JustASC

I’m big in Abu Dhabi: The National, an English-language paper there, quotes me on the chances that left-leaning lobbying groups like J Street can make a dent in pro-Israel circles:

“These left-wing views sound like they could leave Israel vulnerable and it’s harder to make the case or reduce it to a slogan,” says Andrew Silow-Carroll, the liberal editor of the New Jersey Jewish News. “It’s hard to be too right wing on Israel or care too much because it involves the very visceral, existential fears of Israelis.”

I don’t know about the “liberal” tag, especially in this context, but she quotes me accurately. Perhaps it was unclear, but I was describing the mindset of a generic, anxious American Jew who may agree with the views of the Israeli left, but when it comes to U.S. politicans and pro-Israel lobbying groups, has more gut faith in pols and groups that press a harder line. It’s like picking a real estate agent: you want one who will start with an unrealistically high price, so you’ll end up with the kind of offer you can live with.

The only problem, as Jeffrey Goldberg suggests in his oped in yesterday’s Times,  is when the high bid stops being a negotiating position, and becomes the bottom line:

The leadership of the organized American Jewish community has allowed the partisans of settlement to conflate support for the colonization of the West Bank with support for Israel itself. John J. Mearsheimer and Stephen M. Walt, in their polemical work “The Israel Lobby,” have it wrong: They argue, unpersuasively, that American support for Israel hurts America. It doesn’t. But unthinking American support does hurt Israel.

The people of Aipac and the Conference of Presidents are well meaning, and their work in strengthening the overall relationship between America and Israel has ensured them a place in the world to come. But what’s needed now is a radical rethinking of what it means to be pro-Israel. Barack Obama and John McCain, the likely presidential nominees, are smart, analytical men who understand the manifold threats Israel faces 60 years after its founding. They should be able to talk, in blunt terms, about the full range of dangers faced by Israel, including the danger Israel has brought upon itself.

This entry was posted on Monday, May 19th, 2008 at 8:29 am and is filed under JustASC. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.