Jewish Liberals to Launch A Counterpoint to AIPAC
Political Funds, Lobbying to Promote Arab-Israeli Peace Deal
By Michael Abramowitz
Wa****ngton Post Staff Writer
Tuesday, April 15, 2008; A13
Some of the country's most prominent Jewish liberals are forming a
political action committee
and lobbying group aimed at dislodging what they consider the excessive
hold of
neoconservatives and evangelical Christians on U.S. policy toward Israel.
The group is planning to channel political contributions to favored
candidates in perhaps a
half-dozen campaigns this fall, the first time an organization focused on
Israel has tried to
play such a direct role in the political process, according to its
organizers.
Organizers said they hope those efforts, coupled with a separate lobbying
group that will focus
on promoting an Arab-Israeli peace settlement, will fill a void left by
the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee, or AIPAC, and other Jewish groups that they
contend have tilted to
the right in recent years.
The lobbying group will be known as J Street and the political action
group as JStreetPAC. The
executive director for both will be Jeremy Ben-Ami, a former domestic
policy adviser in the
Clinton White House.
"The definition of what it means to be pro-Israel has come to diverge from
pursuing a peace
settlement," said Alan Solomont, a prominent Democratic Party fundraiser
involved in the
initiative. In recent years, he said, "We have heard the voices of
neocons, and right-of-center
Jewish leaders and Christian evangelicals, and the mainstream views of the
American Jewish
community have not been heard."
Solomont is a top fundraiser for the presidential campaign of Sen. Barack
Obama (D-Ill.), but
the organizers include sup****ters and fundraisers for both Obama and Sen.
Hillary Rodham
Clinton (D-N.Y.). Many prominent figures in the American Jewish left,
former lawmakers and U.S.
government officials, and several prominent Israeli figures, as well as
activists who have
raised money for the Democracy Alliance and MoveOn.org, are also involved.
A controversial essay in 2006 by two eminent academics, Harvard's Stephen
Walt and the
University of Chicago's John Mearsheimer, argued that a powerful
pro-Israel lobby that includes
Jewish groups, evangelical Christians and others has actively served to
steer U.S. policy in a
pro-Israel direction, often against the U.S. national interest.
The essay, a precursor to a 2007 book, triggered an angry debate among
sup****ters of Israel and
beyond, and even those who have been critical of groups such as AIPAC, the
most influential
pro-Israel lobbying group in Wa****ngton, said the thesis was either wrong
or overdrawn.
"The genesis of this is really the frustration on the part of a very
substantial ****tion of the
American Jewish community that despite the fact that there is broad
sup****t for a
peace-oriented policy in the Middle East, there doesn't seem to be the
political will to
actually carry it out," Ben-Ami said. "We have not been effective at
transmitting the message
that there is political sup****t for these positions in the American Jewish
community and their
allies."
Officials with AIPAC declined to comment on the formation of the new
competitor. But the
organizers' behind-the-scenes efforts in the past two years have been
generating buzz, and some
consternation, in some quarters of the politically active Jewish
community. Malcolm I.
Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major
American Jewish
Organizations, raised questions about the viability of the new group. "I
believe that AIPAC has
very broad sup****t and will continue to enjoy it," he said.
Even sup****ters said the new groups will be hard-pressed to match AIPAC's
influence in
Wa****ngton. AIPAC has more than 100,000 members, 18 offices around the
country and an endowment
of more than $100 million--dwarfing what organizers say will be a
first-year budget for J
Street of about $1.5 million.
AIPAC has cultivated alliances across the political aisle, especially in
recent years with
President Bush, who has worked hard to build good relations with leading
Jewish groups. But
AIPAC also works closely with congressional Democrats and the leading
Democratic presidential
candidates, and it sees itself as representing a broad cross section of
Jews with an interest
in fostering strong ties between Israel and the United States.
Some veteran Middle East experts said the new group faces the political
reality that many
American Jews have become disillusioned over the years with the peace
process and what they
consider to be the intransigence, hostility and--in some cases--terrorism
of would-be
Palestinian partners. While Bush early on in his administration grew
skeptical of the
peacemaking efforts of President Clinton, he received very little
push-back from organized
American Jewry.
Martin Indyk, a former U.S. ambassador to Israel and the director of the
Saban Center for
Middle East Policy at the Brookings Institution, said the group "has a
very steep hill to climb
because peacemaking has acquired a bad reputation over the years in the
Jewish community, and
there is a widespread fear that U.S. intervention on behalf of peace will
lead to pressure on
Israel."
Perhaps the biggest difference between the new effort and the operations
of existing Jewish or
pro-Israel groups is the formation of a political action committee that
endorses candidates and
channels donations into political races -- something AIPAC does not do.
The initial efforts will be relatively modest: Ben-Ami said the group aims
to try to raise at
least $50,000 or more for a handful of campaigns this fall as a "test
case." But the group
intends to raise its profile in future campaign cycles, and some major
liberal fundraisers have
already committed to the venture, including Solomont, high-tech
entrepreneur Davidi Gilo and
former New York City cor****ation counsel Victor Kovner, a sup****ter of
Clinton's presidential bid.
Research editor Alice Crites contributed to this re****t.
http://www.wa****ngtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2008/04/14/AR2008041402647_pf.html
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