The Prophet Outraged

 
Out of the spotlight for a number of months since its disastrous October 2009 national conference which went unattended by scores of congressmen including Senator John Kerry, J Street attempted to thrust itself back into media prominence last night by kicking off "J Street Local", a two hour convocation of the faithful in 21 cities around the U.S..  The highlight of the evening was The Leader himself streamed live from Philadelphia.    Most of the local events featured the alliance between J Street and two other left wing groups: Brit Tzedek v'Shalom and The New Israel Fund (often referred to as The No Israel Fund).  The timing couldn't have been worse for the self-anointed, "Pro Israel-Pro Peace" group.
  Just two days ago, the head of the NIF in Israel, Naomi Chazan, was forced to cancel her trip to Australia over the growing scandal that her organization provided dubious "evidence" of Israeli atrocities to the discredited Goldstone commission.  Daniel Sokatch, the Director of the American NIF, assessed the situation and decided that attack was the best defense when he said the report - apparently confirmed - was "the worst kind of vicious hate speech." Another hard left Knesset member went even further dubbing the revelations a "show trial" (an odd choice of words, considering that the antecedents of his party, Meretz, were enthusiasts for the original Stalinist show trials of the 1930's).

And now, this morning comes the news that Ms. Chazan has been fired from her position at The Jerusalem Post.  According to an analysis by Im Tirtzu, the new grass roots, Israeli Zionist movment, the NIF supplied 92% of the negative references about the IDF to Goldstone "researchers."    Needless to say, none of this important, breaking news was conveyed by either NIF staffers or Jeremy Ben Enemy to the faithful around the U.S.  In fact, his constant invocation of that organization and its alliance with J Street may well come back to bite him.  NIF's embarassment, however, proved no deterrent to Israeli Consul, Nadav Tamir, embracing their regional director. 
Ben Enemy's performance was more negative than upbeat.  He sounded almost bitter that his prophecies weren't being taken as holy writ by the American Jewish community.  The evening - at least in Boston - was more about process than substance.  We heard all about building local constituencies, organizing university chapters and so on.  Of course, substance had to be avoided, considering  the moribund efforts and results of the Obama-Mitchell initiative that has produced exactly zero for Israelis and Palestinians.  The Middle East peace process has obviously become a back burner issue for a beleaguered President facing the worst economic crisis in decades, not to mention the Scott Brown embarrassment.  At one point, The Leader let slip his frustration with Obama's apparent, unshared obsession with applying more pressure on Israeli Jews when he half-jokingly said "Well, Mr. President, with all due respect, we're going to hold you to that (Obama's commitment to resolve the conflict)..but expect us to press you to do more - a lot more. As a community organizer, you would expect no less from us."  And there you have it:  Israel's existence is really all about making American left wing Jews feel empowered through community organizing. 
I recall a telling comment from Ben Enemy's colleague, Dan Sokatch of the New Israel Fund at the October conference.  Commenting on the controversy  at last summer's San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (the Festival decided to feature the intensely anti-Israel film, "Rachel") when he was CEO of the San Francisco Jewish Community Federation, Mr. Sokatch said that the forces critical of him were enemies of "community organizing."  A bizarre accusation, but now fully understandable and revealing of  his and J Street's primary, radical focus. 
Departing from his upbeat style back in October, Ben Enemy decided to invoke the full array of "victim"imagery.  If J Street was not being embraced by every American Jew as he had planned, then, clearly, it was a result of "enemies all around."  He began his talk by a wave of the bloody shirt, claiming that his prophecy was being "demonized, ostracized and shut out" from the American Jewish dialogue.  It was a bitter, angry speech designed to paint a picture of the faithful as victims of an oligarchic, censorious Jewish "right wing." 
It was a classic of demagoguery - rallying the troops by pointing out the Zionist barbarians at the gates.  After all, J Street has always been primarily about the perceived, existential, Left-Right struggle and less about Israel's survival.   The assembled crowd looked more like an SDS or CPUSA reunion than the "Pro Israel" supporters they claim to be.  This was really all about the struggle against the fanatics of the Right. 
If one can characterize the outlook of the American Jewish Left in a single phrase, it's all about demolishing the colonialist notion of "The Other".  Yet, how ironic this evening was which amounted to constructing,defining and labeling the Bad Jews -"Settlers" and the "Pro Settler Movement" -  as "The Other."   In spite of George Soros' millions (I presume, absent J Street's opaque refusal to disclose its major donors) it's a product that more and more Americans aren't buying.