There's a long piece on J Street by Noah Pollak in the forthcoming Commentary. I just read it. It's a smart piece. Its essence is the claim that Jews are on the neocons' side, and just look at Gaza. Barney Frank is a hawk. The Congress stuck with the lobby (though Pollack doesn't call it the lobby). All true, and valid. But Commentary is deeply worried, and knows that J Street is important culturally/historically and the lobby is in for a fight for the soul of the Jewish community, and the fight includes leftleaning bloggers like Richard Silverstein and Bernard Avishai. The simple test of the piece is Pollak's claim that J Street will vanish because its ideas about Israel and Palestine and "the obligations of American power are driven by ideological fantasy." I doubt most Americans agree with this. We have seen what Commentary thinks are the obligations of American power, and it's permanent war.
Still, Commentary knows that the earth is moving. Pollak concedes that a clash between Israel and the Obama administration is "inevitable."
[T]he president’s popularity and the fatigue that decades of having to stand up for Israel’s right of self-defense has engendered among American Jews may give new life to a group that can brand itself as being more “pro-peace” than those that see their primary obligation as backing the judgments of the Jewish state’s democratically elected government. It is only under these circumstances that we will see whether J Street’s hope to gain ground as the “anti-AIPAC” will prove as quixotic as it appeared to be during the Gaza fighting.
Related posts:
- Since When Is ‘Commentary’ for the Two-State Solution?
- ‘Commentary’ pulls attack on Max Blumenthal. Why?
- ‘J Street’ rebuts Israel: you’re hurting American Jewish interests
- A J Street ‘ambassador’ says group must leave lobby and ally with ‘foreign policy establishment’
- Oren instructs American Jews to have ‘no differences of opinion’ on survival of the Jewish state
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Since you mention J Street, I shall offer this item by the horrible Rosner, which I would otherwise not have bothered with:
Sunday Mar 29, 2009
Rosner's Domain: J Street tries to spin my post, their joke-poll
Posted by SHMUEL ROSNER
J Street's Isaac Luria wrote an article with the purpose of discrediting my article on J Street's latest poll (J Street survey is a joke, again). Most of the arguments he's made are barely relevant: he says that I'm a "conservative columnist" (does this make his poll better?), and that he's "not sure that we should care about getting Shmuel Rosner's endorsement" (offense not taken. I think you should. Details ahead). However, on one issue (out of 4-5 that I raised in my post) Luria attempts to show how stupid I am by delving into the details of my post, and J Street's poll. Let's take a look…
http://cgis.jpost.com/Blogs/rosner/entry/j_street_tries_to_spin
There's a thread on this already at Yglesias:
http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/03/whats_driving_the_jihad_against_j_street.php#comments
Notwithstanding the lie about who broke the Gaza ceasefire with which it begins, this article started out not too badly, considering it’s Commentary. Then, about halfway through, it slides into the usual hysteria and paranoia. Does Pollak think that nobody is gonna notice?
"The simple test of the piece is Pollak's claim that J Street will vanish because its ideas about Israel and Palestine and 'the obligations of American power'…."
Interesting how so many partisans of Israel don't just say that the U.S. should do something because it's good, or to help Israel because Israel is good, but always instead that it should do what they want done because it's America's *obligation.* Just like what Jonathan Pollard said about why he turned over all those documents and stuff; it was our alleged obligation to have given them over anyway.
No wonder one can sense so little appreciation amongst the partisans of Israel for what America has done for it. We've only been doing our duty apparently, and probably insufficiently at that.
Sin Nombre:
"Interesting how so many partisans of Israel don't just say that the U.S. should do something because it's good, or to help Israel because Israel is good, but always instead that it should do what they want done because it's America's *obligation.*"
Pretty apparent you didn't read the article. Pollak didn't request any American obligation. He said:
"Because its conception of Israel, the Palestinians, and the obligations of American power are driven by ideological fantasy, J Street will likely remain, like the Oslo Accords, a permanently thwarted ambition, but at least one with a large email list."
Julian wrote:
"Pretty apparent you didn't read the article. Pollak didn't request any American obligation."
No, I read it. And what's more I understood it. Of course he didn't request any American obligation to Israel; he posited that one exists already which is why he says J Street will fail.
The "obligations of American power" are to defend the interests of the American people. Defending the interests of anyone else is a distant second. They specifically do not include waging preemptive war on countries like Iran which are no threat to us.
Right, Duscany–except the gentile whores in Congress and the White House know on which side their continued and ever better baked bread is buttered. No solution but campaign finance reform–not getting anywhere with that though….
As low on the totem pole as Frankin, they will convince themselves of anything to sniff higher up the career ladder.
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