Op-Ed! (No. 2)

Logo of "jweekly.com." (no endorsement implied)

While I was very pleased to see it, I was taken slightly off guard by this week’s publication of my second op-ed in the “J,” the local Jewish community newspaper. I had expected some additional editing to boil it down to the usual 750 word limit for the J’s “local voice” section. Otherwise this companion blog piece would have been up much sooner. Readers who haven’t seen the op-ed yet can read it via the “J's” electronic version, jweekly.com. Here is a hyperlink to the article, entitled Does Israel advocacy have to be defined by the extremes? This article is an abridged (and hopefully improved) version of a piece I wrote for the blog last year entitled Why AIPAC and J Street Both Make Me Uncomfortable.

One of the reasons I am highlighting the “J’s” electronic version is that readers of the print version of the “J” are looking at the wrong “Robert White.” Believe it or not, apparently two people by that name have written for the “J” and while the error was corrected in the electronic version (with profuse apologies from the “J’s” editor, Sue Fishkoff), it was too late to correct the print edition. I sure hope the “other” Robert White is in at least partial agreement with what I have written as I fully anticipate a slew of (hopefully verbal only) brickbats to start flying as this is such a hot button issue for so many in the Jewish community. Let’s start with that as a discussion point.

Jweekly.com permits the posting of comments and while the posting function is “moderated” (screened to an extent), the strengths and weaknesses of the Internet as a instant medium were amply illustrated by the two comments that went up in response to the electronic version of the piece. You will find them at the end of the electronic version of the op-ed.

The first comment was, frankly, bizarre. Go have a look for yourself (the “J” will appreciate some tangible evidence of traffic being “driven” to its site – again, here is a link to the electronic version of the op-ed). The writer apparently does not realize that both David Ben Gurion and Golda Meir were Socialists or that Israel’s government for over 30 years was led by Socialist-dominated coalitions. It took one of my wise office colleagues to point to me out that the word “Socialist” apparently terrifies Jews (principally men) of a certain age and it certainly seems to be the case that the commenter stopped reading when he read the dreaded “S” word. So let me set that particular commenter’s concerns at rest. Mr. Cohn: I am just as much a Socialist as the President. And if that keeps you up at night, I really can’t help it.

In contrast, the second commenter asked some serious questions. Here is a slightly shortened and rearranged version of the dialogue I had with him:

[From “aunursa:”]

Mr. White: Netanyahu has stated that he is willing to accept a Palestinian state. Bibi has said that he is ready to give up more than 90 percent of the West Bank—if the Palestinians are truly serious in a peace treaty that ends the conflict and provides security for Israel. That doesn’t sound like a ‘70’s era position from a Likud Party leader.

And I’m not sure what you expect the American pro-Israel community to do.

[My reply:]

Dear aunursa: While I don’t know that I have the koach (strength) to respond to every comment that’s posted to JWeekly, you ask some fair questions. I think there are two issues here. One is context. The Prime Minister has said (and done) a *lot* of things. I don’t think that context is addressed in your comment, which takes one particular remark in isolation. On your second point, here’s something the American pro-Israel community can do. They can tell the Prime Minister that it’s crazy to replace someone with the stature of Michael Oren with someone whose biography strongly suggests that he’s a political operative and little else. They can tell the Prime Minister that it’s self-destructive to initiate construction of housing units outside the Green Line while Vice President Biden is on an official visit. They can tell the Prime Minister that it’s equally self-destructive to try to meddle in U.S. Presidential elections. They can tell the Prime Minister to take seriously the polling numbers suggesting that younger American Jews are less attached to Israel than their parents. Just some examples. . . Thanks for reading. Bob White

“aunursa” expressed an interest in continuing the discussion here on the blog and I welcome his comments. (The blog’s comment policy can be found here.) [Ed.  His comment appears at the bottom of this post.]  To expand just a little on my response to him, I believe that true friends of Israel have a duty of honest reporting. I think someone has to tell (and hopefully convince) the Prime Minister that, in the long term, the kind of support that Israel has historically enjoyed from the United States is far from assured and that ignoring the long-term is both bad politics and bad policy. I actually addressed this issue last year in a predecessor piece to Why AIPAC and J Street Both Make Me Uncomfortable. The piece discussed the visit to San Francisco of Israel’s President, Shimon Peres. If “aunursa” and my other readers would not mind jumping over to that blog piece, I think it fairly expressed my views on that issue. Here is the name (and hyperlink to) the piece: What’s Missing From the “J” – No. 1. (Ironic name, all things considered, but the “J” was not publishing me back then.)

As I note in What’s Missing From the “J” – No. 1, one of the tensions here is that there is a disconnect between the world view of American Jews and a predominant majority of the Israeli public. For the Prime Minister to take into account the views of American Jews like me he would have to buck political forces strong enough to bring down his government. I wish I could offer “aunursa” a quick fix for this but I don’t have one beyond trying to appeal to the Israeli public to take a longer term view than its politicians (who, both here and in Israel tend to focus on the short term and their political survival). Yitzchak Rabin z’l understood this; sadly, it does not seem that Prime Minister Netanyahu does.

There is a weird stylized way that Middle East peace negotiations seem to play out. Both Prime Minister Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas periodically make statements indicating a willingness to negotiate and each pays at least lip service to a two-state solution. But those pronouncements are also typically hedged with conditions or something happens that gives the other an excuse to break off negotiations. The extremes on both sides will, if necessary to their agenda, foment incidents intended to derail discussion by giving the other side a pretext for backing out. Thus badly timed construction projects and missile attacks from Gaza both serve the perverse purposes of extremists on both sides to maintain an unstable status quo, with each side betting that the long term will turn out better for them. For the Arabs, the wait is to see if shifts in world public opinion (and ultimately American public opinion) will undermine support for Israel while Iran advances its nuclear agenda and Hizbollah gains strength. For Israel, it is continued Arab disunity (remember Abba Eban’s famous quote that the Palestinians never miss an opportunity to miss an opportunity).

Again, I have no magic bullet here but I have a strong belief that the AIPAC approach does not serve Israel in the long term, however successful (and dazzlingly so) has been its success up to now. As for J Street, I just cannot escape the conclusion that its big tent is too big – how many J Streeters would respond affirmatively to what I call my personal litmus test – do you or do you not unconditionally support Israel’s right to exist? (This is actually a pretty effective test, take a look at the comment to my blog post entitled: Book Review – Mike Peled, The General’s Son (Just World [sic.] Books (2012)). An apparently not-too-bright commenter would not engage when I asked him this question and no great loss there.)

After the op-ed came out on Jweelky.com, I got a phone call from Mervyn Danker, the Director of the San Francisco Regional Office of the American Jewish Committee (“AJC”) (www.ajc.org). Mervyn was calling both to congratulate me on the blog post and offer support. I think I flummoxed him just a bit when I explained that we actually knew one another and had met numerous times – the picture of the “wrong” Robert White had thrown him off.

Mervyn forwarded to me a post by the national Executive Director of AJC, David Harris, in the Jerusalem Post. Here’s a link to the post, entitled: Ah, the joys of Centrism! I have to say that I’m impressed, particularly by the fact that AJC, unlike AIPAC, is prepared to take on Israeli politicians who seem intent on undermining the peace process. I don’t know that AJC is my idealized “MIDPAC” but I think my readers might well want to check it out and see if it is a better fit for them than either AIPAC or J Street.

As for me, as I explained to Mervyn Danker, I’m not much of a joiner these days. I spend a fair amount of time working to support my independent minyan, which, as an all volunteer organization, is very much a DIY (“do it yourself”) kind of body. (If you’re curious you can read about it at The Role of Hebrew In the Prayer Service – Fourth In A Series (Discovering the Mission Minyan)). So my plate is pretty full these days, and, frankly, I prefer to hang out with Jews with whom I have something in common religiously. But that is not true of everyone and friends and acquaintances who have been involved in the AJC over the years have found it very fulfilling. (Don’t confuse the AJC with the similarly named “American Jewish Congress" (not Committee), which seems to be largely moribund). Judging from the AJC website, they are alive and well and doing good work.

So it’s now time to sit back and see what next week’s “J” brings, as I fully expect some heated (and quite overheated) reactions to the post. I have a pretty good idea of what to expect, and I’ll likely be discussing common themes in those responses once they are out there for all to see.