Israel Matzav

Blame J Street for politicizing support for Israel

I've pointed out many times on this blog that support for Israel has unfortunately become a partisan issue. While Republican support for Israel is at an unprecedented virtual unanimity, Democratic support for Israel has been trending in the 50-60% range. Michael M. Rosen - disclaimer in order: He chairs the San Diego chapter of the Republican Jewish Coalition - implies that J Street is guilty of making support for Israel a partisan issue.

Predictably, partisans on the left pushed back on the right-leaning groups, reproaching them for manipulating the language in the original congressional letter and politicizing the Israeli-Palestinian issue.

But neither charge stands up to scrutiny. First, while some of the accusations leveled in the ads are hard-hitting, they’re hardly unfair, at least by the standards of contemporary campaign rhetoric. Indeed, J Street itself aired an ad lumping longtime Democrat and peace advocate Alan Dershowitz together with Rush Limbaugh and Sarah Palin as opponents of a two-state solution.

Second, it’s not ECI and its allies that have politicized Israel advocacy. J Street makes no bones about its fairly explicitly partisan goals, purporting to “do whatever we can in Congress to act as the president’s blocking back.” While other leftish and rightish groups - such as, respectively, Americans for Peace Now and the Zionist Organization of America - have in the past sought to challenge AIPAC’s primacy, no organization has broken through in terms of finance and influence the way J Street has. Thus, the group should find it unsurprising, and in some ways flattering, that rightist counterparts have joined the fray.

Ultimately, the organization expected to lose most from the current partisan fracas is AIPAC, along with the bulk of the American Jewish community on the right and the left who’ve contrived a centrist status quo over Israel advocacy. But like it or not, thanks to J Street and its progeny, the Israel issue will likely appear on the campaign trail for the foreseeable future.

AIPAC may lose funding from this fracas, but it will not lose prestige. AIPAC still has something that no one else has: The ears of the Israeli government. J Street has tried to supplant AIPAC and has failed miserably in that respect. It has NO influence here. ECI (Emergency Committee for Israel) never intended to supplant AIPAC. It wanted to do what AIPAC and the Israeli government cannot do - to take partisan positions on Israel's behalf in US domestic elections.

While the current battle may result in AIPAC losing some funding, I would guess that's temporary. When the Obama administration leaves office, J Street is likely to leave the scene with it. If J Street leaves the scene, the people who started ECI may conclude that they can tone down their activities as well.

But for the next two years, at least, the partisan battle is on.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 3:19 PM