At This Year's J Street Conference, "Progressive" Pols Bow to Israel While
Preaching Peace
Progressive politicians like Bernie Sanders should be credited for finally
offering solutions to decades-old Israeli Human rights violations, but those
solutions are often little more than talking points designed to placate
their base and appease Israel.
by Miko Peled
October 30th, 2019
By Miko Peled
My father, the late IDF general Matti Peled, called for a two-state solution
in 1967, and as is stated in my book, The General's Son, Journey of an
Israeli in Palestine, he continued to campaign for this "solution" until
the day he died. It may have been a revolutionary idea then, especially
coming from a retired IDF general. Some would even call it progressive,
though I personally would not go that far. It presented a path for Israel to
gain legitimacy for its 1948 conquest of Palestine while placating the
Palestinian people by giving them a small, powerless state that would allow
them to exercise their right to self-determination.
Two decades later, when it was clear that Israel would never allow this to
happen, my father called for the U.S. to halt its financial and military aid
to Israel. By 1992, he called for sanctions against Israel. So when Bernie
Sanders and other so-called progressives like J Street talk about a
two-state solution and the possibility of using aid to pressure Israel, they
are decades late and billions of dollars short. Without full support for the
Boycott Divestment and Sanctions movement, BDS for short, no progress can be
achieved for Palestinian rights.
A Safe Bet
Back in the late 1960s and early 1970s calling for the establishment of a
Palestinian state in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was dangerous because
there was a real possibility that it could happen. Today, after five decades
in which consecutive governments of Israel have worked tirelessly to
integrate the West Bank with the rest of the state of Israel, a Palestinian
state is no longer possible and calling for it is a safe political move.
Bernie Sanders knows it, the folks at J Street know it, and all the other
so-called progressives know it too. A bold, progressive move would be to
call for a democratic state with equal rights for all of Palestine, from the
river to the sea.
However, we mustn't get ahead of ourselves. One has to ask, where were these
progressives when the possibility of a two-state solution was feasible? This
is not to say it was a just or good solution, for it did legitimize the
Zionist crimes of 1948 and earlier. Setting that aside for a moment, where
were these so-called progressives when the possibility of an independent
Palestine emerging in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip was a real
possibility? They were nowhere to be found.
While the official line of consecutive U.S. administrations was that UN
Security Council resolutions 242 and 338 should be the basis of a peace
agreement, neither the various administrations or other American politicians
outside of the administration did a single thing to push this idea forward.
Now that is it too late, and it is clear that Israel never intended to allow
the Palestinian right to self-determination to materialize, and now that we
know that the "peace process" concocted by the Rabin-Peres duo was nothing
more than a charade, the Bernie Sanders and J Street liberals decided to
make a "bold" statement out of an old, outdated idea. But there is nothing
bold about their support for Israel. There is nothing progressive about
waiting five decades to support an idea that has no chance of becoming
reality.
A Step in the Right Direction
The last thing that can be said about this very slow learning curve is that
it is a step in the right direction. Recognizing and declaring today that
the Palestinian people have been subjected to genocide, ethnic cleansing and
apartheid for over seven decades is still slow, but it would signal a real
step in the right direction. However, neither Sanders nor his hosts at the J
Street conference are willing to go that far.
The farthest Sanders is willing to go is to say that he supports Israel and
that Palestinians have been treated unfairly. Now, he is suggesting that
some of the $3.8 Billion of aid money going to Israel should be diverted to
resolve the ongoing humanitarian crisis in Gaza. How much? He didn't say. So
why not suggest halting aid to Israel altogether and sending those billions
of dollars to the people who really need them in order to rebuild Gaza and
provide medical care, water, and food.
The problem is that we have all become accustomed to believing that
Palestinians should never ask for too much. Palestinians should be grateful
for the scraps offered to them by white rich politicians in the United
States and Israel. They should welcome the idea that Israel will "give" them
a fraction of their homeland in which to build a mini-state. They should be
grateful that a politician in the U.S. said publicly that they are treated
unfairly. Palestinians should not be unreasonable and they should refrain
from calling for anything that would bother Israel and its Zionist
supporters around the world.
BDS
The call for Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions against Israel is a step too
far for Sanders and J Street, the latter claiming that it is opposed to the
call for a boycott and that "The Movement is not a friend to Israel."
Palestinians, apparently, are required to prove that they are friends of
Israel before their demands can be heard, much less accepted and also to
recognize the right of Israel to exist, another absurd demand regularly made
of Palestinians.
The fundamental problem lies in statements such as this by J Street: "J
Street believes that maintaining a strong, vibrant US-Israel relationship
[.] US support for Israel as a democracy and a national home for the Jewish
people is an historic and crucial commitment."
As long as the U.S. relationship with Israel is viewed as more valuable than
the human rights of the Palestinian people, justice for Palestinians will
remain a distant dream. Without support for BDS and their declared demands,
namely: ending Israel's military occupation of Palestinian land, equal
rights and the right of refugees to return to their homes and their land, no
progress can be made.
Hold the Champagne
Reading posts on Twitter while the J Street conference was taking place in
Washington could give one the impression that justice for Palestinians is
just around the corner. However, it is Israel that was the focus, not
Palestinian human rights. The ongoing discussion of the two-state solution
at the event acted as a fig leaf, shielding Israel from true criticism and
allowing human rights violations in Palestine to continue unabated.
Statements like this one, made by Julian Castro, are indicative of a
prevailing head in the sand, ostrich-like attitude: "We need a government in
Israel that will get back on the path of the two-state solution." No one
bothered to ask if Israel was really ever on that path.
Julian Castro
Julian Castro speaks at the J Street National Conference, Oct. 28, 2019, in
Washington. Jacquelyn Martin | AP
Bernie Sanders made a statement at the J Street conference that was also
indicative of a desire to intentionally miss the target: "It is not
anti-Semitism to say that the Netanyahu government has been racist - that's
a fact," he said. Netanyahu is, without question, indeed a racist. Yet he is
no different than any other Israeli prime minister. The issue is not a
single prime minister, it is the entire Zionist settler-colonial project in
Palestine which is the problem.
How Much Longer?
More than five decades had passed since my late father, one of the exalted
IDF generals of the 1967 war, called for a two-state solution. A solution
that favors Israel and recognizes very limited rights for Palestinians and
is a poor excuse for a peace plan. A solution that ignores the crimes which
my father, among others, committed in 1948. A solution, which in fact
legitimizes those crimes. It is a "solution" behind which politicians who
want to seem progressive can hide because it offers no solution. It is a
solution popular among those who pretend to care for justice and human
rights but that do not want real change. One must ask how much longer this
charade will be allowed to continue.
Feature photo | Democratic presidential candidate Sen. Bernie Sanders,
I-Vt., speaks at the J Street National Conference, Oct. 28, 2019, in
Washington. Jacquelyn Martin | AP
Miko Peled is an author and human rights activist born in Jerusalem. He is
the author of "The General's Son. Journey of an Israeli in Palestine," and
"Injustice, the Story of the Holy Land Foundation Five
