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11/01/2009

J-street cleaning

Filed under: American Scene, Israel — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:30 am

What happens when you try to present yourself as something you’re not, and then events conspire to show your true colors? Well you go to a sympathetic reporter and get him to present your side of the story. It’s very easy, really.

After its first annual convention last week, J-Street stands exposed as left wing organization that is very attractive to critics of Israel. So its leaders went to the New York Times, presented their talking points and got reporters Neil Lewis and Mark Landler to write a sympathetic press release Moderate in America’s Jewish Lobby Causes a Stir

Did I get the headline correct? J-Street is moderate? Let me quote from two sources who are not as far to right as I am. First David Bernstein:

Opposing the war in Gaza put JStreet far outside the mainstream of Jewish opinion in Israel (and the U.S., for that matter); even the left-wing Meretz party supported the war, as did over 90% of the Jewish Israeli public. So JStreet is respositioning itself from left of Meretz to right of Labor?

and Yaacov Lozowick:

In spite of the difference between them, they are both pro-Israel. What stuck me was the degree of their disconnect (both) from the Israeli reality. Certainly Yglesias, and probably also Chiat, would fit into the Meretz part of the Israeli political spectrum – yet there’s a reason Meretz hovers on the edge of political extinction these days. I’m not saying the Meretz position is illegitimate – but it does have to deal with a whole set of facts known to every Israeli; most deal by abandoning the Meretz positions, and a small number deal and manage to maintain their positions. These two fine young men – I’m not being facetious – are engaged in a conversation about Israel that doesn’t relate to the world Israelis live in.

No matter how many times Jeremy Ben Ami and his associates say “we’re moderate” the truth is that they are way out of the mainstream of the Israeli political spectrum. They also are not in the mainstream of American Jewish politics. In fact most of the people who associate with J-Street’s positions are in fact anti-Zionists and hostile to Israel as the J-Street bloggers panel showed. (h/t Israel Matzav)

Here’s the meat of the NYT’s report:

J Street has only a small fraction of the resources and membership of more established pro-Israel groups, like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, and it remains unclear how potent it will be in presenting itself as an alternative. Nonetheless, it has had great success in quickly becoming a major reference point in the complicated debate over President Obama’s Middle East policy as well as the more emotional issue of the appropriate role for American Jews in supporting Israel.

While opinions in the Jewish community have never been uniform or monolithic, several analysts, elected officials and pollsters said the debate over Mr. Obama’s approach to Israel and its neighbors has sharpened boundaries between those who strongly support him and those who have grown more wary.

J Street has tried to position itself as a counterweight to groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, or Aipac, which J Street supporters say require the United States to support the Israeli government too reflexively.

This sounds a lot more like J-Street’s talking points. Since when does an objective news report use the phrase “it has had great success?”

The reason J-Street has had great success in getting its message out is because it is 1) well funded 2) politically connected and 3) can find sympathetic reporters to reprint their main talking points.

Landler and Lewis also write:

The issue of how much any American administration should press an Israeli government to make concessions for peace is at the heart of delicate and long-unresolved questions among American Jews. At the least, say the traditional supporters of Israel, any disagreements should not be aired publicly.

I think that debate’s been over for some 30 years at least. No what’s at issue is how pressure on Israel will help the cause of peace, when there’s no reciprocal pressure on the Arabs. Or how further Israeli concessions will further the cause of peace, when Israeli concessions over the past 16 years have not led to any softening of the Palestinian position.

Towards the end of the article, one more bit of support is brought for J-Street:

Jim Gerstein, one of J Street’s founders, said his research and other polls found that most American Jews were uncomfortable with Israel’s settlement policy. But he said Orthodox Jews generally did support it.

Glad that the reporters acknowledged that Gerstein is affiliated with J-Street, but as Noah Pollak observed, this means:

So J Street not only commissions polls—it writes the questions, conducts them, analyzes the results, and then carries out promotional campaigns with the findings. If you were wondering how it was possible that J Street could repeatedly produce “polling data” that almost perfectly complements the group’s political agenda, now we have one important clue.

Given how battered Jeremy Ben Ami must have felt after his convention was over, he must feel relieved that there were two New York Times reporters he could count on to help rehabilitate his organization’s image.

UPDATE: One last thing. The Times fails to report one of the more bewildering aspects of J-Street’s “pro-Israel” approach. Its university outreach arm, decided to drop “pro-Israel” from its self description. I know that the J-Street leaders have since said that they are undoubtedly “pro-Israel,” but really here is an example of actions speaking louder than words. J-Street U knows that its pool of potential recruits is very small among those who consider themselves pro-Israel. That speaks volumes about where J-Street actually stands in the pro-Israel constellation. In a different galaxy altogether.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

10/28/2009

Briefly

Filed under: Gaza, Hamas, Israel, Terrorism — Tags: , , , — Meryl Yourish @ 10:30 am

Hamas to Israel: Your refusal to release our murderers is causing us to keep Gilad Shalit hostage. You know, I pretty much don’t have to describe the article after that headline.

Israel files complaint with UN; complaint goes into circular file. Shyeah, like the UN is going to do something about Lebanese terrorists launching katyushas into Israel. It’s not like UNIFIL is doing anything to stop Hezbullah from building stockpiles of rockets in south Lebanon, even when the stockpiles blow up and UNIFIL can’t pretend they don’t exist anymore. The fact that UNIFIL and the Lebanese army actually found four unfired katyushas is astonishing, as they can’t seem to find their asses with either hand when it comes to Hezbullah arms and munitions.

The Goldstone dividends: Over 1,500 lawsuits are being filed by Gazans over damages from Cast Lead. Yeah, good luck with that. Israeli courts are not the UN. You have to go by actual laws in order to say that the IDF violated them. I anticipate about 1,500 dismissals.

Turkey and Iran: Together again for the very first time. Turkey’s prime minister goes to Iran, stands smiling while Ahmadinejad denounces “the Zionist regime” yet again. Oh, yeah. The honeymoon with Israel is over, and the Islamists have won. Then there’s that little bit about Erdogan saying that Avigdor Lieberman told him he wanted to nuke the Palestinians. I call bullshit on that, but of course, the Guardian printed it anyway.

J-Street is like Kadima like this blog is like J-Street: Shyeah, pull the other leg, Ben-Ami. Gawd. You are such a loser. Your student arm is dropping the words “pro-Israel” to keep people from thinking that, gee, they’re pro-Israel. Yeah, that’s just like Kadima, the party that Ariel Sharon built to keep himself in power long enough to disengage from Gaza (and that worked out so well, too). Sure. Uh-huh. In Bizarro World, maybe.

Ignoring a decade

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Israeli Double Standard Time — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Matthew Yglesias (via memeorandum):

I was debating with Jon Chait at a J Street panel this morning on the subject of “what does it mean to be pro-Israel?” As expected, we disagreed on a number of points, most of which I was right on and he was wrong on. But one thing he said in his opening remarks that I really disagreed with was that there was an ambiguity running through the J Street constituency as to whether the group was or should be pro-Israel at all.

That just struck me as kind of nuts. My J Street button said “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace.” It’s not a subtle aspect of the messaging. But when we moved to the Q&A time it became clear that a number of people in the audience really were quite uncomfortable self-defining as “pro-Israel” in any sense and that others are uncomfortable with the basic Zionist concept of a Jewish national state. I was, of course, aware that those views existed but it had seemed to me that it was clear that that wasn’t what J Street is there to advocate for. Apparently, though, it wasn’t clear to everyone.

So Yglesias was surprised that folks who came to J-Street’s conference didn’t want to be considered pro-Israel? Why would that be? Here’s Spencer Ackerman’s view on the topic:

I don’t really have any interest in affixing a label to people that they don’t embrace themselves. But I think the answer is that it would be shortsighted to view them outside the “pro-Israel” community. If Israel doesn’t get out of the West Bank soon, demographic realities will force Israel to make the most painful existential choice of its life: whether to abandon Jewish democracy or whether to abandon Jewish statehood in favor of a binational homeland. Both of these options, in fundamental ways, represent the end of Israel. Not from an Iranian nuclear weapon. Not from a super-empowered Palestinian intifada. But from political failure and international diplomatic failure, the end of Israel can, actually, be achieved.

In other words, then, it is pro-Israel to demand that Israel make concessions to an enemy who still denies its right to exist. But this is what’s really problematic with Ackerman’s formulation: Israel’s legitimacy rests on the ability of the Palestinians to create a state. Worse, there seems to be no test for the legitimacy of Palestine. For Ackerman the creation of an Islamist Palestine would not have to answer the same “existential” question as Israel would. In other words Israel’s legitimacy would be defined by its enemies; Palestine’s legitimacy is a given.

Perhaps Ackerman would have an argument twenty years ago, but since Israel has abandoned Gaza and the major cities of Judea and Samaria, there is no demographic threat. There is only a Palestinian failure to create a state. Ackerman prefers to put an impossible onus on Israel. That’s not “pro-Israel” by any definition.

In Yglesias at JStreet David Bernstein writes:

I perfectly understand the difficulty that one could have with these ideas, because when in my twenties, I remember arguing with members of the older generation that they were too paranoid about anti-Semitism, that Israel needs to be much more flexible to achieve a peace accord, and that the murderous rhetoric about Israel emanating from the Arab world and elsewhere would go away once the parties all recognized their rational self-interest and came to a peace deal. It took many years, and, among other things, an intifada that involved a remarkable number of “progressive” Western intellectuals apologizing for, or even justifying, blowing up kids in pizza parlors in response to a serious peace offer from Israel, and a series of modern-day blood libels in Europe during Operation Defensive Shield in 2002 to realize that I had been extremely naive. It’s not that I’ve given up hope; but I learned to take what seemed to a younger me like pure craziness that couldn’t possibly be serious-such as the continuing popularity of the Protocols of the Elders of Zion in the Muslim world-very seriously.

This is an excellent synopsis of the past decade. And yet, there are those who don’t accept it. Yes the J-Street crowd pretends that none of this happens and that Israel is at the heart of the failure to achieve peace in the Middle East. Never mind, for example, that the Palestinians still don’t accept a Jewish right to a state.

Bernstein’s generous to the J-Streeter’s and their fellow travelers. He doesn’t think that they are anti-Israel. I don’t see how someone could witness the events in the Middle East since 2000 and still put the onus of compromise on Israel and still be pro-Israel.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

10/27/2009

Wear the label proudly

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

David Bernstein offers some friendly advice to J-Street. I certainly agree with his advice. However, I disagree with one of his premises.

Second, from approximately 1988 to Fall 2000, I held views on the Arab-Israeli conflict that would put me comfortably in the mainstream of the JStreeters. Events in the Summer and Fall of 2000 led me to change my views, but I understand where many JStreeters are coming from, and I don’t think their views should be dismissed as “anti-Israel.”

This is significant. In the fall of 2000, the policies advocated by the Israeli peace camp were shown – by events – to be mistaken. Prof. Bernstein, when he witnessed the same events – the so-called “Aqsa intifada, Hezbollah’s cross border attack – and adjusted his views accordingly. The J-Street folks did not and now still believe that the only the thing that prevents peace in the Middle East is Israeli intransigence. If after 2000, someone still figures that Israel is mostly or even largely to blame for the failure of the peace process, he is no friend of Israel.

And even if I weren’t calling J-Street “anti-Israel,” the organization has a knack for demonstrating its true leanings. Yesterday at the supposedly unaffiliated J-Street bloggers panel, a pro-Israel attendee was thrown out by security. So much for J-Street’s claim that it is looking for debate.

Stavis, a paid conference attendee (after all, Jeremy Ben-Ami stated that they welcome those who disagree), was in the back of the room filming (as were many others). Some time in, apparently recognizing a member of his enemies list, Silverstein springs up and can be seen in the video crossing the room to get security. He then approaches Stavis, who is doing nothing and causing no disruption whatsoever, to tell him security is going to kick him out.

He is then approached by a J Street official, Amy Spitalnick, Press and New Media Associate, who can be heard telling him he has to leave. The video ends at that point as, Stavis tells me, she grabbed at the camera.

And while J-Street (or specifically Jeremy Ben Ami) denied any connection between the organization and the bloggers’ panel, Michael Goldfarb observed:

The “independent” blogger panel at J Street’s conference can only be described as clownish. The panel consisted mostly of crackpots and self-described anti-Zionists and “one-staters” (J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami calls the one-state solution a “nightmare,” but it seems to be the dream of many of the organization’s supporters). Though J Street tried to distance itself from the panel by describing it as an “unofficial” and “independent” event, the bloggers used one of the rooms otherwise reserved for conference events, a podium in the front had a J Street placard on it, and a J Street banner hung on the back wall of the room.

And if it wasn’t enough that J-Street was promoting a group of unapologetic anti-Zionists, one of the organizations affiliates has decided that it will officially do away with the “pro-Israel” label. (h/t Elder of Ziyon)

“We don’t want to isolate people because they don’t feel quite so comfortable with ‘pro-Israel,’ so we say ‘pro-peace,’” said American University junior Lauren Barr of the “J Street U” slogan, “but behind that is ‘pro-Israel.’”

Barr, secretary of the J Street U student board that decided the slogan’s terminology, explained that on campus, “people feel alienated when the conversation revolves around a connection to Israel only, because people feel connected to Palestine, people feel connected to social justice, people feel connected to the Middle East.”

Martin Peretz wonders about the possible political repercussions J-Street will suffer.

Well, they did invite J Street, and now they are stuck with the damage. The J Streeters went around identifying themselves as Obama’s people in the crowd. I suppose that was good for them. But it was not good for Obama. The fact is that, by this past weekend, when J-Street launched its D.C. fest, it was already seen in the public mind as a bunch of nut cases and very much anti-Israel in the very substantive sense. It was callous about Iran’s nuclear threat to Israel, was against sanctions, supported negotiations with Hamas, which even the E.U. disdained. Moreover, it refuses to recognize that one obstacle to a two-state solution is that neither the Palestinians nor the other Arabs can even contemplate security guarantees to Israel.

Mr. President: You courted a friend. Now you have him. Woe is you.

My advice to J-Street, is: if you still insist that Israel is largely or mainly at fault for the failure of the Middle East peace process, if you give a platform to an anti-Zionist group and if you feel that calling yourself “pro-Israel” will hinder your recruitment efforts, you are anti-Israel. It’s your label. Wear it proudly.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

10/25/2009

The whiner that roared

Filed under: Israel — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 7:00 pm

You may not be aware, but the NJDC just had a conference. It was attended by many Democratic legislators, an advisor to the President and even, yes, Ambassador Michael Oren. But if you didn’t know about it, you won’t read about it in the Washington Post. Despite my disagreements with the NJDC, it is a real organization and doesn’t need phony PR to be something that it really isn’t.

J-Street is different. Its viability is dependent on its relevance. But it has no real constituency and it is premised on a phony belief that AIPAC is “too right wing.” But a few rich, self-promoting and politically connected Jews got together and figured that they were too important to be ignored and called themselves a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” alternative to AIPAC. They got some sympathetic mentions in newspapers and but as a commenter at Jeffrey Goldberg’s blog noted:

Who, of the Israeli electorate, does J-Street represent? They occasionally find themselves agreeing with Meretz, representing the leftmost 3% of all Jewish voters, but who did they represent when they spoke out against Cast Lead, a defensive war that even Meretz was in favor of?

In other words J-Street has no real constituency in Israel. And while Jews, in general, approve of President Obama’s handling of the Middle East, I doubt that, position by position they’d much approved of J-Street’s. Unless J-Street designed the polls themselves.

So with J-Street bleeding legislators and rejected by the Israeli ambassador, what does J-Street leader, Jeremy Ben Ami do? He finds another sympathetic journalist to whine to, in this case, Dan Eggen of the Washington Post who writes in Israel conference to open amid controversy:

J Street, an advocacy and lobbying firm created 18 months ago, is holding its first annual conference beginning Sunday, with participation from about 150 Democratic members of Congress, many current and former Israeli politicians and U.S. national security adviser James L. Jones, who will be giving a keynote speech Tuesday.

But the self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group has been rebuffed in its attempts to get Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Michael Oren, to speak at the gathering. In a statement explaining the refusal, the Israeli Embassy accused J Street of endorsing policies that “could impair Israel’s interests.”

I suppose that this report is a bit of self-promotion on Ben Ami’s part. It allows him to complain for example:

He said the group has been the victim of “thuggish smears” by conservatives who favor more hawkish policies in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and said he had hoped that Oren would have accepted an invitation to speak at the conference.

“I am extremely disappointed that this is the reaction of the government of Israel to an organization that is looking to expand the base of support in this country for Israel and is deeply concerned about its future,” Ben-Ami said.

“Thuggish smears?” Look, were the reports accurate?

Eggen also informs us:

The organization also abruptly canceled plans for a “poetry slam” at the event after conservative activists and bloggers unearthed writings by two participants that compared the suffering of Holocaust victims to that of Palestinians in Israel’s occupied territories.

and

Some conservatives have also criticized J Street for accepting donations from individuals connected to organizations doing Palestinian and Iranian advocacy work. In addition, conservatives have attacked the conference for including Salam al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who apologized in 2001 for suggesting on a radio show that Israel should be considered a suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The tone of the article, crediting (or blaming) “conservatives” with the criticisms of J-Street blunts the fact that these two events alone would put off most American Jews – if they knew about them. I also am baffled by framing al-Marayati’s rant in terms of his “apology.” Most people aren’t politically involved but they’d reasonably conclude that an organization that is willing to give a platform to someone who would blame Israel for 9/11 or compare Israel to Nazi Germany is not exactly pro-Israel. This isn’t a matter of conservative or liberal; it’s just common sense.

Eggen gets an excellent quote from Roberta Seid of Stand With Us:

Roberta Seid, research and education director for StandWithUs, said she views J Street as “outside the mainstream,” and that broad support for Obama among American Jews does not mean agreement with the administration’s Israel policy.

“American Jews seem to love Obama; American Jews are liberal,” Seid said. “But they are much firmer in their support of Israel and opposed to viewing the conflict as equally Israel’s fault. I think they draw the line there.”

Incidentally, Jeffrey Goldberg also gave Ben Ami the opportunity to whine. Goldberg generously linked to my account of J-Street’s blogging panel, asked him about it:

JG: On another subject, you’re giving some space at your conference to a group of bloggers who range from the anti-Zionist Max Blumenthal to the anti-Zionist Helena Cobban.

JB: There’s a lunch. They’ve asked us that, since there is a lunch, can we have a room where we who are bloggers on this issue can sit and talk to each other? I mean, give me a break, I’m not giving them any approval whatsoever, and there’s no sanction to their beliefs. I’m just saying, sure, there are seven free rooms on the floor, use one. I’m not going to say, “No you can’t eat lunch together.” I mean really.

So Ben Ami minimizes this “lunch.” Fine.Ben Ami concludes:

I believe that we are at the center. The Marty Peretzes and the Michael Goldfarbs and the Lenny Ben-Davids are on the right, to the far right, and there are people to our left, and we are in the middle trying to put forward a thoughtful, moderate, mainstream point of view about how to save Israel as a Jewish home.

It’s hogwash, of course. J-Street is pretty far to the left as it refuses to acknowledge the many concessions Israel has made over the past 16 years. But even if we take him at his word. Notice how casually he dismisses someone like Martin Peretz, who, if anything, is close in ideology to the Labor party of Israel. Is someone like Peretz really “to the far right?”

But even if we eschew political labels, what would Jeremy Ben Ami answer if he were asked who his own view coincided with more: Martin Peretz or Helena Cobban? He never explicitly makes the choice, but I think you can draw a reasonable conclusion from the interview that he identifies more with Cobban, the anti-Zionist, Hamas booster, than with the Zionist, Peretz. I do not understand how people could read Eggen’s article or Goldberg’s interview and believe that J-Street could be classified as “pro-Israel.”

For more J-Street reading please check out JoshuaPundit and the Hashmonean.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.

10/14/2009

An invitation to decline

Filed under: Israel — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

J-Street in an effort to increase its relevance, has been lining up well known speakers for its upcoming convention.

Such efforts to delegitimize the organization appear to have failed, with 160 congressional lawmakers endorsing its conference. The slate of scheduled speakers includes several former top Israeli officials.

In addition, Rabbi Eric Yoffie, who leads the country’s largest synagogue movement, the Union for Reform Judaism, is co-chairing the main event — a town hall meeting on Israel’s relationship with American Jews. U.S. Reps. Robert Wexler (D-Fla.) and Jan Schakowsky (D-Ill.), leaders in Congress’ unofficial Jewish caucus and close to President Obama, are taking part in a panel that examines how one to expand the definition of “pro-Israel” on the Hill.

Most notable, perhaps, is the participation of Yoffie, who tussled earlier this year with J Street over its equivocation over naming Hamas as the villain in Israel’s Gaza war. He told JTA that J Street’s views deserve a hearing in the wider Jewish community, and praised the group for doing more than many more established groups to promote the Israeli position of a two-state solution.

(Wexler, by the way, is resigning his seat – via memeorandum. So Maryland will have one less Democratic congressman.)

But there’s one big fish that J-Street has yet to land – Israeli Ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren. J-Street’s executive director, Jeremy Ben Ami wrote an open letter to Amb. Oren in the Jerusalem Post.

MR. AMBASSADOR, what J Street shares in common with you far outweighs that on which we disagree. J Street, on behalf of the many Jewish Americans who share our views, urges you to join us as we discuss, debate and – in the best tradition of the Jewish people – argue over how best to ensure the health, safety and vibrancy of the Jewish people and of Israel for generations to come.

Your attendance – even to clarify some of our areas of disagreement – will be respectfully welcomed, and we promise you an open hearing as we hope and expect you will welcome us at the embassy one day to present our views and opinions in that same spirit.

Despite Ben Ami’s friendly tone, this is an invitation that the ambassador ought to decline. When Israel was fighting Hamas earlier this year, J-Street was opposed the war. If one of the sessions at the J-Street conference will be how to expand the definition of “pro-Israel,” the organization must be well aware that it’s current stance, by any reasonable standard, is anti-Israel. As such Ambassador Oren ought to stay away rather than grant J-Street recognition by his appearance.

(I’d add that in addition to being anti-Israel, isn’t strongly Jewish in its makeup either.)

In case one remains unconvinced of where J-Street stands, recall its founding. It was founded by – among others – George Soros (who is no longer associated with the group). who decried the excessive influence of the “Israel Lobby” on American politics.

Michael Oren is far smarter and more persuasive than I am. Perhaps he will go to the conference and rebuke his hosts. That would be an interesting approach.

Otherwise Oren ought not to go. J-Street’s advocacy for peace immediately when peace is not at hand is a recipe for disaster. Official recognition of the organization by the Israeli government will only strengthen its hand.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

09/14/2009

J-Street: The lobby that isn’t

Filed under: Israel, Media Bias, Religion — Tags: , — Meryl Yourish @ 11:30 am

One of the things that struck me in the New York Times’ hagiography of J-Street is this quote:

The average age of the dozen or so staff members is about 30. Ben-Ami speaks for, and to, this post-Holocaust generation. “They’re all intermarried,” he says. “They’re all doing Buddhist seders.”

And of course, this follows logically:

They are, he adds, baffled by the notion of “Israel as the place you can always count on when they come to get you.”

So we have Jews that aren’t very Jewish running a pro-Israel lobby group that isn’t very pro-Israel. It makes a crazy kind of sense. But of course, it’s also an influential lobby that isn’t very influential. And a representative group that isn’t really representative.

But if you count J-Street as the Buddhist, intermarrying, Arab-supported segment of the Israel Lobby, it all works.

(Celebrating Passover with idolatry. Wow. That’s a new low.)

09/09/2009

When your enemy’s a lightbulb

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Q. How many psychiatrists does it take to change a light bulb?
A. Only one, but the light bulb really has to want to change.

In defense of their stance on Hamas, J-Street writes (h/t Jennifer Rubin):

We also recognize, however, that one makes peace with one’s enemies not one’s friends. Hamas is a political movement that has an important and significant base of support within Palestinian society and politics. Ultimately, a political resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict will require Palestinian political reconciliation and we support efforts by third parties to achieve reconciliation and a unity government, whose officials will work within a diplomatic process to achieve an acceptable two-state solution.

That platitude about making peace with one’s enemies is a variation on a statement made by Yitzchak Rabin, and it is highly misleading. You make with your enemies when those enemies are willing to accept you. But if your enemy still maintains a hostile stance, no amount of concessions or recognition are going to lead to peace. This was the fallacy as Yasser Arafat pronounced his support for peace in English to international audiences and simultaneously encouraged his people to reject Israel and embrace terror. Hamas hasn’t even bothered to soften its stance to the rest of the world. Other than certain limited goals, Hamas has earned the right to be shunned.

But what’s disturbing here, is that J-Street – in defending itself no less – puts Palestinian reconciliation was a necessary condition for peace. That means encouraging the superficially moderate Fatah to give the implacable terrorists of Hamas a veto over the peace process. J-Street isn’t just anti-Israel, it’s anti-peace too!

J-Street can claim that it is not anti-Israel, but if after the Israeli withdrawals in 1995 were followed by a wave of terror in 1996; after the Camp David talks were followed by the “Aqsa intifada”; after Israel’s withdrawal from Lebanon was followed by the strengthening of Hezbollah and the threat to northern Israel and after Israel’s withdrawal from Gaza was followed by the strengthening of Hamas and the threat to southern Israel, it’s impossible to argue that what the peace process needs is more American pressure on Israel rather than an Arab change of heart. But it’s pressure on Israel that J-Street advocates. So yes, given the historical record of Israeli concessions and the belligerent response to them, advocating for American pressure for future concessions is objectively anti-Israel.

It’s also interesting that J-Street has adopted the style of its nemesis, AIPAC by presenting its defense in the form of “Myths and Facts.” Of course when the organization itself becomes the focus of its activism – as is the case now with J-Street – it no longer truly advocates anything, it’s simply self absorbed. Yes, perhaps it is time to pack it in.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

07/15/2009

The president’s ear

Filed under: Israel, Israeli Double Standard Time, Politics — Tags: , , — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

Jeremy Ben Ami of J-Street who was at the meeting between Jewish leaders and President Obama, thought that the President was amazing. In an extremely soft interview Ben Ami recounts:

One is Malcolm Hoenlein’s, and he’s said this publicly, that he feels that history shows us that progress is made on the peace front when Israel and the U.S. are in lockstep and there’s no daylight between them on their position publicly. And the president said ‘With all due respect, I would disagree. For eight years under the prior administration, there was no daylight between the two sides and there was no progress on the peace front, and no hard decisions were confronted, no progress was made.’ He very politely, but very clearly, disagrees with the notion that there shouldn’t be a public space between the Israeli government’s and the U.S. government’s position. I think that’s a very important point.

And the second example would be a question of tone, where there are those in the room who would say that the president has been one-sided in his demands. And that he is only asking things of Israel, and the president really again pushed back, very calmly but firmly, and said no, that he has on every occasion, where he has spoken out publicly, and where the [U.S.] government has taken a position, made it clear that there are obligations and steps that must be taken by Israel, and obligations and steps that must be taken by Palestinians and the broader Arab community. If we’re going to make progress, both sides have to live up to commitments and both sides have to take some steps.

Except that President Obama has been very clear and specific about what he demands of Israel – plus he has reversed American policy regarding the Middle East. He has been rather general about what he asks of the Palestinians and the Arab world. And he hasn’t pushed those requests very hard either.

Martin Peretz, an Obama supporter on most other matters dissents (via memeorandum):

Frankly, I am sick and tired of President Obama’s eldering–more accurately, hectoring–Israel’s leaders. It is, after all, they whose country is the target of an armed and ideological cyclone that Obama has done precious little to ease. He brought nothing back from Riyadh and Cairo, absolutely nothing except the conviction of the Arab leaders that they need do nothing but sit and wait until the president squeezes one concession after another out of Jerusalem. Oops, I apologize. Maybe I should still say Tel Aviv. In any case, waiting is exactly what they are doing. Palestinian President Abbas has prided himself in doing just that.

In a similar vein Bill Kristol writes:

According to the article, Obama told Jewish leaders at the White House yesterday that Israel would need “to engage in serious self-reflection.”

“Serious self-reflection!” It’s really good that Barack Obama is reminding the leaders and people of Israel to engage in that. I hope they’re up to it. After all, what do Israelis know about reflecting on, and living with, the life and death consequences of political decisions? What do Bibi Netanyahu and Ehud Barak and Moshe Ya’alon — either as individuals or as leaders — know about war and peace? These are guys — and the Israelis are a people — who just coast along, taking an easy path, never debating, never thinking, never questioning, never second-guessing…and never making or asking their fellow citizens to make sacrifices.

It’s kind of odd that President Obama would on the one hand claim that it’s a misperception that he is exerting undue pressure on Israel and on the other claim that it’s good that there are differences (or “daylight”) between Israel and the United States. And this is a point that the Orthodox Union made in its statement about the meeting.

However, while the President’s acknowledgment of this perception gap is encouraging, the Orthodox Union remains deeply troubled by the President’s underlying approach – which is to have the U.S. play an “evenhanded” role. The Orthodox Union asks our President to recognize that there are no moral equivalencies between Israel, which has acted time and again to defend itself while actively seeking peace, and those who reject Israel’s legitimacy and make war against her. We look to the United States to be Israel’s friend in a world of enemies and we support the view, expressed to the President in our meeting, that while allies may of course disagree on specifics, there ought not be significant “daylight” between the United States and Israel that would give the nations’ mutual enemies comfort and encouragement.


Jennifer Rubin summarizes:

It is a shame more groups didn’t express these sentiments to the president; it would have served to educate and persuade him of the misguided and unwise course he has chosen to pursue. The president is trying to pass this all off as a “perception” problem, which is odd for a man who prides himself on his communication skills. To be understood so badly and to have so many take away an unintended message is indeed a failure of public diplomacy.

But let’s be honest here. It is more than perception. The president told those in attendance that he doesn’t think there’s anything wrong with “daylight” between the U.S. and Israel. In fact, he thinks the failure of the Bush administration consisted of, in essence, providing too much support to our ally Israel. Obama is in the “even-handed” business — as he is with so many international questions.

However Rubin is wrong to wonder why more groups at the meeting didn’t object. President Obama wasn’t reaching out to the Jewish community, he was dictating to it. Malcolm Hoenlein, Steven Savitsky and Abraham Foxman were exceptions at the meeting. Remember three of the groups represented ( J-Street, NJDC and APN) are headed by Democratic party activists. J-Street is an adjunct of the Obama campaign as one of its founders (and funders) is Alan Solomont, who was a major contributor to Obama’s presidential bid.

Peretz and Michael Totten, for example, think that there is growing dissatisfaction among Jews about President Obama’s positions on the Middle East. I hope so. And I hope, that if it’s so, more Jews (and pro-israel Christians) will make that dissatisfaction public. I don’t need Jeremy Ben Ami – someone whose constituency is not much larger than the President’s ear claiming the he speaks for me.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

04/30/2009

If the anti-Israel shoe fits, wear it

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 1:00 pm

Ruthie Blue Leibowitz interviews Jeremy ben-Ami of J-Street.

What constitutes being “anti-Israel?”

Being anti-Israel means rejecting the notion of the right of the Jewish people to a state that didn’t exist before, and that its establishment was a mistake. Those who question the very founding premise of this state are anti-Israel.

Ben Ami is skilled enough not to sound totally crazy in the interview. But the question behind every reasonable sounding he gives is: how will American pressure on Israel bring peace to the Middle East when the other side – both Hamas and Fatah – is clearly anti-Israel?

Still Ben Ami can take some comfort from the fact that there are those who think that he’s perfectly reasonable.

Among the many amusing sidelights to this rant is that Walt recommends that Bibi ditch Evangelical supporters of Israel and instead invite J-Street front man Jeremy Ben-Ami to Jerusalem to be his advisor. That’s funny because ever since J Street was born Ben-Ami has claimed that critics of his group who drew a straight line between his “pro-Israel lobby” and the anti-Israel philosophy of Walt and Mearsheimer are wrong. Somebody needs to tell Walt that his support won’t help Ben-Ami’s futile attempt to portray himself as the true voice of American Jewry on Israel.

Hmm. The pro-Israel Ben Ami gets an endorsement from the anti-Israel, Walt.

Related reading: Doing the J-Street Jive, J-Street and defining pro-Israel, and J-Street: You Know What American Campuses Need? More Left Wing Anti-Israel Activism.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

04/17/2009

Happy birthday to J-Street

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 8:00 am

The Washington Post sends a Happy Birthday card to J-Street, New Liberal Jewish Lobby Quickly Makes Its Mark:

When a group of Jewish liberals formed a lobbying and fundraising group called J Street a year ago, they had modest hopes of raising $50,000 for a handful of congressional candidates.

Instead, the group’s political arm ended up funneling nearly $600,000 to several dozen Democrats and a handful of Republicans in 2008, making it Washington’s leading pro-Israel PAC, according to Federal Election Commission expenditure records. Organizers say 33 of the group’s 41 favored House and Senate candidates won their races.

The article mentions some messy observations, but overall the tone is positive. For example:

Ben-Ami also said J Street deserves credit for attracting more than 100 co-sponsors in the House for a resolution welcoming Obama’s appointment of Mitchell as Mideast envoy; AIPAC was neutral on the issue.

This is about as uncontroversial an action as J-Street has undertaken, so to cite it as an example of its success is a bit underwhelming. What about J-Street’s opposition to Operation Cast Lead? Noah Pollak provides a necessary perspective.

In the early days of J Street, M.J. Rosenberg, the policy director of the Israel Policy Forum, a group that Rosenberg says works “in parallel” with J Street, speculated that Jewish Democrats such as Barney Frank would become more critical of Israel if a liberal Jewish group existed to provide them moral and financial support. “They hear from the right-wing AIPAC crowd on this issue, but the people on the left talk to them about other issues,” Rosenberg said. “They don’t talk to them about this one. So I think all it takes is them hearing that this is what their constituents want, and I think that they will moderate their positions.”

Rosenberg thought wrong. Barney Frank defended Cast Lead vigorously, saying that it is “a terrible thing to have happen but I think Americans ought to think about this, frankly, as analogous to what we did in Afghanistan.” Other J Street endorsees in the House of Representatives, such as Adam Schiff of California, Robert Wexler of Florida, and Charles Rangel of New York, made similar pronouncements.

Whoops.

And I just noticed (h/t Simply Jews) that J-Street has endorsed the showing of “Seven Jewish Children.”

Ami Isseroff writes:

But our concern must firstly be with the J-Street organization that has endorsed the staging of this play, supposedly in its capacity as a “pro-Israel” “pro-Peace” organization. J-Street has also endorsed Israeli recognition of Hamas, presumably on the basis of accepting as legitimate Hamas’s declared goals of destroying the Jewish state and physical annihilation of the Jewish people.

The BBC does not have a good record regarding neutrality in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and has spent a fortune to bury a report that shows its consistent pro-Palestinian bias. Nonetheless, even the BBC wisely and justifiably refused to air this play.. What can we say about a supposedly “pro-Israel” organization that is is more anti-Israel than the BBC?

On the topic of J-Street’s endorsement there’s also Jamie Kirchick

J Street attempts to cover itself with a fig leaf of moral deniability by saying that it “takes no position on the content” of Seven Jewish Children but insists that its performance is a good thing nonetheless because it will encourage “a difficult but necessary conversation.” If you don’t understand this distinction between the play’s anti-Semitic message and the desirability of putting it on, it’s because there is no distinction. Just the opposite: To J Street, the inflammatory message of Seven Jewish Children is precisely what makes it worthy of production.

INSTEAD of admitting this, J Street engages in a feeble and transparent attempt at having it both ways, distancing itself from the disgusting content of the play while encouraging the spectacle of pain that will follow in its wake. J Street says that Seven Jewish Children will contribute to debate about Israel. Which part of it contributes to what part of the debate? The part where the Jews celebrate the killing of Arab children? Or is it the part where they use the memory of the Holocaust to justify the wanton slaughter of Palestinians?

(J-Street’s Jeremy ben-Ami wrote a non-response to Kirchick.)

I’ve posted about Seven Jewish Children before, including a link to Bret Stephens’ critique of the play. It is rather astonishing that an organization that claims to be “pro-peace” and “pro-Israel” would endorse such agitprop. But then again, it seems more and more that the new pro-Israel is the old anti-Israel.

Though not referring to J-Street on its birthday, Legal Insurrection sums up the group’s focus nicely:

What is important, however, is that the liberal bloggers — on whose beneficence J Street depends — have it all wrong. J Street’s blame Israel first focus is as old as Israel itself. Study history, not just your own memories, and you will see that pressuring Israel to put itself in a strategically weak position in the hope of garnering Arab goodwill has been advocated for generations. Peace may come to the region, but only when Israel is accepted as a legitimate and permanent Jewish state, not a “cancerous growth” which needs to be exterminated; and when moves towards peace and conciliation are not merely strategic ploys to push back the borders.

So J-Street advocates the recognition of Hamas and celebrates an antisemitic play. It is endorsed by Stephen Walt who likes its “pressure Israel” stand. In fact J-Street isn’t a new “pro-peace,” “pro-Israel” organization, but a recycled anti-Israel organization. But don’t tell the Washington Post that.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

02/01/2009

J-Street’s credibility on thin ice

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome, Politics — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Crack.
Splash!

Related here. At least J-Street is pretty open about being anti-Israel (though it calls it pro-Israel), the NJDC pretends that being a Democrat means one is pro-Israel by definition. So instead of being dishonest but consistent, they’re just dishonest and incoherent.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad,

11/18/2008

Walkin’ on J-Street

Filed under: Israel — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 10:00 am

In a poll this past summer pro-Palestinian lobbying group, J-Street, found (MS Word file):

Jews want America to be much more aggressive in its Middle East peace efforts than it is today. We conducted an extensive exercise in the survey, first asking people whether they supported the United States playing an active role in helping the parties resolve the Arab-Israeli conflict. Initial support for this general statement was a remarkable 87 percent. Then, we asked if they would still support America assuming an active role if it meant the U.S. taking tough positions such as publicly disagreeing with both the Israelis and Arabs or exerting pressure on both parties to make compromises. Support remained very strong after these harder tests that gauged reactions to public disagreement (75 percent) and pressure (70 percent). “Firm support” – that is, the number of people who supported all three statements – was 66 percent and represents an extraordinarily strong base of people who seek active American engagement. After we presented a mixture of hawkish and pro-peace messages, we re-asked this series of questions and the “firm support” number was unchanged. In other words, when the debate is engaged by both sides, Jews strongly support America taking major steps to pursue peace between the Israelis and Palestinians.

Hmm. Well a new poll shows something else.

In addition, 66 percent said America should be a supporter of Israel, with just 6 percent saying America should be a supporter of the Palestinians. Some 80 percent of those who called themselves Republicans and 59 percent of Democrats said America should support Israel.

Not that the United States should be even-handed as J-Street’s poll supposedly says, but that the United States should support Israel.

Ron Kampeas of the JTA has taken to doing J-Street’s work for them and quotes the organization’s Jeremy Ben Ami without responding.

Why does the Israel Project insist on asking Americans to choose sides between the Israelis and the Palestinians in a conflict that the United States is uniquely positioned to help resolve?

The right question is what percent of Americans support active U.S. leadership to resolve the conflict in order to provide both sides with security and peace. Perhaps knowing that that number would have been above 80 percent, the Israel Project chose not to ask that question.

Now you know the problem. Ben Ami’s premise is false. If he were right we’d have had peace by the end of President Clinton’s second term. President Clinton did what J-Street’s ancestors advocated and applied political pressure to Israel when Netanyahu was Prime Minister. For nearly his entirely two terms President Clinton was actively involved in the peace process, even pushing negotiations once the “Aqsa intifada” had started at the end of his term. If Ben Ami were correct, we’d be living now in Messianic times.

The current machinations of Fatah should be enough to disabuse J-Street of their faith that American involvement will automatically bring peace. In the end the Palestinians need to accept Israel’s presence in the Middle East and recognize that they are not going to get everything they – or the Saudis – claim. No amount of American money, encouragement or cajoling is going to change Palestinian resistance to Israel. And pretending that it’s “settlements” and not Palestinian rejectionism that is the primary obstacle to peace only serves to justify that very same rejectionsim and the accompanying violence.

See more at Israel Matzav, who (more or less) correctly predicted J-Street’s response. Daniel Pipes wrote about a similar divergence 11 years ago.

UPDATE: I’ve added a bit to the original post.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

09/23/2008

With more victories like this …

Filed under: Israel — Tags: — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

*This post is now complete*

Clyde Haberman starts off well:

Once a year, the Israel-threatening, Holocaust-denying, nuke-building and child-hanging president of Iran, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, comes to New York for the opening ceremonies of the United Nations General Assembly.

Many New Yorkers don’t like having him around. But they have no choice. Foreign leaders must be allowed to attend these sessions, no matter how Israel-threatening, Holocaust-denying, nuke-building and child-hanging they may be.

Glad he recognizes what Ahmadinejad is.

However, the article goes down from there. Haberman leaves out the part that the organizers did invite Biden who was otherwise occupied. And it’s nice of him dismiss that the whole episode angered “some Jews on the right.” Nice way to disparage those you disagree with. But of course he doesn’t mention the organized effort by Democrats to sink the Palin speech. And then he offers this observation:

But people on the left saw no equivalence between the Democratic senator and the Republican governor. Only one of them is a candidate. Inviting Ms. Palin, they charged, tilted the rally toward the Republican national ticket — an impression not likely to be dispelled by the many signs on Monday supporting Senator John McCain and none backing Senator Barack Obama.

Game. Set. Match to the Left.

Not so fast. In reaction to the partisan tactics of the left, many on the right stayed away. That’s an observation that Atlas made. So if the right wing groups stayed away, how was it that there were more McCain signs than Obama signs?

1) As a reaction to the partisan maneuvering of those allied with the Obama campaign, quite a few protesters of Ahmadinejad registered their dissatisfaction with the campaign that politicized the event.
2) The left wing groups had little interest in attending if Sen. Clinton wasn’t speaking.

Overall Haberman’s observation is based on a false assumption that because there were more McCain signs after the flap, it meant that the protest was partisan in its planning.


Gateway Pundit has more.

Caroline Glick distilled things with doesn’t pull her punches when assigning blame to the likes of the NDJC and J-Street.

LIBERAL AMERICAN Jews, like liberal Americans in general, and indeed like their fellow leftists in Israel and throughout the West, uphold themselves as champions of human rights. They claim that they care about the underdog, the wretched of the earth. They care about the environment. They care about securing American women’s unfettered access to abortions. They care about keeping Christianity and God out of the public sphere. They care about offering peace to those who are actively seeking their destruction so that they can applaud themselves for their open-mindedness and tell themselves how much better they are than savage conservatives.

Those horrible, war-mongering, Bambi killing, unborn baby defending, God-believing conservatives, who think that there are things worth going to war to protect, must be defeated at all costs. They must intimidate, attack, demonize and defeat those conservatives who think that the free women of the West should be standing shoulder to shoulder not with Planned Parenthood, but with the women of the Islamic world who are enslaved by a misogynist Shari’a legal code that treats them as slaves and deprives them of control not simply of their wombs, but of their faces, their hair, their arms, their legs, their minds and their hearts.

The lives of 6 million Jews in Israel are today tied to the fortunes of those women, to the fortunes of American forces in Iraq, to the willingness of Americans across the political and ideological spectrum to recognize that there is more that unifies them than divides them and to act on that knowledge to defeat the forces of genocide, oppression, hatred and destruction that are led today by the Iranian regime and personified in the brutal personality of Ahmadinejad. But Jewish Democrats chose to ignore this basic truth in order to silence Palin.

Solomonia writes somewhat more generally, but in the same vein.

And when it comes down to it, it’s not Jews in Israel that motivates Democrats, and it’s not Jews in America that motivates them either. It’s their own power. It’s their own little dinners, and board memberships, and their silly narcissistic college freshman platitudes…that’s what motivates them. And when they finally get around to looking out the window, their bogeyman isn’t an Iran armed with nuclear weapons led by a Holocaust-denying antisemitic America-hater…it’s “conservatives.” Ahmadinejad is, after all, an ocean away, but it’s conservatives here at home that prevent them from inflicting their peculiar vision of the worker’s paradise on all of the rest of us.

Instapundit observed

That may put an end to the gloating from J Street, anyway

That would be a good result from all of this.

Given that they claim to speak for American Jewry (and that was the pretext they used for opposing Palin’s speech, this result doesn’t look too good for them, does it? Too many more victories like this and that poll of Jewish New Yorkers may not be an outlier much longer.

Daled Amos links to an interview of Malcolm Hoenlein.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

09/21/2008

The connection betweeen J-street and the Obama campaign

Filed under: Iran, Israel, Politics — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 9:00 am

One name: Alan Solomont.

I posted a comment about him at LGF.

There’s suspicion among some observers that the National Jewish Democratic Council was a significant player in the decision to cancel invitations to all politicians to speak at the Stop Iran rally.

Solomonia wrote:

…let’s be clear, I’m sure the real culprit for politicizing this was the National Jewish Democratic Council, not the still-fringe in all but funding, J-Street

Similarly Wizbang wrote:

Enter the National Jewish Democratic Council, which supports the Obama Campaign. They were enlisted and put to the front to apply direct pressure to the Conference of Presidents, also a Jewish organization. And it is not a stretch to imagine (though wholly my conjecture) that the Conference of Presidents has donors among the NJDC, and therefore more than simply conceivable that there were threats of significant funding halts and other future obstacles from among powerful NJDC members.

I disagree. I think that J-Street was the prime mover. That’s because of Alan Solomont.

Solomont was one of the main forces behind J-Street. Here’s Solomont on why he helped found J-Street:

“The definition of what it means to be pro-Israel has come to diverge from pursuing a peace settlement,” said Alan Solomont, a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser involved in the initiative. In recent years, he said, “We have heard the voices of neocons, and right-of-center Jewish leaders and Christian evangelicals, and the mainstream views of the American Jewish community have not been heard.”

Solomont also saw in the current Democratic nominee for president, Barack Obama, a kindred spirit.

Solomont, however, approaches his work not as just helping a candidate but as furthering a cause.

“This is a mission-driven, value-laden enterprise, and I am philosophical about it,” he said during an interview in the memorabilia-filled conference room of his office in this Boston suburb.

Throughout the conversation, Solomont emphasized that raising money is a means to an end: getting politicians who share his goals of a more economically and socially just country. He said his work is deeply driven by the Jewish teachings he learned growing up in an observant household in the nearby town of Brookline.

There’s more:

“The war on poverty created structures for citizen involvement, and my work centered on getting people empowered through collective action,” he said.

After working as a community organizer Solomont, who has undergraduate degrees in nursing and political science, made his wealth in the nursing home and senior home health care businesses. He now devotes almost all his time to political and philanthropic work.

Solomont says working as an organizer helped him form an instant bond with Obama, who undertook similar efforts in Chicago in the 1980s.

Alan Solomont supports Barack Obama because he sees someone who holds the same values. J-Street’s participation in the effort to torpedo Palin’s appearance at the anti-Iran rally is what suggests that this was a coordinated effort run by the Democratic party to dis-invite her, regardless of cost.

In a profile of Solomont from four years ago, here’s how he’s described:

“The word ‘fund-raiser, fund-raiser, fund-raiser’ keeps repeating,” remarks Steve Grossman, former chairman of the Democratic National Committee and a longtime friend of the Solomonts. “But what I think people don’t understand as well about Alan and Susan is that they have a great strategic sense, so they can synthesize and bring multiple skills to the table.”

See that phrase “strategic sense.” The campaign against having Palin speak had a feel of being purposeful. Let’s go back to Wizbang again to understand the motivation:

Make no mistake that this was an Obama op and that it was Obama operatives directing the screenplay. Upon news of Palin’s invitation, it was assured that the event would garner a higher level of attention than it already commanded. And the images and footage of Palin speaking in protest (popular protest, it should be added) of Iran and the messianic Ahmadinejad upon the backdrop of the common perception of Obama’s weakness in foreign policy and national security simply could not stand. Furthermore, it would have provided endless campaign fodder with Palin shown standing against the world’s foremost state sponsor of international terrorism amid the audio-visual bites of Obama stating he would hold talks with Iran without preconditions. The effects would potentially be more than just stinging.

So I think it was J-Street that was the senior partner to the Obama campaign in torpedoing the anti-Ahmadinejad rally.

Tigerhawk sums it up nicely:

“Whether Barack Obama can be said to be ‘good for the Jews’ is too portentous a question even for this blog. It is now safe to say, however, that his campaign is not.”

(h/t Instapundit)

UPDATE: Lynn-B (In Context) writes in the comments:

You make a convincing case that Solomont had the motivation and the ideology to pull these strings but not that he had the clout. I don’t see it. J-Street is still a legend in its own mind. It doesn’t have the power to influence the Conference. The NJDC, however, clearly does. And it was quite transparent in its attempts.

Perhaps I’m guilty of allowing my distaste for J-Street exaggerate their true level of influence – and thus I’m helping them trumpet their reputation unnecessarily. But what I’m trying to argue is that J-Street is an adjunct of the Obama campaign not an allied movement and that J-Street is a lot more tied in to the Democratic party.

Look at J-Street’s advisory council. One name that sticks out is Debra Delee, who is not only CEO of APN but is also, like Alan Solomont, a Democratic superdelegate. My guess is that she’s not alone. So while the NJDC may promote the Democratic party, my guess (and it’s only a guess,) is that J-Street is – in large part – the Democratic party.

I’m willing to concede that I might be giving too much credit to J-Street. But I don’t think so. But I’ll have to admit I don’t have strong proof of that.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

06/27/2008

What color is the sky on J-Street?

Filed under: Israel, Israel Derangement Syndrome — Tags: , — Soccerdad @ 8:30 am

J-Street has a wonderful new feature that allows you to send a letter to the editor of a local paper to support J-Street’s views. I decided to take advantage.

Amy Teibel’s report on the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has a very important sentence in the middel, “Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for the past year, has said it will enforce the truce, but not confront militants from other groups who violate the deal.”

In other words Israel made a deal with a partner unwilling to live up to its side of the bargain. Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh said last week that his organization would not stop the smuggling of weapons into Israel.

In word and deed Hamas is showing itself to be just as committed to peace as Fatah was:not at all.

.

You’ll note that my text doesn’t match the default message that J-Street recommended.

Why’d I go to J-Street. Well you see they’re very proud of an ad (pdf) they just sponsored in the NY Times. The ad reads in part:

If Israel had gone to war this week, established pro-Israel organizations would have rallied to its side. There would have been ads, press releases, fundraising appeals and political speeches. Let’s have the courage to support Israel loudly and clearly when it pursues security through diplomacy.

If Israel had reacted to the repeated provocations by going to war against Hamas this week, much of the world would have ignored the reasons went to war and reflexively condemned Israel for protecting its citizens. Pro-Israel organizations would have rallied to support Israel in the face of the concerted efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state. It isn’t a matter of supporting war, it’s a matter of trusting Israel’s government to defend the lives of its citizens.

When J-Street asks pro-Israel groups to show courage, it’s a shame that it lacks the courage to criticize Israel’s enemies who show contempt for diplomacy and care nothing for the lives of Jews in Israel.

They cannot even bring themselves to criticize Hamas for working against peace.

And yet they call themselves pro-Israel and pro-peace. I wonder what color the sky is in that world the denizens of J-street inhabit.

Crossposted on Soccer Dad.

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