Left-Leaning Jewish Groups Out-of-Touch Now

It is time that we American Jewish liberals who have been left leaning about our politics regarding Israel begin to review the support we give to the organizations that have
been leading us.

They are proving themselves obsolete, outdated and out-of-touch. Since the beginning of the intifada they have been making mistakes. But a week ago Tuesday night I believe they committed public suicide at a Town Hall meeting at Westside JCC sponsored by Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek V’Shalom.

At a time when the vast majority of Israelis and Diaspora Jews are united about supporting Israeli actions in Lebanon, the two organizations believed they were assuming a courageous left voice manifesting Jewish values as they echoed the critics’ disproportionate force argument. Then they moved on to call for a truce. Next, they suggested that we begin a Jewish fund for the Lebanese victims of Israeli bombings. This creative proposal received much head nodding followed by a promise of initial funding from a member of the audience.

A former American born Knesset member who now lives in San Francisco, droned on in academic monotone for nearly half an hour, presenting future disastrous scenarios that are certain to result from Israel’s present actions.

Through lamentations more profound than reciting Echa on Tisha B’Av, the two organizations innocently forgot to delve into the real threats of the Syria/Iran axis; the difference between the war in Lebanon and the one in Gaza; Hezbollah’s aim to destroy Israel; the kidnapping of IDF soldiers on sovereign Israeli soil; the unprovoked attacks on Haifa as well as cities, towns and settlements throughout the North; Israel’s unilateral moves to hand back Southern Lebanon and Gaza; and a host of other insignificant events and actions.

As a former board member of both local and national Americans for Peace Now, an organization that at one time defined my heart, my soul and my passionate cause, I can no longer support the organization. When the last intifada began, I suggested to its leaders in Israel that perhaps the Peace Now’s logic had been flawed. They always claimed and we enthusiastically supported their belief that their dialogues between Jews and Arabs and the relationships that resulted were to be the pylons that held up the bridges if there was ever too much weight upon them. “Well,” I remember saying, “those bridges have collapsed and the pylons became insignificant as braces.” They were horrified at my blasphemous thinking.

Yet, for me that realization was the beginning of a journey away from those with whom I had traveled the deep and challenging roads of liberal Israeli politics for over 25 years. I no longer believed that there were real negotiating partners. Through work I had done for the Ford Foundation in Israel, meeting both their Jewish and Arab grantees, I realized that while the Jews talked of creating peace, the Palestinians talked of establishing a state.

For Jews, creating peace and establishing a Palestinian state, was one and the same. The Palestinians I interviewed never talked about peace. For them establishing their state was not in the same breath as creating peace. Further, there was not one Arab, when I asked him or her about suicide bombers, who could ever outright condemn the action. But they could all tell me, “You need to understand why this happens.”

So now, does this mean I am no longer liberal/left? Regarding Israeli politics, I don’t know what those labels mean today. Given current realities, do they have any relevance?

The entire Israeli political spectrum and the ways American Jews demonstrate their support is redefining itself. It would be best right now if along with action, we study and watch the situation, so we can reform, regroup and rethink what the thinking and the infrastructures should be. If we hold on to old knee-jerk reactions and the way everything has been, we will be left totally ineffective.

Americans for Peace Now and Brit Tzedek V’Shalom have to stop what they are now doing and be part of this redefinition. Until they do the hard work of critical thinking and ask themselves the unsettling questions that may possibly crumble cracked foundations upon which they stand, they will be like the Pied Piper leading their liberal/left children into the drowning sea.

Gary Wexler is the founder and president of L.A.-based Passion Marketing and a former board member of the local and Americans for Peace Now,