Newly formed, J Street looks to Obama to advance progressive cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace

Recently, I attended a private dinner in Seattle featuring J Street co-founders Daniel Levy and Jeremy Ben Ami. J Street launches today as the first American-Jewish PAC dedicated to promoting Israeli-Palestinian peace:

"For too long, the primary ... voices policy makers and politicians have heard regarding American policy toward Israel and the Middle East have been those of a vocal minority at the far-right of American society. ... Neoconservative, right-wing Jewish leaders and radical Christian Zionists have turned their definition of 'pro-Israel' into a driving force in the American political process. ...
"These voices do not ... represent the mainstream of American Jews or the broader community that cares about Israel or American interests in the Middle East. Their efforts have skewed American policy, undermined Israeli and American interests, and constrained the domestic political and public debate about American foreign policy.
"It is time for the mainstream of Americans - Jews and others - to establish a bold, political voice that advocates for the best interests of the US and Israel, including a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict based on the 1967 borders with agreed reciprocal land swaps, and for American policy that will lead to real security for Israelis, Americans and the entire Middle East."


Street proposes an overarching US approach to the Middle East that eschews military conflict and embraces diplomatic negotiation, and advocates multilateralism over unilateralism and dialogue over confrontation. It proposes negotiation with Syria and Iran rather than diplomatic isolation and threats. And it will advance these goals both in the legislative and electoral process as well as the media. ..... In talking about what J Street plans to do differently from the mainstream Israel lobby organisations, I was heartened that it plans to pay lots of attention to voices of young people, especially those represented by bloggers like Ezra Klein and Matt Yglesias (both of whom sit on the group's board), Daily Kos and others. Ben Ami sees the younger generation as the hope for the future, as they haven't yet bought "their father's Oldsmobile" in terms of embracing the stereotypes and accepted wisdom of the established groups. The Israel lobby groups are heavily populated and led by the older generation. and Jewish opinion surveys show that the younger generation is both more liberal on Israeli politics and more turned off by the Israel-centric issues dear to the heart of the old school.

.....

It's always important with efforts like this to examine the board member names. There are of course leaders of the main American Jewish peace groups. There are rabbis and academics. But most important there are heavy hitter political donors (Alan Solomont), policy wonks (Rob Malley), US ambassadors to Israel (Samuel Lewis), high level political operatives (Eli Pariser of Moveon), Hollywood liberals (Robert Greenwald), business leaders, George Soros's top aide (Morton Halperin) and even a former Republican senator (Lincoln Chafee) and former congressman (Tom Downey). The major political donors and business leaders are critical to provide the funding necessary to have an impact on political campaigns.

The group's founders believe that Barack Obama and his staff "get" J Street's perspective, while they believe a Hillary Clinton presidency might not advance J Street's mission as aggressively. In particular, Ben Ami mentioned Tony Lake, Obama's chief foreign policy advisor, as someone who was probably responsible for the candidate's bracing Cleveland speech in which he admonished American Jews not to believe that a pro-Israel presidential candidacy need also be pro-Likud.

I came away from the dinner in Seattle heartened by the J Street effort. Trying to be a realist after feeling burned by similar efforts previously, I'm not yet firmly convinced it will succeed. But it is bold, ambitious, well thought out and doable. Many other dovish political efforts in the past had one or even two of those qualities going for them, but few have had all of them. That is in J Street's favour.
One big question will be how Aipac responds to the new initiative. As the big kid on the block it has the most to lose from J Street becoming a major success. So it's got to feel threatened in some way. My only question is whether it feels defensive and threatened enough that it would take on J Street in its infancy. Already, Aipac's former director Morris Amitay has denounced J Street in the pages of the Jewish Forward. Amitay seems to be a surrogate for the group, which doesn't want to lay down a marker in public yet on the matter. It remains to be seen how the big guns of the right-wing Israel lobby like Malcolm Hoenlein and Abe Foxman will react. If they do, they will only be endorsing the idea that J Street is a force to be reckoned with.