by jonathan tobin
It is not exactly a secret that in some quarters AIPAC is seen as a vast, powerful organization that has run roughshod over Capitol Hill and imposed a pro-Israel slant on American foreign policy.
For those who have been asleep for the past couple years, that is, more or less, the thesis of John Mearsheimer and Stephen Walt, authors of “The Israel Lobby,” a book that has propelled those two otherwise respected but obscure scholars into stars of the left-wing academic speaking circuit.
This was the same line taken by former President Jimmy Carter in his book “Palestine: Peace Not Apartheid,” which similarly libeled American Jews and sought to delegitimize American supporters of the Jewish state.
Of course, both books are bunk.
The reason why the overwhelming majority of Americans back Israel has little to do with AIPAC’s lobbying prowess and everything to do with the fact that most of us rightly see Israel as a democratic ally assailed by authoritarians and Islamists.
AIPAC has done a pretty good job rallying this natural goodwill for Israel and turning it into votes for measures that buck up the alliance between Jerusalem and Washington.
Indeed, AIPAC has been doing this job for so long that it’s getting hard for a lot of us to remember that once upon a time, support for Zionism was once effectively countered by State Department Arabists and oil-industry advocates.
Despite the fact that anti-Israel members of Congress are a minority these days, foes of the Jewish state still make themselves heard with ease in Washington and in the academy. They are, after all, funded by a source that actually dwarfs AIPAC’s American Jewish donors: the Saudis and the Persian Gulf states.
But not all of AIPAC’s critics are avowed anti-Zionists. Some on the Jewish left are now seeking to challenge AIPAC via the creation of an organization calling itself J Street.
J Street wants to help promote American support for Palestinian and other Arab “moderates.” J Street’s goal will be to puncture AIPAC’s aura of power and make it clear that the “pro-peace” lobby is the true voice of American Jewry, as well as being more genuinely supportive of the interests of Israel.
It is a free country, and J Street has every right to use the reported $1.5 million raised on its behalf to say anything it wants to Congress or anyone else. But the group’s premise is flawed in several respects.
The first is the notion that Jewish criticism of Israel is being suppressed in this country.
In promoting its views, J Street is, after all, hardly alone. Other groups, including the influential Israel Policy Forum, already provide a forum for the “peace now” crowd. Nor are such views absent from the American media, which are flooded with abuse of Israel and where defenses of Jewish rights in the conflict, as well as the state’s measures of self-defense, are often lacking.
Moreover, the notion that AIPAC is a creature of Israel’s Likudnik right is another falsehood.
AIPAC, itself the creation of a broad coalition of groups, has always reflexively supported the point of view of all Israeli governments, including the ones that promoted the Oslo peace accords and the unilateral withdrawal from Gaza. Throughout the entire period of Oslo-inspired peace euphoria, as well as during the lead-up to the pullout from Gaza, AIPAC’s policies were a source of great frustration to right-wingers, who sought to outflank the lobby at times.
The notion underlying the whole initiative is based on belief in a creature as mythical as the unicorn: Palestinian peaceniks.
The current situation, in which the Islamists of Hamas clearly command the support of the majority of Palestinians, while being physically in control of Gaza, is deplorable. But it is a fact.
Diplomatic charlatans, such as Carter, may tirelessly promote the idea that Hamas wants peace, but no one believes him.
On the other hand, the Palestinian Authority — the body that Israel’s government and the Bush administration claim is moderate — is powerless to make peace, even if they really want it. But given the role that the authority plays in fomenting hate and terror against Jews and Israel, faith in their good intentions requires a substantial suspension of disbelief.
More to the point, in the aftermath of the Oslo dissolution, the second intifada and the rise of Hamas, the whole idea of American Jewry, as well as Israeli voters being split along right-wing and left-wing fault lines about peace, is an outdated concept.
The vast majority of Israelis and American Jews no longer support the idea of holding onto most of the territories. But the concept that Israeli concessions will transform the Palestinians into peace partners is discredited. The majority of Israelis would gladly make a land-for-peace deal. But they now understand that there is currently no one to make it with.
That’s a tough pill for many of us to swallow. For those who prefer to focus on false notions of Israeli intransigence, rather than the actual record of the last 15 years of failed attempts at peacemaking, J Street will provide an outlet.
In the coming months, J Street will probably use whatever influence it can muster to undermine the pro-Israel community’s continued attempts to ask Congress and the White House to hold Hamas and Fatah accountable for their support of terror.
They’ll probably fail. But that they will do so in the name of peace won’t make their position any less foolish, as well as irresponsible.
Jonathan Tobin is the executive editor of the Philadelphia Jewish Exponent, where this piece previously appeared.
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CopyrightJ, the Jewish news weekly of Northern California