[Peace-discuss] Keith Ellison’s fate shows why Rep. Alex Morse would be a Gamechanger for Palestinian rights

[Robert Naiman]

Keith Ellison’s fate shows why Rep. Alex Morse would be a Gamechanger for
Palestinian rights

It is a fact that all honest Americans who care about Palestinian rights
must acknowledge that Jewish Americans have more voice in Washington right
now on Palestinian rights than other Americans. We don’t have to agree on
exactly why this is true in order to agree that it is true. We don’t have
to agree that it is just in order to agree that it is true. We don’t have
to agree that it must always be the case in order to agree that it is true
right now.

But something else important is true: regardless of what the “true
coefficients of the independent variables in the regression” of the
causation story are, this is NOT ONLY a story of campaign cash. Campaign
cash may be part of the story, but it is NOT the whole story.

We have data on this from the last year that we didn’t have before.

AIPAC tried to stop Bernie with campaign cash. They failed. Bernie was
stopped. But not by AIPAC. AIPAC failed to stop Bernie in Iowa, they failed
to stop Bernie in New Hampshire, they failed to stop Bernie in Nevada.
After Nevada, they gave up. It was the rest of Dem Establishment who
stopped Bernie in South Carolina. Not AIPAC.

AIPAC tried to stop Jamaal Bowman with campaign cash. They failed. Even
Jews in Riverdale voted for Jamaal. AIPAC tried to stop Cori Bush with
campaign cash. They failed. She even “supported BDS,” which is supposed to
be radioactive for AIPAC. Didn’t matter. They failed.

There is another important piece of the story, which has to do with
Washington justification narratives for things that Washington people want
to do for other reasons. To see this, try to put Israel/Palestine and AIPAC
out of your mind for a moment and think about how some other things go.

Suppose we’re trying to end a war that involves U.S. ground troops. Who’s
the best “validator” to try to get into the media? A U.S. veteran who
served in that war who is against the war and wants it to end.

Why is that? Because a key pillar of the Washington justification narrative
for continuing a war that involves U.S. ground troops is always “Support
Our Troops!” How many times did we hear that before the Iraq War? “Support
Our Troops!” Remember the yellow ribbons? “Oh, these are not pro-war yellow
ribbons,” the people said. “These yellow ribbons are only about Supporting
Our Troops.” But when the war went south, the yellow ribbons came down. So
apparently the yellow ribbons were in fact about supporting the war. They
hid behind the troops to support the war. This is why veterans who speak
out against the war are key. A U.S. veteran stands up and says, “I served
in this war, and this war is BS, and it’s time to bring our brothers and
sisters home!” Boom! Pillar down. It’s not about Supporting The Troops.
Whatever the supposed justifications for continuing the war are, it’s not
about Supporting The Troops.

And this is why American Jews have more voice on Palestinian rights in
Washington than other Americans, over and above the effects of campaign
cash. American Jews are being used as an excuse for policies that have
other motivations, just like “support our troops” is used as an excuse for
policies that have other motivations. When an American Jew speaks up for
Palestinian rights, it knocks down a pillar of the Washington justification
narrative, just like when a veteran speaks up against a war. “I’m an
American Jew and I support Palestinian rights!” Boom! Pillar down. It’s not
about supporting Jews. Whatever the supposed reasons for continuing the
status quo of U.S. policy against Palestinian rights is, it’s not about
supporting Jews.

If you’ve never worked on these issues in Washington, it might be hard to
wrap your mind around how extreme these dynamics are. So let me give you a
sharp example from my direct personal experience.

When Keith Ellison was in Congress, he tried to lead on reforming U.S.
foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East and Latin America. This was
a natural thing for him to try to do, because: 1. He cares personally about
it 2. He was co-chair of the Congressional Progressive Caucus 3. He
represented a district in Minnesota where a lot of people care about
reforming U.S. foreign policy, particularly in the Middle East and Latin
America [that district is represented by Ilhan Omar now, and she just got
re-elected by a yuuuge margin] 4. Keith Ellison is Muslim-American, and
Muslim-Americans across the United States who wanted to do something about
U.S. foreign policy saw him as their champion.

One time there was a House Democratic Congressional letter about the
humanitarian crisis in Gaza due to the Israeli-Egyptian blockade. It was a
modest letter: there’s a humanitarian crisis in Gaza, let’s try to do
something about it. There were three co-leads on the letter: Keith Ellison,
Steve Cohen of Tennessee, and I don’t remember who the third person was,
except that unlike Steve Cohen, they were not Jewish, which for the
purposes of this story, is the only thing that matters, as you will see.

I suggested to a colleague that we try to get Eleanor Holmes Norton of DC
on the letter. She doesn’t have a vote on the floor, but she can sign
letters. Her overall politics are very progressive. If you sit in her
Capitol Hill office and look the pictures on the walls, you can see that
she came up in the civil rights movement at a time when trying to do
something about U.S. imperialism was a very normal thing for people in the
civil rights movement to care about.

The answer came back: Eleanor Holmes Norton won’t sign the letter. She says
the letter is all messed up. She says that ALL the co-leads on the letter
must be Jews, and that Steve Cohen doesn’t count.

Why doesn’t Steve Cohen count, according to this view? Nobody disputes that
Steve Cohen is Jewish. He doesn’t count according to this view because he
has an African-American district. The only Jewish Democrats in Congress who
count, according to this view, are Jews perceived to represent a lot of
Jews, like Jerry Nadler in New York City or Jan Schakowsky in Evanston or
DWS in South Florida. Of course, these are the Jews in the House who are
going to be most cautious about speaking up for Palestinian rights, because
they’re the ones who are going to get the most backlash from AIPAC.

I’m not telling you this story to pick on Eleanor Holmes Norton. Clearly
she was repeating something someone else had told her, presumably someone
from House Democratic leadership, about who is allowed to have voice in
Washington on Palestinian rights. You have to know it was Eleanor Holmes
Norton who said this to understand how extreme the mentality was. The
environment has improved substantially since then. But you have to
understand where we were not so long ago to understand where we are now.

After Keith Ellison was blocked by Democratic "anyone but Bernie" megadonor
Haim Saban [“I’m a single issue person, and my single issue is Israel”]
from becoming DNC Chair, he decided to leave Congress and run for Attorney
General of Minnesota. I never talked to Keith Ellison after that, the last
time I talked to him was outside a Bernie event in Waterloo, Iowa in 2016.
But I’ve always suspected that one of his motivations for leaving Congress
was that Dem Establishment shut him down on his efforts to lead on
reforming U.S. foreign policy. He was between a rock and a hard place. He
had constituents who expected him to lead. But Dem Establishment told him
to sit down and shut up.

If you know something of this context, then it’s a slam dunk that it would
be a Gamechanger for Palestinian rights if we had Alex Morse in the House.
Alex Morse is Jewish. And he’s an unapologetic defender of Palestinian
rights. We have Jewish Democrats in the House who support Palestinian
rights. But they’re cautious. They’re cowed by the relationship between
AIPAC and the House Democratic leadership, Pelosi-Hoyer-Clyburn. If
Palestinian rights defenders had Alex Morse in the House as a champion, it
would be a Political Revolution.
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