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| J Street’s executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami |
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Jewish 'Street' speaks
Alternative lobby struts its stuff
by Richard Greenberg, Associate Editor
Ever since its inception some 18 months ago, the upstart Israel lobby known as J Street has made its mark by insisting that being pro-Israel and pro-peace is not an oxymoron.
That rallying cry, which has generated its share of controversy, has suddenly been amplified dramatically, although its progressive and prophetic message remains unchanged, according to the organization's executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami. "We've simply got ourselves a megaphone," he told more than 1,000 attendees Sunday evening at the opening of J Street's much-anticipated inaugural conference.
The event itself, which ran through yesterday, provided the decibel boost by raising J Street's profile and signaling that a new geopolitical movement had in fact been born, according to Ben-Ami, who declared in his talk: "This majority will be silent no more." The conference, which drew an estimated 1,500 attendees, was by far the largest gathering of progressive, Israel-focused Jews in U.S. history, according to event organizers.
The confab, which took place at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in the District, demonstrated that J Street offered a diverse and "mainstream" alternative to one camp that says "Israel is always right" and another that says "Israel is always wrong," Daniel Sokatch, CEO of the New Israel Fund, said during Sunday's opening session.
Rather, Sokatch added, "we offer a critical third way for American Jews" to support Israel, one that focuses on a Jewish state in which there cannot be peace without justice for both Israel and its neighbors.
Moreover, the event offered a refuge for Jews who were born after Israel's victory in the 1967 war and therefore did not grow up with "that immediate visceral connection" to the Jewish state, Sokatch pointed out.
That generation includes Lauren Barr, a student at American University in the District and a J Street intern, who complained that "our society raised us to believe in tolerance and respect for others" and that "we're taught to question everything - except for Israel."
Those who even balk at supporting the Jewish state "risk being called traitors," she added, yet "we cannot connect to an Israel that denies accountability." Israel, Barr said, "needs us to serve, to use our energy, our enthusiasm and our determination to come up with a fresh approach."
The conference featured soul-searching panel discussions in which participants grappled painstakingly with thorny issues, as well as exuberant pep rally-type exhortations, such as the one offered by Ben-Ami on Sunday. "To be Jewish is to argue; to be Jewish is to think," Ben-Ami told the appreciative crowd. "We value curiosity, tolerance and free expression."
He also invited the United States to "lead and do whatever it can to end the conflict [with the Palestinians]. This is a movement fighting for the heart and soul of the American Jewish community."
As the hall resounded with cheers and applause, Ben-Ami told the crowd that J Street's philosophy expresses "the most basic of Jewish and universal values" by caring not only about "our people's destiny, but about the future of the Palestinian people - not just because it is in our interest, but because Palestinian children deserve a future and freedom, hope and happiness every bit as much as Jewish children."
Although emotions ran high, they did not always translate into unequivocal support for conference speakers. For example, during his address on Monday, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Reform movement's Union for Reform Judaism, drew isolated boos as well as hearty ovations, depending on the topics he broached.
Yoffie was applauded, for example, when he declared that many American Jewish groups "have their heads in the sand" regarding the negative impact of settlements on the well-being of Israel.
The reaction was vastly different, however, when he pointedly criticized a recent controversial report by Judge Richard Goldstone - on behalf of the United Nations Human Rights Council - that accused Israel (as well as Hamas) of violating human rights during the Cast Lead campaign in Gaza.
"Richard Goldstone should be ashamed of himself - ashamed of himself - for working under the auspices of the U.N. Human Rights Council," Yoffie said, drawing a smattering of catcalls that the moderator promptly quelled.
A panel discussion held Monday before a standing-room-only crowd of about 150 focused on "The American Left and Israel," explored attempts to reconcile the tensions that exist between progressive beliefs and Zionism.
That inherent friction between nationalism and universalism often plays out against a backdrop of "taboos" that stifle rigorous debate by rendering certain topics "unsayable," at least in public, said panelist Michelle Goldberg, author of the best-selling book Kingdom Coming: the Rise of Christian Nationalism.
That environment also creates "a petri dish" for anti-Israel "conspiracy theories" on both the left and the right, added Goldberg, a self-described liberal and a Zionist. She warned that calls for a one-state solution in the Mideast will grow louder if liberals find it impossible to also be Zionists because they find the Jewish state's policies regarding Arabs unacceptable. J Street's approach may offer "the last hope" of avoiding that eventuality, she said.
Panelist Ezra Klein, a staff reporter and blogger at The Washington Post, conceded that fears over existential threats faced by Israel are genuine, including those voiced by his father, for example, but increasingly they have come to represent "an artifact" to which younger Jews often cannot relate. "There is going to be a wrenching change" in the coming generation, he told the listeners.
For the time being, though, change is impeded by fallout from 9/11, the second Intifada and repeated assertions that the so-called "Israel lobby" is a "huge octopus" whose tentacles are far-reaching, noted panelist J.J. Goldberg, the Forward's editorial director. "We're in a special time that is extremely polarizing," he added.
No doubt Hamas is "filled with murderous psychopaths," Klein continued, but "there is nothing to be gained by dwelling on that," an exercise, he contended, that only spawns an "endless" invocation of atrocities rather than meaningful dialogue.
Klein apparently was one of the few conference participants to mention by name J Street's chief rival, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee - although during his opening remarks, Ben-Ami stated that his organization's positions have often been "drowned out by those to our right with the intensity and passion of single-issue, single-minded advocates."
During the panel discussion, Klein briefly noted that J Street must proceed gradually because it is "not the behemoth AIPAC is." A spokesperson for AIPAC declined comment on the J Street conference as did a spokesperson for the Israel's embassy. (Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren declined an invitation.)
The Goldstone report also surfaced Monday afternoon during a panel discussion on "Human Rights In Israel." The report "was a trigger for internal debate in Israel" about human rights, said panelist Uri Zaki, a U.S. representative of the pro-peace group B'tselem. "If you really want a sustainable peace process," he added, and "we have to change something, it will be the human rights component ... that's why we don't have peace yet."
Oded Na'aman, a panelist representing the group Breaking the Silence (a coalition of former Israeli soldiers), maintained meanwhile that Israel has given up on preserving human rights, focusing instead on merely achieving peace by whatever means.
"Giving up on human rights in order to achieve peace," he explained, is counterproductive because it invariably subjects Palestinians to mistreatment.
David Kretzmer, a professor emeritus of international law at Hebrew University of Jerusalem, said that the American Jewish community must make it clear that it does not endorse actions of the Israeli government "that damage human rights of Arabs."
U.S. National Security Adviser General James Jones provided a tacit endorsement of J Street's efforts Tuesday when he told conference participants that President Barack Obama's administration believes "without equivocation" that "Israeli security and peace are inseparable."
Shortly before the conference, a dozen members of Congress withdrew from the event's host committee after being pressured by critics who maintained that the organization is out of step with the Jewish mainstream.
One of those politicians who remained, however, is Rep. Bob Filner (D-Calif.), who received a big round of applause from attendees on Monday afternoon after revealing that he voted against a 1994 resolution that condemned a Nation of Islam leader for making anti-Semitic remarks.
Filner said he opposed the measure targeting Khalid Abdul Muhammad, at the time a top lieutenant of Nation of Islam leader Louis Farrakhan, because it would have violated the First Amendment guarantee of free speech. He said he was the only Jewish member of Congress to oppose the measure.
After the vote, Filner complained, he began to get calls from unnamed members of the Jewish community who told him they weren't going to donate to his campaigns anymore - and he eventually lost $250,000 of contributions per election cycle as a result of his position on Muhammad.
"That kind of money is an intimidating factor," he said. "I raised a lot less money in succeeding years, but my conscience was cleared," he said to a rousing ovation.
Participant Jared Polis (D-Colo.) responded by saying that the pro-Israel lobby is no different than any other single-issue group in American politics, from labor unions to low-tax proponents to gun-rights supporters.
"This is not unique to American politics," he said of the so-called pro-Israel lobby, "nor is this even one of the most influential groups in either of the parties."
Washington Jewish Week's Adam Kredo and Debra Rubin contributed to this article.
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