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

Gidon Remba, president of the Chicago Peace Now chapter, provides a cogent analysis of the negative role AIPAC is playing in hindering possible negotiations between Syria and Israel. In this critique he alludes to a column he wrote in November in Haaretz that spoke to the new Soros Initiative to create a progressive American Jewish lobbying alternative to AIPAC. But what interests me is AIPAC’s response to this column penned by the group’s Israel director; because it contains all the wonderful ’smoke and mirrors’ rhetoric the group uses to prettify and obfuscate its true mission and the tactics used to accomplish its goals:

Rather than seeking to impose its own agenda or beliefs, AIPAC works with the elected leaders of both nations, regardless of their political party. In Washington, our work is not only with the administration, but with both parties in the House and Senate - regardless of which party controls those houses. AIPAC is a consensus organization and the diverse makeup of its membership is a welcome sign to American lawmakers that we represent the consensus view in the American pro-Israel community.

Oh, no. AIPAC surely doesn’t “impose its own agenda or beliefs” on anyone. Tell that to those legislators who’ve bucked AIPAC and seen political action committee dollars flying into the coffers of their primary or general election opponents. Tell that to Betty McCollum who was accused by a local Minneapolis AIPAC layperson of supporting terrorism because she opposed the group’s Palestine Anti-Terror Bill. And if AIPAC “works with elected leaders…regardless of their political party” can she explain why one of AIPAC’s most beloved retired directors spearheaded an ad campaign by the Republican Jewish Coalition to discredit Democrats as being anti-Israel?

“AIPAC is a consensus organization?” Since when? Unless, that is you consider a Likud nationalist political analysis of Israeli politics to be the “consensus” position. “Diverse membership?” Really? Let’s consider the political outlook of AIPAC. It’s true there are members of various political stripes. But everything that matters regarding AIPAC is directed by the lay leadership and staff. And these individuals–while they may spring from a variety of Jewish groups like AJC or ADL–their politics is invariably rightist when it comes to Israel.

How about this distortion: “we represent the consensus view in the American pro-Israel community.” Not true. AIPAC’s views of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict are in direct contradiction of the views of the majority of American Jews as proven by public opinion surveys. The majority of American Jews are willing to see a Palestinian state NOW. Not AIPAC, though they’ll mouth some platitudes about how they’d like to see one one of these days. The majority of American Jews are prepared to say good riddance to most of the West Bank settlements. Not so AIPAC. The majority of American Jews are opposed to military action against Iran. Not so AIPAC. I could go on and on. So don’t you believe the mendacious nonsense which their leaders pass off as Torah l’Moshe MiSinai (”Torah according to Moses on Sinai”).

Alas, there’s more:

AIPAC has always understood its appropriate role, which is not to advance a prescriptive agenda. It is the voters in Israel and the United States who decide which governments to elect and what policies to follow. AIPAC’s mandate is not to pressure the Israeli government to follow a particular course.

AIPAC has NEVER understood its appropriate role. It has never understood that there are many views both within Israel and the American Jewish community about how to approach the Israeli Palestinian conflict. Instead of embracing the diversity it claims to represent it ALWAYS represents a narrow nationalist perspective. It has always advanced a prescriptive agenda. Why else would it be urging the Administration to bomb Iran? And let’s look at the military option there. Is that a “consensus” position either in the U.S. or among American Jews? Certainly not. Is it even a consensus position among Israelis? Arguably, there is more support for it in Israel but I’d hesitate to say even there it is a majority or consensus position. No, AIPAC is a powerhouse of neocon (U.S.)/nationalist (Israel) ideology.

Now comes the real smoke up your you know what:

AIPAC has also supported both House and Senate versions of legislation that would block all but humanitarian aid to the Palestinian Authority until its Hamas-controlled government meets the standards set by the international community - to recognize Israel’s right to exist, renounce violence and accept previous Israeli-Palestinian peace agreements.

There are also provisions in the legislation which create a carve-out for certain kinds of assistance to Fatah leader and PA Chairman Mohammed Abbas. This was a complex piece of legislation authored by Congressional leaders for a complex period in Palestinian-Israeli relations.

AIPAC did not just “support” the Palestine Anti-Terror Bill she refers to here. The group WROTE the legislation for Pete’s sake! Singer acknowledges it is a “complex piece of legislation.” But what she’s really concealing is that as originally written it wasn’t complex at all. It was a draconian piece of legislation which would’ve criminalized any type of U.S. contact with any Palestinian entity which could broadly be construed as having any affiliation whatsoever with Hamas. It became “complex” because it was essentially entirely rewritten due to the extraordinary lobbying effort by Jewish progressive groups who succeeded in watering down key provisions of the bill. To top it all off, when Bush signed the bill he essentially announced that he would observe those parts of the legislation with which he agreed and ignore everything else. What a hollow AIPAC victory that was!

AIPAC will continue in its fundamental mission to ensure that…the two allies continue to stand together against common threats and work together to seek paths for a comprehensive and a secure peace.

I get the “standing together against common threats.” That means that AIPAC will continue to advocate extremist-hostile positions against Israel’s neighbors. But how does she have the chutzpah to claim AIPAC will “seek paths for a comprehensive and secure peace?” What has AIPAC ever done to advocate peace? And please don’t give me the pablum about accepting the creation of a Palestinian state because neither AIPAC nor Israel has done anything substantive to really further such a goal. Really, name a single thing the group has ever done for peace. I’m waiting…just as I thought. Because there isn’t any.

Let’s just take a recent development for an example. Akiva Eldar of Haaretz broke the amazing story of a second track diplomatic initiative between Israeli and Syrian representatives which essentially mapped out a full peace agreement between the parties. Of course, Olmert ditched the effort at the crucial moment when it was “put up or shut up.” But what did AIPAC do to support such an initiative? Not only have they done nothing. They’ve done everything they can to oppose it (pdf file). Why? First, because the initiative is opposed by the official Israeli government (which has in turn blamed its unwillingness to talk on the Bush-Cheney cone of silence against Syria). Second, because AIPAC doesn’t trust Syria as far as it could throw it. Third, because AIPAC’s Israeli political counterparts in Likud are screaming bloody murder at the idea that Israel might withdraw from the Golan.

Ultimately, what it all boils down to is that neither AIPAC nor the Israeli right believe in territorial concessions to either the Syrians or Palestinians. Because settling with Syria would require returning the Golan, AIPAC is dead set against it. So again, don’t you believe the version of AIPAC’s political agenda peddled for public consumption. Rather, examine what the organization does or doesn’t do.

Remba has some pertinent advice for President Bush which he will certainly refuse to take:

I call on the President not only to permit Israel to test the waters with Syria through a secret back-channel, but to send American mediators to such meetings to maximize the chances of their success.

That would be nice. But I think I diverge slightly from Remba in that I see Olmert’s casting blame on the U.S. for stymieing the Syria-Israel initiative as being self-serving. For Olmert, the U.S. serves as a convenient excuse allowing him to take a position he preferred to take all along.

Remba closes with a bit of incisive criticism of American Jewry’s willingness to allow the AIPACs to be their voice in this debate:

…There’s the stifling burden of inaction to which we subject Israel daily:…the failure of American Jews to speak up—as American citizens, if not as Jews who are deeply concerned for Israel’s well-being—about what’s best for the national security of the United States and its allies, especially Israel; the timorousness and apathy of so many American Jews who have yet to express their solidarity with the forces of progress and peace in Israel itself, even within the Israeli government. We, the American Jewish community, have massively constrained Israel’s freedom by the many dangerous choices we have let our communal leaders, and our government, make in the Middle East. Citizenship doesn’t end at the voting booth.

Hat tip to the Brit Tzedek Newsdigest list. If you’re looking for a terrific daily summary of articles on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict this is one of the best.

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.