With Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu facing escalating criticism from the White House, he could use some help from Israel’s erstwhile allies in the American Jewish community, especially those with sway in liberal and Democratic circles.
But several leading Jewish liberal critics of Netanyahu are working to rally American Jewish opinion against him by stepping up their condemnations of the prime minister and calling on the United States to ratchet up the pressure on Israel.
The epicenter of this liberal Jewish push is the annual J Street conference in Washington, where in a March 21 speech to 3,000 attendees, the group’s executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, accused Netanyahu of harming the U.S.-Israel relationship through “partisan gamesmanship” and called on the Obama administration to put forth the parameters for a resolution to the conflict at the U.N. Security Council.
Ben-Ami’s remarks came days after another harsh Netanyahu critic, Peter Beinart, called for the Obama administration to “punish” Israel on several fronts, including by backing Palestinian bids at the United Nations and denying visas to and freezing the assets of Israeli settler leaders. Beinart also urged American Jews to ensure that Netanyahu and members of his Cabinet are met by protesters at Jewish events.
While more establishment liberal and centrist Jewish organizations show no signs of endorsing such aggressive steps, some have expressed concerns about Netanyahu’s eleventh-hour campaign tactics — specifically his vow that no Palestinian state would be established on his watch and his statement urging supporters to counter the “droves” of Arabs coming out to vote.
Leaders of the two largest religious streams in American Judaism, the Reform and Conservative movements, both issued statements last week condemning Netan-yahu’s comments about Arab-Israeli voters.
“Because we proudly and unreservedly continue our unflagging support for the State of Israel, its citizens and its values, we must condemn the prime minister’s statement, singling out Arab citizens for exercising their legitimate right to vote,” the Conservative movement’s Rabbinical Assembly said in a statement on March 19. “It is incumbent upon Jews around the world to denounce the prime minister’s divisive and undemocratic statement.”
Rabbi Rick Jacobs, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism, called the statement “disheartening” and a “naked appeal to his hard-right base’s fears rather than their hopes.”
For his part, Netanyahu moved quickly post-election to contain the damage from his pre-election remarks, holding interviews with several U.S. media outlets in which he insisted that he remains committed to a two-state solution but circumstances do not allow for one because of Palestinian intransigence and ongoing turmoil in the region. In a sign that Netanyahu was seeking to send the word out beyond his conservative base, the prime minister not only did an interview with Fox News, but also talked with two leading liberal media outlets, MSNBC and NPR.
Several mainstream centrist organizations — including the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations and the Anti-Defamation League — were quick to embrace Netanyahu’s post-election stance.
But Denis McDonough, the White House chief of staff who spoke March 23 at the J Street conference, held his ground.
“We cannot simply pretend that those comments were never made, or that they don’t raise questions about the prime minister’s commitment to achieving peace through direct negotiations,” he said.
Netanyahu has also sought to contain the damage from his election day appeal to supporters to counter the “droves” of Arabs heading to the polls. Netanyahu said he did not intend to suppress Arab voters, only to inspire his base, and on March 24 he apologized directly to a group of Arab-Israeli leaders gathered at his residence in Jerusalem.
Yet even as Netanyahu sought to defuse the controversy over his remarks, reports suggested that the makeup of his emerging coalition could keep U.S.-Israeli tensions boiling on several fronts.
The first party he invited into the government was Jewish Home, which rejects a Palestinian state. Another likely coalition partner is Yisrael Beiteinu, whose leader, Avigdor Liberman, recently said that disloyal Arab Israelis should be beheaded. The coalition government is also likely to include haredi Orthodox parties, whose rejection of non-Orthodox streams has been a cause of tension with U.S. Jews for decades.
Still, the mood at the J Street conference was one of jubilance in defeat, as speaker after speaker spoke of “clarity” now that Netanyahu had repudiated the two-state solution.
“There’s more fuel in advocacy movements when you’re fired up in opposition to something,” said Ben-Ami.