[Peace-discuss] Limits of allowable debate

[C. G. Estabrook]

["It's not what you do / But the way that you do it," sing liberal pro-Israel 
groups.  In fact these groups are observing Chomsky's maxim: "The smart way to 
keep people passive and obedient is to strictly limit the spectrum of acceptable 
opinion, but allow very lively debate within that spectrum - even encourage the 
more critical and dissident views. That gives people the sense that there's free 
thinking going on, while all the time the presuppositions of the system are 
being reinforced by the limits put on the range of the debate." --CGE]


	Will Obama, lawmakers listen to liberal pro-Israel groups’
	criticism of Gaza operation?
	By Eric Fingerhut · December 30, 2008

WASHINGTON (JTA) -- In the first sign of a post-election struggle to set the 
American Jewish community's Middle East agenda, a quartet of liberal pro-Israel 
advocacy groups is criticizing Jerusalem's decision to launch retaliatory 
attacks against Gaza.

J Street, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and the Israel Policy 
Forum all issued statements defending Israel's right to strike Hamas 
installations in Gaza but saying, with varying degrees of forcefulness, that 
such actions will be counterproductive and damage Israel's security in the long 
run. In their statements, they called for intervention by the United States and 
the international community  to restore a cease-fire between Israel and Hamas.

In addition to issuing a statement, J Street organized a petition that calls for 
"immediate and strong U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to urgently reinstate a 
meaningful ceasefire that ends all military operations, stops the rockets aimed 
at Israel and lifts the blockade of Gaza." The organization's online director, 
Isaac Luria, sent out a message Tuesday saying that J Street was already citing 
the 14,000 signatures collected as of Tuesday in conversations with 
President-elect Obama's transition team and Congress.

Two days earlier Luria sent an e-mail message under the heading "Gaza: Stop the 
Violence," in which he started out by declaring that the "Israeli Defense Forces 
struck the Gaza Strip, leaving hundreds dead and wounded -- pushing the 
long-running Israeli-Palestinian conflict further down a path of never-ending 
violence." In the message, which did not mention that the bulk of Palestinian 
fatalities were Hamas militants, Luria stated that "neither Israelis nor 
Palestinians have a monopoly on right or wrong," before calling on the incoming 
Obama administration to "lead an early and serious effort to achieve a 
comprehensive diplomatic resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian and Arab-Israeli 
conflicts."

Representatives of J Street and the other three groups say it is difficult to 
gauge how much resonance their message is having in Washington circles, because 
Congress is in recess and the new administration is still three weeks away from 
taking office . But, according to J Street's executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, 
even if the groups fail to influence U.S. decision-making this time around, 
speaking out is a “really important first step” in sparking a discussion in the 
Jewish community and the wider political world.

“Part of our role in this is to create that space” and “say right up front this 
is an action we're going to stand up and question,” Ben-Ami told JTA. "We're 
going to question whether this is the right strategy."

"This is a test to see whether there is a need and support" for that viewpoint, 
he added.

In his statement over the weekend, Ben-Ami said that " real friends of Israel 
recognize that escalating the conflict will prove counterproductive, igniting 
further anger in the region and damaging long-term prospects for peace and 
stability."

The positions staked out by J Street and the other liberal groups fly in the 
face of the unabashed support for Israel's Gaza operation offered by the Jewish 
community's two major public-policy umbrella groups, the Jewish Council for 
Public Affairs and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish 
Organizations. Individual member groups of the two umbrella organizations have 
offered their own statements of support, as well.

J Street's immediate criticism of the Israeli strikes stood in sharp contrast 
even to the Meretz Party, a standard-bearer of the Israeli Left, which offered 
support for the initial round of attacks, before calling for a ceasefire.

Ben-Ami will have a chance to take J Street's message directly to Jewish 
communal activists from across the country when they gather in Washington at the 
end of February for the annual policy plenum of the Jewish Council for Public 
Affairs. The JCPA, an umbrella organization that brings together national Jewish 
organizations, the synagogue movements and dozens of local Jewish communities to 
formulate policy positions, has invited Ben-Ami to participate in a panel 
discussion on Israel advocacy.

Brit Tzedek's executive director, Diane Balser, said that she saw the statements 
as a “step” in forging “greater momentum” for a stronger alternative Jewish 
voice on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. “My hope would be to coordinate more 
and more,” she said, particularly with an Obama administration that is seen as 
more sympathetic to their viewpoint than the Bush administration was.

Ben-Ami, though, said he didn't think J Street and other like-minded groups 
would have much impact on any kind of congressional reaction to the Hamas 
operation when the House and Senate return to work next week. “I would be 
shocked if what came out of Congress was anything but a ringing endorsement of 
Israel,” he said, noting that in the immediate early days of a military 
operation the typical and understandable reaction is strong backing of the 
Jewish state.

Indeed, one of the most prominent of the 41 candidates endorsed this fall by J 
Street's political action committee, U.S. Rep. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.), released 
a statement strongly backing Israel's decision and making no mention of American 
intervention.

“It is unconscionable for anyone to expect that the Israeli government or any 
other government for that matter, to sit idly as thousands of deadly rockets 
rain down on their cities and threaten the well-being and security of their 
citizens,” Wexler said. “I urge the international community to join the United 
States in denouncing the daily terrorist acts carried out by Hamas and support 
Israel's right to self-defense and security."

Instead, Ben-Ami said, J Street hopes to have an impact on the Middle East 
debate six to 12 months down the road, via congressional and administration 
action that focuses on achieving a political settlement.

The director of the Israel Policy Forum's Washington office, M.J. Rosenberg, 
said the emergence of J Street could add a new dynamic to the work of dovish 
pro-Israel groups.

“Because they raised money for people's campaigns, they have a different 
position vis-a-vis members of Congress,” he said, compared to a organization 
like IPF, which focuses on providing information and lobbying.

But Rosenberg said that while seeing four groups issue somewhat similar 
statements draws additional attention to their viewpoint, he downplayed a 
suggestion that it represented the first salvo of a more forceful effort to 
spread that message. “What we've been doing is the same,” he said. “The 
difference is the situation is worse” and “efforts might intensify because this 
is so bad.”

Americans for Peace Now spokesman Ori Nir agreed with Rosenberg that the recent 
statements did not mark the launch of a formal campaign, adding that the Gaza 
operation was not a particularly good vehicle to start such an effort. “We don't 
view the issue of the Israeli operation as a black-and-white, clear-cut issue,” 
Nir said. “It wouldn't serve as a strong rallying cause because it is so nuanced.”

But Nir said that Americans for Peace Now was strategizing with like-minded 
organizations on possible joint congressional action; he added that the group 
sent out an action alert to more than 10,000 activists urging them to write to 
President Bush and President-elect Obama on the issue. “We're reminding people 
that since the objective here is political, military force alone cannot achieve” 
the desired outcome, Nir said. “There needs to be a diplomatic component.”

A top communal Jewish leader questioned the dovish groups' positions. The 
director of the Anti-Defamation League, Abraham Foxman, wondered why IPF's 
statement first called for an end to hostilities before commenting on the 
situation and defending Israel's right to strike. “I find that skewed,” he said, 
because Hamas didn't listen to calls to halt its rocket fire in recent weeks.

Foxman rejected J Street's statement that “there is no military solution to what 
is fundamentally a political conflict,” saying it “does a disservice” by lumping 
Hamas into the general Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

“They're not interested in negotiating,” Foxman said. “They're a terrorist 
organization. Why should they be treated by our community as a legitimate 
partner to negotiations?”

http://jta.org/news/article/2008/12/30/1001894/liberal-pro-israel-groups-criticize-gaza-operation