Jeffrey Goldberg, not a neocon conspirator last time I checked, is asking some good questions about J Street. For example, why hasn’t the “pro-Israel” group denounced Stephen Walt, who endorsed the group’s bona fides? Goldberg thinks it’s important ”to send a clear signal that it disapproves of the work of one of America’s leading Jew-baiters.” Well, that is if they do disapprove of his work. (Seems like Walt’s crusade against the “Israel lobby” pretty much matches up with J Street’s agenda. That might explain it.)

Goldberg also, via a reader, asks why J Street thinks it knows more about what is good for Israel than the Israeli government and electorate. (”It seems ridiculous to me that a group with positions farther to the left than Meretz could position itself as lobbying on behalf of us. From an Israeli perspective, this whole J-Street episode has been insulting, upsetting, and very confusing.”)

Goldberg is hinting at the core issue regarding J Street: Is it really pro-Israel? Well, it doesn’t act like it. Its mission was to provide an alternative to and oppose AIPAC at every turn. The latter’s goal is to promote a robust relationship between the U.S. and Israel and to foster American support for the defense of Israel. To declare yourself against that mission pretty much gives up the game.

Moreover, by declaring that it knows better than Israel, J Street seeks to infantilize the state, to assert that Israel is unable to discern its own interests. Unlike any other state, Israel is declared incompetent to control its own destiny. That’s an odd definition of “pro-Israel.”

And it’s even odder, of course, to invite radical Israel haters and a 9-11 truther to a confab and remain mute while an Israel basher like Mary Robinson get the nation’s top civilian prize or the Goldstone Report embroils the UN in another effort to undermine Israel’s right of self-defense.

The most logical conclusion is that J Street wants to change the definition of what it is to be “pro-Israel,” to make the goal a hamstrung and tamed Israel, to distance the U.S. from Israel, and to exert such pressure on Israel that it has no choice but to retreat to borders and rules of engagement that threaten its very existence. In other words, “pro-Israel” becomes indistinguishable from “pro-Palestinian.” But it sounds so much better – and you snooker a lot more congressmen into “hosting” your event — if you say you’re “pro-Israel,” right?

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This entry was posted on Wednesday, October 21st, 2009 at 11:20 AM and is filed under Contentions. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Responses are currently closed, but you can trackback from your own site.