RIP, the third rail

Scratch that last post of mine about Congresswoman Donna Edwards. In response to the AIPAC/lobby shot across her bow in Politico last week over her failure to stand up for Israel no matter what, J Street immediately raised $15,000 for Edwards in four hours. And Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of J Street, declared that the old way of taking scalps on Israel policy is over.
We'll see, won't we; but it's amazing to me that this piece quotes Edwards, on her visit to Israel, expressing deep dismay at the settlements on the West Bank and then horror at a bill in the Knesset making it a criminal offense to define Israel as anything but a Jewish democratic state. "Shocking," Edwards said, citing her own experience as an African-American. At last: the American struggle with civil rights, applied to the racist policies in the West Bank.
I used to say that J Street only came along to lobby the lobby, to influence the influencers. Maybe at first. Now it's there to break up the lobby and influence people on its own. And by standing with Edwards and Obama on settlements and minority rights–it is taking its power. This is the product of the Iraq war, the neocons overplaying the American commitment to Zionism, and Gaza, too.