “we agree to disagree.”  Sounds like they’re rats fleeing a sinking ship, doesn’t it?

The unstated implication of all this is that J Street should distance itself too if it knows what’s good for it.  Nowhere does Lake specify what specific views of Soros should make him anathema for a group like J Street other than he has made “sharp criticism of certain Israeli policies.”  Well, that means that J Street should return my money too because I’ve done the same.  How many of its 10,000 donors too have done the same thing? Perhaps J Street should return all their money as well.

Lake further reported that J Street “facilitated meetings” and “was associated with” Judge Richard Goldstone’s visit to Washington to promote his report on Operation Cast Lead.  Ben-Ami responds that J Street employees called the staff of “two or three” Congress members asking if their boss would be interested in meeting Goldstone.  I’d call that something short of “facilitating meetings.”  But again, if I were Ben-Ami, I wouldn’t shy away from this.  Why not help Goldstone get a hearing on the Hill?  What’s wrong with this?  Is there some reason why Richard Goldstone should be in herem?  Does he have political leprosy?

Lake claims the Goldstone Report accused “the Jewish state of systematic war crimes.”  It did not.  It said that there was enough evidence that such crimes may have been committed that it urged Israel and Hamas to investigate their respective acts leading up to and during the war.  Here is further mischaracterization of the reception of the report by Jews and Israelis:

The Goldstone Report is widely viewed as slanderous toward the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) among the American Jewish community and in Israel.

This is not true.  The vast majority of the American Jewish community doesn’t know a thing about the report.  The majority of wealthy conservative pro-Israel American Jewish leaders consider it slanderous toward the IDF.  But that is different from what Lake reported.  He claims “at least” 1,000 Gazans were killed during Cast Lead, when the true number is 1,400.

Lake claims that Morton Halperin, a “senior officer” of J Street, played a key role in organizing Goldstone’s Washington visit.  What Lake neglects to mention that Halperin is not employed by J Street and did not do so in his capacity as a J Street director.  He did this in his capacity as a senior political strategist who works for George Soros.

It’s also interesting that instead of being an American like Lake or me, Soros is the “Hungarian-born billionaire.”  Interesting how Lake can resort to zenophobia when it suits his purposes.  Lake reminds me of the Maariv smearmeister, Ben Caspit, who worked together with Im Tirzu to drag Naomi Hazan through the gutter for NIF’s alleged collaboration with Judge Goldstone against Israel.  In fact, Jeremy better watch out–the Washington Times is liable to feature a full page ad with him sporting a horn as Im Tirzu did to Hazan in every major Israeli paper.  Maybe Lake can provide the copy and Aipac or the RJC can pay for it.

Lake rests a good deal of his case on an interview with Colette Avital, a former Labor MK and J Street’s Israel liaison, who he describes as having resigned her positions with the group.  When Avital, in her public response, claimed not to have resigned, Lake fried her by posting the audio recording of her interview (warning: audio quality is atrocious) in which she explicitly confirms she is no longer affiliated with the group.

Frankly, this is again the problem with attempting to be a liberal Zionist organization having liberal Zionist allies who are constrained by ideological blinders and cannot name reality for what it is.  When you have to rely on “luminaries” like Avital to give you juice you are also burdened by whatever limitations they bring.  And Avital appears to have brought plenty, namely that she doesn’t understand that you can’t say one thing in an interview and then deny it later.

I’d venture to say that Lake didn’t tell her he was taping the interview, which probably means he broke the law depending on what jurisdiction he lives in.  If she knew she was being taped, then she’s stupider than even I thought.

All this goes to my main problem with J Street: they’re being too smart by half in trying to hide their true progressive views under a bushel.  If you want to be a Democratic version of Aipac as J Street has been over the past year, then do so and don’t take money from Soros or aid Goldstone.  Make Colette Avital happy, play in the sandbox with the moribund Labor Party, etc.  But if you want to be a truly independent progressive Jewish group why attempt to hide from anyone what you’ve done in taking Soros’ money or helping Goldstone?  Why make common cause with an unreliable figure like Avital?

Personally, I’d rather be saddled with defending to the neocon press taking George Soros’ money, than having to explain why I was too afraid to tell the world I was taking it.  That is why Jeremy Ben Ami is now on the defensive when he should be on the offensive.

All of this comes because J Street is successful at what it does.  It offers a liberal alternative to Aipac.  That means there are powerful forces running all the way from the Israeli embassy to Aipac to Republican Party offices that want to cut it down to size.  This is a mere blip on the screen and will have no long-term impact on J Street.  Of course, I wish it would embolden Ben Ami to become more independent and forthright when it comes to the issues.  But that probably aint’ gonna happen.

Just as laughable as Lake though, is the breathless reporting (J Street Keeps Accumulating Scandals) of Aipac’s favorite Israeli media stenographer, Natasha Mozgovaya, who’s written two “exposes” recounting Ben-Ami’s less than candor.  Apparently, the Israeli embassy and Republican neocons have done a lot of heavy breathing and persuaded her that this is a killer story.  Her writing is so partisan in supposed news articles that it makes Ethan Bronner look like Lenny Brenner:

For some, Soros’ name might be a sufficient reason to cut ties with J Street because of his confrontation with AIPAC and his sharp criticism of Israeli policies. But J Street’s “less than clear” explanation regarding the issue is the reason even the organization’s most stringent supporters are raising their eyebrows.

Of course, she doesn’t manage to name a single “stringent supporter” who has raised their eyebrows over this non-story.  Why should she?  Should she be a journalist and actually dig up sources and do real research when she can just as easily call her pals Eli Lake and Ben Birnbaum at the Washington Times who can regurgitate the talking points for her?

I raise a challenge to every honest journalist who’s reported this story as if they’re uncovering Moses’ revelation of the Ten Commandments at Sinai.  Go find the same IRS documents and tell us the major funding sources for Aipac and the Republican Jewish Coalition, the two groups who appear to be crowing loudest about this revelation.  And while you’re at it why aren’t you screaming bloody murder about John Hagee’s tens of millions supporting settlements and Irving Moskowitz’s tens of millions supporting the Judaization of East Jerusalem, all with tax-deductible U.S. dollars.  And if you don’t do this then you’re nothing but partisan hacks feeding from the Israel lobby trough.

If J Street Wants the Political Center, Why Not Join Aipac?

Sunday, May 2nd, 2010

The first time I heard Alan Dershowitz lecture Hadar Susskind at the Aipac conference telling him that J Street should join Aipac, I thought it was typical grandstanding by the right-wing pro-Israel huckster (I still think that).  But the longer I think about what he said and J Street’s pronounced move from the left to the political center, the more sense he makes.

I can also remember how J Street, when it began, ran like the plague from any notion, at least publicly, of criticizing Aipac or setting itself up as an alternative to Aipac.  To most of us on the left, it was clear that if J Street was ever to represent anything it would have to take on Aipac and beat it at its own game.  It turns out though, that we should have read the tea leaves and understood that the J Street leadership’s allergy to criticizing Aipac was not a tactic, but a strategy genuinely expressed.

Now, Shmuel Rosner, aping Dersh, wonders if J Street feels so cozy with the Israel government why doesn’t it join Aipac. He wrote this on the subject:

An Israeli familiar with the content of J Street’s meetings in Israel this week had said that “they sounded not much different from the visitors we have in AIPAC delegations”…It raises an old question: Why can’t they just join AIPAC instead of competing with them?…But there’s another way of looking at it: Maybe as a separate organization with more credibility on the left J Street can help Israel more by way of helping curb the wacky initiatives of the far left (like divestment in Berkeley).

I’d never quite thought of the fact that J Street either intentionally or unintentionally may serve to co-opt the political energy of the American Jewish peace movement.  Progressives funnel their energy into the organization which transmutes it in turn into  faintly liberal pro-Israel substance that bears only a slight resemblance to the actual political values of many of those progressives.  In this way, J Street contributes to the dumbing down of progressive Jewish politics.

Before I note some more of Rosner’s portrayals of Ben-Ami’s statements, I should add that Rosner is a terrible journalist, totally incapable of allowing his own right-wing prejudices from distorting everything he reports.  So it’s possible that the characterizations below of Ben-Ami’s opinion, none of which are actual quotations of anything Ben-Ami says, may be less than accurate.  Not to mention that it is in Rosner’s political interest to paint J Street as deviating from its original progressive political agenda and drifting farther right.  But given what I’ve read of Ben-Ami’s views elsewhere, and the lack of complaint by Ben Ami about misconstruing his views, we’ll take them as more or less accurate:

He seems quite happy about the bettering of relations with Israeli officialdom. My interpretation: He’d like this to continue, and is willing to pay a price for it.

Not once in the conversation – not once! – was there a word of criticism regarding Israeli policies. The only word of criticism I heard from Ben Ami this week was directed at the Palestinian leadership and its reluctance to go back to negotiations.

Is Netanyahu serious about negotiations? Ben Ami says he was convinced that Netanyahu is serious…

this is significant: Ben Ami doesn’t criticize Netanyahu and says he is serious about negotiations. Some J Street enthusiasts back home aren’t going to be happy – and Ben Ami knows this, and doesn’t seem to care much.

Ben Ami emphasized that J Street will not support boycott or divestment. Such position will also drive the more radical elements of the Jewish-sphere away from the organization.

In a related story, J Street’s national spokesperson scolded a local Brandeis chapter leader who criticized neocon University President Yehudah Reinharz’s choice of Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren as commencement speaker.  She said her organization “welcomed” Oren as commencement speaker.

There was a time when I might chalk all this up to the organizational leadership allowing itself to get boxed in or outmaneuvered on issues.  But the logic of having a sulha with Michael Oren, and breaking bread with Shimon Peres, and expressing a willingness to meet with settler leaders seems to be a deliberate move to the center.  And this move to the center precisely mirrors the Labor party’s gradual movement away from its founding principles under the tutelage of none other than Shimon Peres (till he was moved by Sharon’s blandishments and abandoned Labor for Kadima) and now Ehud Barak.

Many of us over many years held out hope for the Israeli liberal Zionist parties that they could represent a distinct political voice for peace and justice.  That same romance some of us may have had with J Street before it began and up until its national conference seems to be cooling rapidly.

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J Street Official Praises Aipac, Touts Group’s ‘Moderate’ Positions

Monday, April 26th, 2010

I often defend J Street from my readers who accuse it of being “Aipac lite.”  But I find it harder and harder to do this.  And interviews like the one given by Jeremy Ben Ami to Haaretz make clear that there is less and less daylight between J Street and Aipac.  The interview comes on the heels of a meeting between Ben Ami  and Israeli ambassador Michael Oren in which J Street was brought in from the cold and welcomed to the Israel lobby tent.  At least it would appear that way from these troubling statements from the interview:

Q: There were some claims that on some positions you were flip-flopping, some left-wingers said you weren’t persistently left on some cases. As if you were checking the boundaries trying to generate some consistent agenda.

A: “Well, our consistency is that we are nuanced, that we are finding a middle ground between those who run on the extreme on the left and right, and we do get criticized from both sides. Those who thought we are far-reaching left-wing are perhaps now disappointed, and those who are taking us as too conservative are figuring out what we really are. We represent what I call ‘passionate moderates.’ People who have a very mainstream, rational view. We do support Israel – we don’t want a one-state solution, we don’t want Israel to lose its Jewish character, and we also want it to compromise and survive and give the territory necessary to create a Palestinian state. These are nuanced positions and some people like some simple reflective answers that go to one side or another, but we’ve never provided those.”

Q: Apparently you are more open toward AIPAC than vice versa. Did you have any open conversations with them?

A: “I can’t speak for them. We express deep respect for AIPAC and what they’ve accomplished. It’s hard not to be impressed over what they have done over many decades to establish such a deep US-Israel relationship.

I’m sorry, but saying you are a political “moderate” in terms of Israeli politics is meaningless.  Labor is “moderate.”  Kadima is “moderate.”  What do either represent?  Not even Israelis know.  Kadima and Labor MKs themselves couldn’t even articulate what their political philosophy is.  This is a BANKRUPT approach.  If you want to be “mainstream” you can’t be progressive.  “Mainstream” means Israel lobby.  Mainstream means the same old liberal pablum which is full of sound and fury and signifying nothing.  Mainstream is supporting a two state solution but doing nothing decisive to bring it about.  It means opposing the Occupation but allowing it to continue unabated.

And what’s the deal about fawning all over Aipac?  Yuck.

Truthfully, I am becoming more and more uncomfortable with J Street’s walk to the middle.  They joined together with one of the most reprehensible pro-Israel advocacy groups, Stand With Us, to oppose the Berkeley student divestment initiative.  My local Seattle chapter promoted the Noa-Mira Award concert here despite Noa’s raving hatred against Hamas, her support for its violent overthrow and of the Gaza war.  When I chided the move, Ben Ami stood behind the chapter and criticized me for being intolerant.  They encouraged the U.S. government to veto the Goldstone Report if it ever came to the Security Council.  They support Iran sanctions.

The funny thing about all this is that I attended the J Street national conference and I am virtually certain that the rank and file supports none of these positions.  So what you have is a national organization whose politics are controlled by wealthy donors who are more conservative than the full membership.  In fact, this is precisely the reason the Seattle chapter promoted the Noa-Mira Award concert, as a favor to an important donor and national leader.  When you follow the voices of the wealthy and ignore your rank and file then you run the risk of losing contact with those who support you.  That’s what is rapidly happening to J Street.  It is becoming a prisoner of its own success.  It has raised mountains of cash to support pro-peace Congressional candidates.  That’s good.  But not if those who give the cash dictate your political agenda.

I should be clear and say that there were a few heartening points Ben Ami made in the Haaretz as well.  His Israel delegation will meet with Palestinian and Arab leaders unlike Aipac missions to Israel.  He also acknowledges differences between his group and the Israeli government and Aipac.  This is all well and good.  But it’s simply not enough.

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