Tikun Olam-תקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

The recently announced American Jewish Committee 2007 survey provided reassuring results about Jewish attitudes toward U.S. Middle East policy and troubling results about attitudes toward the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. U.S. Jews are profoundly opposed to everything to do with the Iraq war and feel the same about potential conflict with Iran. So far so good.

Glenn Greenwald picked up on these results when he wrote his ridiculously optimistic account for Salon, New Poll Reveals How Unrepresentative Jewish Neocon Groups Are. I use that phrase advisedly because I respect Glenn Greenwald a great deal. But he simply refused to review ALL the results and cherry-picked the ones that suited him. A more nuanced account would’ve acknowledged that American Jews are profoundly liberal when it comes to general issues of war and peace. But when it comes to Israel, some atavistic Jewish impulse kicks in which closes down any possibility of understanding the Arab perspective on the conflict or what are Israel’s true long-term interests.

James Petras picks up on that in his profoundly mean-spirited piece in Dissident Voice, American Jews on War and Peace. Although I find his essay distressing it also contains many provocative arguments which we on the Jewish left must consider as we face results as troubling as those in the AJC survey.

The only comforting answer regarding the IP conflict was to the question of creating a Palestinian state. 46% approve and 43% disapprove of such a policy. But if you consider that this has been the policy of several U.S. presidents AND Israeli prime ministers it is surprising, and disturbing, that the result is as close as it is. The remaining answers are flat out unnerving and make me realize how much work remains to be done if there is ever to be a realistic understanding of the IP conflict among American Jews. As a group we have swallowed hook, line and sinker some of the worst prejudices and ignorant attitudes toward Palestinians and the Arab world as a whole.

Here are the results:

Do you think there will or will not come a time when Israel and its Arab neighbors will be able to settle their differences and live in peace?
Will 37
Will Not 55

Do you think that negotiations between Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Olmert and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas can or cannot lead to peace in the foreseeable future?
Can 36
Cannot 55

Do you think that Israel can or cannot achieve peace with a Hamas-led, Palestinian government?
Can 17
Cannot 74

In the current situation, do you favor or oppose the establishment of a Palestinian state?
Favor 46
Oppose 43

In the framework of a permanent peace with the Palestinians, should Israel be willing to compromise on the status of Jerusalem as a united city under Israeli jurisdiction?
Yes 36
No 58

Do you agree or disagree with the following statement? “The goal of the Arabs is not the return of occupied territories but rather the destruction of Israel.”
Agree 82
Disagree 12

After reading these answers you realize how far off Eric Alterman is in his characterization of these results in this International Herald Tribute article:

Jews are also impressively sensible [!] when it comes to Israel/Palestine, all things considered. Though barely more than a third think peace is likely anytime soon, and more than 80 percent believe the goal of the Muslim states is to destroy Israel, a 46-to-43 percent plurality continues to support the creation of a Palestinian state.

Petras’ response to these results is to blame American Jewish “progressives.” He uses the term disparagingly and indiscriminately to tar and feather every American Jew or Jewish group to the left of Israel lobby constellation of organizations:

How is it that a majority of US Jews who, according to the AJC poll (and several others going back over two decades) differ with the principal American Jewish organizations, have not or do not challenge the position of the dominant Jewish organization, have virtually no impact on the US Congress, the Executive and the mass media in comparison to the Presidents of the Major American Jewish Organizations?

Petras has a grasp of the organized Jewish community but no grasp at all of unaffiliated Jews, who constitute just under half of the population. The AJC survey includes ALL Jews whether affiliated or unaffiliated. Unaffiliated Jews are much more likely to have views to the left of the “dominant Jewish organizations.” The reason that unaffiliated Jews do not challenge the prevailing wisdom in the mainstream community is that doing so does not interest them. That’s why they’re unaffiliated. It’s a vicious circle really. So to blame those who have essentially opted out of the program for the perpetuation of noxious attitudes among those who are still with the program misses the point entirely.

Blaming Jewish peace groups for not moving the Jewish agenda toward the left is wrong-headed. These groups attempt to work with both affiliated and unaffiliated Jews to move the prevailing consensus in a leftward direction. There are many reasons why they have not had more success (lack of funds and powerful leaders, lack of strategic vision, strength of their opponents). And I think that most members and staff of these organizations realize they need to do more. But to denounce them for this lack of success and blame the troubling AJC results on them is mean-spirited and just flat out wrong.

Despite the disparaging tone of Petras’ analysis, he raises important points that should be grappled with by all Jewish progressives:

…It is clear that both the ‘progressive’, majority of Jews and the reactionary minority who head up all the major American Jewish organizations have a fundamental point of agreement and convergence: Support and identity with Israel and its anti-Arab prejudices, its expansion and the dispossession of Palestine. This overriding convergence allows the reactionary Presidents of the Major Jewish Organizations in America to speak for the Jewish community with virtually no opposition from the progressive majority either within or without their organizations. By raising the Israeli flag, repeating clichés about the ‘existential threat’ to Israel at each and every convenient moment, the majority of Jews have bowed their heads and acquiesced or, worst, subordinated their other ‘progressive’ opinions to actively backing the leaders ‘identity’ with Israel.

I think Petras is on to something here and I mentioned this earlier in this post. When it come to Israel many American Jews simply leave their high-minded ideas at the door and betray a sort of political schizophrenia.

It is the mission of the Jewish peace groups to educate and persuade these Jews that you don’t have to abandon your principles to support Israel; that liberal principles supporting peace and justice can go hand in hand with supporting Israeli-Arab peace. This is an extremely difficult task. But I think our movement is having some success and will have more in the future especially as events in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict move in a general direction toward an eventual peace settlement (though clearly in fits and starts).

Here again Petras betrays both churlishness and imprecision:

Progressive Jewish organizations are on the fringe of the organizational map, with virtually no influence in the Congress or Presidency and backers of a pro-war Democratic Party and Congress.

I would say that these progressive groups are in a nascent stage in terms of realizing their political potential. But being in a nascent stage doesn’t mean that they are “fringe” or have “virtually no influence in Congress. To say this means Petras has absented himself from the results of the last Congressional session in which a liberal coalition fought AIPAC to a standstill on two different proposals regarding U.S. Israel policy.

This passage is simply “out there” in terms of its connection with any Jewish reality as I know it:

The apparent paradox of progressive anti-war Jews contributing big bucks to pro-war Democrats is based on the latter’s unconditional support for Israel which trumps any ‘dissonance’ that might exist in the head of progressive Jewish political activists.

I’d like to know precisely which “progressive anti-war Jews” are contributing big bucks to Hillary Clinton based on her unconditional support for Israel. George Soros? I doubt it. Who else? Or does Petras lump Obama in with all the other “pro-war” Democrats? I find this type of statement to be terribly reductionist and unhelpful.

Perhaps part of the problem is Petras’ abuse of the term progressive as one of his commenters notes in the comment thread. A donor who gives big bucks to a Democratic candidate because he or she supports Israel unconditionally is NOT progressive. They may consider themselves progressive, but that doesn’t make it so.

Petras continues going off the rails here:

With the American Pro-Israel Power Configuration leading the way to savaging the National Intelligence Estimate study, released in December 2007, on the absence of an Iranian nuclear weapons program, progressive Jewish opinion is silent or complicit.

I might agree with the first half of his statement, but where does he get off saying progressive Jews are silent in the face of the attack on the NIE? I’m certain that the vast majority of American Jews are overjoyed with the NIE because it means there will be no war against Iran. To claim that such Jews are “silent” on this subject is downright odd. AIPAC may want the U.S. to go to war against Iran, but that doesn’t mean that American Jews want this.

Here Petras creates a progressive Jewish chimera which inhibits criticism of Israel within the anti-war movement:

…Progressive liberal and radical Jewish peace activists have acted as gate-keepers in the anti-war movement — prohibiting any criticism of Israel and labeling individuals or citizen activists critical of the pro-war Zionist lobby as ‘anti-Semites’.

It’s hard to know precisely what the author is talking about here since he doesn’t provide either evidence or context to prove his point. But clearly Petras doesn’t accept that there may be some criticism of Israel on the left that crosses the line and that is where I would differ from him.

Thanks to reader Ann for pointing out a penetrating Salon article, The Other Israel Lobby, which describes progress made in forming a counter-AIPAC D.C. lobbying group of Jewish peace groups. The project has variously been called the “Soros Initiative” though the old man himself wisely wishes to avoid having himself and the organization conflated in the minds of the public. It would only give the fledging group more difficulty gaining traction by allowing the detractors to focus their fire on Soros himself rather than the substance of the group’s ideas.

The author, Gregory Levey, is a former speechwriter for Ehud Olmert and the Israeli UN Mission. He sat in a privileged position of power allowing him access both to Israeli and American Jewish politics. Which makes his analysis all the more striking. Levey notes that AIPAC’s power is beginning to wane. He suggests that if the new lobbying effort gets off the ground, AIPAC’s hegemony would be further weakened:

…Most American Jews, and many other American supporters of Israel, do not see eye-to-eye on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict with the most hawkish, knee-jerk Israel supporters in the U.S. government — even if their presumed leadership, represented by AIPAC, often appears to do so. Moreover, AIPAC’s influence in Washington may soon begin to decline, as a powerful new alliance of left-leaning friends of Israel has begun to emerge, with the express aim of reshaping U.S. strategy on the region’s most intractable problem.

Levey continues by noting AIPAC’s recent defeat in Congress on the Palestinian Anti-Terror Bill which it moved heaven and earth to pass:

AIPAC suffered a relatively small but symbolic defeat this past year — one that may prove to have been a turning point. Earlier in the year, AIPAC put all its muscle behind a congressional bill called the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which even some pro-Israel observers called “draconian.” Going beyond even the Bush administration’s own hard-line stance on the Hamas-led Palestinian government, it would have essentially cut off all American contact with any element of the Palestinian leadership, and hampered the U.S. government’s ability to strengthen Palestinian moderates.

A group of small, left-leaning Jewish lobby groups, including the Israel Policy Forum, the Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace [Levey refers to Brit Tzedek] and the Religious Action Center of Reform Judaism, banded together to battle AIPAC on the issue, and in the end were successful. A watered-down version of the bill was passed, with what they saw as the problematic language stripped away. An AIPAC official recently told me that AIPAC was satisfied with the softer bill’s passage — but it is quite clear that the incident represented a defeat for the organization.

It was, in fact, an impressive demonstration of what political cooperation and grass-roots advocacy can do. However, for these groups to replicate that success on a larger scale and with more of a substantive effect on U.S. foreign policy, there is a key missing element: real money.

Levey gets into the meat of his story by describing not only Soros’ involvement, but progress made to date in raising funds for the potential new group:

That is where billionaire financier George Soros may come in, along with a group of other left-leaning philanthropists, many of them Jewish. In the relatively close-knit Middle East lobbying community, it is something of an open secret that this past September, Morton Halperin, who served in both the Nixon and Clinton administrations and is now director of U.S. advocacy for Soros’ Open Society Institute, met with a group of lobbyists, political strategists and former politicians who are seeking to create a new well-funded, well-organized, left-leaning Israel lobby, as an alternative to AIPAC.

Several key figures in this group had been active in the effort to quash the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, and include Jeremy Ben-Ami, a former advisor to President Clinton, and Daniel Levy, a former special advisor to Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and now a senior fellow at the New America Foundation in Washington.

…In late October, Soros himself attended a follow-up meeting, along with liquor magnates Edgar and Charles Bronfman, former Democratic Rep. Mel Levine and others. The idea — by this point labeled the “Soros Initiative” — now began to gain traction and substance, with large sums of money being pledged by several parties. Several people involved have told me that there is now almost enough money firmly on the table to launch the new organization — an eight-figure dollar amount, they say, and that’s just for starters. Several people have told me that there is already work in progress to establish the organization’s core structure and operations.

Having been involved in countless Jewish peace groups over the past 40 years or so, I maintained a guarded optimism about this project grounded in a certain degree of skepticism that it could ever get off the ground. But when I hear that $10-million or more has been pledged to this effort, I know it is serious and not just a flash in the pan.

You knew there would have to be some snarky comments from AIPAC about this new development and sure enough Levey provides them:

An AIPAC insider repeatedly stressed to me that one reason this new group will never be able to compete with AIPAC is because AIPAC is bipartisan, while what he called the “Soros connection” shows that the new group will not be.

I have to laugh when AIPAC supporters try to pass that one off on the rest of us. AIPAC is bipartisan. Really. I guess it’s bipartisan if you concede that pro-war Democrats like Joe Lieberman are AIPAC darlings. Let’s take one issue as an example. AIPAC wants a good little war with Iran. They may not have come out and said it in any policy statement. But you’d have to be deaf and blind not to realize that they’re one of the pressure groups leading the charge in favor of bombing Iran. Democrats are none too happy with this notion. So how is AIPAC bipartisan if the only support it gets for dropping the big one on Iran is from neocons and their Republican friends with a few pro-war Dems thrown in to spice it up a bit?

The snark continues:

The AIPAC insider said that he believes the “Soros Initiative” is little more than a fundraising drive to raise money for some impoverished organizations that “have to define themselves in opposition to something.”

“Impoverished.” Isn’t that an interesting comment coming from an activist for an organization with a $70 million operating budget. I guess the $2-million annual budget of Israel Policy Forum does pale in comparison. But guess what? A $2-million organization gave a $70 million organization one helluva bloody nose during the legislative battle I described above.

Besides, if the pro-peace lobbying group gets off the ground it will likely either subsume the other smaller peace groups helping to found it; or it will leave them aside as it grows into an independent entity. The goal of the initiative is not merely to make IPF an $3 million organization. The goal is to grow the Israeli-Palestinian peace lobby exponentially. It is not meant to make a few “impoverished” groups less impoverished. It is meant to challenge AIPAC’s false claim to represent all of American Jewry when it comes to Israel. That’s a big and worthy ambition.

There is, of course, disagreement among the founders about the approach they should take to AIPAC:

…A contentious issue…is exactly how much the new organization would allow itself to be seen as being in direct opposition to AIPAC. At least four of the players involved have told me that they intend to be an “alternative,” but not an “opposition.” Still, one of those present at the early meetings said that he sees his organization as “the anti-AIPAC.” Levy, meanwhile, said simply that if “there are differences in policy, those will be expressed in one group advocating one thing and another advocating another thing.” This would at least be an improvement, he said, over the past, when Israeli leaders who honestly sought to make peace “pulled their hair out because of the lack of support from the Jewish community in the United States.”

David Saperstein of the Religious Action Center, and a power player in the national Jewish leadership and one of those involved in planning the new group, is petrified of crossing swords with AIPAC. Every time anyone says anything along these lines Saperstein is heard to say: “Shah, shtill!” Nevertheless, it would be entirely unrealistic and unfortunate for anyone associated with this effort to believe that AIPAC and the new lobby will coexist peacefully and harmoniously. If they do, it will mean that there is something very wrong.

The fall out from yesterday’s story in the Times of London–which reported an IAF plan to drop tactical nuclear weapons on Iran’s nuclear weapons plants–has been instructive. AP reports (via Salon) that the Israeli foreign ministry ‘denied the report.’ However, it’s interesting to note that the foreign ministry spokesperson’s ‘denial’ was not quoted so it’s hard to know precisely what he said. This is what WAS quoted:

Foreign Ministry spokesman Mark Regev…said that “the focus of the Israeli activity today is to give full support to diplomatic actions” and the implementation of a U.N. Security Council resolution imposing sanctions on Iran for refusing to halt enrichment.

Which begs the question: what happens after Israel gives up on diplomacy?? Would it resort to the nuclear option then? I’d also note that the ‘denial’ came not from the IDF (which actually had a “no comment” on the story) which released the original information, but from the foreign ministry, which certainly has no control over, nor knowledge of military strategic decisions.

A number of distinguished IDF-watchers have also poured some cold water on the possibility it would actually seriously consider dropping nuclear bombs on Iran. The same AP story quotes these analysts:

“I refuse to believe that anyone here would consider using nuclear weapons against Iran,” Reuven Pedatzur, a prominent defense analyst and columnist for the daily Haaretz, told the AP. “It is possible that this was a leak done on purpose, as deterrence, to say ’someone better hold us back, before we do something crazy.’”

Ephraim Kam, a strategic expert at Tel Aviv University’s Institute for National Strategic Studies and a former senior army intelligence officer, also dismissed the report.

“No reliable source would ever speak about this, certainly not to the Sunday Times,” Kam said.

Sol Salbe wrote to me yesterday about correspondence he’d had with a noted progressive Israeli journalist who doubted the IDF statements were meant as anything other than “a bluff.” His reasons were: that the Israeli raid would be technically infeasible and that neither the IDF nor the government is in any position to risk something that might turn into a disaster; Israel could never get approval from the Bush Administration since it is far too distracted now with the Iraq disaster; Iran’s missiles are far more formidable than anything Hezbollah threw at Israel last summer and that the Israeli government would never risk the massive counter-attack it could expect from Iranian batteries.

I wrote this in reply to Sol:

It very well may be a bluff. But if so, it’s a pathetic one. Personally, I think the Iranian extremists are so intent on a confrontation with Israel that they’d be willing to sacrifice 10,000 of their own just for the bragging rights that they absorbed an Israeli hit for the sake of the entire Muslim/Arab (I know Persians are not Arabs, but you know what I mean) nation. Does Israel really think there’s anything they can do or say that would make the Iranians blink? Short of utter annihilation, I think the Iranians would love the idea of standing head to head in conflict with Israel.

I think you’re right that such a mission is technically tremendously difficult, if not impossible. But the IDF seems just crazy enough & devoid of reality to believe that they, of all military powers in the world, could pull it off.

As for Bush/Cheney, yes they have plenty of problems to deal with–but I have absolutely no doubt that they cherish the notion of giving Iran a bloody nose. And they just might believe, erroneously of course, that they could tacitly approve the Israeli operation while maintaining plausible deniability. And that the latter would shield them from blame in the eyes of the world. Keep in mind, that these guys are as devoid of any grasp of reality as the IDF commanders.

The Shihabs are a serious factor in this deliberation & I do believe that Olmert is NOT prepared to take the counter hit which Israel would absorb fr. Iran after such a nuclear attack. This imo would be a good deterrent to hold the Israelis back.

I hope to God you are right & I am wrong. That’s all I can say.

Salon profiles James Bamford, a former Navy intelligence analyst and author of the first, and definitive book about the NSA from the inside out: The Puzzle Palace. Bamford is to the agency what Bob Woodward is to the presidency: a confidant, a chronicler and even perhaps a promoter at times. But Bamford is flat-out opposed to Bush’s executive order. And Salon’s Michael Scherer characterizes his unequivocal views:

Bamford believes the president clearly broke the law, and he has called for a special prosecutor to investigate. “What you have here is the administration going around the only protection the public has from the NSA, and doing it on their own. That’s how Richard Nixon got in trouble, and one of the reasons he left office.”

For Bamford, there is only black and white when it comes to the Foreign Intelligence Surveillance Act, a 1978 law that specifically requires warrants for any NSA wiretapping of U.S. citizens. “If you want to eavesdrop on U.S. citizens, you go to court. If you don’t, you go to jail,” Bamford says. “If you want to change the law, you go to Congress.”

Bamford also quotes this telling, chilling and clairvoyant passage from Senator Frank Church, chief advocate of the 1978 FISA law:

“That [NSA] capability at any time could be turned around on the American people and no American would have any privacy left, such [is] the capability to monitor everything: telephone conversation, telegrams, it doesn’t matter,” Church declared then. “There would be no place to hide.”

Salon’s coverage of this story is second only to the New York Times, which broke the initial story.