[영어 원문] 유대인 단체의 새 강자, J스트리트

J Street Piece, Is it possible to counter AIPAC?

Eric Alterman

When Barack Obama met with sixteen leaders of separate American Jewish organizations this July, the guest list contained the usual suspects, plus one. Amidst the presidents and chairmen (and chairwomen) of hawkish old groups like the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, the Anti-Defamation League (ADL), the American Jewish Committee, and of course, the lobbying powerhouse, AIPAC, sat Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the new Jewish peace lobby “J Street.”

Ben-Ami’s presence could not have pleased a number of his fellow guests. In publications sympathetic to the more mainstream, often-neoconservative dominated American Jewish organizations J Street is treated with barely more affection than Hamas. Commentary’s Noah Pollak called it “contemptible,” “dishonest” and “anti-Israel.” James Kirchick of The New Republic termed it the “Surrender Lobby.” Michael Goldfarb of The Weekly Standard called J Street “obsequious” to terrorists and “hostile” to Israel. Whether or not one shares J Street’s views, that language is obvious evidence of panic among who fear that the appearance of J-Street, coming as it does in conjunction with the election of Obama, could imply the beginning of the end of what had once been their (nearly) unchallenged power to shape debate over US Middle East policy.

When it comes to the Arab-Israeli conflict, one must ask the obvious question: Why does US policy differ so profoundly from those of the rest of the world, particularly its European allies? America’s long-term relationship with Israel is the nation’s single most expensive one, whether measured terms of either blood or treasure. Not only does it cost taxpayers billions in military and economic aid, but it also inflames much of the Islamic world and fuels anti-American violence the world over. No other nation, save Israel, sees the conflict in the same terms as America with Israel almost always posed as the aggrieved aggressor and the Palestinians, the irrational attacker. And yet, however costly and controversial, the policies continue, largely unchanged, from administration to administration, and Congress to Congress.

American supporters of Israel’s hard liners—which includes a strong evangelical Christian component, in addition to its Jewish and neoconservative base--fail to see a problem. Europe’s evenhandedness on the Palestinian problem is driven, they argue, by traditional European (Christian) anti-semitism mingled with a desire to placate oil-rich Arab regimes. Add to this the fact that the allegedly anti-semitic media always sides with the underdog, which they mistakenly believe to be the Palestinians, and presto, you’ve got a de facto pro-Palestinian bias. Ipso facto, America is not the problem; the rest of the world, that’s the problem.

Of course the argument itself is but a small part of the reason why the Israelis always come out on top in Congress. The other answer is AIPAC, together with its ancillary organizations, who exercise a degree of power and influence over Congress that is simply unrivaled by any other foreign policy lobby and most other lobbies besides.

A mark of just how powerful the lobby had grown—even allowing for recent setbacks involving a now dropped espionage charge against two of its staffers—could be seen in the forced resignation of Charles “Chas” Freeman from consideration for chair of the National Intelligence Council in the Obama administration. Freeman was widely understood to have typical “Arabist” views about the Palestinian problem. But even though a strong campaign was mounted against Freeman—one writer even accused him of having ties to pedophiles—AIPAC itself claimed it had nothing whatsoever to do with it. For all anyone can prove, this may be true. But as Jonathan Freedland wrote inThe Guardian, even when one “discard[s] the mythology of ‘the Israel Lobby,’ the reality is bad enough.” That these people felt a need to destroy Freeman implies at least one of two complementary possibilities: Either a) they genuinely cared deeply who is analyzing U.S. intelligence data because they are worried it might stand in the way of an American or Israeli attack on Iran, just as the 2006 National Intelligence Estimate did, or b) they simply wished to advertise to any aspiring public servant the danger to his or her career of taking positions inconsistent with their view of what’s good for Israel regardless of whether the aspirant will play any role whatever in the making of said policy. In other words the “pro-Israel community” wanted Freeman’s head on a pole, and they got it. Meanwhile, AIPAC turns out to be so powerful, it can upend the presidents wishes without even bothering to take a position on them.

There are many good reasons why AIPAC is so powerful and why so American Jews defer to the judgment of its leadership when it comes to matters of just who should be empowered to speak for American Jews when it comes to US Middle East policy. But support for its hard-line agenda is not one of them. According to recent polls, for instance, undertaken by J-Street, by a76-24 percent, American Jews support a two-state, final status deal between Israel and the Palestinians along the lines of the agreement nearly reached eight years ago during the Camp David and Taba talks, an approach that is routinely condemned by AIPAC. And while the lobby has remained silent on the appointment by Bibi Netanyahu of the racist, revanchist Avigdor Lieberman as Israeli foreign minister, according to J. Street, when told about Lieberman's campaign platform requiring Arab citizens of Israel to sign loyalty oaths, as well as his threats against Arab Members of Knesset, American Jews opposed these positions by a 69 to 31 margin.

What’s more, American Jews remain liberals, while AIPAC is dominated by Neocons. Jews, have supported Democrats as loyally as any single constituency in the last election, going for Obama by roughly four to one. The result is a paradox. Organizations like AIPAC, funded by liberal American Jews, strategize with Republican conservatives on how to smear these same liberals Democrats.

Generationally, as well, J Street’s new approach to Congress and the American Jewish community comes at a propitious moment. As MJ Rosenberg, who recently resigned from the dovish Israel Policy Forum explains, AIPAC is dominated by "a much older crowd," but "their children and grandchildren don't have those views. As we get further from World War II, it's harder to scare young people into support for Israel. They will support Israel if they believe in Israel and if Israel appeals to them. But those scare tactics, 'write checks because there's going to be another Holocaust' -- that's doesn't work with the under-60 crowd. The people who demonstrated against the Vietnam War in the '60s, they're just not going to buy into the 'Hitler is coming' stuff.” He notes also that "Israel's popularity with American Jews has gone down since 1977, when Begin became prime minister. The way Israel was sold, the Leon Uris Israel, was the Israel of the kibbutz, this socialist paradise. And that's totally changed now.”

What’s more, while Israel remains far more popular among Americans than do the Palestinians—a survey by the Global Attitudes Project of the Pew Research Center for the People and the Press survey taken during the fighting in Gaza found that 49% of Americans are more sympathetic to Israel than to the Palestinians while only 11% prefer the Palestinians--that sympathy is far more in evidence among conservatives where the proportion is 7-1 in its favor than among self-described liberals, where it falls to 3-2.

J-Street seeks to employ some of the viral marketing techniques moveon.org and the Obama campaign to change the face of Jewish political influence in Washington to better comport with the actual views of American Jews. And while it is too early to judge its ultimate success, so far, it is growing in a fashion that dwarfs all previous such efforts. In the eighteen months since it began, it has created an $3 million organization with a staff of twenty-two. This does not really compare to AIPAC’s $70.6 million budget, but it is an auspicious start. According to the prestigious National Journal, what it called “the pro-Israel political powerhouse that raised nearly a million dollars in the 2008 election cycle” for pro-peace congressional candidates. What’s more, J-Street is not only coordinating its efforts with other, smaller such organizations—many of which have been hard hit by the funding collapse of so many left-of-center organizations in 2009—but has also been absorbing some of them and therefore rationalizing the efforts of their staff and supporters. Its first national convention to be held October 25-28, will include eleven peace groups including the more established Americans for Peace Now, Israel Policy Forum, and the New Israel Fund. J-Street absorbed the Union of Progressive Zionism last October which gave it access to a small but dedicated network of peace-oriented Jewish students. According to recent reports, it is also poised to take over Brit Tzedek, which claims to have 48,000 volunteers across the country. Inside Washington, it took a big step in increasing its credibility among so-called heavy-hitters with the hiring of Hadar Susskind, a former IDF combat veteran, who had been, until recently, vice president and Washington director of the mainstream Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the organized Jewish community’s umbrella group for advocacy on domestic issues. These efforts, together with powerful endorsements from former Israel generals and intelligence officials make the predictable “red” (read “Arab”) baiting efforts of Neocons inside and outside the media more difficult to sustain among disinterested parties. (Some predict an eventual takeover of the Israel Policy Forum as well, as the Jewish newspaper, the Forward, recently reported that it is “on the brink” and is maintaining itself “from month to month” with just two staffers and a decline in donations down to $1.7 million in 2007.)

Much will depend on how the media, both Jewish and secular, chooses to cover its forthcoming convention. Ben-Ami explains that one of its primary goals is to demonstrate once and for all that the Jewish peace camp “isn’t just 10 people gathering in a basement” and to give its adherents the opportunity to “look and see each other and feel less like lone voices in the wilderness.” Not long before he was forced to resign his office (and eventually indicted), Israel’s previous prime minister Ehud Olmert predicted "if the two-state solution collapses, Israel will face a South-Africa style struggle for political rights." Ashould that occur, he warned, “the state of Israel is finished." Just how successful Barack Obama is likely to be when the time comes to help Israel save itself from this fate—and to offer the Palestinians a reasonable hope for meaningful national self-determination and statehood by finally demanding the difficult territorial concessions that will make that possible--may just depend on the success of these once-lone voices.