The National, the fascinating new paper coming out of Abu Dhabi, has a smart long piece on J Street. It includes this exchange, which only reveals how shockingly poor the American discourse is:
to be seen if it’s pro-Israel,” said Jeff Ballabon, a New York lawyer
and lobbyist who acts as an intermediary between conservative
Republican candidates, Orthodox Jewish donors and Christian activists.
But
such complaints illuminate the tilted state of debate more than
anything else: J Street, like its rivals, acknowledges the reality of
Palestinian violence, but unlike them, it also seeks to draw attention
to the plight of the Palestinian people. “As long as Palestinians
despair of a decent and dignified life, Israel will be at war,” [J Street director Jeremy] Ben-Ami
wrote in a Washington Post op-ed earlier this year. “Helping the
Palestinians achieve a viable, prosperous state is one of the most
pro-Israel things an American politician can do.”
Let's be clear. J Street is a largely Jewish organization, of liberal Zionists, who don't oppose AIPAC but are trying to lobby it. Justin Vogt, the piece's author notes, shrewdly, that the leading Jewish organizations in the U.S., AIPAC and the Conference of Presidents, are for "the peace process," but have done all they can to limit abridgments of Israel's "power and territory." He also wee-wees a little on Walt and Mearsheimer in the usual way, by giving space to their critics, but basically adopts their line. The lobby is a "goliath."
