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The New Normal: Why J Street Should be Happy About Being Rejected by the Conference of Presidents

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In a not entirely surprising vote, J Street was rejected from membership in the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations. Despite the hand-wringing among J Street members and supporters, I think this is a blessing in disguise and says much more about the Conference of Presidents than J Street.

J Street is a pro-Israel/pro-Palestinian Washington lobby that identifies as a Zionist organization. Its policies regarding the conflict in Israel/Palestine are almost identical to the polices of present and past US governments, the majority of American Jews, and arguably a good portion of Israeli Jews as well. It is committed to a two-state solution (supposedly the position of the Netanyahu government) that would include a demilitarized viable Palestinian state. It has expressed support for the Israeli position regarding secure borders. It has shied away from supporting contentious issues such as Palestinian recognition in the United Nations. It is true that it gave Judge Goldstone the right to speak and held a discussion panel on BDS at one of its annual conferences. It did not endorse the Goldstone Report, as some of its detractors claim, but felt that a discussion of the report by Judge Goldstone was both necessary and legitimate. J Street does not support BDS but felt a discussion of the phenomenon in a panel that included speakers for and against BDS was necessary. At that same conference Dennis Ross gave an address (one he could have easily delivered at AIPAC) as did other figures who are very much in the American Jewish mainstream.

So why did the Conference of Presidents reject J Street? Let’s set aside the inane comments by people like Morton Klein of the Zionist Organization of America, who describes J Street as a “radical extremist” group or various other ridiculous comments by Alan Dershowitz. J Street is anything but extreme. In fact, many like myself feel alienated from J Street because it is too mainstream.

Moving Beyond the Same-Old American Jewish Narrative

I think a few things are happening simultaneously in the American Jewish community that brought certain Presidents Conference members on the fence to vote no. First, I think AIPAC and its affiliates fear, rightly so, that they are losing control of the American Jewish narrative on Israel. BDS, which only a few years ago was a marginal phenomenon, is now becoming a more prominent threat. The Open Hillel movement is gaining traction as college-age students begin to express themselves against National Hillel’s “guidelines on Israel.” Many members of the Conference, whose center-right inclination is well-known, read the polls and see that the majority of American Jews favor the J Street position even if they are not J Street members. In my view, Secretary of State John Kerry’s recent comments were not ad hoc; they were meant to send a message. The Obama administration is finally beginning to understand Netanyahu’s tactics of obfuscation. Finally, the Israel hasbara enterprise is losing ground. It has become harder and harder for hasbara spokespeople to convince the diminishing few who care about this issue at all – or don’t already have an opinion – that Israel is really a partner for peace, especially when it seems likely Prime Minister Netanyahu will move the goalposts again and again.

And so J Street is a threat precisely because it is increasingly where most American Jews are. Moreover, it has broken the American Jewish taboo that whatever Israel says or does, one cannot criticize Israel in public. For many American Jewish baby boomers, it’s tolerable for Israelis to criticize their own country, but not for American Jews to do so, and certainly not an American Jewish organization. But the American Jewish population is changing. Anyone under the age of 45 has grown up with Israel as an occupying power. The Internet has enabled us to view news sources from around the world. Videos of human rights abuses in places like Hebron and other settlements is only a click away. The reality and complexity of Israel as a military occupying force, as well as being an open democratic country, is there for anyone to see. And finally, the move to the right, even far right, of the Israeli Parliament makes the case for Israel as a “partner for peace” harder and harder to make. When Israel has powerful elected leaders like Naftali Bennett and some in the prime minister’s own Likud Party openly argue against the existence of any Palestinian state, ever, under any circumstances, what does it mean to say Israel is a partner for peace? What peace, exactly?

J Street is an organization that acknowledges these things and uses criticism to push Israel to stop doing what increasing numbers of Jewish Americans see as Israel acting as its own worst enemy. It is true that as a democracy, the citizens of Israel and their elected leaders will chose their own fate. This is as it should be. But American Jews expressing their opinions on this fate, both right and left, is a long-standing part of the Israel-Diaspora relationship. Those in the Presidents Conference with an old-style attitude that refuses to openly criticize Israel fear they are losing ground. But they are mistaken. The ground is already lost. This is not the Israel of Leon Uris’s Exodus or young kibbutznikim dancing the hora in the blazing sun. Israel is a high-tech, successful country of entrepreneurs. It is also a country addicted to occupation. J Street is trying to stage an intervention. But the Conference presidents aren’t willing to admit the addiction.

The Conference presidents who voted no are on the wrong side of history. They do not hear the words of the prophets Isaiah and Amos, or even know them. They are tone-deaf to the voice of the humanism embedded in the Jewish tradition. The Conference does not deserve J Street. The Conference presidents who voted “no” to J-Street are Israel’s enablers. J Street can do more good outside the ostensible mainstream of the Conference. The Kotzker Rebbe was once asked what he thought of Maimonides’ golden mean, the middle path. “The middle of the road,” he responded, “is for horses.”

J Street should stay out of the middle of the road. That is where they can fight truth to power more effectively. I thank the Conference presidents who voted no for openly exhibiting their lack of courage. They may think they are driving the future but, in fact, they are already history.

Shaul Magid is the Jay and Jeannie Schottenstein Professor of Jewish Studies at Indiana University/Bloomington. His most recent book is American Post-Judaism: Identity and renewal in a Postethnic Society (Indiana University Press, 2013). His forthcoming book is Hasidism Incarnate: Hasidism, Christianity, and the Construction of Modern Judaism (Stanford University, 2014)