rssJ Street Reacts to Clinton, AIPAC
Monday, March 22, 2010 at 10:49 am
- 11 Comments
After Secretary of State Hillary Rodham Clinton’s address to AIPAC, I caught up with two representatives of J Street, the younger and more progressive pro-Israel/pro-peace lobby, to find out what they made of both the speech and its reception.
“The speech was very good overall,” said Hadar Susskind, J Street’s policy and strategy director. “She’s good on content, and she obviously knows and understands intimately the room she’s in.” Susskind gave Clinton high marks for the speech’s forceful challenge to Iranian nuclear ambitions and Palestinian incitement ahead of “the issue at hand, and the real substantive disagreement the U.S. administration and the Israeli administration have. She did a nice job of saying we’re all coming at this with the same goals.”
On Clinton’s brief reminder that the perpetuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict damages U.S. interests in the Middle East — a notion that Abraham Foxman of the Anti-Defamation League called “dangerous and counterproductive” last week in rebuking, of all people, Gen. David Petraeus — Susskind said, “It’s unquestionably a true fact that this issue has an impact on U.S. issues with the rest of the world. You can argue that shouldn’t be the case, but you can’t really argue that it doesn’t, and I think she was merely stating the fact.”
Susskind and J Street spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick were generally pleased with the reaction Clinton got from AIPAC’s delegates, although expectations were pretty low. “I was happy she didn’t get booed,” Susskind said. “Our interest is in having a safe, secure, Jewish democratic Israel, and that’s what the U.S. is working toward.”
I asked them how they’ve been received, as AIPAC has tended to look upon J Street as something between an annoying lefty younger cousin and the insufferable kid who threatens the harmony of the family seder. Spitalnick said she walked into the conference yesterday and overheard an older couple “saying, you know, ‘How can an entire group of Jews be against AIPAC, be against Israel?’ And the wife goes, ‘Oh, you mean J Street?’ and the husband goes, ‘Of course.’
“So I go, ‘Hey, I’m J Street, and I’m here, and I am enjoying this conference and I don’t think I’m against Israel because I love Israel, and I don’t think I’m against AIPAC either, and by no means are we here to oppose AIPAC.’ And we had a nice conversation. We were waiting to get into the evening plenary, and by the end she took my card and said she was going to read our literature, learn more and hope she’s able to understand a little bit more.”
Follow Spencer Ackerman on Twitter
11 Comments
Comment posted March 22, 2010 @ 4:35 pm
Clinton is BS-ing the AIPAC-ists. She said to AIPAC that the “proximity talks” were just a lead-in to the direct negotiations “that both sides need”.
But in reality she last week forced Netanyahu to agree to negotiate all critical issues in “proximity” so that the sensitive Palestinians don't actually have to sit face-fo-face with the Israelis.
Comment posted March 22, 2010 @ 5:21 pm
J street proved who they really are only last week, when they backed the ridiculous crisis the administration created with Israel. The facts of the matter are that peace is not an end to itself, but rather means for Jewish people to live better. It isn't a matter of opinion, nor is it a matter of recalibrating Zionism. I am for Israel and Jewish people. Can J street say the same, unconditionally. If they can't, then we have a problem with J street.
Comment posted March 22, 2010 @ 5:25 pm
Gary Bauer made the following comments:
“Today the United States and Israel stand together against a common enemy, radical Islamofascists who wish to see our nations destroyed. It takes a real commitment to blindness to miss seeing who is the threat to peace in the Middle East. Hillary Clinton continued the Obama administration's call for Israel to refrain from housing its people in its own capital city, but a housing project is not a road block to peace.
“I stand with AIPAC and affirm that Jerusalem is not a settlement; it's the legitimate capital of a nation. To say that it undermines 'mutual trust' in the region for a sovereign nation to house its people while ignoring murderous actions of jihadists against Israel misses the true situation entirely. Israel faces daily threats from committed enemies and sees on the horizon the possibility of a nuclear-armed Iran. The weapons of war aimed at Israel are the obstacles to peace, not fabric of peaceful civilian life.
“Peace in the region would be possible tomorrow if Islamofascists ended their dream of a second Holocaust. The Obama Administration is not acting in good faith if it pretends otherwise.”
Comment posted March 22, 2010 @ 5:42 pm
Yeah, how dare those untermenschen complain about being ethnically cleansed! There standing in the way of “peace.”
Comment posted March 22, 2010 @ 8:55 pm
Obama the candidate adressed Aipac and spoke of a “unified Jerusalem” under Israeli rule. Hilary, the NY Senator supported a unified Jerusalem.
I guess power corrupts.
Comment posted June 27, 2010 @ 9:42 am
J street proved who they really are only last week, when they backed the ridiculous crisis the administration created with Israel. The facts of the matter are that peace is not an end to itself, but rather means for Jewish people to live better. It isn't a matter of opinion, nor is it a matter of recalibrating Zionism. I am for Israel and Jewish people. Can J street say the same, unconditionally. If they can't, then we have a problem with J street.
Comment posted July 4, 2010 @ 3:08 am
thank you very much perfect sharing i am coming everday
Comment posted December 21, 2010 @ 6:46 am
This is absolutely a true fact that this issue has an impact on U.S. issues with the rest of the world.
Comment posted January 27, 2011 @ 6:56 am
Obama the candidate adressed Aipac and spoke of a “unified Jerusalem” under Israeli rule. Hilary, the NY Senator supported a unified Jerusalem.
I guess power corrupts.
Comment posted January 27, 2011 @ 6:57 am
Obama the candidate adressed Aipac and spoke of a “unified Jerusalem” under Israeli rule. Hilary, the NY Senator supported a unified Jerusalem.
I guess power corrupts.
RSS feed for comments on this post.
Sorry, the comment form is closed at this time.
