AIPAC vs. J-Street

The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which this week is hosting its annual national policy conference in Washington with an unprecedented +7,500 attendees, is the most prominent and influential of a plethora of pro-Israel lobbies in America. It is ranked as either tied for first or second only to the American Association of Retired Persons (the senior citizen lobby with 36million members) by the National Journal. It has an annual budget of over $50million, an endowment of over $150million, a new $80million building on Capital Hill and over 100,000 due-paying members. AIPAC is an incredibly powerful voice in Washington and the single most important non-governmental factor in the crafting of American Middle East foreign policy. It is a right-wing voice in Israeli advocacy as most pro-Israel groups are

But AIPAC has seen better days, the lobby is facing a U.S. president who is losing patience with an intransigent, far-right Israeli government and his administration is now publicly scolding Israel for its illegal settlements. AIPAC has weighted in and called for Obama to tone down the rhetoric against their beloved country.

But AIPAC is not only dealing with Obama's criticism of Israel, but also the emergence of a new self-styled pro-Israel, pro-peace Israel lobby: J-Street. J-Street has presented itself as a necessary creation in order to undermine the power of right-wing pro-Israel lobbies (primarily AIPAC) which, it claims, have unintentionally undermined Israel’s and America’s interests by pursuing a hawkish policy instead of promoting a two-state solution. J-Street agues that American Jewry is liberal (it is) and that its idea of a pro-Israel agenda fits that liberal mold (it may, but American Jews are liberal on everything except Israel where they concur with Sharon).

J-Street argues that its voice is needed to shift the gravity on issues relating to Israel - the J does not just stand for Jew or Jewish, but the letter J is one of three letters which are not used in the naming of Washington D.C. streets. The symbolism is obvious: a missing street and a missing voice in Washington while J-Street intends to fill the latter. Again, it claims to want to apply pressure on the Israeli government to pursue peace in the highest interest of Israel and Zionism.

J-Street is pro-Israel and strongly defends the nation (it recently joined AIPAC in supporting Iran sanctions), is pro-Zionist and even somewhat chauvinistic in its Jewish nationalism by stating that the heart of its movement must be American Jewry as if to say that only a limited number of non-Jewish Americans (including Palestinians-Americans who are just as involved as American-Jews) are welcome because, what?, a pro-peace movement should not be humanitarian, but, rather, ethnic-based? This is a regressive ideology and outstandingly illiberal. But J-Street needs to argue such points, because it needs cover from all the attacks that is it really just an anti-Israel front. This is how it works with Zionist hoodlums: if you’re are 99% pro-Israel and criticize it 1% that is not enough support and too much criticism. They want 100% obedience.

For months now, J-Street has been vilified by pro-Israeli groups as outside the mainstream, the Israeli embassy has refused to meet with them, a recent Congressional delegation to Israel sponsored by J-Street was boycotted by the Israeli government on the count that it is anti-Israel, and now it has been accused of anti-Semitism (everyone who works for J-Street is Jewish).

But all this did not intimidate J-Street staffers from showing up at the AIPAC conference and in doing so they were attacked by the militant Zionist propagandist Alan Dershowitz:

J Street representative Hadar Susskind (an IDF combat veteran) was in the middle of an interview with Haaretz when Dershowitz let fly with a verbal onslaught against the group, which has openly criticized the Israeli government over its West Bank settlement policy.

Dershowitz accused J Street of dividing the Jewish community.

"I reject J Street because it spends more time criticizing Israel than supporting it," he said. "They shouldn't call themselves pro-Israel.

The combative Harvard law professor said that he too opposed settlements. "But I spend 80 per cent of my time supporting Israel," he said.

He added: "It's a shame that J Street has set itself up as an independent lobby."