On Jul 24, 2006, at 10:43 AM, Aaron Shuman wrote:
> AS: Interesting reading; thanks for posting. In
> contrast with the email lists you're on (get
> Congress/Bush to pass a peace resolution), I get
> emails about protests at the Israeli consulate, citing
> violations of the US Arms Export Control Act to cut
> military aid, etc. The latter comes from the U.S.
> Campaign to End the Occupation, which Tikkun is signed
> on to, but I can't find mention of this on Tikkun's
> website--or protest coverage of the sort Glazer posted
> in LBO-land yesterday. The contrast between the JVP
> website and Tikkun's website is striking. Can you
> clarify how Tikkun decides to endorse a campaign,
> communicates that position to and mobilizes its
> Community? What's your role and responsibility in all
> that as managing editor?
>
> aaron
>
>
>
>
>
>
>
> I can't say enough good things about JVP. They're
> terrific folks, and
> they do excellent work. Their director of educational
> policy,
> Mitchell Plitnick, has been writing a column for us
> since March. He
> wrote a terrific piece about how unrepresentative
> America's major
> Jewish organizations are of domestic Jewish politics
> in the current
> edition:
>
> http://www.tikkun.org/magazine/tik0607/plitnick
>
> There are a lot of good people and new organizations
> doing this kind
> of advocacy and analysis in the American Jewish
> community right now.
> Its really representative of the second - some would
> say third -
> generation of progressive Israel-oriented activist
> periods to have
> hit the US.
>
> With each successive wave, these activists and
> organizations things
> seem to be moving further left, away from the
> inviolable Zionist
> consensus of the New Jewish Agenda period that began
> after the
> Lebanon War in '82 here. Twenty years ago, if Norman
> Finkelstein had
> been the profile he has now, he'd have been condemned
> outright. But,
> now, everyone - even the most conservative of this
> crowd - will admit
> they follow his work - even if they disagree with him.
>
> Though the largest of these outfits - Brit Tzedek veh
> Shalom - is
> decidedly centrist compared to the folks at JVP,
> there's a lot of
> interesting reflection & debate going on within it
> that is worth
> watching. I wonder how the current war in Lebanon will
> affect BTvS'
> long term political positioning. I attended a
> conference of theirs
> in Manhattan last year that, despite my political
> differences with
> BTvS, was highly instructive.
>
> I'm, not a purist. As an editor and a journalist
> working within this
> milieu, i try and step back and look at how all these
> organizations
> are in their totality indicative of potentially much
> larger cultural
> changes going on in the American Jewish community viz
> Israel. Its all
> definitely good, particularly given how absolutely
> fucked up domestic
> Jewry is on questions concerning Israel. And I say
> this acknowledging
> what a minority this crew still is here.
>
> But what i don't see happening yet in any substantial
> way is an
> emerging consensus across these outfits (with certain
> exceptions)
> that the Israel/US tie has to be finally severed -
> that the US cannot
> be a positive agent for change in the Middle East -
> and that the
> liberal American Jewish community has to adopt
> alternative national
> means to intervening. every day i get more and more
> letters saying
> 'get congress to sponsor a peace resolution now', get
> Bush to press a
> peace plan now - as though it were still the Clinton
> or even Carter
> years. those days, with all their imperfections, are
> gone forever.
>
> If American Jews are so concerned with adopting an
> effective strategy
> to achieve a final peace, a permanent ceasefire, what
> have you, maybe
> pouring their time and money into reshaping domestic
> Israeli politics
> would be a more worthwhile endeavor.
>
> Joel
>
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