Matt Yglesias

Israel Project Leader Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi Analogizes Barack Obama to Avigdor Lieberman

J Street did a video attacking neo-fascist Israeli Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman and those American Jewish groups who’ve decided to sell their principles out and become Lieberman apologists. James Besser has a worthwhile article touching on this incident and the entire Lieberman issue that includes this bizarre argument:

Jennifer Laszlo Mizrahi, founder and president of The Israel Project, conceded that Lieberman, dramatically different from the suave, Americanized Netanyahu, is a lightning rod for many American Jews.

“Different can be scary,” said Laszlo Mizrahi, whose group works with media to present Israel favorably. “There were people who thought Barack Hussein Obama was scary because of his middle name.”

This is true. There were people who thought Barack Hussein Obama was scary because of his middle name. And there are also people who think Lieberman is scary because of his repudiation of the Annapolis process, his hostility to equal rights for minority populations in Israel, for his racist campaign tactics, and for his apparent criminal conduct. It’s not entirely clear, however, what the analogy between the two situations is.

Pipes Hails Avigdor Lieberman’s Rejectionism

Daniel Pipes, head of the Middle East Forum outfit that recently took a victory lap over its role in spiking Chas Freeman’s nomination, is also psyched about Avigdor Lieberman as Foreign Minister:

Avigdor Lieberman became foreign minister of Israel yesterday. He celebrated his inauguration with a maiden speech that news reports indicate left his listeners grimacing, squirming, and aghast. The BBC, for example, informs us that his words prompted “his predecessor Tzipi Livni to interrupt and diplomats to shift uncomfortably.”

Too bad for them – the speech leaves me elated.

Pipes is more right-wing than the bulk of the “pro-Israel” establishment. But it’s telling that that establishment regards Pipes as a perfectly acceptable comrade-in-arms, while seeking every opportunity to trash the pro-peace J Street. It’s a telling indication of where things really stand, and a welcome pretext to link to J Street’s rather different take on Lieberman.

What’s Driving the Jihad Against J Street

An interesting article by James Besser in New York Jewish Week asks why the Jewish American establishment is driven into such a frenzy by J Street, when it’s hardly the first dovish Israel-focused group in history:

But the reaction is far out of proportion to the Jewish “establishment’s” response to other dovish groups. I remember when Americans for Peace Now (APN) appeared on the scene (yes, I’ve been doing this job that long), and the reaction from the big guys was barely detectable. The Israel Policy Forum (IPF) and a predecessor group, Project Nishma, started out with some big name, mainstream Jewish leaders, so you’d think the pro-Israel establishment would have had fits, but I heard almost no reaction. Brit Tzedek v’Shalom was started by a former Knesset member, but its arrival caused barely a ripple.

So why J Street? Why all this fury? More to the point, why do so many find this group so threatening? [...] I suspect the answer has to do with something else: J Street is the first group on the left that’s dared to take on the pro-Israel lobby where it really matters: at the critical intersection of campaign finance and congressional lobbying.

I think that’s part of the story. I think another part of the story has to do with the dramatic rightward lurch in Israeli politics. Back when Ariel Sharon announced his Gaza “disengagement” plan in order to head-off international pressure for Israel to start negotiating on the Arab Peace Initiative, I don’t recall very many American Jews—including quite hawkish American Jews—being sympathetic to the far-right current in Israeli politics that denounced his move as a craven sellout. Hawks and doves disagreed about how to characterize Sharon: Was this a bold gesture of peace, or was it a a bold tactical gambit aimed at securing Israel’s grip on West Bank settlements. But everyone agreed that Netanyahu was playing to extremist sentiments. And now Netanyahu’s running the show, and the main partner in his coalition government is an anti-Arab demagogue coming from an even more extremist posture.

Meanwhile, neither American public opinion in general nor American Jewish public opinion in particular has become more hawkish or right-wing over the past five years. Quite the reverse. Obviously, this is going to be a problem for any group that wants to both be seen as “speaking for” American Jews and also aligned with the policy agenda of the Israeli government. It’s a period of real risk in which many Jews, and many politicians who are interested in what Jews think, might see their allegiances shift away from an establishment that’s come to be dominated by neocon-type views that relatively few American Jews actually hold. Under the circumstances, I can see why there’s a real effort to preemptively discredit a group that stands for fairly conventional things—support of a two-state solution, opposition to settlements, belief that preemptive war has not been a boon to American or Israeli interests in the region, etc.—at a time when Israeli politics is lurching in a weird and disturbing direction.

Supporting George Mitchell

George Mitchell pissed some people off during his time as a mediator in Northern Ireland. But at the end of the day, he delivered an agreement. And when the agreement wound up in some choppy waters, heads were knocked together and the thing was made to work. And today, Protestants and Catholics alike are better off than they used to be. It’s an auspicious background for an envoy to deal with the Arab-Israeli conflict. Unfortunately, not everyone sees it that way. Gary Bauer, for example, has joined Abe Foxman in warning that Mitchell might be too even-handed—shudder.

Rep. Bill Delahunt takes a different view, though, and has introduced a resolution into the House of Representatives in support of Mitchell. Thus far, he has 53 co-sponsors and J Street is trying to get some more.

J Street’s Response to Eric Yoffe

Rabbi Eric Yoffe, President of the Union of Reform Judaism, recently took to the pages of The Forward to attack J Street for expressing skepticism about the Gaza adventure. You can read J Street’s response here. Key quote:

And, when tens of thousands of pro-Israel American Jews are joining with statements made by J Street, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek, Israel Policy Forum and others calling for a ceasefire – it is simply wrong to call these views out of touch with Jewish sentiment.

American Jews are, as Rabbi Yoffie says, by and large sensible and centrist, and they support Israel in her hour of need. But many of those same Jews – and their friends who want the best for Israel – are well within their rights and within the centrist mainstream to question the wisdom of the actions taken this week, to question where they will lead and to ask the US and others to help bring an end to the violence as quickly as possible.

They are also in line with many in Israel, where on Friday, 30 peace organizations (including the Peres Center for Peace, the Geneva Initiative and Peace Now) signed a public call for an immediate ceasefire, joining such pillars of the national conscience as David Grossman and Amos Oz.

There’s more at the link. In addition to whatever I’ve already said about Gaza, let me just say that I find it very troubling how frequently rabbis in the United States decide that adhering to a strong form of Israeli nationalist politics is or ought to be constitutive of being Jewish. You see this all the time in the domestic context, of course, when it’s a commonplace of crank rightwing discourse that failing to muster enthusiasm about any American military endeavor no matter how misguided makes you somehow less American than the proponents of bloodshed. But that really is a crank rightwing position. And Rabbi Yoffe isn’t a rightwing crank — or, indeed, any kind of rightwinger at all. But it’s really just the same situation.

And I think that if people want to be honest, they need to ask themselves how many of them were sitting around the day before Israel started this action not only feeling that it would be smart for Israel to start a massive military action in Gaza but feeling so strongly about it that one would question the Jewish credentials and basic intelligence of anyone who didn’t agree. Frankly, I didn’t hear a lot of Americans taking that position. Then the Israeli government changed its policy, and a lot of Americans decided to agree with the new Israeli policy. Which is fine as far as it goes. But people who didn’t regard the previous policy as unconscionable at the time have no business suddenly deciding that it’s unconscionable to disagree with the new policy.