AIPAC gets a challenge from moderate and progressive Jews

[Larkspur]

For Israel’s Sake, Moderate American Jews Must Find Their Voice
SNIP
For the sake of Israel, the United States and the world, it is time for American political discourse to re-engage with reality. Voices of reason need to reclaim what it means to be pro-Israel and to establish in American political discourse that Israel’s core security interest is to achieve a negotiated two-state solution and to define once and for all permanent, internationally-recognized borders.

SNIP

Somehow, for American politicians or activists to express opposition to settlement expansion — or support for active American diplomacy, dialogue with Syria or engagement with Iran — has become subversive and radical, inviting vile, hateful emails and a place on public lists of Israel-haters and antisemites. For the particularly unlucky, it leads to public, personal attacks on one’s family and heritage.

Enough.

In early 21st-century America, the rules of politics are being rewritten, and conventional political orthodoxy is clearly open to once-inconceivable challenges.

It is 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.

A new political movement is a necessity not just for Israel but for the heart and soul of the American Jewish community. By and large, we are a progressive community, among the most liberal in the United States. Over the decades, we have been at the forefront of many civil rights, social justice and other causes. Many of us proudly regard that legacy as a defining cornerstone of the Jewish place in American history.
SNIP

Jeremy Ben-Ami is executive director of J Street and of JStreetPAC.

Hopefully, this group will help break the stranglehold of AIPAC over our politicians.

[LSparkle]

1. VERY good news ...

I feel sorry for Israel in a way, because their politics have been dominated
by right wingers of late the same way ours have been ... We got RatBastard,
they got Sharon/Olmert. It's good that PROGRESSIVE Jews have now formed an
organization to "compete" with AIPAC because I truly believe that many feel
AIPAC doesn't speak for them any more than the BFEE does for all of the U.S.

[Fredda Weinberg]

2. Don't cry for me ... our right wingers have 'saichel'

Translates as common sense. No, AIPAC doesn't speak for me, but they sure know how to organize. In fact, organized religion does that better than anybody else.

So take your hostility elsewhere. There have been lots of reform movements ... they're always healthy responses to stresses in our environment. But Orthodoxy, modern or traditional, is here to stay.