The Arab_Israeli Conflict
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However, there is some intriguing counterevidence. It may be that most young Orthodox political activists will not adopt the stance of right-wing lobbying organizations in their political advocacy. In 2009, an internet survey of about 500 American Jewish, mostly Orthodox (about 60 percent), pro-Israel student activists and their friends was carried out.113 Some of the results were unsurprising, such as the fact that conservative and reform students are more liberal and dovish than the Orthodox, right-wingers are more active than centrists, and the unaffiliated were largely apathetic in terms of Israel advocacy. However, some results concerning the Orthodox were very interesting. Seventy percent of the Orthodox surveyed defined themselves as centrists, compared to less than 15 percent who defined themselves as right-wing. Fifty-seven percent of the Orthodox agreed that ultimately Israel must find a way to end its occupation of the Palestinians; only 21 percent of the Orthodox disagreed. Although the survey was conducted by a student rather than a professional polling organization, the figures suggest that Orthodox pro-Israel activists are likely to abide by the old centrist norms of Israel advocacy.
Liberal Equivocation about Zionism?
Anti-Zionism has always existed among American Jews. But by the 1940s, it had become marginal. There remained prominent Jews who oppose the idea of a Jewish state, like Noam Chomsky, Naomi Klein, and Norman Finklestein, but Jewish anti-Zionist organizations like the American Council for Judaism shriveled into obscurity. In 1996, the anti-Zionist Jewish Voice for Peace was founded, but it remains on the fringe and is not considered a part of the organized Jewish community.114 More significant are developments within avowedly Zionist left-wing organizations. Is their increasingly assertive stance against various Israeli government policies a heartfelt attempt to save Zionism and preserve the existence of a Jewish and democratic state? Or does it indicate an erosion in their commitment to Zionism, a blurring of the distinction between them and the anti/Post-Zionist Left?
The first thing to note is a blurring of the discourse – for example, in the writings of individuals such as Henry Seigman, the former head of the American Jewish Congress, and M. J. Rosenberg, who worked for the Israel Policy Forum and AIPAC. While they have not explicitly abandoned support for Israel as a Jewish state, the way they relate to the conflict sounds similar to the anti-Zionist postcolonial view. Thus, they put the overwhelming bulk of responsibility for resolving the conflict on Israel alone and frame the Israeli-Palestinian conflict in terms of the struggle against apartheid and for civil rights.115 Their marginalization of both the role of political and religious extremism on the Palestinian side, and the threat posed to Israel by wider radical forces in the region, contrasts with the traditional dovish pro-Israel liberalism of people such as Leonard Fein and Michael Walzer, who also take a strong stand against the demonization of Israel by the anti-Zionist Far Left.116 Then there is the left-wing journal Tikkun, founded by Michael Lerner. While Lerner himself is a self-proclaimed Zionist, the magazine gives a fair amount of space to anti-Zionist discourse. Lerner also supported the Presbyterian divestment campaign, which was inspired primarily by anti-Zionism and postcolonial ideas.
In the institutional arena, there is the case of the New Israel Fund (NIF) set up in the 1990s. NIF supports many causes dear to liberal Zionists, such as minority rights, social justice, and religious pluralism. However, it has also supported organizations whose agenda includes anti-Zionist campaigning that seeks to delegitimize the idea of a Jewish state. Indeed, while speaking to a Diaspora audience in the 1990s, the then director of the New Israel Fund, Avi Armoni, stated that the idea of a Jewish state was incompatible with the idea of a democratic state.117
Before he became the executive director of J Street, Jeremy Ben-Ami worked for the New Israel Fund. Ben-Ami himself identifies as a Zionist. His dovishness is driven by a sense that Israel must withdraw in order to preserve its Jewish identity and its democratic character before it is too late. He is utterly opposed to the so-called one-state solution which he refuses to even refer to as a solution.118
However, the organization and membership are more equivocal about Zionism that Ben-Ami. The board of J Street had a long debate about whether they should refer to themselves as a Zionist organization.119 Reports of the first J Street conference seemed to indicate a generational divide; older participants were more likely to declare themselves to be Zionists, while younger participants were more hesitant to do so and were more equivocal about the idea of two states for two peoples.120 Indeed, J Street’s university arm dropped the “pro-Israel” part of the organization’s “pro-Israel, pro-peace” slogan.121 Other incidents blurred the distinction between liberal Zionism and an anti-Zionist postcolonial outlook. One was J Street’s response to the Gaza War, noted earlier in this chapter, which smacked of moral equivalence between Israel and Hamas. Significantly, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, a long-time liberal Zionist, lambasted the organization for this, declaring that J Street’s statement was “morally deficient, profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment, and also appallingly naive.”122 J Street also implicitly endorsed Washington DC’s J-Theater production of 7 Jewish Children, a play comparing Israel’s war with Hamas to the Nazi’s treatment of the Jews, claiming it would stimulate “rigorous intellectual engagement.”123
On the other hand, J Street threw out a poet from its first conference who had made comparisons between the Nazis and Israel, and it condemned the campaign to boycott Israel at the Toronto International Film Festival. Subsequently, the Israeli government ended its boycott of J Street.124 Nonetheless, the controversies and the impression gained from speaking to J Street’s student activists at their annual conference in 2013125 and young nonestablishment American Jewish leaders126 who identify with it, leads to a conclusion that beneath the surface, equivocation over what were articles of faith for liberal Zionists is a real phenomenon, even though it is not the prevailing orientation.
The Political Consequences of Pluralistic Solidarity
But what are the political implications of these changes? Wertheimer127 is pessimistic – he characterizes the changes primarily in terms of fragmentation, a decline away from the golden era in which a united community promotes a shared agenda. Sasson128 is sanguine – he interprets these changes as a sign of maturity; the decline of mass mobilization has been compensated for by greater direct involvement.
First it is important to assess the extent of the divisions. The plethora of groups on the Left and Right may weaken AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents, but they lack the public support and financial clout of the mainstream.129 The center no longer has the monopoly on lobbying, but it remains predominant. Still, the institutionalization of the ideological divide has had negative consequences for the leverage of the pro-Israel lobby as a whole. When centrist, left-, and right-wing organizations lobby at cross-purposes, they can cancel each other out. For example, when AIPAC sent out seven thousand delegates to lobby congressmen during its annual conference, the pro-Israel left and right lobbies sent their supporters out at the same time with messages that at least partially contradicted those of AIPAC.130
In a more general sense, overt ideological pluralism and political partisanship erode a key pillar of lobby power, which is based on the perception in Washington that supporting Israel confers political rewards, whereas failure to do so carries political costs. If politicians can credibly claim to support Israel by supporting contradictory policies, then there are in effect no clear political consequences either way. This seems to be part of the strategic thinking at J Street. In this vein, Jeremy Ben-Ami has challenged the Conference of Presidents’ standing by referring to the organization’s claim to speak for the entire Jewish community as “presumptuous.”131 This fits perfectly with what Ben-Ami identified as J Street’s “number 1 agenda item,” namely, “to do whatever we can in Congress to act as the president’s blocking back.” That is, their objective was to promote President Obama’s Middle East policy by emphasizing splits within the pro-Israel lobby.132 Imp
ortant politicians grasped this. Thus, during the 2008 presidential election campaign the Democratic Party’s vice presidential nominee, Joseph Biden, stated that AIPAC “doesn’t speak for the entire Jewish community or for the State of Israel … No one in AIPAC or any other organization can question my support of Israel.”133
Against this background, the institutionalization of ideological divisions makes it very difficult to mobilize on issues on which there are deep divisions within the Jewish community, notably settlements. In 1991 the mainstream pro-Israel lobby organizations lobbied hard against the Bush administration’s plan to link the granting of loan guarantees to Israel to a settlement freeze. In 2009 the mainstream lobby responded differently when the Obama administration called for a settlement freeze. The Netanyahu government initially opposed the idea, trying to limit its extent by seeking to exclude building related to “natural growth” and, when that was rejected, “normal life” in settlements. However, Netanyahu failed to garner the support of the mainstream lobby to fight on the issue of settlements. The administration worked with the mainstream and left-wing organizations to get them on board. While some of the mainstream lobby expressed concern about the tone of the administration’s policy, none were prepared to publicly confront it over the issue itself. The fact that the Reform and Conservative movements were on board was crucial in shifting the balance within the mainstream. The result shocked the Netanyahu government, which then reluctantly accepted a ten-month settlement freeze.134
On the other hand, increased institutional and ideological pluralism has at least some positive effects for pro-Israel lobbying. The representation of different voices in various organizational frameworks allows a great number of Jews to feel at home inside the organized Jewish community.135 As a student leader in a dovish organization put it: “A lot of students are very pro-Israel, but their sympathies lie with Labor or Meretz, not with Likud or the settlers. Brit Tzedek helps them find ways to express their Zionism and support for Israel.”136 Being a member of the organized community is an important determinant of political activism. Hence, even though there is a price to pay for greater pluralism, there is a potential political dividend to be reaped on consensual issues. Given the global nature of communications, political actors no longer have the luxury of varying their messaging when speaking to different groups without losing credibility. In such an environment, pluralism can be an advantage. For example on the consensual issue of countering boycotts, divestment, and sanctions (BDS) against Israel, dovish pro-Israel groups, with a record of working together with liberal churches on other issues, may be able to engage the churches in ways that mainstream organizations find difficult.137
Conclusion
A consistent majority of American Jews has been in favor of the creation of a Palestinian state, at least in theory. Nonetheless, there are significant differences of opinion on how to proceed in practice, as well as on specific issues like settlements and Jerusalem. However, since the collapse of the Oslo process in 2000, these differences of opinion have been constrained by the fact that a consistent majority has also perceived the Palestinians as mainly to blame for the failure to reach peace and for the violence. Yet, in institutional terms, ideological polarization among pro-Israel organizations has increased as American Jews have become less concerned with unity and less deferential toward the policies of the Israeli government. The center remains predominant, but its dominance has eroded significantly. These differences are clearly segmented, with the Orthodox being the most hawkish subgroup and non-Orthodox, nonestablishment young Jews being the most dovish group. This growing divide over policy regarding the Arab-Israeli conflict is driven both by changes in Israel and the Middle East and by generational and cultural changes in American Jewry itself, the same changes that undergird the growing gap in attachment to Israel that was identified in the previous chapter.
As a result, there has been a shift in American Jewry’s approach to Israel away from a centrally mediated, unified, consensual, and deferential approach toward a more direct, polarized, and assertive approach. This is likely to make traditional pro-Israel lobbying more complex and difficult, though the mainstream lobby’s position remains strong. Were the consensus to collapse regarding (a) the perception that Israel combines its Jewish identity with adherence to democratic principles, and (b) the perception that the Arab side is primarily responsible for the failure to achieve peace, then divisions would effectively nullify the organized Jewish community as an effective pro-Israel lobby. However, this is not the case, at least not at the time of writing. Critically, no major Jewish group advocates withholding U.S. aid to Israel in order to pressure it to change its policies.138
Conclusion
America’s strong bonds with Israel are well known. This bond is unbreakable … But if we see this conflict only from one side or the other, then we will be blind to the truth: The only resolution is for the aspirations of both sides to be met through two states … Hamas must put an end to violence, recognize past agreements, recognize Israel’s right to exist. At the same time … the United States does not accept the legitimacy of continued Israeli settlements. It is time for these settlements to stop.
—President Barack Obama, Cairo University, June 4, 20091
In pursuit of a peace process, the United States today has exerted substantial pressure on Israel while putting almost no pressure on the Palestinians and the Arab world. We can encourage both parties in the conflict, but we must never forget which one is our ally.
—Mitt Romney, AIPAC, October 20092
Americans’ identification with Israel is deeply rooted in American political culture. Since the turn of the millennium, sympathy for Israel has grown to new heights. At the same time the debate over how to handle the Arab-Israeli conflict has become increasingly divisive, and these divisions increasingly line up with the major political, ideological, and religious divides in America. This is the “Israel paradox” in American political culture. The paradoxical growth of both support for Israel and controversy surrounding its policies actually share some common foundations. The consequences of widespread identification with Israel are not confined to support for the Jewish state. Rather, identification with Israel means that what Israel does and what is done to Israel carries with it an unusually high degree of symbolic meaning for Americans. Consequently, more is symbolically at stake in the Arab-Israeli conflict than in other conflicts around the world.
Indeed, the Arab-Israeli conflict evokes such passionate debate precisely because it touches on core elements of American identity. Thus, for liberals, sympathy for Israel is rooted primarily in the American creed, specifically Israel’s identity as a democracy. Because liberalism is at the core of that creed they expect Israel to live up to those values, and when Israeli policy toward the Palestinians is perceived as failing to do this, they are critical, much as they would be of U.S. policy in similar circumstances. On the other hand, while Conservatives also support Israel because it is a democracy, they give greater weight than liberals to the place of Israel in the ethno-religious dimension of American identity, and they are more skeptical of Israel’s enemies’ interest in/capability of becoming democratic; hence their support for Israel is more unwavering.
The strongest pro-Israel attitudes and the most virulent anti-Israel attitudes are not only a reflection of American identity per se, but also of attitudes toward the Jewish people as a collective. For American Jews attachment to Israel is especially strong, because of their sense of belonging to the Jewish people, whereas for evangelicals sympathy for Israel is especially strong because of the theological significance of the Jewish people. Equally, within the mainline Protestant churches, the “witness mentality” continues to inform a tendency to single out the Jewish people to be judged by standards different from other peoples’. This singling out is also apparent in the postcolonial approach to Israel. Indeed, according to Paul Berman,3 such left-wing anti-Zionism is part of a long anti-Semitic tradition that casts Jewish pe
oplehood as standing in the way of some principle of universal justice and happiness.
At the same time, the increase in support for Israel and controversy surrounding the peace process is not only about the place of Israel and the Jewish people in the American imagination. It is also about the fact that 9/11 catapulted the Middle East to the center of Americans’ practical concerns. Terrorism, radical Islam, the Iraq War, and the threat of a nuclear Iran have all served to maintain that focus. For the most part, this has led the American public to increasingly view Israel as an important strategic ally, with the Palestinians perceived as mainly to blame for the violence and lack of conflict resolution. In any case, with so much perceived to be at stake in the Middle East for America, it is not surprising that the Arab-Israeli conflict has become a major arena in which deep divisions over grand strategy are played out. In this vein, those who favor a more robust U.S. grand strategy, and who emphasize the divide between democratic and nondemocratic regimes, tend to favor Israel more strongly, while those who favor a more defensive grand strategy, and who tend to discount ideologies except for nationalism, tend to a more evenhanded or hostile approach to Israel. While this divide straddles both parties, increasingly, most Republicans tend to strongly favor a more robust approach, while Democrats are divided but lean toward a more defensive approach.
This hints at something important, namely that the surge in support for Israel is rooted in conceptions of American priorities and values. Consequently, Republican views are not necessarily closer to the views of the mainstream Israeli public than the views of the Democrats. Ironically, Republicans were out of tune with the mainstream Israel public on some key issues in the first half of the 2000s, when many were “more Catholic than the Pope” (or in this case, the mainstream Israeli public and the Sharon/Kadima governments) on Palestinian statehood and settlements. Still, since the Second Lebanon War in 2006, when thousands of rockets, launched from areas where Israel had withdrawn, rained down on Israelis, Israeli public opinion has become more hawkish and reticent. In parallel, polls indicated that Israelis preferred George W. Bush’s and Mitt Romney’s approach to the region to that of Barack Obama.4