Embracing the Israeli Alternative: Matti Peled, Breira, and the Emerging Two-State Idea

• In Event: Diaspora Jewry and Israel/Palestine in Transnational Perspective

Abstract

Breira: A Project of Concern in Diaspora-Israel Relations emerged in the 1970s as the first national American Jewish organization supportive of Palestinian statehood within a pro-Israel framework. Previous scholarly work on Breira has largely analyzed it within the context of American history, framing in the context of intergenerational strife, New Left politics, and post-1960s shifts within American Judaism. Moreover, this scholarship has emphasized reactions to the controversial group rather than the experiences of the activists themselves, with no published work actually utilizing Breira archives.

In contrast, this paper uses Breira archival material and oral histories to emphasize the international dimensions of the Breira phenomenon. The most relevant formative experiences of Breira’s founding cohort occurred not within 1960s American protest culture, but rather during post-1967 trips to Israel and the West Bank. Only through contact with voices of the Israel’s pro-peace camp did their leading members formulate the nucleus of the groups support for Palestinian statehood. Breira consistently embraced the dovish Israeli voices of the Israeli Council for Israeli-Palestinian Peace (ICIPP) led by former general Mattitiyahu Peled, both as a source of inspiration and of Jewish legitimacy.
This embrace, the paper argues, also helps explain Breira’s undoing. In November 1976, Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) officials Issam Sartawi and Sabri Jiryis met with American Jews, including two members of Breira. After Israeli diplomats apparently leaked the names of those in these meetings, Breira, unlike others Jewish groups, publically defended the principle of PLO meetings. The decision soon came to define the organization.
To understand Breira’s decision, one must appreciate its embrace of Peled, who also met with Sartawi and Jiryis in pursuit of peace. Indeed, the November meetings must be understood as part of the broader Sartawi-ICIPP initiative and the emergence of what is now termed the two-state solution. Rather than merely an American story, Breira’s rise and fall occurred within a much wider and significant episode of Palestinian, American, and Israeli entanglement than previously acknowledged.

Author

• Geoffrey Phillip Levin, Harvard University