J Street branch drops pro-Israel slogan

[shira]

J Street's university arm has dropped the "pro-Israel" part of the left-wing US lobby's "pro-Israel, pro-peace" slogan to avoid alienating students.

That decision was part of the message conveyed to young activists who attended a special weekend program for students ahead of J Street's first annual conference, which began on Sunday.

...

"We don't want to isolate people because they don't feel quite so comfortable with 'pro-Israel,' so we say 'pro-peace,'" said American University junior Lauren Barr of the "J Street U" slogan, "but behind that is 'pro-Israel.'"

more...
http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256557968276&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[jensee]

1. A duck

If it walks like a duck and quacks like a duck, chances are, it's a duck.

[clear eye]

2. You can see exactly what J Street is by watching the live time video of their conference.

http://conference.jstreet.org/

This trying to read between the lines of a secondhand story about what the reporter thinks a student thinks he was told, is ridiculous. They are not a clandestine organization.

While I don't agree w/ every recommendation they make, by reading their website and following some of the conference, I'm pretty clear about their aims and viewpoint.

I'd be much more enthusiastic about welcoming you to DU, if you formed your conclusions about people and groups on more than assumptions.

[oberliner]

3. What exactly are you responding to?

I was not able to decode any meaning from the "duck" comment.

What did you take it to mean?

[clear eye]

4. Either that the group is a masked backer of Israeli imperialism or of undermining Israel.

It doesn't matter which. The implication was that the group is trying to do something deceptive and unstated, and has to be deciphered by looking at unspecified actions which reveal its true intent--an offensive assumption that the author does not substantiate.

[LeftishBrit]

5. I would understand it as meaning 'J-Street claims to be one thing, but its actions show it to be

something worse'.

As I haven't seen other posts by the poster, I don't know whether this means "J-Street claim to be pro-Israel but are in fact treacherously plotting against Israel" or "J-Street pretend to be moderate but are really hardline Israeli shills". Either implication would be pretty unpleasant and IMO unfair.

[proteus_lives]

6. So, they're cowards?

[shira]

7. J Street's Ben-Ami: Our stance is like Kadima's

http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?cid=1256557978811&pagename=JPost%2FJPArticle%2FShowFull

[oberliner]

8. I think this group is still finding itself

Are they looking to provide a big tent or are they looking to represent a more narrow and specific viewpoint?

Hard to say at this point.

Many people seem to be observing a disconnect between the leadership and the membership.

[shira]

9. no doubt.....now they're like Kadima? LOL

[shira]

10. Yglesias: Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace

http://yglesias.thinkprogress.org/archives/2009/10/pro-israel-pro-peace.php

I was debating with Jon Chait at a J Street panel this morning on the subject of “what does it mean to be pro-Israel?” As expected, we disagreed on a number of points, most of which I was right on and he was wrong on. But one thing he said in his opening remarks that I really disagreed with was that there was an ambiguity running through the J Street constituency as to whether the group was or should be pro-Israel at all.

That just struck me as kind of nuts. My J Street button said “Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace.” It’s not a subtle aspect of the messaging. But when we moved to the Q&A time it became clear that a number of people in the audience really were quite uncomfortable self-defining as “pro-Israel” in any sense and that others are uncomfortable with the basic Zionist concept of a Jewish national state. I was, of course, aware that those views existed but it had seemed to me that it was clear that that wasn’t what J Street is there to advocate for. Apparently, though, it wasn’t clear to everyone.

Which I think is interesting. Readers will know that I’m not a big fan of nationalism and I am a big fan of trans-national projects like the European Union and the United Nations. And it’s even true that I really kind of hope that hundreds of years from now there won’t be national states at all, instead we’ll all be lumped in with the Vulcans and the Andorians in a United Federation of Planets and off we’ll go. But there’s clearly no prospects for the abolition of the nation-state in the short-term. And the Jewish people’s claim to a nation-state is just as strong as the Finnish or Dutch or Thai claim. Or, for that matter, as the Palestinian claim. By far the best way to secure a just resolution of those conflicting claims is through a two-state solution—an independent Palestine, and a democratic Jewish Israel.

I completely grasp the pull of radical cosmopolitan values, but I think people who think that the area west of the Jordan River would be a great place to try implementing them in the short-term are being a bit crazy. It’s not even clear that Belgium or Canada will be able to survive as bi-national entities.

[oberliner]

11. And here is Chait's perspective

J Street's Choice

Yesterday I appeared on a panel at J Street, where I debated Matthew Yglesias on what it means to be pro-Israel, as well as J Street's role in this debate. My main argument was that the Jewish community needs a group like J Street to keep the most extreme elements from defining "pro-Israel" too restrictively, to provide a counterweight against the natural inclination of any ethnic community toward tribalism, and to provide political space for the territorial compromises needed to create a two-state solution.

The problem, though, was that J Street had loosened the definition of "pro-Israel" to the point where it had virtually no meaning. As a result, the group has attracted the support of a lot of people who do not think of themselves as pro-Israel at all, some of whom oppose Israel's continued existence as a Jewish state. My bottom line was that J Street could be a group that represents a significant chunk of the American Jewish population, or it could be a group that represented people with Walt/Mearhseimer-esque views on Israel, but it couldn't be both and would have to choose.

What's interesting to me is that this tension has been apparent to numerous observers of the conference, including people who approach the problem from the opposite ideological side. Left-wing anti-Zionist Phillip Weiss noted that the J Street crowd was much more left-wing than the group's leadership. Max Blumenthal protested J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami's moderate interview with Jeffrey Goldberg. And Yglesias, who began the panel by disputing my thesis, wound up changing his mind and agreeing with it.

My main thought coming out of the J Street conference is that J Street has a huge problem on its hands. It's trying to win political influence and compete with AIPAC to speak for the center of American Jewry on the Middle East. Meanwhile, its most enthusiastic supporters have beliefs that are totally incompatible with this goal. J Street has played a delicate political game, sending different messages to different constituencies, but something is going to have to give.

http://www.tnr.com/blog/the-plank/j-streets-choice#at

Video of the Chait-Yglesias debate is provided at the link.