More on Rahm Emanuel and Israel

The blog "Just World News" has more info on Rahm Emanuel's position on Israel. It says Emanuel has warned AIPAC that failure to make progress on the Palestinian issue will hurt Israel's chances for progress on restraining Iran's nuclear program, although it doesn't explain exactly why. It does say that most American Jews are Democrats who support Obama and thus would be loathe to buck him on this issue. In that case, who does AIPAC speak for? Presumably a lot of Jews with a lot of money, but maybe not George Soros or Rahm Emanuel. So, what are Bibi Netanyahu and Israel's other right wing leaders going to do? Like Nixon's opening to China, they could probably get away with a genuine opening to the Palestinians.

AIPAC Still a Problem

This posting from Sic Semper Tyrannis raises my hopes that this administration may not roll over and play dead in negotiating with Israel, like the last one did. Maybe they will consider Israel to be a separate country from the US and deny a visa to an Israeli who spied on America using the AIPAC employees against whom criminal charges were recently dropped, and who apparently "ran" Pentagon employee Franklin. If they deny the visa, they will get tremendous pressure from Jewish Americans like Senator Joe Lieberman and Congresswoman Jane Harmon, who consistently put Israel's interests ahead of America's. If push comes to shove, it will be interesting to see whose side Lieberman, Harmon and company come down on.

What about Rahm Emanuel as a Jewish-American; as Obama's chief of staff won't he look out Israel's interests? His family is very pro-Israel. It sounds like he actually served time in the Israeli Army, although not in uniform so as not to mess up his American citizenship. I don't know. Perhaps he is Israeli enough not to be subject to the wildly right-wing attitudes that characterize AIPAC and other American Jewish organizations, except perhaps J-Street. There is much healthier debate and much more difference of opinion in Israel than among American Jews. Or, perhaps because of the potential conflict of interest, Emanuel and Obama have an agreement that Emanuel will keep hands off Middle East policy. Obama has shown himself to be concerned about maintaining a high middle ground on most issues, and it's conceivable that he's done this or something like it with Emanuel.

New Jewish Lobby

The Washington Post reports that liberal Jews have created a new lobby, J Street, to compete with AIPAC. This sounds great; we'll see how it works in practice. It seems true that there is much more political debate about Israel's future in Israel than there is in the US, where AIPAC is the only Jewish lobby, and AIPAC means Zionism supported 100% by the US.

Here's Mother Jones report of the new lobby.

George Soros on AIPAC

George Soros has written an excellent article in the New York Review of Books, "On Israel, America and AIPAC." He calls on Israel and the US to deal with Hamas. He says:

AIPAC's mission is to ensure American support for Israel but in recent years it has overreached itself. It became closely allied with the neocons and was an enthusiastic supporter of the invasion of Iraq. It actively lobbied for the confirmation of John Bolton as US ambassador to the United Nations. It continues to oppose any dialogue with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas. More recently, it was among the pressure groups that prevailed upon the Democratic House leadership to drop the requirement that the President obtain congressional approval before taking military action against Iran. AIPAC under its current leadership has clearly exceeded its mission, and far from guaranteeing Israel's existence, has endangered it.

He takes on the American Jewish Committee's attacks on critics of Israel, which were praised by Bill Clinton, as I noted earlier. On behalf of the AJC, Alvin Rosenfeld attacks as anti-Semites Jews such as Tony Judt and Richard Cohen, and gentiles as well. Soros says:

Whether the Democratic Party can liberate itself from AIPAC's influence is highly doubtful. Any politician who dares to expose AIPAC's influence would incur its wrath; so very few can be expected to do so. It is up to the American Jewish community itself to rein in the organization that claims to represent it. But this is not possible without first disposing of the most insidious argument put forward by the defenders of the current policies: that the critics of Israel's policies of occupation, control, and repression on the West Bank and in East Jerusalem and Gaza engender anti-Semitism.

The opposite is the case. One of the myths propagated by the enemies of Israel is that there is an all-powerful Zionist conspiracy. That is a false accusation. Nevertheless, that AIPAC has been so successful in suppressing criticism has lent some credence to such false beliefs. Demolishing the wall of silence that has protected AIPAC would help lay them to rest. A debate within the Jewish community, instead of fomenting anti-Semitism, would only help diminish it.

Hooray for Soros! I don't know that it will have much effect. It's interesting that Bill Clinton is already undermining Soros, who has been one of the main benefactors of the Democratic Party through Move-On.org and other contributions. So, Soros' concern about whether the Democratic Party can liberate itself from AIPAC is well founded.

AIPAC supporters are already returning fire, see for example this article in Forward.

The Economist on AIPAC

The Economist magazine reports on the recent AIPAC meeting. AIPAC got every politician who counts to come kiss its feet. Cheney was particularly prominent in paying obeisance. Its violently right wing attitudes opposing Middle East peace on any basis expect complete surrender to Israel are its most identifiable characteristic, but The Economist points out that many American Jews are considerably less hawkish. And as I've mentioned earlier, many Israelis are less hawkish. Nevertheless, it says this is the best of times and the worst of times for AIPAC. Because of AIPAC's predominant position in Washington, it appears to be the spokesman for all American Jews. The article says that George Soros is considering starting up a liberal counterpoint organization to AIPAC, but so far he hasn't done so. He has written an excellent article in the Financial Times calling on the US and Israel to deal with Hamas. The Economist says:

The lobbyists had every reason to feel proud of their work. Congress has more Jewish members than ever before: 30 in the House and a remarkable 13 in the Senate. (There are now more Jews in Congress than Episcopalians.) Both parties are competing with each other to be the “soundest” on Israel. About two-thirds of Americans hold a favourable view of the place.

Yet they have reason to feel a bit nervous, too. The Iraq debacle has produced a fierce backlash against pro-war hawks, of which AIPAC was certainly one. It has also encouraged serious people to ask awkward questions about America's alliance with Israel. And a growing number of people want to push against AIPAC. One pressure group, the Council for the National Interest—run by two retired congressmen, Paul Findley, a Republican, and James Abourezk, a Democrat—even bills itself as the anti-AIPAC. The Leviathan may be mightier than ever, but there are more and more Captain Ahabs trying to get their harpoons in....

But the growing activism of liberal Jewish groups underlines a worrying fact for AIPAC: most Jews are fairly left-wing. Fully 77% of them think that the Iraq war was a mistake compared with 52% of all Americans. Eighty-seven per cent of Jews voted for the Democrats in 2006, and all but four of the Jews in Congress are Democrats.

An even bigger threat to AIPAC comes from the general climate of opinion. It is suddenly becoming possible for serious people—politicians and policymakers as well as academics—to ask hard questions about America's relationship with Israel. Is America pursuing its own interests in the Middle East, or Israel's? Should America tie itself so closely to the Israeli government's policies or should it forge other alliances?

Zbigniew Brzezinski, a former national security adviser, worries that America is seen in the Middle East as “acting increasingly on behalf of Israel”. Condoleezza Rice, the secretary of state, has compared the situation in Palestine to segregation, and argued that there could “be no greater legacy for America than to help bring into being a Palestinian state”. Philip Zelikow, her former counsellor, argues, in diplomatic language, that the only way to create a viable coalition against terrorists that includes Europeans, moderate Arabs and Israelis, is a “sense that Arab-Israeli issues are being addressed”.

Cowardice on Israel

Nicholas Kristof's column in yesterday's NYT was right. American politicians avoid criticism of Israel, no matter what Israel does. He correctly touts Jordanian King Abdullah's speech to the US Congress. And he correctly points out that there is much more criticism of Israeli policies in Israel than there is in the US. Kristof said:

One reason for the void is that American politicians have learned to muzzle themselves. In the run-up to the 2004 Democratic primaries, Howard Dean said he favored an “even-handed role” for the U.S. — and was blasted for being hostile to Israel. Likewise, Barack Obama has been scolded for daring to say: “Nobody is suffering more than the Palestinian people.” In contrast, Hillary Rodham Clinton has safely refused to show an inch of daylight between herself and Prime Minister Ehud Olmert.

A second reason may be that American politicians just don’t get it. King Abdullah of Jordan spoke to Congress this month and observed: “The wellspring of regional division, the source of resentment and frustration far beyond, is the denial of justice and peace in Palestine.” Though widely criticized, King Abdullah was exactly right: from Morocco to Yemen to Sudan, the Palestinian cause arouses ordinary people in coffee shops more than almost anything else.

He points out that last year while Palestinians killed 17 Israelis, of whom one was a child, the Israelis killed 660 Palestinians, of whom 141 were children.

It's ironic that Americans, especially American politicians who fear AIPAC, are so much more conservative in their support for oppresive Israeli policies than Israelis are themselves.

Obama's Speech to AIPAC

Here's a link to Obama's speech to AIPAC. I haven't read it, yet, but I'm guessing it's better than a lot of Republicans' speeches to AIPAC, but probably not as tough on Israel as I would like. Can't offend those big contributors!