Jewish identity in crisis, not Zionism
THIS YEAR’S J Street conference failed to match its Aipac adversary in numbers and high-profile attendance. Aipac, after all, had US President Barack Obama himself, not just one of his policy advisers. Aipac also had Israel’s sitting prime minister — J Street had the former prime minister only. And Aipac counted more than 12,000 activists — against the 2,500 attendees J-street’s website boasts about.
But J Street had something Aipac can never get — Peter Beinart, the former editor of the New Republic who supported the Iraq War before opposing it and is now a critical Zionist having been a Zionist without adjectives.
Is the J Street phenomenon, now in its fourth year, evidence that Israel is in trouble unless its policies change considerably?
That is a central tenet of Peter Beinart’s thesis — one which he has articulated in a
Critical Zionist: Peter Beinart
new book just published and launched at the J-street conference. Beinart’s
is an extension of his argument first aired last year in the
It surmises a growing gap between an increasingly nationalist Israel and a liberal Jewish community in America that Israel will eventually lose. Israel, Beinart argues, is betraying those liberal values on which it was founded and for which it earned the unconditional support of the American Jewish community.
That support is in jeopardy now, as this growing gap — which, for Beinart, US Jewish organisations and their leaders choose to ignore at their peril — will thin down the cohorts of Jews prepared to march on Capitol Hill on Israel’s behalf. Judging by the sheer power and numbers of attendees at Aipac and J Street, this forecast may be premature. Further evidence that American Jews are not so alienated comes from recent data on Jewish philanthropy, showing that US Jewish donations to Israel causes doubled in the past 20 years. Even if one discounts inflation, the figure offers no proof of alienation or disengagement. It is evidence of a growing commitment, if anything.
Besides, those who claim, like Beinart, that Israel has betrayed the liberal ethos of its founders show a shocking ignorance of history. How can anyone call the Israel of the founders a more liberal place than today’s Israel, given that Israeli Arabs lived under military government until 1966; given that Sephardi Jews were largely discriminated against in the public sector; given that press censorship was much more widespread and given that a largely secular, socialist establishment privileged card-carrying members for social benefits in a way that made Israel anything but a liberal society? By liberal standards, Israel is more liberal today than it was in the 1950s, 1960s or 1970s.
The problem for J Street and Beinart, far from being one of Israel having betrayed its original calling, has more to do with a crisis of Jewish identity among liberal Jews in America, where many like Beinart find it hard to reconcile their commitment to progressive causes with an unqualified love of Israel.
J Street has gathered those who are caught in this bind — and good on them for trying to find a balance between what are increasingly worlds apart. But to call this a crisis of Zionism is far-fetched.