On Sunday evening at the Grand Hyatt Hotel in downtown
Washington, D.C., J-Street opened its first ever-national policy
conference. Officially founded over a year ago, the
self-proclaimed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby was birthed amid
controversy. While J-Street positioned itself as the voice of
mainstream American Jewish opinion on Israel, critics (myself
included) argued it was a left-wing front far from the
mainstream.
J-Street’s Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami opened the
proceedings on Sunday by saying that among the 1000 or so
attendees to the conference there were “doubtless 1000 opinions”
with “1000 stories.” While surveying over a dozen of those
opinions right before the conference officially began, one
quickly comes to the conclusion that J-Street’s critics might
have a point.
Said to be involved in “peace activism” for over 40 years,
Barbara Taft came to the conference from Arizona. She sees
J-Street “as the antidote to [the American Israel Public Affairs
Committee],” the effective pro-Israel lobby which boasts wide
support among Democrats and Republicans on Capitol Hill. Taft
believes the whole Israeli-Palestinian problem stems all the way
back to the way Israel was established by the international
community in 1948. Asked whether she thinks Israel committed war
crimes in the recent Gaza war, Taft said that “she has seen
coverage from overseas which indicates that definitely much of
what Israel did was in the category of war crimes.” As for
whether Israeli leaders like former Israeli Prime Minister Ehud
Olmert and Defense Secretary Ehud Barack should face trial, Taft
said yes, stating “I think the people who gave the orders that
led to harming civilians probably should be [put on trial].”
As for dealing with Hamas, Taft sees the terrorist organization
as broad ideologically as the democratic Jewish state.
“Hamas is made up of a fairly broad range of people like the
state of Israel is,” she said of an organization whose charter
calls not only for the destruction of Israel, but the killing of
Jews generally. “There are people who can be dealt with and
people who will refuse to talk. I think it is important to keep
lines of communication open.”
Debra Hirshberg of Cleveland Heights, Ohio, said in an interview
that in addition to both sides being plagued with weak
leadership, settlements were a big hindrance to peace in the
region. “The settlements should not only stop expanding but be
dismantled,” she said.
While she believes both sides have committed war crimes in the
recent Gaza war, Hirshberg doesn’t think there should be
international war crimes trials since U.S. leaders aren’t subject
to such trials. “I think the U.S. is open to the same kind of
charges,” she said, adding, “Would I like to see Bush, Cheney,
and Rumsfeld put up for war crimes? Yes, of course I would.”
Asked whether she sees one side in the conflict more to blame
than the other, Hirshberg said no.
“No. I don’t think that there is one side more to blame,” she
explained. “I think each side has a narrative that is very
believable and that you just have to look at it from each
perspective.”
Hirshberg also feels that Israel should accept the 20-year truce
that she says Hamas has offered it. “They [Hamas] have offered a
20 year ceasefire…I think that should be accepted by Israel as a
starting point.”
Dr. Warren Spielberg of Brooklyn, New York, said he has been
working toward peace in the Middle East since 1973 through
Americans for Peace Now, a partner organization to J-Street.
Asked whether he thought the Goldstone report accusing both
Israel and Hamas of committing war crimes in the Gaza War was
fair, Spielberg said “it was more than fair.” He continued, “I
think that Israel as a state with more power has more
responsibility and more culpability. I mean, with more power
comes more responsibility. Israel was an aggressor in the war.”
As to whether their should be war crime trials for Israeli
officials, Spielberg said that “failing an internal investigation
being done, yea, I think the UN should push it.”
Alan Sagner is a major contributor to J-Street and a member of
its advisory council. He was emphatic in his belief that American
Jews should “back our President” and “not tell him what to do.”
His restraint with interfering in presidential decision-making
didn’t extend to presidents who supported things he disagreed
with, like President George W. Bush’s war in Iraq. Sagner also
believes it is important for American Jews to intervene to save
Israel from what he sees as its infantile actions.
“As American Jews, we have the same responsibility that a
responsible parent has,” he said. “If you see that one of your
dependents is doing something that is not in their best interest
or in the families best interests, it behooves you to tell them
that.”
Like so many at the J-Street conference, Sagner said he strongly
supports President Obama in his push to stop Israeli settlement
expansion.
Chava Gal-Or of Maryland considers herself a progressive who came
to J-Street to absorb the progressive energy that she found
lacking at other pro-Israel groups.
“As a progressive Jew,” she told me, “I sort of found that
everything that I was learning, growing, gravitating towards was
so right-wing…I feel like I need to open up my ears and be more
part of the progressive energy.”
As for what needs to be done to bring about a peaceful solution
in the Middle East, Gal-Or said “we have to listen to each
other.” Besides the listening strategy, Gal-Or also said Israel
needs “to stop occupying Palestinian villages.”
Some of the others interviewed were more cautious in their
assessments, but Palestinian violence and terrorism was barely
highlighted as a serious obstacle to peace and only one person
interviewed mentioned the threat of Iran, a threat that Israeli
governmental officials themselves see as potentially existential.
Stopping settlement expansion was emphasized by many of those
interviewed as a crucial issue that needed to be pushed —
indeed, by its emphasis, perhaps the most crucial. Those
interviewed often saw Israel and its enemies as at least equally
culpable for the conflict in the Holy Land. One Jewish leader at
the conference who didn’t want to be identified expressing his
personal views said he thought that “Israel needs to grow up” and
get over the idea that every enemy is the next Hitler.
J-Street says one of its missions is to redefine what it means to
be pro-Israel. Is this what they meant? If so, perhaps it is not
so surprising that one quartercard being distributed at the
“pro-Israel” conference sought participants to help break “the
illegal siege of Gaza” on December 31st in the “Gaza Freedom
March.”
