J Street's problem with reality

Petra Marquardt-Bigman
The Warped Mirror/JPost
19 July '10

A rather bizarre new TV ad by J Street, the self-described "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby in Washington, has already attracted some well-deserved criticism. Writing on the "Re-think the Middle East" site, Michael Lame argued that J Street was trying "to turn peace in the Middle East into a proprietary issue of the Democrats" while vilifying Republicans "as the enemies of peace."

Indeed, J Street's clip seems to suggest that critics of President Obama's Middle East policies should be regarded as "America's Chorus of No," and J Street accuses this supposedly unsavory group of ignoring "reality." But perhaps this accusation should be welcomed, because it provides an opportunity to highlight some very crucial aspects of reality in the Middle East that J Street and its "community of yes" seem resolved to ignore.

First of all, it is clear that J Street needs to be reminded of some events and developments that occurred under the previous American administration.

Given J Street's often professed opposition to Israeli settlements, the group should consider the fact that Israel evacuated all settlements in the Gaza Strip and withdrew all its forces from the territory in 2005 as a positive step. However, there can be little doubt that this step was taken only because Ariel Sharon felt that he had the full backing of Obama's predecessor, President George W. Bush, who provided a number of critical assurances in an exchange of letters. Similarly, this firm American commitment of support for Israel was crucial when Sharon's successor Ehud Olmert presented far-reaching proposals for an Israeli-Palestinian peace agreement during the Annapolis talks.

It is worthwhile to go back even a bit further and recall that ten years ago, Israel was led by government that - again with strong American support - tried very hard to achieve a comprehensive Mideast peace by negotiating with Syria, withdrawing from Lebanon, and engaging in prolonged talks with the Palestinians.

The reality J Street refuses to see is that all of these efforts by Israel to advance the peace process were turned into a game of moving the goal posts: nothing Israel did would be acknowledged as a positive step that required Israel's enemies to reciprocate with a positive step of their own. Instead, every step and every risk Israel took was promptly met by a very real "Chorus of No" that asserted that whatever Israel had done wasn't enough to justify any positive gesture in return.

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