Richard H. Shulman
The theme of the NY Times magazine section review of J Street was its challenge to existing lobbies on Israel , its methods, and generational differences. J Street ’s rising donations were discussed. The Iranian and other Muslim contributors were not mentioned, nor J Street ’s sympathy for Iran . That taints the whole review. It raises grave doubts that J Street is a pro-Israel lobby, as alleged. The Times and J Street should give full disclosure about that (and about the Times’ traditional anti-Zionism while it pretends to care about Israel ). For more on J Street , click here
J Street head Ben-Ami and associates are in the younger generation. They all are inter-married and conduct Buddhist “seders.” “They are, he adds, baffled by the notion of “ Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.”
They do not know that the Holocaust survivors repaired to Israel , as did most of the hundreds of thousands of Jews whom Arab states expelled. They do not know that Soviet Jews found their liberation in Israel . But haven’t they heard of French Jews beginning to emigrate to Israel , as the Muslims come for them? Jews in some other European countries are nervous, too. There is a problem with the younger generation being less educated, less loyal to their heritage and more radical.
The review states that negotiator “Mitchell has tried to wring painful concessions from Israel , the Palestinians and the Arab states.” What painful concessions from the Arabs? Normal relations, meaning above all, not indoctrinating in hatred of Israel and Jews? If that is painful, then the Arabs are not ready for peace. But Mitchel does not insist upon it. To get Israeli concessions, the government pretends they are parallel.
The article then takes up sympathetically Mearsheimer and Walt’s pathetic, old, antisemitic notion that the Jews control Congress and the executive branch, who did what Israel wanted. I find that sympathy disturbing.
It also is ridiculous. U.S. Presidents armed the Arabs, curbed Israeli military victories against Arab aggressors, demanded that Israel withdraw from territory but only occasionally and perfunctorily said Arab terrorism should stop, kept criticizing Israel and hardly criticized the Arabs who make the wars, and refused to let Israel destroy Iran’s nuclear reactor. The U.S. now gives more money to the Arabs, who use it primarily to prepare for war on Israel . Even U.S. military aid for Israel comes with restrictions that keep Israel from having a qualitative edge. That hardly is a “blank check” for Israel .
PART 2
As for the depiction of AIPAC being a firm supporter of Israel , that is partly myth. AIPAC seldom objects to U.S. arms deals or gifts to the Arabs. It goes along with Israeli regimes that may be anti-Zionist or appeasement-minded, which is to say, are against the Israeli national interest. It hardly objects to President Obama’s pressure on Israel as part of his own appeasing America ’s enemies.
I think that the article misrepresents the controversy about whether to criticize Israel publicly. The anti-Zionist paper puts it as a matter of fear and censorship. I have found the Left long openly critical of Israel , while feigning fear to do so, in order falsely to appear brave. The difference is that whereas the Right criticizes Israel for not being firmer toward its enemies, the Left criticizes Israel for not being weaker toward those enemies on Israeli national security.
The section on the J Street founder’s ancestors makes a false assumption common to many right-wingers and left-wingers alike. They describe the politics of relatives of politicians as if that means the politicians must have similar values and standing. Some children rebel against their parents by taking opposite stands as, apparently, J Street ’s Ben-Ami, Obama’s aid Rahm Emanuel, Netanyahu, Moshe Dayan’s daughter, and others have. Don’t judge a book by the covers of the publisher’s other books.
J Street favors “creation of a viable Palestinian state as part of a negotiated two-state solution, based on the 1967 borders with agreed reciprocal land swaps.” Ben-Ami also favors sharing Jerusalem . He would seek Hamas people willing to live in peace with Israel .
Hamas? That fanatical organization would not allow peace. Same for Fatah. See their Conference and Covenant. The 1967 borders would make Israel a non-viable state, depriving it of secure borders and water. It would implement an early phase in Arafat’s phased plan for the conquest of Israel .
Jerusalem was shared. The Muslims used the proximity to shoot at Israelis and to bar Jews from their holiest sites. That is not a prescription for peace, which J Street claims to favor. It can pat itself on the head, but its position has led to war, as Israel ’s withdrawals from Gaza and Lebanon proved. The real world is worse than J Street ’s idealized version of people talking things over rationally.
In mentioning J Street ’s successful efforts to bar Sarah Palin from speaking at a pro-Israel rally, the paper doesn’t realize that J Street was acting in a partisan way when it should have tried to unite the parties behind Israel . I read Sarah Palin’s proposed speech, and found it non-partisan and powerful. I think her presence would greatly have helped show that Americans support Israel . J Street sabotaged Israel .
PART 3
Criticizing Israel ’s air attacks on Gaza , J Street contends that “there is no military solution to what is fundamentally a political conflict.” Israel was defending itself. If its government were not defeatist and leftist like J Street , that war could have solved the conflict with Hamas. Military action solves many conflicts. In this conflict, I would say that there is no political solution to what is a religious conflict, a one-sided one by jihadists.
J Street suggests that talking peace is better than pre-emptive military action. Nonsense. If Israel hadn’t taken pre-emptive action in 1967, there would be no Israelis to talk now. In Gaza , it wasn’t pre-emptive, because Hamas had launched thousands of rockets at Israel , and the Arabs refused to talk.
Influenced by J Street , a Member of Congress justified Israel ’s action, but was “deeply troubled by the suffering, destruction and loss of innocent life that it inevitably entails.” So Israel should let itself be shot at by confirmed Jew-killers, without attempting to make them stop? Let innocent Israelis lose lives, see their property destroyed, and suffer trauma, to spare the much less innocent supporters of Hamas, which cynically makes its own civilians suffer?
Another Member says now Israel is seen as a bully. That perception is not warranted -- Israel chafed under 5,000 rockets before invading! Hamas is the bully.
Rep. Gary Ackerman considers settlement expansion “the irritant of the day.” “…the Arab world needs to see a sign that we understand their concerns.” The jihadists launched a war of extermination; they threaten civilization. They are the aggressors. Their concerns are not legitimate nor are their leaders sincere. They raise “concerns” for propaganda and in using diplomacy as war by other means. It is not the duty of civilization, the victim, to “understand their concerns.” Remember, I have shown that the underlying problem is Arab Muslim rejection of Israel as a Jewish state, not settlements, which were built after that rejection and Arab invasion, and which in any case I have shown are legal, arguments to the contrary having been refuted.
Prime Ministers “Olmert and Ariel Sharon, both painfully came to the conclusion that Israel could not survive as a democratic and Jewish nation unless it was willing to allow a viable Palestinian state to be established – which in turn would require abandoning settlements.” It wasn’t painful, for anti-Zionism became their ideology, possibly fostered by blackmail and bribery over their corruption.
The article was referring to the alleged demographic threat. This threat was based on Arafat’s highly exaggerated population statistics and erroneous birth rates and ignored the large emigration of Arabs from the Palestinian Authority. If Israel let the Palestinian Authority collapse, the Arab exodus would continue. Meanwhile, if Israel annexed contiguous Jewish towns and surrounding vacant areas, the prospects for a second Arab Palestinian state in the Jewish homeland, alongside Jordan , would end.
PART 4
Yes, Abbas was strengthened by the Fatah Conference. This Conference vied with Hamas in its extremism. Thus it strengthened Abbas’ recalcitrance, as does Obama’s pressure on Israel , a pressure to which J Street now contributes.
The Arabs are worried about Iran more than about Israel , and want a hard U.S. line against Iran . (Why should the Arabs worry about Israel , which does not attack them except in self-defense?) The Times echoes Obama’s line that the Arab-Israel conflict hinders their uniting against Iran . There is no evidence for this theory. I think it is stated just as a pretext for an anti-Zionist policy. It is not logical. One could more readily contend that if the U.S. let Israel destroy Iran ’s nuclear facilities, it would be easier to resolve the Arabs’ conflict with Israel . Privately, Arab states admit they would like Israel to act for them.
Obama fails to recognize the source of the Arab-Israel conflict. That source is the existence of an infidel state in the Mideast , which Islam deems an affront to it. There are only two ways to resolve that conflict: (1) Destroy Israel , which would enable jihadists to turn elsewhere, as to the U.S. ; or (2) Reform Islam. That is why the Obama line and “peace process” are futile and misconceived.
Jewish construction in areas that the Arabs claim in the first phase of their plan for the phased conquest of Israel is seen by the Arabs, the article suggests, as creating “facts on the ground” to prevent a final peace settlement. Again, what the Arabs say for propaganda that they “see” is taken seriously. They should be told they see wrong, and if they object, let them come to terms before more is built. The P.A. signed the Oslo Accords not restricting Jewish construction. The Accords just pledge not to alter the legal status of the area. Construction does not alter the legal status.
If Jewish construction, which is legal, is to be frozen, what about “facts on the ground” created by Arab construction? Some of that construction aims to cut off Jewish areas from each other and to get more Arab neighborhoods adjacent to Jerusalem so as to menace Jewish neighborhoods. Thus the anti-settlement policy is discriminatory. It tells Jews they may not build in their own capital, because that is not what foreigners want in their preconceived notion of a solution that would bolster jihad against Israel and ultimately against the U.S. (Jeffrey Traub, 9/13, A36).
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