Between JDate and J Street: US Foreign Policy and the Liberal Jewish Dilemma in America
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Between JDate and J Street:
US Foreign Policy and the
Liberal Jewish Dilemma in America
Yossi Shain and Neil Rogachevsky
Yossi Shain is the Romulo Betancourt Professor of Political Science at Tel Aviv University
where he also serves as the head of the Abba Eban Program of Diplomacy and co-chair of
the MA Program in Political Leadership. He is also a professor of comparative government
and Diaspora politics at Georgetown University and the founding director of its Program for
Jewish Civilization. Neil Rogachevsky is a PhD candidate in history at Sidney Sussex
College, University of Cambridge.
For years, “a two-state solution” in the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has preoccupied
writers, diplomats, and politicians throughout the world. Policy and diplomacy
have followed suit, and just over the last few years, even with the colossal failure
of the Oslo peace process, many efforts have been made to try to advance the
solution: international gatherings such as the 2008 Annapolis conference; White
House ceremonies and conversations; third-party-mediated meetings; “shuttle
diplomacy” by top American envoys; Tony Blair taking up residence in Jerusalem
as the envoy of the Quartet; and the Saudi initiative of 2002, to name a few. These
efforts have not born much fruit. Why? Isn’t the two-state solution in the interest
of all parties? Some have said that the only missing ingredient is a serious American
push. Above all, the US president must be able to marginalize the hawks in Israel
and diminish the influence of the hard-line “Israel lobby” at home.
That the Israel lobby is a powerful obstacle to peace is a widely held opinion in
America and Europe and has long prevailed in certain sectors of the Arab world.
The failings of the peace process, as well as acrimony or difficulties in other parts
of the Arab or Muslim world, are often attributed to the obstruction of the Israel
lobby, no matter who is in charge in Washington or Jerusalem, or what the
diplomatic processes and changing currents in Middle East affairs. The outbursts
of filmmaker Oliver Stone and journalist Helen Thomas in the summer of 2010
(the Jews “control” US foreign policy), were recent examples of this long-running
trend.
The Israel lobby explains everything: why the US invaded Iraq; any saber rattling
about Iran’s nuclear program; why no American president has succeeded in
37Israel Journal of foreign Affairs V : 3 (2011) bringing about a Palestinian state; why there is “Muslim rage” against America; and why misery persists in the Arab and Islamic world. In this sense, the narrative of the power of the Israel lobby serves as a “theory of everything.” Surely in America the “theory of everything” has not attained the power it enjoys in the Arab world or among some Europeans or Latin Americans, but it nonetheless serves an important, and sometimes decisive, argument for the failures in the Middle East. Many American Jews have been affected by the widening role of the “theory of everything” in public discourse. Jews have been accused of sacrificing their liberal values for the sake of Israel. This charge puts them on the defensive regarding their loyalties. To those who believe that the Israel lobby holds up progress in the Middle East, the election of Barack Obama in 2008 seemed to portend a genuine opportunity. Finally, it seemed to them, a president had been elected who would not be indebted to so-called “hawkish” Israel supporters like AIPAC. In his Cairo speech of June 2009, Obama ignited hopes of a new start in the Middle East by promising he would be more evenhanded, expressing as much support for the plight of Palestinians as for Israeli security concerns. Previous American administrations had paid lip service to a settlement freeze at various times. Obama would demand a settlement freeze without exceptions. In the person and policies of Barack Obama, it seemed that the pro-peace camp had a supporter as never before. Obama’s opportunity would be enhanced by support from a new lobbying organization within the American Jewish community itself. J Street, the self- styled “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby, was created to great fanfare in 2008. Its chief purpose, according to founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, was to support President Obama’s Middle East policy in the face of any opposition from the traditional lobby, AIPAC. “Our number-one agenda item,” Ben-Ami told The New York Times Magazine, “is to do whatever we can in Congress to act as the president’s blocking back.”1 With a serious “pro-peace” president, along with new institutional mechanisms to shepherd the process through the corridors of American power, those in peace camps in America permitted themselves to believe that a breakthrough toward a Palestinian state and broader regional peace was imminent. Furthermore, the Jews were on board for this effort. Democratic party pollster Mark Mellman demonstrated that “support for Israel is a critical element of Jews’ voting behavior in the United States,” and that Jews remained fiercely loyal to the Democratic party, even when broader domestic support for the president’s agenda was corroding.2 Over a short stretch of time, those hopes have been tempered. Washington’s shifting policies on settlements, Jerusalem, direct negotiations, and other issues seem to indicate that Obama’s hopes have sunk into the morass of the Middle East, just as those of his predecessors had done. In an interview with Newsweek 38
Yossi Shain and Neil Rogachevsky
marking a year into his presidency, Obama admitted that the Israeli–Palestinian
conflict was “as intractable as they get” and that their approach in the first year
“did not produce the kind of breakthrough that they wanted.”
As the Obama administration seems headed down the well-trodden path of
Middle East frustration, the “theory of everything” has been used to account
for the failure. The setbacks have intensified the rhetoric about the Israel lobby.
In April 2010, John Mearsheimer, co-author of The Israel Lobby, a renowned
blueprint for the “theory of everything,” delivered a speech in Washington, DC
dividing the American Jewish community into righteous, ambiguous middle, and
new-Afrikaners. In other words, those who strongly supported Israel were not
only misguided but immoral and possibly un-American. Setbacks in the peace
process are constantly referred to by the Palestinians as Obama caving in to the
Jews. According to an internal memo of the Fatah faction of Mahmoud Abbas,
“Obama couldn’t withstand the pressure of the Zionist lobby, which led to a retreat
from his previous positions on halting settlement construction and defining an agenda for
the negotiations and peace”3 [author’s emphasis]. The “theory of everything” cozily
explains all failure, and, what is more, is irrefutable.
The idea that the Jews retain great power over US foreign policy in the Middle
East is not new, and certainly not restricted to those who are obsessed by the
influence of Jews, or antisemites. This view has been reinforced by the character
of the Jewish community in America, and its strong ties to Israel. At various
moments over the last few decades, analysts have described growing rifts or
tensions between Israeli and American Jewry. In 2001, Prof. Egon Mayer
released a controversial study of the American Jewish community, in which
he portrayed mutually reinforcing trends of increasing secularity, decreasing
attachment to Jewish religious and communal institutions, and a weakening sense
of Jewish identity among large parts of American Jewry. He also noted decreased
attachment to Israel. At the same time, Steven Rosenthal published a monograph
called “Irreconcilable Differences,” saying that the alliance, which was strong in
the 1970s, had been suffering repeated shocks since the 1980s. Liberal Jews, he
claimed, were becoming more alienated from the State of Israel due to a new wave
of right-wing policies thought to run counter to the values of American liberalism.
All of these developments were swept aside by 9/11 and the second intifada,
during which American Jewry, across all denominational and political divisions,
mobilized behind Israel. The unprecedented unity of American Jewry in the first
years of the twenty-first century can be attributed to this great crisis at home and
abroad, and would not have been possible without such a crisis. Even many who,
in the past, had not given much thought to their Jewish identity stood up to be
counted in those years. Former chief economic adviser to President Obama and
39Israel Journal of foreign Affairs V : 3 (2011) onetime Harvard University president, Lawrence Summers, declared in a widely noted speech that he could no longer remain complacent in the face of the virulent antisemitism that had manifested itself not only in the Middle East and Western Europe but even on American college campuses, including his own.4 Summers had described himself as “Jewish … but hardly devout,”5 but the times demanded such a response. Similarly, Jonathan Rosen wrote in The New York Times of how 9/11 was a road- to-Damascus moment for his American and Jewish identity. A secular Jewish American, the attacks awakened Rosen to the threats to Jewish security and the dangers of antisemitism, which he had previously associated with a different continent and a different era—Europe of the 1930s and ‘40s.6 The attacks on Jews and Israel during these years were not limited to physical violence but also included psychic violence of the most debilitating kind, including attempts at delegitimizing Israel as a state.7 And, in those few post-9/11 years, Jews of all stripes took note. Many secular, unaffiliated, or even “hidden” Jews could not articulate the nature of their attachment to Israel or explain what compelled them to act upon it, but they instinctively understood the nature of the threat to Israel and to themselves. Many of them came out in large numbers to express their solidarity with Israel, through participation in mainstream Jewish organizations’ fundraising drives, rallies, and other events, or through new grassroots groups sprouting up, many of them existing primarily, if not entirely, in cyberspace. Many felt that they had no choice but to become involved. This rallying around Israel in the early part of the 2000s reflected recognition of the Israeli and Jewish security dilemma. The fact that Israeli reality is never fully “normal,” and existential threats are always looming—and certainly Jews are always sensitive to them—perpetuates a special bond among Jews worldwide vis-à-vis Israel. In this respect, no Jew—i.e., a person for whom his/her identity as Jewish is important and who cares (at least minimally) about the survival of the Jewish people—whether in the Americas, Europe, or elsewhere can erase the memory of shared suffering or ignore current threats. In that respect the well- being of Jews in Israel is vital for Jewish survival—especially since Jews in Israel are fast becoming the largest and most distinctive segment of the Jewish people in our time. Of the 13–14 million Jews in the world today, almost half currently live in Israel. Threats to Jews in Israel are de facto threats to Jews everywhere. That moment of solidarity, too, has passed. In the last years of the Bush administration and the first part of the Obama administration, there has been another mood swing in which liberal Jewish Americans have increasingly expressed doubts about their relations and kinship ties to Israel, not least because 40
Yossi Shain and Neil Rogachevsky
of their exposure to the charge of the “theory of everything.” No piece captured
this mood swing better than Peter Beinart’s much-discussed essay in The New York
Review of Books, “The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment.” In the piece,
Beinart, a former editor of The New Republic, with impeccable liberal and pro-Israel
credentials, chastises the American Jewish establishment for being out of touch
with the views of younger American Jews. Young liberal Jews, Beinart claims,
are less instinctively attached to Israel than their parents and grandparents. They
reject Jewish-Israeli particularism and are rather committed to universal values
and human rights. According to Beinart, establishment voices such as AIPAC and
the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations have been pushing
away young Jews by supporting hawkish Israeli policies. “For several decades,
the Jewish establishment has asked American Jews to check their liberalism at
Zionism’s door,” writes Beinart. “Now, to their horror, they are finding that many
young Jews have checked their Zionism instead.”
While Beinart’s critique is hard hitting, one can ask this counter-question. Is it
possible, given the condition of Judaism in America today, for Jews to “check
their Zionism” and still remain Jews? This is becoming more and more difficult.
Periodic discontent notwithstanding, Israel is now the most important element
of liberal Jewish identity and mobilization in the US. Israel is perhaps the only
viable denominator in liberal American Jewry guaranteeing Jews continued
communal life qua Jews. The Holocaust, which once served this function for
liberal Jews, is no longer privileged Jewish property. Jewish ethnic traits have
mostly disappeared among Jewish liberals. Liberal synagogues and schools face
declining rates of enrollment and attendance. There remain, of course, great Jewish
American writers and Yiddish revivalism but Jews have also long since lost their
cultural monopoly on these, and, more significantly, they prove ephemeral. Rates
of intermarriage, meanwhile, are as high as ever.
For good or for ill, Israel has emerged as the fulcrum of all world Jewish affairs.
Whether political, religious, or cultural, all Jewish issues necessarily involve Israel
because today the Jewish State contains all of Judaism in its noisy diversity. In
this respect, only Israeli-related affairs are able to galvanize liberal Jewish identity
and activism. If, then, American liberal Jews could indeed check their Zionism at
the door, they would risk checking their Judaism as well.
Indeed, while Beinart gloomily forecasts a situation in which young liberal Jews
are disengaged from Israel because of its changing character, as well as policies
with which they disagree, all evidence points in the other direction. Frustrated
as some liberal Jews get once in a while with Israel (and now may very well
be one such moment), they have far from checked their Zionism at the door.
Demographers and political scientists—most recently Theodore Sasson—have
41Israel Journal of foreign Affairs V : 3 (2011) demonstrated that the forms of American Jewish identification with Israel have indeed changed, but not weakened, over the last few decades. While in the ’70s and ’80s Jews still expressed support for Israel through large umbrella organizations like the United Jewish Appeal (UJA), they have more recently moved toward channeling their donations to support specific causes and toward direct social and political engagement.8 American Jews, whether politically liberal or conservative, religious or secular, have sought to fashion Israel in their own image. The flourishing of “American friends of” Israeli schools and universities, settlements and yeshivas, developing towns, hospitals, political parties, civic movements, religious institutions, and museums is indicative of these developments. Even in the great recession, in which Jewish philanthropy suffered immensely, Jewish involvement in Israeli causes remains high. Criticism of Israel by American Jews does not refute this trend, and may even confirm it. Sasson notes that the “critical orientation of diverse sets of American Jews toward Israel and their disengagement from centralized fundraising do not indicate alienation but rather the opposite: More American Jews care sufficiently about Israel to seek to influence her.” Beinart identifies two poles of American Jewry: religious Jews, “deeply devoted to the State of Israel,” and liberal or secular Jews committed primarily to human rights and universalistic values. But he does not explain what exactly is Jewish about this commitment to universalistic values absent Israel and whether this commitment would be powerful enough to mobilize and sustain American Jewish identity. Beinart tacitly assumes that there could be liberal Jewish life in America without an Israeli component, as much as he dreads such a prospect. Yet it might be the case that only Israeli-related affairs now permit energetic communal affairs among liberal Jews. Without Israel, there are few barriers against total assimilation and even fewer outlets for social and political activism. Many have shown that for American Orthodox Jews, it is altogether a different story, since, in principle, the failure of Zionism would not spell the end of their Judaism. Their confident practice of religious ritual ensures communal continuity and affinity, although here, too, Israel helps. Modern Orthodox American Jews are very engaged with Israeli affairs, and their concerns are often an extension of religious Zionist concerns in Israel. Even the traditionally anti-Zionist haredim [ultra-Orthodox], who had long believed that Zionism was blasphemy, and mostly followed the dictum dina-de-malchoota-dina [the law of the land rules] in their countries of domicile, are now totally enmeshed with the State of Israel. Transnational ties between the ultra-Orthodox in America and Israel have become so intense in recent decades that they are part and parcel of every aspect of Israeli life. At times it seems that air travel to Israel from the US is dominated by the ultra-Orthodox, prompting some secular Israelis to fly on the Sabbath to avoid the prayers that inevitably take place in-flight, which they consider disruptive. 42
Yossi Shain and Neil Rogachevsky
There is hardly a domestic, social, or political debate in Israel in which the ultra-
Orthodox do not participate, hoping to gain accommodations from the state and
shape it in their own image. This means, however, that they are to some degree
co-opted by Zionism, as exemplified by new haredi units in the military, and other
moves to incorporate them in all aspects of Israeli life. Even if their version of
Judaism rejects basic tenets of traditional Zionism and modern state institutions,
the fact that haredim in Israel now speak modern Hebrew rather than Yiddish
for day-to-day speech demonstrates that they have not been immune to Israeli
influence. Their participation in affairs of state on every level inevitably makes
them identify with and take part in the Israeli project.
What about liberal Jews? As has often been said, the “greatest enemy” of the
Jews in America is their success. Although they continue to crave integration into
all aspects of American life, and often achieve it, many remain concerned with
Jewish survival and the perpetuation of Jewish identity. But this is not so easy.
In liberal societies, identity begins at home, and Jews must find Jewish mates or
non-Jews who adopt a Jewish way of life. The immense success of the Jewish
dating site JDate among liberal Jews reveals that the desire to perpetuate Jewish
identity remains strong. When young liberal Jewish families seek to participate
in Jewish communal life, they quickly find that “Israel” always ranks very high
on the agenda of their institutions. Liberal Jews, who usually advocate political
liberalism, try to bring their principles to bear on the domestic and foreign affairs
of Israel, hoping to shape the country in their own image. In turn, new institutions
constantly sprout up to support this effort, such as J Street, founded in 2007, and
other similar bodies.
JDate and J Street are the twin pillars of American Jewish liberalism today.
JDate represents Jewish particularism, i.e., perpetuating the “tribe.” J Street
represents Jewish universalism, i.e., making the “tribe” conform to a universal
liberal ideal. While JDate boundaries are quite simple, members of J Street must
define their boundaries much more carefully. They are free to criticize Israeli
practices, but only to the degree that their criticism is not perceived to be hostile
to the well-being of the Jewish State itself. If they seem to be part of the post-
Zionist crowd, they will be quickly marginalized like post-Zionism in Israel and
lose their struggle for clout in Washington. Certainly there are Jews who have
made such choices, prominent Jewish intellectuals like the late Tony Judt among
them. But these individuals carry a flag with no army, and their influence within
the American Jewish community is negligible.
For the JDate and J Street crowds, religious affiliation tends to circle around
the more liberal streams of Judaism. Some, but not very many, more observant
43Israel Journal of foreign Affairs V : 3 (2011) Jews use JDate to look for prospective shidduchim [matches] and a few participate in J Street. There is, of course, a correlation between strict Jewish religious observance and non-leftist politics. But liberal Jews in America cannot ignore the growing influence of Orthodoxy on Jewish affairs and practices in the Diaspora and especially in Israel. This paradoxically forces liberal Jews who want to remain Jews to be even more engaged in Israeli affairs; for the battles to determine the future of Jewish practice and belonging are being fought not in Brooklyn or Los Angeles but in the streets of Jerusalem and Tel Aviv, the yeshivas and liberal Jewish learning centers of Jerusalem, as well as in the Supreme Court and the Knesset. Events surrounding a new conversion bill in the Knesset in the summer of 2010 again proved that battles about the future of Judaism and Jewish identity are fought in Israel. The controversy erupted when Member of Knesset David Rotem introduced a conversion bill aimed at allowing immigrants from the former Soviet Union and their progeny to convert while granting the Orthodox Rabbinate the exclusive power to certify conversions. Uproar in the Diaspora ensued, as Jews from liberal streams feared it would invalidate their own processes of conversion. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said the bill threatened to “tear the Jewish people apart” and appointed former refusenik Natan Sharansky to come up with some kind of compromise. Paradoxically, the uproar in Israel served as an opportunity for Jews around the world to engage in dialogue on vexing communal issues. This eruption, though perhaps noteworthy for the unusual intensity of the Diaspora response, is surely not new. For the past two decades, the so-called “who-is-a-Jew” or conversion issue has been the catalyst for Diaspora–Israeli antagonisms but also, as Jewish Agency chairman Sharansky said, for conversation and dialogue. Indeed, the role of the ultra-Orthodox in determining religious law in Israel has brought them into direct contact and often confrontation with more liberal Jews. In 1988, when the “who-is-a-Jew” controversy erupted, the Orthodox parties in Israel demanded changing the Law of Return in accordance with a stricter interpretation of Jewish conversion, which would have invalidated some of the conversions performed by Conservative and Reform rabbis in America. Subsequently, leaders of the vast majority of American organized Jewry declared “open revolt against Israel.” It was the first time that the bitter hostility between American non-Orthodox leaders and the New York-based Lubavitch Hasidic movement—led by the late Rabbi Menachem Mendel Schneerson—was injected into the Israeli arena with such ferocity. The Lubavitchers’ ardor and money ignited Israeli religious zeal and the move to change Israel’s legal definition of who is a Jew. It left an indelible mark on the future direction of Israeli politics and society. Dr. Ismar Schorsch, a prominent leader in the Conservative movement, 44
Yossi Shain and Neil Rogachevsky
and chancellor emeritus of its Jewish Theological Seminary, commented: “This is
an American affair which the Lubavitcher Rebbe is forcing upon Israel…Israel is
the battlefield.”9
The disagreements of some American liberal Jews with Israeli policies serve as the
catalyst for communal activism. In expressing his fear that American Jews may
dispense with Israel, Beinert has not gone on to explain what their new rallying
cry would be. The popularity of J Street demonstrates that liberal American Jews,
qua Jews, require Israel to kick around.
Many who believe that Israel must “end the occupation” do not believe that this
would harm Israel. Rather, they believe that Israel, a country with a powerful
military, could handle the compromise. They go further and claim that an immediate
resolution to the conflict would be good for Israel, for its continued presence in
the West Bank calls into question both its moral legitimacy and the viability of a
Jewish majority state in the future.
A significant portion of the Israeli electorate and its leadership subscribes to this
view as well. These include President Shimon Peres, former prime minister and
current defense minister Ehud Barak, opposition leader Tzipi Livni, as well as
former prime ministers Yitzhak Rabin and Ehud Olmert. As prime minister, Ariel
Sharon, the lifelong hawk, led the disengagement from Gaza, much to the chagrin
of many on the Israeli right and its supporters in the Diaspora. Sharon came to
believe that the Israeli presence in much of the West Bank would damage security
over the long run. Whatever his private thoughts on the matter, Prime Minister
Netanyahu has himself said that Israel would recognize a Palestinian state under
certain conditions.
And yet, trying to resolve the Israeli–Palestinian conflict has not been easy. Shlomo
Avineri, the doyen of Israeli political scientists, has argued that even though the
two-state solution is the only viable option, its implementation is in doubt, surely
at the present moment. The reasons are that no agreement could be reached on
Jerusalem, refugees, and about settlement evacuation. Avineri claims that even if
an agreement could be reached, as in the past the American role would only be
as a guarantor rather than as an initiator. “The solution is likely to come from the
ground up, not from the top down.”10
Perhaps no other world conflict has received as much attention as the Israeli–
Palestinian one. The difficulties are immense; focusing on the Israeli–Palestinian
conflict, especially in diplomacy, is a sure path to frustration. And yet, every
president in recent decades has jumped into the fray, believing that he was the
man to break the impasse. This exemplifies the unique mystique of American
45Israel Journal of foreign Affairs V : 3 (2011)
diplomacy—the tireless, “can-do” American diplomat, a character who has became
more pronounced since the end of the Cold War. As diplomatic historian David
Vital has written:
United States policy in the Middle East, as elsewhere, has long been
informed by two distinct and contradictory modes of thought—and of
action too. One has its expression in the classic and necessary tendency in
diplomacy as such, diplomacy in all times and places, to deal with problems
as and when they arise. This is the tendency to pragmatism coupled with
the tendency to concentrate on matters which pertain to the short term.
The other mode has its expression in a type of political thought which is
in many ways distinctively American—namely, to think large rather than
small, and, above all, to think in terms of the solutions of problems.11
American administrations have surely played a part in settling some aspects of
the Israeli–Palestinian conflict when the moment was right—though perhaps not
always as critical a part as some think. When Israel signed a peace agreement with
Egypt in 1979, as Fouad Ajami explained, “It was initiated by the two parties and
blessed by a cornered America.” The Palestinian question, meanwhile, was not
decisive for Egypt. “For him [Sadat] the question was not Palestine, but Egypt.”12
Certainly when Jordan’s King Hussein signed his peace treaty with Israel in 1994,
the Palestinian issue, again, was secondary. One may say with great confidence
that if Syria and Israel eventually sign a peace treaty, the Palestinian question
will not be a hindrance either. Both in the case of Jordan and Egypt, American
involvement, important though it was, was by no means the decisive factor.
Even the Oslo Accords, purportedly initiated by President Clinton, were initially
drafted in secrecy in Norway by Israelis and Palestinians. Despite all of this, the
view that “American involvement is paramount” remains prevalent in Washington
and in the region itself. No other international actor has any such clout. Surely the
Americans believe this, and the long-suffering American diplomat has a harder
time believing that goodwill and energy are often not enough.
President Obama had rebuked his predecessor President Bush for getting involved
only late in the game; Obama said he would be there from day one. The ensuing
inevitable letdowns promote the “theory of everything.” All frustrations from other
arenas that accompany American involvement in the region, from Afghanistan to
Iraq, the war on terror, Muslim anger at America, and even the occasional rift with
European allies, are viewed through the prism of the unsolved Israeli–Palestinian
conflict. America expects, and is expected, to break all impasses, and when it does
not do that, something nefarious must be blocking its way.
46Yossi Shain and Neil Rogachevsky
But can anyone remember the last time America was able to bring about an
enduring solution to an ethnic conflict in the Middle East, or, in fact, anywhere
else? What America should do in the Middle East is in fact an enigma, one that
emerged before the Israeli–American “special relations” paradigm was established
in the 1960s. Indeed, neither priorities nor strategies to attain enduring solutions
have been clear; even how the Israeli–Palestinian situation affects other parts of
American Middle East policy is very much an open question, though much talk
about its “indispensable” character has long been bandied about. Regional players
have their own agendas and limitations, and are usually unwilling or incapable of
marching to American dictates. Americans surely believe, and many in the region
say, that resolution of the Israeli–Palestinian conflict is the key to attaining many
American goals in the region. This, however, is doubtful.
The difficulties of the conflict, combined with the belief in its inherent solvability,
shed undue attention on the power of the Israel lobby. If this compares to any
other situation in American politics, it would be to the Armenian lobby, which,
in 2009, suffered a significant blow when Armenia and Turkey signed a peace
agreement with the assistance of US Secretary of State Hillary Clinton. For
years, the understanding in America and elsewhere was that the Armenian lobby
dictated the terms of US–Armenian relations and the terms of discussion between
the US and Turkey. This view was widely held in Turkey, Armenia, the media,
and academia, insofar as anyone paid attention to this region. Some Armenian
Americans consider the new peace agreement treason and a betrayal of the
memory of the Armenian genocide. Raffi Hovannisian, an Armenian American
who became Armenia’s first foreign minister, has echoed the frustration of the
Armenian Diaspora:
The signing of the two diplomatic “protocols” between Armenia and
Turkey might indeed constitute the latest entry in the ledger of crimes
committed, and covered up, against the Armenian nation… with a small
group of improperly elected leaders apparently racing toward a forsaking
of both identity and interest.13
But few on Capitol Hill, or in the White House, put much stock in these opinions.
The opportunity was there, and it was seized. When conditions are ripe, peace
treaties can be signed, lobbying notwithstanding. The same applies to the Israeli–
Palestinian conflict and other now-intractable issues in the region. The latest
stirrings for renewed direct negotiations have little to do with the opinions of
any lobbying organization about the plausibility of negotiations. If the situation
permits it, diplomatic inroads may be made. Even were there such a breakthrough,
the “theory of everything” might be difficult for some diehards to abandon. Both
for friends and foes of the Jews (as well as often Jews themselves), Jewish power
47Israel Journal of foreign Affairs V : 3 (2011)
has always been an attractive proposition, long before Jews obtained even a
semblance of it. But with a perplexing reality in the Middle East and elsewhere,
one should say to Americans, Europeans, Arabs, Muslims, and Israelis: dispense
with the “theory of everything.” It is simply confusing, and we are already confused
enough.
Notes
The authors gratefully acknowledge the support of the Department of Government at
Georgetown University.
1
James Traub, “The New Israel Lobby,” The New York Times Magazine, September 13,
2009.
2
Mark Mellman, “The Jews and the Democrats,” The Hill, October 7, 2009.
3
“Fatah memo: We lost hope in Obama for caving to Zionist pressure” Haaretz, October.
13, 2009.
4
See Marcella Bombardieri, “On campuses, critics of Israel fend off a label,” The Boston
Globe, September 21, 2002. Also see Elli Wohlgelernter, “Take back the university,” The
Jerusalem Post, August 9, 2002.
5
Summers’ speech is available online at http://president.harvard.edu/speeches/2002/
morningprayers.html.
6
Jonathan Rosen, “The Uncomfortable Question of Antisemitism,” The New York Times,
November 4, 2001.
7
See the following exchange on the subject: Michael Lind, “The Israel Lobby,” Prospect
Magazine, April 2002, and Adam Garfinkle, “Israel Lobby (Part II),” Prospect Magazine,
September, 2002.
8
Theodore Sasson, “Mass Mobilization to Direct Engagement: American Jews’
Changing Relationship to Israel,” Israel Studies, XV:2 (2010).
9
Cited in Yossi Shain, Kinship and Diaspora in International Affairs (Ann Arbor, 2007), p.
81.
10
Speech given at Rabin Center, Tel Aviv, July 27, 2010.
11
David Vital, The Future of the Jews (Cambridge, 1990), p. 56.
12
Fouad Ajami, The Arab Predicament (New York, 1981), p. 163.
13
October 12, 2009, “An open letter to the Armenian Nation,” http://www.acnis.am/
pr/121009/index.htm.
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