Outgoing U.S. Central Command Commander Gen. Kenneth McKenzie said on Tuesday that he would “fully support” a nuclear deal with Iran, acknowledging that in a new agreement, the Biden administration would provide the Iranian regime with more money that could be used to finance Tehran’s malign activities in the region.
“I’m not an economist, I’m not familiar with the economic impacts of that deal. I would say this: from where I sit, the number one objective that I’ve been given is we don’t want Iran to have a nuclear weapon,” the top U.S. military official in the Middle East told the Senate Armed Services Committee. “And it would seem to me that approaching that through a diplomatic solution would be the best way to get to that end. I recognize there are second-order effects that might proceed from that in terms of sanctions relief and I acknowledge that.”
“CENTCOM is the land of less-than-perfect solutions, so I’m always comfortable with a less-than-perfect solution,” he added.
McKenzie emphasized on Tuesday that he would support a “good agreement that prevented [Iran] from obtaining a nuclear weapon.” He also said he views the Islamic Revolutionary Guard Corps (IRGC) as a terrorist organization. The Biden administration is reportedly mulling withdrawing terrorism sanctions on the IRGC as part of the nuclear agreement.
He added that he hopes a nuclear agreement can be a “bridge” to further negotiations tackling Iran’s ballistic missile program and proxy activities through diplomatic means, suggesting that it was not “feasible” to tackle those issues in the current negotiations.
Despite the multitude of concerns, McKenzie argued that the U.S.’s posture with regard to Iran has improved in recent years, noting that Iran has been “largely deterred” from directly attacking the U.S. He said he is “absolutely” sure that the recent Iranian ballistic missile strike in Erbil near a U.S. consulate was not targeting a U.S. facility.
He also characterized the current political situation in Iraq — Iran’s “principal battleground” for pushing back U.S. influence in the region — as advantageous for the U.S., given that the current Iraqi government is friendly toward the U.S. and NATO.
“It has driven Iran and its proxies in particular to seek kinetic solutions to push us out. They believe that by causing a significantly high level of pain, we’re going to leave. And that actually of course has not proven to be the case,” he said. “They have not been particularly successful with those attacks.”
McKenzie said that U.S. anti-drone systems “are starting to work.” He had warned the House in April 2021 that the U.S. had struggled to counter Iranian drones and had lost full air superiority “for the first time since the Korean War.”
McKenzie said that the controversial Trump-era killing of IRGC Gen. Qassem Soleimani also helped restore U.S. deterrence against Iran.
“I think [Soleimani] is an abject lesson that you can’t attack Americans with impunity,” he explained. “The Iranians have never doubted our capability, occasionally they doubt our will.”
But he cast a more dire picture of the situation in Yemen and the Gulf, saying that the Iran-backed Houthi militants were “prodded directly by their Iranian masters” to carry out attacks on Saudi Arabia and the United Arab Emirates.
The Marine corps general, who is set to retire in the coming months, also told lawmakers that he sees significant space for air and missile defense cooperation between Israel and its new allies in the Gulf, with which it has normalized relations in recent years, and said CENTCOM is seeking to continue to grow Israel’s participation in regional exercises.
He described Israel’s recent integration into the CENTCOM area of responsibility as “the operational effect of the other normalization of Israeli relations across the Gulf.”
Bonus: Also during the hearing, Sen. Joe Manchin (D-WV), who voted against the original Iran Deal in 2016, expressed concern about Iran’s potential re-entry into the global oil market, and said that the original deal was “giving them too many reliefs on their sanctions up front.”
U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides expressed concern on Tuesday that the timing of Ramadan, Passover and Easter — which will all be observed the same week next month — could produce a “flashpoint” at the Temple Mount in Jerusalem.
Speaking at an Americans for Peace Now event, moderated by APN President and CEO Hadar Susskind and American Federation of Teachers President Randi Weingarten, Nides, who assumed the posting in December, said that he had communicated his concerns to the State Department, and had discussed the issue with Israeli, Egyptian and Jordanian officials.
“Everyone is now fixated on this, what could be potentially a really serious issue,” Nides stated about the upcoming holidays. Ramadan is marked for a month beginning April 2; Passover begins April 15, and Easter falls on April 17.
The ambassador also referenced Israel’s attempts to mediate between Russia and Ukraine, an effort he described as “not risk-free.” He praised the efforts of Israeli Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, noting “the prime minister has not made a move without talking to the White House.”
Nides also spoke about what he sees as obstacles to peace in the region, citing both settlement expansion and the Palestinian Authority’s practice of giving “martyr payments” to the families of Palestinians who conduct attacks against Israelis.
During the talk, Nides explained that he adopted a policy of not visiting Israeli settlements in the West Bank to avoid “agitating” people, clarifying that he avoided touring the Western Wall’s tunnels for a similar reason. “Why do I need to aggravate people? I don’t need to do that. There’s no reason to do that,” he said.
Nides struck a largely pragmatic tone during the Zoom event, saying he hopes to “get stuff done,” citing his efforts to convince big tech companies to open offices in the West Bank and his attempts to expand 4G WiFi access to the West Bank.
Nides marveled at his status in the spotlight since his nomination to serve as ambassador. “I didn’t have a Twitter account before I took this… job, and now it’s like I’m a Kardashian,” he joked.
The Sierra Club will reinstate two programs to Israel, days after the nature- and preservation-focused organization canceled trips to the Jewish state scheduled for this spring and spring 2023 after being pressured by anti-Israel and progressive activists, the organization announced on its website on Tuesday afternoon. In announcing the reversal, the group admitted that the original decision to cancel the trips was made “hastily” and “was done in ways that created confusion, anger, and frustration.”
“Let me be clear: the Sierra Club’s mission is to enjoy, explore and protect the planet, and we do not take positions on foreign policy matters that are beyond that scope,” read a statement from the organization’s acting director, Dan Chu. “We do not have a deep understanding or knowledge necessary to do so, nor is it our place to do so. Furthermore, we have and always will continue to loudly condemn anti-semitism and any and all acts of hate. We are committed to working more intentionally, thoroughly and thoughtfully so we can prevent this from happening again.”
The sudden about-face came after a coalition of Jewish groups, including the Jewish Community Relations Council of San Francisco, Hazon and The Jewish Federations of North America, mobilized to engage with the Sierra Club and fight the original decision. Anti-Israel groups including Jewish Voice for Peace and the Adalah Justice Project had pushed for the environmental group to cancel the trips, accusing Israel of “greenwashing.”
“We are very encouraged by the progress made in our community conversations with Sierra Club,” Tyler Gregory, the executive director of the San Francisco Jewish Community Relations Council, told JI. “They recognize the harm caused to our community, and are not only planning new Israel trips, but are also committing to learning and growing with JCRC and our partners on the issues of antisemitism, Jewish identity and our community’s connection to Israel. Climate change is an existential threat to our planet. Divisive political efforts like BDS [the Boycott, Divestment and Sanctions movement] are doing the environmental movement a tremendous disservice by diverting energy from their core mission to these toxic sideshows.”
The nonprofit, founded in 1892 by environmentalist John Muir, has run trips to Israel, which focus on the area’s natural and man-made histories, for a decade.
The link to the Sierra Club’s Israel trip page remains down. A cached version of the page says that trip participants will “[s]oak up the historical and religious ambiance, and learn about the natural history that makes Israel a critical respite in wildlife migration.”
“We will explore the rich biodiversity of this small country, at the intersection of Europe, Asia, and Africa,” an old version of the website noted.
Anti-Defamation League CEO Jonathan Greenblatt told JI he had been in communication with Sierra Club officials on Monday and Tuesday. “All in all, it was encouraging to see the Sierra Club acknowledge the error and repair this mistake so quickly. They committed to visit Israel and to do so in an inclusive manner. And, importantly, they resoundingly rejected the BDS movement and its divisive tactics,” he said. “At a time when antisemitism is on the rise, the Sierra Club’s rapid response served as a hopeful signal to stakeholders in the Jewish community and beyond.”
“We’re in a complicated time,” California Assemblymember Jesse Gabriel, who heads the legislature’s Jewish Caucus, said. “To me, it’s nice to see people acknowledge that they’ve made an error, to have a conversation and to give people space to learn and grow and do the right thing.” California legislators also engaged with Sierra Club officials following the trips’ cancelations.
The reversal comes after recent debate within the state’s Democratic Party over platform language around Israel. At its convention earlier this month, the party passed a platform that did not include anti-Israel language that had been proposed by activists.
“This is just another reminder that there are people out there with extreme views that are going to look for avenues to mainstream antisemitism and to mainstream anti-Israel views, whether it’s through the environmental movement or through politics, or whatever it may be,” Gabriel said.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Menendez said he plans to hold hearings on the deal regardless of whether it meets the terms of INARA
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Sen. Robert Menendez (D-NJ) questions Treasury Secretary Janet Yellen and Federal Reserve Chairman Jerome Powell during a Senate Banking, Housing and Urban Affairs Committee hearing on the CARES Act, at the Hart Senate Office Building on September 28, 2021 in Washington, DC.
Senate Foreign Relations Committee Chair Bob Menendez (D-NJ) said on Tuesday that he wants the Biden administration to submit any new nuclear agreement with Iran for congressional review “if it does meet the obligations” of the 2015 Iran Nuclear Agreement Review Act (INARA) — but said he plans to hold hearings even if it does not.
The legislation mandates a review period — during which time no sanctions can be removed — for Congress to review any nuclear deal with Iran.
“I will check to see what the agreement is and look to apply INARA,” Menendez told reporters on Tuesday. “If it doesn’t meet the obligations under INARA, then no. Although I still would want to have hearings. If it does meet the obligations of INARA, then yes, it should be pursued under INARA.”
The debate over the applicability of INARA has taken on increasing prominence in recent days as talks on Iran’s nuclear program in Vienna progress, and has been listed as a top issue by House and Senate Republicans, as well as a bipartisan House group — including a dozen Democrats — that recently expressed concerns about the negotiations to the Biden administration.
A congressional staffer familiar with the deliberations said that the administration has confirmed both publicly and privately that they will submit the deal to Congress for INARA review if a deal is finalized.
Menendez said he would “have to see what the specific agreement is” before deciding whether INARA applies, and would not speculate about what sort of deal could be exempt. The language of the legislation is broad, applying to “an agreement with Iran relating to the nuclear program of Iran.”
But he said a direct reentry into the deal as it previously existed is no longer possible, given that new sanctions have been imposed since then, Iran has advanced beyond the limits of the original deal and Iran has blocked International Atomic Energy Agency inspections of its sites.
“I cannot imagine a simple, straight reentry,” Menendez said.
The Biden administration declined to specifically guarantee in a statement to JI on Tuesday that it will submit any agreement to Congress under INARA.
A State Department spokesperson told JI, “the administration will carefully consider the facts and circumstances of any U.S. return to the JCPOA [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action] to determine the legal implications, including those under INARA. We are committed to ensuring the requirements of INARA are satisfied.”
The spokesperson also said that administration officials have been in touch with lawmakers and their staffs about the issue and that lead U.S. negotiator in the Vienna talks, Rob Malley, “remains deeply committed to close engagement with Congress.”
Menendez said he hasn’t “found [Malley’s] briefings to be very significant or insightful.”
Although a majority of House and Senate members — including a handful of Democrats — appear to oppose the deal as it has been outlined publicly, it is unlikely that opponents of the deal would be able to muster the full 60 votes in the Senate to block it from going into effect, much less the two-thirds of each chamber necessary to override a presidential veto.
“At the end of the day, if there is an agreement, it’s not going to be blocked,” Dennis Ross, the William Davidson Distinguished Fellow at The Washington Institute for Near East Policy who has served in multiple Democratic and Republican presidential administrations, told JI.
Ross said he heard initially that the administration was planning to argue that it is only reentering the 2015 agreement, which was already reviewed by Congress, making a new review unnecessary. But he has “heard conflicting things since then.”
The administration now may believe that “rather than in effect be seen as stonewalling the Congress, it makes more sense to go ahead and allow it to be reviewed again,” he explained.
“The only issue” with submitting the deal under INARA “is that you’re kind of conceding that this is an agreement that’s actually different than the [Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action],” contrary to the administration’s position, Ross continued. “If you concede that point then you’re already acknowledging that this is something different than what you’ve said it is.”
Joel Rubin, a deputy assistant secretary of state for legislative affairs in the Obama administration, told JI he has heard that INARA review is predicated on the contents of the final deal — which has not yet been completed — and that if it is the same as the original JCPOA the administration sees another review as unnecessary.
David Makovsky, the Ziegler distinguished fellow at The Washington Institute said that he thinks it is “inevitable that there will [be] Hill hearings” if a deal is reached, “given the gravity and consequences of returning to the JCPOA.”
Some skeptics of the original deal insist that the administration is seeking to dodge congressional scrutiny. Sen. Ted Cruz (R-TX) claimed at a press conference last week that “there’s some creative lawyers at the State Department that are trying to find ways around that law.”
Rich Goldberg, a senior advisor at the Foundation for Defense of Democracies (FDD) and a former National Security Council and Hill staffer who co-hosts JI’s “Limited Liability Podcast,” said that the administration’s “very strict, disciplined messaging” that the deal is a reentry into the 2015 agreement rather than a new agreement leads him to believe that they are “preparing legal arguments to avoid submitting this agreement to the Congress.”
Blaise Misztal, the vice president for policy at the Jewish Institute for National Security of America, said he “absolutely” thinks the administration will try to dodge Congress both to avoid the “dirty laundry” of the deal being aired and vetted as well as to protect congressional Democrats from having to take tough votes on the deal.
He pointed to Senate Majority Leader Chuck Schumer (D-NY) as potentially of particular concern — Schumer voted against the deal, but is now in Democratic leadership and it “would look particularly bad for him to break with the president but might not want to be on the record supporting the deal either.”
Matthew Zweig, a senior fellow at FDD and longtime former staffer on the House Foreign Affairs Committee, said it’s difficult to predict how the administration will proceed, but said that the administration would likely prefer to avoid a situation in which opponents of the deal can say that a majority of Congress opposed it, as happened previously.
Should the administration seek to sidestep congressional review, there’s “not a whole heck of a lot” Congress can do to stop the agreement from going into effect, Misztal said.
Members of Congress could sue the administration, a longer process that would not stop initial implementation of the deal and that is not guaranteed to be successful, Mizstal suggested. They could also seek to pass legislation reimposing sanctions the administration lifts or compelling the administration to take other actions in the event of Iranian violations of the deal.
Rep. David Price (D-NC) described 'a 20-year failure of Israeli and U.S. policy to figure out how to support the more moderate Palestinian forces that might be a partner for peace'
Caroline Brehman/CQ-Roll Call, Inc via Getty Images
Longtime congressman Rep. David Price (D-NC) slammed successive Israeli and American administrations for what he described as “a 20-year failure of Israeli and U.S. policy to figure out how to support the more moderate Palestinian forces that might be a partner for peace,” in an interview with Jewish Insider following a trip to the region last month.
The congressman added that he does not “see any [permanent political] solution that doesn’t involve a kind of reconstituting of [Palestinian] political leadership and a moderate, mainstream approach to politics and policy on the Palestinian side. And it behooves all of us who are involved in this to figure out how to encourage that.”
Price particularly blamed former Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu for painting “all Palestinian leaders with the same brush, as if to assure there was no partner for peace.”
“There was a sense in which right-wing Israeli politics and Hamas kind of fed off each other,” he continued.
Price led a J Street delegation — consisting of Reps. Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), Joaquin Castro (D-TX), Sean Casten (D-IL), Jason Crow (D-CO), Madeleine Dean (D-PA), Lauren Underwood (D-IL), Jennifer Wexton (D-VA) and Jared Huffman (D-CA) — which spent five days in late February in Israel and the West Bank. JI spoke to Price and Dean in early March.
Price described the Israeli-Palestinian political situation as being at a “perilous moment,” acknowledging that negotiations toward a two-state solution look “pretty unpromising on both sides.”
Dean said that the group heard in conversations in Israel that prospects for broader peace are likely slim until Foreign Minister Yair Lapid takes over as prime minister from Naftali Bennett next year as part of their power-sharing arrangement.
Price added that he does not want to see the fragility of the coalition government “become a kind of all-purpose excuse for not taking on the tough issues.”
The group met with Lapid and was scheduled to meet with Bennett on the same day that Russia invaded Ukraine. The meeting was subsequently canceled.
“Lapid was impressive, very impressive. Just a great command, a great facility with people, very personable, and then a great facility with speaking to the issues and answering our questions,” Dean said.
Price said the group raised a range of issues with Lapid, including concerns about settlements and the lawmakers’ desire to see the reopening of the U.S. consulate in Jerusalem, which has historically served Palestinians — an issue Price said “should be a slam dunk.”
“We gave a broad perspective of friendship and support for Israel — that’s uniform among our 10 members,” he said. “But we think that the best way to express support for that is in expressing support for a resolution of this conflict, and that it’s illusory and deceptive and dangerous to let this thing slide.”
Price said Lapid urged the group to communicate its criticisms and told participants, “the best way to express friendship is to be honest.”
The group also met with Palestinian Authority Prime Minister Mohammad Shtayyeh, a sit-down Dean said was “briefer than I would have thought it would have been.”
“It was a little short, it was a little abrupt,” she said. “And he was defensive, I thought, kind of too quickly, when asked about settler violence and the police” failing to properly address it.
Price emphasized that the group’s day in the Hebron area was a particularly emotional experience, which, he said, showed the “dark side of the occupation.”
Dean lamented that “what was a thriving commercial city of many Palestinians” is “now a ghost town.” She said that the group was shown a street where doors of Palestinian homes had been welded shut and balconies had been caged in to prevent Palestinians from walking in certain areas.
“It was just such a joyless place and such obvious injustice. And so visually and physically being there was just jarring, to be honest,” she said. “On a human level my takeaway — whether it was the Palestinians in the West Bank or those in the Gaza Strip — is that millions of Palestinians are simply not free. And that goes against my American and democratic and human values. And we must do everything in our power to, if possible, reach that two-state solution.”
Price said the group also visited nearby grazing areas that were overseen by settlers.
“This was not an isolated isolated instance but… this increase in settlements and the increase in settler violence, this was a major issue and this is not something that we can wait for a better political environment,” Price said. “This is something that this Israeli government can deal with — I don’t doubt for a moment that they can deal with it, no matter how fragile their coalition, there’s no reason that they can’t get ahold of this.”
The group also visited a settlement in the Binyamin region, where Price said he was surprised to hear complaints from the settlers about the Israeli government.
“You would think that they would be happy at the kind of status they’ve gained but turns out they have things to complain about too,” he said.
Dean said that a priority for hers is convincing the Biden administration to persuade Israel to stop settlement expansion, evictions of Palestinians and settler violence, which she said are contributing to the “slipping away” of the potential for a two-state solution.
“One of my greatest takeaways is that to be pro-Israel is to be in favor of recognizing, understanding and dealing with the conflict between Israel and the Palestinians,” she said. “A failure to deal with that only jeopardizes the security of Israel.”
Following J Street’s previous delegation to Israel in late 2021, Rep. Jamaal Bowman (D-NY) came under intense criticism from the Democratic Socialists of America for associating with J Street and traveling to Israel. The New York City chapter of the DSA has asked potential local endorsees to pledge not to travel to Israel.
Price dismissed those critics as “small, small portion” of the population whose views are unpopular at large and within the Democratic caucus, adding that “we need to appreciate Israel’s story, Israel’s history, we need to appreciate what Israel represents.”
“I have no patience with carping at people who want to increase their knowledge,” he continued.
Dean said that she finds such arguments “antithetical to promoting democratic values and peace” and argued that it is important to hear from people on the ground firsthand.
The J Street delegation overlapped with the AIPAC-linked American Israel Education Foundation’s congressional delegations to Israel — the groups even stayed together at Jerusalem’s King David Hotel.
Dean joined and “thoroughly enjoyed” an AIEF trip in 2019 — her first time in Israel — during her first term in Congress. She said that she also “wanted at some point to go on the J Street trip” and said “both trips were a time of extraordinary learning.”
“Both trips taught me a love of the beautiful, diverse people of Israel, terrific food of Israel,” she said, quipping, “They just keep feeding you!”
Days after she returned from the J Street trip, Dean — who represents a solidly blue Philadelphia-area district — was endorsed by AIPAC’s new political action committee.
Price, who has served more than three decades in Congress, went on to praise J Street as having given “political cover to a lot of people who wanted to and whose conviction required them to take a different approach to this conflict than what was often urged on us for many, many years by people who presented themselves as the very closest friends of Israel. I think we have moved beyond that.”
The delegation of six lieutenant governors is sponsored by the State Government Leadership Foundation, a GOP advocacy group
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Florida Lt. Gov. Jeanette Nuñez speaks at a news conference on updates from the collapsed 12-story Champlain Towers South condo building on July 12, 2021, in Surfside, Fla.
A delegation of six Republican lieutenant governors will arrive in Israel on Friday for a weeklong trade mission sponsored by the State Government Leadership Foundation (SGLF), a GOP advocacy group.
The trip, which concludes on March 25, “will provide the lieutenant governors with a greater understanding of the American-Israeli alliance and how their individual states can continue to benefit from the economic partnership the two nations share,” said Andrew Romeo, a spokesperson for the SGLF.
Participants will include Jeanette Nuñez of Florida, Suzanne Crouch of Indiana, Mike Foley of Nebraska, Pamela Evette of South Carolina, Deidre Henderson of Utah and mission chair Adam Gregg of Iowa.
Jon Husted, the lieutenant governor of Ohio, had originally been scheduled to join the delegation but is no longer going because of a scheduling conflict, according to Romeo.
“Israel is a global leader in innovation, a strategic ally for America and a critical trade partner for Florida,” Nuñez said in a statement to Jewish Insider. The trade mission “will allow us to deepen our understanding between America and Israel as we continue to strengthen our long-standing partnership.”
The delegation is scheduled to meet with a number of high-ranking Israeli government officials, including Prime Minister Naftali Bennett, Defense Minister Benny Gantz, Deputy Foreign Minister Idan Roll and Tourism Minister Yoel Razvozov, according to a tentative itinerary shared with JI.
The lieutenant governors will also hold discussions with U.S. Ambassador to Israel Tom Nides, former U.S. Ambassador to Israel David Friedman and former Israeli Ambassador to the U.S. Ron Dermer, among other current and former Israeli and American diplomats.
Some meetings, including with Bennett, “are subject to change,” according to Romeo.
“Israel not only shares our values, but they are also a strong economic partner,” Gregg said in a statement to JI. “I’m confident this trip will be a great opportunity to expand our working relationship with Israel and will create long-term benefits for Iowa farmers and businesses.”
During the trip, participants will also visit agricultural areas and defense facilities such as an Iron Dome battery site.
The SGLF — the policy arm of the Republican State Leadership Committee, a national organization that supports down-ballot GOP candidates in state elections — led a similar trade mission to Israel in 2016 with lieutenant governors from Wisconsin and Nevada, among other states.
The group announced plans for a second trip last August, framing the delegation as a demonstration of solidarity following the conflict between Israel and Hamas as well as an announcement from Ben & Jerry’s that the ice cream company would stop selling its products in what it referred to as “Occupied Palestinian Territory.”
A number of Democratic and Republican congressional delegations made trips to Israel in February, and former Vice President Mike Pence visited last week.
The lieutenant governors’ trip to Israel, Crouch said in a statement to JI, “will allow us to make clear that we will continue to stand with them as a political and economic ally.”
On Friday, Jewish Insider published a story about an event featuring Amnesty International USA Director Paul O’Brien at the Women’s National Democratic Club in Washington, D.C. In response to O’Brien’s claims that JI attributed to him quotes that he did not say regarding whether Israel should exist as a Jewish state, JI is publishing the full audio of his lecture and his conversation with a JI reporter at the end of his speech. The following excerpts include those portions of his speech and the subsequent exchange that were quoted in the article.
The political question of Israel’s right to survive
I was with a young Palestinian lawyer and she took us to the top of the hill and pointed pretty much towards the west. And you could see, like, some buildings in the very distance, and said, ‘That is Gaza, and if you point north, you can see the beginnings of the West Bank. But my village used to be there.’ And we sort of worked out the geography of it. It was an unrecognized village. And it had been destroyed because the Israeli military were concerned that Palestinian communities from Gaza, through to the West Bank, were increasingly becoming an interconnected community that created a security threat. And so for her, she had lost her village. They had moved into another village in the area for a period. But they couldn’t get any services into the village so that in the case of having to give birth, ambulances would not go into the village. Would not. They were hoping to start a family. They moved into the city so that they could get basic service provision. We went back to visit some of their older relatives that were there. And as we were walking away, she said something like, that one day soon, they won’t be there either.
And what I experienced in listening to her story was the failure of imagination in creating a society that — I personally believe, this is not, Amnesty takes no political views on any question, including the right of the State of Israel to survive. We firmly oppose antisemitism. But if you ask most people who work at Amnesty, do you understand what it means to feel that a state that has provided you sanctuary is now under threat? I don’t know of anybody at Amnesty that would say no, I don’t understand what that means. And I don’t understand why the Jewish people in the United States and in Israel would be concerned about that.
But as a human rights activist, what I do firmly believe is that if we are going to live in dignity with each other in a secure and sustainable way, it cannot be built on a system that racially oppresses another group in order to survive. That is no pathway towards the future. And that is why I believe history is on our side. Our job by talking about it honestly is to hurry up that history. There has to be a future for the Jewish and Palestinian people to live together in peace, to know that they have a home, and to do so on the foundation of human rights.
*****
Moving the ‘Overton Window’ in the U.S. Jewish community
There’s a term that the British use, [former Parliament member] Jo Cox used to use it actually, as a campaigner when she worked with Oxfam. It’s a British term, the Overton Window, I’m sure many of you have heard of it. But the Overton Window is the window that a policymaker looks out at, at the general public, to determine what they believe is possible. So one of the questions that most campaigners have to ask themselves is, is the best that I can do to achieve a policy change within the Overton Window? Or is it my job to move the Overton Window? Meaning, to change the politics of what is possible, to discern to move forward on in terms of policy change. On no human rights issue that I can think of right now, is it more important and frankly, do I believe, is it more possible to change the Overton Window than on this issue. We can collectively change the conversation. When I say we, I do mean the broader world. I think it needs to start first and foremost with Jewish community. And it is starting first and foremost with the Jewish community. One in four Jewish Americans believes that there is apartheid in the region. One in four. That’s remarkable when you think of where things were 15 years ago. Now, when I talk to Jewish groups about that number, and when I ask where it’s coming from, they’ll say, ‘Well, it’s demographically — it’s generally much younger people. It’s people who haven’t experienced what we understand in terms of threats to Israel,’ and they’ve said, ‘They will change their minds over time.’ I’m not so sure. I think if the right conversations are held, if the right depth of understanding happens, this Overton Window is going to change and it won’t just be by Jewish Americans, but they will be very important. It will also be by those who’ve lived and experienced the wrong side of this system of human rights abuse, and it will be by their allies, and in that sense as a human rights organization dedicated to the law, and the evidence, Amnesty counts itself as an ally.
*****
Preserving Israel as a Jewish state
Does Amnesty believe that the Jewish people have a right to self-determination, which is one of the fundamental human rights? Yes, they do. So in essence of that some elements of that would be that we wouldn’t — we don’t take political positions on whether the one-state solution or the two-state solution is better. But the right of the people to self-determination and to be protected is without a doubt, something that we believe in, and I personally believe in. I am going to get personal in answer to the second question. I grew up in Ireland, and I came to the United States as a teenager. We had no real idea in Ireland what the experience of antisemitism was. I didn’t really understand it till I came to the United States. Does it surprise me now? It is a problem for me but I understand better that the Jewish community is still the most attacked community in this country for practicing its faith. That that is a problem, and it is still endemic in this society. And that people come up with all sorts of crazy stuff to explain why they think this or that about the Jewish people. So I think antisemitism is a real live threat. And what I meant to say earlier on is, I think the understanding of that in the United States is perhaps more sophisticated that in some contexts, certainly for me personally, probably not in the region — that Deniz and other of my colleague works on — than in the actual region where the Israeli people now live. But in many European contexts, I don’t think they fully appreciate the conversation the way that it has happened in the United States and I will tell you that, for me, as the head of Amnesty in the United States, it was very important that we talked about how to translate the conversation in a way that we would build a real conversation in the United States about that issue.
The one thing I wanted to disagree with in what you said: It is not Amnesty’s position, in fact we are opposed to the idea — and this, I think, is an existential part of the debate — that Israel should be preserved as a state for the Jewish people. I don’t know if you exactly said it that way, but you said something about should there be a state for the Jewish people. That is, in essence, the 2018 law, that the State of Israel is preserved for Jews alone, and it should be theirs alone. And that, from a human rights perspective, is not equal treatment between the Jewish people and the Palestinian people. But it is really important, I think, particularly for those who understand the threats that the Jewish people experienced over the last several generations, I think it is incumbent on people who engage this conversation to say, No, I don’t believe that Israel should be preserved as a state in which one race is legally entitled to oppress another. But yes, I understand that the Jewish people have a legitimate concern about their very existence being threatened. And that needs to be part of the conversation.
*****
Fighting AIPAC’s influence in Congress
I will tell you that if I had had more time with the report beforehand, we might not have ended up, in almost every single congressional office that we went to, having a meeting with that congressional office after they had met with AIPAC, and after they had pretty much told us from the start of the conversation that they had formed a view on our report, which they hadn’t even seen, and that they were going to issue a public statement dissociating themselves from it. So it was an interesting experience for us to introduce a report that was about to be launched in public a week later and to get in 80 different congressional offices, a public statement dissociating themselves from the findings of the report in which none of those 80 statements actually disputed the findings of the report, except to say, in broad strokes, we do not believe that this report is motivated for the right reasons or reaches the right conclusions. So that is the reality of how we engaged with that report in this context.
*****
Whether Israel should exist as a Jewishstate
JI: Maybe Israel should exist, but it shouldn’t exist necessarily as a Jewish state, which is what it is.
Paul O’Brien: That’s where I do feel I’m coming from.
JI: So Israel shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state but Israel is a Jewish state.
PO: It shouldn’t exist as a Jewish state.
Audience member: Then you don’t believe it should exist.
PO: No, I think it should exist.
*****
What American Jews believe about Israel
JI: I want to just go back to the point about the attitude of Jews in the U.S. toward all of this, and you were speaking earlier about shifting the Overton Window and starting to do so within the Jewish community. To what extent are you sort of — when you have most Jews in this country, 80-plus percent, if not more, who believe that Israel should be a Jewish state, which Amnesty appears to not believe. Why is it your place to come in and say to the Jews who experienced antisemitism and want to have their own place in the world, you’re wrong on this?
PO: I actually don’t believe that to be true. I believe, my gut tells me that what Jewish people in this country want, is to know that there’s a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jewish people can call home. But I think they can be convinced over time that the key to sustainability is to adhere to what I see as core Jewish values, which are to be principled and fair and just in creating that space. I think most Jewish people in this country would like to see the both/and of a safe Jewish space —
JI: A safe Jewish state.
PO: A safe Jewish state, and that state not to be built on a legal system of disenfranchising people in that country. I don’t think that’s a comfort zone for the Jewish community.
JI: Certainly, the majority of American Jews believe in a Jewish state and a Palestinian state, an Israel and a Palestine next to each other, a two-state solution.
PO: Well, you can go either way, whether it’s one-state or two-state. I don’t know that the two-state solution is gonna be that.
The members call O’Brien’s comments ‘patronizing’ in a rare joint statement
Anna Moneymaker/Getty Images
Rep. Jamie Raskin (D-MD) listens as Rep. Elaine Luria (D-VA) speaks during a business meeting with the select committee investigating the January 6 attack, on Capitol Hill on December 13, 2021, in Washington, D.C.
All 25 Jewish House Democrats came together to issue a rare joint statement on Monday condemning Amnesty International USA Executive Director Paul O’Brien’s comments that American Jews do not want Israel to be a Jewish state.
“We are in full agreement that Mr. O’Brien’s patronizing attempt to speak on behalf of the American Jewish community is alarming and deeply offensive. He has added his name to the list of those who, across centuries, have tried to deny and usurp the Jewish people’s independent agency,” the statement reads. “We stand united in condemning this and any antisemitic attempt to deny the Jewish people control of their own destiny.”
O’Brien made the comments, first reported by Jewish Insider, at a meeting of the Women’s National Democratic Club last week. He said at the meeting that his “gut” tells him that “what Jewish people in this country want is to know that there’s a sanctuary that is a safe and sustainable place that the Jews, the Jewish people, can call home,” rather than a Jewish state.
The House members acknowledge in the statement that they represent a range of views on Israel-related issues, and several are vocally critical of Israel’s policies toward the Palestinians.
The statement further notes that “a number of members condemned” Amnesty International’s report accusing Israel of apartheid “as delegitimizing of the Jewish people’s right to self-determination and undermining of the prospects for a two-state solution.”
The statement calls O’Brien’s comments “a new, very disturbing step” and accuses him of “purporting to speak for the entire Jewish community on Israel.”
The Jewish House Democrats who signed onto the statement are Reps. Jake Auchincloss (D-MA), Suzanne Bonamici (D-OR), David Cicilline (D-RI), Steve Cohen (D-TN), Ted Deutch (D-FL), Lois Frankel (D-FL), Josh Gottheimer (D-NJ), Sara Jacobs (D-CA), Mike Levin (D-CA), Andy Levin (D-MI), Alan Lowenthal (D-CA), Elaine Luria (D-VA), Kathy Manning (D-NC), Jerry Nadler (D-NY), Dean Phillips (D-MN), Jamie Raskin (D-MD), Jan Schakowsky (D-IL), Adam Schiff (D-CA), Brad Schneider (D-IL), Kim Schrier (D-WA), Brad Sherman (D-CA), Elissa Slotkin (D-MI), Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL), Susan Wild (D-PA) and John Yarmuth (D-KY).