Update: A PDF of the J Street position paper is here. (Dug up by Adam Kredo.) And J Street has posted an “open letter” to “the American Jewish community” on the subject, which as that salutation signals, invokes establishment communalism:
J Street’s position on the possible Security Council resolution aligns with the position of most established institutions in the American Jewish community.
Noam Sheizaf:
J Street, the pro-peace Jewish lobbying group, has decided to join the US Administration in opposing the Palestinian’s bid for statehood at the UN. JTA reports:
“We believe that everything J Street stands for and what we do needs to promote the two-state solution and not just two states,” Jeremy Ben-Ami, the director of the dovish pro-Israel group, told JTA on Wednesday.
Palestinian statehood should come about through negotiations with Israel and not unilaterally, he said.
Ben-Ami said the group backs Obama administration plans to veto any U.N. Security Council resolution that would establish such a state and has urged Palestinian leaders to defer plans to introduce such a resolution later this month.
This is probably the worst move J Street has ever made. While past errors were political ones that could be expected from a young organization that has taken upon itself a tremendous task, this mistake is a moral one. It might bring short term gains – I am not sure, but I’m no expert on Washington politics – but in the long run, it’s likely to do more harm than good.
Adam Kredo reports that there is big division within J Street over this.
Kathleen Peratis, one of J Street’s initial founders and a member of its board, told me that insiders spent months studying the potential effects of the upcoming UN vote. By learning about different facets of the issue, their thinking evolved, she said.
Though members of the board unanimously approved the language, Peratis said that “we all came to it with a lot of preconceived and stereotypical ideas” — many of which where shattered as members informed themselves about the vote.
Still, “I can’t tell you every member of the J Street family is happy with” the position, Peratis said, explaining that she assumes there will be discontent from both the left and right. “I’m sure some are unhappy. … For nobody is it perfect.”
