Kampeas Responds: "Lenny Ben-David Is Right"

In fairness, I should have included these sentences from his piece I linked to in my earlier post:

Clearly, while Biden and Netanyahu were making up, in the White House a decision was made to apply Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s famous strategy for crisis management:

"You never want a serious crisis to go to waste, and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn’t think you could do before."

The 1,600 Jerusalem apartments would become the anvil on which the administration would forge a pliant Israel. The message would have to be amplified, and for the White House, the pro-Obama, purportedly pro-Israel J Street was a perfect vehicle.

It mitigates against my thesis in the first post that Lenny, in a Pajamas Media recast of the March U.S.-Israel "crisis, is using Walt-Mearsheimer techniques to smear J Street as overly influential.

Mitigates, but I don't think it negates it; nor does it exonerate his piece of dark conspiracy theories that are awfully similar to the ones propagated around the web about the "lobby."

He paints a picture, by citing White House visitors logs, of J Street as at least a partner in this enterprise. Jeremy Ben-Ami is calling on March 11 and then again on the 12th to set a meeting! The boys need to consult!

A) Such meetings are routine during crises; Lenny, who has the logs, does not bother to tell us how often Howard Kohr, Jason Isaacson, Jess Hordes, any number of pro-Israel officials, came and went on those days.

B) The knowledge that the meeetings cand calls took place, therefore, adds up to bupkiss without an accurate idea of what the content was.

C) Although anyone who's worked this town long enough can guess. "We're going to roll out this policy, we'd like you to support it/not to oppose it too vocally." "Fine, although we have a problem with x and y, and we can't carpet that over." "X is fine, but can you go easy on the y?" "We can put y in a way that sounds supportive." (Mental chits are made.).

D) The J Street ads and mailers Lenny cites are consistent with J Street's message -- what evidence is there that they were written at the behest of the White House? Or that the White House did anything at Jeremy's behest?

Lenny isn't going to let this one go, which is fine, because beating beneath his berating are some good story ideas. He says:

It’s sad and probably a case of nonfeasance that journalists like yourself never ask who funds J Street, who founded it, who sits on its executive board, who makes the decisions at the organization. Who decided, for instance, to oppose Iranian sanctions, and then one day reverse positions and support them?

I know who founded it -- I broke the story of the secret meetings that led to its founding. I broke the goddamn story of its founding too. We looked into who funds J Street's political action committee (the easiest thing to check, because the records are so readily accessible), and honestly, it wasn't that interesting or enlightening.

But like I said, there are the kernels of good story ideas here -- but only if we apply them evenly, fairly, across the Jewish communal board. Witchhuntia, this ain't.

So who's on the various pro-Israel boards and who funds them? Good question,* but for all the groups, and we just don't have the resources right now to do that investigation (although I'd love to lead it with Jacob when we do.) Non-profits are not required to name funders, but there are other, more circuitous ways of tracking this. *Names of board members are easy to track, but what I think Lenny is referring to here is not just lists, but profiles, with political affiliations, etc.

And who makes J Street's decisions? Jeremy mostly, I can tell you from my cumulative experience with the group. Which actually is another interesting, broader story -- the relationship executive directors have with their boards. Some guide the board, some defer to the board, some have a give and take. (Jeremy is in the first category, is my impression.) The story here is how community policy is often driven by a handful of forceful personalities.

And J Street changed its mind on sanctions for a bunch of reasons, but mostly because it tied its star to a powerful, influential (and Jewish as it happens) congressman, Howard Berman, and he changed his mind. This is as Washington as it gets.

So, you want these stories? Can I get one of those icons in here that rolls its eyes -- up, to the right a little, at that green "donate" button?

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Ron Kampeas of the JTA Doesn't Like My White House Logs Story

Ron Kampeas of the JTA lumps me together with the anti-Semitic Jewish conspiracy theorists Walt and Mearsheimer, accusing me of "peddling the notions of overweening lobbyists misdirecting U.S. policy from its natural inclinations?" He claims that I suggested "J Street pushed the White House to punish Israel -- classic conspira-babble."

Well, anyone who read the article below can easily perceive that there's no similarity between the article and Ron's fantasy recreation. If you need a further explanation, here's what I posted as a talkback on his blog:

Ron --
I know you can write—and you do that quite well. Unfortunately, you don’t read so well. 1. I never wrote that J Street plotted to change US policy. Just the opposite, I wrote that J Street was the White House’s tool: “The 1,600 Jerusalem apartments would become the anvil on which the administration would forge a pliant Israel. The message would have to be amplified, and for the White House, the pro-Obama, purportedly pro-Israel J Street was a perfect vehicle.” That’s certainly not claiming that “J Street pushed the White House to punish Israel.” Is it?
A simple apology will do.
2. As for Mr. Sullivan, I didn’t say he was a member of Journolist, but I wrote that he was one of the “J Street advocates and JournoList members.” Sullivan certainly counts as a J Street advocate.

It’s sad and probably a case of nonfeasance that journalists like yourself never ask who funds J Street, who founded it, who sits on its executive board, who makes the decisions at the organization. Who decided, for instance, to oppose Iranian sanctions, and then one day reverse positions and support them?
Other organizations on the Left such as Americans for Peace Now and the Israel Policy Forum are transparent, and no one challenges their bona fides. They play an important role in the broad spectrum of pro-Israel Jewish organizations.

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White House Visitor Logs Suggest J Street Contributed to U.S.-Israel Diplomatic Crisis in March

First appeared in Pajamas Media

Last month the White House pulled out the red carpet to welcome Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, but the charm campaign is a new phenomenon. Less than six months ago, the U.S.-Israel relationship was in deep trouble.

On March 9, Vice President Joe Biden arrived in Israel and was told of an administrative announcement by the Ministry of Interior approving one of the first stages toward the construction of 1,600 apartments in the Ramat Shlomo neighborhood in northern Jerusalem. The announcement represented no dramatic change of policy or diplomatic message. But the Americans responded as if it was a deliberate high-level slap in the face, and the Israeli government apologized profusely.

After two days of condemnations from the White House followed by Israel’s profuse apologies, it appeared that the crisis was over. On March 11, the Associated Press reported that Biden “attempted to soothe tensions in a speech extolling the countries’ close relationship, signaling the U.S. wants to move beyond an embarrassing diplomatic spat over settlements that tarnished his three-day visit.”

Biden noted that the prime minister had “clarified that the beginning of actual construction on this particular project would likely take several years. … That’s significant because it gives negotiators the time to resolve this as well as other outstanding issues.” Press accounts reported that Netanyahu had called Biden on Thursday morning, “and both agreed the crisis is behind them.”

It wasn’t.

On March 12, in a move coordinated with the White House, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton unleashed a 43-minute telephone harangue of Prime Minister Netanyahu. Clinton called the settlement approval a “deeply negative signal about Israel’s approach to the bilateral relationship … which had undermined trust and confidence in the peace process.” The State Department spokesman said Clinton stressed that “the Israeli government needed to demonstrate not just through words, but through specific actions, that they are committed to this relationship and to the peace process.”

On March 13, Netanyahu convened a meeting of his inner cabinet to discuss the Clinton call and to announce that he was setting up a government committee to oversee building announcements. On March 14, Netanyahu discussed the issue with the full cabinet and declared that the incident was “regrettable and should not have taken place.” Ostensibly, the issue was over, at least as far as Israel was concerned.

Yet the White House — still! — had other plans.

Hours later, presidential adviser David Axelrod went on Sunday’s TV news shows to attack the settlement decision. He said it was “very destructive … an affront … an insult. … What it did was it made more difficult a very difficult process.”

Over the next few days, anti-Israel and critical columnists and bloggers unleashed their venom against Israel. On March 15, The New York Times’ Roger Cohen wrote:

"President Barack Obama was furious. In a top-down administration like this one, you don’t get Secretary of State Hillary Clinton lambasting Netanyahu for 43 minutes and David Axelrod, a senior White House adviser, speaking of 'an affront' and 'an insult' and a 'very, very destructive' step if America’s measured leader is not immeasurably incensed. … Netanyahu’s apology is not enough. The United States is asking for 'specific actions.'”

So what happened?

A fire that was supposedly extinguished flared up again and again.

Clearly, while Biden and Netanyahu were making up, in the White House a decision was made to apply Chief of Staff Rahm Emanuel’s famous strategy for crisis management: "You never want a serious crisis to go to waste, and what I mean by that is an opportunity to do things that you didn’t think you could do before."

The 1,600 Jerusalem apartments would become the anvil on which the administration would forge a pliant Israel. The message would have to be amplified, and for the White House, the pro-Obama, purportedly pro-Israel J Street was a perfect vehicle.

According to newly released White House visitor logs, J Street’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, and vice president of policy and strategy, Hadar Susskind, came to the White House to meet with officials in the White House Office of Public Engagement, headed by Obama’s close friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett. (Pictured with the President.)

On March 11, and then again on March 12, the logs show Ben-Ami set a meeting for March 15 in the Old Executive Office Building with Danielle Borrin, who served on the vice president’s staff and in Jarrett’s office. On March 17, another meeting was set in the West Wing, the White House’s inner sanctum, for the next day with Tina Tchen, Jarrett’s principle deputy and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement.

(See below: Tchen plays a key role in the liaison between the White House and J Street and the Arab lobby.)

On March 15, the day it met with Borrin, J Street issued a statement on the “escalation of U.S.-Israel tensions” warning that Israel’s “provocative actions undermine the peace process” and weaken the American attempts “to build a broad international coalition to address the Iranian nuclear program.” Parroting Emanuel’s strategy for crisis management, the J Street memo declared: "Bold American leadership is needed now to turn this crisis into a real opportunity to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

The memo, in effect, called for an imposed American solution: "We urge the United States to take this opportunity to suggest parameters to the parties for resuming negotiations — basing borders on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps, with the Palestinian state demilitarized and on territory equivalent to 100% of the area encompassed by the pre-1967 Armistice lines."

On March 16, J Street sent out an action alert to its members, warning: "Some hawkish pro-Israel activists are seizing the opportunity to attack the Obama Administration over Israel, urging the Administration to slow down and back off. The pro-Israel, pro-peace movement is stepping up strong … urging the Administration to turn this crisis into an opportunity for progress on two states."

Four days after meeting with Tchen, J Street published an advertisement in The New York Times to push for White House activism:

"It’s time for the Obama administration to seize the opportunity for bold leadership — putting concrete plans for a two-state solution on the table with the sustained commitment of the United States behind them. It’s time for the Palestinians to end incitement to violence. It’s time for Israel to stop allowing extremist settlers and their sympathizers to endanger not only the friendship of the United States, but also the very future of Israel."

I believe the March 15 Roger Cohen column in the Times likely also came as a result of White House encouragement. A long-time Axelrod acquaintance confessed to me last year: "I think I made a mistake about a year ago in introducing Roger Cohen to Axelrod electronically. Axe never writes me back, and Cohen will never tell, but, I think Cohen is floating the Administration policies ever since then."

On March 12, J Street founder Daniel Levy published in the Guardian a self-serving article about:

"[The Jewish diaspora’s determination] to reclaim a more moderate and progressive vision of what it means to be pro-Israel and to apply Jewish ethics and Jewish values, that helped guide civil rights struggles in the past, to contemporary Israeli reality. Such efforts are gaining ground — notably the emergence of J Street in America."

Levy — a member of the JournoList — wrote the first of a slew of critical pieces that week by J Street advocates and JournoList members, including Time’s Joe Klein, Andrew Sullivan, Spencer Ackerman, and Eric Alterman.

Using a football term, J Street promotes itself as “Obama’s blocking back.” The attempt by the White House and J Street in March 2010 to run over Israel after the Ramat Shlomo housing fumble was stopped well before the goal line. On March 27, three-quarters of the House of Representatives — some 337 members — sent a bipartisan letter to Secretary of State Hillary Clinton expressing solid support for Israel and voicing the expectation that differences between Jerusalem and Washington will be smoothed over quickly and in private.

A week later, the Senate followed with its letter of support signed by 76 members:

"We recognize that our government and the Government of Israel will not always agree on particular issues in the peace process. But such differences are best resolved amicably and in a manner that befits longstanding strategic allies. We must never forget the depth and breadth of our alliance and always do our utmost to reinforce a relationship that has benefited both nations for more than six decades."

And after the Gaza flotilla incident, both houses of Congress issued another letter of support in June — support that the White House could not ignore. Eighty-seven senators and more than 300 members of the House urged the president to support Israel, explaining that Israel’s “blockade of Gaza was both legal and necessary, and that Israeli commandos were acting in self-defense when they landed on the ship.”

J Street opposed the letter, urging members of Congress to support a more “nuanced” communication: "We would ask lawmakers to demonstrate real courage and leadership at this critical moment to call on the President to turn crisis into opportunity and to make ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict a central priority of his foreign policy."

J Street complained that the congressional letter failed, among other things, to "… address the impact of the present closure of Gaza on the civilian population."

Then and today, less than three months before the congressional elections, congressmen and senators — and the American people they represent — express their strong support for Israel.

For now, the White House does too.



J Street and the Arab Lobby

Tina Tchen — White House adviser, long-time Obama associate from Chicago, and head of the Office of Public Engagement — coordinates and encourages joint J Street/Arab American Institute programs and strategies.

Last October she addressed a joint meeting of the Arab American Institute and J Street, opening her remarks with: "You are quite representative of what we want to accomplish."

She appealed to the groups to promote Obama’s vision for the Middle East, and to work the Jewish and Arab American grassroots: "We need to not only change hearts and minds in the Middle East, but there are hearts and minds to be changed here in the United States as well."

J Street’s Ben-Ami (pictured at the podium) and the AAI president Jim Zogby (pictured on the right) echoed and endorsed her message.

Tchen’s Office of Public Engagement is the destination for many of the White House visits by Zogby, as recorded in the White House visitor logs.

The writer served as a senior Israeli diplomat in Washington. Today he is a consultant on public affairs and blogs at www.lennybendavid.com.

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Middle East Coexistence? On Aisle Two, Next to the Cornflakes

First appeared in Pajamas Media
By Lenny and Shellie Ben-David

The parking lot started the amazing experience — late model cars with Palestinian green and white license plates, interspersed with Israeli vans and jalopies with their black and yellow plates.

The Rami Levy supermarket is located a few hundred yards from the Gush Etzyon junction in the West Bank, 10 miles south of Jerusalem on the road to Hebron. Next door is a former Jordanian army fort, built at the strategic crossroads after the Jewish communities in the Etzyon bloc were wiped out in 1948.

The store opened in June and has been packed with Arabs and Israelis every day except on the Jewish Sabbath or holidays.

Rami Levy is a savvy businessman who over the years expanded his stall in the Jerusalem shuk into a very successful national Israeli chain. He would not have opened his new store in the middle of Judea — the southern half of the West Bank — if he wasn’t certain it was financially, politically, and militarily secure.

Says my wife Shellie (the real shopper in our family):

My Rami Levy shopping is still a wonder to me: if I need a few items, I don’t have to shlep into Jerusalem, but can just hop in my car and in five minutes be at the supermarket. Today, as I was whizzing down an aisle in my jeans skirt, Lands End shirt, and crocs, I noticed five or six very well-dressed Arab ladies in their caftans and hijabs, probably in their late 20s to early 30s, checking out the store. They were speaking among themselves as they gazed and pointed at items. At one point a worker in his Rami Levy uniform came over to speak to them in Arabic. Later, I saw that they had finally settled in the shampoo aisle, comparing different brands. Women will be women.

Every customer — Jew, Christian, Muslim — gets “wanded” with a metal detector by a security guard on the way into the store. Once through the door, though, I’ve experienced an occasional “traffic jam” of grocery carts. Some Arab families — often a whole family on a sightseeing trip in their holiday finery — just freeze while they take in the sight. And, of course, one of Levy’s marketing specialists chose the entrance to stack a kind of cookies that the Bethlehem, Hebron, or village residents are attracted to. I predict that as Ramadan approaches, the store will packed to capacity with Palestinian delicacies and customers.

Press accounts, political pundits, and pontificating politicians portray the situation in the West Bank as bleak and insoluble. Perhaps that’s why I was in awe on my first visit, when I saw Palestinian families and Israeli “settlers” mingling in the aisles, thumping the watermelons and squeezing the plums. My checkout cashier was a Jewish woman from Kiryat Arba of Moroccan descent, on the cash register next to her was a blue-eyed Muslim woman from Halhul, and working the register behind me was a member of the Bnei Menashe tribe from India who had formalized her conversion to Judaism.

I really shouldn’t have been surprised, however, since out here in the Etzyon bloc region we “settlers” had good relations with many Palestinian craftsmen and workers who live in the area. The intifada in 2000 quashed almost all relations and ties, but in recent months they’ve been reestablished. I’m back in touch with Khalil, who taught me how to prune my grapevines, and Mahmoud, who was the subcontractor on a construction project in my home 14 years ago.

Across the street from my house one Arab crew is currently working on the remodeling of a house. (Careful, they mustn’t add on to the house lest they violate the settlement freeze!) Next door to them is a Jewish crew remodeling another house, owned by a strong nationalist who insists on employing “Jewish labor.” But I think I’ve spotted workers passing over a bag of cement or facing stone if the other team had a temporary shortage.

Hebrew, Arabic, and English are the languages I hear in Rami Levy. Many of the Palestinian male shoppers speak Hebrew, indicating that they had once worked in Israel or the “settlements” prior to the intifada. They translate their Hebrew conversations to their wives and children.

From Shellie:

At the dairy case one male Palestinian customer wasn’t sure if he was buying sour cream or yogurt. I looked at the bar codes and signs and read the numbers to myself in a low tone in English. When I pointed out the barcode and the products to the gentleman in Hebrew, he had already heard my English, so he switched to perfect English. English may very well be the second language in that store, especially for the Arabs from Beit Jala, Hebron, or Bethlehem who have no need for Hebrew, and their English is excellent.

Summer boredom is probably the supermarket’s worst foe right now. Some local Arab youth a mile down the road in the direction of Hebron have resumed their occasional rock throwing at Israeli cars. (Contrary to the propaganda claims of “apartheid roads,” Route 60, the major thoroughfare here, is open to all — Muslim and Jew — who too often and tragically compete for the most reckless driver award.) Some local rabbis have expressed concern that young Arab male workers and stockboys will chat up and flirt with Jewish women workers, and indeed I saw the light banter between them behind the bakery counter one day.

Knives and boxcutters are tools of the trade in supermarkets, just as knives were once the weapon of terrorists during the early stages of the intifada. One sign of newfound trust can be seen behind the butcher counter where almost all the men are Arabs, working in the Etzyon store as well as Levy’s Jerusalem stores with the largest and sharpest knives.

A boycott of settlement products is supposed to be in force in the Palestinian Authority, but that’s certainly not enforced at the supermarket. According to one blogger’s account, the Palestinian boycott is more of a buycott:

I spoke to one Palestinian at the Rami Levy supermarket and she explains her reasons for abandoning the Palestinian shops: “Although it is far and needs more time, children enjoy the trip and feel they got out of jail, and I can find the goods that I want with low prices. Milk in Rami Levy is 9 shekels, while in Palestinian shops it’s 12 shekels, and this in itself is a big difference, not to mention other goods and offers.”

Abeer Taweel went once to see what is this “Rami Levy” everyone is talking about, to only find all her relatives and neighbors and acquaintances there purchasing all their needs for the whole week.

And Shellie: Meanwhile, I needed my zucchinis. Last Thursday, I also arrived to find an empty zucchini bin, and I believe that prices are so good at Rami Levy’s that some produce sellers — Israeli and Palestinian — buy in bulk, and always on Thursday. Last week when I asked the produce worker (an Arab) what happened to the zucchinis, he just said, “Nigmar, Chalas, finished.” Today, he was a bit more sympathetic. “A new truckload just came in,” he said in Hebrew. “Go do a ‘sivuv’ round of shopping and come back.” So as he finished putting out the okra, I left him to do another sivuv in the store. I came back and he was now doing the carrots. “Madam, go do another sivuv. I’ll get to them.” So, around again I go. After I rechecked the store, I returned to the produce department. True to his word, he had wheeled out the zucchinis. He really didn’t have to restock the bin; everyone was descending on his cart and his pot of gold: fresh zucchinis at four shekels a kilo (about 50 cents a pound). I thanked him, and with a smile he said in Hebrew, “you’re welcome.”

A word of caution: I’m still on a slightly heightened state of alert — yellow, to use Homeland Security’s code — as I walk around Rami Levy. In the late 1990s and even in early 2000, there were several encouraging and productive joint Palestinian-Israeli projects, but the Palestinian Authority — then led by Yasir Arafat — decided to abandon the road to peace and prosperity and chose to launch the bloody intifada that left thousands of Palestinians and Israelis dead and wounded.

Incredibly, none of the major Western newspapers have visited and reported on the Rami Levy phenomenon in Gush Etzyon, at least according to Google. One senior correspondent for a top American newspaper thanked me “for the tip,” but not a pixel has shown up in her paper. Can it be that the coexistence in aisle 2 and cooperation behind the meat counter run against the media narrative that Israeli “settlers” and Palestinians can never live together? Maybe we’ll finally meet up with the press when Rami Levy opens his pizza shop and the catering hall on the second floor.

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Just Published: Was J-List in the service of J Street?

Even in Israel, The Daily Caller’s “Journolist” exposé has received its share of attention. The Jeremiah Wright and Sarah Palin email threads were less interesting to Israelis than the Journolist discussion of whether to report on the Islamist background of the Ft. Hood Texas shooter.

The Israeli press didn’t get into the details of Spencer Ackerman’s thuggery of attacking conservative pundits as “racists” and his aggressive call “to raise the cost on the right of going after the left. … In other words, find a rightwinger’s [sic] and smash it through a plate-glass window….”

Pro-Israel consumers of the news as well as the many members of various pro-Israel media watchdogs such as the Committee for Accuracy in Middle East Reporting (CAMERA) and HonestReporting, would undoubtedly want to see the publication of the Journolist discussions on Israel, Netanyahu’s election, Operation Cast Lead in Gaza, and the Goldstone Report.

Will those threads confirm their deeply held suspicions of media bias against Israel?

The evidence so far indicates that many members of Journolist support the Middle East policies of a Washington organization named J Street. The supposedly “pro-Israel” J Street is a... Read more here.

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