Liberal US Jews challenge conservative establishment

Liberal US Jews challenge conservative establishment

news.bbc.co.uk

Critics of the two academics countered that the pro-Israeli lobby should be allowed to make its case to government just like any other interest group, and that characterisations of Jewish lobbyists as "well-funded" and "powerful" were liable to play into the hands of anti-Semitic conspiracy theorists.

The team behind J Street do not necessarily buy into the Walt-Mearsheimer analysis, but they do believe that America's current policy tilts too strongly towards Israeli right-wingers, and is in the long-term interests neither of Israel nor the US.

"The most pro-Israel thing any American politician or policy maker can do is help to bring about a two-state solution and a comprehensive peace agreement between Israel and her neighbours," says Mr Ben-Ami.

(visit the link for the full news article)

so now there are two Jewish lobby groups in the US?
one for the right wingers and another in the middle somewhere
that is saying the US is becoming more pro
right wingers in Israel which doesnt bennifit the US or Israel.


dont know that much about US politics, what effects would this have in the long run?

news.bbc.co.uk
(visit the link for the full news article)

reply to post by bodrul


That's awesome!!! These guys sure have my vote. I wouldn't feel so bad donating to a pro-Israel lobby if they had another people's interest in mind and actually knew a lot of the problems in the middle east stem from the state of Israel (not Jews, Israelis).

J Street, is there any way I can join even though I'm not Jewish?

Its political fundraising sister group - J Street PAC, for political action committee - will raise money and donate to sympathetic politicians.

The group is billing itself as a counterweight to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (Aipac), the most prominent Jewish lobbying organisation in the US.
J Street says Aipac does not reflect the liberal views of a large number of its existing donors, let alone the mainstream of Jewish-American opinion.

So now its AIPAC vs J Street. Who will come out on top? It seems J Street has a lot bigger awareness to reality than AIPAC, although there are a large number of US politicians (neo-cons for the most part) involved with AIPAC. Most of them are Bush cronies (Senior or Junior) sadly. The Israeli lobbyists are shady characters at best, and do not do the best job representing the Israeli people.

In 2006, academics Stephen Walt of Harvard and John Mearsheimer of the University of Chicago caused a storm when they published an article arguing that groups like Aipac had pushed US foreign policy in a pro-Israeli direction often against America's national interests.

I would tend to agree. We seem to defend Israel's actions no matter what, and cannot question what they do. If we do question the STATE of Israel, we are automatically labeled anti-semites.

That's like saying you're anti-christian because you question the US government. Clearly those in power are not religious and you cannot discriminate against an entire people by discrediting the country's politicians. It just doesn't work that way.

Although Aipac have not publicly commented on J Street's launch, they are - perhaps unsurprisingly - not thought to be particularly supportive of the new group's aims.

Nor are they concerned that they will lose their pre-eminent position within the Jewish-American community.

"I believe that Aipac has very broad support and will continue to enjoy it," Malcolm Hoenlein of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, of which Aipac is a member, told the Washington Post newspaper.

No doubt they will be wary of a new player on the field. They've had quite a monopoly going for some time, and now that there's some competition, we may actually see peace in the middle east. Thank god.

Financially, J Street is certainly unlikely to pose a threat to Aipac.
Its first-year budget of $1.5m (£750,000) will be no match for Aipac, which has an endowment of more than $100m (£50m), over 100,000 members and 18 offices around the US.

Wow...a $1.5 million lobbying group versus a $100 million lobbying group. There's really no competition...yet.

If I had a few million dollars lying around, it would go to support this new group.