US Zionists in turmoil after Schumer’s speech

JVL Introduction

Less than 3 months ago right-of-centre Senate Majority leader Chuck Schurmer – both Jewish and a Democrat – addressed the Senate on the rise in antisemitism in the wake of October 7.

He appeared then as a pillar of both the US government’s and the Jewish establishment’s uncritical indeed gung-ho support for Israel.

Last week he addressed the Senate again, now calling for new elections in Israel to replace Netanyahu as leader.

Both Peter Beinart and Philip Weiss see the shift as momentous.

For Beinart it suggests both how much and how rapidly the discourse inside the Democratic Party has changed, and that Schumer grasps the transformation taking place at the grassroots of his party and the need to relate to it. It can no longer be ignored.

For Weiss, Schumer acted out of pure desperation, desperate to shore up the Democratic vote and believing that if only Netanyahu goes all could be well. It won’t, and the current war on Gaza heralds an unending public crisis for Zionism. So Schumer’s speech “represents a great wake-up call for Jews who care about human rights to take on the genocide-enablers in the U.S. Jewish community.”

RK

Why Chuck Schumer’s speech matters

Peter Beinart, The Beinart Notebook, 18 March 2024

So, Democratic Senate leader Chuck Schumer gave a speech last week that got a lot of attention. And I think it is actually a pretty big deal, but not really for the reasons that people are suggesting it is. I want to pick up on something that actually Norman Finkelstein said in our Zoom call on Friday for paid subscribers that I think was correct, and I want to try to elaborate on it in explaining why it matters. Now, the headline was that that Schumer called for new elections in Israel. I don’t know whether that will increase the likelihood of new elections in Israel. Certainly, Schumer’s speech was not, by my lights, a kind of commensurate moral response to the destruction of Gaza. He didn’t call for an end to military aid to Israel’s war. He didn’t call for an immediate ceasefire and hostage release. But he did say other things that I think suggest how much the discourse inside the Democratic Party, even in Washington now, has changed in a very short period of time.

To illustrate that, I want to go back to a speech that his predecessor, Democratic Senate leader Harry Reid, gave in 2011. In the spring of 2011, Barack Obama gave a speech calling for a Palestinian state near the 1967 lines with land swaps. And he had previously, over the past couple of years—Obama—pushed for a settlement freeze, which had put him in conflict with Netanyahu. And so, Harry Reid went to AIPAC, and he completely threw Obama under the bus. And he said, ‘no one’—this is Harry Reid—he said, ‘no one should set premature parameters about borders, about building, or about anything else.’ Building. That refers to settlements. Harry Reid was saying basically no US policy of restriction on settlement growth.

To fast forward to Schumer’s speech, two things about it that I think suggest how much the discourse has changed. The first is that he says in a slightly oblique way, but he says it, that if Netanyahu doesn’t begin to wind down the war and ‘continues to pursue dangerous and inflammatory policies that test existing US standards for assistance, then the United States will have no choice but to play a more active role in shaping Israeli policy by using our leverage to change the present course.’ Now, that’s a little euphemistic. But when he talks about ‘existing US standards for assistance,’ it seems to me he’s referenced something called the Leahy Law. The Leahy Law says the US cannot give military aid to units of foreign militaries that commit gross human rights violations. We do apply that to plenty of countries. We don’t apply it to Israel. It’s not enforced. We don’t even collect the data that would allow us to determine if certain units of the US military had committed gross human rights violations.

Schumer is referencing that. That’s a big deal. Prior to October 7^th and the war in Gaza, there was, as far as I know, one US Senator, Bernie Sanders, who was open to the idea in a meaningful way of conditioning US aid. Now, Chuck Schumer is talking about it. And Chuck Schumer is not on the left edge of the Democratic Party in Congress. He’s on the center right edge when it comes to foreign policy. Let’s remember, this is the guy who opposed Barack Obama’s nuclear deal in 2015, and he’s putting the idea of conditioning military aid to Israel on the table. The US has not conditioned aid to Israel since the early 1990s under George H. W. Bush. The fact that Chuck Schumer is now talking about it suggests how dramatic a transformation there has been inside the Democratic Party in Congress in a relatively short time.

The second thing that Schumer said that I thought was quite remarkable is he refers to the debate between one equal state and two states. Now, two states is his position. But he says, ‘I can understand the idealism that inspires so many young people, in particular, to support a one-state solution. Why can’t we all live side by side and house by house in peace?’ Now, then Schumer goes on to say he disagrees with that. He doesn’t think Jews would be safe. Those are very familiar rebuttals. But the fact that Schumer has to engage this argument at all is really new. A Democratic leader in the Congress would not have had to even acknowledge this as a topic that he needed to discuss. And it’s worth remembering that the establishment Jewish organizations like the Anti-defamation League, which equate anti-Zionism with antisemitism, view this position—the position that I hold, one equal binational democratic state—as antisemitism. And which is their way of saying it shouldn’t be discussed, as part of the policy debate. But Schumer is discussing it! He’s disagreeing with it, but he’s discussing it, and he’s acknowledged that he’s calling it an idealistic position that many young people share.

This would not have happened up until very recently. And it suggests that Schumer understands the transformation that’s underway at the grassroots of his party, especially along generational lines. He’s trying to forestall it in a way, but he’s recognizing it is essentially a legitimate part of the discourse, which is something that establishment American Jewish organizations have been trying to forestall, make sure that it can’t be a legitimate part of the discourse by equating it with antisemitism. And Schumer is actually doing something very different here. It suggests to me he’s someone who knows that things in his party are really shifting. He may not be so happy about it, but he recognizes that. That is a big deal. And so, while there’s so many reasons for despair in this nightmarish moment, I think Schumer’s speech is a kind of backhanded compliment to those people in the activist community at the base of the Democratic Party who have been organizing in these hellish last few months for a change. And it’s a sign that that change, although far too slow and fragmentary, that there is evidence that that change is coming.

Now everyone hates Israel

Philip Weiss’s weekly briefing, Mondoweiss, 17 March 2024

The unbelievable onslaught on a captive people in Gaza has at last cracked the conscience of the American Jewish community and sent American Zionists into complete crisis.

Chuck Schumer’s historic speech to the Senate on March 14, 2024, stating that Netanyahu must go if Israel is not going to become a “pariah” state. Screenshot.

This was a huge week in American Jewish political history.

First, the director of a movie about Auschwitz, Jonathan Glazer, accepted an Oscar in a speech saying that his Jewishness should not be used to justify the slaughter of Gazans.

Right now, we stand here as men who refute their Jewishness and the Holocaust being hijacked by an occupation which has led to conflict for so many innocent people. Whether the victims of October 7 in Israel or the ongoing attack on Gaza — all the victims of this dehumanization, how do we resist?

In saying “We,” Glazer spoke for his producer Len Blavatnik, a billionaire who stood silently behind him, and who just months ago had joined the Harvard donor revolt over alleged antisemitic — actually pro-Palestinian speech — on campus. A revolt that forced the resignation of the Harvard president.

Glazer’s speech was followed four days later by the “momentous speech” by New York Senator Chuck Schumer, who, speaking as a Jew, called on Netanyahu to hold new elections because his rightwing policies are hurting Israel. “As a lifelong supporter of Israel, it has become clear to me, the Netanyahu coalition no longer fits the needs of Israel,” said Schumer.

The Gaza slaughter figured largely. Schumer fears that the massive civilian death toll in Gaza, which causes him “anguish,” will cause Israel to become a “pariah” nation.

In coalition with far-right extremists like Ministers Smotrich and Ben-Gvir, and as a result, [Netanyahu] has been too willing to tolerate the civilian toll in Gaza, which is pushing support for Israel worldwide to historic lows. Israel cannot survive if it becomes a pariah.

The first thing to observe about both speeches is that Palestinian lives are finally counting in American politics. The unbelievable onslaught on a captive people that caused Susan Abulhawa to somehow get in there and come out to say there’s a holocaust in Gaza that language cannot describe has at last registered in American politics.

And just as Joe Biden said last week that Netanyahu “cannot have another 30,000 Palestinians dead”– as if the first 30,000 were mere table stakes — the genocide is also cracking the conscience of the American Jewish community.

Schumer is “a bellwether for the Jewish community, who has refrained from sharp criticism of the Israeli government” (as J Street put it)– and his speech has great significance.

American Zionists are in utter crisis. They see that Israel is a state in the eyes of the world. They see that you cannot force the hand of the U.S. president in support of the genocide, out of concern for his political donations, and topple Ivy League presidents who have not been supportive enough of Israel — without grave consequences.

Schumer acted out of pure desperation. Biden may lose Michigan if the Jewish community cannot pivot and come out against genocide. He sees Israel becoming a “pariah” state.

There is now no difference between right-wing and left-wing Zionists inside the Democratic Party. They have all now gathered around the Schumer/Biden delusion that if you just get rid of Netanyahu, Israel will be able to curb the slaughter, pursue the two-state solution, and save the Jewish state.

So, Zionism is entering an unending public crisis. Because Netanyahu won’t go. Or if he does go, he will be replaced by others who are equally or almost as warmongering and who will do nothing to end the occupation. And Israel will just continue to be a pariah state. And the tsunami of boycotts, long predicted by Israel lovers, will really be upon us. Even Schumer said that the U.S. must restrict aid to Israel if it cannot stop slaughtering civilians.

This is a crisis of Jewish identity. Schumer cited Jewish tradition and conscience as the impulse for his speech. “What horrifies so many Jews especially is our sense that Israel is falling short of upholding these distinctly Jewish values that we hold so dear. We must be better than our enemies, lest we become them.”

However cynical you are about Jewish values and conscience — and I’m as cynical as they come — his speech represents a great wake-up call for Jews who care about human rights to take on the genocide-enablers in the U.S. Jewish community. Despite the love Schumer expressed for Israel and the mythologies he espoused about its creation and democracy, his speech is historic on this ground.

Because as more than one critic of Schumer’s said this week, he is giving permission to others. The most powerful Jewish politician in U.S. history is saying, As a Jew I tell America, Israel is doing wrong. Yes, everyone hates Israel now.

Schumer has opened the doors on the Jewish discussion that I and others in the anti-Zionist community have long sought: How can we support a discriminatory, brutal state in our name over there when we absolutely oppose religious nationalism and persecution of minorities here?

Anti-Zionists will win this argument. Because the Jewish state will not be able to transform itself to suit American liberal values. And regardless of the political arrangements in coming years in Israel/Palestine — partition into two states, or one state — Israel’s move to pariah status is so well advanced now by its own actions that no Zionist will ultimately be able to save its racist apartheid constitution. And idealistic Jews here will help transform that land.

In directing Israelis what to do– go have another election!– Schumer exposed a great secret of Zionism: It is an international Jewish ideology that will always cause confusion about national interest. Schumer could well argue that he was justified in directing Israelis because Israel interferes in our politics all the time, as Netanyahu did in 2015 on the Iran deal. “Imagine if some foreign leader who was ostensibly an ally of the United States, came here and gave an address before Congress that threw the American president under the bus on their key policy item of the times,” a New York liberal Zionist said in praising Schumer’s speech. “Can you imagine it?”

I can imagine just that because Schumer himself admitted that he voted against the Iran deal because it was in Israel’s interest not the American one.

So Zionism has always been a huge asterisk on American Jewish liberal values. This week that asterisk began to fall apart.

Thanks for reading,

Phil