Too many in the Jewish community and Israel are fighting the wrong battle.
Their love for Israel has blinded them. Their anger has led them to engage the wrong enemy and fail to recognize that the real war for Israel is now being waged on two fronts: fighting apathy and disinterest in the Jewish Diaspora on one poorly defended front, and fighting to preserve Israel’s raison d’etre inside one well defended but slowly deteriorating front. That struggle is best exemplified in the approaches of AIPAC, the oldest and largest pro-Israel organization, and J Street, the newest and most controversial.
AIPAC is Tradition U. Their approach has worked to corner the market with those who believe that to support Israel means to uniformly support Israel’s policies and actions. They are the doctor, Israel is the patient, and the prescription is for unconditional support.
Also on the pro-Israel side, but with a different perspective, is J Street. They see supporting Israel as less about defending whatever Israel does than helping Israel develop and engage in policies and actions that need less defending.
In J Street’s view, the dichotomy is perhaps best expressed in terms of Jewish “pro Israel” market penetration. AIPAC still has an overwhelming market share among the traditional Jewish pro-Israel supporters. J Street is unlikely to have signficant penetration here. But J Street appeals to a different Jewish demographic and may be best positioned to help grow the less traditional “pro-Israel” market, a market that remains largely untapped.
Why should an objective observer believe this?
Let’s start with one fact. The majority of Jewish voters no longer place Israel very high on their list of concerns. In the last election it wasn’t even in the top six. While the Jewish Diaspora’s marriage to Israel is still strong among its core supporters, that core is shrinking. A much larger number of what should be natural supporters appear to have found more interesting dates. Israel is too disconnected from their core interests. They are safe in America and see little reason to support a country created for a need they don’t personally have.
Need numbers? If support is best measured by the number of people willing to contribute their dollars to causes they support then let’s look to the tale of the contribution tape. Based on a recent interview with a Jewish Federation official in the Jewish Herald Voice, the number of Jewish Federation donors — the Federation system sends roughly half of what it collects to Israel — is half of what it was 20 years ago. According to various media reports, AIPAC contributors represent somewhere between 2% to 3% of American Jews. J Street checks in at under 1%. Even if we only consider those college age and up, the numbers aren’t appreciably better and don’t change the overall message: Jewish American Israel customers aren’t buying enough of whatever it is Israel is selling.
In fact, every major Jewish organization, relying on numerous studies, accepts it as a given that Israel’s future customers — young Jewish adults — are less interested and attached to Israel. While various educational programs are being developed to try to reverse that direction, the problem goes beyond education. As we move further and further out from the Holocaust and Israel’s major wars, the Jewish community has seen a shift in focus. Zionists are seen as the guys in the settlements, not the brilliant tacticians who battled the British then fought through four major wars and countless terrorist attacks to produce a Jewish homeland, a thriving success that remains the Middle East’s only democracy. (Give Egypt a couple of generations to play catch up.)
Then we have the assimilation and secularization issues, which have, to different degrees, led to a disconnect: It is more difficult to stir up passionate support the more comfortable you are with your existence in America and Jewish existence in the world at large. Israel can also be a difficult family member to relate to at times as her religious leaders work to narrowly define your own Judaism and as Israel’s various political and civil rights actions may occasionally clash with your own beliefs.
You know Israel lives in a tough neighborhood so you may excuse her occasional lapses, especially when you see the not so occasional lapses of her neighbors, but it gets tougher the longer the issues persist. Then, of course, we can always count on Israel’s Foreign Minister, Avigdor Lieberman, to single-handedly make American Jews want to root for any side other than his.
Yet, we can choose to look at all of this positively. There are a huge number of Jews Israel can still tap for support if we can just figure out how to best reach them.
What has caused the drift? What can be done to help engage more young Jewish adults in seeing that Israel’s values support theirs? What can be done to reinforce the need for there to be a democratic country in the Middle East that serves as a homeland for the Jewish people?
All good questions to examine. But instead of conducting that self-examination, some pro- Israel groups are attacked because of their approach . Or because they are perceived as not pro Israel enough.
J Street is one such ”attackee.”
Here is a three year old organization with over 170,000 mostly Jewish people on their email list, over 11,000 contributors and an active presence on numerous college campuses. Over 2,400 attended their recent Washington convention — including more than 500 young Jewish adults, the same ones every Jewish organization agrees we need to reach. All were gathered to support Israel.
Or is it, as the attackers have contended, to do what they could to hurt the Israel cause? Let’s examine that “hurt.”
Yes, J Street hasn’t towed the “support Israel all the time” line. It has misstepped on occasion, enraging detractors and disappointing supporters. But there is a bigger picture. They may enrage, but they are also engaging Jews who are critical to Israel’s future — Jews who are Israel’s lifeline to continued support and who were not fully reached by other pro-Israel groups.
How can this be bad? Unfamiliarity can breed mistrust. J Street is the new kid in the shtetl. What seems to bother Israel’s current government is that J Street refuses to serve in a sycophantic role, as AIPAC does. Israel remains deeply troubled that while J Street offers support, it has also lobbied, albeit infrequently, for the American government to take different positions than Israel wants.
Here is where it gets complicated. J Street actually connects with its support base by developing its own positions on Middle East issues, unlike AIPAC whose positions mirror whatever the Israeli government favors. While J Street’s constituency is solidly pro-Israel, they lean far more Kadima left than Likud right, which places their views more in line with Tzipi Livni, the opposition leader. That creates an understandable tension.
However, were Israel’s present leadership to embrace J Street as a legitimate partner, as it now does with AIPAC, Israel could work with J Street to better understand how to bring more progressively-minded Jews aboard a pro-Israel ship that is desperately in need of more passengers. For Israel to effectively insist that support only be delivered in the way Israel prefers is to create a recipe for further disinterest and disengagement. Accepting that this support can still be real support even if it is sometimes sprinkled with criticism, should be part of a new Israeli public relation campaign among American Jews: “You can still love and support Israel even if you don’t agree with everything we do.”
Israel is a democracy. Democracies do allow free expression. That does tend to make countries stronger by occasionally producing better ideas and making people feel like they are an integral part of the system — a system they feel more connected to and supportive of. (This p.r. change certainly stands a better chance of ultimately winning more supporters than Israel’s current ad hoc campaign of having the best English speaking spokesperson defend whatever the latest criticized Israeli action.)
Unfortunately, J Street is seen by some as anti-Israel. A not insignificant amount of Israeli political officials and AIPAC supporters still seem to feel that Israel would be best served if J Street simply went away.
J Street shouldn’t need defending any more than AIPAC needs defending for its pro-Israel tactics. However, in Part 2 I’ll explain why a comment that is frequently attributed to Lenin can, if taken to heart, apply to J Street’s and AIPAC’s future positive impact on pro-Israel support: “Sometimes decades pass and nothing happens; and then sometimes weeks pass and decades happen.” J Street’s efforts, its Washington convention and the widespread positive and negative reaction to it, along with AIPAC’s traditional role and approach, really gives that saying surprising meaning.
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As a long time member of AIPAC, I can assure you AIPAC supports the Israeli government position when it suits its major right wing donors. Try to find AIPAC's vigorous fight for Netanyahu's Bar Elan U "Two State" speech. Check with Rabin's contemporaries about problems with AIPAC over his strong pressure for two states. AIPAC has a mindless view of the growing majority of nonJews between the Jordan and Mediterranean and has no plan to preserve a Jewish National Homeland which is democratic. It simply supports vilification of those that raise the issue. I am from the establishment demographic and proudly remain on the Advisory Board of J-Street, because of my intense belief in the Zionism of Herzl and Rabin.
Thanks for the thoughtful response. AIPAC did issue one of its memos following the 2009 speech — so they at least acknowledged it! — and it can be accessed through their website. But it is certainly true that AIPAC is not a strong champion of a two state solution and caters to its main demographic just as J Street caters to theirs. I am also proud to be associated with J Street and to be on the Finance Committee.
Just as we have Republicans and Democrats catering to their constituencies, and they are all seen as pro American, we can and should be able to have various Jewish points of view represented and still seen as pro Israel. That is unquestionably in our communal interest and in Israel\’s interest.