Denis McDonough rocks!

I had the privilege of working with Denis McDonough years ago on some community and human rights issues, when he was still a top aide to then-Senate Democratic Leader Tom Daschle. Denis was consistently friendly, helpful, no-nonsense, professional, smart, dedicated, faithful, and accessible. And he delivered, no matter how many other files were flying across his desk (though he'd usually be on his feet).

Denis delivered because he believed in our cause, and more importantly, because his boss did. Denis made sure that key points and deliverables were included in the trade measures moving through the Senate Finance Committee, where Senator Daschle also sat as a member. He also made sure that -- when the Senator was speaking before a high-profile gathering of community leaders -- he emphasized the concerns of vulnerable Jews overseas. That kind of plug from such a prominent politician made a much greater impact and boosted our cause as the communal priority it deserved to be.

Denis was always available to help, to sound out new ideas, and to keep us posted on what was coming down the pike. Since he's moved into the White House, I've only seen him speeding around a staircase landing, probably trying to cover three meetings and a hands-on President -- all AFTER "close of business". 

I really am proud, but not of Denis -- just proud of myself, that I have had an opportunity to deal with him directly, and that I live in a country where our government is being managed by people like Denis McDonough, President Obama's newly designated Chief of Staff.

Blogging about the actual "Jewish lobby"

Have I been naughty? I did not reveal any deep secrets, but my latest op-ed in the L.A. Jewish Journal connects the dots and points out what is obvious to most -- if not all -- of my colleagues in the Jewish community: "Yes, there is a Jewish lobby". My main points are outlined there, but here are a few additional thoughts...

It is Jewish because it was founded by Jews, and it's run by Jews, and there should be nothing wrong with that. For valid historical reasons, we prefer to call it "the pro-Israel lobby". It also makes for good branding, much as "women's rights" has evolved into more issue-based, mass-appeal movements like "pro-choice", "equal pay", "race for the cure", etc. And the LGBT community has the Human Rights Campaign. But while we prefer our branding be accepted universally and consistently, we cannot control the consumer.

Chuck Hagel made one reference to "the Jewish lobby", out of frustration with the pro-Israel movement's very effective and integrated fundraising/lobbying strategies. But that was not frustration with Israel, nor was it resentment of Jews per se. Once we organize and register, and walk the halls of Capitol Hill, we become fair game. We don't get special rights to anonymity just because we endured centuries of European persecution, or because we keep messaging that we're not there as "Jews" but as "pro-Israel activists". Of course we're there as Jews.

The Jewish Week posted an article this week, titled "Hagel Backed By Pro-Israel Leaders In Congress," and curiously all the "pro-Israel" leaders mentioned also happen to be prominent JEWISH leaders. And it's my guess, the reason these individuals are pro-Israel is that they strongly identify as Jews.

American Jews can take pride in supporting Israel as OUR issue, even as we invite others to join in for their own religious and personal reasons, and because we truly believe that supporting Israel is in America's best national interest. But if someone slips up and calls us "the Jewish lobby", better to remind them quietly of our long-term branding campaign and not make that the issue instead of Israel.

On Hagel, Jewish groups squandered an opportunity

Despite all the public kvetching about Israel and "the Jewish lobby" (by our own Jewish lobby), serious policymakers in Washington and around the world are far more interested in what Chuck Hagel's nomination for U.S. Secretary of Defense means for Iran than for Israel. Had American Jewish organizations figured this out, and/or had they cared, they would have joined the conversation about substantive next steps to end Iran's quest for nuclear weapons, which is about expert problem-solving rather than ideological litmus tests.

But no. Major and minor groups -- "mainstream" and outright Republican alike -- are tweeting and blogging their "pro-Israel" talking points, and Senators are being inundated by the same kinds of knee-jerk admonitions that used to make recovering Senators like Chuck Hagel and Joe Biden roll their eyes back on Capitol Hill. Despite this, a third former Senator, Barack Obama, has pushed forward to counter Iran and address its nuclear program in ways his predecessor could not. And still, our community seems incapable of acting like Obama's partner instead of his conscience.

When the Senate Armed Services Committee considers Hagel's nomination, I do NOT want to hear his views on why Israel is our most reliable ally in the Middle East, or anywhere. At the dawn of a new Congress and a second Obama term, this should be the opportunity to address major decision points on Iran (sanctions, force projection, counter-terrorism), Afghanistan, North Korea, and the fundamental budgeting and direction of our military infrastructure, preparedness, and personnel.

Israel's security will not be enhanced by becoming the centerpiece of confirmation hearings for a Cabinet post which by definition involves close cooperation with Israel's military establishment. Any distraction from the  strategic UNKNOWNS in the region and globally will undermine the stated goals of the Jewish advocacy organizations that are mobilized at this moment, whether to oppose Hagel outright or merely under the pretense of asking "the probing questions".

After Patriot missiles and Iron Dome, supporting Israel and U.S.-Israel relations ought not to be open for debate, yet major community organizations are inviting just such a re-examination through their expressions of "concern". Who cares whether Hagel would have been the "first choice" of any American Jewish leader? SHOULD we care, and if so, then why exactly?

Like most of the big decisions facing America at this time, this one should not be about Israel or Jewish organizations. Trying to make it that way diminishes our relevance as a community, for ourselves and to the world. Most importantly, it diverts attention from Israel's true needs and those of the United States.

"You shall tell your son"

The other night, I was driving my son past our local "correctional facility", and he peppered me with various matter-of-fact questions, ending with whether I'd ever been inside a jail.

The easy part was telling him I had once been inside a jail in Washington, DC, a long time ago. The harder part was explaining to a seven-year-old who takes globalization and his own Jewish identity for granted, that just 25 years ago the world was a very different place. My son has seen me off to Moscow on routine business travel, and here I was telling him that Jewish children in Russia were once forbidden from keeping the Sabbath and studying Torah or learning Hebrew -- not in some ancient Greco-Syrian occupation thousands of years ago a la Hanukkah, or in Pharaoh's Egypt, but in his own father's lifetime.

I told my son how I stood with others opposite the Soviet ("Russian") Embassy while the Russian leader was visiting Washington, and spoke out on behalf of our fellow Jews who were denied even the right to emigrate. I felt we had to do whatever we could. "Aba, what's an Embassy?" Insert primer on normative diplomacy...

It was illegal to demonstrate so close to a foreign embassy, so we knew we would be arrested. They took us away in a school bus, though it wasn't painted yellow. "How long did you stay in jail?" We were held for the whole afternoon until we were brought into court and the judge released us, but the police treated us very well.

"Did you stay with the other people in the jail?" We had our own cell, with bars, and we could see and hear the other prisoners. We had the opportunity to do something so people would know -- and the Russian "President" would see -- that we cared about the Jews in Russia. Unlike most of those other prisoners, and unlike the Jews in Russia, I was free to go home that same night.

After some moments of silence from the back seat, I asked my son how this makes him feel: "Amazed."

Negotiating with Hamas, but for the wrong reason?

Whether to advance a peace agreement leading to a Palestinian state or to consolidate the status quo, an Israeli government will probably be talking to Hamas before too long.

Twenty years ago, Israeli law prohibited any Israeli citizen from contact with the Palestine Liberation. As Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir put it, talking to the PLO would lead to the unacceptable establishment of a Palestinian state. And center-left politicians, including Yitzhak Rabin and Shimon Peres agreed. So when Rabin became the PM and Peres his Foreign Minister, they pursued indirect contacts with the PLO precisely because they had realized that a separate Palestinian state was indispensable to Israel's long-term stability.

Today, the idea of "a PLO state bordering Israel" sounds pretty bad, but it remains the official preference of the Government of Israel... even if the actions of Israel's current leadership seem to be making that outcome progressively less likely. When President Ronald Reagan authorized the U.S. Government to talk directly with the PLO 24 years ago, the PLO was still on the State Department's list of Foreign Terror Organizations -- as is Hamas today.

But it was still the Cold War, PLO leader Yasir Arafat had met the specific conditions the United States had pledged to Israel, and Vice-President George H.W. Bush had already won the election to succeed the departing Reagan. There was little Israel or American Jewish organizations could do beyond calling for strict controls. Within five years, partly thanks to Saddam Hussein's invasion of Kuwait and serious strong-arming by then-Secretary of State James A. Baker III, the Bush administration helped set the stage for the 1993 Oslo Accords.

Today, the memory of Hamas terror is constantly refreshed by new attacks on Israeli civilians, and Hamas leaders speak regularly of destroying Israel. The PLO once acted the same way, and that bitter legacy will never be erased. And yet, the Oslo Accords were signed between Israel and the PLO, and PLO leader Mahmoud Abbas is generally seen as the best chance for a moderate Palestinian leader willing to make a final deal with Israel.

Some Jews don't like Chuck Hagel... so?

President Obama has just won re-election. As some Republican Senators have acknowledged, "elections have consequences." One consequence of this election was that, despite the best efforts of Jewish Republicans in and out of community leadership roles, the President won a healthy margin of the Electoral College -- so the pro-Netanyahu wing of the pro-Israel (Jewish) community has political credibility issues. Plus the President showed unflinching solidarity (including Iron Dome) with Israel during last month's Gaza conflict with Hamas.

I do not know if Chuck Hagel would be the best choice for Secretary of Defense, but barring any major disclosures or failings, that choice is the President's to make. A Vietnam veteran and former Republican Senator, Hagel is widely respected in military and policy circles, and his professional qualifications seem fine. The Senate Republicans already forced out the President's putative nominee for Secretary of State, Susan Rice, and stopping one of their own former colleagues now would be  bit much. This is not going to be an easy fight, especially if it's on behalf of an ally that's already getting too much play in Washington politics.

A winning strategy for Jewish leaders is ideally to be part of the solution, and not to pick fights with Presidents unless Israel's survival is directly threatened. The best case against Hagel seems to be that he's not a bleeding-heart Zionist; he supports U.S. engagement on Mideast peace; he was one of the few Senators who routinely avoided signing onto pro forma "Dear Colleague" letters in support of Israeli interests; and, the same people who slam President Obama's positions on Israel also slam Hagel.

Interestingly, the Jewish establishment leaped to support Susan Rice, however briefly, because she has been so stalwart in support of Israel as the President's Ambassador to the United Nations. Many were concerned when she was first nominated four years ago, because her worldview seemed closer to all those leftists calling on Israel to get with the 21st century, drop all the nationalism sentiment, and cut a quick deal with the Palestinians. So maybe her eyes were opened, or maybe she was serving President Obama and advancing HIS agenda. I would expect a Secretary Hagel to do no less.

Defense cooperation with Israel is better than ever. Ever. We're still taking casualties in Afghanistan and fighting a global commando war against Al Qaeda. I voted for Barack Obama last month, and so did most Americans -- and two-thirds of Jews -- who went to the polls. Standing in the way of his nominee because he's not Joe Lieberman is just a bad idea, and one my Jewish Republican friends are eagerly pushing.

Post-Sandy Hook, GOP can lead, follow, or disappear

A couple of years back, I blogged about the GOP's craven transformation of once non-partisan issues into partisan wedge issues. Gun control was number-one, followed by the environment, immigration, civil rights, and campaign finance reform. Recently, the more Congressional Republicans push their partisan buttons on basic common-sense issues, the more they lose at the voting booth and in demographic projections of party allegiance.

This is good news, not because Democrats are more deserving than Republicans, but because in the end America needs practical solutions. The unspeakable tragedy that occurred last Friday may finally pull us -- and even the Republican Party -- back from the brink of the gun lobby's stranglehold on even basic measures like uniform background checks and a general ban on assault weapons. If the GOP maintains its blanket opposition to any further gun restrictions, that will further exacerbate its own failure to relate to the majority of Americans, even many of its own supporters.

If, with President Obama's leadership on the issue, our nation can succeed on gun control, we might have enough momentum to apply people power against well-organized big money in the other areas as well. It is too late to avert widespread environmental catastrophe during the 21st century, but it is never too late to start instituting serious emission controls and other regulations and incentives to minimize the kind devastation and dislocation that scientific consensus has been predicting for years.

Either the GOP joins up, or it continues its long-term decline as a political force -- analogous to the resulting inevitability of climate change. But we must succeed in addressing these issues regardless. And either way, our children and our grandchildren will be a little less disadvantaged. In the meantime, I'm taking my kids to visit glaciers before it really is too late.