A lament for America’s Jews.doc

A lament for Americas Jews 美国犹太人的悲哀ELECTIONS are to special-interest groups what spinach is to Popeye. So it was no surprise that the annual policy conference of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) at the beginning of this month produced the usual pandering. Barack Obama, Arab-Israeli peacemaking on hold, said that when the chips were down “I have Israels back”. When Mitt Romneys video address began, one wicked tweet wondered whether the Republican candidate would promise to make his inauguration speech from Jerusalem. In the event, he promised only to make Jerusalem his first port of call as president.In recent years, however, mighty AIPAC has had to cope with an irritant: a small but dogged competitor. On March 24th a different group of American Jews will meet in downtown Washington at the conference of the organization known as J Street. J Street is growing, though still a tiddler by AIPAC standards. It now has 50-odd staffers, and has lined up Ehud Olmert, Israels former prime minister, as next weeks keynote speaker.The J Streeters are peaceniks, always banging on about the two-state solution. AIPAC says it is neutral in Israeli politics, but is closer to Israels Likud. J Streeters fret about the stateless Palestinians and the damage Israels occupation of the West Bank does to its soul. The question at AIPAC is when Mr Obama will send his bombers to squish Irans nuclear ambitions. At first glance, this looks like a quarrel about foreign policy. But what if something else is at stake: the future of American Jewry itself?Enter Peter Beinart, a political scientist and former editor of the liberal (and pro-Israel) weekly, the New Republic. At J Street next week he will launch a book, “The Crisis of Zionism” (Times Books), which has already sent plenty of people into a spin.That is because, though a passionate Zionist, Mr Beinart wants Israel to save its democracy by leaving the West Bank. He therefore calls in the bookand, provocatively, in an op-ed in the New York Timesfor American Jews to start calling the West Bank “non-democratic Israel” and to push for a boycott of the settlements there. By doing so, he argues, American Jews who support Israel but not the occupation would clarify a vital distinction.选取之于特殊利益的群体就像菠菜对于大力水手那么重要。因此这也就不奇怪本月初举行的美国以色列公共事务委员会(AIPAC)年度政策会议还是一味的迎合。面对阿以和平进程暂停的局面，巴拉克奥巴马说，在这样的紧要关头，“以色列尽在掌控中”。米特罗姆尼的电台演说开始时，一条别有用心的Tweeter状态表示，不知道共和党候选人是否会在耶路撒冷发表就职宣言。结果，他保证耶路撒冷只是他就职总统的第一停靠港而已。然而，最近几年，无所不能的美国以色列公共事务委员会却不得不对付这样一个令其心神不安的对手：一个规模虽小却不屈不挠的组织。3月24日，一个不同于AIPAC的犹太人组织J Street将在华盛顿市区举行会议。虽然以AIPAC的标准来看，J Street 仍然不足为患，但是J Street 在不断地发展壮大。目前它已拥有50多位成员，并安排以色列前总理埃胡德奥尔默特作下周大会的发言人。J Street 的成员都是反战分子，对“两国方案”一直进行猛烈地抨击。AIPAC 虽然称自己在以色列政治中保持中立，但却比较偏向以色列利库德集团。J Street的成员为无家可归的巴勒斯坦人和以色列占领约旦河西岸对其精神上所造成的伤害焦虑不安。AIPAC的问题是奥巴马总统是否会向伊朗施压，打击其核野心。从表面看，这似乎是一场关于对外政策的争论。但是假使其他的事情也危如累卵的话，会怎么样呢：美籍犹太人自身的未来是什么样呢？作为前新共和国周刊编辑，政治学者恩特皮特贝纳特是以色列的支持者。在下周的J Street 大会上，他将发布一部新书犹太复国主义的危机（由时代图书出版社出版），而这本书已在许多人中间掀起了混乱不安。这