FEB. 14, 2005

THE MIDEAST
Truce reinvigorates American Jewish peace movement

• See also Feb. 14, 2005, ReligionLink tip, Jewish-Christian relations a year after 'The Passion'

With a fragile truce in effect between Israel and the Palestinians, hope is rising among Jews for an eventual two-state settlement between the two peoples. Perhaps, many say, Mahmoud Abbas is the determined partner for peace that many doves came to conclude Yasser Arafat was not. For the first time since the second Palestinian intifada (uprising) began in 2000 and the once-active American Jewish peace movement fell quiet, American Jews are hopeful about the possibility of peace. Many are seeking ways to actively encourage it again, and some have been pressing the White House to push Israel harder to settle with the Palestinians.

Palestinian, Israeli and American leaders all have said they believe that two states are inevitable. Although many American Jews would agree, they differ greatly about when, how, where and under what conditions the Palestinian state will emerge.

As they debate these questions, doves in particular encounter one of the most delicate issues in American Jewish politics: How can Jews criticize Israeli policies and still support the Jewish nation? The question involves complex loyalties that are hard for non-Jews to understand. Because of the Nazi Holocaust and the persistence of anti-Semitism internationally, because of Israel's unique status as the home of a long-homeless people, because it is a refuge for all Jews and because it is ringed by hostile countries, criticizing Israel can be difficult. Jews in America may feel they have no right, since they are not in harm's way, as Israelis are. And, as one scholar explains, Irish Americans criticizing Ireland needn't worry that Ireland will disappear tomorrow; Jews might fear that their criticism of Israel would add fuel to existing anti-Semitism that questions Israel's right to exist.

Why it Matters
What happens in Israel matters to many Americans, Jewish and non-Jewish. By the same token, American opinion and American-Jewish support in particular matter greatly in Israel. President Bush has said he wants a Palestinian state by the end of his second term. With America at war in Iraq, hints of other potential American interventions in the region and the importance of Mideast oil to the United States, the need grows to solve the Palestinian-Israeli conflict.

Jews are just 2 percent of the U.S. population (estimated at 5 million to 6 million, the American Jewish population, from Orthodox to Reform to unaffiliated, is the world's largest), but the pro-Israel lobby is hugely influential on American policy. Its alliance with politically important evangelicals even further leverages the pro-Israel political perspective in Washington.

Questions for reporters
Now is an opportune time to ask Jews of various affiliation as well as nonreligious and nonpracticing Jews what connection they feel to Israel and how they view a renaissance of the peace movement. Does recent progress between Israelis and Palestinians affect their views? Do they believe that Jews should refrain from criticizing Israel?

A cautionary note: Experts urge reporters to refrain from generalizing on the basis of interviews. There is no "typical" Jewish response to Israeli government policies. In fact, Jewish leaders say that few American Jews are particularly knowledgeable about Israeli-Palestinian affairs. Since little research has been done, anyone who tells you "the community" feels this way or that is probably voicing an unsupported if passionate personal opinion.

Programs sending Jewish youngsters to study or live in Israel strengthen ties. After the second intifada began in 2000, such programs were mostly curtailed. Many are now starting up again, since fewer terrorist attacks occurred in Israel proper last year. Ask synagogue and summer camp youth programs and Hillel, the Jewish college campus organization, about their participation in such programs. Interview participants and their families about their ties to Israel and their views on the Israeli government's approach to peace.

Most medium-size American communities and many small ones have a synagogue or Jewish congregation. Are rabbis or congregations engaging the question of how to make peace and whether to pressure Israel or press the American government on issues relating to Israel?

At a time when the American Jewish community is concerned about sustaining its numbers and community leaders seek to keep Jews identifying and affiliating with their community, what part does Israel play? Does Israel's existence make American Jews feel safer and more closely tied? Do Israeli policies toward Palestinians alienate American Jews?

Ask Jews how they are affected by discussions among American Presbyterians about possibly divesting from Caterpillar Inc. and other firms whose products are used in the Israeli occupation of occupied territories.

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Click the map for interview sources in your state and region

National sources

• Marcia Freedman is president of Brit Tzedek v'Shalom Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace, a 2-year-old American Jewish organization that, among other things, is pushing the White House, through an Internet petition drive, to get the Palestinians and Israel to negotiate. Freedman says Israel's survival depends on a thriving Palestinian state, so it is in Israel's national interest to support the Palestinian cause. She says a "remarkable" change happened in the last year with large synagogues - mostly Reform - talking about how to make peace. She has lived in Israel and served as a member of Parliament. Contact 510-848-8796, marciafree@earthlink.net.
• Some information on Brit Tzedek v'Shalom's 30 local chapters is online.
• Joined in coalition with Brit Tzedek are other American peace-oriented organizations, including Habonim Dror, a progressive labor Zionist youth movement based in New York; Americans For Peace Now; Meretz USA, a progressive Zionist organization affiliated with the Social Democratic Israel political party; the Labor Zionist Alliance; The Parents Circle-Families Forum, begun by bereaved families supporting peace, reconciliation and tolerance; and Hashomer Hatzair, another progressive Zionist youth organization.
• Anna Greenberg is vice president of the Democratic polling firm Greenberg Quinlan Rosner Research, based in Washington. She has written and spoken about the role of religious organizations in political life and is an adjunct professor in the school of public affairs at American University. The Jewish population in the United States is not a monolith, she stresses. The more observant and traditionally Jewish are more likely to be conservative on the subject of negotiations. Don't assume that Jews are knowledgeable about events in Israel, she cautions. Contact 202-478-8330 ext. 312, anna_greenberg@harvard.edu.
• Ethan Felson, assistant executive director of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, describes a dramatic change in attitude among American Jews since Arafat's death. He estimates that about a third of the American Jewish community leans toward the dovish position on the Israel-Palestinian conflict. A third are more hawkish. The "swing" third tends to support the government in Israel, primarily because this group follows the issue closely and reaches the same conclusions as Israeli voters. What is not well understood, Felson says, is that despite this continuum, Zionism is a given for nearly all American Jews at all points on the political spectrum. Contact 212-684-6951, efelson@thejcpa.org.
• John Green, director of the Bliss Institute at the University of Akron, is a specialist on religion and politics and co-author of The Diminishing Divide: Religion's Changing Role in American Politics (Brookings Institution, 2000). Ask him about surveys and attitudes among evangelicals regarding Israel. Contact 330-972-6295, green@uakron.edu.
• Americans for Peace Now, founded in 1981, calls itself the leading U.S. advocate for peace in the Middle East. It works to educate Americans and engage the U.S. political process as well as to support Peace Now, the leading Israeli peace organization. Contact assistant executive director Lewis Roth, 202-728-1893, lroth@peacenow.org.
• Jack Wertheimer is the provost and the Joseph and Martha Mendelson Professor of American Jewish History at the Jewish Theological Seminary in New York City. The seminary is the central educational institution of the Conservative movement in Judaism. Among the dozen books Wertheimer has authored or edited are A People Divided: Judaism in Contemporary America (Brandeis University Press, 1997), Jews in the Center: Conservative Synagogues and Their Members (Rutgers University Press, 2000) and Jewish Religious Leadership: Image and Reality (JTS Press, 2004). Regardless of their widely varied political opinions, nearly all American Jews are Zionists, believing that Israel is the Jewish homeland, Wertheimer says. Contact 212-678-8065, jawertheimer@jtsa.edu.
• Paul Burstein, a sociologist, is chairman of the Jewish Studies program at the University of Washington in Seattle. Contact 206-543-7088, burstein@u.washington.edu.
• Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of Tikkun magazine and founder of the Tikkun Community, a peace and social justice movement. Contact 415-575-1200, rabbilerner@tikkun.org.
• The 16-year-old Jewish Peace Lobby, based in Silver Spring, Md., is focused on influencing American foreign policy toward peace. Contact its president, Jerome Segal, 301-589-8764.
• The 99-year-old American Jewish Committee, based in New York, has 33 local offices. The international think tank and advocacy organization works to identify and fight anti-Semitism and all forms of bigotry, protect human rights and protect Israel and Jewish life everywhere. Executive director David Harris can discuss American Jewish life and attitudes. Contact him through spokesman Ken Bandler, 212-751-4000 ext. 271, bandlerk@ajc.org.
• Steve Frankel is Israel program director for Bnei Akiva, the religious Zionist youth organization in the United States and Canada. See the pull-down home page menu for local groups. Ask how renewed peace efforts are affecting Bnei Akiva's Israel programs. Contact 212- 465-9536 ext. 16, sfrankel@prodigy.net.
• The Coalition of Women for Peace comprises a number of organizations working for Israeli-Palestinian peace.
• Rabbi David Saperstein, director of Reform Judaism's Religious Action Center, sees more vibrancy and peace activity than at any time since the Oslo accords died, including coalitions of Jews, Christians and Muslims. Many would-be doves, he says, believed Arafat was blocking peace, with intransigence in negotiations and terrorism against Israeli civilians. Saperstein advises reporters to treat each Jewish congregational stream separately. Reform Jews tend to be dovish and willing to critique Israeli government policies that they see as obstructing the peace process. Saperstein sees a swing to the right in the last 20 years among Orthodox, with increasingly hawkish views on Israel. The Conservative movement is between the two, theologically and politically. Most tend to be dovish, he says, though more hawks have been vocal in recent years. Contact 202-387-2800, dsaperstein@rac.org.
• The Jewish Peace Fellowship is based in Nyack, N.Y. It was begun in 1941 to defend the rights of conscientious objectors. Contact Rabbi Philip J. Bentley, pearleaf@optonline.net.

Background

After Camp David negotiations failed in 2000 between Arafat and then-Israeli Prime Minister Ehud Barak and intifada violence renewed, the so-called peace camp fell largely quiet in both the United States and Israel. Even committed Jewish doves came to believe that Arafat would not or could not negotiate credibly on behalf of Palestinians. Now, with Arafat's death, with Israel trying to disengage from the Gaza Strip and a sense that, if a Palestinian state doesn't form, higher Arab birth rates will eventually make Jews a minority in Israel, some Jews are becoming more vocal about how to make peace. Still, the peace camp today is on the fringes of Israeli society. It is probably less marginalized among American Jews.
• Read a history of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict at the site of the American Friends Service Committee.
• Read "Because They are Jews," by Beliefnet columnist Rabbi David Wolpe, on anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel.
• Read an online readers' forum at the site of the Israeli newspaper Haaretz about Jews outside Israel criticizing Israeli policies.
• Read "Marcia Freedman talks peace," published recently in the Seattle Jewish Transcript online.
• Read "Peace-camp leaders build resolve in meeting here," published Feb. 1, 2005, in the Kalamazoo (Mich.) Gazette. The story describes Israeli, Palestinian, Christian and Muslim peace activists uniting under the auspices of the Fetzer Institute for the first time since the peace-camp movement in North America began in 1993. The Fetzer Institute works to foster awareness of the power of love and forgiveness in pragmatic contexts.
• Read an Aug. 4, 2003, San Mateo County Times article at the Worldwide Forgiveness Alliance site about a group of Palestinians, Jews and Christians that has met for 11 years to discuss Middle East peace.

RESEARCH
Little reliable polling has been done directly addressing Jewish attitudes toward Israel. Among American Jews, opinions and degree and type of religious participation are enormously diverse, making it impossible to generalize. Reform congregations may be more likely to embrace the peace movement. Surveys show that most Jews feel some tie to Israel. Fear of anti-Semitism and protectiveness about Israel are intrinsically linked. As one Jewish leader says: You've got to have a place you can run to if things get bad, and it's always gotten bad, wherever we've lived.

Stronger attachments to Israel are more likely among the more observant, with active ties to Jewish institutions, and those may inspire less willingness to question Israeli policies.
• The American Jewish Committee's annual opinion survey, released in September 2004, found that 27 percent of American Jews thought anti-Semitism in the United States is a very serious problem, 67 percent somewhat of a problem. The poll also covered political attitudes and opinions on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Taken before Arafat's death, the survey reported that 57 percent of American Jews favor the establishment of a Palestinian state, and most support Israel's handling of relations with the Palestinian Authority and the security fence Israel is building between itself and the occupied land. Most supported Israel's plan to withdraw from Gaza and supported dismantling at least some settlements in the West Bank as part of a permanent peace agreement with the Palestinians. A separate opinion survey was done of Russian American Jews.
• In fall 2002, Gallup reported that interviews conducted during the past decade revealed that about half of Americans who say they are Jewish are Democrats. A third say they are independents, and fewer than two in 10 are Republicans. Although most Jews described themselves as moderate or conservative, other Jews were significantly more likely than the national average to label themselves as liberal.
• Researchers conclude that religious beliefs play an important role in Americans' attitudes on foreign affairs, including the Middle East. In general, Americans look favorably on Israel. In a 2002 survey, the Gallup organization found that 43 percent of Americans sided with Israel, and 14 percent with the Palestinians. The nonpartisan Pew Forum on Religion and Public Life found in 2003 that 44 percent of Americans agreed that God gave the land that is now Israel to the Jewish people. (Thirty-six percent agreed that "the state of Israel is a fulfillment of the biblical prophecy about the second coming of Jesus.") The Pew survey found that 41 percent of Americans sided with Israel, 13 percent with the Palestinians.
• Read "Demographic study sparks debate," a Sept. 20, 2000, Jewish Telegraphic Agency article posted at Zipple.com. It discusses findings of a team of scholars from Hebrew University, predicting that in the next 80 years, America's Jewish population will decline by one-third to 3.8 million if current fertility rates and migration patterns continue.

ANTI-SEMITISM
Many Jews believe that Israel's policy of building settlements in the occupied territories endangers Israel, yet they are reluctant to criticize Israel. Sociologist Paul Burstein, chairman of the Jewish studies program at the University of Washington, blames the anxiety many Jews feel for their safety. People from other backgrounds have not experienced the existential threat that Jews feel about Israel's neighboring countries and radical Palestinian factions threatening to eradicate Israel and its people, Burstein says. Many Americans dismiss these threats as rhetorical exaggeration, he says, but given history, the anxiety is not unfounded. Isolated examples of anti-Semitism remind some Jews who are on edge of previous traumas, Burstein says. After the 1999 shootings at the North Valley Jewish Community Center in Granada Hills, Calif., Jewish communities around the country began to hire guards and build barricades at schools, synagogues and community centers.
• Zionist Organization of America advocates for Israel, in Washington, D.C., on college campuses and in communities. It also counters anti-Israel bias in media and on campus. It was started in 1897 to help found a Jewish state in Palestine. Past presidents have included Supreme Court Justice Louis Brandeis and Rabbi Dr. Abba Hillel Silver. Contact ZOA National President Morton A. Klein, 212-481-1500.
• The Jewish Council for Public Affairs (formerly the American Jewish Public Affairs Committee), based in New York with offices in Washington, represents the organized American Jewish community, particularly in protecting the rights of Jews everywhere and in supporting a just and pluralistic American democracy. Ask executive director Hannah Rosenthal, 212-684-6950 ext. 208, hrosenthal@thejcpa.org, or Martin Raffel, director of the Israel advocacy project, 212-684-6950 ext. 206, mraffel@thejcpa.org, how to reach representatives in the 22 local chapters.

GENEVA ACCORD
• In 2003, frustrated with the pace at which their respective governments were approaching peace negotiations, experienced negotiators from the Palestinian Authority and from the Israeli opposition party met quietly and signed an unofficial Draft Permanent Status Agreement (or Geneva Accord), finding solutions to most of the tough issues that obstructed previous official negotiations. Liberal Palestinians and Israelis see it as a model for what can be done. The Geneva Accord was rejected by the Likud government in Israel. See a site on the Geneva Accord at Tikkun.org, a liberal American Jewish organization headed by Rabbi Michael Lerner. Read Wikipedia's site explaining the accord.
• Read "Palestinian Elections: How Peace Could Happen Nonetheless," an article posted at the Middle East Web Log on Jan. 10, 2005. On the same blog, read an Oct. 18, 2003, Associated Press article, "Freelancers Seek Middle East Peace," and "We have done the grunt work of peace," reprinted from the Oct. 17, 2003, Guardian, in which Israeli dove and writer Amos Oz describes participating in the Geneva Accord.
• Read "Israelis and Palestinians link arms in Davos," a Jan. 29, 2005, article posted at Swissinfo.org.
• Read "Poll: Majority of Palestinians Support Two States," a Jan. 19, 2005, article in the online Palestine Chronicle, reporting results of a poll of Palestinian and Israeli attitudes toward a settlement. The poll was conducted by Khalil Shikaki, head of the Center for Palestinian Policy and Research in Ramallah, in late 2004.

DIVESTMENT
American Jews are now faced with the possibility of a divestment movement aimed at pressuring Israel to settle with the Palestinians. Read a Beliefnet article on the subject.
• Read on the Presbyterian Church (USA) web site about the church's 216th General Assembly approval in July 2004 of a controversial program involving possible "selective, phased divestments" from multinational corporations doing business in Israel. Caterpillar Inc. often is singled out for making bulldozers used to level homes and orchards of Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip.
• In September 2004, the Episcopal Church began studying whether to make a similar move. Other religious groups speaking in favor of divestments are the Roman Catholic Sisters of Loretto and Jewish Voice for Peace, a small Jewish peace group.
• Read a report by the American Jewish Committee describing the divestment movement as a "blow to peace." Read a Dec. 6, 2004, Christian Science Monitor article about Christian churches considering divestment. Read about reader response to the article and see a Monitor reader poll on the subject.