semitism.net

The Disengagement has exposed an interesting split in the American Jewish community. You can’t really properly divide Jews into groups because, I know, everyone has his own opinion on everything. But, nevertheless, there are basically three groups here with regard to Israel and its foreign policy. There are those of us on the left - which is a fair number of American Jews, but outside the Jewish establishment and not that well organized - who outright oppose the occupation and favor a Palestinian state. Then there’s the Jewish establishment, which tends to take a “support Israel right or wrong” line. The establishment sees its role as advocating for Israel, without meddling in the decisions of Israel’s elected government. Their predominant concern is Israel’s security. And finally, there’s the predominantly Orthodox right wing. Strongly influenced by the ideals of religious Zionism, it supports claiming all of Biblical Israel as the property of the Jewish state…

Over the past few years, it’s been hard to tell the difference between the establishment and the religious right. Until the Disengagement, Sharon’s policy favored settlement in the occupied territories. This could be sold as a security measure (through a rather flawed rationale of deterrence) and as an expansionist measure, and so satisfied both groups. Furthermore, bombs exploding in Israeli cities could be counted upon to unify and galvanize the community. Differences were easily put aside in the face of terrorism that was constantly presented as a threat to Israel’s very existence.

Not so now. The Forward’s Jennifer Siegel reports on an anti-Disengagement rally that took place in Central Park Tuesday. It was organized by the Zionist Organization of America and the heretofore unknown Alliance for Eretz Yisrael. Rather than the predicted thousands of protesters, it consisted of a few hundred die-hard Lubavitchers.

“Some people are conspicuously absent” today, said David Romanoff, of the Alliance for Eretz Yisrael. He was one of the hecklers who disrupted Sharon’s May 22 speech to Jewish leaders in New York. Romanoff went on to point the finger at several major organizations: “Where are you, Anti-Defamation League? Where are you, American Jewish Committee? Where is the American Jewish Congress today?…”

Romanoff also singled out for criticism the Orthodox Union and the Rabbinical Council of America - two of the most important Modern Orthodox-dominated organizations in the country. Both groups declined to rally publicly against the pullout

Even the Conference of Presidents of Major Jewish Organizations, which technically represents, um, the Major Jewish Organizations, but has in fact been a bastion of religious Zionism, finally got around to endorsing the Disengagement on Wednesday. Yes, this past Wednesday - about two years after Sharon announced it, with the evacuation in progress, when it was absolutely clear that the Gaza settlements were going away and there was nothing anyone could do about it.

The more sensible organizations of the religious right, like the Conference of Presidents, are not interested in fighting what is obviously a losing battle. But the lines will become clearer in the next month or so, when, I think, you will see the right throw its weight solidly behind a Netanyahu campaign.

James Bresser, the Washington correspondent for New York’s Jewish Week, interviewed Mandy Ganchrow, the former president of the Orthodox Union (who, by the way, has his own little Blogger Blog, bless his heart) about the post-Gaza strategy of the right.

“There will be tremendous pressure on the Bush administration to advance the road map and to provide aid and arms to the Palestinian Authority… There will be pressure on Israel to make concessions like allowing a Palestinian seaport.”

Groups that opposed the Gaza pullout, he said, are already preparing for those battles, although “there is no unified strategy.”

He said the activism of groups like the Zionist Organization of America and Americans for a Safe Israel, working with Israeli opponents of the pullout, “helped create new pressures on [Israeli Prime Minister Ariel] Sharon that will make it very difficult for him to make other concessions to the Palestinians.”

Maintaining that pressure in Israel, he said, will be a top priority for these groups.

Morton Klein, of the Zionist Organization of America, told Bresser that Jewish groups will turn to the Christian right for help in influencing the President and Congress:

“We will continue to work with them on a number of issues,” said ZOA’s Klein. Powerful Christian Zionists like Gary Bauer, president of American Values, he said, are important allies in the impending fight against the road map.

Clearly, they are turning to the Christian Zionists because they cannot count on help from the Jewish establishment. This move will, I am sure, drive a further wedge between the Jewish right and the mainstream. Groups like the AJCongress - which cut its teeth fighting against school prayer in the 1960’s - have no love for Pat Robertson and his ilk.

What does this mean for the left? Well, we should keep saying what we’re saying: that the occupation is bad for Israel and grossly unjust to the Palestinians, and that the status quo produces nothing but stalemate and violence. We may find a more receptive audience in the Jewish establishment than we have in the past, assuming the Disengagement does not blow up in Sharon’s face.

And we could be a little more open to alliances. Sure, we’re smarter and more righteous than everyone else. But would it be so bad to team up with the ADL against the settlers, in support of a rational peace plan, if it ever came to that?