Religion Dispatches excerpts Dan Fleshler’s new book, Transforming America’s Israel Lobby: The Limits of Its Power and the Potential For Change, in which he discusses the lack of candid conversation about human rights issues in Israel:
Many people share the blame, including the pro-Israel peace camp, including me. It is time for some honest talk about the lack of honest talk: my camp exercises a self-censorship that often prevents us from saying what we believe and feel about Israeli behavior. This not only constrains the speeches, conversations, and thinking of elected and appointed officials. It also prevents passionate moderates—Jewish, Christian, and Muslim—from finding a common language, a shared set of rhetorical protocols about how to talk about the conflict, and which topics to talk about.
If American Jews who want to end one-sided diplomacy in the Middle East still censor what they say even among themselves, how can they expect America’s political elite to push for a different American approach to the Arab-Israeli conflict? How can they expect anyone in the executive branch to avoid anticipatory vetoes and start showing more courage? And how can they expect to make common cause with non-Jewish Americans who share their goals and could add political impetus for change?
It is time for the anti-occupation wing of the pro-Israel community to wrest control of the conversation from those who cling to outworn assumptions about America’s Middle East policy and what it means to be pro-Israel. The political elite should not be blamed for assuming that even tepid statements that favor robust American diplomacy or take exception to Israeli policies will be politically costly. They will cling to this assumption unless they receive clear signals that a different, more candid conversation is called for. It is up to us to give politicians, policymakers, and non-Jewish Americans the confidence that American Jews expect new approaches to the Arab-Israeli conflict and new ways of talking about it.
Read the full excerpt here.