On May 18, Nextbook, the Jewish cultural organization, will present its second annual festival of ideas on the topic of “Jews and Power.” In advance of the event — which will feature, among others, Avivah Zornberg on political rebellion in the Bible, authors Shalom Auslander and Rebecca Goldstein on the authority and revolt of the Jewish community itself, and Leon Botstein and Stephen Greenblatt on the rise of Jewish artists and critics — we asked two of the conference’s participants, Ruth Wisse and Aaron David Miller, to offer readers a window into their divergent views on the subject.
Domestic politics, as Bill Clinton’s national security advisor, Anthony Lake, told me when I interviewed him for my book, is like sex to the Victorians: It’s on everybody’s mind, but nobody wants to talk about it. It’s about time that we start talking about it, particularly when it involves Israel, the pro-Israeli community in America and Arab-Israeli diplomacy. Furthering American national interests in the Middle East depends on it. But this conversation must be honest and clear.
Sadly, that’s not happening. Too many defenders of Israel pretend that Jewish political power has little to do with official American support for Israel (even while many know it does), and too many of Israel’s detractors believe that support for Israel in the United States results almost entirely from political lobbying. The fact is that America’s support for Israel mixes almost seamlessly, driven by shared values and the well-organized efforts of 5.3 million American Jews (and millions of their fellow non-Jewish citizens, particularly evangelical Christians) to create a strong and sustainable American-Israeli bond. After watching and participating in Middle East policy for almost 30 years, I suspect that value affinity — the critical importance of supporting likeminded nations abroad (which is in the broadest conception of America’s national interest) — is the core foundation on which that relationship rests or why it survives over time.
But American Jews shouldn’t kid themselves or willfully mask their own influence. Jews have a powerful voice in shaping America’s Middle East policy. They’re also not alone in making the case for Israel. Today, five advocates push for a close American-Israeli bond: first, a well organized and affluent Jewish community for which Israel has become a survival issue; second, an effective Congressional lobby (the American Israel Public Affairs Committee) that skillfully guards and sustains a pro-Israeli tilt among a sizable number of passionately pro-Israeli legislators and a majority for whom Israeli issues are not a priority but who don’t need the headache of swimming upstream against a well-organized lobby; third, millions of evangelical Christians who support Israel not just for theological reasons but because of, particularly in the wake of September 11, shared values; fourth, the Arabs themselves (Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah and even non-Arab Iran) whose extremism just makes Israel look better and more sympathetic, and fifth, a Jewish lobby of one — the personal impact that Israeli prime ministers can have on American presidents.
Together, these advocates create a pro-Israeli case so compelling that the idea and reality of Israel has worked itself deep into American culture, politics and foreign policy. Many American Jews refuse to accept it, but the real debate between Israel’s supporters and detractors in America is all but over. And the pro-Israeli community has won big-time. Bill Clinton was the most pro-Israeli Democratic president ever; George W. Bush, the most pro-Israeli Republican president ever. Regardless of whether Hillary Clinton, Barack Obama or John McCain wins in November, the American-Israeli relationship will remain strong and vibrant.
That the pro-Israeli community has won, however, doesn’t necessarily mean a victory for America or even Israel. America’s special relationship with Israel is critically important to our values, our interests and our capacity to drive Arab-Israeli diplomacy. We get ourselves into trouble when we allow that special relationship to go exclusive; when we don’t expect reciprocity from the Israelis, we don’t speak out against Israeli actions that undermine our interests or acquiesce in bad Israeli ideas. We can (and should) blame Yasser Arafat all day long for his failure to negotiate at the July 2000 Camp David Summit. But that poorly prepared and managed meeting never should have taken place the way it did. Bill Clinton and those of us advising him — myself included — wouldn’t push back against a courageous yet reckless Ehud Barak who wanted a conflict-ending agreement he couldn’t pay for, and who used America’s credibility without much regard for the costs of failure.
In a democracy, Jews and their non-Jewish allies have a powerful voice on America’s Middle East policies, but they should not and do not have a veto. That lobbies lobby isn’t the point. Of course they do. It’s democracy in America, and the system is set up to be lobbied. Instead, the question is, “Do presidents lead?” When they do, articulating a sensible strategy in the service of a compelling national interest, lobbies follow, sometimes nosily. The challenge for the next president is to ensure that the special relationship with Israel, so vital to our role in Arab-Israeli peacemaking, doesn’t become the tail that wags the dog, and that actions taken on Israel’s behalf also make sense for America.
Aaron David Miller, who served at the State Department as an adviser to six secretaries of state, is a public policy scholar at the Woodrow Wilson International Center for Scholars and author of the recently published “The Much Too Promised Land: America’s Elusive Search for Arab-Israeli Peace” (Bantam).
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To the idiot Norman and all others who believe like him; THERE IS NO PALESTINE! THERE HAS NEVER BEEN PALESTINIAN COUNTRY, PEOPLE, LAGUAGE, OR CULTURE. Jews were in fact the first people to be called Palestinians. The co-founder of the Plo even admitted that the "Palestinian people" did not exist. Israel was re-named Palestine by the Romans and has no connection to the Arabs. Palestine is just another name for Israel and where Jews have always lived. The phony "Palestinian people" were created by the Plo and Russia for the sole purpose of stealing the Jewish homeland. How can Israel be occupying land that is part of the Jewish homeland? It's the Arabs in Jordan that are actually occupying Jewish land. It's the Arabs from Arabia that are the occupiers and land thieves. The false belief that America's policy is becoming less supportive of Israel is a lie. Obama is bending over backwards to prove that he's a bonafide Zionsit while polls show that the vast majority of Americans are pro-Israel. Every year the pro-Israel American poll numbers get higher. America is becoming more Zionist. The msm has always been anti-Israel in light of the fact that Saudi Arabia owns shares in all the major newspapers in the world. In spite of this Israel will win because truth is on it's side!
Mr. Miller can rest assured that there are powerful anti-Israel actors in Washington and the academic community to offset the pro-Israel lobby in the USA. Ever hear of the Wahabi lobby? Big Oil? All those bought and paid-for lobbyists for the Gulf oil kingdoms? All those tenured academic apologists for militant Islam, Palestinian irredentism, and Iran? A State Department afraid of calling Islamic Fascism or Jihadism by their true names? Mr. Miller hints, but doesn't explain how, American and Israeli interests conflict. Nor does he propose, where they may conflict, how Americans (whether Jewish or not) should chose between them.
Wise words but I should have thought that the one sidedness of US policy re the Israel occupation of Palestine is ending. The NY Times on the sixtieth anniversary of Israel's founding had a front page article about Arab suffering, and the Washington Post contrasted the next day an Israeli and a Palestinian life. The New Yorker's portrait etched in acid of those who attempted to stop a promotion at Barnard points in the same direction: Israel's unconditional supporters are loosing the capacity to set the agenda of public discussion, and much else will follow, regardless of which party is in power or who is President.
It is not just "Evangelical" Christians, I can assure you.
Mr Miller appears to be facing a midlife crisis. After pushing failed ideas thru six secretaries of state, only to be further away from peace then when when he started, he has realized that his ideas have not stood the test of time. While he can recognize that his career has not accomplished much, he has invested too much time and effort to change career path, so is pushing for a radical change in the US-Israel relationship in order to salvage his career. Like a sweaty pushcart owner peddling used clothes in the Lower East Side, Miller peddles discarded ideas in the marketplace. However, with the pushcart owner, what you see is what you get. With Miller, the people of the US and Israel suffer from his efforts. Miller may be embarrassed by the role of Jews as non-victims. I wish he would keep his embarassment to himself
Census Information: Actually, there are hundreds of books available that were written before the current conflict between Jews and Palestinians began that provide demographic data on Palestine. Just before the First World War, in 1914, Palestine was a part of the Ottoman Empire. In that year the Turkish government took an official census. Of a total population of 689,000, just 84,660, or 12.3 per cent, were Jews, and many of those were recent immigrants who had come to Palestine as part of the Zionist movement. During the First World War, Britain took Palestine away from Turkey and after the war permitted large numbers of additional Jews to immigrate. According to the official British census of 1931, the Jewish population of Palestine had risen to 16.9 per cent: that's 174,606 Jews in a total population of 1,033,314. The influx of Jews into Palestine during the 1920s and 1930s was a source of continual provocation to the native Palestinians, and there were a number of riots and other disorders. Jewish pressure on the British government, however, prevented the British from making any permanent or effective halt to the immigration of Jews into Palestine. After the Second World War, shortly before the United Nations partition of Palestine into separate Jewish and non-Jewish areas, Jews still made up less than one-third of the population of Palestine. The 1946 British census counted 608,000 Jews out of a total population of 1,845,000. The great majority of these Jews were recent immigrants, whereas nearly all of the Arabs were natives who had roots in Palestine going back many generations. What the Jews had that the Palestinians didn't have, however, was a very substantial degree of control of the governments of the United States and the United Kingdom, and these two countries exerted a decisive influence on the policies of the United Nations. The result of this influence was the partition of Palestine in 1948 into separate Jewish and non-Jewish areas, with the one-third of the population that was Jewish being awarded two-thirds of the land, including the most valuable areas.
THERE IS NO PALESTINE! THERE HAS NEVER BEEN PALESTINIAN COUNTRY, PEOPLE, LAGUAGE, OR CULTURE. Jews were in fact the first people to be called Palestinians. The co-founder of the Plo even admitted that the "Palestinian people" did not exist. In this order of ideas the USA like country never did exist, the first american was the american indians, please give back his country to the indians
Can you get some photos of the killing going on? The dead children and women? Please display the murders in the traditional Jewish fashion.
You good imagination, Mr.Aaron David Miller, but 70% of American people don't support america-Israel relation to saty the way it is before. We expect the next administration to change the balance, as long as we elected Mr. Obama on the ground that he is coming for change? We expect from him the change the foreign policies including the Arab-Israeli deal policy. We have no interest neither to take with Arabs or Israelis, we should set our impartial policy..hell with both? Arab & Israel.. America first.So, no AIPAC, and no Bush or Clinton to direct our Middle East policy.
Palestineisamyth said: To the idiot Norman and all others who believe like him; THERE IS NO PALESTINE! THERE HAS NEVER BEEN PALESTINIAN COUNTRY, PEOPLE, LAGUAGE, OR CULTURE. Jews were in fact the first people to be called Palestinians. The co-founder of the Plo even admitted that the "Palestinian people" did not exist. ----------------------- Youare an idiot, mr. Norman is talking figure from an official records of two governments? So, make your rebut logical.