The Israel Lobbies: Left, Right and Center

• subscribe to print magazine

• stay in touch with our email newsletter

  Subscribe to our regular weekly e-mail newsletter. It's packed with updates on recent and upcoming stories, events, campaigns and things every progressive should be informed about.

   

• email this article to a friend

  Your Name Your Email Recipient Email

  Personal message Thought you might be interested in this article from In These Times.

   

  Please help us prevent spam by verifying the word you see in the image above

  Send to multiple recipients. Just separate each email address with a comma.

• Reader Comments (7)

  Page 1 of 1 pages

  While it is certainly true that the Jewish elements of the Israel lobby are not monolithic, when it comes to conditioning US aid to dissuade Israel from taking actions contrary to US interests (like settlement activities in the Occupied Territories), it must be reiterated that the majority of these groups line up to support Israel unconditionally. 

  As pointed out by Mearsheimer and Walt, “these divisions notwithstanding, the majority of organized groups in the American Jewish community – especially the largest and wealthiest among them – continue to favor steadfast support for Israel no matter what policies the Jewish state pursues…Even the dovish Americans for Peace Now supports ‘robust U.S. economic and military assistance to Israel,’ opposes calls to ‘cut or condition’ U.S. aid, and seeks only to prevent U.S. aid from being used to support settlement activities in the Occupied Territories [emphasis added].”  The Israel Lobby and U.S. Foreign Policy, p. 120. 

  Remarkably, Israel is the only country that does not have to account for how it spends its aid money.  While Israel is legally barred from using US aid in the Occupied Territories, there is no actual reduction in actual aid to Israel when it does so, only in loan guarantees (Israel just has to pay a higher interest rate on a small portion of borrowed funds).  See The Israel Lobby, pp. 29-29.  We have seen how ineffective this policy has been over the past 40 years in deterring or “preventing” settlement construction.  This is why is there is a growing consensus amongst most progressives that conditioning US aid to Israel, along with campaigns such as BDS, are the only realistic ways to encourage Israel to stop its illegal settlement activity.

  Considering that these settlers could not have built all these illegal settlements, nor acted as they have without the substantial U.S. aid that these groups have strenuously and unconditionally supported all these years, it is more than a little disingenuous to imply that these extremist settlers are “another Israel lobby entirely.”  With the exception of the Jewish Voice for Peace (which has called for the US to suspend military aid to Israel until it ends the occupation of the Occupied Territories), all of these groups effectively provide the settler movement aid and cover to openly engage in, without fear of meaningful consequences, illegal if not terrorist activities against both the Palestinians as well as Rabin.

  Posted by Imran on Jun 24, 2009 at 6:56 PM

  Fleshler’s book corrects this mistaken notion that Mearsheimer and Walt advanced about dovish pro-Israel organizations. Americans for Peace Now actually supported US financial sanctions against settlements expansion during the George H. W. Bush administration. APN raises money for Peace Now’s “Settlements Watch” program, that monitors settlement activities with the view of ending them. 

  Most of the other dovish Jewish groups did not yet exist when Bush senior was president, but their opposition to settlements is a core principle for all of them.

  Posted by rseliger on Jun 24, 2009 at 7:52 PM

  The APN’s 110th Congress Briefing Book states that its position is to “reject any calls to cut or condition regular annual U.S. assistance to Israel.”  Its past and current support for the existing policy regarding loan guarantees is simply a reflection of US and international law regarding the spending of money on illegal settlements in the Occupied Territories.  It should be noted that even this loan guarantee suspension in 1991 under Bush Senior lasted just a few months.

  Like APN, the dovish Israel Policy Forum also does not advocate making American aid more conditional but rather focuses its efforts on persuading the US to work more actively and effectively for a two-state solution.  With the exception of the Jewish Voice for Peace, I know of no other group advocating the conditioning of actual aid to Israel (as opposed to simply loan guarantees) with a settlement freeze.

  While it is certainly admirable and commendable that these dovish groups monitor settlement activities, and advocate opposition to settlements as a core principle, I respectfully submit that it is going to take more than supporting temporary loan guarantee suspensions to get Israel to modify its behavior regarding illegal settlements.  This strategy has been a dismal failure for the past 40 years.  Its going to take stronger measures like advocating the conditioning of US aid to a settlement freeze, as well as campaigns like BDS, to make a meaningful difference in Israeli behavior.

  Posted by Imran on Jun 24, 2009 at 9:35 PM

  I appreciate Imran’s polite tone. All strategies for peace over the past 40 years have failed.

  BDS is not likely to work either; it has only marginal political support and it is one-sided. For example, BDS does nothing to address Hamas and other violent Arab groups that have contributed to making the quest for peace so difficult.

  Posted by rseliger on Jun 25, 2009 at 5:24 PM

  I encourage groups like APN and the Israel Policy Forum to continue to oppose settlement activity.  But, as history has shown, its going to take more coordinated action.  I agree with Naomi Klein, who said on this website, “I think those are wonderfully complementary strategies.  This problem is going to take everything we’ve got.  And that’s why I’m so resistant to taking such powerful tactics as BDS off the table at such a crucial moment.  The US government was hardly a world leader when it came to sanctions against South Africa.  But when universities and municipalities joined the sanctions movement, it eventually forced the federal government to get with the program.

  I support the BDS strategy for Israel because it will work again, and it will work because it cuts to the heart of something that is so important to so many Israelis.  And that is the idea of normalcy, the idea that Israel is really an honorary adjunct to North America and Europe—even though it happens to be located in the Middle East.

  At the moment, it is possible to lead a very comfortable, very secure, very cosmopolitan life in most parts of Israel—despite the fact that Israel is at war with neighbors.  I don’t think Israel has a right to simultaneously rain bombs and missiles on Gaza, to attack Lebanon in 2006, to massively expand the settlements, and also have this state of normalcy within its borders.  For justice to come, the status quo will have to first become uncomfortable.

  When concerts are canceled in Tel Aviv, when tourists don’t come to Israel, then, I believe, many Israelis will start putting pressure on their political leaders to finally negotiate a lasting peace.  So I don’t buy the argument that they’ll just feel isolated and become more right wing.  The threat of isolation can be a very powerful tool for progressive change in a country like Israel.”

  For the full article discussing the pros and cons of BDS on this website, see: To Boycott Israel or Not, March 30, 2009, by Joel Bleifuss.  Here is the link for convenience.

  http://www.inthesetimes.com/article/4311/to_boycott_israelor_not/

  Posted by Imran on Jun 25, 2009 at 5:55 PM

  I would respectfully also like to respond to the issue of BDS being one-sided.  The same argument was made by South Africa’s apartheid supporters, who complained about the boycotts being one-sided against whites, and that these boycotts did nothing to stop ANC “terrorists” who obstructed “peace.”  This complaint is as unavailing now as it was then.  The reason is straightforward.

  Like the ANC in the past, Hamas is a resistence movement whose sole (or main) reason for existence is the failure of a just resolution to the Palestinian Nakba.  Like the ANC in the past, Hamas has a legitimate political wing, as well as an armed wing that engages in terrorism.  It is hoped that a fair and just resolution of the Palestinian issue will either encourage Hamas to abandon its armed wing or, at a minimum deprive it of its main recruiting tool.

  Posted by Imran on Jun 25, 2009 at 6:22 PM

  A thoughtful and courageous article by Neve Gordon, an Israeli citizen who supports a two-state solution, explaining the reasons for supporting BDS, and calling on others to do the same.  Neve states:

  “So if the two-state solution is the way to stop the apartheid state, then how does one achieve this goal?

  I am convinced that outside pressure is the only answer.  Over the last three decades, Jewish settlers in the occupied territories have dramatically increased their numbers.  The myth of the united Jerusalem has led to the creation of an apartheid city where Palestinians aren’t citizens and lack basic services.  The Israeli peace camp has gradually dwindled so that today it is almost nonexistent, and Israeli politics are moving more and more to the extreme right.

  It is therefore clear to me that the only way to counter the apartheid trend in Israel is through massive international pressure.  The words and condemnations from the Obama administration and the European Union have yielded no results, not even a settlement freeze, let alone a decision to withdraw from the occupied territories.”

  For the full article, see:

  http://www.commondreams.org/view/2009/08/20-10

  As Neve points out more eloquently than I, supporting BDS is a truly meaningful way for those on the Israeli “left” to make a difference.

  Posted by Imran on Aug 21, 2009 at 5:58 PM

  Page 1 of 1 pages

• register a new account »Posting Security

  To participate in our forums, please register for a free account.

  Username Password

    Remember me
  

  Retreive lost password »

Also by Ralph Seliger

• Jews on J Street
  A new liberal Washington lobby comes of age at its first annual conference.
• Should Neve Gordon Be Punished?
  An Israeli professor's support for the Boycott-Divestment-Sanctions (BDS) movement sparks controversy.
• Einstein and Israel
  The great scientist was both a Zionist and bi-nationalist—a fact too complex for the author of a new book to accept.
• The Israel Lobbies: Left, Right and Center
  A new book helpfully details Jewish-American lobbying organizations spanning the political spectrum.
• Israel’s Center Does Not Hold
  Netanyahu's coalition begins to govern, as the world awaits a two-state solution.
• ‘Kidnapped’ in Gaza
  A BBC correspondent's book--now available in the United States--details his Gaza kidnapping and collects balanced reportage from the Middle East and Central Asia.