[Peace-discuss] Response to Just Foreign Policy - J Street

Fri Apr 25 19:29:40 CDT 2008

An insightful (and funny) analysis.  --CGE

David Green wrote:
> "5) The New York Times reports on the creation by several prominent 
> American Jews of J Street, a new pro-Israel lobby that seeks to be an 
> alternative to other organizations that often impede progress toward 
> Middle East peace because of their reflexive support of Israel. For 
> example, it seeks to support candidates who support Israel but question 
> some of its policies, like maintaining and expanding settlements."
>  
> _______________
>  
> In their book "The Real Anti-Semitism in America" (1982), Nathan and 
> Ruth Ann Perlmutter (the latter then head of the Anti-Defamation League) 
> wrote in the aftermath of the Vietnam War, "What we are saying is that 
> that in the defamations by the Left of the promptings for our warrings 
> in Vietnam and latterly that in their sniping at American defense 
> budgets, war *as such* is getting the bad name."
>  
> I think that the problem of liberalism in this country during the 20th 
> century was how to maintain an increasingly threadbare appearance of 
> progressivism while not "giving war a bad name." This has been 
> primarily used, to put it crudely, as a way for liberals to distinguish 
> themselves from the Left on the basis of not being unpatriotic wimps. 
> Every opportunity is taken to display the macho mentality, from Panama 
> to Serbia to Iraq, what Chomsky calls the "new military humanism."
>  
> But as a dominant and persistent theme, support for Israel has more 
> recently been the mainstay in this regard. Beginning in 1967, and 
> throughout the rest of the Vietnam War and beyond, support for Israel 
> has been vital to maintaining liberal claims that there are a"good wars" 
> and "just wars." In fact, the latter is the title of a book justifying 
> Israel's 1967 invasion of Egypt, etc., by Princeton political 
> philospher Michael Walzer. Ever since, he has been a staunch supporter 
> of Israel, and liberal/left journals that he writes for like Dissent and 
> The New Republic have conformed to the Zionist party line, and then 
> some, combining nastiness and erudition in novel ways.
>  
> So now we find Walzer's name (and I must admit the names of a few decent 
> people like Henry Siegman) listed as supporters of "J Street." I fear, 
> however, that instead of the Left, it is now the U.S. that is giving war 
> a bad name. The war in Iraq is going badly, at least for the general 
> population, and opposition is pervasive if distracted. The antiwar 
> movement is generally at loose ends, but it also cannot be framed by 
> opponents or cynics in the manner that the antiwar movement was in the 
> 60s, as unshowered, ungrateful, Mao-loving draft dodgers. Ironically, an 
> ineffective antiwar movement has somehow given peace a good name, at 
> least as an abstract concept, partly because the targets of 1960s 
> liberal venom now spend more time with their pharmacist than their dope 
> supplier, and the heirs of the most venomous liberals of the 1960s are 
> now nasty neocons.
>  
> Liberals are not comfortable with this state of affairs. They don't want 
> to oppose unjust wars on principle--that would be too Leftist. But their 
> problem now is more to maintain their identity by distinguishing 
> themselves from the nasty neocons who have gone to far and become 
> "ideological," and there is no longer a basis in domestic policy to do 
> this--they're all corporate. Regarding foreign policy, liberals are 
> suddenly at a loss to triangulate.
>  
> So let's have a niche market strategy for unprincipled liberal 
> peaceniks. Let's put the Iraq War on the back burner, as the Democrats 
> have, because joining a broad, effective, serious antiwar movement might 
> really give war a bad name on principle in ways that would threaten 
> liberal ideology. But how to give peace a tentative good name, a 
> positive brand identity that can be adjusted, if necessry, for changing 
> market dynamics?
>  
> Oh yes, conveniently and always to the rescue, there is Israel once 
> again. If it bailed out the liberal warmongers in the 1960s, why can't 
> it bail out the pragmatic liberal peaceniks in 2008. What a 
> brilliant idea: let's support Israel to promote "*peace*." Let's base 
> our pragmatic *dovish* identity around "support for Israel." Let's use 
> "support for Israel" to distinguish oursevles from both the nasty 
> neocons and the pie-in-the-sky, clueless peaceniks who just don't 
> understand that Israel is still truly a shining light. But let's do so 
> by reassuring ourselves that if anyone is entitled to a violent swift 
> sword, that would be Israel.
>  
> The bottom line, I fear, is that this movement is going to be both 
> ineffective and pathetic. Yes, American policy is the key to ending the 
> occupation, but JStreet can in no significant way shift the balance of 
> power within Jewish institutions and Congress away from AIPAC. It is 
> simply liberal Jewish identity politics, re-branding the nature of 
> liberal identification with Israel (which has been going on since the 
> mid 70s, in one form or another) while not challenging the central 
> tenets of Zionism, and all of course without a word of compassion for 
> the Palestinian people--shamelessly apparent on their website (sorry, 
> I'm beginning to rant, I'm gesticulating at my keyboard, and my face is 
> turning red).
>  
> This organization is not even about Israel, its about domestic politics. 
> It's about triangulation. And as is always the case with professional 
> Jews, it's about making a living. In the short to long run, I don't know 
> what will distinguish these folks from Dennis Ross, or even from the 
> Washington Institute for Near East Policy colonialist hack that spoke at 
> Hillel on April 1st.
>  
> Sorry to be so cynical. It's been a rough week.
>  
> But really, liberalism is done for. Woodrow Wilson marched it out, Harry 
> Truman blindfolded it, John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson provided the 
> rifle, and Bill Clinton murdered it.
>  
> Let's not waste any more time trying to clean up this mess. And please 
> stop pandering to every Jewish liberal who claims to be a "moderate" 
> supporter of Israel. It's unseemly.
>  
> DG
>  
> 
>  
> 
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