Jewish Liberals Launch Counterweight to AIPAC

At last, at long last. There will be a hard money lobby in Washington that represents progressives on Israel/Palestine issues, that lobbies for Israeli/Palestinian peace, that acts as a counterweight to AIPAC.

It's called "J Street." (As in, K street with a J.) The full name is: "Americans for Middle East Peace and Security." Here is their launch video:

Unlike the existing groups, this group will actually support candidates for office.

Right now, they are taking nominations for who they should support in the fall. Make the best case that your favored candidate will work to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace. That's exactly the dynamic we need: candidates competing to do the most to promote Israeli-Palestinian peace, as opposed to competing to do the opposite.

There is no time like the present. This week, former President Carter is meeting with the exiled leader of Hamas, Khaled Meshal, in Syria. As Carter has said, "There's no doubt in anyone's mind that, if Israel is ever going to find peace with justice concerning the relationship with their next-door neighbors, the Palestinians, that Hamas will have to be included in the process."

Of course, as the Washington Post notes, it will be the case for the foreseeable future that AIPAC will have more money and more people.

But that misses the fact that those with less money can have more influence when they are telling the truth, if they can just muscle their way to the microphone.

If you think Carter is doing the right thing, consider giving this new organization your support.

•  THIS IS AWESOME

  and very much needed.

  Given my Jewish roots (i.e. my entire family) and my lifelong ties to the Jewish community that I love, I can tell you that 85-90% of Jewish people are NOT like Joe Lieberman.

  by davefromqueens on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:17:05 AM PDT

•  Guess this has been in the works for a little bit

  and I'm still checking it out.

  It seems like a viable alternative to AIPAC; but even AIPAC is not a single viewpoint. There are variations within AIPAC. It will be intersting to see if AIPAC actually attacks J Street, and how that causes fallout inside AIPAC memebership - I think there's some potential here to see a shift away.

  One thing, the name is too cute - I wish it were simply more descriptive of the stated goal, but whatever.

  And there is NEVER a reason to not meet and discuss, rather than kill, although the American Arms industry would likely have a different take on that opinion.

  by shpilk on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:18:33 AM PDT

  •  Well There Are REASONS, Just Not

    civilized reasons.

    by Gooserock on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:22:59 AM PDT

•  it was time for this to happen...

  looking at the people who support it,
  it should have a real effect.

  this is really inspiring and gives
  one hope that change WILL happen.

  Peace and love to all

  by Statusquomustgo on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:19:17 AM PDT

•  This is great. It's about time.

  The conditions in the Palestinian ghettos are a travesty.

  by nomes on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:22:59 AM PDT

  •  It can't be about that....

    It must be about making peace, not assigning blame. For example, Iran and rich Saudis find money to support Hamas' activities. Why can't they fund a program to jumpstart an indigenous economy in the territories? They could, if they desired it. And the Palestinians could demand tat, too -- if they were so inclined. There's plenty of blame to go around for the conditions in the territories, not least of which are the regular attacks designed to provoke Israeli crackdowns.

    If we make this about the Palestinians' plight, then it will be rightly dismissed as left-wing propagandistic hogwash. It has to be about Israel, and its future. It's J Street, not PLO Street.

    by FischFry on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:31:58 AM PDT

•  I'm reluctant to say anyone speaks for me, but...

  I'm sure that I will find much to disagree with in J Street, but there is a value in having a counterpoint to AIPAC -- a group that tells the American public that we are not a monolithic group with only one, unyielding  viewpoint. I wonder whether such a group can ever be a significant presence, given that most Jews who feel this way are probably not going to want to give significant donations to a group that is so focused on Israel, regardless of the group's political viewpoint. Groups like AIPAC find that their right-wing zealotry is good business. It gets money form people who think they are fighting for Israel's survival. I wonder if J Street can activate a similar, though liberal consciousness among American Jews.

  by FischFry on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:26:53 AM PDT

•  ha! re: 2nd choice: US policy is so NOT ok.

  this is encouraging news.. i can only hope it's not a stooge effort to mask behind the real neocon agenda, kind of like the DLC is.  at this point, i have a hard time trusting.

  by jj24 on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:28:31 AM PDT

•  I like the idea

  but judging by the launch video, I'm skeptical.

  It seems basically to promote a New Liberal Bill Clinton-kind of negotiated settlement, but there was a reason it failed: because it failed to take a hard enough line against Israel.

  All in all, it strains to be "even-handed."

  Now, if there was a lobbying group designed to promote an end of Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza, we might get somewhere.

  by david mizner on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:29:10 AM PDT

  •  I don't see any grasp of reality in your comments

    "but there was a reason it failed: because it failed to take a hard enough line against Israel."

    You're talking about a deal that Arafat announced he was ready to accept...years after there was an Israeli leadership offering it..at a time when Palestinian actions had foreclosed that offer.

    As for ending

    "Israel's occupation of the West Bank and Gaza,"

    Israel did end its occupation of Gaza, and continued attacks from there, as well as the smuggling of arms and the prospect of a greater future threat, seem calculated to drag Israel back in.... There are a lot of Israelis who think withdrawing from Lebanon was a mistake, given the Hezbollah build-up that followed.  And, most feel that the Gaza withdrawal has put Israel at risk. You won't see an end to the occupation, until they have confidence in the Palestinian leadership. Lobbying for an end to the occupation, without a peace deal in place, is like pissing into a gale force wind.

    by FischFry on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:39:18 AM PDT

    •  I didn't say

      there shouldn't be a peace deal, of course there needs to be.

      And Israel never ended its occupation of Gaza. I'm sure you know that Israel has had Gaza under siege since 2006.

      And Israel will never have confidence in the Palestinian leadership until it withdraws, because the occupation breeds extremism breed Hamas victories. It's like the United States occupying Iraq and expecting a moderate government to bloom. Asinine.

      The only answer is for Israel to end its occupation; then democracy and peace will have a chance to grow.

      It's the responsibility of the dominant power to act.

      by david mizner on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:50:55 AM PDT

      •  actually

        it was insane Fatah corruption which fucked over Palestinians that bred Hamas's legislative victory, that and friendly election rules

        by Keith Moon on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 12:12:40 PM PDT

  •  In what respects should Pres. Clinton

    have taken a harder line "against Israel?"

    by another American on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:54:30 AM PDT

    •  By, for example,

      refusing to bankroll the occupation? By refusing to conspire with Barak to falsely blame Arafat for the collapse of the Camp David "peace talks"? By using U.S. leverage to pressure Israel to accept the international consensus two-state settlement and withdraw to the Green Line? etc.

      by heathlander on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 03:10:52 PM PDT

•  A Brave Step

  I suspect you will get exactly the same sorts of attacks that a moderate group Independent Jewish Voices had from the hard right faction in the UK Jewish community when was formed. Like this from Melanie Phillips:

  At a time when the west is being softened up for genocide by the demonisation of Israel, Jews who reinforce the Big Lie about the Jewish state are helping pave the way for a second potential holocaust.

  Yet when this is pointed out, they call it an insult. More than that, they take it as proof of the rightness of their position! On the IJV website, Brian Klug gloated that the fierceness of the attacks upon them showed they had struck a nerve.

  So the more we try to protect Israel from this lethal onslaught, the more these perpetrators claim that they are martyrs to those who would suppress free speech. The price they would force us to pay for not being thus vilified is to embrace our own people’s destruction.

  The deadly enemies of the Jewish people are beside themselves with joy over the IJV. For the terrible thing is that, far from being silenced, Jewish voices like these are in the very forefront of the hate-fest against Israel. Martyrs of dissent? Hardly. They are the British arm of the pincer of Jewish destruction.

  by Lib Dem FoP on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:32:50 AM PDT

  •  On the UK "Independent Jewish Voices"

    IJV is a British campaign against a straw man. The claim is that is is a campaign against censorship of views critical of Israeli government policies. But there is no such censorship, as demonstrated by the success of IJV as a group, and its members individually, to publicize.

    Moreover, as Norman Geras, Shalom Lappin and Eve Garrard write:

    The Independent Jewish Voices statement sets out some admirable general principles concerning human rights, the right to peace and security for Israelis and Palestinians, international law, and racism. But when it gets to naming obstacles to and contraventions of these principles, the traffic is all one way:

    The battle against anti-semitism is vital and is undermined whenever opposition to Israeli government policies is automatically branded as anti-semitic.

    These principles are contradicted when those who claim to speak on behalf of Jews in Britain and other countries consistently put support for the policies of an occupying power above the human rights of an occupied people. The Palestinian inhabitants of the West Bank and Gaza Strip face appalling living conditions with desperately little hope for the future. We declare our support for a properly negotiated peace between the Israeli and Palestinian people and oppose any attempt by the Israeli government to impose its own solutions on the Palestinians.

    Not a word about other sources of anti-Semitism, like the hatred deliberately and daily fostered in the Arab world. Not a word about the obstacle to peace in the region that non-recognition of the Jewish people's right to national self-determination has been for going on 60 years now. 'These principles are contradicted when...' followed by a short list of Israeli-Jewish delinquencies, and that's it. Such is the independence of these independent-minded Jews. They draft a statement, as Jews, about one of the most intractable conflicts known to the modern world, and this is the kind of balance they achieve on the contradiction of their stated principles.

    One may also note, given their admirable commitment to open discussion free of vilification, that Klug and the other courageous resistance fighters of Independent Jewish Voices do not see any need to comment on the campaign for an academic and cultural boycott of Israelis. Doesn't this campaign pose an obstacle to the principle of free discussion? In talking about 'a climate', they are apparently unmoved, too, by the increasingly strident rhetoric of anti-Zionism deployed against those who insist on Israel's right to exist, even while criticizing its policies, and who oppose the fashionable 'liberal' consensus on the Middle East. Their concern about the atmosphere of free argument is strikingly selective.

    It all goes to show you: self-proclaimed independent-mindedness is no guarantee of anything.

    by another American on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:50:27 AM PDT

    •  Yeah, I love that logic

      "But there is no such censorship, as demonstrated by the success of IJV as a group, and its members individually, to publicize."

      So because a group is able to get a bit of one-off publicity when it makes a determined stand against marginalisation in the I/P debate, that means the marginalisation doesn't exist? This must be the kind of logic that led Norman Geras to support the Iraq war.

      by heathlander on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 03:13:44 PM PDT

  •  Food for thought

    I'm constantly criticized here for trying to add a voice of moderation. People always reply that we need to be extreme -- that this is the path to success...the way to move the debate in our direction. Ask no quarter and give no quarter. I hear echoes of the DKos party line in Ms. Phillips comments. She suggests Jews need to say united -- solidarity behind a strong, extreme position, lest we give encouragement to those who are lined up against us.  Not saying I agree with her, but but it's an interesting counterpoint to the arguments against moderation that I read here.

    by FischFry on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 12:03:08 PM PDT

    •  You're constantly criticized for taking a

      right-wing, Likudnik position, from what I've seen.  And for a patently anti-Palestinian attitude.

      by skrekk on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 12:30:52 PM PDT

      •  There is nothing Likudnik about my positions

        Neither right-wing, nor Likudnik. Nor do I suffer from a patently anti-Palestinian attitude. I express consistent faith in a two-state solution, just as J Street expresses -- the outlines of the eventual deal are widely acknowledged. Just because I point out that there are rejectionist Palestinians taking actions that must surely be deliberately calculated to forestall a serious peace process, doesn't make me anti-Palestinian. There's a way forward -- one that holds at least some promise for the Palestinians to achieve a two-state solution, if that is what they desire. And, there is also a way that has shown repeated success in derailing the peace train. So long as relevant actors choose the latter, they will perpetuate the current disaster. They know that, so I have to believe they desire that outcome.

        by FischFry on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 01:13:18 PM PDT

•  I can dig this

  As a pro-Israeli, pro-peace American Jew, I can really get behind this group. AIPAC does not speak for me. And certainly not the Likud Party or various right-wing Christian Zionist types, either.

  by metal prophet on Thu Apr 17, 2008 at 11:52:57 AM PDT