Democracy takes a hit in vote to ban J Street U

Biale’s overwrought screed would lead one to believe that the JSU vote is practically the cause of the middle east crisis itself.  He links the recent JSU vote to every controversy to come out of Israel and rile various aspects of the Jewish community here in the the Bay Area.  To the contrary of Biale’s assertion, the JSU vote is an exercise in and of democracy by college students who made a decision based on their judgment.  As college is also a learning experience, perhaps continued discussion of this issue and dialogue within the Jewish student community will lead to a different outcome in a future vote.  But in this case, the students made a decision, voted free and fair, and J Street lost out.  Let’s be more judicious about how adults in the greater community interject themselves into campus debates.  It seems all too often those on either side of issues like this are eager to use students as pawns in a political game because for whatever reason they are unable to effect change in the real world.  To the credit of Berkeley’s Jewish students, they know when they are being used-and Biale, a college professor, should know better.

This time Jewish students at Berkeley will not be intimidated by moral relativism, claims of anti-democracy, etc. by voting their choice. Emanuel, accept the vote in Berkeley like you accept the vote in Egypt, in Gaza and so forth. This is real democracy working in Berkeley!!!! BiBi believes in a 2 state solution, AIPAC believes in a 2 state solution. I guess there must be more to J Street and the New Israel Fund that is repugnant. Emanuel, educate yourself! Israel is increasingly surrounded by Muslims who want to destroy them and all Jews. Bombs are dropped daily on Israel. Threats of extinction are made daily against Israel. PA and Fatah have repeatedly refused BiBi’s requests to come to the “damn table.” Look at what they teach in their textbooks and on their TV…Israel is wiped off the map. Anti-semitism is rampant and students at UC campuses are intimidated by students and professors. Emanuel, get real, get facts, see the truth. I support the Jewish Union at Berkeley and now I have hope for our future because of them! Thanks!

There is no conspiracy of silence in the Bay Area and the Federation had nothing to do with what the JSU did.

Biale is correct: the primary problem here is that nominally democratic institutions within the Jewish community are not acting democratically, just as in Israel democracy is increasingly compromised by anti-democratic measures in the Knesset. Democracy can easily fall victim to the tyranny of the majority if checks and balances as well as other safeguards are missing.

This is what evidently happened in the JSU, where, as I understand it, 10 students opposed to admitting J Street were allowed to overrule 9 in favor of it. This is a failure of democracy. Rather than acknowledge that minority rights were critical to the overall mission of the JSU, the majority exercised superior force to impose its will. Lacking a reasonable clause in its constitution that would have guaranteed minority rights, the JSU “democratically”—that is, by a simple majority vote—acted undemocratically.

Biale’s analysis can be extended not only to Israeli politics in the current environment, where democracy is threatened by a radical movement on the right unconcerned about protecting the rights of all. It can also be extended back further in the Bay Area to decisions as long as a decade ago by the Jewish Community Relations Council and the Jewish Federation to exclude from its notional “big Jewish tent” those whose views on Israel diverged from party line. As early as 2001, these institutions made strategic decisions to exclude groups such as Jewish Voice for Peace and similar critics of the Israeli occupation. That was a dismal watershed. For the first time in recent memory, otherwise progressive Bay Area Jewish organizations were no longer interested in maintaining even the pretense of dialogue with those Jews who openly criticized Israeli policy toward the Palestinians. Recent events in the Jewish community, including the political litmus test enforced on the Jewish Film Festival and now the JSU’s blackballing of J Street, were thus set in motion some years ago. Hopefully, Biale is correct that the “train wreck” of Jewish communal values can be avoided if individuals press their leaders to restore effectual democracy to community organizations.

For now, at UC Berkeley, the historic bastion of free speech, the Jewish Student Union has given voice to democracy’s intimate nemesis: the tyranny of the majority.

It took a two thirds vote to admit someone to the JSU.

The red line the Bay Area Jewish community has established is support for boycotts, divestment and sanctions (BDS). Organizations which oppose that, including J Street, are in the tent. Those which support it, such as JVP, are outside the tent. BDS is a very serious threat to Israel and there have been a lot of BDS efforts in the Bay Area.

We are happy to be in dialog with all kinds of people. BDS supporters usually won’t discuss things with people who have mainstream views. They want financial support from the Federation; but that is unreasonable. People don’t give money to the Federation so it can be used to attack Israel.

The JSU decision was made by the students. People including the Hillel leadership are trying to persuade them to change their minds about J Street.

Gee Mr. Shlensky, thanks for alerting me for JSU’s alleged subversion of democracy. And to think that for all these years, I was under the illusion that in electoral democracy, decisions were decided by majority rule.

Again, my grateful appreciation to J Streeters like Shlensky and Biale who have let us all know that “tyranny of the majority” is “democracy’s intimate nemesis.”

Bet you all didn’t know that…

“Democracy takes a hit in vote to ban J Street U”

A headline that refutes itself.

I have been following this carefully and am very upset by JSU’s decision. Thank you David for your thoughts.

On another note, is anyone else tired of hearing from Dan Spitzer? This is the first time I am commenting on a J article but boy have I seen Dan’s thoughts on here all over the place. They are usually so insensitive and make me cringe. Enough already!

P.S. - I am prepared for some sarcastic response from Dan… bring it on!

I have to agree with RoxyG. Dan Spitzer’s comments on the J Weekly site rarely rise to the level of rational discourse and frequently descend into personal attacks and a nasty tone. My understanding is that his comments have been removed before by the J editors for crossing the red line into verbal abuse. He is simply a bully.

So, Mr. Spitzer, you are apparently unaware that nominal democracies can descend into thuggery through the “democratic” means of majority rule without respect for minorities. Alexis de Tocqueville, John Stuart Mill and James Madison, among others, were aware of this problem and wrote eloquently of its dangers. We Jews, too, have had run-ins in our history with this very real menace.

I agree with Roxy and Lincoln.

J editor Sue Fishkill’s initiated a policy against abusive language in the comments section, and this has already made a difference in the diversity of perspectives and level of discourse we have now.  Previously, people were hounded off the site by an orchestrated barrage of hate speech for daring to express views other than extreme-right Zionism. 

Even Dan Spitzer’s language got cleaned up as a result of the new policy, although not the tone of his comments.

I hope we can continue to exchange views, and not pay undue attention to those who want to bully our community into silence.

When I see comments such as they have written, I know that I have hit them where they live.

Clearly in Shlenksy’s case, the fact that JSU follows the democratic strictures of majority rule is an anathema to him. He can try to rationalize his condemnation of JSU any way he can, but the fact that they conducted their vote democratically is something no reasonable person can deny. One can’t imagine Shlensky being upset if JSU had voted to incllude J Street U can one? His hypocrisy on this issue is crystalline…

Kol Hakavod CAL’s students, do not let the anti-Israel crowd intimidate you, you act CORRECTLY and bravely in rejecting J-street U member for their anti-Israel creed and their support of anti-Israel groups trying to masquerade their actions of defaming Israel and supporting BDS as acts of ‘tough love’….  With friends like these, Israel does not need enemies…

Lincoln—

Really, after all this time, you can stop trying to insult the intelligence of those who read this site.  Do you still think anyone believes that JVP is merely “a critic of Israel’s occupation”?  JVP partners with Sabeel, which couches its opposition to the existence of a Jewish state in the language of religious supercession and anti-Semitism.  It partners with American Muslims for Palestine, which calls for a “river to the sea” Arab state.  And it is present everywhere that BDS is being promoted, whether it is JVP executive director Rebecca Vilkomerson as a keynote speaker at the upcoming BDS hate-fest in Philadelphia, or on campuses where JVP will be promoting a through-the-looking-glass effort to promote BDS in the language of Jewish learning. 

When JVP supports the very simple mission statement of Jewish community organizations—support for a Jewish state of Israel—then it can participate in those organizations.  As long as it calls for BDS and joins rallies whose chants are “Palestine will be free, from the river to the sea” then JVP is not welcome to participate in our institutions.

this speaks volumes. JVP supports the Palestinian “cause,” which is the antithesis of democracy. No wonder he is so distraught that J Street U, including many co-members of pro-BDS Kesher Enoshi, were democratically denied entrance into JSU.

Shlender is simply reflecting the anti-democratic stance of JVP’s Palestinian allies. Naturally, for him, roxy and gitelsura, democratic procedures which don’t go their way are viewed as the “tyranny of the mass.”

Hey Shlender, Roxy and gitelsura, how about your Palestinian allies treatment of women, gays, and dissidents.?Unlike Israel, they are treated abominably. ‘Course, we’ve never heard David Biale carp about such human rights abusers either…

Michael Harris charges that Jewish Voice for Peace, a group excluded from representation within major Jewish organizations in the Bay Area, has a covert agenda. There is no evidence for such an assertion. Yitzhak Santis, well known for his years-long role as the Middle East director of the SF Jewish Community Relations Council, recently published his own dialogue with JVP on the issues Harris raises. In that dialogue, JVP leaders directly respond to, and refute, the type of charges Harris throws around. Santis’s dialogue with JVP can be viewed here: http://engagingzion.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/jewish-voice-for-peace-responds-to-my-open-questions-to-them/

On the other hand, Harris’s SF Voices for Israel, a branch of StandWithUs, needs to explain its own troubling and less-than-transparent agenda. StandWithUs is supported by a network of anti-Muslim donors, according to news reports, and unconscionably has allied itself with the Christian evangelical leader pastor John Hagee. Hagee is well known as an “extremist” on Israeli policy—according to Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism—who disparages other faiths, including Islam and Roman Catholicism. His implicit anti-Semitic agenda, like that of other Zionist evangelicals, is unmistakable: bring all Jews to Israel in the name of advancing apocalyptic Christian messianism. Hagee’s anti-Semitism is manifest in other comments as well: he has accused the Rothschilds of being at the root of American and European economic problems, and he has claimed that historical Jewish persecution, including by the Nazis, was the result of Jewish sins.

So when Roz Rothstein, International Director of StandWithUs, chooses to speak as a panelist at events such as the 2008 “Christians United For Israel Washington-Israel Summit,” she expresses as plainly as could be her support for the likes of Hagee, Gary Bauer, and their bigoted ilk.

There is no point in muddying the waters, Mr. Harris, with accusations that Jewish Voice for Peace remains outside of the tent because its agenda is not sufficiently responsive to Jewish values. Unlike SF Voices for Israel, which remains inside the tent, Jewish Voice for Peace has been excluded because it rightfully refuses to accept Israel’s denial of basic rights to nearly five million Palestinian civilians held under occupation. The pursuit of justice for all, I am sure we are agreed, is a supremely Jewish value. The reasons for JVP’s exclusion from supposedly representative Jewish organizations like the SF Jewish Federation lies at the heart, rather, of the communal failure of democracy that distinguished historian David Biale condemns.

“J Street strongly opposes views and positions such as those captured at the Palestinian BDS National Committee’s website, http://www.bdsmovement.net. As laid out in that site, the BDS movement fails to explicitly to recognize Israel’s right to exist and it ignores or rejects Israel’s role as a national home for the Jewish people. In addition, the promotion by some in the BDS movement of the return to Israel of Palestinian refugees from 1948 and their families indicates support for an outcome incompatible with our vision of Israel and incompatible with a two-state solution to the conflict.
For some, the BDS movement has become a convenient mantle for thinly disguised anti-Semitism. While concern about the present and future of the Palestinian people is both legitimate and warranted, these concerns do not justify categorically delegitimizing and demonizing another people.”

http://jstreet.org/policy/issues/the-boycott-divestment-sanctions-movement/

Michael Harris charges that Jewish Voice for Peace, a group excluded from representation within major Jewish organizations in the Bay Area, has a covert agenda. There is no evidence for such an assertion. Yitzhak Santis, well known for his years-long role as the Middle East coordinator of the SF Jewish Community Relations Council, recently published his own dialogue with JVP on the issues Harris raises. In that dialogue, JVP leaders directly respond to, and refute, the type of charges Harris throws around. Santis’s dialogue with JVP can be viewed here: http://engagingzion.wordpress.com/2011/11/04/jewish-voice-for-peace-responds-to-my-open-questions-to-them/

On the other hand, Harris’s SF Voices for Israel, a branch of StandWithUs, needs to explain its own troubling and less-than-transparent agenda. StandWithUs is supported by a network of anti-Muslim donors, according to news reports, and unconscionably has allied itself with the Christian evangelical leader pastor John Hagee. Hagee is well known as an “extremist” on Israeli policy—according to Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reform Judaism—who disparages other faiths, including Islam and Roman Catholicism. His implicit anti-Semitic agenda, like that of other Zionist evangelicals, is unmistakable: bring all Jews to Israel in the name of advancing apocalyptic Christian messianism. Hagee’s anti-Semitism is manifest in other comments as well: he has accused the Rothschilds of being at the root of American and European economic problems, and he has claimed that historical Jewish persecution, including by the Germans in WW II, was the result of Jewish sins.

So when Roz Rothstein, International Director of StandWithUs, chooses to speak as a panelist at events such as the 2008 “Christians United For Israel Washington-Israel Summit,” she expresses as plainly as could be her support for the likes of Hagee, Gary Bauer, and their bigoted ilk. SF Voices for Israel, as a branch of StandWithUs, has its own heshbon nefesh to do.

There is therefore no point in muddying the waters, Mr. Harris, with accusations that Jewish Voice for Peace is kept out of the tent because its agenda is not sufficiently responsive to Jewish values. Unlike SF Voices for Israel, which remains inside the tent, Jewish Voice for Peace has been excluded because it rightfully refuses to accept Israel’s denial of basic rights to nearly five million Palestinian civilians held under occupation. The pursuit of justice for all, I am sure we are agreed, is a supremely Jewish value. The reasons for JVP’s exclusion from supposedly representative Jewish organizations like the SF Jewish Federation lies at the heart, rather, of the communal failure of democracy that distinguished historian David Biale condemns.

Since I know David Biale and realize that he has an ego nearly the size of Michael Lerner, I am sure that he is reading these commentaries. Hence, I have some legitimate questions for him. And if Biale fails to answer them, it would call into question his integrity in the writing of his op-ed.

David, you have made it a regular part of your public pronouncements to criticize Israel for what you deem human rights abuses. And every so often, you are on target. Israel is not perfect; like most nations constantly under the duress of attack, it has made some disturbing errors.

But why do you never criticize the egregious human rights violations of the Palestinians? Would you be so fair-minded to say something about their legitimate democratic election of Hamas, an organization pledged not just to the murder of all Israeli Jews but also to the genocide of Jews everywhere?

Would you kindly critique the Palestinians abuse of women, making them second class citizens and committing honor murder against daughters who “transgress” their fathers’ wills?

Would you condemn the brutalization of gay Palestinians who are frequently subjected to torture and/or murder?

Do you condone the utter lack of freedom of dissent, not just by Hamas but also as manifest in the Palestinian territories under the so-called moderate rule of the Palestinian authority?

David, we know your pals in JVP and J Street choose to ignore these conspicuous violations of human rights. But you, as an incessant critique of Israel and professorial example to young students, should set a fair-minded standard. Although your past history has given no indication that you are capable or willing to do so, let’s see if you have the integrity to examine these questions here…

It undercuts the argument against JVP to talk as if J Street which opposes BDS is just like them.

JVP is out of the tent because it supports BDS and is too tolerant of anti-semitic rhetoric.

No matter how they sugar coat it, it is apparent that J Street and JSU,all the more so, do not have the objective of aiding the defence of Israel’s Jewish citizens against all the propaganda and diplomatic ploys with which the Arabs/Moslems are trying to attack Israel. Mr. Biale seems to be blind to this circumstance. I applaud the Berkeley students for their vote.

Cal’s students got it right, this is NOT a matter of democracy and human right BUT A MATTER OF SURVIVAL, those advocating for inclusion need to understand that there are certain red lines that Jews cannot and should not cross, and those the endangering out brothers and sisters in Israel, NO IFS OR BUTS.
What you do NOT understand about WAR, it is not a game, and there is no humane way of fighting only in the delusional mind people that never participate in a war. 
It is beyond belief how people considered themselves educated buy the Palis’ propaganda hook, line, and sinker;  suggesting that if Israel just compromise, everything will be fine…  Your audacity is only topped by your naiveté to think that the so-called Palestinians are interesting in a compromise, where were you in 1947, or during Camp David in 2000, or when Olmert’s in 2008 offered a fair compromise to Abbas
Mr. Biale, Shlensky, JVP, J-street, Peace Now and their followers you have no right to tell the Israelis people to commit suicide so your sense of morality is satisfied.

Lincoln—
I will once again repeat my challenge to you, Cecilie Surasky, or any other JVP leader:  if you want to debate whether JVP should be “in the tent”, then you can use the only Jewish community venue available to you—which is this publication.  Let’s have this discussion in person to be printed in j.  Dan Pine (who you must acknowledge has been quite fair to you as a journalist) can moderate. 

I will stand behind the messages in SWU’s materials—you won’t find messages of intolerance or delegitimization there.  And if you will deny the charge that JVP’s consistent and ongoing work with groups that delegitimize Israel—as Yitzhak Santis documented very well and JVP’s obfuscations failed to refute—reflects on JVP as a whole, then I can just as easily reject your claim that a single speaking engagement by Roz Rothstein in 2008 defines SWU.  Of course, let’s not forget that JVP continues to work with hard core delegitimizers—Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of JVP, will be a featured speaker at a BDS conference in Philadelphia in February that will also feature one-state proponent Ali Abunimah.  How many people at that event will be supporting peace between a Jewish state of Israel and an Arab state of Palestine?  Best estimate would be zero. 

By the way, if you claim 5 million Palestinians are “under occupation” then presumably you consider Arab citizens of Israel—who serve at all levels of government and society—as “under occupation” as well.

Based on what is on this page, it would be useful to have a meeting somewhere about whether J Street is in the tent. Right now people on this page who oppose BDS are not all in agreement about J Street.

I will go out on a limb, and probably shock a number of people, and state that as far as I am concerned, J Street should indeed be considered “in the tent” and part of the legitimate discussion of Israel within our Jewish community institutions.  This doesn’t mean that I agree with everything (or even most things!) that they say or do.  There are very serious objections that I have about many of their decisions.  And I don’t believe that all of J Street’s donors support Israel as the state of the Jewish people. 
But certainly their mission statement clearly supports a two state solution—with one of those being a Jewish state—and they oppose BDS.  J Street is not JVP.  My problem with J Street is the instances when their leadership acts contrary to its own stated principles—what Congressman Ackerman from NY described as “their brains falling out of their heads”.

As has been previously noted in articles about this topic, the issue at UC Berkeley had a lot to do with the individuals involved in J St U and the overlap with Kesher Enoshi leadership. 

I share the same long term vision as J Street—a Jewish state of Israel at peace with its neighbors including an Arab state of Palestine.  That is also the same vision articulated by PM Netanyahu.  Where I disagree with J St is that its leadership acts as if this could happen only if America pressures Israel into concessions, where I believe that it requires a Palestinian leadership willing to live in peace alongside a Jewish state.  But these are substantive discussions about how to reach a goal that is shared by the majority of Israelis—and these discussions are important to have within our community.  They can be held as part of the missions of our community institutions without undermining them.

I want to be very clear on two points here

1.  I am posting this as my individual opinion not as a spokesperson for StandWithUs or SF Voice for Israel. 
2. I am not a member of, a supporter of, nor in any way endorsing J Street.  I have very grave concerns about many of their actions, as well as their refusal to recognize that Palestinian rejectionism and Iran, rather than West Bank settlements, are the true existential threat to Israel.

I have debated, online and on person, with members of J Street and I see no reason that these conversations shouldn’t be had as part of strengthening the proIsrael community against the delegitimizers—and groups like JVP that Jew-wash them.

“sign of deteriorating tolerance in our community for” anti Jewish and anti Israel propaganda. Problem with J Street is not the acceptance of two state solution as Biale tries to spin it. It problem is that J street supports all and every enemy of the Jewish state. They do that under the pretense of supporting Israel. Shame! It is about time that people start calling spade a spade.

There is a bit of arrogance in community members having this discussion- after all, the students voted and made this decision on their own.  It comes from their personal experiences. This is the same campus after all that was shell shocked by the emergence an SJP front group- Kesher Enoshi that was begun, nurtured and promoted by SJP members specifically as a way to gain access and legitimacy in the JSU.
Don’t like the decision?  Now J street U has the opportunity to prove themselves.  Will they participate in Israel Peace and diversity week? Will they fund raise for Israel.? Will they work with Hillel and the JSU against SJP’s BDS work, directed this year against Hewlett Packard and made in NY Sabra hummus?  If they do,  J street can dispel the rumors that its not a pro-Israel group, and the students can vote again to include them in the JSU.  Its a win win situation. Its hard not to feel critical when our young people make decisions that we disagree with, but these students are old enough to vote for president, and are old enough to serve their country.  Lets respect their opinion on this one, and encourage J street U to work alongside these groups, so that mutual respect and trust grows.  Its a worthy goal

I’m wearing my Victoria’s Secret Made in Israel seamless panties now, and I buy them for you. And for you, Gitelsura, and for all your friends at JVP. Yes, I could get cheaper undies at Costco or at Target, but its worth it to me to pay a few dollars more to buy consumer goods made in Israel.  Its an easy way to show my support for the democratic homeland of the Jewish people, and to deliver a great big No Way to the BDS’ers.

Note to JVP-If you care so much about “dialog” and communication, open the comments section of your blogs.  If you care about dialog and communication, invite me and a few of my friends to your Leadership retreat outside Portland. I have a lot to say about BDS, if you are willing to listen.  But strangely, Lincoln, and Gitelsura and friends,  your interest in dialog only goes one way- you demand that Jewish community institutions open their doors to you, while you restrict your meetings to those who take your loyalty oath and meet your demands.

Lincoln, you neglected to link to Engaging Zion’s response to you.
The author wrote
“I remain unconvinced as your response essentially validates my original concern that JVP, in its critiques of Israeli government policies, does not take seriously the existential threats facing us here.  What I see is a clear disconnect between JVP and the existential concerns of most Israelis, myself included.  I found in your response no acknowledgement of the genocidal ideologies held by many of our neighbors who are loud and proud in their calls for our annihilation.”
Read it all here:
  http://engagingzion.wordpress.com/2011/11/18/reply-to-jvp-part-1/

JVP has stood side by side with those calling for the destruction of Israel.  JVP has denied the connection of the Jewish people for our sacred homeland.  Until JVP recognizes that Jews are human beings and as such are deserving of human rights, including the right of self determination in our ancient homeland, its outside the tent for you. But dont worry- you can snuggle up with your friends in Al Awda and AFSC and SJP.  They’ll keep you warm.

It is my understanding that many of the Jewish students at UC Berkeley aren’t involved with any Jewish organizations on campus and that the Israel battles turn some of them off. There is no easy fix for that. Rancor among us is not helping with that.

I appreciate some of the comments above. This discussion is well worth having.

I agree with Theresa about JVP. They don’t seem to want to hear from those of us who disagree with them. So many partisans want to teach but don’t want to listen. Active listening to those we disagree with is key to understanding where they are coming from and how to help them when they are wrong.

It is well to remember that we can all be wrong from time to time and that examining our certainties is highly useful. Doing so is a trait that Jews have always cultivated and it has done very well for us.