Earlier this week, to much media roll out (NPR, Wash Post etcetera) came the J Street Project.

Self described as “the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement which seeks to change the direction of American policy in the Middle East and to broaden the public and policy debate in the U.S. about the Middle East. We support strong American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israeli conflicts peacefully and diplomatically…”

If you are so inclined, you can garner even more insight into the thinking of the folks behind J Street by listening to the conference call they held for reporters and which JTA has posted on the web. It includes Former Ambassador Samuel Lewis’ Talmudic dissection of what is and is not American “pressure” on Israel (at about 37 mins. in) and J Street executive Jeremy Ben Ami’s pointing toward the Orthodox Union’s advocacy for not re-dividing Jerusalem (some key aspects of which he misrepresents at approx 34 mins in) as justification for J Street’s existence.

We’ll take the compliment and will not question the motivations of the J Street’s residents and leave debate over its approach to others.

At least for now.
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