[Peace] JTA: Max Berger, activist against Israel’s occupation, is now aide to Elizabeth Warren

[Robert Naiman]

Let's make sure nothing bad happens to this guy.

If this guy keeps his job, it means these people are losing their power to
get people fired for criticizing the Israeli government.

https://www.jta.org/2019/07/29/united-states/meet-max-berger-the-jewish-anti-occupation-activist-on-elizabeth-warrens-campaign

Max Berger, an activist against Israel’s occupation, is an aide to
Elizabeth Warren
BY BEN SALES  JULY 29, 2019 3:08 PM

(JTA <http://www.jta.org/>) — Days after Israeli ground troops invaded Gaza
in 2014, a group of leftist millennial Jews gathered to plan a public
protest of the military operation.

The new group, which called itself IfNotNow, discussed a public
demonstration in front of the Conference of Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations, an establishment Jewish umbrella group.

Max Berger was one of the planners who urged them to take it a step
further: The protesters should get arrested at the Presidents’ Conference
headquarters in New York, he suggested. And they should recite kaddish, the
traditional Jewish mourner’s prayer, for Israelis and Palestinians who had
died in the fighting.

When the protest took place, on July 28, 2014, that’s what they did
<https://www.jpost.com/Jewish-World/Jewish-News/9-young-Jews-arrested-at-NYC-anti-Israel-protest-369365>.
Berger was one of nine Jews arrested in the Presidents’ Conference building.

“Max, because of the experience that he brought, understood the value of
raising the stakes and bringing the crisis to the door of an institution
through the strategy of direct action in that way,” said Simone Zimmerman,
a fellow IfNotNow cofounder. “He knew how to bring that seriousness and
depth of pain and anger and betrayal, how to support a group into bringing
that out.”

IfNotNow was a new group, but for Berger, disruptive protest was an old
game. Berger, 33, is already a journeyman of the activist left, from Occupy
Wall Street to IfNotNow to Justice Democrats, the outfit that supported
Rep. Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez’s unlikely primary win.

Now, he’s working for Sen. Elizabeth Warren as her director for progressive
partnerships, placing a leader of the millennial Jewish left-wing
insurgency inside an ascending Democratic presidential campaign.

The Warren campaign did not make Berger available for an interview. But his
friends, as well as the reams of online articles by him and quoting him,
indicate that he clicks with Warren’s combination of anti-establishment
rhetoric and detailed, wonky plans. In addition to IfNotNow, Berger
co-founded Momentum <https://www.momentumcommunity.org/>, a group that
trains progressive activists.

“Warren matches even his demeanor and his style of politics, which is very
deliberate and well thought out,” said Waleed Shahid, who has partnered
with Berger in progressive movements and is now the communications director
at Justice Democrats. “It’s funny that Warren’s slogan is ‘I have a plan
for that.’ Max would do trainings at Momentum about how organizations don’t
plan enough.”

Berger’s presence in the Warren campaign has also angered Jews on the
political right, and even some on the pro-Israel left. Canary Mission, the
anonymous blacklist of perceived anti-Israel “hate groups and their
members,” has an extensive dossier of his past tweets
<https://canarymission.org/individual/Max_Berger>and INN actions, accusing
him of “spreading hatred for Israel” and demonizing pro-Israel American
Jews. Others have cited Canary Mission in calling
<https://www.jns.org/opinion/zoa-urges-warren-to-fire-hamas-loving-israel-hating-ifnotnow-co-founder-max-berger/>
for
Berger to be fired
<https://freebeacon.com/politics/warren-staffer-draws-criticism-for-anti-israel-tweet/>
.

Berger has deleted most of his tweets, but screenshots and quotations
preserved by his critics show personal support for boycotts of Israel (at
least as of two years ago) and calling Israel’s killing of Gazan protesters
in clashes on the border a “pogrom.” A tweet he wrote in 2017 says “I agree
with BDS, but it’s not a mistake to consider it largely anti-Zionist. For
Zionists, it’s an existential question.”

Carinne Luck, a co-founder of IfNotNow, clarified that while Berger
personally supports Israel boycotts, he does not identify with the Boycott,
Divestment and Sanctions Movement.

For much of the Jewish pro-Israel mainstream, on the left as well as the
right, BDS is anathema, because its Palestinian leadership refuses to
accept a Jewish state in any part of historic Israel. Critics of IfNotNow
note that, according to its principles, the Jewish group does “not take a
unified stance on BDS, Zionism or the question of statehood.”

Mark Mellman, president and CEO of another new group, the Democratic
Majority for Israel, told JTA said it’s “deeply troubling at a policy level
that he cofounded an organization that does not recognize Israel’s right to
exist.” Mellman did not call for Berger to be fired.

The Progressive Zionists of California, a grassroots group of about 200
members, said IfNotNow displays “one-sided condemnation and vilification of
Israel” and called
<https://progressivezionist.wixsite.com/californiazionists/post/open-letter-to-senator-elizabeth-warren>
for
the Warren campaign to dismiss Berger, whom they grouped among “enemies of
Israel.”

“It puts [Warren] at risk to have someone with his public stances,” said
Susan George, a founding member of the California group and a 2016 delegate
for Sen. Bernie Sanders’ presidential campaign. “Personally I’ve been a
huge fan of Elizabeth Warren. Since the financial crisis, she was my hero.
But to put someone like Max Berger in such a position to influence
progressives, it is concerning.”

But what critics see as a liability, Berger’s allies see as an an asset.
Berger’s hire is a sign, they said, that the Democratic party may be moving
left on Israel.

“It’s incredibly affirming and reassuring that the Warren campaign knew
everything there is to know about Max and still wanted him on board,” said
Luck. “I don’t think Elizabeth Warren’s campaign chose Max because of his
position on Israel-Palestine, but it does send a signal that someone with
views like Max’s would be there in such a serious political campaign.”

Berger’s presence on Warren’s campaign may be paying off for those who want
candidates to be tougher on Israel: When IfNotNow activists asked Warren
<https://www.jta.org/quick-reads/elizabeth-warren-says-yes-to-ending-the-occupation>,
at a campaign event, if she would “push the Israeli government to end the
occupation,” she replied, “Yes, yes,” then added, “So I’m there.”

In a June interview with The New York Times, Warren called Israel a “good
friend” and voiced support for a two-state solution with the Palestinians.
She said that the United States “cannot dictate the terms of a long-term
settlement” but added that “the current situation is not tenable.”

“They face enormous challenges and they are our strong ally,” she said. “We
need a liberal democracy in that region and to work with that liberal
democracy. But it is also the case that we need to encourage our ally, the
way we would any good friend, to come to the table with the Palestinians
and to work toward a permanent solution. I strongly support a two-state
solution.”

Berger has more moderate views than some of his Jewish leftist comrades. He
criticized
<https://thinkprogress.org/american-jews-shouldnt-let-the-right-smear-ilhan-omar-over-a-bad-tweet-8f9111074b1f/?fbclid=IwAR28CmAYf8zF0PX30dppJlUK6GoudFSUzP375x6XA--weTFfwbHWHrzqbNM>Rep.
Ilhan Omar’s statements echoing anti-Semitic stereotypes, as well as the
Movement for Black Lives accusing Israel of genocide
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-jews-must-fight-for-black-and-palestinian-freedom-1.5424320>.
He also encouraged the Jewish community to stand with both Omar and the
Black Lives Matter movement.

Berger grew up in Massachusetts and attended Reed College in Portland,
Oregon. His leftist streak started early. In high school, he organized a
trip to Washington, D.C. to protest against the Iraq War. His mother, Judy
Berger, remembers that he submitted a middle school paper about social
issues in Chiapas, Mexico, after he got interested in the local politics on
a family trip there.

“One of the teachers accused him of plagiarism and I was livid,” she said.
“There was no plagiarism involved. This was something this young kid was
concerned about and read about and knew about.”

After college, he worked at J Street, the liberal Israel lobby, as a new
media assistant. He gained notice as an organizer of the Occupy Wall Street
movement in 2011, where he was part of its more moderate wing.

“I don’t want to live in a fucking commune. I don’t want to blow shit up. I
want to get stuff done,” he told New York magazine.
<http://ag.com/news/politics/occupy-wall-street-2011-12/>

Berger bounced around progressive organizations. He worked for Rebuild the
Dream, founded by former Barack Obama aide Van Jones, as well as the
Progressive Change Campaign Committee. In 2017, after Donald Trump won the
presidential election, he and Shahid co-founded All of Us, a campaign to
elect progressive Democrats that eventually merged with Justice Democrats.

In 2016, he was an outspoken supporter of Bernie Sanders, writing in Haaretz
<https://www.haaretz.com/opinion/.premium-sanders-vs-the-out-of-touch-jewish-establishment-1.5433187>
that
the Vermont senator “speaks with a prophetic voice that is at the heart of
our tradition.” But even then, he carried a torch for Warren, writing
in a Medium
post
<https://medium.com/@maxberger/thoughts-on-the-first-demdebate-9d39d00470c0> on
the first debate between Sanders and Hillary Clinton that “there isn’t
anyone else on stage who people can imagine as president. [Clinton’s] real
victory came months ago when Elizabeth Warren decided not to run.”

“He ultimately, really is much more focused on a certain kind of winning or
a certain kind of impact,” said Lissy Romanow, Momentum’s executive
director, who also worked with Berger in IfNotNow. “He’s ultimately much
more sympathetic to Bernie’s ideology and his politics, and that
ultimately, what it will take to win and to govern, you will need something
more like what Warren has.”

Friends say Berger is also good at dealing with the kind of backlash he’s
experienced from his pro-Israel critics. Zimmerman, who was fired from
Sanders’ 2016 campaign
<https://www.jta.org/2016/04/14/politics/abe-foxman-bernie-sanders-head-of-jewish-outreach-should-be-fired-for-israel-criticism>
after
a similar wave of condemnation, recalls that he was supportive to her then
in speaking out for her and crafting an effective response.

Berger also has two tools to diffuse pressure, his friends say: an
addiction to Szechuan cuisine and bagels and lox, and a relentless gallows
humor. Berger’s Facebook cover photo, for example, is a popular meme of a
dog sipping coffee in a house engulfed in flames. In the classic meme,
meant to mock what leftists see as complacency in the face of American
democracy’s dire straits, the dog says “This is fine.” In Berger’s version,
the dog says “Give it a chance.”

“He does a very good Bernie impression,”said Shahid. “But I feel like that
will get him in trouble these days.”
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