When cultural historians look back at this week’s J-Street conference in Washington, DC, they will observe that many of the participants invested its proceedings with an almost mystical significance: a Woodstock moment for Jewish politics in America which poked a finger into the flabby bellies of the establishment organizations by declaring, “change has come, move aside.”
As always, reality will jostle with myth. From my vantage point, I see not a new movement but a confluence of old ones. I have learned little about the future direction of the Obama Administration in the Middle East - the keynote speaker, General James Jones, who is Obama’s national security advisor, didn’t add anything substantive to the address he delivered to the American Task Force on Palestine a couple of weeks ago.
What I have had is an education, of sorts, into J-Street itself. What the conference has been lacking in terms of genuine insight has been more than compensated for by gossip opportunities: the unctuous Max Blumenthal orchestrating a cheap laugh at Elie Wiesel’s expense; the decision of J-Street’s student arm to drop the “pro-Israel” bit of the mother organization’s “pro-Israel, pro-peace” tagline; the booing of liberal Rabbi Eric Yoffie of the Union of Reform Judaism; the presence of toxic, Israel-hating obsessives like Philip Weiss and Richard Silverstein under the veneer of an openness which was not, it seems, that open; the bizarre spiritual meanderings of M.J. Rosenberg…I could go on.
Above all else, the abiding impression I have of J-Street is its unapologetic parochialism. For J-Street, the Middle East begins and ends with the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. You will search the conference program in vain for any discussion of the Kurdish issue or the future of Iraq. Concerned about the persistence of authoritarianism in the Arab world? Find another conference. Curious to learn more about the politics of oil? Best not to stop here.
That is why, for all its radical pretense, J-Street is deeply conservative. I cannot say for sure why the conference did not discuss the above matters: perhaps they fear that any discussion of democracy and repression in the Islamic world will tar with them with the neo-conservative brush; maybe they figure that their audience won’t find such trifling matters as engaging as a spot of “as-a-Jew” breastbeating; it could simply be that they don’t want to question their assumptions. Whichever, the end result is that it’s very hard to take seriously any organization which claims to be “pro-peace” and yet ignores the fact that poverty, misogyny, homophobia, rigged elections, illiteracy, sectarian violence and jailed dissidents would be as much features of a Middle East without Israel as a Middle East with it.
I am sure there are eagle-eyed readers who will point out that the conference did feature a session on Iran. In the blurb for the panel, Iran was depicted as “Israel’s self-described (sic) greatest concern and strategic threat.” Now I understand: the duplicity over the nuclear program, the constant stream of Holocaust denial, the threats to wipe out Israel, the crushing of domestic opposition, the cozying up to Hugo Chavez is just incidental. And any lingering doubts would have been laid to rest by the panelists - Hilary Mann Leverett, a staunch advocate of the “negotiations without end” approach toward Iran, and Trita Parsi, who believes Israel and its neo-con supporters constitute the over-riding threat we should be worrying about.
These views are widespread and familiar; what matters for our purposes is that J-Street, by dint of its exclusion of any opposing perspective on Iran, apparently regards them as the last word. I wonder, then, what its leaders and acolytes would make of Iran’s latest shenanigans in the negotiations over its nuclear program. Would they even give them a second thought? And what chance they would buy into the line that the aim is not to obtain a nuclear weapon but to - yeah, really! - respect the environment?
“…and Trita Parsi, who believes Israel and its neo-con supporters constitute the over-riding threat we should be worrying about.”
Trita Parsi as the only featured Iranian panelist - why am I not surprised.
The entire Iranian dissident community and, I would say, the broader expat community views this guy as a morally-compromised and, frankly, despicable regime apologist. And yet — after all that the election and its aftermath revealed — still he is the only Iranian voice they chose to hear. At least if they had brought a genuine opposition figure, maybe there’d be some semblance of sensitivity and balance. But no, just Trita Parsi, a regime apologist who makes a very good living from Israel bashing.
Yuck.
ganselmi, you are right: it is a disgrace that they didn’t invite somebody who would speak for the regime protestors. I think it would have been very important to hear what somebody knowledgable about the opposition would regard as a constructive course for US policy towards Iran and the nuclear issue.
But I have to say on this, also the Obama administration seems not too keen; I think they e.g. cut budgets for monitoring human rights abuses in Iran (btw. there were similar cuts for civil society groups in Egypt!).
Ben, Eureka: you make a crucial point when you highlight “parochialism”, particularly in view of the fact that there is a strong case that any solid Israeli-Palestinian agreement can only be achieved if other Arab states back it, and are involved. That was also clearly what Obama initially hoped for when he tried to get some goodwill gestures from states like Saudi Arabia — and of course, rumor has it that he was turned down in no uncertain terms.
Last but not least, on the gossip: great fun to see Silverstein act out as if this was his blog — he blocked my IP address after I once wrote something critical about him!!! This guy is really behaving like a clown; oh, and recently he explained to Yaacov Lozowick that he didn’t publish a (critical) comment Yaacov tried to post on “Tikkun Olam” because he first had to make sure that it didn’t contain a death threat…
In the end, it’s the same everywhere on the political fringes, whether it’s the right or the left fringe: dissent and critical voices are unwelcome, ridiculed and dismissed as lesser humans, deficient in faith, moral rectitude, etc.
Marty Peretz has a good comment about J Street on The New Republic web site.
It is worth a read.
There are also a lot of links.
Just went looking for this, which nicely illustrates some of the points Ben’s piece is making:
“Here in Washington DC the J Street conference rolls on. It’s pretty thrilling to be around many like-minded people”
http://antonyloewenstein.com/2009/10/27/j-street-rolls-on/
Then he goes on to approvingly quote Mondoweiss:
“The main tedium of the conference is having to listen to Jews handwringing about Israel at panel after panel. J Street feels at times like a halfway house for ardent Zionists. They’ve been hooked on Zionism for years and they come here to handwring in a comfortable space.”
“But I have to say on this, also the Obama administration seems not too keen; I think they e.g. cut budgets for monitoring human rights abuses in Iran (btw. there were similar cuts for civil society groups in Egypt!).”
And Trita Parsi has been one of the biggest and most effective advocates for such reductions, arguing that, in order to help the IRI feel comfortable to reach back out to Obama, the US should stop sponsoring such efforts. Shame, shame, shame.
Trust me about the Iranian guy, he IS the voice of the protesters. They dont want sanctions, nor do they want war.
ganselmi, you miss an important point, that the human rights activists inside Iran for such budget cuts… see here:
US funds are going to people who have very little to do with the real struggle for democracy in Iran and our civil society activists never received such funds
Abdolfattah Soltani
Iranian human rights activist
And this is coming from the guy who was jailed in Iran!!
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8315120.stm
Anthony,
I have no idea who you are or why you are such a Trita Parsi fanboy. You don’t support your claim that he IS the voice of the protesters with any evidence, and so I will not address it.
As for the BBC article: first of all, it is full of unsupported generalizations typical of the BBC’s biased mid-east coverage. It suggests that only “neo-conservatives” in the US supported the funding of civil society groups. But the other criticisms coming from dissidents like Ganji weren’t aimed at the idea and purpose of such funding, but rather at the Bush-era mismanagement of their disbursement — Bush and mismanagement, what else is new?
But trust me the masses who have been pouring into the streets are desperate for international support, especially from the U.S. In fact, one of the slogans for the planned demonstrations on Nov. 4th (the anniversary of the takeover of the US embassy in Tehran) is: “Obama, yaa ba una, ya ba maa,” which means “Obama, either with them [the regime] or with us!”
What does that tell you? For one, it tells you not trust third hand news and commentary masking as news from the BBC when it comes to a country they aren’t even allowed to send journalists to. And second, not to buy policy proposals about Iran pushed by paid regime apologists like Dr. Parsi.
I’m no fanboy of whoever this guy is. All I’m saying is that I remember reading an article by him and Jeremy Ben-Ami and in it what he suggests is in tune with what the general activists in Iran advocate. They dont want sanctions.
From what I understand both Abdolfattah Soltani and Shirin Ebaadi are prominent activists with major support inside Iran. Both are against economic sanctions, are for diplomatic sanctions, and are against funds from foreign governments because it will damage their efforts inside Iran.
Now you can spin what the BBC says all you want, but these are facts and who are you to judge what the Iranians want?
Ben-Ami has written an article with Trita Parsi? That’s rather dismal if it is true.
Anthony, no doubt ganselmi will let you know what credentials he has “to judge what the Iranians want”; in any case, what I know from my Iranian friends squares very much with ganselmi’s views.
Ben Cohen’s remark, about concentrating only on one of the many conflicts in the Middle East is justified.
No country in the world has so many critics as Israel and no reasonable person denies the fact that Israel is an imperfect democracy. But if one is only criticising Israel and close his eyes to the blatant violations of Human Rights in the other countries of the region he will not contribute to move forward.
It reminds me of a lady in Vienna, who is leading the women in black. Every month at least once they demonstrate against the State of Israel in the center of Vienna.
When I asked her (a former USA citizen, who gave up her American citizenship in order to become Austrian)if Women in black are interested in the Human Rights of Palestinian women, she answered, that this is the task of Palestinian society.
So the fact, that there is female circumcision done to a lot of Palestinian girls, that more than one hundred Palestinian women disappear every year, that many women are killed because of “honor” by their family is not of their concern.
So in reality the Women in Black in Vienna do not care about Palestinians, there only aim is to demonize the only Jewish state in the world and to spread lies about it. Some activist of J street are keen to close their eyes to the other conflicts in the region.
Anthony,
Sorry if I sounded unnecessarily harsh. I’m Iranian and I have contacts with student-dissidents inside Iran. I think you state the positions of Ganji and Ebadi correctly. I deeply admire both of these individuals, their courage and the work they’ve done, but they don’t speak for the entire Iranian opposition. The view that the US shouldn’t provide financial assistance certainly has its legitimate supporters in Iran and across the diaspora. I’m just saying:
(1) that there is no consensus regarding this issue and
(2) that particularly Parsi - whom I shouldn’t have called a “paid” apologist, but he is certainly an apologist - shouldn’t be trusted on this issue. There are two websites in particular that have done a lot to document this man’s ties to the mullah regime: http://www.iranianlobby.com and http://www.iranian-americans.com and I would recommend that you visit both. Within the diaspora, Parsi has a bad reputation because for the longest time he has been pushing precisely the sort of US policy towards Iran that the regime wants — cut funding, engage at any cost, stop sanctions, stop talking about democracy and HR, etc.
Ganselmi:
I suspect Anthony is the same Anthony Lowenstein ref’d by Petra in her comment above at Oct 27, 7:01 a.m.
I’d like to thank Ben Cohen for bringing the decisive for my debate with David Adler in the previous post.
Here is another J Street supporter:
“Helena Cobban on the Jews”
Noah Pollak - 10.29.2009 - 2:04 PM
Helena Cobban sits on the board of Human Rights Watch and was a member of the blogger panel at the J Street conference. She recently ruminated on the question of why so many Jews are disgusted with the Goldstone/HRW treatment of Israel (hat tip: Richard Landes). Her answer:
“But the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world truly don’t get this. They truly think there is something so “special” about Jewish people and their experience in the world that somehow the [sic] (and especially the allegedly “Jewish” state, Israel) deserve to be given a free pass on the application of any neutral standards of behavior, such as would be applied to anyone else.”
Ah, so the Jews think they’re superior to everyone else — where have we heard that one before? And what is the “allegedly” Jewish state? (Sorry, I’ve misquoted her. That’s the allegedly “Jewish” state.) Her writing is so sloppy that it’s impossible to discern what specific slander she has in mind.
Cobban concludes:
“So now, frustrated by their inability to dream up a “Cast lead II,” Israel’s hardliners are taking out their frustrations by railing against Goldstone and “demanding deep changes in the laws of war.””
The pop psychology here is entertaining but of a thematic piece with the rest of her thinking. The criticism of Goldstone, she intones, is not serious or rational — it is in fact the redirected frustration of a predatory and sadistic people whose desire for more war on Palestinian civilians has been thwarted. Get it?
Just to remind people again: this petulant woman sits on the board of Human Rights Watch.
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/blogs/index.php/pollak/147252
Cobban does not say “Ah, so the Jews think they’re superior to everyone else — where have we heard that one before?” That is entirely the product of Pollack’s imagination. I really have to wonder about somebody (ie, Pollack) who equates a criticism of
“the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world”
with “the Jews”.
I thought Cobban was actually quite clear here, with who she was referring to, and why:
———————
And more importantly, Goldfarb, Bernstein, and many other die-hard supporters of “Israel– right or wrong” truly couldn’t bear it when the distinguished Jewish (and as it happens, also Zionist) criminal investigator Judge Richard Goldstone came out with the report in which he tried to apply a single unified “human rights” standard to the behavior of the decisionmakers on both sides of the Israel-Hamas divide.
———————-
which seems to me the heart of the matter regarding the Goldstone report. What Bernstein, Dershowitz, and,
I would, add, z-word cannot stand is the idea is that Israel be judged by the same standard, and that the death of a Palestinian in Gaza or the West Bank or a civilian in South Lebanon matters as much as the death of an Israeli. Perhaps if you can find a farmer in South Lebanon who has said something like, “my child my have gotten a leg blown off by a cluster bomb, but at least the cluster bomb was dropped by a country with a vibrant free press”, there might be reason to change one’s mind about this fundamental, and for most people, obvious principle.
Seth, your whole post is an exercise in Jew bating.
Here is what Cobban said:
“So here’s the thing that Michael Goldfarb and people of his ilk really don’t seem to understand: For the vast majority of the people on God’s earth today, Palestinians are just as fully human as Jewish people, and just as deserving as Jewish people of our compassion and our understanding.”
“That is the true value of putting a human-rights frame on world affairs. But the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world truly don’t get this. They truly think there is something so “special” about Jewish people and their experience in the world that somehow the (and especially the allegedly “Jewish” state, Israel) deserve to be given a free pass on the application of any neutral standards of behavior, such as would be applied to anyone else.”
http://justworldnews.org/archives/003863.html
This is taken from Cobban’s web site.
The question is where do “Michael Goldfarb and people of his ilk” (people of his ilk could mean all Jews or only those Jews that Cobban and Seth despise), any way where does Goldfarb say that only Jews are “fully human?”
Isn’t this an antisemitic projection what is really going on, isn’t it?
Cobban’s and Seth’s denigration of people who come to the defense of Israel is a sign that they can’t deal with facts. In their eyes all Jews who are critical of antisemitic attacks on Israel are to be thought of, without evidence, as people who “cannot stand… the idea is that Israel be judged by the same standard,…”
The opposite happens to be the case, the problem with the Goldstone report is that Israel was not judged by the same standard and Goldstone himself on many occasions since has said as much.
Well I obviously don’t think that my “whole post” was an exercise in Jew-baiting. In particular, I don’t see how referring to the victims of the Israeli/US cluster bombs in Lebanon is Jew-baiting. Beyond absurd.
Repeating your quotes doesn’t really accomplish anything. Cobban is clear that she is referring to “die-hard supporters of “Israel– right
or wrong”.
The commitment to a collective view of people is really
quite strong here. I knew there was a strong
commitment in favor of collective punishment and
state terrorism
http://blog.z-word.com/2009/10/long-live-the-dahiya-doctrine/
But I had not fully appreciated to what extent
the most fanatical supporters of Israeli actions
are associated with “The Jews”, such that
a criticism of such people becomes an
attack on “The Jews” or “Jew-baiting”.
Altogether, another example of how so-called
supporters of Israel are constantly giving arguments
in support of terrorism against Israel, if one takes
the step of assuming that the lives of Israelis and
non-Israelis are worth the same.
Seth “Well I obviously don’t think that my “whole post” was an exercise in Jew-baiting. In particular, I don’t see how referring to the victims of the Israeli/US cluster bombs in Lebanon is Jew-baiting. Beyond absurd.”
Of course you don’t. But using terms like “the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world” reminds one of antisemites talking about “the Moishes, the yankels, the itziks of the world….” If you don’t see this as antisemitic, I can’t help you.
And so are phrases like: “ Goldfarb, Bernstein, and many other die-hard supporters of “Israel– right or wrong.”
I know of no “strong supporter of Israel” who supports that country whether “it is right or wrong.” This is at best insulting and at worst also antisemitic. You are attempting to dehumanize supporter of Israel.
This is what your whole post is about.
Moreover there is not “commitment to a collective view of people” or “commitment in favor of collective punishment and state terrorism.” This is just nonsense.
It is you and other members of “HRW” the so called human rights organization that is stigmatizing all supporters of Israel.
Your rebuttal is pathetically inadequate. Please try quoting in the future the people you are arguing against and not lump all Jews into your imaginary enemies list. You sound feverish and a little insane, Seth.
Notice how this human right’s watch advocate easily slipped in the name Bernstein among the other supporters of Israel:
“the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world”
(His use of the plural in the names is also telling.)
Now this Robert Bernstein happens to be one of the original founders of HRW who had recently dared criticize his organization for its one-sided support of resolutions against Israel and in support of the genocidal organizations Hamas and Hezbollah.
Here is a short bio of Mr. Bernstein:
“After his experience in Moscow in 1973, Mr. Bernstein returned to the U.S. and established the Fund for Free Expression, which eventually grew into Human Rights Watch.”
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_L._Bernstein
He is also a distinguished lawyer.
Now, Seth complains that Jews like Bernstein can’t stand that Judge Goldstein’s report criticized Israel, yet it is his organization which can’t stand Bernstein and others criticize what HRW has become, a rabid anti-Israel organization.
Because of his criticisms they accused him of being “pro” Israel as if that were a crime.
In any case, this is how HRW deals with all people who criticize their group. It is obvious that they are no longer a human rights ngo but a political anti-Israel organization.
Will human right’s watch care about this?
“Israel accuses Iran of war crime over arms ship”
By AMY TEIBEL (AP)
“JERUSALEM — Israel’s prime minister charged Thursday that Iran’s goal was to kill as many civilians as possible by giving Hezbollah what the military said were enough weapons to extend any war against Israel for one month.
Benjamin Netanyahu said the shipment of hundreds of tons of weapons on a seized ship Israel contends was bound for the Lebanese guerrilla group was a war crime that should be investigated by the U.N. Security Council. The Iran-backed Hezbollah denied that the arms were bound for them.
“Their goal was … to kill as many civilians as possible,” Netanyahu said of the Iranians…..”
http://www.google.com/hostednews/ap/article/ALeqM5h3S0DqyLu9CfgcBASy2XHOGCk0IAD9BPFF2G0
Regarding Jacob Arnon’s contribution:
1. You’ve lost track of who you are quoting:
“the Michael Goldfarbs, the Norman Podhoretz’s, the Alan Dershowitz’s, and Robert Bernsteins of this world”
(His use of the plural in the names is also telling.)”
not “His use”- The quote referred to is the one by Helena Cobban. While I cannot speak for her, it seems clear that the name Bernstein was not “slipped” in, as Arnon says, but was mentioned because she was commenting on the NYT article he wrote. In fact, if you go to her original piece,
you see that “Robert Bernsteins” is a link to
the NYT piece.
2. More substantially, Arnon writes that Bernstein criticized HRW for, in part, “support of the genocidal organizations Hamas and Hezbollah” Whatever else one thinks of Bernstein’s column, he does not say that. He says that “Israel … faces the brunt of Human Rights Watch’s criticism”, instead of Hezbollah and Hamas.
3. Arnon writes “Seth complains that Jews like Bernstein can’t stand that Judge Goldstein’s report criticized Israel, yet it is his organization …”
“his organization”? What in the world are you talking about? I’m not even a member of HRW. I’ve read a
number of their reports and the responses to them
by NGO Monitor and so on. (The NGO Monitor reports are a joke, by the way.) I was particularly
impressed by their efforts to publicize the effects of
the clusters bombs that Israel dropped on South
Lebanon (btw, during the 2006 war they put out
statements criticizing both Israel and Hezbollah in
this regard. The greater focus on Israel’s cluster
bombs is no doubt because Israel dropped a lot more
than Hezbollah and killed a lot more people and they
are continuing to kill more people.)
4. I thought Aryeh Neier’s response to Bernstein
was pretty good and I have nothing much to add to it:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/aryeh-neier/human-rights-watch-should_b_342680.html
okay, for jdyer:
1. You write that I should “not lump all Jews” into
my “imaginary enemies list”. Obviously I did nothing
of the sort. You seem to equate apologists for Israeli
collective punishment with “the Jews”, which is a
very distorted way of thinking, to say the least.
2. “Moreover there is not “commitment to a collective view of people” or “commitment in favor of collective punishment and state terrorism.” This is just nonsense.”
No, z-word is an enthusiastic supporter of collective
punishment and state terrorism, as long as it’s
directed against the people in Lebanon and Gaza.
By the standards used here, Hezbollah and Hamas
would be permitted to bomb political and military
institutions throughout Israel. Of course no
sane person would support such an atrocity, but
that is the reasoning of z-word, if one takes the additional step of assuming that Israeli and non-Israeli lives have the same inherent value.
See also the comments here:
http://blog.z-word.com/2008/12/gaza-israel-and-the-howling-chorus-of-hypocrisy%5C/
for a striking example of this from Petra, along with a quite amazing refusal to face up to the easily available information about the dropping of the
US/Israeli cluster bombs.
3. As a side note, I find it somewhat ironic that
not long ago Helena Cobban was being approvingly cited on z-word by Ben Cohen for her comments regarding
Marc Garlasco -
http://blog.z-word.com/2009/09/garlasco-evades-human-rights-watch-approves/
I can’t follow if the problem is that “it seems unlikely that Cobban’s concerns will register in the office of the organization’s boss, Ken Roth” or if
she’s herself one of the anti-semites infesting the
organization.
4. But most seriously, the problem though is that it’s not just HRW, and I do find the focus on HRW somewhat odd. It’s HRW, and it’s Amnesty, and it’s Btselem, and it’s just the Goldstone report - it’s every single serious human rights organization. So they’re all
anti-Semites? They’re all biased against Israel?
Could there possibly be another explanation as
to what’s going on? Don’t you realize how strange
this sounds to many people, especially when
information on Israeli violence is so much easier available than before?
5. As far as this new AP piece, perhaps it would be
good to consider all weapons being shipped to the area.
How do you think people feel when Israel keeps getting more weapons that get used to attack civilians and civilian infrastructure?