The whiner that roared

You may not be aware, but the NJDC just had a conference. It was attended by many Democratic legislators, an advisor to the President and even, yes, Ambassador Michael Oren. But if you didn’t know about it, you won’t read about it in the Washington Post. Despite my disagreements with the NJDC, it is a real organization and doesn’t need phony PR to be something that it really isn’t.

J-Street is different. Its viability is dependent on its relevance. But it has no real constituency and it is premised on a phony belief that AIPAC is “too right wing.” But a few rich, self-promoting and politically connected Jews got together and figured that they were too important to be ignored and called themselves a “pro-Israel, pro-peace” alternative to AIPAC. They got some sympathetic mentions in newspapers and but as a commenter at Jeffrey Goldberg’s blog noted:

Who, of the Israeli electorate, does J-Street represent? They occasionally find themselves agreeing with Meretz, representing the leftmost 3% of all Jewish voters, but who did they represent when they spoke out against Cast Lead, a defensive war that even Meretz was in favor of?

In other words J-Street has no real constituency in Israel. And while Jews, in general, approve of President Obama’s handling of the Middle East, I doubt that, position by position they’d much approved of J-Street’s. Unless J-Street designed the polls themselves.

So with J-Street bleeding legislators and rejected by the Israeli ambassador, what does J-Street leader, Jeremy Ben Ami do? He finds another sympathetic journalist to whine to, in this case, Dan Eggen of the Washington Post who writes in Israel conference to open amid controversy:

J Street, an advocacy and lobbying firm created 18 months ago, is holding its first annual conference beginning Sunday, with participation from about 150 Democratic members of Congress, many current and former Israeli politicians and U.S. national security adviser James L. Jones, who will be giving a keynote speech Tuesday.

But the self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group has been rebuffed in its attempts to get Israel’s U.S. ambassador, Michael Oren, to speak at the gathering. In a statement explaining the refusal, the Israeli Embassy accused J Street of endorsing policies that “could impair Israel’s interests.”

I suppose that this report is a bit of self-promotion on Ben Ami’s part. It allows him to complain for example:

He said the group has been the victim of “thuggish smears” by conservatives who favor more hawkish policies in the Israeli-Palestinian dispute, and said he had hoped that Oren would have accepted an invitation to speak at the conference.

“I am extremely disappointed that this is the reaction of the government of Israel to an organization that is looking to expand the base of support in this country for Israel and is deeply concerned about its future,” Ben-Ami said.

“Thuggish smears?” Look, were the reports accurate?

Eggen also informs us:

The organization also abruptly canceled plans for a “poetry slam” at the event after conservative activists and bloggers unearthed writings by two participants that compared the suffering of Holocaust victims to that of Palestinians in Israel’s occupied territories.

and

Some conservatives have also criticized J Street for accepting donations from individuals connected to organizations doing Palestinian and Iranian advocacy work. In addition, conservatives have attacked the conference for including Salam al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who apologized in 2001 for suggesting on a radio show that Israel should be considered a suspect in the Sept. 11 attacks.

The tone of the article, crediting (or blaming) “conservatives” with the criticisms of J-Street blunts the fact that these two events alone would put off most American Jews – if they knew about them. I also am baffled by framing al-Marayati’s rant in terms of his “apology.” Most people aren’t politically involved but they’d reasonably conclude that an organization that is willing to give a platform to someone who would blame Israel for 9/11 or compare Israel to Nazi Germany is not exactly pro-Israel. This isn’t a matter of conservative or liberal; it’s just common sense.

Eggen gets an excellent quote from Roberta Seid of Stand With Us:

Roberta Seid, research and education director for StandWithUs, said she views J Street as “outside the mainstream,” and that broad support for Obama among American Jews does not mean agreement with the administration’s Israel policy.

“American Jews seem to love Obama; American Jews are liberal,” Seid said. “But they are much firmer in their support of Israel and opposed to viewing the conflict as equally Israel’s fault. I think they draw the line there.”

Incidentally, Jeffrey Goldberg also gave Ben Ami the opportunity to whine. Goldberg generously linked to my account of J-Street’s blogging panel, asked him about it:

JG: On another subject, you’re giving some space at your conference to a group of bloggers who range from the anti-Zionist Max Blumenthal to the anti-Zionist Helena Cobban.

JB: There’s a lunch. They’ve asked us that, since there is a lunch, can we have a room where we who are bloggers on this issue can sit and talk to each other? I mean, give me a break, I’m not giving them any approval whatsoever, and there’s no sanction to their beliefs. I’m just saying, sure, there are seven free rooms on the floor, use one. I’m not going to say, “No you can’t eat lunch together.” I mean really.

So Ben Ami minimizes this “lunch.” Fine.Ben Ami concludes:

I believe that we are at the center. The Marty Peretzes and the Michael Goldfarbs and the Lenny Ben-Davids are on the right, to the far right, and there are people to our left, and we are in the middle trying to put forward a thoughtful, moderate, mainstream point of view about how to save Israel as a Jewish home.

It’s hogwash, of course. J-Street is pretty far to the left as it refuses to acknowledge the many concessions Israel has made over the past 16 years. But even if we take him at his word. Notice how casually he dismisses someone like Martin Peretz, who, if anything, is close in ideology to the Labor party of Israel. Is someone like Peretz really “to the far right?”

But even if we eschew political labels, what would Jeremy Ben Ami answer if he were asked who his own view coincided with more: Martin Peretz or Helena Cobban? He never explicitly makes the choice, but I think you can draw a reasonable conclusion from the interview that he identifies more with Cobban, the anti-Zionist, Hamas booster, than with the Zionist, Peretz. I do not understand how people could read Eggen’s article or Goldberg’s interview and believe that J-Street could be classified as “pro-Israel.”

For more J-Street reading please check out JoshuaPundit and the Hashmonean.

Crossposted at Soccer Dad.