In recent months, three heavyweight Jewish organizations have taken steps to emphasize what in recent years hardly needed emphasizing: mainstream Jewish support for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
Since 2002, a two-state solution has been since a rare area of broad political consensus in Israel and the United States.
But the reiterations of support for it — from the American Jewish Committee, the Anti-Defamation League and the American Israel Public Affairs Committee — signify a concern growing among Jewish groups about deepening partisan differences on the issue.
It also shows how centrist Jewish groups are struggling to grapple with an incoming president, Donald Trump, ready to shatter orthodoxies that once united Democrats and Republicans on issues such as the role of America abroad and how to promote tolerance at home.
The AJC was the latest organization to plead for preserving two states as a favored outcome.
“We long for the day when the Palestinians will extend an outstretched hand of peace, and we urge Israel and the new U.S. administration not to lose sight of such a possibility — and the two-state agreement that would result,” David Harris, the agency’s CEO, said in a lengthy Nov. 18 statement.
Undergirding Harris’ plea was an incoming administration whose top Jewish advisers have said that the two-state solution is not a necessary component of its diplomacy, and an Israeli government that has drifted further than ever from a two-state outcome, with moves underfoot by Cabinet members to appropriate more West Bank land. Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu opposes the moves, but he is increasingly isolated within his political camp in maintaining support for two states.
Just before their convention in July, Republicans removed advocacy for two states from the party platform. Backers of the move said they did not count out a Palestinian state as an outcome, but they preferred to defer to Israel on the matter.
“We are disappointed that the platform draft departs from longstanding support of a two-state solution … and the shared vision of successive American presidents and prime ministers of Israel,” the ADL said at the time.
AIPAC’s emphasis on two states has been delivered in a relatively soft voice, but is still unmistakable.
An AIPAC-drafted letter from 88 senators on Sept. 20 urging President Barack Obama to stop the United Nations from taking unilateral steps on the peace process said in its third sentence: “The only way to resolve the conflicts between the two is through direct negotiations that lead to a sustainable two-state solution with a future state of Palestine living in peace and security with Israel.”
The mention high up of “two states” and the use of the word “Palestine” instead of Palestinians, prompted four pro-Israel senators to decline signing the letter: Ted Cruz of Texas, Mario Rubio of Florida, Ben Sasse of Nebraska and Tom Cotton of Arkansas.
AIPAC, post election, remains committed to two states, its spokesman, Marshall Wittmann, said. “Our position has not changed. We continue to support a two-state solution,” he told JTA.
Both Republicans and Democrats have embraced two states since 2002, when President George W. Bush, picking up on cues from his predecessor, Bill Clinton, said it was the preferred outcome.
Americans for Peace Now and J Street are among other groups outspoken in advancing a two-state solution.
Some groups, of course, reject a two-state solution. In a statement opposing Lt. Gen. James Mattis for secretary of defense in a Trump administration, the Zionist Organization of America asserted that “a Palestinian state, at least at this time and in the foreseeable future, would be a Hamas-Iran-dominated terror state that threatens Israeli and U.S. security.” The ZOA rejects Mattis in part because he supports the two-state solution.
There also is concern among Jewish groups that the Trump administration represents what could be a radical departure from a number of orthodoxies both parties have shared, such as: a robust U.S. posture abroad, the preservation of close alliances with western-leaning states, and a commitment to tolerance and a rejection of racially divisive language.
The ADL, under CEO Jonathan Greenblatt, has chosen a more confrontational path, charging Trump and one of his top advisers, Stephen Bannon, with advancing troubling echoes of anti-Semitic rhetoric and, during the campaign, claiming the Trump camp, “with its regular use of anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican and anti-Muslim rhetoric, has appealed to bigots and racists.”
Harris, in his statement, chose to identify problematic trends without necessarily identifying them with Trump and his supporters.
“We aspire to live in a society which doesn’t simply ‘tolerate’ diversity, but welcomes it, seeing it as a vital component of who we are as a nation,” he said. “We seek in our relations with other communities to enhance mutual respect and understanding, and to build coalitions of conscience in defense of shared values.”