[Peace-discuss] [Peace] On the Importance of Being _Important_

[David Green]

Many good points, and lots to unpack. Nevertheless, I've been disappointed
with both JVP and SJP in the Trump era, as they both seem to have been
folded into the Identity Politics approach of the "progressive" wing of the
DP. And even after all of this progress in expanding the limits of
allowable debate within the Jewish community, there still isn't a decent
place that I know of for critical Jewish students to go on this campus,
unless it's SJP. Since I'm out of the loop, I don't know how this has been
playing out. But my sense is that any focused activism is lacking,
regardless of the kerfuffle with Robert Jones.

In any event, it still remains to be proven whether the ruling class of
this country can be persuaded by "the Jews" when Israel remains so central
to their geopolitical calculations, and they have the support of the
Christian Right in this regard. But a good discussion to have.

On Wed, Oct 30, 2019 at 7:46 AM Robert Naiman via Peace <
peace at lists.chambana.net> wrote:

>
>
> https://www.facebook.com/robert.naiman/posts/10158778178582656
>
>
> On the Importance of Being _*Important*_
>
>
>
> I once met with Dick Durbin at a fundraising party in Champaign at a time
> when President Obama was facing harsh pushback from pro-Netanyahu American
> Jews for his attempts to negotiate the Iran nuclear deal. Like, “Obama is
> leading Jews to the gas chambers,” this kind of thing was appearing
> regularly in the Jewish press. The question I asked Durbin was: “How come
> Democrats in Congress are being so quiet when Obama is getting pummeled for
> doing the thing that Democratic voters asked him to do?” Pursuing diplomacy
> with Iran was a major issue in the 2008 Democratic primary and general
> election. For a lot of Democratic voters the thing that distinguished Obama
> was not just his early opposition to the Iraq war, running against Hillary
> Clinton and John McCain who had supported it, but his promise to pursue
> diplomacy with Iran to avoid another war like the Iraq war. It is why I
> supported Obama: why I voted for him, why I gave his campaign money, why I
> knocked on doors for him in Indiana, why I organized MoveOn calling parties
> for him in Champaign-Urbana.
>
>
>
> Durbin answered at first with something mealy-mouthed, like “I can see why
> a lot of my colleagues are concerned…” I challenged him: “Dianne Feinstein
> is speaking up for diplomacy. How come you’re not speaking up for
> diplomacy?” At the time it seemed that Dianne Feinstein was the only
> Democrat in Congress saying anything against the anti-diplomacy onslaught.
>
>
>
> Durbin leaned in and lowered his voice. “Dianne Feinstein is a very _
> *important*_ voice,” Durbin said.
>
>
>
> At the time I interpreted this to mean: “This anti-diplomacy onslaught is
> coming from pro-Netanyahu Jews. Dianne Feinstein is Jewish. So we’ve all
> agreed that Dianne Feinstein is going to take the incoming fire on this and
> the rest of us are going to hide behind Dianne Feinstein.”
>
>
>
> Sometime after that, I was at a party in Champaign where I met a woman who
> worked for the Champaign-Urbana Jewish Federation. In the course of
> describing my relationship to Jewish things, I said: “I’m a member of J
> Street and Jewish Voice for Peace and I read the *Forward*.” She said: “J
> Street and the *Forward* are _*important_ *institutions.” She said the
> word _*important*_ exactly the same way Durbin had said it. This showed
> that the word _*important*_ wasn’t just a Jewish code word for “Jewish.”
> It referred to Jewish people and institutions seen as existing inside a
> perceived perimeter of Jewish respectability.
>
>
>
> The perceived perimeter of Jewish respectability in the United States is a
> major determinant of how much peace we’re allowed to have in U.S. foreign
> policy in the Middle East. The perceived perimeter of Jewish respectability
> in the United States is not determined by a democratic vote of Jews, any
> more than the perceived position of gun owners on gun regulation is
> determined by a democratic vote of gun owners. Moneyed interests and the
> institutions they fund play a huge role. U.S. policy in the Middle East
> would never survive a referendum of American Jews, any more than U.S.
> policy on gun regulation would survive a referendum of gun owners. There’s
> nothing natural about this hegemony. This hegemony has been constructed by
> moneyed interests and their surrogates to try to bring about certain
> outcomes.
>
>
>
> Although the perimeter of Jewish respectability is not determined
> democratically, democratic organizing can move it, because who gets elected
> to the presidency and Congress dramatically shapes what the perceived
> perimeter is.
>
>
>
> In 2000, Joe Lieberman was Al Gore’s running mate. In 2006, Joe Lieberman
> was defeated in a Democratic Senate primary in Connecticut over Joe
> Lieberman’s support for the Iraq war. Jews who opposed the Iraq war had a
> lot to do with Joe Lieberman’s defeat. I know this because I knocked on
> doors for Ned Lamont. And I saw a bunch of Jews there doing the same thing
> I was. “We need to get rid of this guy who is claiming that he is
> representing Jews when he advocates for war in the public square.”
>
>
>
> At the beginning of the Obama Administration, AIPAC was perceived as
> all-powerful and J Street was perceived as a 90 pound weakling. This
> dynamic changed significantly during the Obama Administration, in part
> because of the relationship between J Street and Obama. Today AIPAC is
> still perceived as more powerful than J Street. But the margin isn’t nearly
> as great as it was in 2008. This year, MoveOn called for Dem POTUS 2020
> candidates to boycott the AIPAC policy conference. Nancy Pelosi went to
> AIPAC, where she was a keynote speaker, but no major Dem candidates for
> President went. [Biden dodged this choice by announcing later.] In
> contrast, a bunch of presidential candidates went to the J Street
> conference this week. Biden and Warren didn’t go. But Bernie went. Julian
> Castro went. PeteB went. Even Amy Klobuchar went.
>
>
>
> That’s a big change. When he was running for President, Obama went to the
> AIPAC policy conference. Obama told the AIPAC conferees that Jerusalem must
> be the united capital of Israel – exactly the policy that Trump later
> implemented, just like Trump has said. Obama talked about doing it, Trump
> did it. Obama wasn’t interested in peace in general. Obama was interested
> in pivoting the U.S. relationship with Iran, like Nixon pivoted the U.S.
> relationship with China. Every other peace concern in the Middle East,
> Obama was willing to throw under the bus to appease the Saudi and Israeli
> governments. Obama destroyed Libya, Obama destroyed Syria, Obama destroyed
> Yemen. That was all collateral damage, claimed to be necessary to appease
> the Saudi and Israeli governments.
>
>
>
> J Street was good on nuclear diplomacy with Iran primarily because Obama
> was good on it. Nuclear diplomacy with Iran was Obama’s priority in the
> Middle East. Nuclear diplomacy with Iran was the fight that Obama was
> willing to have with AIPAC and Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia. Obama wasn’t
> willing to have any other fights with AIPAC and Netanyahu and Saudi Arabia.
> J Street helped very little on ending the catastrophic Saudi war in Yemen
> started by Obama. J Street helped even less in preventing the U.S. from
> visiting the catastrophe on Syria started by Obama. And during the Obama
> Administration, J Street didn’t move the ball in DC on peace and justice in
> Israel-Palestine, mainly because Obama wasn’t really interested in that,
> even though supposedly that was a key reason that J Street was created, to
> move the ball in DC on peace and justice in Israel-Palestine.
>
>
>
> The half-full of this is: the better the next Democratic President is, the
> better J Street will be. If we could elect a Democratic President who was
> seriously interested in peace in the Middle East, J Street would improve
> dramatically, because they’d be blocking for a much better Democratic
> President on peace than Obama. To get a better Democratic President than
> Obama on peace in the Middle East, we have to beat Haim Saban and his
> surrogates in the primary. That’s the most important thing we have to do.
>
>
>
> The second most important thing we need to do is go after AIPAC’s most
> extreme assets in Congress, like the Crown Prince of the Warmongers. We
> could have a big impact just by picking off a few of them. The defeat of
> Joe Lieberman in Connecticut in the Democratic primary in 2006 had a big
> impact on how Democrats nationally thought about the Iraq war. If we picked
> off a few of AIPAC’s most extreme assets in Congress, J Street would
> improve.
>
>
>
> I once went to a movie about Iran. I invited some Iranian-American
> friends. The movie was made by a friend of the comedian Jon Stewart. So Jon
> Stewart introduced the movie. When Jon Stewart’s face came on the screen,
> one of my friends said, I’m tired of Jon Stewart, Jon Stewart is not that
> progressive. I said: look, here’s why I love Jon Stewart. He’s the most
> famous and popular Jew in America who doesn’t want to bomb Iran. They
> laughed.
>
>
>
> The sentence I said to my Iranian-American friends is no longer true. Jon
> Stewart is no longer the most famous and popular Jew in America who doesn’t
> want to bomb Iran.
>
>
>
> If there’s another plausible path to defeating Haim Saban in 2020, I have
> no idea what it is.
>
>
> _______________________________________________
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>
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