Much has been made of the fact that Rabbi Yoffie was booed at J Street when he dissed the Goldstone report. One of the booers was Medea Benjamin of Code Pink. And Jack Ross adds further info.
As the perpetual moderate and optimist, I thought you were too easy on J Street!
All told, the conference was more or less exactly as I expected: as David Brooks famously said of the major party conventions, J Street engaged in a great deal of crossdressing as "progressive Zionist" in contrast to its base. But it’s important to keep in mind that AIPAC does this too – you yourself have reported on the contrast between the sweetness and light toward Obama on their main floor and the frank neoconservatism or worse in their breakout sessions.
For General Jones to assure J Street that "the Obama Administration will always be represented at future conferences", in effect to throw down the gauntlet to the whole lobby and say we will engage you on our terms, is highly consequential in my view. It proves that what J Street is involved in is a very complicated game on behalf of Obama and his whole foreign policy agenda. And this is what must always be remembered first and foremost.
Finally, I must register my pride in my beloved rabbi, Ellen Lippmann, who from the main floor upbraided Eric Yoffie, whose performance made clear that he has learned nothing and forgotten nothing, with a candid account of the carnage in Gaza.
