Bashing J Street
James Besser in Washington
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What is about J Street, the pro-peace process lobby and political action committee, that has the leaders of major Jewish groups in such a snit?
I’ve had calls from three of them in the past two weeks, complaining about the new kid on the pro-Israel block; even some liberal Jewish leaders are joining the anti-J Street chorus.
The recent J Street public opinion survey - a mix of straight survey research with a few loaded questions thrown in for good measure, pretty typical for advocacy groups – produced an outpouring of criticism suggesting the entire survey was tainted by political bias.
Underlying it all is the implication the group is somehow disloyal to Israel and undermining Jewish unity at a critical moment for the Jewish state.
But the reaction is far out of proportion to the Jewish “establishment’s” response to other dovish groups. I remember when Americans for Peace Now (APN) appeared on the scene (yes, I’ve been doing this job that long), and the reaction from the big guys was barely detectable. The Israel Policy Forum (IPF) and a predecessor group, Project Nishma, started out with some big name, mainstream Jewish leaders, so you’d think the pro-Israel establishment would have had fits, but I heard almost no reaction. Brit Tzedek v’Shalom was started by a former Knesset member, but its arrival caused barely a ripple.
So why J Street? Why all this fury? More to the point, why do so many find this group so threatening?
I asked one Jewish leader, who asked not to be identified; his response centered on this belief that Israel is particularly vulnerable and isolated at this time and therefore needs a unified American Jewish community as a critical element in its security.
But I wonder: Couldn’t you have made a similar argument when the other left-of-center groups were created? Hasn’t Israel faced grave threats for decades, and hasn’t the Jewish community been divided for just as long on critical peace process questions?
I suspect the answer has to do with something else: J Street is the first group on the left that’s dared to take on the pro-Israel lobby where it really matters: at the critical intersection of campaign finance and congressional lobbying.
It’s one thing to present position papers and talking points, hold Capitol Hill seminars and get small numbers of lawmakers to sign pro-peace process letters and resolutions, things all the dovish groups have mastered; it’s something very different to create a Jewish, pro-Israel and strongly pro-peace process presence in the realm of campaign finance, with a view to using the clout that produces to boost lobbying.
On a small scale at first, J Street is trying to do what the pro-Israel establishment did years ago: build a lobby on a solid foundation created by big networks of campaign contributors. In doing so, it represents a much bigger potential threat to the major pro-Israel groups than its dovish cousins.
That’s the long term goal; short term, J Street is using the funding lever to provide “cover” for pro-Israel lawmakers who disagree with the AIPAC line, threatening what has become AIPAC’s virtual lock on Congress.
AIPAC doesn’t care about the small handful in Congress who are genuinely hostile to Israel, a group that is politically almost irrelevant. Instead, AIPAC and other pro-Israel groups care about the larger group of lawmakers who support Israel, have good relations with the Jewish community but also fear some Israeli policies are jeopardizing its future. Some of those have been afraid to speak up in recent years; J Street, with the promise of funding sources that won’t be shut off if the pro-Israel leadership decides a lawmaker has gone too far in that criticism, hopes to change that.
There’s early evidence that may be working, although there’s no evidence this is dramatically changing the pro-Israel calculus on Capitol Hill.
But there are many unanswered questions surrounding J Street.
AIPAC has created a vast grassroots network that is connected, at least indirectly, to networks of campaign givers. J Street, according to most reports, has made a good start in building something similar, but it will take years before it can compete on the same scale as AIPAC and the allied givers network.
AIPAC’s donors, many of whom are also big campaign givers, have proven remarkably dedicated over the years – as well as remarkably affluent. Can J Street create something similar? Nobody knows.
AIPAC has made mistakes, but it has generally displayed a political mastery that few other lobbies can match. One of its early rules was this: try to keep out of the news and try to let others take credit. J Street has displayed a craving for attention that could reflect a desire to get in the game fast, but may also suggest a political immaturity that may hold its back.
Still, that in-your-face style has gotten J Street a lot of attention very quickly; the intense reaction it has provoked from the mainstream pro-Israel leadership may reflect that fact.
Does J Street reflect the views of American Jews more accurately than AIPAC does? That’s a tricky question that belies simple answers.
There’s little question that AIPAC, which nominally supports whatever Israeli government is in power, sometimes advocates positions that are not majority ones in the American Jewish community when taken as a whole. But are they the majority views of the activist Jewish community, of the segment that is seriously involved in Mideast advocacy work?
Maybe. A big advantage for AIPAC is that it taps an activist core that is remarkably single issue in focus. Can J Street replicate AIPAC’s style with a progressive Jewish core that probably isn’t as intently focused on the single issue of Israel? That could be a problem.
Polls, including J Streets own, show that the views of the Jewish community defy easy classification. Jews continue to support a two-state solution and land-for-peace negotiations, but they are increasingly distrustful of Palestinian intentions; they strongly supported this winter’s Gaza operation, but most believe that it didn’t improve Israel’s security and may have actually hurt it.
It may be that in some ways, at some times, AIPAC more closely reflects the views of the Jewish majority and in other ways and other times J Street does.
My own guess is that J Street is filling a void in Jewish life – a craving among many on a sizable but disorganized pro-Israel left and many in the non-activist center for a group that can represent a more dovish point of view in Congress and on the campaign trail – but it has a long way to go before it rivals AIPAC and the other pro-Israel power centers in money, commitment, expertise and smarts.
But it’s in the game in a serious way; the media is taking note, some members of Congress are paying attention. No wonder we’re hearing so much from an angry pro-Israel establishment.
Tags: AIPAC, J Street, Pro-Israel
March 31st, 2009 at 12:02 am
Or it could be that JStreet has the far left democratic party’s best interest at heart and could give a snit about Israel. They have already chosen politics over protecting Israel when Almenajumpsuit was at the UN.
They are a tool of George Soros who is another Jew hater whose history of selling Jews for profit is documented. The fact that you showed a one sided approach shows you are part of the same useful idiots that is attempting to push Israel into dangerous concessions while ignoring the fascists who teach their children to hate and murder Jews.
Why not attempt to get the Jew murderers to recognize Israel, pressure them to stop the incitement and indoctrination of their society and to stop all attacks on Israeli civilians before you celebrate those who choose politics over Jewish lives.
March 31st, 2009 at 10:54 am
Why is AIPAC afraid? Competition for resources (people and money). Is J Street anti-Israel? No more than AIPAC is anti-American.
Personally I’m happy to see some balance in the Jewish lobby arena. But while I admire J Street’s goals, I think they are a touch idealistic given the reality of the situation in the middle east.
Just like all politics, most of us (American Jews) sit in the middle, yet we are forced to choose between polar extreme opposites.
I don’t think J street will be detrimental to the existence if Israel. I think both sides are fighting for the support of American Jewry when they should be finding common ground and helping bring together American Jews.
It’s clear that AIPAC is looking for a fight, it’s their decades old monopoly on Jewish politics at stake. The question is, will J Street bite and drag the American Jewish lobby into a mess that will hurt both sides, or will they attempt to reconcile their difference which will be greatly beneficial to both sides?
March 31st, 2009 at 11:34 am
I would only add this to what LA above had to say.
Not only is J Street a far Left anti-Israel creation of George Soros, but. like Peace Now, it is operating out of a fantasy, that the ‘Palestinians’ want peace rather than the destruction of Israel.
While the Palestinian Authority has grudgingly recognized Israel to get that all important blood money from the West flowing in, neither Fatah 9 th eparty that rules the PA) or Hamas have, and there’s absolutely no reason to think they will in the future.
Since the idea behind the West ‘aiding the Palestinians’ is essentially designed to placate the Saudis and the Muslim world, look for Hamas to becom elegitimized without making any significant changes once that Palestinian unity government becomes a reality and Hamas takes over.
The same nonsense happened with Arafat’s terrorist group the PLO…with a lot more dead Jews as a result.
A lot of Lefty American Jews are under th eimpression that what happenes to Israsel doesn’t affect them. They copuldn’t be more wrong.
Frankly, I’m amazed you could even ask this question in the first place.
March 31st, 2009 at 12:00 pm
J-Street supports things that will hurt Israel. They are not concerned with the security of Israel. Rather, they want Israel to give up more land. Why would they promote Israel giving up more land, when doing so jeopardizes Israel’s existence? Unless of course, they agree with the destruction of Israel. With all of the anti-semitism all over the world spreading like wildfire, we Jews need a safe haven…that is Israel. Anyone who wants to destroy Israel, is also destroying the Jewish people. Just like in the Shoah, no country will take them in as they are being murdered.
March 31st, 2009 at 4:36 pm
Operation Cast Lead, which commenced on December 27, 2008, would become J Street’s first real-world test of the popularity of its ideas. On the first day of the operation inside Gaza, J Street posted a statement on its website calling for an immediate cease fire and making the remarkably blasé claim that “only diplomacy and negotiations can end the rockets and terror.” A few days into the conflict, the group released a statement that combined abject moral equivalence, heroic self-flagellation, and anguished false introspection. “As friends of Israel, we felt immediate pressure from friends and family to pick a side,” the statement said. “Couldn’t we see who’s right and who’s wrong?” The monthly War and Peace poll conducted by Tel Aviv University found that 94 percent of Israeli Jews had no difficulty either picking a side or determining who was right and who was wrong. Public opinion was so uniformly in favor of the operation that even the ultra-dovish Meretz party—for which Daniel Levy once worked, and which typically earns only about 5 percent of the vote in Israeli elections—supported the campaign.
For J Street, the opening days of Cast Lead were not just a time to declare an inability to make moral distinctions between Hamas and Israel, or aggression and self-defense. Cast Lead also provided an opportunity to accuse the 94 percent of Israeli Jews who supported the operation of insanity:
April 1st, 2009 at 12:21 pm
Best recent article about J-Street
http://www.commentarymagazine.com/viewarticle.cfm/special-preview—br–they-re-doing-the-j-street-jive-15103
April 8th, 2009 at 3:41 pm
J Street appeals to people who love and support Israel and who also want Israel to act in the most responsible and productive manner with respect to Palestinian issues. It’s exactly like loving and supporting the United States but having grave concerns about the war in Iraq. You can be a patriot and support the U.S. but still be opposed to the war in Iraq or concerned about the way it was handled.
It’s no coincidence that AIPAC is increasingly associated with right wing politics in America. You can see senseless left-bashing right in these comments. Unfortunately for Israel, AIPAC will not tolerate any views other than an extreme right-wing approach. Ultimately this will hurt AIPAC just as embracing the far right wing at the exclusion of moderate voices has hurt the GOP in the US.
There was a study reported in the New York Times on January 24, 2009, “How Words Could End a War,” that suggests that peace is possible and that some of the concessions that each side must make are relating to laying down some of the rhetorical weapons. http://www.nytimes.com/2009/01/25/opinion/25atran.html?_r=1&scp=1&sq=concessions%20Palestinian%20survey%20apologize&st=cse
April 8th, 2009 at 5:00 pm
As a commited supporter of Israel I believe I have a right to criticise it for many of its catostrophic errors and so am a little in tune with J-Street. At the same time I believe, with some reservations, that AIPAC is an important supporter of Israel.
The hard right that AIPAC tends to represent has falsely led leading Israel politicians down a dangerous path that has not made Israel more secure.
In this regard the overwhelming support for action against Hamas in Garza was largely flawed. This is not to say that Israel should not have taken strong action against the Garzan terrorists.
AIPAC takes advantage of Israel’s dijointed and convoluted political environment while J-Street seems to prefer find another way forward. Niether is totally right or wrong and both should seek to find a consensus that would in fact make Israel safer.
We should not assume that an agreement between Israeland the Palestinians, if negotiated, would hold up asthe latter have a history of reneging on agreements, which would be much more likely if Hamas had control.
But while AIPAC promotes nothing but hostility toward both the notion of peaces and toward J-Street the elusive peace is a long, long way off.
Instead both AIPAC and J-Street should work together to promote policies that would significantly rais the standard of life for all Palestinians so that over time, perhaps three to five years, perhaps six, the Palestinians will then kick out Hamas and Hizbollah. It is the only way forward for Israel.
Mean time AIPAC is protecting its existing grip on the Israeli lobby to no good purpose othjer than its self importance, not its concern for the future of Israel.
April 8th, 2009 at 10:30 pm
I am worried for the future of the State of Israel. Endless conflict with our Arab neighbors who ultimately will not only outnumber but also overpower us offers no hope for the long range future of the Jewish State. As we have seen the result of the Gaza conflict, war solves nothing and, as in this case, places Israel in an ever more precarious internatonal position. To the extent that J Street, supports talking with our enemy, negotiating a peace that demands political sacrifices on both sides, I support them. For over 60 years I have been a Zionist supporting Arab/Jewish cooperation. AIPAC has never spoken for me. I’m glad that this debate in the American Jewish community is proceeding with vigour.
April 9th, 2009 at 2:13 am
J Street speaks for Jews like me, who have given wholehearted support to Israel for decades, only to discover in the past dozen years or so that all of Israel’s talk about wanting peace and being stymied by not having a “partner” for peace discussions has been a cover for the real program: grabbing every damn thing worth having in the area, enclosing it inside a huge, hideous wall that shuts the Palestinian Arabs out, and leaving them to make *their* state out of the dust, ash, and rubble that’s left outside.
The penny finally dropped when I saw that those illegal, constantly spreading “settlements” map precisely on top of the area’s major underground water resources. So long as some American Jews realize that there’s a huge other side to the self-serving lies we’ve been fed by our own side for so long, there is no chance of “bringing us all together” on this: there is no “together” between knee-jerk support for Israel no matter what outrages are committed by the government and the IDF, and critical awareness of the double-dealing of the runaway Israeli Right Wing.
Actually, my feelings run deeper and more bitter than anything than J Street says. I’ve been suckered in a big way for a long, long time, and guess what: it’s backlash time — inevitably. I’m an American Jew, not an Israeli, and I now see a clear diversion of the interests of the US from those of an Israel gone rabid with racism, greed, arrogance, guilt, and the fear that that is the inevitable accompaniment and result of such behavior and belief.
Apology, reparations, full citizenship or a serious division into two states, and normalized relations with the surrounding states as one of them, not an outpost of the US — that’s the only possible path to peace I can see, if indeed there still *is* such a path. People like Avigdor Lieberman have been doing their utmost to obliterate any such path utterly from the Israeli side, and they have probably succeeded. White phosphorous shells used against children (denied, of course, until proof was shoved in all our faces) are not a good basis for negotiating a true resolution to conflict.
So J Street is probably way too little and much too late. The country my family was so proud of, the country in which a tree was planted for in my mother’s memory, the country in which I have cousins with families of their own, appears to have dug its own grave, into which it is determined to throw itself — to cheers from the Arab world, of course. Brilliant!
Maybe an organization like J Street can help change Israel’s self-destructive course through changing unthinking support from the US Jewish community; but, frankly, I wonder now whether there’s anything left to save.
April 9th, 2009 at 3:17 pm
Eyes without scales has my sympathy. Like so many Jews from not only the USbut from many other countries, we have been giving endless money to support the Jewish state and the Lieberman cabal have taken this as a endorssement of their stupid actions and advocastions and AIPAC is as guilty.
I will continue to support Israel but I am now going to demand that my fellow Jews in Israel change course. They cannot forever assume that my fear for the Jewish people’s safety will mean I will support them regardless of policies that are detrimental to ALL Jews worldwide and no exclusively to those in Israel.
Mean time J-Street must press AIPAC to also change course. All of us who see AIPAC as a misguided force should personally write a lette and mail it to the AIPAC head office.
Peace and security depends on fairness and economic security, not just the might of the IDF and US unmitigated support.
Fews have a moral obligation to behave as decent human beings. This requires us to condemn thos among us to recant bigotry, racism, greed and denial of the right to a life of decency even to those who currently are seen as our enemy. This is the first step toward thepeace and security we seek.
If we can negotiate a two stae solution and one of those states rages hostility against the other then that is the time for a new occupation.
April 17th, 2009 at 12:34 pm
AIPAC’s partnership with the Republican party (and others such as Christian fundamentalists) has severely damaged AIPAC’s image. The success of J Street is a manifestation of the disenchantment many moderate and liberal Jews feel with that brand of politics (and the silencing of debate). Some of AIPAC’S members participation in the smears against Obama during the election didn’t help their cause either. What we need is an honest debate that leads to peace in Israel and the Middle East. I hope that AIPAC is up to it, instead of resorting to making charges of anti-semitism and “self-hating” with those that differ from their conservative agenda.
May 2nd, 2009 at 10:34 pm
Robert Malley, Samantha Powers, Ben Rhodes, and other George Soros employees on the Obama team, realized that the crap they are trying to shove down the Jewish community´s throat would make the Jews vomit, and so they decided to create a group that allegedly speaks for the Jewish majority here in the USA, (in reality they speak for a tiny but very loud minority who unfortunately have a lot of media access on NPR, CNN, the New York Times, and etc). These are people who are uncomfortable with Jews who fight back to defend themselves and they prefer Jews as dead victims, rather than Jews who are willing to defend themselves. Plain and simple Obama has enlisted traitors to Israel and Jews who would rather be anything other than Jews, in order to try to destroy the Jewish state. Obama is totally owned by the pan Islamic interests.
His advisors like Hillary stood by and wrung their hands and pretended nothing was happening during the Rwanda mass murder, if Israel is overrun , or attacked by terrorists with Nuclear or WMD weapons, you can expect Hillary to do the same and to pretend nothing is happening , along with other professional liars
like the writers for the New York Times, Chrstiana Amampour, and the various shills for Islam and Islamic terror who corrupt the mass media and pervert the 5th estate.
August 26th, 2009 at 6:13 pm
Support for AIPAC does not support Israel’s long-term chances for survival. Retaining the West Bank and continuing to build settlements mean that in a couple of decades, the Jewish majority in land controlled by Israel (green line Israel and the West Bank) will gradually shrink to the point where it disappears. Minority Jewish rule in Israel+West Bank is unsustainable in the medium term, and even sooner. Even rule by a small Jewish majority over a huge resistant Palestinian population in unsustainable (so quibbling the exact moment of the disappearance of the Jewish majority is not relevant). I have never seen a plausibly rational or minimally moral response to this argument. The only response, which is not even minimally moral, is the Kahanist program of “transfer” - i.e, ethnic cleansing. Alas, the Kahanist program is now the de facto position of many on the “moderate” right. In short: supporting J Street is not anti-Israel. On the contrary, it is support for AIPAC that will bring the physical destruction of Israel in the next few decades, and its moral collapse even sooner. AIPAC is the truly anti-Israel organization, if by “anti-Israel” we mean support for policies that will destroy Israel, regardless of intent.
October 21st, 2009 at 12:16 pm
It’s not surprising that AIPAC is exerting political pressure on members of Congress not to attend next week’s J Street conference in Washington. AIPAC feels threatened (as it should) by J Street, a pro-peace and alternative pro-Israel lobby that is gaining legitmacy.
AIPAC smear campaigns against pro-peace Jewish activists and groups are nothing new. AIPAC’s concerted efforts to discredit Jewish critics of Israeli policies are well documented.
An August 1992 Village Voice article by journalist Robert I. Friedman revealed that a unit of AIPAC investigated and harassed dovish Jewish groups advocating land for peace. The AIPAC office, known as Policy Analysis, maintained files for the purpose of discrediting pro-peace groups like American for Peace Now and the Jewish Peace Lobby.
A former AIPAC staffer, Gregory Slabodkin, was the source for Friedman’s article and provided internal documents to support his charges.
“The mandate of Policy Analysis (formerly Opposition Research) is to monitor, analyze and respond to anti-Israeli activities in the United States,” the head of the office, Michael Lewis, wrote in an internal memo in August 1990. “Arab Americans are by no means our sole concern. New Jewish Agenda, the Jewish Peace Lobby and the Jewish Committee on the Middle East to name but some of the more prominent organizations, were all formed in the past few years.”
J Street is the latest target of AIPAC’s smear tactics. However, for all the reasons that James Besser outlines in his article, the stakes are higher this time for this pro-peace organization challenging AIPAC and the status quo.