J Street Fails to Stymie Pro-Israel Effort

This one’s a victory for Israel and the pro-Israel lobby.


Daniel Halper
The Weekly Standard
21 June '10

Last week, the pro-Israel lobby AIPAC announced it was supporting letters circulating Congress – a House version and a Senate one – supporting the Jewish state’s right to defend herself and reaffirming American support of its liberal democratic ally in the Middle East. The Senate letter is led by Democratic Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid and GOP Leader Mitch McConnell. In the House, Republican Ted Poe and Democrat Gary Peters, joined by Steny Hoyer and Eric Cantor and Howard Berman and Illeana Ros-Leithene, are leading the effort.

It was a pretty non-controversial, widely bipartisan, standard letter addressed to the president of the United States. It is the kind of thing that is meant to underscore support for Israel, as it is under a barrage of unfair criticism because of the flotilla incident. (The full text of the Senate version is here, and the House one is here.) Indeed, it has been received so well that, at the time of this writing, 85 senators and 307 members of the House of Representatives have signed onto the letter.

In what political reporter Ben Smith called “the most open conflict in months between the left-leaning Israel group J Street and the traditional pro-Israel powerhouse AIPAC,” J Street opposed the letter – and sent their own letter around Capitol Hill, urging members to oppose the AIPAC letter.

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Blindness to the Real Syrian Problem

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
22 April '10
Posted before Shabbat

Cliff May wonders whether Dianne Feinstein is dumb or just pretending to be. Feinstein on the shipment of missiles to Hezbollah and the potential for war, pronounces: “There’s only one thing that’s going to solve it, and that’s a two-state solution.” Thunk. As May observes, is it really possible that the “chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, believes that Hezbollah, Iran, and Syria would be satisfied with a two-state solution — assuming that one of those states is Israel”? Well, to be honest, that is not far removed from the claptrap we hear from the administration, which has reduced every issue to a pretext for “focusing” (haven’t we focused for decades?) on the non-existent peace process.

For a saner take on what is really at issue in Syria, read Lee Smith’s compelling piece on the SCUDs and what the administration is doing about that situation. The contrast to the prior administration is stark:

This past week was a bad one for those eager to reach out to Syria. It was reported that Damascus is believed to have transferred to Hezbollah Scud missiles that would be able to reach any part of Israel. “The threat that Syria might transfer more advanced weapons to Hezbollah has existed for a long time,” says Elliott Abrams, who oversaw Middle East affairs in the George W. Bush White House and is now a fellow at the Council on Foreign Relations. “With respect to Scuds, it has been understood the Israelis would interdict such a shipment. I do not recall the Bush Administration ever expressing disagreement with that view.”

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