UNITY IN DIVERSITY AND THE NORM AGAINST DISSENT

As noted above, the lobby is not a centralized, hierarchical movement. Even among the Jewish elements of the lobby, there are important differences on specific policy issues. In recent years, AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents have tilted toward Likud and other hard-line parties in Israel and were skeptical about the Oslo peace process (a phenomenon we discuss at greater length below), while a number of other, smaller groups—such as Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v'Shalom (Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace), Israel Policy Forum, Jewish Voice for Peace, Meretz-USA, and the Tikkun Community—strongly favor a two-state solution and believe Israel needs to make significant concessions in order to bring it about.29
   These differences have occasionally led to rifts within or among these different organizations. In 2006, for example, the Israel Policy Forum, Americans for Peace Now, Jewish Voice for Peace, and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom openly opposed an AIPAC-sponsored congressional resolution (HR 4681) that would have imposed even more draconian restrictions on aid to the Palestinians than the Israeli government sought.30 A watered-down version of the resolution passed by a comfortable margin, but the episode reminds us that pro-Israel groups do not form a monolith with a single party line.
   These divisions notwithstanding, the majority of organized groups in the American Jewish community—especially the largest and wealthiest among them—continue to favor steadfast U.S. support for Israel no matter what policies the Jewish state pursues. As an AIPAC spokesman explained in June 2000, when concerns about Israel's arms sales to China led to calls for a reduction in U.S. support, "We are opposed to linking Israel's aid under any circumstances because once it starts it never stops."31 Even the dovish Americans for Peace Now supports "robust U.S. economic and military assistance to Israel," opposes calls to "cut or condition" U.S. aid, and seeks only to prevent U.S. aid from being used to support settlement activities in the Occupied Territories.32 Similarly, the moderate Israel Policy Forum does not advocate making American aid more conditional but rather focuses its efforts on persuading the U.S. government to work more actively and effectively for a two-state solution.33 Despite differences on the peace process and related
issues, in short, almost every pro-Israel group wants to keep the "special relationship" intact. A notable exception is Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP), which has called for the U.S. government to suspend military aid to Israel until it ends the occupation of the West Bank, Gaza, and East Jerusalem.34 Indeed, given this position, one might argue that JVP is not part of the lobby at all.
   Given their desire to maximize U.S. backing, Israeli officials frequently engage American Jewish leaders and ask them to help mobilize support in the United States for particular Israeli policies. As Rabbi Alexander Schindler, former chair of the Conference of Presidents, told an Israeli magazine in 1976, "The Presidents' Conference and its members have been instruments of official governmental Israeli policy. It was seen as our task to receive directions from government circles and to do our best no matter what to affect the Jewish community." (Schindler thought this situation was "not acceptable," telling the interviewer that "American Jewry is in no mood to be used by anyone.")35 Yet Albert Chernin of NJCRAC offered a similar appraisal in the 1970s, saying that "in domestic areas we made policy, but in Israel affairs the policy was a given ... In reality, [the Conference of Presidents] was the vehicle through which Israel communicated its policy to the community."36 Ori Nir of the Forward quotes an unnamed activist with a major Jewish organization claiming in 2005 that "it is routine for us to say: 'This is our policy on a certain issue, but we must check what the Israelis think.' We as a community do it all the time." Or as Hyman Bookbinder, a high-ranking official of the American Jewish Committee, once admitted, "Unless something is terribly pressing, really critical or fundamental, you parrot Israel's line in order to retain American support. As American Jews, we don't go around saying Israel is wrong about its policies."37
   Israel's ability to galvanize support within the United States has been demonstrated on numerous occasions. Zionist (and later, Israeli) officials encouraged American Jewish leaders to campaign for the UN partition plan in 1947 and for U.S. recognition in 1948, and to lobby against the abortive peace plan formulated by the UN mediator Folke Bernadotte in 1948. Coordinated efforts such as these also helped convince the Truman administration to significantly increase economic aid to Israel in 1952 and to abandon a Pentagon and State Department proposal for a $ 10 million grant of military assistance to Egypt.38 During the crisis preceding the 1967 Six-Day War, the Israeli government instructed its ambassador in Washington to "create a public atmosphere that will constitute pressure on the [Johnson] administration . . . without it being explicitly clear that we are behind this public campaign." The effort involved getting sympathetic Americans to
write letters, editorials, telegrams, and public statements, etc.—"in a variety of styles"—whose purpose, according to the Israeli Foreign Ministry, was "to create a public atmosphere . . . that will strengthen our friends within the administration." White House officials eventually asked their Israeli counterparts to shut down the letter-writing campaign, but the Israeli ambassador reported back to Jerusalem that "of course we are continuing it." According to the historian Tom Segev, the White House was "inundated with letters from citizens calling on the president to stand by Israel."39
   This tendency to support Israel's actions reflexively may be less prevalent today, but major organizations in the lobby still defer to the preferences of Israel's leaders on many occasions. Following the release of the Bush administration's "road map" for Middle East peace in March 2003, for example, Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents reportedly told Ha'aretz that if the Israeli government expressed reservations about the road map, it would have the support of America's Jewish community. And, Hoenlein emphasized, "We will not hesitate to make our voice heard."40
   Despite the fissures that have emerged between the Israeli government and some groups within American Jewry, this community "has generally accepted the principle that on matters of fundamental security there ought to be no public criticism of Israel."41 According to Steven Rosenthal, "For millions of American Jews, criticism of Israel was a worse sin than marrying out of the faith." Or as Bookbinder once acknowledged, "There is a feeling of guilt as to whether Jews should double-check the Israeli government . . . They automatically fall into line for that very reason."42 Recent surveys of American Jewish opinion reveal that roughly two-thirds of the respondents agree that "regardless of their individual views on the peace negotiations with the Arabs, American Jews should support the policies of the duly-elected government of Israel."43 Thus, even when both leaders and rank and file of important Jewish-American organizations have serious reservations about Israeli policy, they rarely call for the U.S. government to put significant pressure on the Israeli government.
   The norm against public criticism has been vividly illustrated on a number of occasions over the past several decades. In 1973, for example, a group of progressive American Jews formed a new organization, Breira (Alternative), which called for more open discussion between Israel and the diaspora and sought to mobilize support for withdrawal from the Occupied Territories and a peace settlement with the Palestinians. In addition to making their views publicly known through advertisements in major American newspapers, several Breira leaders were part of a delegation of American
Jews who met in a private capacity with a group of Palestinian representatives, under the auspices of the American Friends Service Committee.
   Although a few Jewish leaders defended Breira, a powerful backlash soon emerged from the major Jewish organizations.