Jeremy Ben-Ami is the founder of J Street, a pro-peace, pro-Israel lobbying group that has positioned itself as a leader of liberal American Jews who have been denied a strong voice in a debate dominated by hardline agencies like the American-Israeli Political Affairs Committee. In a mere two years since it was launched, J Street has “created space,” as its members like to say, for those who oppose the Israeli occupation of the West Bank and its incarceration of Gaza. Though outgunned by its larger rivals, according to Ben-Ami, J Street’s appeal for “passionate moderation” is beginning to resonate with the US Congress.
The liberal Ben-Ami is himself the product of an expansionist Zionist vision; his father, Yitzhak, was a member of the Irgun Zvai Leumi, the underground group that employed terrorist tactics to drive the British from Mandate Palestine and sought a Jewish state stretching from modern day Israel to what is now Jordan. Today, the younger Ben-Ami is struggling to extricate Israel from an occupation that threatens to undermine its very identity as a Jewish state. He spoke with The Majalla about the rise of the religious right in both Israel and the Jewish community in America, and the consequences of not acting aggressively to forge a peace deal while moderates in both camps still have a stake in Israel’s survival.
The Majalla: To what do you attribute J Street’s success: luck, timing, hard work, or a little of all three?
First and foremost, it’s being in the right place at the right time. There was an enormous vacuum in the American Jewish community and J Street is filling it rapidly because it was such a deep and powerful vacuum. Plus, the times couldn’t have been more critical and that had a multiplier effect on the pace at which we’ve grown.
The awareness of many different parts of the world–whether that be American foreign policy and security establishment or the awareness of the leadership of the American Jewish community or other international actors–that the status quo is unsustainable is probably higher than ever. It is taken for granted by both our countries’ leadership but also by leaders around the world and the leaders of nongovernmental organizations that something will have to give if we don’t take a positive direction in search of a solution. Otherwise it’s going to break in an unpleasant and unproductive manner and it’s going to hurt a lot of people’s interests in the process.
Q: How much of this has to do with the arrival of the Obama administration and a hardline government in Israel?
I think the White House is reacting to the unsustainability of the situation, which is being enhanced by this government in Israel. The provocative conduct of what is going on in East Jerusalem, the manner in which the Gaza siege is being managed, the way in which Israel is conducting foreign policy are all exacerbating the tensions and bringing the pot to a boil.
Q: Are you surprised by the pushback you’re getting from the more established members of the Jewish community?
I’m not at all surprised. One of the reasons we started J Street was because there has been for so long such a gap between the views in the broader community of America’s Jewish community and the voices of those who purport to speak for that community. We’re stepping forward and providing a different voice for that community, so it does not surprise me at all that there’s tough pushback. There are very fundamental arguments at stake.
One of the surprises is how fast we have been able to create a sense of a new and alternative voice being heard. It’s only two years since we launched this from scratch and in two years we’ve become an established institutional player and that’s what is so surprising. The challenges are not surprising because that is exactly why we started J Street. The political playbook as I call it, the handbook by which those who practice politics in the United States play the game by is very well known. There is an understood way in which you’re supposed to talk about Israel and an understood way in which you’re supposed to talk to the Jewish community and that is what we’re up against. We are trying to change the rulebook and that is a difficult challenge, but it was not unexpected.
Q: You’re in the business of promoting nuance and in the game of politics in Washington it is always easier to play to extremes. What you’re saying is that people are actually more responsive to nuance than they are to those extremes.
I think the majority of people in both Washington and the leadership of various Jewish institutions really know this subject in more depth than people give them credit for and once you know this topic you know that nothing is black and white. That’s the first thing you really learn. There is an appeal to those who are thoughtful, to an organization that appreciates the nuance and appreciates the shades of gray. The worldview of the prior administration and the worldview of many of the neocons who run think tanks or who help guide the traditional organizations is very much a good versus evil, a black and white view of the world.
That’s why so much of the polling done by [conservative groups] like The Israel Project is “Do you like the Palestinians or do you like the Israelis?” you’re either with us or against us, that’s the simplistic approach. When you spend time to really know the subject matter, you know that is not the way to approach this. So to hear a group that supports Israel and cares about its survival and its character and its soul and its security, all those things, to hear a group that come at the question with a more nuanced and thoughtful approach is more refreshing to the political and policy leadership in this town.
Q: A lot has been made of your background, your upbringing and your father’s experience in the Irgun. How do you think he would perceive or regard your work?
My hope is that he would be thrilled that I care. The real challenge for people who are my age or much younger is that they don’t care and that there isn’t the connection between Jewish Americans and the state of Israel that there used to be and I’d like to think he would appreciate the engagement and passion that I’m bringing to it, he’d be happy to know that I am trying to complete the work that he started, which is to have a safe, democratic and Jewish Israel. On the other hand I’m sure he would disagree violently [laughter] with the position I’ve taken and the avenue I am outlining for getting to that goal, so I’m hoping it would be a mixed reaction.
Q: How significant is that demographic, about the younger generation not caring about these issues?
As a matter of generality, and it’s always dangerous to get into generalities, there are two camps emerging in the American Jewish community. One is much more religious and traditional and conservative in its view and more deeply tied to Israel, and the other is a reform or non-religious, cultural Jewish community that is both less connected to Israel and more liberal in its overall politics. The real challenge is how to bridge the gap between the two, not just over Israel but on a whole host of issues and how you maintain a cohesiveness to a community that has significant cultural, religious, political and identity differences.
Q: The findings from the polling you’ve done are very interesting. Were you at all surprised by the conclusions?
One thing that I didn’t expect but which makes sense when I look at it is how, as the number of Orthodox Jews increase among the younger generation, you find a larger number of younger Jews who are conservative on Israel. I did find that surprising and a lot of people say “Isn’t J Street a generational phenomenon and part of the Obama phenomenon and isn’t it led by, and speaks for younger people?” But you have to be careful to recognize that younger American Jews are more orthodox and more conservative than their older counterparts. We have these two different camps within the American Jewish community and we as J Street are certainly speaking more for the box that is younger and less orthodox.
Q: This is very much reflective of the changing demographics of Israel itself. The country seems to be drifting towards the right and religious parties are very influential. You could also say this is happening throughout the Middle East, this empowerment of the orthodoxy.
Yes. I like to think of J Street as passionate moderates, and this is the broader challenge for moderates everywhere, this whole ability to understand the narrative of the other, the ability to find the shades of gray between black and white, to say this isn’t us versus them on every issue. All of that is at stake. If the moderates who are still leading, in Jordan, for example, and among the Fatah leadership and the Tzipi Livni and Edward Omert world in Israel, if that generation of moderates doesn’t seize this moment, to resolve this conflict, then that moment of history will pass us by and whether the moderates can ever regain the initiative before things get out of hand is a real open question.
Q: You have certainly made a difference, but if you look at things from the Palestinian perspective, talking about a settlement freeze and investing a great deal of political capital in it is unsatisfactory when Palestinian independence is predicated on settlement evacuation, and we’re obviously a long way from that point. How are we going to reconcile this and what will J Street’s role be in that process?
We are not under any illusion that the settlement “chill,” as I prefer to call it, in any way begins to treat the underlying disease here. At best, trying to stop the growth of settlements is treating the symptom of the underlying disease and that is the occupation. The only treatment that will prevent the patient from fatal consequences is treating the disease. You’ve got to deal with the fundamental issues and get to the final status questions that have been deferred for too long and start putting clear answers on the table so that people understand what the endgame is, not “we’re going to take one step along a hundred-step road.” What is the end of the road? You can’t navigate if you don’t know where you’re going and there’s no roadmap without a destination. This step-by-step confidence-building measures and interim agreements is a recipe for failure at this point because people have lost confidence that the ship has a destination.
Interview conducted by Stephen Glain – former correspondent for Newsweek and covered Asia and the Middle East for the Wall Street Journal for a decade. Now based in Washington as a freelance journalist and author he is currently working on his forthcoming book about the militarization of US foreign policy.
