Here we go again.
This is about two people, a man and a woman, who both live, not incidentally, in Washington, D.C., but who apparently inhabit very different planets.
One is named Michael Oren. He is the current ambassador of the State of Israel to the United States. Oren has a fine scholarly reputation and has generally been thought to identify politically with Israel’s center right. Soon after his arrival to his new post, Oren expressed his eagerness to “reach out to different groups, Jewish and non-Jewish, that have not felt a close attachment to the embassy in the past.” This was taken to mean that Oren wanted to be a “big tent” emissary, that he would in particular welcome dialogue with that large swath of people who, while devoted to Israel’s safety and welfare, part company with Israel’s government and its policies.
Either that was wishful thinking or Oren had an early change of heart. The first evidence of that, in October, was in his rejection of J Street’s invitation to address its first gathering. In a statement announcing the rejection, the Israeli embassy said that it “has been privately communicating its concerns over certain [JStreet] policies… that may impair the interests of Israel.”
Those who genuinely welcomed the big-tent-Oren assumed that the ambassador was operating not at his own discretion but on instruction from Israel — specifically, from Prime Minister Netanyahu, to whom Oren reports.
But then, without specific cause or warning, came Oren’s gratuitous remark at the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s biennial convention in December: “J Street,” the ambassador said, presents “a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments. It’s significantly out of the mainstream. This is not a matter of settlements here [or] there. We understand there are differences of opinion. But when it comes to the survival of the Jewish state, there should be no differences of opinion. You are fooling around with the lives of 7 million people. This is no joke.”
It doesn’t get much nastier or more intrusive than that. By any reasonable standard, J Street is a welcome addition to the Jewish organizational panoply. One need not agree with it, but there is no reason to doubt the seriousness of its commitment to being, as it puts it, “pro-Israel, pro-peace.” The only reason to oppose it is that its policies are entirely independent and often at odds with the policies of the Israeli government. But that warrants opposition, not exclusion or ostracism. And: To insist that on the most serious issue of all, the survival of the Jewish state, we check our judgment at the door and behave like automatons, reserving our reservations for pillow talk, is simply not serious.
It has long been accepted that the job of Israel’s ambassador to America informally includes being ambassador to the Jewish community. But that does not, by any stretch of the imagination, entitle him to act as if he is the mashgiach, declaring who is kosher and who is treyf. Ambassador Oren may believe that J Street is “fooling around” with the lives of 7 million people. But if he does, then the exigencies of his position have impaired his scholarly judgment. For what he chose to say condemns all those who seek to find some zone of comfort where they can express their concern for Israel without being told that they must abandon their critical capacity or their cherished values.
Comes Hannah Rosenthal, the newly appointed head of the State Department’s Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism, and when asked by a Haaretz interviewer about Oren’s comment that J Street is threatening the lives of 7 million Jews, replied that the comment was “most unfortunate.” That reply was sufficient to kick up a tempest in an egg-cup. (Disclosure: Hannah is a cherished friend of mine — with whom I have not spoken since the contretemps began.)
The serrated knives of the crazies are predictably out, as the many lunatic blogs show, but the Jewish establishment has also weighed in. Thus, for one unfortunate example, Alan Solow, chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations: “Ambassador Oren has been working tirelessly and effectively since his appointment to build upon and enhance the strong relationship between the United States and Israel. All members of the Obama Administration with whom I have discussed his work have been deeply appreciative of his efforts. As an official of the United States government, it is inappropriate for the anti-Semitism envoy to be expressing her personal views on the positions Ambassador Oren has taken as well as on the subject of who needs to be heard from in the Jewish community.”
Excuse me: It is wrong of Rosenthal to express her views on “who needs to be heard from in the Jewish community” but it is not wrong when Oren does that? Yet because of the noise from the Jewish establishment, the State Department and the White House have felt it necessary to be heard as well. The White House has circulated a blah blah statement from Assistant Secretary of State Jeff Feltman: “The Department of State values its close relationship with Ambassador Michael Oren and his staff at the Embassy of Israel in Washington… Ambassador Oren plays an indispensable role in maintaining and strengthening our relationship through his day to day interaction with the Administration and Congress on issues of vital importance to both countries and his vigorous outreach to Americans of all origins and points of view.”
“All points of view” save J Street’s, it seems.
Truth is, it seems to me entirely appropriate for a person charged with battling antisemitism to assess the view that this organization or that threatens the lives of masses of Jews.
But even you believe that Rosenthal stepped across a boundary, there’s this to consider: Oren had already obliterated that boundary.
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And let's not forget we are still waiting, now that Oren has, he says, been more fully informed, for an adequate response from him to all the American groups and others who expressed to him their dismay (shall we say) at the detention of the medical student at the Wall for her wearing tallit and carrying a Torah... an act of his government that is not winning friends among many in the US who care about Israel --and about democracy and pluralism there.
As many here know, he had quite a bit to say at that United Synagogue conference: http://blogs.forward.com/bintel-blog/120852/ http://blogs.forward.com/sisterhood-blog/121083/
little of it very diplomatic.
Where is your article condemning Obama for excluding mainstream jewish groups such as the National Council of Young Israel and the Zionist Organization of America from his meeting with Jewish groups.
J Street itself no longer pretends to be pro Israel. At the very conference you defend J Street directed its youth movement to no longer call themselves pro Israel because it was considered offensive to the "peace" activists it wanted to attrack
Mordechai must have breezed in from Shushan too late to find out that the ZOA is no longer mainstream. It's a pitifully small remnant of a once-important organization, that is able to manipulate the media through the strength of its name and the chutzpah of its mouthpiece.
Obama was smart enough to recognize its irrelevance. And to know who isn't interested in listening, only in talking.
Mordechai also mischaracterizes J Street and its response to its university contingent. Mischaracterize, by the way, is a polite word, lest I say what I really think and be guilty of loshon horo.
As usual Leonard Fein is right on.
Michael Oren is a disgrace to the Jewish State. He should be recalled!
We have often disagreed on various matters in the past, but on this Leonard you speak magnificently & I applaud you. I hope someone in the White House is reading this before they contemplate giving Hannah Rosenthal the axe at the behest of Malcolm Hoenlein & Michael Oren.
A skeleton in Amb. Michael Oren’s closet: http://bit.ly/5FoWPp
I have a great idea-Let's all make contributions to J Street in honor of Michael Oren & ask that a notification be sent to him at the Israeli Embassy in Washington DC.
David, thanks for that link to Didi Remez' blog.
Ha'aretz has a point. It does sound like Israel needs a new ambassador to the U.S.
"Survival of the jewish state" appears an generalization; which cannot be understood. In add'n, the meanings of that utterance may change over time even for an individual, who uses the shibboleth.
But that does not mean that one cannot guess some of its meanings. Does it mean a state for jews only? Or for first class citizenship only for jews but not for nonjews? Or does it mean also a state sans any palestinians? And this state wld exists as it had prior to '67? Or does it mean an expanded state that may exppand even further?
Does it also mean a state living in peace with muslims and with their acceptance or even respect for any israel: for jews only, expanding to include parts of syria, lebanon, jordan?
Not likely! Muslims wld keep hating this land and the initial crimes against pal'ns. Muslims and ?all peace activists are actually obligated morally and legally never to reward initial and present jewish war criminals with a state.
So, clearly the problem is no longer what jews want; the problem is what muslims want now and in future. I think that every jew is rightly islamophobic. And it appears modern jews who are playing perilous games with the darkies of present day israel. If US wld allow it, world jewry can make peace with pal'ns in one day. So, perhaps, to be fair to jews, it may be the christian world which largely or solely can decide the fate of israel. tnx
Oren - an affiliate of Israel's Adelson-funded neoconservative think-tank the Shalem Center - slick as he may be, exempliflies the CON in neocon!
Oren calls himself "pro-peace," but you cannot be pro-peace and be against Israel giving up Arab East Jerusalem, which must be the capital of the new Palestinian state if there is to be peace. I am pro-Israel, Jewish, and a Zionist, but I know that Israel cannot thumb its nose at the entire world and say we will keep all of Jerusalem no matter what the world thinks. Besides, why does Israel need to inherit the hundreds of thousands of Arabs who live in East Jerusalem? Oren, and the Likud government that just approved 700 more units for Israeli housing in East Jerusalem without agreements with the Palestinians on Jerusalem, is undermining prospects for peace.
J Street is a self made and self financed gesture of the anti Israel leftist George Soros. To say otherwise is to be disigenuous. That such views resonate among assimilated Jews is a no brainer, but that does not make it right or even logical, having independence requires particularism and self love for which assimilated Jews are in short supply. All Jews living in the diaspora are assimilated to a great degree and we are imbued and indocrinated for our survival with the idealogies of tolerance, equality, relativism, mutual understanding, the melting pot, etc. Except being a Jew, being a particularist, being Israeli is harder to find after all the self abnegation. Being an Israeli requires army service, and being in the front lines, an Israeli expression was after me, an American Jewish expression can be summed up from the joke, A man goes to the doctor, he says doctor it hurts when I do this, the doctor says so don't do that. Israel has no choice but to continue to do whatever it needs to do, even if it hurts. American Jewish families send their kids off to college, Israelis send their kids to the army. Israelis may resent American Jews for their comparative realities but American Jews twist and cover their vacation into an affected moral superiority, welcome to J Street.
In addition, to say that people are not biased, that they have all the information, that they are unaffected by their own subjective emotional states is wrong. An example someone who worked for the Foward told me that when her parents Holocaust survivors came to America their also Jewish neighbor in Brooklyn, told them that we Americans suffered too, because dairy was rationed.
Amb. Oren is anything but a diplomat. He has barely gone beyond his New Jersey wise-guy 60s teen hustle. As a scholar his reviewers came to deem him a light-weight. In an encounter over his "case closed" article in AZURE on the USS Liberty I had to correct some of the silly notions he put across on the physics of optics but he didn’t seem to appreciative...BUT NEVERTHELESS I MUST SAY HE HAS THE CAPACITY TO BE AN EXTREMELY ENJOYABLE AND EDUCATIONAL MAN. His boyish enthusiasm is electrifying when the drops the insolent stunts and the hustler talk. He is, in other words, a most positive experience when he's not "working" you. At that "working" he doesn't do well as I met no one to whom he sold the Brooklyn Bridge. But in moment of inspiration he has so penetrated many of us with a feel for what it's lie to be an Israeli--indeed some of my compatriots who tend to blame Jews for everything wrong in East Euro history on Jews have deemed him utterly infectious and they admitted that he paralyzed all their "antis" with his "pro" sincerity. So there you have it, a guy who can tick you off and turn you on. Most people do that but few as profoundly as him, even though he's from New Joyzi!
Arab ambassadors have said that while he's often a bit clumsy, he can get to you to where you want to hug him as a distant cousin. Ms. Rosenthal would do well to come down from her on high US DeptState platform and arrange a dialogue for him with patient people and lots of J Streeters so they both can reach that magic moment when they all come to see the deeply sincere unity of goals despite clash of means.
What is the worst Israeli Ambassador to US may be the best. For though he lacks the polish of Rabin, for example, he has that youthful optimism that endears him and makes you admire both him and whom he represents. The point is that for that he needs to feel welcomed by open minded people who will tolerate his warm-up hasbara before he feels his wings fully stretched and he soars. The human brain was not made for combat or deception like that of lower primates. It was made for communications. I suggest Ms. Rosenthal, J Streeters and Amb. Oren take the time to climb their way out of the posturing BS and get to what they really feel. THEN AND ONLY THEN WILL THE COMMON GROUND BEGIN TO APPEAR UNDER ALL THEIR FEET. I hope he can make all the time he needs to be him with the people he most throws his chutzpah at these days for both he and they will, I am very sure, come to appreciate each other's points of view and come to common ground. But one must patiently bear through the hyperboles and theatrical gymnastics. After all, bluffers are often smart and caring people that need time to get comfortable and then they can really rock!
Orens tent should be closed to those whose tents are funded by the house of Saud and George Soros. Oren and Israel have enough battle fronts to contend with, then the trojan horse of Jstreet.
Join the facebook page Jstreet does not represent me. http://www.facebook.com/stopjstreet an
Mr. Fein is directly on target. Pluralism with all its' facets, naiveties and alleged short comings is still the strongest and most diverse path to follow. Failure to allow it amounts to what Israel's enemies and detractors are all about. While I have more than my reservations about J Street (and the politically correct American Left as well)I also acknowledge their function in an open society, as off base as they can be at times. After all AIPAC's 100% Israel right or wrong mentality is just as detrimental. Thomas Jefferson is alive and well when he once said "I may not defend what you say but I defend your right to say it." That is what the American Revolution was all about and that is what Israel is as well. Do you hear that Yassir Arafat from your stinking grave?
Spot on. Oren isn't acting as Israeli ambassador to the US. He is acting as Likud ambassador to AIPAC, ignoring the 74% of Israeli voters who did not support Likud in the last election and ignoring the majority of American Jews.
J Street is proud of working together with other Jewish organizations - citing specifically "Americans For Peace Now", which alleges that Israeli provocations is responsible for conflicf with the Palestinians.
Not exactly pro Israel!
Amb. Michael Oren’s credibility problem -- http://bit.ly/5DRqM0
JMK How right you are on JSTREET
...if israel were to follow the advice and counsel of messers soros fein and their ilk,there would be no israel with in 10 years.can anyone explain to me where these self hateing jews come from?...what twisted their minds and souls...
To monitor rabid racist anti-Semites one does not need to vist Jihadist web sites. One need only go to The Forward where racist, anti-Semitic scum is celebrated as progressive, elitist peacenicks. Where J Street has come to mean Jewish Jackasses for Jihad. On this site Jews who help poor Jews and who believe in the Torah are trashed by the racist elitists that call themselves Jewish. Remember the Yevsectzia, Stalin's Jewish storm troopers, who were fanatic in their zeal to destroy Judaism in Russia. They used their Jewish ancestry as a weapon to infiltrate the Jewish community and attack from the inside just like today where they continue their barking on The Forward. And, oh yes comrade Stalin finally liquidated these Jewish scum because he could never really trust those who betray their own.
Generally, I disagree with Leonard Fein. Viscerally, actually. I have never had the stomach to bother to write a response to him because he is so mordantly left wing, there is no point to it. His column on the flap between Hannah Rosenthal and Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren, however, has incited me out of my habit of ignoring the old dolt. First of all, Fein is wrong to criticize the idea that Rosenthal should be constrained from making (idiotic) comments that go beyond her job description while Oren is left free to criticize those remarks. Rosenthal is paid to do a certain job for the U.S. State Department. Defending J Street and criticizing the ambassador for not attending the conference of that Fifth Column is not within her job description and way over her pay grade. Oren's defending his not attending J Street's conference and criticizing J Street and her for citicizing him is well within the scope of Ambassador Oren's job description of representing Israel's interests. Too bad if that offends Leonard Fein's warped sense of relative equivalency and whatever other insensible leftist sensitivity of his gets tweaked by it. As for Fein's implicit, if not explicit defense of J Street and how it is supposedly a long needed voice, I direct Fein and anyone else who might be interested to the columns of Isi Leibler on the subject. (For instance, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2009/oct/26/j-street-lobby-israel; or just Google "Isi Leibler, J Street" and you'll find a motherlode of stimulating lunchtime reading.) J Street is a Fifth Column: They take Saudi Money and won't reveal the details. They are a mutant creation of George Soros. If you are a One World "Sorosist," then J Street is your organization. If you find Soros to be irrationally negative, a self-hating Jew, an apologist for and funder of leftist fascist forces, and a problem for the capitalist system that made him a billionaire, then you may view J Street with some justifiable skepticism. J Street regularly refers to the "Saudi Peace Plan," sometimes calling it "The Arab Peace Plan," which is nothing more than the dismantlement of Israel by treaty as it includes withdrawal to the 1948 borders and a right of return of the Palestinians. This so-called " peace plan" was always a fraud. J Street always blames Israel and never defends Israel's right of self-defense. J Street at all times and in all ways opposed Israel's 2006 action against Hizbollah and the last year's action against Hamas. J Street is a con job and Leonard Fein is a dithering, geriatric, socialist has-been who thinks he's still in some East European shtetl and the Tsar's in charge. He's whiny, annoying and a Helen Thomas clone. He's one of the reasons why I wonder on a weekly basis whether I should renew my subscription to The Forward -- which should be renamed "The Fabian Socialist Progressive." I am weary of socialists masquerading as Jews. Any questions? Jarrow Los Angeles
Let's face it, J Street struck a nerve or two by manuevering around the Congress and the White House and actually bringing together many of the disparite factions of the liberal Jewish Community. People listened and that had been largely unthinkable in the past. As for me I think real peace is not contigent on whether the Israeli Ambassador gives J Street the time of day. I think the US role can be strengthened if the Jewish community, (right and left and the silent frightened majority) finds enough common ground to speak with a single voice for peace before Israel succumbs to a series of long range missiles fired by one or more of Iran's proxies. I think the US role in peacemaking can also be strengthened if other faiths here find a unified voice too and the voices collectively change the nature of the priority to save the Middle East from itself before it is too late.
Once again Leonard Fein has demonstrated his keen penchant for self-loathing, for Israel bashing.
The Nazi Collaborationist-Saudi Agent funded J Street has never represented even a significant MINORITY, let alone majority of American Jewry. Yet Fein, and a lot of the Leftard, moral equalizing posters here, as well as an administration led by a jerk who studiously avoided military service ala Colin Powell but knew how to sit nice and comfy in his pew listening to the most virulent anti-Jewish (and anti-American) hate ever delivered by someone who (supposedly) wasn't a Nazi seem to think they're the greatest thing since lox (or was it the gefilte fish heads Emanuel sends to political enemies) and bagels. Or the antidote to Bibi and those who DO want a safe, secure Israel.
There is a significant difference between the Judenrat of World War II and J Street. The Judenrat had no choice with Nazi bayonets at their backs. Some of the Judenrat actually tried to save lives but eventually got caught in the killing vortex themselves. J Street has a choice, but the Ben-Amis, the Luria's, the Alterman's will always put Hamas and Iran over their own, even when that bomb drops on Tel-Aviv, and so will their allies, Grayson, Filner, Giffords, Schakowsky, Schumer, and others.
2010 is around the corner. Any JINO Democrat who supports J Street should be voted promptly out of office, replaced by a REAL AMERICAN and a true supporter of a "peace through strength" Israel.
DE Tedoro who claims to be from a former Soviet bloc nation should go home and stay there. Maybe they can vote Communist again, and he'll truly be at home, with his stupidity.
As for Lisa B. Cute remark. I guess you'd gladly go to the train platform where Mr. Soros, grinning, would divest you of all of your worldly possessions before the bayonet in the back forced you on the train.
Please, JINOs who love J Street and International Solidarity. Practice what you preach. Move to Gaza and practice co-existence with the genocidal bombers and innocent animal murderers of Hamas, Fatah and Qaeda. You belong there, and by the way, since you're so angry about Jews occupying THEIR OWN LAND, kindly leave the Native American soil you so hypocritically occupy yourselves, and take your fellow Fascist friends with you.
All one has to do to realize why young American Jews are weakening in their identification with Israel to is to follow the behavior of people such as Ambassador Oren, the persecution of the women at the wall, the consistent corrupt practices of Israeli politicians, the tightening noose of the right wing Orthodox over certain life styles is Israel and the fanatical lawlessness of so many of the settlers and you will have a good idea why it is happening.
Israel already is listed as a place of limited religious tolerance. The police are just ignoring concepts of free speech when demonstrators disagree with certain approaches, the Haredim are busy through Shas having laws passed that are totally out of place in a free society such as the use of coding to stop sales of Humetz on Passover and the drive to sexually segregated bus routes. This is a country with which young Americans as asked to identify? We are oassed the stage of our Israel right or wrong. Increasingly so much of what is happening in Israel is beyond acceptable to any rationale twenty first century human being who believes in democracy and all it means. Ambassador Oren and the Israeli government must decide whether to continue on this path or whether they want the continued moral and emotional support of so much of the Jewish community in the US.
as an israeli have no idea what these ppl want from rge Ambs ?
he is working for the israeli govt
he is guided by his bosses
its not his private show
also have no idea why few left jews mingle in the internal affairs of israel
if they want to influence they should live in israel pay taxes send their kids to long military service and then they can vote in israel and influence
israelis understand this is attempt by the israeli left which was kicked out of israeli politics to represent something that exists in headlines only
almost all american jews support israel and the policies of the only democracy in the m east
also why have j street put their baxxs in hussein basket looks like he wont make a second term and then when republicans take over and a new pres is elected and j street doesnt like his policies ?
now they say the "support" the president policies what will hapeen with them if a republ likud pres is elected ? what backing will they use?
the white house is going to be clean of leftists and hopefully america will become more respected in the world - something obama is responsible - america needs a strong president
Very nice site!