1. MJ Rosenberg wants the settlements around Jerusalem like all the others. He's squarely in the J-Street two-inches to the left category in terms of the actual outcome he seeks.

2. It's not holocaust memory and so on: it's just garden-variety colonial bigotry. The Israelis were treating the native arabs just the same in the 1920s and 1930s, when General Montgomery stood in for General Sharon in killing the indigenous inhabitants as necessary. There's little Jewish about Israeli behaviour — and much that is similar to the French Pieds Noirs and their hard right backers in Paris.

3. You say, "Only a Multi-Ethnic/Religious Coalition Can Change U.S. Policy in Mid East". In fact, it's only an anti-Zionist coalition, expressly contrary to the parochial and bigoted attitudes you describe above – put another way, expressly contrary to the preferences of most American jews – which can do so.

Although they were too polite (timid?) to state it bluntly, the reason M&W made the UNCONDITIONALITY of US aid to Israel the center of their argument, is that it reveals the fundamental distrust of the host society which is at the core of Zionist thinking. A democracy requires trust of your neighbors.

I don't consider the only relevant voice by any stretch.

I think your using the Jerusalem question as a litmus test is wrong. Most that answered the question did NOT include the political math that you did. They were simply asked, "would you prefer that Jerusalem not be divided?" and answered "Yes".

I've heard militant Palestinians answer the same "yes" to the same question, but meaning something entirely different than what the liberal Jews answered, and what interpretation you bring to that answer.

The other answers in to the J Street survey were much clearer and much more supportive of an effort towards mutual peace (rather than imposed peace).

I LIKE one implication of the answers to the J Street survey, which is "Its none of our damn business how you guys end up deciding how you cut the cake. We care that it be fair and permanently peaceful."

If asked (I forgot if it was), "Can you live with a divided Jerusalem?" I expect that the majority would say "For the prospect of peace and real acceptance, absolutely."

The significance of J Street is NOT as a shadow of AIPAC (as much as Phil hopelessly concludes so). Its significance is to demonstrate to politicians that there is a constituency of Jews that will support them if they diverge from the party line of the right-wing portion of AIPAC.

On whether AIPAC represents Jews. It clearly does NOT represent proportional Jewish numbers. It probably does represent proportional Jewish dollars.

If a real leader of the USA came on TV and told the American people to watch an objective history of Israel (from Balfour, through Holocaust, through Nabka, down to the Lebanon massacre so recent) at X time on Y Çhannel because of its importance in foreign policy and our foreign aid dollars, both in the context of our economy and moral principles, the Amereican people would do so. After watching, there would be a groundswell of support that Israel be treated as other nations, i.e., with both carrot and stick. The stick is missing, the stick is missing–let's bring an end to the entitlement age and marry rights to duties. Have we learned nothing from the history of the modern and post-modern age?

Training for the day when attics and basements are the only places they will see while waiting for their international comrades to incite wars to destroy their former host and free them. What a smart breed.