J Street Looks for the Middle Road

The new Israel lobby group made a spectacular entrance, but it now must walk a political tightrope to build its credibility.

BY GIDEON LICHFIELD | NOVEMBER 6, 2009

Pack 1,500 people into a room meant for 1,000, observed one cynic, and you're bound to create a buzz. Yet the excitement at J Street's first annual conference last week in Washingon had to do with more than overcrowding. It was the hum of an awakening, as a motley assemblage of leftish American Jewish organizations -- from progressive synagogues and peace campaigners to student groups and social activists -- looked around at each other and realized that, for the first time, they had a common political voice.

That voice says it is possible to be "pro-Israel and pro-peace," or even, as one of J Street's founders put it, "pro-Israel and pro-Palestinian." Set up to challenge the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), the main Jewish-American lobbying group on Capitol Hill, J Street argues that it is in America's and Israel's own best interests for the United States to be more hands-on in trying to reach a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. It promotes "honest discussion of American and Israeli policies" (code for "it's OK to criticize Israel sometimes.") And it offers to connect members of Congress with Jewish donors who share its views, so they can deviate from the AIPAC line without losing funding.

For an organization just 18 months old, it is indisputably doing well. Besides being oversubscribed, the conference had a respectable number of legislators at the gala dinner; it got a hearty welcome from President Barack Obama's administration in the form of James L. Jones, the national security advisor; and it gave birth to an activist community. The panels crackled with debate and the coffee breaks seethed with discussions of new projects. Students demanded to know how to set up J Street chapters on their campuses. Israelis who had made the trip over, enervated by years of conflict and the slow implosion of their own country's peace camp, were electrified.

But in many ways, that was the easy part. Now J Street must navigate a delicate political course. Inevitably, it has come under attack from the right. It exposed itself to this by choosing, at least initially, to be a broad church. Although the lobby's official line cleaves rigidly to the two-state solution, people at the conference ranged from traditional Zionists to "one-staters" (some of them peeved at not having been invited to speak). That makes for a vibrant grass-roots movement, but inevitably, the more fringe views are often the loudest. And it is easy for rightists to find someone currently or previously associated with J street whom they don't like -- such as George Soros, or even, horror of horrors, Arabs -- and thus tar the entire organization as a pernicious anti-Israel scheme. On the left, meanwhile, J Street has been dismissed as "AIPAC lite." But if it tries to silence some of its more left-wing supporters in an attempt to court conservative Jewish opinion, it risks losing its base.

To call J Street "anti-Israel" is simply absurd. But a harder charge to shake off is that it doesn't represent the Jewish mainstream. The lobby's oft-repeated claim that it speaks for the silent majority, because most Jews in both America and Israel support a two-state solution, is slightly disingenuous. The difficulty is not with the solution, but how to get there. The split between Fatah in the West Bank and Hamas in Gaza, though it can be blamed as much on U.S. and Israeli meddling as on Palestinian infighting, has left the Palestinians without leaders who can do a deal on their behalf, much less carry it through. AIPAC doesn't oppose a two-state deal; it just doesn't trust the Palestinians to implement one. A lot of Israelis would agree.

So the question is how much J Street's alignment with Israeli thinking matters. One view is that credibility in Washington must be won first in Jerusalem and that J Street will therefore have to work hard at its conservative profile. "AIPAC is the Likud in America," said one Israeli at the conference. "J Street needs to be Kadima," Israel's most centrist party, which espouses a two-state deal. (Kadima won the most seats in the last election, though it was the Likud that managed to form a right-wing coalition.) But while J Street won endorsements from Kadima's leader, Tzipi Livni, as well as the president of Israel, Shimon Peres, the names on a letter of support from Israeli dignitaries suggested that most of its friends there are from Labor or Meretz, the declining parties of the Israeli peace camp.

Courtesy of Gideon Lichfield

 

Gideon Lichfield is deputy editor of The Economist online and was previously its Jerusalem correspondent.

Facebook|Twitter|Reddit

JACOB BLUES

11:59 AM ET

November 9, 2009

J-Street needs to build its pro-Israel cred. to have success

When one reads the myriad of articles on J-Street, something comes quickly to the forefront.

J-Street is not a pro-Israel lobby. It's a collective of leftist and progressive groups who want to have a say on Israeli policy and are using their credentials as Jews, to give their ideas to attack Israel, credibility.

From the grand expose in the NY Times Sunday magazine, to the many pro J-Street opinions in Ha'Aretz, to the article above, the goal has been to advance the cause of the left.

We see how J-Street's 'clout' is measured by their invitation to President Obama's meeting with many Jewish leadership groups. The cry heard from there was that J-Street was in tune with the US President.

We see it at J-Street's opening convention. Not only does the leadership need to actively remove poets from the agenda who attempt to link Israel to the Nazi's, but who's own college wing asks for-- and receives approval to remove the 'Pro-Israel' part of the lobbying group's "Pro-Israel ; Pro-Peace" mantra. This, because the 'Pro-Israel' idea would be a turnoff to potential supporters.

When the above issues are mixed together with the reality that there are Arabs and Muslims who are a part of what is supposedly a pro-Israel advocacy group, then yes, one has to wonder just what is J-Street's ultimate vision.

Now, Mr. Lichfield points to the need for J-Street to critique Israel's selection of Foreign Minister. Say what you want about Avigdor Lieberman (good, bad, or outright ugly), the idea of a US lobbying group looking to criticize the appointment of another nation's elected leadership, as part of its advocacy, to me seems problematic at the least.

To date, AIPAC never pushed their opinion over Israeli domestic decisions. Left or Right, Labor or Likud, AIPAC was there to back Israel, period.

Ultimately, for J-Street to gain any traction with the core of American Jews, as a pro-Israel alternative to AIPAC, it needs to be able to demonstrate its pro-Israel credibility not just its progressive one.

However, such views have been thin and watery, a distant and minor thought to the front and center 'Progressive' vision whatever that is supposed to mean.

This pursuit has turned J-Street's face into just another means to attack Israel, in a lobbying world where there is no shortage of pro-Arab / pro-Palestinian groups who already take on that role.

Indeed, it may be possible to be "Pro-Israel and Pro-Peace", but its impossible for J-Street to declare themselves an Israeli advocate when being "Pro-Israel and Pro-Palestinian".

That's a fairytale creature that just won't work in the real world.

 

MARTY24

4:54 PM ET

November 12, 2009

J Street

J Street isn't a lobby in the conventional sense. Lobbies represent the interests of their constituencies to government, while J Steet appears to be designed to represent the interests of the Obama government to the Jews.
This makes J Street a front group, something like a company-controlled union. Front groups are a regular presence in dictatorships; they exist to channel "support" for the government's policies.

The key to whether J Street can acquire any credibility is whether they stand for Israel against the Obama government when that government does something really outrageous. I fully suspect that when the time comes J Street will stand with Obama. Their support will be counter-productive in much the same way as Obama's insistence that a settlement freeze will advance the cause of peace back-fired.

Americans should be on the lookout for other front groups set up on behalf of the Obama government, if not necessarily by it. Rejection of this approach may be essential to prevent the end of American democracy.