from Mondoweiss
Last month, a top staffer at the Jewish organization J Street who had
worked for Obama and Harris explained that Congress’s tradition of
backing Israel “no matter what” was imposed by a “well-funded group of…
Jews.”
“A small, organized and well-funded group of American Jews treated
the issue as a threshold question in elections, and most candidates
decided it wasn’t worth antagonizing them,” Ilan Goldenberg wrote.
Not long ago, such attacks on the Israel lobby (including my own)
were dismissed as antisemitic conspiracy theories. Now, a leading Jewish
organization publishes them.
That’s because the American Jewish community is today in open crisis
over its historic support for Israel. Prominent Jews are finally
attacking the lobby, a political structure created 60 years ago by
leading Jewish groups to make sure there was no daylight between the
Israeli and U.S. governments...
...
Rahm Emanuel brought the sad news to the largest Jewish organization,
the Jewish Federations, last month. Noting that Obama toured Israel
before he announced his presidential campaign in 2007, Emanuel, who is
running for president, said that in 2028, no Democratic candidate will
dare follow the traditional playbook.
“Nobody is leaving America to travel to Jerusalem. That’s the politics.”
And not only Democrats. Emanuel said that all young people, left and right, are turning on Israel.
“Look where Israel stands in America with people under 30,” he said.
“Forget party. It is a political risk today to take a [pro-Israel]
position. Israel is extremely unpopular—I want to drive this point home
for all of us who support a Jewish state– today, Israel for a generation
under 30, the last two years will be as seminal a definition as what
the Six Day War was for [an earlier] generation. But we have to be
honest about the task we have here.”...
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