Middle East doves energized by election
By Ira Chernus
Palestine as America's next Vietnam? Like all historical analogies, it's far
from perfect. We aren't about to send the United States Army to the West Bank
or Gaza to kill and die in a war that can't be won. Where else in the world,
though, is American weaponry and political power so obviously used to suppress
a Vietcong-like movement of national liberation (a bill the Taliban hardly
fit)?
And what other conflict is as politically divisive as the Israeli-Palestinian
one? More than the Afghan war, the struggle at the heart of the Middle East
evokes the kind of powerful passions here that once marked the debate over
Vietnam, pitting hawks against doves. Not that the progressive media are yet
portraying it that way. They're more likely to give us an increasingly outdated
picture of an all-powerful Jewish "Israel lobby", which supposedly
has a lock on US policy and dominates the rest of us.
In fact, when it comes to Israel and the Palestinians, the political landscape
is far more complex, fluid, and unpredictable. Yes, the election day just past
saw a wave of hawkish Republicans with a penchant for loving Israel to death
swept into congress, but the hawks' amplified voice is also likely to energize
a growing alliance of doves.
Religious hawks vs religious doves
This election was not a Jewish triumph. Most of the Grand Old Party's
(Republicans - GOP) congressional hawks (if they aren't from Florida) come from
constituencies with only a sprinkling of Jews. They seem eager to make Israel a
symbolic test case, as if supporting the hard-line Israeli government against
the Barack Obama's administration "betrayal" proves their strength in
protecting America.
In the wake of November 2, a prominent Israeli columnist wrote that Republicans
believe in "patriotism, Judeo-Christian Values, national security ... and
associating Arabs and Muslims with terrorism ... a worldview that is usually
consistent with pro-Israel sentiments." Those are certainly "pro-Israel
sentiments" as defined by the old Israel lobby that John Mearsheimer and
Stephen Walt analyzed so sharply. That lobby still wields plenty of power with
its loud media megaphone, and it will welcome the recent success of its
flag-waving, fear-mongering GOP allies.
Here's a new reality, however - the hawkish Israel lobby is no longer the true
face of the Jewish community. According to mid-term exit polls, most American
Jews stuck with their traditional loyalty to the Democratic Party and, far more
important, they are visibly developing a new idea of what it means to be
pro-Israel. Today, three-quarters of American Jews want the US to lead Israelis
and Palestinians toward a two-state solution; nearly two-thirds say they'd
accept Obama administration pressure on Israel to reach that goal.
Republicans entering congress will learn what I recently heard a Jewish
congressman explain. Few non-Jewish legislators pay close attention to the
Israeli-Palestinian issue. When it comes up, they usually turn to their Jewish
colleagues for advice. Once, the Jews they consulted were likely to simply
parrot the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) line. Now they're
likely to say, "Well, AIPAC says this, but J Street says that. You decide."
J Street is the most prominent player in the dovish, newly developing coalition
that already represents the views of most Jews. When Obama invited top Jewish
leaders to the White House in the summer of 2009, the heads of two smaller
organizations, Americans for Peace Now and the Israel Policy Forum, were at the
table too. These are the most visible voices for American Jews who don't want
to see their own government enabling Israeli governmental policies that they
oppose.
The Christian community is split into competing lobbies as well, with hawks led
by Christians United for Israel (CUFI) and doves by Churches for Middle East
Peace (CMEP). CUFI makes more noise and gets more press attention. But CMEP is
an impressive coalition of 22 national church groups, including some of the
largest denominations and the nation's largest umbrella organization of
Protestants, the National Council of Churches.
Then there are doves, both Jewish and Christian, who promote direct action
rather than political lobbying as the route to change. The movement to use
boycotts, divestments, and sanctions to pressure Israel to change its policies
on the Palestinians didn't really take off until the Presbyterian Church
endorsed the concept. More Christian groups have now joined this campaign, as
has Jewish Voice for Peace, among other Jewish groups. Such direct protest also
gets plenty of support from left-leaning doves not moved by any religious
faith.
So far this alliance has not mounted the massive demonstrations that were a
hallmark of Vietnam-era doves. The new strength of the hawks in Congress,
however, might someday provoke the doves to take to the streets.
Elite doves vs elite hawks
As in the Vietnam era, today's policy debate has not been restricted to groups
of outsiders. It's reaching deep into the foreign policy establishment. Top
editors of the New York Times recently visited Israel, talked with Israeli
Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and came home to write an editorial putting
most of the blame on the Israeli leader. They urged him to renew the moratorium
on expanding settlements and immediately settle on the borders of a Palestinian
state.
Just two days after election day, when everyone else was still talking domestic
politics, the Times gave former US president Bill Clinton op-ed space to say
that "everyone knows what a final agreement would look like" - a coded message
from the secretary of state's husband to the Jewish state's prime minister that
it's time to end the occupation, withdraw settlements, and share Jerusalem. Two
former national security advisors, Zbigniew Brzezinski and Brent Scowcroft,
have publicly urged Obama to "outline the basic parameters for a Palestinian
state" - a coded message to the president that it's time for a US-imposed
solution in the Middle East (assumedly based on Clinton's parameters).
The elite hawks are fighting back. Neo-conservatives (whose obituaries are
always premature) have created an international alliance that calls itself "The
Friends of Israel Initiative". With friends like these, the doves claim, Israel
doesn't need enemies.
The elite debate extends into US military and intelligence communities which
have worked closely with Israel for decades. It's a safe bet that there are
powerful hawks in those circles who don't want to put pressure on Israel
because it might jeopardize those relationships. But top military leaders have
been issuing warnings in private and in public about the dangerous consequences
the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could have for US interests in the region, and
implying that the president should be pressuring Israel to bring the conflict
to an end.
Both hawks and doves have found jobs in the Obama administration. "The question
of how much the United States is offering [Israel], and what it is asking for
in return, is being fiercely debated within the White House and the State
Department," the New York Times reported - which is undoubtedly one reason that
the administration has been bobbing and weaving on Israel and Palestine with no
clear policy direction in sight.
Another reason is the political risk involved. Though domestic issues dominated
this year's campaign season, the Republicans still stake their claim on being
the party of tough guys, and they look for every opportunity to paint the
Democrats as soft on national security. If Obama wavers on Israel, the GOP is
ready to pounce and he knows it.
Republicans are always eager to run against "the '60s", and efforts to move
Israel to the peace table have become yet another symbol of "the '60s" in the
GOP imagination. It's no coincidence that, just after he won the Florida Senate
race, the Tea Party's rising star Marco Rubio announced that he was packing for
a trip to Israel.
On the other hand, a president stymied in the domestic sphere is always tempted
to make his historical mark with major foreign policy initiatives where he has
more freedom. As Lara Friedman of Americans for Peace Now points out, this
president will be criticized for abandoning his original demands on the
Israelis just as much as for pursuing them, so he might as well "double down on
his Middle East peace efforts". If he does that, the doves will have Obama's
back. And a triumph at the peace table could shift attention away from the
morass of Afghanistan in just the way Richard Nixon's 1972 trip to China
overshadowed the continuing slaughter in Vietnam.
An unpredictable, complex system
There's one more interesting analogy between the present Middle Eastern
conflict and Vietnam. Both have triggered the passions of hawks and doves who
otherwise would not pay much attention to foreign affairs. Every day, a few
more doves start asking why the US suppresses the Palestinian urge for national
liberation and self-determination.
From there, it's just a short step to asking other questions. Why does the
Obama administration echo Israel's frightening but unproven claims about "the
Iranian threat" and leave so much room for talk of war? Why does the US
continue to demonize Hamas, rebuffing its efforts to moderate its stand and
resume a truce with Israel? Why do government and media figures so regularly
reduce the endless complexities of the Middle East to a simple morality tale of
good guys against bad guys? And how can that enhance the security of the
American people?
Just as during the Vietnam War years, such questions about US policy in one
region lead to even larger questions about the American stance in the world -
and sooner or later, some of those questioners will dare call it imperialism.
Any victory for the doves on the question of policy toward Israel will also be
a victory in the ongoing struggle between competing visions of foreign policy,
and no one can say where the growing movement of doves might lead.
In fact, no one can say anything with any degree of certainty about the future
of this issue. It is now what the Vietnam debate once was, a complex, perhaps
even chaotic, system, where every action provokes reaction.
Will a more Republican-leaning congress change policy? Perhaps. But who knows
exactly how? The more the hawks push, the bigger and more appealing the target
they offer to the doves. As the issue only polarizes, ever more American Jews
may feel pushed out of their tactful silence.
We could end up with a new media picture entirely, gentile hawks urging Israel
to maintain its hardline stance versus a Jewish community leaning toward
compromise and peace. Under those circumstances, the average citizen, who
figures that Jews know best about Israel, might be unlikely to sympathize with
the hawks.
That's not a prediction, just one among many possibilities in a complex system
that's inherently unstable and so unpredictable. In other words, there's no
reason for doves to feel powerless. Election day 2010 may look like a victory
for the hawks, but it could turn out to be a step toward their long-term
defeat.
Ira Chernus is professor of religious studies at the University of
Colorado at Boulder. Read more of his writing on Israel, Palestine, and the US
on his blog. Catch him
discussing the American Jewish community and the struggle for peace in the
Middle East in a Timothy MacBain TomCast audio interview by clicking
hereor, to download it to your iPod,
here.
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