The comment about Jews is not as off as this post makes it suggest. The idea that Jews don't criticize each other in public is hardly contradicted by the fact that we do little but criticize each other in private.
And the J street phenomenon is more notable for how long it has taken to arrive and how much trouble it has maintaining support. The great majority of jews in this country do not agree politically with much that AIPAC is doing. Despite this there has been a Jewish reluctance to criticize AIPAC because they represent Jews. You now have Jewish Senators who agree with J-Street on the issues bowing to AIPAC pressure to not attend a J-Street event precisely because J-street attacks other Jews.
This is all rather silly because when Jews were a weak minority there was some sense to this kind of banding together. But while even more a minority, we are not at all weak at this point. And yet AIPAC has largely been able to play on the reluctance of Jews to publicly attack Jews to speak in the name of Jewish Americans while pushing a view that a minority of Jewish Americans actually hold.
It is true that when we do criticize each other publicly we can be caustic. But that is jut our style.
Also, I'd be remiss if I didn't that mention that Goldblog has been on it ("it" being J Street v. AIPAC). Though not from the same angle as Lon. That's TNC--sowing discord in the Jewish community since, uhm, 2008.
The Beautiful Struggle: A Father, Two Sons, and an Unlikely Road to Manhood 
As a minor correction I should note that my first time being quoted in the body of this blog actually coincides with my being surprised to be quoted on Goldblog on the same subject (albeit not as long a take on it). So my take on it can be seen there as well.
Lon's comment flows together smoothly if each of the "facts" that he cites were true. I'm not convinced, however, that they are. Let's take some of them one by one.
"The great majority of jews in this country do not agree politically with much that AIPAC is doing. Despite this there has been a Jewish reluctance to criticize AIPAC because they represent Jews."
I don't know what Lon bases this on. The principal things that AIPAC stands for (i.e., "much that" they do) are strengthening the Israeli-US alliance and maintaining current levels of financial support for Israel by the U.S. AIPAC supports a two-state solution. I sense that many in the Jewish community are uncomfortable at AIPAC's perceived effectiveness, but that seems to be classic Jewish fear that Jewish power will bring out the anti-semites. (I admit that this fear is not unwarranted.) If there is an absence of criticism of AIPAC over the years, and I don't think there really has been, it is more likely because Jews support Israel and so does AIPAC.
"You now have Jewish Senators who agree with J-Street on the issues bowing to AIPAC pressure to not attend a J-Street event precisely because J-street attacks other Jews."
Please. It's not just Jewish members of congress who are not attending the J Street conference. Certain righty blogs have brought to members of Congress' attention some of the unsavory speakers and bloggers that are speaking at J Street conference and those members have decided that J Street is not exactly pro-Israel the way they thought.
"It is true that when we do criticize each other publicly we can be caustic. But that is jut our style."
Ah, stereotypes. How about the stereotype of Jewish intelligence? I'm afraid Lon's posting proved its falsity.
Fuck you and your insults, mrein.
Don't feed the trolls, dhwhite. They have a voracious appetite.
You're right. I'm sorry. Usually I can ignore that kind of unprovoked, cowardly bullshit insult, but it just got under my skin for some reason. Let me step away from the computer for a bit.
You're calling me "cowardly" and "bullshit"?
Don't you find it ironic that you're criticizing me for what you perceived to be an insult and that your response to my incivility involves nothing more than saying "Fuck you"?
When you drag a conversation into the gutter, it's not surprising that it gets dirty.
The last line is over the top. Next one gets the ban. Make your point and leave the taunts at the door.
My apologies to Lon and TNC. You are correct. I should have just stated my lack of appreciation for the negative Jewish stereotype. No reason to use insults rather than attack arguments. Kind of like "show don't tell."
Bravo mrein,
Did you really reduce AIPAC's positions to the point that they are not different from J streets, argue that something was likely not true but explain why it is true, try to show that I was wrong in what I said about the Jewish Senators because they are not the only ones of whom it is true, and call me stupid all in that brief comment?
That was a very economical use of words.
Thanks!
AIPAC and J Street have the same positions? I was not aware that J Street supported strengthening the Israeli-US alliance and maintaining current levels of financial support for Israel by the U.S. To the contrary, J Street has stated support for Obama's desire to put "daylight" between Israel and the U.S. (while still remaining an ally, of course) in order to be a "fair broker." This is not the same as AIPAC's position, whatever their respective merits. Also, I have not seen any statement from J Street about maintaining financial support for Israel from the U.S. Whatever the merits of the two organization's respective positions, they are not the same. Since those are the chief AIPAC positions I mentioned, I don't see how I said they are not different from J Street's positions.
As to your other retort, I think the fact that non-Jewish as well as Jewish members of congress have canceled on J Street (and I think the majority of cancellees are non-Jewish) is highly responsive to your point that Jews are shunning J Street as some kind of "banding together." Rather, the members of congress are canceling because they believe, rightly or wrongly, that J Street is not as "pro-Israel" as they thought. It's not because "Jews don't want to criticize other Jews or associate with those who do." It's because appearing to be "pro-Israel" is important to many members of Congress and J Street has put itself in a position, by inviting certain people to speak to call into question whether they fit that description.
Please note that I'm not arguing whether or not J Street is "pro-Israel." I'm sure they are, in their own way.
You really think that most Jews think it is more important that there be no daylight between the US and Israel than that the US act as a broker for peace? At least you have put some meat on your description, but you have gotten the American Jewish position on the situation wrong, at least as far as Jewish voters seem to see it.
AIPAC pushed the line that Obama, because of his willingness to point out when Israel was acting as an impediment to peace, had a Jewish problem. He did not. Netanyahu when he came here knew that he could count on AIPAC to side with him against Obama's criticisms, he was surprised that most of the Jews in Congress would not.
What I was pointing out was how vacuous your defense of AIPAC was. It is far from clear that strenthening US ties with Israel involves having no independent thoughts about Israel. Once one fills that in, then American Jewish opinion diverges from that if AIPAC. So what you said is true as long as it is kept vacuous. Is a dysfunctional relationship really stronger than a healthy one?
Of course there are legitimate disputes on the issues you raised. It happens that most Jews in this country still have positions closer to J Street than to AIPAC. When the positions are kept vacuous that is hidden. When they are spelled out, what you said no longer answers what I said.
The claim that AIPAC supports a two state solution is equally vacuous. The current Israel government policy is to support maintaining the status quo while bemoaning the fact that there is no partner for peace and wishing that there could be a two state solution, while continuing to build settlements that makes such a solution less possible. If that counts as supporting a two state solution the claim is simply meaningless.
If by a two state solution one means a situation in which one of the states controls the borders, and possibly even some of the internal territory, of the other state, then it goes from vacuous to fradulant.
Given that these things have all been lumped together under supporting the two state solution, either you are uninformed about how that phrase has been used, or you are being a bit dishonest in describing the AIPAC position in terms that clearly better describe the J street position.
As for the Jewish Senators who signed up for the J street convention and then backed out, first I am not sure there are actually non-Jewish Senators who did that. Many Senators do not agree more with J Street than AIPAC, and one Jewish Senator clearly agrees more with AIPAC than J Street and so never signed up in the first place. But there might be some, I would push the issue more if I could see its relevance. I suppose you seem to have read into what I said some kind of imaginary antipathy to Jews which if applied to the situation would make these non-Jews relevant. But since I have never figured out what Jewish stereotypes I am supposedly playing on, I can't figure out how you are disproving these stereotypes.
What I find funnier is the supposed evidence that I was saying something wrong about the Senators. But you seem to be acknowledging that those Senators bowed to lobbying pressure to not attend the convention. Are you trying to suggest that Chuck Shumer was convinced by right wing pressure rather than AIPAC pressure? That is pretty silly. But at least you did not pretend that it was policy differences that were used to apply the pressure. Instead the idea was that they would be tarred by association with some of the speakers there. Although, not surprisingly, you did not name any speakers or any reason why Senators should be unwilling to be at a conference with such people.
In other words you just described the same strategy I described of lobbyists making the Senators look anti-Israel for attending the conference, despite the fact that you have just claimed you don't actually think J Street is anti-Israel (at least in their way).
So why not just say, yes we put pressure on the Senators to not attend and we are proud of it? Instead you are in the weird position of denying that there is this unwillingness to be associated with criticism of AIPAC while illustrating how it occurs. That's just silly.
Whew. Now I know why you were praising my economical use of words.
First, who ever said that "strenthening US ties with Israel involves having no independent thoughts about Israel"? That's quite a straw man. This whole discussion began under the (true) premise that Jews disagree about everything, no matter what others may think. J Street may present itself as the first organization to hold its views, but it's not. Perhaps it will be more successful than the others though.
You state, without citing any data, that "most Jews in this country still have positions closer to J Street than to AIPAC." First of all, it remains a mystery to me how AIPAC can get so well financed and become so popular if no one agrees with it. Can you think of any other entity that is able to get people to give it money under those circumstances? But aside from that implausibility, I don't think you're right. It's hard to get good polling results on Jews because we're such a small minority, but check out the results of this recent poll: http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1117995.html#. In apparent disagreement with J Street, a majority of American Jews: (1) support a military strike on Iran, (2) are opposed to a freezing on all settlement activity, and (3) oppose the division of Jerusalem. You might need to meet more Jews.
As for your dismissal of a two state solution where the Palestinian state is demilitarized, etc., I'm not so sure such a state is "fraudulant" [sic]. You can be sure that the Kurds, for example, would accept such a state. And, more germanely, J Street itself supports a plan where the new Palestinian state would be demilitarized and not have control of its own borders. I had no idea that they, like me, supported such a vacuous and fraudulent position.
Now to the J Street conference. You state "first I am not sure there are actually non-Jewish Senators who" signed up and then backed out. Since you don't have Google, let me help you. Here are non-Jewish senators who signed up and then backed out: Gilibrand, Lincoln, Cochran, and (likely) Kerry. Indeed, the only Jewish senator to back out was Schumer. As for other members of congress, those who backed out include: Castle, Ross, Boswell, Salazar, McCaul, Towns, and Coble.
As for why they dropped out, what evidence do you have of AIPAC pressure? AIPAC has publicly denied any such pressure but maybe you have evidence that they are violating the law and acting secretly. Or maybe they backed out because J Street is against Iranian sanctions and they all support it.
You are correct that I didn't name the possibly offensive speakers who members of congress would not want to be associated with. Rather than make another list, I would suggest you read the news and check to see which speakers J Street dropped from their program for that reason.
Finally, you want me to admit that "we" put pressure on members of Congress not to attend. I personally did nothing, but assuming I represent some sort of larger group, I don't think anything wrong was done. Here's what happened. J Street asked members of congress to serve on its host committee. Many did. Other people brought to those members' attention some of J Street's positions and some of the people speaking at the conference. And some of them dropped off. That's democracy. And everyone's allowed to participate.
mrein,
The Kurds do not accept being demilitarized when they are part of Iraq, you really think they would accept being demilitarized as a separate country?
If you want to believe that Senators are backing out of the J Street conference because they find J Street's positions objectionable and not because they are feeling political pressure from the idea that they would be associated with "unsavory speakers and bloggers" as someone once claimed, oh right that part is non-operative now it is because J Street opposes sanctions against Iran.
I tend to put less faith in polls by an advocate group that finds that more than half of the group polled favors an option while half of the group polled favors an option that is inconsistent with the one that the great majority favors. The polls seem to show that jews have inconsistent beliefs. That is not uncommon from polls by advocacy groups. But if you want to put a lot of faith into it feel free. But it does look like AIPAC is convinced that the American Jews agree with AIPAC. I don't place as much significance on that as you do. AIPAC was also convinced that Obama had a jewish problem, it turned out that wasn't quite true, in the sense of being ludicrously false.
It would be nice, given the policy differences between people like yourself and J Street if the empasis of criticizing J Street was their issues rather than innuendo about speakers and bloggers. I have yet to hear you point to anything about J Street that should be outside the bounds of legitimate debate. And yet you seem to think it is a good thing that Senators have been convinced to shun the meetings (although I gather some are sending representatives).
Note that what you are pointing to with pride is the situation that I pointed to with dismay. Criticism of a group representing jews is met with shunning rather than engagement.
I still take you to be proving my point more than you are countering it.
mrein,
I forgot to mention that I did not miss the sleight of hand involved in addressing my claim of a fraudulent state.
I said that a state in which one state controls the borders of the other is fraudulent. For reasons of your own, you switched that to a demilitarized state. I don't think that a demilitarized state is fraudulent, although I suspect that eventually a Palestinians state would have an army. There is nothing wrong with a demilitarized state, and as a temporary measure that might make peace more likely.
But there is no two state solution until the Palestinians control the flow of goods in and out of their territory (from borders not involving Israel of course, Israel can control its own border). But the current situation in Gaza shows how ludicrous it is to pretend that a state is administering itself when it cannot control the flow of goods into the country.
There may be some non-dishonest basis for changing what I said into what you said. They don't look that similar to me, so I am not sure what that basis would be.
Lon,
Feel free to have the last word about this, because this will be my last posting and my last visit to this comment thread. I just want to move on, but feel free to claim victory.
You said, "I have yet to hear you point to anything about J Street that should be outside the bounds of legitimate debate. And yet you seem to think it is a good thing that Senators have been convinced to shun the meetings (although I gather some are sending representatives)." You are right. There is nothing about J Street that should be outside the bounds of legitimate debate. I have no desire to prevent them from participating in the debate. If people agree with them, they will prevail. I only think it's a good thing when members of congress make their determination based on full information. After receiving that information, they can make up their own mind and many of them have.
Correction: I do think calling Israelis Nazis is beyond the bounds of legitimate debate. J Street evidently agrees since they cancelled the poetry panel that included speakers who have done that.
I'm sorry if I misunderstood your position that you favor temporary demilitarization even though you don't favor any control of Palestine or their lack of complete control of their own borders. I'm also sorry that you missed my statement in my prior post that "J Street itself supports a plan where the new Palestinian state would be demilitarized and not have control of its own borders." Had you read and understood that statement, it would have kept you from falsely accusing me of engaging in a "dishonest" "sleight of hand." I imagine you read my post, so I'm sorry I didn't write clearly enough for you to understand.
Now, if you feel it is "ludicrous . . . to pretend that a state is administering itself when it cannot control the flow of goods into the country," then J Street also believes in such a ludicrous position. I congratulate you on bringing us together. We both believe that one or more of J Street's positions are ludicrous.
Ah, stereotypes. How about the stereotype of Jewish intelligence? I'm afraid Lon's posting proved its falsity.
Oy! I think that was a little caustic, mrein!
That was the joke. Another Jewish stereotype is our humor.
Yeah. Maybe if it had been funny, we would have laughed.
Let it go. He apologized.
Yes, Dad. (looks down, swipes her toe along the carpet).
Hmmmm ... not much "sticking together" going on in here!
A previous commenter says, "AIPAC supports a two state solution."
Yet from this non-Jewish guy's (with a History degree and a Jewish daughter being raised by her two mommies) perspective, isn't the whole problem that the Israeli government since the '70's (practically) and since the '90's (officially) supposedly "supports" a two state solution, yet in practice they define this in an unrealistic way that can never by acceptable to the other side, they throw up new demands whenever the other side accedes to one of their demands (because of huge pressure from the US govt.), and they generally make it clear that they will never actually do anything realistic or practical to bring a two state solution closer in any way?
As ever, the Palestinian/Arab side may be just as hypocritical in their professions of devotion to peace ... yet the pro-Likud folks cannot realize how they actually hurt their cause among those of us who are not wedded to either side by descending into irrational one-sidedness -- "Israel has never done anything wrong and could not possibly ever do anything wrong."
We're sick of it. Neither side wants peace, put some barbed wire around the whole place and let them go at it. And stop the American taxpayer's subsidization of one side way more than the other.
If by "on it," you mean that Jeffrey Goldberg continues to discount and belittle dissent from the straight-up AIPAC/official-Israel-is-always-right line, then, yes. Goldblog is on it.
Goldberg is vastly misrepresenting J Street (which has said time and again that it is in this fight in order to preserve Israel's status as a Jewish democracy) and American Jewish opinion (which, as I said in the earlier post, now stands at 75% of Americans Jews backing a two-state solution and 2/3 supporting American pressure on both sides to achiever that solution) -- but yes. He is on it.
He pisses me the hell off, and the time or two that I shared an op/ed page with him made me wish for re-zoning, but yes. He remains on it.
Not that I'm bitter. Or enraged. Or anything.
Again, I will blog pimp, because if I don't, I will be tempted to take over this entire space with ranting and heartbreak. So, here, this is where I do my usual ranting on the subject: http://emilylhauserinmyhead.wordpress.com/category/israelpalestine/
As a serious (actually award-winning) Jew, I have to make several things clear.
First, we have been arguing publicly for 5000 years. The reason our religion started is because Abraham thought his father was a dick. We disagree all the time, but we also understand what an existential threat is and when you need to stick together. And let me make clear that at this point there are no serious existential threats to American Jews, and only moderate ones for Israel. There is no reason not to hold Israel to the highest possible moral standards. We have nothing to fear.
Second, I have to say that two thing which are immensely important to is s good sense of humor. TNC has that shit flowing out of his ears...how can you beat "That's TNC--sowing discord in the Jewish community since, uhm, 2008."
In mrein's defense, there's some truth to his statement. AIPAC adapts to the realities of politics in the US and Israel in its mission for a strong US-Israeli relationship. So as Israeli politics lurched rightward, and Christian Zionists in the US became as prominent as Jews in pro-Israel activism, AIPAC went rightward as well. Ultimately, though, this develops a self-sustaining momentum of its own - the leaders at AIPAC are now much more conservative than they once were.
But AIPAC still isn't a monolith - I know several AIPAC staffers, well. They abhor the settlements. But they still love Israel, and they take the long view that being pro-Israel is about much more than individual policies.
Look, if American Jews actually bought the official line of AIPAC, no way would 70% have voted for Obama, who, according to the media last year, scared the crap out of us.
Meanwhile, this weekend I got the disturbing news that my 22-year-old cousin, raised Orthodox in Jerusalem by peacenik parents who immigrated from Iraq and the US, always a very sweet and studious girl, is living with her husband and baby in a freaking tent on a unauthorized hilltop settlement in the West Bank that the government has already kicked them off of twice. It's very weird, disorienting, when the "crazies" start popping up in your own family. And this is a microcosm of what American Jews are experiencing.