|
|
|
Jewish World Review July 31, 2009 / 10 Menachem- Av 5769 Large and growing chasm separates leftist US Jews from leftist Israelis By Caroline B. Glick
Benn's article, "Why won't Obama Talk to Israel?" was a plaintive call for
US President Barack Obama to woo the Israeli public. As Benn put it, "Next
time you're in the neighborhood, Mr. President, speak to us directly."
Benn's article has been touted by Obama supporters and detractors alike as
evidence that the President has a credibility problem with Israelis. Jewish
Obama supporters sought to soften the impact of Benn's article on their
fellow Jewish leftists by claiming that Obama is listening to the likes of
Benn. For instance, the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg reported without irony
that administration officials defend Obama's silence towards Israel by
arguing that his June 4 speech to the Muslim world in Cairo was also geared
towards Israelis.
The June 4 address of course was the one where Obama compared Israel's
treatment of the Palestinians to the Nazi Holocaust of European Jewry and to
black slavery in the antebellum American South. It was also the speech where
he embraced Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's claim that Israel owes
its existence to the Holocaust and not to the Jewish people's legitimate
right to self-determination in our homeland.
Benn's piece is an interesting read, but not for the reasons that have been
widely cited. It is interesting for what it says about the Israeli Left on
the one hand, and what it says about Obama and his American Jewish
supporters on the other.
Although Benn gives a long bill of particulars on why Israelis mistrust
Obama, the general thrust of the article is supportive of the
administration. Far from an attack on Obama, it is a cry for help. Benn and
his fellow Israeli leftists want the administration to help them by changing
the tenor of its policies, not the policies themselves.
Whereas the American Left was triumphant in the 2008 elections, the Israeli
Left was decimated in Israel's general elections in February. Its two
standard bearers -- Meretz and Labor -- were effectively wiped out. Its new
flagship Kadima failed to win the support of any other party in its bid to
form a governing coalition. Worse still, consistent polling shows that the
general public rejects every one of the Israeli Left's central policies.
From the swift establishment of a Palestinian state, to the mass expulsion
of Jews from Judea and Samaria and Jerusalem, to unilateral land giveaways
to the Palestinians, the Israeli Left today speaks for a but a small
minority of Israelis.
Benn cited last month's Jerusalem Post poll which showed that a mere six
percent of Israeli Jews view Obama as pro-Israel while some fifty percent of
Israeli Jews perceive the President as more pro-Palestinian than pro-Israel.
As he sees it, Obama's failure to win the trust of the Israeli public will
make it impossible for him to coerce the Netanyahu government into freezing
Jewish construction in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. This is a disaster for
Benn and his colleagues. For unless the US can force the government's hand,
there is no chance that they will be able to see their radical policies
implemented.
It is in his attempt to convince Obama to help the Israeli Left that Benn
makes his most consequential critique of the US leader. As he puts it, Obama
"seems to have confused American Jews with Israelis."
Benn points out that Obama's repeated attacks on Holocaust denial resonate
more strongly with US Jews than with Israelis and that the two Jewish
populations have "different historical narratives."
Benn is onto something when he notes the differences between Israeli and
American Jews. But he fails to grasp the real significance of what Obama is
doing and what is actually happening in relations between the two
communities.
It isn't that Obama is confusing the two groups. Through both his rhetoric
and his actions, Obama is demonstrating his priorities and concerns.
Obama cares about securing the support of American Jews. He does not care
about gaining the support of Israeli Jews. Moreover, Obama feels comfortable
wooing the former while alienating the latter because he recognizes
something that Benn has apparently missed: Today a large and growing chasm
separates leftist US Jews from leftist Israeli Jews.
During his recent meeting at the White House with hand-picked American
Jewish leftist activists and centrist American Jewish leaders, Obama
explained that he welcomes open disputes with Israel. As he put it, during
the Bush presidency, there was "no daylight [between the US and Israel] and
no progress."
Whereas Obama's goal of openly distancing the US from Israel is a source of
anxiety and frustration for Israeli leftists who believe that US pressure
should be a means to the end of compelling Israel to give away land to the
Palestinians, it is a positive development for American Jewish Leftists. Led
by the new anti-Israel Jewish lobby J Street, and supported by groups like
Americans for Peace Now, the Union for Reform Judaism, the Jewish Council
for Public Affairs and the National Jewish Democratic Council, the American
Jewish Left supports the White House's hostile positions on Israel as an
ends unto themselves.
J Street — a creation of Democratic fundraiser and anti-Israel activist
George Soros — was established ahead of the 2008 elections in order to
lobby the White House and Congress to foment breaches in the US-Israel
strategic relationship.
When Soros first raised the prospect of a Jewish anti-Israel lobby in
October 2006, he argued that there was a need to institutionalize what had
until then been ad-hoc anti-Israel lobbying efforts by American Jewish
groups in order to scuttle Congressional support for Israel and undermine
mainstream American Jewish organizations.
True to their mandates, today J Street and its fellow leftist Jewish groups
Americans for Peace Now, and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom lobby Congress to adopt
positions that place the US in direct confrontation with Israel. The three
groups are presently lobbying Congress to oppose an AIPAC initiative calling
on Obama to pressure Arab governments to normalize relations with Israel. In
their view, the move is objectionable because it doesn't contain a demand
that Israel stop building homes for Jews in Judea, Samaria and Jerusalem. J
Street similarly opposed Operation Cast Lead claiming that Israel's actions
to defend its citizens from rocket and mortar attacks from Hamas-controlled
Gaza were contrary to the interests of peace.
Although attacking Israel on the Palestinian issue is the central pillar of
these groups' missions, they are also involved in defending Iran's nuclear
weapons program and championing Syria in Washington. In late May, J Street
lobbied Congress not to place new sanctions on Iran claiming, "On Iran, the
president is promoting tough, direct diplomacy…but the chances of [his]
success won't be helped by Congress imposing tight timelines or a new round
of sanctions."
The group has similarly supported ending sanctions against Syria and
pressuring Israel to relinquish the Golan Heights to Syrian control.
In short, through their full throated support for all of the Obama
administration's anti-Israel policies, the organized American Jewish Left
has made clear that today it does not share a common goal with the Israeli
Left. It does not view US pressure on Israel as a means to achieve peace and
normalization between Israel and its Arab neighbors. Rather, like Obama, it
views pressure on Israel as a means to weaken US ties to Israel in the
interest of pursuing closer ties with the Arab world.
The current split between the Israeli and American Jewish Left, as well as
the Obama administration's disparate treatment of both groups have policy
implications for the Netanyahu government in its dealings with all three.
According to a number of American Jewish leaders, Obama's decision to meet
with a hand-picked audience American Jews at the White House on July 13 was
a direct response to the Jerusalem Post poll. Obama's senior advisors
feared that the massive Israeli mistrust of Obama the poll exposed was
liable to spill over into the American Jewish community.
To date, in contending with the White House, Prime Minister Binyamin
Netanyahu has been careful to minimize the significance of the White House
initiated crisis in relations. Fearing a domestic backlash, Netanyahu and
his advisors have even gone so far as to leak reports of imminent agreements
between the Obama administration and Israel on the issue of home
construction for Jews in Jerusalem, Judea and Samaria.
What the White House's distress over the Post's poll shows however, is
that today - with a domestic consensus now backing Netanyahu against Obama -
Netanyahu has less call to minimize the breach than Obama does. Indeed,
doing only advances Obama's fortunes among American Jews and so strengthens
the position of anti-Israel Jewish organizations that support him. Rather
than leak stories about an impending deal, Netanyahu's advisors should leak
stories about American intransigence and hostility.
Moreover, given the administration's overarching desire to put "daylight"
between the US and Israel, reaching an agreement with Washington will bring
no relief. Since it is the administration's goal to weaken US ties to the
Jewish state, clearly any deal that Israel could obtain would either be
antithetical to Israel's national interests or breached by the
administration.
Perhaps in response to J Street's ever-expanding media presence, Ambassador
Michael Oren intimated last month that he intends to reach out to far Left
American Jewish groups. To the extent that this is a serious initiative, it
should be dropped immediately.
Through their actions, J Street and its allies have made clear that their
institutional interests are served by weakening Israel. Their mission is to
harm Israel's standing in Washington and weaken the influence the mainstream
American Jewish community that supports Israel.
Rather than empower these anti-Israel groups by legitimizing them, the
government should take a page out of Obama's playbook. Obama gave the
perception of hosting a big tent for American Jews by inviting both friendly
far Left groups, and friendly centrist groups to meet with him on July 13.
He legitimized his friends at J Street and Americans for Peace Now by
treating them as equals of the Conference of Presidents of Major American
Jewish Organizations.
By the same token, Israel's embassy should act as a big tent by reaching out
to Israel's supporters on both the political Right and the center. All
groups that support Israel should be welcome.
As to the Israeli Left, to date, Netanyahu has successfully built a strong,
stable center-right coalition by going over its head and forming a national
consensus around support for defensible borders, a united Jerusalem and
rejecting unreciprocated concessions of any kind. While Netanyahu arguably
made an unnecessary and potentially disastrous mistake in announcing his
support for a demilitarized Palestinian state, by and large, he has
successfully marginalized the Left.
Benn's anguished plea for help from the Obama administration shows that
Netanyahu's policies are having the desired effect. His political opponents
are descending into the depths of political irrelevance. Netanyahu should
leave them to their richly deserved fate.
JWR contributor Caroline B. Glick is the senior Middle East Fellow at the Center for Security Policy in Washington, DC and the deputy managing editor of The Jerusalem Post. Comment by clicking here.
| ||||||||||
