With a new Israeli government about to be installed, supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance are preparing for possible conflict between soon-to-be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama.
But that won’t be the only fight concerning Israel in Washington this year. Nor will it necessarily be the nastiest.
Instead, the real action may concern a coming conflict between two groups that, though both proclaiming themselves “pro-Israel,” represent different views about U.S. foreign policy.
One is the coalition led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that sees its purpose as supporting the government of Israel no matter who leads it.
The other comprises critics of the Jewish State who believe pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians in the best form of friendship.
The most conspicuous member of the latter is the lobby group J Street which sees itself as a Jewish model along the lines of the moveon.org activist group that helped transform and propel the American left to victory in the last two election cycles.
Having labeled AIPAC a creature of the Republicans and in thrall to the Christian right, J Street and its fellow travelers entered 2009 expecting to use their connections in the Obama administration to change the way Israel is discussed in Washington.
Their belief that the main obstacle to peace was an Israeli refusal to make further concessions on territory and settlements to the Palestinians seemed to be more in sync with the return of Clinton administration veterans to positions of influence now that the Democrats are back in power.
Rough start
As a result, J Street’s leaders anticipate making progress towards their long-term goal of supplanting AIPAC as the voice that the White House and Congress take most seriously when measures concerning Israel are debated.
But despite these advantages, the Obama era got off to a rough start for J Street.
Almost alone among Jewish groups, the left-wing lobby conspicuously opposed Israel’s recent counter-offensive into Gaza and did so in its customary self-righteous style which sought to brand all those who differed as opposed to peace.
This stand reinforced the group’s image as extremists and exposed as fraudulent their posturing about being more representative of American Jewish opinion than AIPAC.
Nevertheless, in the aftermath of the Gaza fighting, J Street was undaunted.
Obama’s naming of George Mitchell as his Middle East envoy seemed to vindicate the left’s call for more U.S. intervention in the moribund peace process.
The prospect of a Netanyahu-led coalition in Jerusalem may also increase their influence. Since the Likud leader is deeply unpopular in official circles in Washington, J Street can look forward to being able to put AIPAC at a disadvantage since it will find itself obligated to defend his government as a matter of course.
Yet the first real fight of 2009 over Middle East policy may not concern Netanyahu or even the more controversial elements of his cabinet. Instead, the collision of the “pro-Israel” lobbies may have more to do with the Palestinians than anything Israelis are doing.
The announcement that the United States would donate approximately $900 million to help rebuild Gaza was not initially considered controversial. Yet mindful of its pledge not to deal with the terrorists running Gaza and to support the Palestinian Authority, the administration promised the money would not go to Hamas.
Instead it would be funneled through the P.A. and its highly respected Prime Minister Salam Fayyad as well as through humanitarian groups.
But this plan was unrealistic. Fayyad soon resigned, ending the brief experiment in trying to have a Palestinian leader who was actually interested in developing their economy.
Misguided groups
His problems illustrate how misguided groups like J Street were about the Palestinians’ willingness to make peace. Palestinian politicians who don’t kill Jews are not as popular as those who do. But even with Fayyad, the P.A. has no power in Gaza.
As for humanitarian outlets in Gaza, the prime recipient of such money would be the United Nations Relief Works Agency, the U.N. body whose sole purpose is to not only help the Palestinians but to perpetuate the misery of those still classified as refugees from the 1948 Israeli War of Independence and their descendants.
UNRWA is heavily infiltrated by Hamas operatives. Aid given to it would either be directed to Hamas-oriented causes or stolen outright by the group.
The prospect of nearly a billion U.S. taxpayer dollars being poured into Gaza with much of it likely to wind up in the hands of terrorists is not likely to go without protest.
Indeed questions are already being asked about whether the aid should be conditioned not only on complete accountability about their use but on more general policy questions such as the cessation of rocket fire on southern Israel and the release of kidnapped Israeli soldier Gilad Shalit, whom Hamas has held since June 2006.
Recently, Nevada Rep. Shelly Berkley (D) wrote to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton asking that restrictions be placed on the disbursement of these funds.
If, as anticipated, this move is supported by other members of Congress of both parties and some pro-Israel groups, we can expect a serious debate on this point in which J Street and its allies will seek to portray such conditions as being anti-peace.
Indeed, this conflict may well resemble similar arguments in the 1990s during the heyday of the doomed Oslo peace process. Then, the Clinton administration and the Jewish left dismissed as “anti-peace” efforts to point out that the billions given Yasser Arafat and the P.A. were not only being stolen but were used to finance anti-Israel incitement as well as terrorism.
This time, the realization that the U.S. is funding to what amounts to a massive “stimulus” package for equally dubious Palestinian recipients may inspire opposition that is even more broad-based.
If so, we will have another chance to see if J Street’s strident advocacy of appeasement of Palestinian leaders that are as unlikely to promote peace as Arafat is as popular as they imagine it to be.
As was the case a decade ago with Arafat, no amount of blather about peace and investing in hope will whitewash the reputations of terrorists.
Nor will the current ascendancy of fellow liberals in Washington be enough to grant legitimacy to a “pro-Israel” group whose main efforts are geared toward undermining solidarity with the Jewish state.
Jonathan S. Tobin is executive editor of Commentary magazine.
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