For a glimpse of how Israel plays out in an American election year, recall the day in September when then-Democratic presidential frontrunner Howard Dean told reporters he would like to see the United States take an "even-handed" approach to Israeli-Palestinian negotiations. Thirty-four Congressional Democrats responded by sending Dean a harsh letter questioning whether he shared their "unequivocal support for Israel's right to exist," and anonymous e-mails inundated Jewish listservs, accusing him of abandoning Israel. Dean promptly appeared on CNN to defend Israel's assassinations of Palestinian militants.
EMENDATION: In "The Jewish Divide on Israel" [July 12], Esther Kaplan referred to two Hillel program directors who resigned after being reprimanded for their articles supporting Israeli and Palestinian peace activism. In fact, one of the two, Aron Gutman of Ithaca College, was let go because of funding problems. He had, however, been taken to task for his Ithaca Journal article supporting Israeli and Palestinian peace activists and told Kaplan, "My desire to depart related to these issues"--constraints on expressing his views on Israel/Palestine. (7/28/04)
-
Labor's Growing Pains
Esther Kaplan: SEIU battles the California Nurses and dissidents within its own ranks.
-
Workers Memorial Day
Esther Kaplan: This week marked Workers Memorial Day, when unions and advocacy organizations held memorials and protests to honor those who have died on the job.
-
The Culture War Descends on Columbia
Esther Kaplan: David Horowitz's Islamofascism Awareness Week hits the already beleaguered campus.
-
For Pro-Life Bloggers, a New Hubris
Esther Kaplan: Relishing Samuel Alito's impact on the Supreme Court, pro-life bloggers are already laying strategies to win hearts and minds in a transformed legal landscape.
-
Just Say Não
Esther Kaplan: Brazil turns down $40 million in defiance of Bush's AIDS policy.
-
The Bush AIDS Machine
Esther Kaplan: Bush did something Reagan never dreamed of: He made AIDS his own.
-
Follow the Money
Esther Kaplan: The Christian right's comeback has been fueled by Bush Administration grants.
Or consider May 18, when the hawkish American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) held its annual conference in Washington. House majority leader Tom DeLay showed up to speak, along with two assistant secretaries of state, an assistant secretary of defense and the President himself. Bush's speech was regularly interrupted by cheering and chants of "Four more years!" The meeting of the Jewish community's most prominent voice on Capitol Hill may as well have been a Republican political rally.
These events reveal a stubborn political fact: that AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents, along with their powerful fellow travelers, Christian Zionists, have forged a bipartisan consensus in Washington that Middle East policy must privilege the "special relationship" between the United States and Israel. In practice, this solid consensus means putting Israeli security before peace; supporting even such extreme Israeli measures as the separation wall and assassinations; and delegitimizing the Palestinian leadership. In AIPAC's view, even Bush's unambitious Middle East "road map" conceded too much to the Palestinians. Until the late 1980s, when the PLO publicly affirmed Israel's right to exist, such positions may truly have represented the vast majority of American Jews. But ever since the 1993 Oslo Accord proved that negotiations were possible, surveys have consistently found that 50 to 60 percent of American Jews favor ending the occupation and dismantling settlements in return for peace.
The trouble is, AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents never fully embraced the Oslo thaw, and once peace talks failed in 2000, they snapped back to their hard-line stance. The combination of Palestinian suicide bombings, the election of Sharon, the ultimate hawk, as prime minister and Bush's with-us-or-against-us "war on terror" allowed the AIPAC consensus to harden throughout the Jewish establishment. After 9/11, United Jewish Communities, the joint Jewish charity, decided to direct funds to Jewish settlers for the first time. And 2002 was a banner year: At a pro-Israel rally in Washington that April, busloads of demonstrators from Jewish social-service agencies and Hillels (the network of Jewish campus organizations) booed Deputy Defense Secretary Paul Wolfowitz for speaking about Palestinian suffering, and the Anti-Defamation League (ADL) and other groups published manuals on how to discredit "anti-Israel propaganda" on campuses. "Arafat had a chance to move toward peace and he rejected it," says Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the leader of the 1.5 million-strong Reform Jewish movement, and one of mainstream Jewry's most outspoken voices against settlement expansion. "We rallied to Israel's side out of the sense that it was the right thing to do, and out of real anger toward the Palestinians." The joke used to be two rabbis, three congregations; over the past two or three years it's become 6 million American Jews, one official opinion.
- Get The Nation at home (and online!) for 75 cents a week!
- If you like this article, consider making a donation to The Nation.

Buzzflash
del.icio.us
Digg
Facebook
Newsvine
Reddit
