By Janis Siegel, JTNews Correspondent
There’s no question the majority of American Jews want to see an end to the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts, but the disputes have long been divided by dueling factions within the Jewish community: Those Jews who criticize Israel’s role in the conflict and those who don’t.
It’s a debate that has left Israel’s Jewish detractors continually defending their pro-Israel stance, and has also left them out in the cold when it comes to influencing national public policy.
Now, a new Jewish political action committee in Washington, D.C., J Street, the “political arm of the pro-Israel and pro-peace movement,” according to its executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami, is playing politics and mixing it up with the heavyweight politicos on the Hill.
Ben-Ami believes they are racing against time to persuade Congress to push for a Middle East peace — now.
“Politics, in 2009, is about money,” Ben-Ami told a small but concerned group of 15 Seattle Jewish community members who recently came to learn about J Street at a breakfast at Temple De Hirsch Sinai.
“The voices they hear have come from the right of the Jewish community, or from the Christian Zionist community, or from a cadre of neo-con intellectual writers and thought leaders,” Ben-Ami said. “Time is no longer our friend. This time, with this president, is the central moment.”
J Street PAC can raise money and endorse candidates, which separates it from other larger educational or lobbying groups, although it has two “sister” charitable organizations — J Street Education Fund, Inc., and J Net, a community organizing group.
Since its public debut in April 2008, J Street has raised nearly $600,000 to support candidates who further its cause. It also flaunts a growing e-mail list of about 110,000 names.
Ben-Ami has been working in politics for the last 25 years and worked on several election campaigns, including Howard Dean’s 2004 presidential run. He was also a senior domestic policy advisor to President Clinton.
“He’s a savvy Washington insider,” said Barbara Lahav, a community activist in Seattle who helped organize the event. “We need to have one place of power where we can go to people of influence. There’s no one else who is doing this work.”
J Street has hired four lobbyists, and will have six next year, working to promote their policy positions. It does not intend to compete with the giant of pro-Israel groups, AIPAC, because AIPAC doesn’t raise money to support candidates. By comparison, AIPAC’s budget is $87 million compared to a projected J Street 2010 budget of $5 million.
“We’re trying to create more political space so the president has the ability to engage in diplomacy,” said Daniel Kohl, political director for J Street. J Street supported a three-party congressional letter sent to the president before he traveled to Cairo last month to stress the urgency of resolving this conflict. “Our outreach is more toward Congress than it is the president.”
Another part of J Street’s mission is to help support and endorse local races in regions around the country. They gave $600,000 to 41 candidates around the U.S., including 8th-district congressional candidate Darcy Burner and Jeff Merkley (D-OR). Thirty-two of them won their races.
In Washington State, they intend to support Democratic Sens. Patty Murray and Maria Cantwell and Rep. Jay Inslee (D-01) in the future.
J Street hopes to double the money they raise and the candidates they’re able to support in 2010, by some measure through its long list of high-profile Jewish communal and business leaders on its U.S. advisory council and an equally long list of supporters in Israel, including rabbis, writers, and former military and government officials.
They have, however, received disapproval from the Jewish community as well. Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism, has criticized J Street for its stance on the Gaza military operation, which condemned the Palestinians and Hamas as well as Israel. He called it “morally deficient and strategically naïve.”
J Street’s position on the borders for a Palestinian state is based on “1967 borders with agreed reciprocal land swaps,” Ben-Ami said. They also support a comprehensive agreement with its neighbors and throughout the region that ensures Israel’s peace and security.
“We observe the Clinton parameters,” Ben-Ami said. “We also believe that the right of return is not going to be exercised by all of the Arabs returning to Israel; however, it needs to be recognized, aired out, and understood, but not by having 4 million Palestinians return to Israel so that it is no longer the Jewish home.”
Ben-Ami said a third entity needs to conduct negotiations, as current talks have not borne fruit.
“The sides themselves are not going to work it out,” Ben-Ami said. “J Street says to politicians that there are a large number of us in this community who hold pro-Israel, pro-peace views that want a two-state solution, who want a Palestinian state, and who believe the settlements are wrong and are killing Israel. We want to see negotiations with the entirety of the Arab world through the Arab League.”
On October 25–28, J Street will hold its first national conference in Washington, D.C. Massachusetts Sen. John Kerry, among others, is scheduled to speak.
Lahav is hoping to assemble a sizeable Washington State contingent.
“We want to be a part of the national conversation,” Lahav said.
If J Street can change the politics regarding the issues surrounding Israel, recapture the co-opted term “pro-Israel,” and create national and community discussions on how to end the conflict, they can claim substantial first-year victories, Ben-Ami said.
“The peace movement in Israel is at its lowest point ever,” said Ben-Ami, “and we have to be honest with ourselves with how out of sync we are with Israeli politics. They just want it to end. We just want to end this nightmare.”