Taking It to the (J) Street
- 04.15.2008 - 3:11 PMI just got off a journalists’ conference call with the proprietors of the new “J Street” project, which fancies itself an enlightened answer to AIPAC. J Street’s website advertises the organization as “a new pro-peace, pro-Israel political voice” that will stand against the prevailing U.S.-Israeli mindset of “advocating military responses to political problems.”
So what does J Street want? A “comprehensive negotiated peace between Israel and all its Arab neighbors.” Well, what if some of those neighbors — Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas — don’t want the same thing? This is a forbidden thought. A similar litany of foggy platitudes surrounds other issues: “You make peace with your enemies, not your friends” (i.e., Israel should negotiate with Hamas.) The list goes on; to save time, imagine roughly the editorial positions of The Nation magazine in the mouths of lobbyists.
J Street places near the top of its list of supporters someone named Avram Burg, who may not ring a bell to many Americans, but who is notorious in Israel. Burg advocates, among other things, the dissolution of Israel as a Jewish state; recommends that Israeli parents secure foreign passports for their children; and compares Israel today to late 1930’s Germany. When asked during the call why someone like Burg is affiliated with J Street, the group’s proprietors downplayed and misrepresented the man’s radicalism. It is difficult to imagine how the J Streeters believe their organization will be taken seriously as a pro-Israel lobby at the same time they advertise the endorsement of a figure like Avram Burg.
One of the more interesting aspects of the J Street phenomenon is the belief that there are great battalions of American Jewish doves languishing in voicelessness, awaiting mobilization by leaders whose answer to Islamist terrorism is interminable dialogue. One of the salutary benefits of J Street might be a demonstration that the absence of a peace lobby is not the reason why diplomatic fetishism retains little currency among policymakers.
| »Back to Contentions | »Back to Commentary |
April 15th, 2008 at 3:36 PM
i don’t see walt or mearsheimer on the list. i’m shocked!
April 15th, 2008 at 3:55 PM
These dangerous, suicidal fools will do much mischief. Silly name that sounds like a former Johnny Depp Fox detective show aside, this group will, like the Neuterei Karta, Tikkun and Peace Now provide new cover for the anti-semites and “anti-zionists,” who do not wish peace, but rather the end to the zionist enterprise and the jewish people.
April 15th, 2008 at 3:55 PM
Burg is near the top because, well, it’s alphabetical. The list is pretty typical. It also features Ron Pundak one of the academics (along with Yair Hirshfield) for whom Oslo was an academic exercise.
April 15th, 2008 at 4:12 PM
J stands for jerk. They’re Jerks for trying to Jerk the Jewish community around for their own aspirations by siding with terrorists trying to destroy Israel and Jews worldwide. Some of them have extreme neurosis or are mentally ill.
April 15th, 2008 at 5:10 PM
Another case for Dr.Krauthammer’s clinical analysis. They must all hate their mothers. Or maybe it’s something disturbingly more….
April 15th, 2008 at 5:33 PM
“So what does J Street want? A “comprehensive negotiated peace between Israel and all its Arab neighbors.” Well, what if some of those neighbors — Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas — don’t want the same thing? This is a forbidden thought.”
That’s obviously a lie. The ideas you support on Contentions are worthy of an honest advocate, and this isn’t it.
We know that center-left American-Israeli national security proponents don’t treat the “Hamas, etc. Does Not Want Peace” as a forbidden thought. If anything, it is the center of their thinking. They argue that it is precisely because the current character of Hamas and others are so militant, terroristic, and anti-peace that these proponents argue for a policy that might change their behavior and incentivize peaceful behavior.
I mean, that’s their point, isn’t it? That hawkish behavior from one side tends to beget hawkish behavior on the other side? The question is “How do we get from terrorism to two peoples living side by side?” The analysis is simply different.
Now, by all means, disagree with that analysis, but don’t say it is not there. Have the moral courage to stand up, honestly represent the views of your opponents, and demonstrate why they are wrong. Israel deserves no less.
April 15th, 2008 at 5:41 PM
Hey, M, the point I was making is that the J Street ideology seems to be motivated by a certain article of faith — that groups like Hamas can be persuaded away from behaving the way they do, as if the reason Hamas sends out suicide bombers is because the group has some sort of interest that Israel has left unmet. This is a terrible and misguided way to look at Hamas; we are not dealing with interests, we are dealing with a religious movement possessed of grand strategies, grand ambitions, and grand alliances with other movements and states. It is indeed a forbidden thought among the J Streeters to wonder whether appeasing Hamas or negotiating with it is futile and dangerous. Because if you admit that, the whole J Street ideology comes tumbling down. Suddenly instead of making peace with your enemies you’re left with no option but to defeat them.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:08 PM
I’d like to see what they’re going to lobby for. After all, that’s what political action committees do. As the anti-AIPAC, will they have the guts to come out and lobby for cutting military aid to Israel? A cut in economic aid? How about getting Sen. Hagel to introduce a resolution calling the IDF a terrorist organization? Or Rep. Jim Moran to put forward a bill calling for immediate Israeli withdrawal to the 1947 partition plan lines? Hey, I know: maybe they can get Sen. Obama to sponsor legislation transferring funding from Iraq to a ‘mammoth protection force’ in Gaza and the West Bank — you know, the one Obama’s ‘former’ advisor Samantha Power called for in order to protect the poor folk who’ve ’suffered more than any others’ from Israeli aggression.
April 15th, 2008 at 7:55 PM
Hamas is a wholly-owned subsidiary of Iran, bought and paid for, as is Hezbullah, and every other group. Iran funds all sides against the middle, funding, arming ,training, directing supporting any enemy of Israel and the U.S. J street their poodle.
Walk this cat backwards, and I bet the path leads to Tehran. Woun’t be shocked to find Soros money here too.
April 15th, 2008 at 9:06 PM
Yeah, I’d watch the money trail very carefully as well. It will tell you more than anything else whose bidding they’ll be about…
That said, this strikes me as akin to the recurrent effort on the part of Lefty Christians to create their version of the Christian Coalition. Lots of fanfare, plenty of media attention, nice website, some thumb-sucking columns, and then the quick disappearance into nothingness…