I just got an email from J Street, the progressive, pro-peace alternative to AIPAC, with an amazing piece of news. It turns out that Hadar Susskind, J Street's Vice President of Policy and Strategy, was just elected Chair of the World Zionist Congress's Settlement Committee and -- even more shockingly -- the Congress overwhelmingly approved a resolution calling for a settlement freeze in the Occupied Territories.
Susskind has a long blog post up at J Street detailing the events at the Congress's meeting in Jerusalem last week and how it came about that the world's oldest Zionist organization, founded by Herzl himself, adopted a position "to freeze the settlements, end the occupation, and achieve a two-state solution."
Join me on the flip for quotes and just a tiny bit of analysis...
The Congress's convention by all appearances was a raucous affair, and Susskind was not immediately elected chair of the Settlement Committee. I'll let him tell the story of how it happened:
Originally asked to serve as Vice Chair of the Settlement Committee at the Congress, I was promoted to the role of Chair when the previous Chair of the Committee (who was part of Avigdor Lieberman’s party’s delegation) quit when confronted with a much broader range of views in the room than he and his allies on the right had expected. He took a number of his political associates with him.
This was just one instance, according to Susskind, of pro-peace forces gaining victories to be met by disruptive tactics by the Israeli racist far right. What happened with the freeze resolution is even more telling. First, the text of the resolution itself:
Whereas the Government of Israel finds itself in a process of deteriorating relations with the American Government; and
Whereas Israel-US relations are important to the future of the State of Israel and to its security; and
Whereas these relations are critical in maintaining a warm relationship with Jewish communities in the United States,
The Zionist Congress resolves:
* To call upon the Government of Israel to stabilize the relationship with the American government;
* The Zionist Congress calls upon the Government of Israel to act in the spirit of the Bar Ilan Speech- in which Prime Minister Netanyahu called for two states for two peoples– in order to maintain the democratic and Zionist character of the State of Israel;
* To support the Prime Minister in his decision to freeze construction in the Territories;
* The Zionist Congress calls upon the Prime Minister to continue his activity of this nature.
The resolution is framed as one of support for actions Netanyahu has already taken, in terms of endorsing a two-state solution and adopting a temporary settlement freeze in the West Bank, but its impact is actually much greater because these actions are placed in the context of improving the currently chilly relations with the US administration. Now, the Israeli right sees Netanyahu's actions as temporary ones intended to ease US pressure to move rapidly to direct negotiations with the Palestinians, but the World Zionist Congress's resolution suggests Israel needs to adopt a more conciliatory position towards both the US and by implication the Palestinians. The implication here is that negotiations and a settlement freeze are not just tactical steps to keep the US at bay, but are indeed the right thing for Israel to do.
And, here's what happened after the Congress reportedly approved the resolution by a 3-1 margin:
Immediately after its passage, a group from the right-wing parties took the stage. Ignoring calls to sit down and refusing to allow the democratic procedure to continue, they belted HaTikva as loud as they could — even though the resolution that was just passed by the World Zionist Congress was, in my view, the fulfillment of the Zionist dream of a democratic, Jewish Israel far more than their anti-democratic protest.
Two young Australians from opposing political perspectives then took the stage to rightly excoriate the protesters for not living up to Herlz’s [sic] hopes for the Congress. The Meretz delegation head Dror Morag also had a few choice words for the protest that inspired a standing ovation from the silenced majority of the Congress.
The Resolutions Committee then decided to halt the proceedings and refer all remaining resolutions to a later meeting of the Executive Committee (Vaad haPoel).
In other words, after a severe setback on the resolution vote, the rightwing essentially shut down the World Zionist Congress. But the vote was not undone and we now have a major Zionist organization -- arguably, the most important Zionist organization -- on record in favor of both a two-state solution and a settlement freeze.
I remember when I first got active in Israeli-Palestinian politics in the early 1980s and the mainstream position in American Jewry was that the Palestinians could never be trusted with a state of their own. We've come a long way since then.