American Jewish Peace Archive: An Interview with Robert K. Lifton

Tobias Hess

The war in Gaza has re-opened old wounds throughout the Jewish diaspora. After Hamas’s brutal and bloody massacre on October 7th, perennial, well worn fears of Jewish annihilation rose up, in turn inspiring a renewed sense of unity and desire for triumph over forces seeking Israel’s destruction for many Jews around the world. Meanwhile Israel’s response, chiefly their bombardment of Gaza which has killed over 20,000 Palestinians (the majority of which are not Hamas fighters), has spurred a new wave of activism among young American Jews in particular, who find themselves horrified by Israel's sustained military actions. 

Amidst the echoes of trauma, both recent and long passed, emotions run high and accusations flow freely, with claims that pro-Israeli Jews are “racist colonizers” on one side, and that pro-Palestinan Jews are “self-hating” on the other. But in the heat of these painful disagreements, it has become increasingly difficult to zoom out and see this moment of rupture in its proper historical context. Jews, after all, have fought fiercely over Zionism for over a century. This is nothing new, but the extremity of Israel’s current rightwing government, the apocalyptic stance and actions of Hamas, and the incendiary nature of social media-fueled discourse have made such disagreements all the more disagreeable.

No one knew the treachery of entering these discursive waters better than Hannah Arendt, who found herself consistently castigated by the Jewish community over her writings on Jewish questions and the question of Zionism throughout her long career. In fact, her seminal report on Adolf Eichman’s trial in Jerusalem was so admonished by certain mainstream Jewish leaders that the Anti-Defamation League of B’Nai Brith sent out a circular, urging rabbis throughout America to denounce Arendt from the pulpit on the Jewish high holidays. Arendt supported the kidnapping of Eichmann and defended the state of Israel’s right to try him for his crimes. But Arendt criticized the prosecutors tactics as designed to turn the trial of Eichman into a show trial. Her report on the trial sought to understand why and how Eichmann could have done what he did. She also reported testimony from the trial about Jewish complicity in the Holocaust. For acknowledging Jewish complicity and arguing that Eichmann’s evil was banal, Arendt was cast outside the acceptable circles of much Jewish intelligentsia.

In alignment with the bold and fearless thinking of Hannah Arendt that seeks to understand the plurality of opinions that make up our world, the Hannah Arendt Center proudly sponsors The American Jewish Peace Archive. This burgeoning archive, spearheaded by Jewish-American activist and oral historian Aliza Becker, embodies the spirit of Arendt's perspective on Israel. Begun in 2012 in the aftermath of her own organization, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, merging with the still-running J Street, Becker sought to create a comprehensive repository that could help tell the story of American Jewish activism on behalf of self-determination for both Jews and Palestinians. Speaking to over 200 U.S. and Israeli Jews whose activism spanned the years 1967 to 2017, Becker has compiled an archive that spans generations and ideology. Some of her interlocutors are staunch Zionists, who came to their dissent via a belief the occupation of the West Bank and Gaza is deeply untenable for the security of Israel. And some of her interviewees have solid moral reasons for their dissent, such as Simone Zimmerman, the young Jewish activist who was one of the founders of If Not Now.

Over the next few weeks, the Hannah Arendt Center will be sharing excerpts of transcripts from The American Jewish Peace Archive. As Becker told me, “[Dissent on the status quo around unquestioned support for the Israeli government has been] so anathema to the mainstream Jewish community, that it was, to some degree, hidden.” We hope that reading these diverse voices will help uncover these nuanced perspectives, and also help us all be able to engage in good faith disagreement over this ever-personal issue.

Our first excerpt is from no brash heterodox. Robert K.Lifton served as President of the American Jewish Congress from 1988-1994. He has also served as Chairman, Emeritus and Board Member of the Israel Policy Forum, which he helped found in 1993. Finally, he has also served as a member of the executive committee of AIPAC. That Lifton articulated such dissent, from his firmly mainstream leadership role within American Jewry, offers an insightful vantage for us to consider in our polarized times.

The following is taken from a conversation between Aliza Becker and Robert K. Lifton on February 4th, 2015 and was further edited by Lifton.

LIFTON: In 1987, the American Jewish Congress took a group to Israel, Jordan, and other Arab states, to make a decision as to whether the organization should support movement towards separation of Israel from what was then called the Occupied Territories – the West Bank and Gaza, what some people now refer to as Judea and Samaria. 

At the end of that trip there were a number of meetings and discussions at American Jewish Congress. Under the leadership of Ted Mann and Henry Siegman and with my full approval, because I was heir-apparent at that time, we took the position that Israel should separate itself from the Palestinians. Looking at the demographics of the Palestinian population, Israel would be in danger of either losing its status as a democratic state or as a Jewish state unless it separated itself from the occupied territories. 

At that time, the American Jewish Congress was the only major Jewish organization that publicly took that position. It was a gutsy position. The power in Israel was in the hands of the Likud. Yitzhak Shamir was prime minister. Bibi Netanyahu was one of the Likud princes along with Dan Meridor and Benny Begin, and was Israel’s representative to the U.N. All of the organizations in the Conference of Presidents of American Jewish Organizations felt compelled to support Shamir's position that there was no intention of moving out of the occupied territories. Some of the organizations said they did it because that was the position of the Israeli government and their job was to support the government and whatever positions it took. Some of them did it because they actually strongly believed it themselves. I think the majority of them fell into the latter category—they strongly believed that Israel should not separate from those territories. Some of them came to that conclusion just as today's religious nationalists have done, based on their view of the biblical story — that this was a land that God gave to Israel. The American Jewish Congress stood out at that time with the position it took. 

BECKER: What was your perspective before you went on the fact-finding trip with the American Jewish Congress, and how did it change? 

LIFTON: Unlike some of the people on the trip, I had no particular position before we went, because I had not spent a lot of time studying the subject. So for me it was a tabula rasa – a blank page. I was just really learning and experiencing. It became clear to me in the discussions we had, as it is clear to me to this day, that Israel's future — both as the Zionist dream of Israel as a haven for Jews and as an example to younger generations of what Jews can accomplish — was endangered by its relationship with the occupied territories. 

BECKER. Why do you think it's been difficult for most mainstream Jewish leaders both then and now to embrace this perspective? 

LIFTON: For the religious nationalists, there's a basic underlying perspective, the same perspective that moves the Naftali Bennett's today: "This is our land historically, biblically, and it's taken all this time to get it, but one way or another we're going to end up with this land." I don't think most American Jews hold this view, but because it's the perspective of a number of Israelis, a lot of American Jews will accept it as a point of view. I think there's an attitude among many American Jews, "These people are there. It's their decision. They're taking the risks. We're not taking the risks. We have no right to tell them what to do, and if this is what they think they need, then we should support it." I think that is a prevailing view among American Jews who support Israel. 

In recent years I think more and more Israelis on the Right talk about security as a major issue. Even though there area hundred and some odd Israeli generals and intelligence chiefs who have  publicly pointed out that Israel's security is more protected by separation from the West Bank than by staying there, many American Jews do not keep up with the full range of current thinking in Israel and are not fully appreciative of what's happening. They have bought the idea that security is a basic element in this decision-making process, and there's no way to dissuade them, because it's not a rational process to start with. It's an emotional process. 

I think the challenges today is that the two-state solution is facing enormous obstacles, if it's not already dead. I think anybody who cares about the Zionist dream (or my view of the Zionist dream, which is a successful Jewish state that would be both a democratic state and a state that could be looked up to by younger generations) has to be worried about this state of affairs. I think that dream is in danger now that Israel is moving in the wrong direction. The religious nationalists are endangering Israel's position both as a Jewish and a democratic state and therefore also endangering Israel's position as a haven for Jews who are looking for a secure place to live. If the world ever comes to it again, where Jews are looking for a place to find a haven, I think they're endangering that haven because they're moving Israel into a position unlike where it was when it was able to bring in hundreds of thousands, if not close to a million, Soviet Jews and support them and have the wherewithal to house them and clothe them and give them jobs and the like. I think if Israel keeps on the course it's going, if it incorporates the Palestinians in these territories, they're going to have a huge Palestinian bloc which is not going to be willing to vote for allocation of resources for Jews looking for refuge. 

On the other hand, I don't believe that [the religious nationalists] intend to have the Palestinians become full citizens. I think they intend to treat the Palestinians as second-class citizens or move them off their land. If they do that, I think that they are likely to get the same kind of pariah treatment as South Africa did  when it was seen as an apartheid state and that will limit their ability financially and otherwise to help Jews. These nationalists are endangering Israel as a refuge. And they are endangering Zionism in my view.