J Street: Who Are You?

When I read the web sites of J Street and the New Israel Fund, I see many concerns for Israel with which I agree, religious pluralism, separation of church and state, concern for minorities (Jewish and non-Jewish), opposition to the deportation of children of migrant workers, concern for calling Israelis unpatriotic if they criticize some actions of their government, and crticizing the expansion of settlements on the West Bank. I even once made a contribution to the New Israel fund because I wanted to give money that would go into the Israeli economy and also support an organization with which I agree. But I have not repeated that contribution because I really don't know to whom I contributed. It was refreshing recently to see that J Street was "horrified" by the recent attacks from Gaza that killed 8 Israelis in the Negev. But I am bothered by the lack of criticism of the Palestinian leadership for starting the Intafada many years ago that killed many Hebrew people, for insisting on conditions like the "right of return" which are impossible for Israel to meet, and for teaching hatred of Jews to their children. I also haven't seen criticsm of the surrounding Arab nations for starting the mess by invading Israel/Palestine in 1948, using hatred of Israel to take the focus off the suppression of their own people, and for keeping Palestinian Arabs in their countries in refugee camps for generations to maintain their hatred of Jews.
The tragedy of J Street is that they could be a force for reason, but by always focusing on criticism of Israel and glossing over the transgressions of the Arab side, they remove themselves as representatives of ordinary Jews/Hebrews like me.

Attack from Gaza

Terrorists from Gaza recently crossed the border into Israel and killed people. Israel retaliated by bombing targets in Gaza. Now some people have accused Israel of aggression. It is not aggression for a nation to defend its people. The present government of Israel can be criticized for sometimes wasting its resources to cater to a growing minority of citizens who think that aquisition of land has some religious purpose. But when Israel is attacked it needs to fight back with whatever means will do the job and not just balanced. We Jews in the Diaspora as well as in Israel disagree about many issues, but when we are attacked anywhere, we are united in supporting each other as we should be.
Certainly Israel has to maintain a strong military considering the challenges facing it. however being strong is not just military. It has to be inclusive in defining who is a Hebrew. Immigration of people who are willing to take on the Hebrew language and culture make Israel stronger and help to turn the demography in Israel's favor. The senstivities of the Israeli Arabs who make up 20% of the population should be considered as much as possible and not just tolerated.
On the Arab side, Israel should be regarded as an asset, not a liability. The present difficulties in Israel/Palestine were created by the surrounding Arab states and to some extent by Europe more than by the Israelis and the Palestinians. If the moderate Israelis and Palestinians could unite and supercede the extremists on both sides as 2 nations or one, they could truly be the premier nation in the region despite their small size. Maybe that is too much to hope for.

Why has Israel Turned to the Right?

At the time of the founding of Israel in 1948, the Labor Party was the predominant party in the government, and Israel was to a great extent a socialist nation. At that time the government and people were open to the concept of 2 states along the the lines that were formed at the end of the 1948 war. The Israeli people were not happy with giving up East Jerusalem but otherwise were resigned to reality. During the 1990s with a liberal Israeli government, a period of what appeared to be peace making occurred. The Palestinian Authority came into being as a first step toward Palestinian statehood. Both sides were talking to each other. Most importantly, a feeling of trust developed between many of the Palestinian Arabs and Israeli Jews. Ehud Barak offered the Clinton/Barak plan to Yasser Arafat which would have satisfied most of the Palestinian demands (but not the return of the Palestinian Arabs to the State of Israel and did not give all of East Jerusalem to Palestine). Arafat rejected it and instead started the Intifada which included terrorist attacks on Israel. The trust between the 2 populations disappeared and along with it the cooperation and mutual prosperity that had been developing for a decade. Over the subsequent years Israel built a fence to keep the terrorists out and hired foreign itinerant workers to fill the jobs in Israel that were no longer open to the Palestinians. Later, Israel tried to unilaterally separate from the Palestinians. The first step in this separation was Gaza. It was safer to start by withdrawal from Gaza because Gaza was away from the Jerusalem to Tel-Aviv population center of Israel. But then the Gazans elected Hamas to rule them. Hamas outwardly declared that it wanted nothing less than a Palestinian state including all of the land of Israel/Palestine (in other words the destruction of Israel). It backed up those statements with rocket attacks on the Israeli towns bordering Gaza. Meanwhile, Israel away from Gaza has enjoyed the end of the Intifada from the West Bank (in other words peace) under a right wing coalition. There also has been a period of financial growth both in Israel and the West Bank. No wonder most Israelis prefer to leave things as they are. Perhaps many Palestinians are actually wary of complete independance although officially they would not say so.
However, the status quo has its problems and can not last forever. The settlement people are trying to use the staus quo to further their own interests by expansion in the West Bank settlements. This is contrary to the interests of both Israel and the Palestinians. In recent weeks, it has become apparent that Israel's financial success has not benefitted all Israelis equally, in that Israelis are beginning to protest about housing prices that have become unaffordable.
So, it is necessary for Israel and the Palestinians to come to a permanent negotiated equitable plan. It will take compromise by both Israel and Palestine. It will take changes in attitude by the majority of both people towards each other. Prosperity for both sides (already happening) and some equity in the distribution of that prosperity are extremely important.

Who is the Victim and Who the Victimizer?

Many people regard the Palestinian Arabs as victims of the State of Israel. However, is that really true? After all, who invaded whom in 1948 at the end of the British mandate? The United Nations partitioned the Land of Israel/Palestine into enclaves for Jews and Arabs. The Jews declared the State of Israel in their enclaves. At the time, Israel (the Palestinian Jewish community) was willing to accept the U.N. partition because it was vulnerable. The Palestinian Arab community did nothing to create a state of their own. The surrounding Arab states invaded Israel/Palestine resulting in the emigration of most of the Palestinian Arabs in the wake of the Arab invasion. At the end of the war, from 1948 to 1967, Jordan annexed the West Bank and Egypt annexed the Gaza Strip. Neither country declared or encouraged the creation of a Palestinian state in those territories during those 19 years. The Palestinian Arabs themselves said and did nothing to separate themselves from Jordan and Egypt. It was not until after the 1967 war when they found themselves under Israeli rule that they suddenly became Palestinians who wanted their own country (which even then included all of Israel). Had the Arab and Jewish communities of Israel/Palestine cooperated in the time preceding the  British withdrawal to create 2 independant states according to the U.N. partition plan which could have allowed access by religious people on both sides to their respective shrines as tourists, they might have been able to prevent the invasion by the surrounding Arab states. Israel would have gone along with that, but the Palestinian Arabs did not and instead abandoned their sovereignty.