How Trump’s Mideast Peace Overture Puts J Street Liberals In A Bind
Image by Getty Images
By Nathan Guttman May 26, 2017
It’s a dilemma many left-wing Jewish activists are facing these days: How should doves deal with President Donald Trump’s pivot to Middle East peacemaking? Can the same activists who fought fiercely against Trump’s election and who oppose almost everything he stands for embrace the president’s effort to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict?
“The overwhelming, if not unanimous, view of people engaged in J Street is that this man is not suitable for the office he holds,” acknowledged Jeremy Ben-Ami, president and CEO of the left-leaning pro-Israel lobby J Street. But, at the same time, he added that the group’s policy goal is “to find a way to resolve the conflict, and if this administration takes meaningful steps toward resolving the conflict, our organization will support him.”
This suspicious approach toward Trump and the questioning of his seriousness are not the usual course of action for left-leaning Jewish organizations that are normally first to cheer any American move toward advancing Middle East peace.
“If Hillary would say and do what Trump has been saying and doing, we would praise her,” said an official with one of the pro-peace Jewish groups. “We wouldn’t demand that she prove her sincerity.”
J Street and other pro-peace groups’ potential support for the president is conditional and, they stress, will only materialize if Trump makes good on what for now are very general statements about his wish to broker the “ultimate deal” between Israelis and Palestinians.
“It’s pointless because it’s never going to happen,” responded veteran liberal activist M.J. Rosenberg. Even if Trump makes peace, the president shouldn’t expect the Jewish community’s support. “If a miracle happens and he somehow brings peace,” Rosenberg said, “the next day I will say: ‘Now let’s work to get him out of power.”
In a statement issued by J Street after Trump concluded the Middle East leg of his overseas trip, the group said it was “encouraged” by the president’s speech in Jerusalem. But they also made it clear that vague aspirations were not enough. J Street wants “a clear re-affirmation of longstanding bipartisan U.S. policy that the two-state solution is the only viable way to resolve this conflict.
Americans for Peace Now made a similar statement to J Street’s. The pro-peace group reiterated its pledge to “leverage our influence” in support for Trump’s peace initiative, if he “takes action indicating that he is seriously pursuing a viable Israeli-Palestinian peace deal.”
Ori Nir, APN’s spokesman, explained that wariness towards Trump stems from his conduct, rather than from political opposition to him. “It’s a dilemma,” said Nir. “The President,” said Nir, is approaching this issue in a Trump-like manner: Generalities and platitudes, no vision, no professional team, conflicting messages, and a credibility deficit. Once we’re convinced that he’s serious, we’ll support him.”
Not all groups pursuing a two-state solution are so leery of Trump, however. Michael Koplow of the Israel Policy Forum, a Jewish organization devoted to the idea of promoting a two-state solution, begs to differ. For him, what matters are Trump’s actions on Middle East peacemaking, and so far, he likes what he’s seeing, even if Trump can’t bring himself to utter the words “two-state solution.”
“Words do indeed matter,” Koplow wrote, but deeds matter more, and despite his rhetorical evasions, Trump’s actions so far speak volumes about his views on two states.
But most on the left aren’t willing to give Trump the benefit of the doubt, or to provide even their conditional blessing to his peace efforts. Writing in Haaretz, peace activist Letty Cottin Pogrebin, took issue with some colleagues she said were rushing to pin their hopes on Trump and to offer him their support. “You may say, as long as he delivers. But if people don’t trust the delivery man, why would they accept the package or believe what he says is in it?” Cottin Pogrebin asked.
For now, the Jewish left’s dilemma is confined to internal organizational conversations and to opinion columns. Internal divisions could sharpen, however, if Trump, and his Middle East peace negotiator Jason Greenblatt, actually get the parties to the table and offer a plan.
Contact Nathan Guttman at [email protected] or on Twitter @nathanguttman
A message from our CEO & publisher Rachel Fishman Feddersen
I hope you appreciated this article. Before you move on, I wanted to ask you to support the Forward’s award-winning journalism during our High Holiday Monthly Donor Drive.
If you’ve turned to the Forward in the past 12 months to better understand the world around you, we hope you will support us with a gift now. Your support has a direct impact, giving us the resources we need to report from Israel and around the U.S., across college campuses, and wherever there is news of importance to American Jews.
Make a monthly or one-time gift and support Jewish journalism throughout 5785. The first six months of your monthly gift will be matched for twice the investment in independent Jewish journalism.
— Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO
