

Hoenlein

People routinely ask, If American Jews are overwhelmingly left-liberal, why is the Israel lobby so rightwing? And the answer is that for two generations, even liberal American Jews have passively ceded their power to the rightwingers out of higher concerns: Jewish unity and safety.

There are now many cracks in the monolith, but the revealing thing about the interview below that Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations gave to the Israeli hotel magazine, Inbal (not online; I have the print version) is his rejection of J Street as posing a threat to Jewish unity and safety. He is warning: Jews must speak in one voice to the powers that be, and J Street is not a constituent of mine.

Bear in mind that this organization that is beyond the pale, J Street, is a Zionist organization that has had the temerity to criticize the settlement project, mildly (it opposes boycott efforts), and that has called on Obama to pressure Israel to accept a two-state solution.

Inbal: However today on the Jewish communal landscape is a relatively new kid on the block– ‘J Street.’ They are not exactly up your street. How do you deal with them? Hoenlein: I don’t; J Street is not a member of the Conference. Inbal: Can they afford to be ignored? Hoenlein: J Street initially made a splash but their ripples are less visible these days especially since its opposition on such issues like Congress’ resolutions on the Goldstone Report, Cast Lead, foreign aid and on imposing sanctions on Iran. Many of their initial supporters have seen the real nature of J Street and others are questioning whether it’s a responsible vehicle to give expression to their concerns. While everybody has the right to examine and comment on the issues, we have to be careful as our words have consequences, and when you criticize the government of Israel, you have to consider the consequences. Those that are not taken seriously can largely say what they want and are disregarded. Organizations that count have to weigh their words and actions very carefully. Inbal: Are there lessons to learn from history? Hoenlein: Unity has always been vital throughout Jewish history.. When we stand together, we can overcome every challenge. Sadly, when we are divided, history records we have paid a heavy price.

Hoenlein goes on to talk about his father’s escape from the Holocaust. This is the psychic backdrop to his attitude and that of most Jews of his generation. He learned early on that “Jews needed to be active in politics… for survival.” In his traditional view of the world, Jews are a ghettoized hated community, on our own– and not an empowered American group supporting a militant state.

Another insight into these attitudes comes from Chemi Shalev in Haaretz, explaining the extremist demands that Israel’s rightwing government imposes on supporters out of the same imperative– unity, survival.

So opposition to settlements, for all intents and purposes, is now tantamount to delegitimization; advocating a peace agreement based on the 1967 borders is like “throwing Israel under the bus”, as Israeli sloganeers dictated to Republican candidates; and sympathy for the Palestinians is, let’s face it, no different than same sympathy for the devil. And it is through this distorted and disturbed prism that President Obama can be cast as a Muslim collaborator bent on destroying Israel and Western European countries depicted as hotbeds of Jew-haters only once or twice removed from Mussolini’s Italy and Hitler’s Third Reich. The same mindset that governs the Jewish world is at play in its view of the external arena. The same refusal to countenance criticism that causes Jews to push other Jews “out of the tent” and into the arms of true anti-Zionists…

Next month Peter Beinart will publish a very important book seeking to revive the J Street-center-left discourse. And good for him. But I believe he is too late. There is only the right and the left in this discourse. And if it is a choice between religious nationalism and democratic values, how will young Jews respond?