J Street exists because its organizers believed it was "time for the broad, sensible mainstream of pro-Israel American Jews and their allies to challenge those on the extreme right who claim to speak for all American Jews in the national debate about Israel and the Middle East--and who, through the use of fear and intimidation, have cut off reasonable debate on the topic." Those Jews on the extreme right to which the group's founder, Jeremy Ben-Ami, was referring would be AIPAC, or as Chas Freeman likes to call it, the Avigdor Lieberman Lobby.
The people behind J Street genuinely believed that they -- and not AIPAC -- better represented the views of "the broad, sensible mainstream." In particular, J Street favors "diplomatic solutions over military ones, including in Iran; multilateral over unilateral approaches to conflict resolution; and dialogue over confrontation with a wide range of countries and actors when conflicts do arise." That is, J Street favors direct negotiation with Hamas, and Ben-Ami has been unequivocal on this point.
Yesterday J Street released a new survey of attitudes among American Jews but there is one question that is conspicuously absent: Should Israel negotiate with Hamas? It seems the group didn't have the nerve to ask for fear that the answer would show just how out of step they are with the "sensible, mainstream of pro-Israel American Jews." Though if you look close enough, the poll does bear out precisely that conclusion. J Street asked participants whether they agreed or disagreed with this statement: "The traditional Jewish organizations do a good job of representing my views on Israel." 47 percent of respondents agreed, while just 29 percent said traditional Jewish organizations (code for AIPAC) do a "poor" job of representing their views.
More than that, a majority of respondents (53 percent) disagreed with this statement: "With Hamas launching rockets into southern Israel that killed many Israeli civilians and Israel launching air and ground strikes that killed many Palestinian civilians, neither side has a monopoly on who is right and who is wrong." This language -- neither side has a monopoly on who is right and who is wrong -- mirrors precisely the language of a statement put out by the group during the war. That statement spurred a devastating smack-down of the group by Eric Yoffe, one of the most prominent doves in the country.
American Jews approved of Israel's Operation Cast Lead in overwhelming numbers (75 percent to 25 percent), and despite J Street's insistence that American Jews share the group's war-what-is-it-good-for views, 41 percent said the war made Israel more secure to just 18 percent who said less secure.
There are some other interesting results in the poll, but the one clear result is that J Street does not speak for the "broad, sensible mainstream" of American Jews, and it knows it -- otherwise they would have at least asked about negotiations with Hamas. The closest they get is a question that hinges on a J Street fantasy of a "unified Palestinian government" that is willing to work with the United States on a peace agreement with Israel. When that happens, we'll all be J Streeters. Until then, J Street remains a fringe group at odds with mainstream Jewish opinion and the organizations that reflect it.
