“I disagree with the Obama administration on that,” Palin told Walters. “I believe that the Jewish settlements should be allowed to be expanded upon, because that population of Israel is, is going to grow. More and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead. And I don’t think that the Obama administration has any right to tell Israel that the Jewish settlements cannot expand.”

Uh, more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead? Does Palin think the end times, heralded by the ingathering of the Jews, is nigh? In reality, Jews are immigrating to Israel at a fairly historically low rate.

J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami had this reaction, issued in a statement from the pro-peace pro-Israel pro-Palestinian group:

J Street rejects Sarah Palin’s comments attacking President Obama’s sensible policy on Israeli settlements in the West Bank yesterday during an ABC News interview with Barbara Walters.

Palin’s pandering to her right-wing base comes at the expense of the security of the State of Israel, the lives of those actually living the conflict, and the fundamental American interest in achieving a two-state solution in the near term. Her words reveal a glaring ignorance of damaging facts and a callous disregard of past and present U.S. policy.

For decades, American presidents have held that Israeli settlements in the West Bank are an impediment to peace. They are joined by the majority of Israelis and pro-Israel Americans who view the growing settlement enterprise as a threat to Israel’s very future as a Jewish democracy.

President Obama’s administration continued along that path yesterday, rightly and sensibly expressing concern with unilateral actions on both sides that would preempt the negotiation of final status issues that are necessary to achieve a two-state solution to the conflict.

J Street supports President Obama and Middle East Peace Envoy George Mitchell as they press the parties to begin the hard work of achieving a two-state solution, the only way to secure Israel’s future as a Jewish, democratic homeland.

APN has serious reservations about H. Res. 867. We do not believe that Israel or the cause of peace is aided by a Congressional effort that, however well-intentioned, is focused solely on denouncing the Goldstone Report and its authors and dismissing its findings.

The full resolution is after the jump.

APN has serious reservations about H. Res. 867. We do not believe that Israel or the cause of peace is aided by a Congressional effort that, however well-intentioned, is focused solely on denouncing the Goldstone Report and its authors and dismissing its findings.

APN is not a human rights organization, nor an organization that has any resources on the ground to judge the veracity, or lack thereof, of the information detailed in the report. We therefore do not presume to make any such assessment.

However, there is much in the resolution that reflects legitimate and longstanding concerns about the UN Human Rights Council and its treatment of Israel. The recent US decision to join the council is a promising development. The resolution, too, accurately reflects serious and legitimate concerns about the original mandate of the Goldstone mission, as well as the implications the Goldstone Report and its findings may have for Israel in the international arena. We urge the Obama Administration to show leadership in the UN and other multilateral fora in order to ensure that the Goldstone Report becomes a basis for moving forward toward peace and reconciliation, rather than a new obstacle to peace or a new weapon for some in the international community to wield to cynically attack Israel.

We believe that the correct course now is for Israel’s government to launch its own independent investigation of alleged violations of human rights and international law that may have taken place in the context of the Gaza war, including those documented in the Goldstone Report. We strongly believe that such an investigation is in the interests of Israel.

We believe that the correct course for friends of Israel in Congress is to focus now on moving forward toward negotiations and peace. In doing so, they can ensure that Israel will not find itself in a similarly untenable situation with respect to Gaza or any of its neighbors in the future.

Regardless of how one judges the Goldstone Report and its findings, the report serves as a clear reminder of both the horrors of war and the critical importance of President Barack Obama’s efforts to renew peace talks. Whatever Members of Congress may feel about the Gaza war or the Goldstone Report, the reality is that absent progress towards peace, it is only a matter of time before another war breaks out and more lives are lost. We believe that H. Res. 867 does not serve the cause of peace and therefore, regrettably, cannot support it.

J Street focuses less on what’s wrong with the Goldstone resolution and more on what it wants to see in changes to the resolution, using language that largely tracks with the rest of the American Jewish lobby community in defense of Israel. In particular, the progressive organization says it favors a resolution that calls on the Obama administration to “veto in the [United Nations] Security Council any resolution which refers charges against Israel and Israelis to the International Criminal Court.” The full statement, after the jump.

J Street is unable to support House Resolution 867 regarding the Goldstone Commission report on Operation Cast Lead.

J Street would be able to support a resolution that:

· Recognizes the history of bias against Israel at the United Nations, the flaws in the original mandate to the Goldstone Commission and the dangers in pursuing resolutions in multilateral fora with a track record of anti-Israel bias;

· Condemns the series of one-sided resolutions adopted by the UN Human Rights Council;

· Expresses support for the people of southern Israel who were traumatized by years of constant rocket and mortar fire as well as for the people of Gaza who are suffering greatly from the effects of both the military operation and the ongoing blockade of Gaza;

· Correctly acknowledges that the Commission’s original mandate was adjusted by Judge Goldstone himself and accepted by the Human Rights Council to include a focus on the conduct of both sides, and that the report included the first-ever exposure by a UN body of war crimes and human rights violations by Hamas;

· Calls on both the Palestinians and Israelis to launch independent investigations into their conduct during Operation Cast Lead;

· Calls on the US government to attempt to defeat in the General Assembly any resolution which unfairly focuses only on Israel and

· Calls on the US government to state unequivocally that it will veto in the Security Council any resolution which refers charges against Israel and Israelis to the International Criminal Court.

We urge members of the House to consider changes in the Resolution in line with the positions above and to call for independent investigations by both Israelis and Palestinians, adding their voices to those in Israel such as Deputy Prime Minister Dan Meridor.

J Street further urges the Obama Administration to make every effort to oppose and defeat the one-sided and biased resolution that is likely to be presented next week in the General Assembly and to work actively for the adoption of a better, balanced resolution. We urge the United States to make clear that it will use its veto to prevent any referral of this matter to the International Criminal Court.

Finally, we urge Congress to express support for the President’s efforts to prioritize swift resumption and conclusion of permanent status negotiations. No matter what happens at the United Nations, Israel’s future as a democratic home for the Jewish people depends on achieving a two-state solution before the window of opportunity closes and the Administration must urgently press forward toward a comprehensive regional peace.

Update: J Street emails to say that they’re not actually telling members to oppose the resolution, but rather to modify it a whole lot, along the lines described in the statement. I’ve modified this post, including the headline — which previously used the verb “Opposes” — as a result.

National Security Adviser James Jones (WDCpix)

Granting recognition to a new American Jewish lobby group pressing for peace between Israel and the Arab world, ret. Gen. James Jones, President Obama’s national security adviser, said that resolving the 60-year conflict was the crisis that the Obama administration would prioritize if it could “solve any one problem.”

Jones sharpened the Obama administration’s conception of an end-state to the conflict during a keynote address to the first annual conference held by J Street, the year-old “pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby,” calling for a “secure, Jewish state of Israel” side by side with a “viable, contiguous state of Palestine” that “ends the occupation began in 1967 and unleashes the full potential of the Palestinian people.” No previous U.S. administration has emphasized the essentially Jewish character of Israel or the need for Palestinian territorial contiguity, both of which speak to deep-seated concerns of both sides in the conflict.

The formulation streamlines one unveiled by Obama at the United Nations General Assembly in September and was one Jones recently used in a keynote address to the American Task Force on Palestine, a Palestinian lobby group also seeking a two-state solution, on Oct. 16. And that reflects an emerging strategy of the Obama administration: to cultivate ties with groups within the American Jewish and Arab-American communities to support a two-state solution, at a time when few believe the prospects for peace look bright, to demonstrate both to a skittish Congress and to the international community that there is a robust American political constituency for ending the conflict. Calling himself “honored” to keynote the first J Street conference, Jones pledged founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, a former Clinton White House staffer, “You can be sure this administration will be represented at all future conferences.”

Image by: Matt Mahurin

J Street said it expected the attacks, as it emerged in April 2008 specifically to challenge the more traditional Israel lobby groups — referred by some in the American Jewish peace community as the “status quo lobby” — by providing a more explicitly vocal presence in the American Jewish community for peace. One of J Street’s founders, Daniel Levy, said he believed the presence of Jones and the retention of 148 members of Congress on the host committee show that it has attracted political strength in its year-long existence.

“The smear campaign” represents “business as usual” for many right-wing American Jewish organizations, said Levy, a former Israeli peace negotiator. “It represents a frustration that [J Street] has clearly gained traction, has a following and is going to keep growing. It has legitimacy with Israel, it has legitimacy with the American Jewish community, and it has legitimacy in the corridors of American political power” including with the Obama administration, “with the presence of Gen. Jones.”

The conference, held at the Grand Hyatt in downtown Washington, attracted 1,500 attendees from around the country and Israel. Speakers included current and former members of the Israeli parliament, including former Foreign Minister Shlomo Ben Ami, Security-Service Chief Ami Ayalon, former Defense Minister Amir Peretz and former Interior Minister Meir Sheetrit, all members of the peace camp in Israeli politics. J Street spokeswoman Amy Spitalnick said the gathering, which began Sunday night and ends Wednesday, “feels very historic” and might be “the largest gathering of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement” in the United States to date.

Jones echoed J Street’s view of Israel’s interest in ending the conflict in his address. “I’m here to tell you, without equivocation, Israel’s security and peace in the Middle East are inseparable,” he said. He called on Israel and the Palestinians to “relaunch negotiations without pre-conditions,” urged Palestinian leaders to “combat incitement” against Israel” and urged Israeli leaders to “stop settlement growth [and] dismantle outposts” for settlement in the West Bank.

On diplomacy with Iran, an urgent concern for many in the American Jewish community, Jones said that in the wake of the revelation of Iran’s undisclosed nuclear facility at Qom, there was an emerging “consensus around the globe moving in our direction” that Iran must reassure the international community that it is not seeking a nuclear weapon or face internationally enforced penalties. “Nothing is off the table,” Jones said.

Another speaker, Robert Wexler, the Florida Democratic congressman who recently announced his resignation to direct a non-governmental organization seeking peace and Palestinian economic development, said it was “logical” that if Obama could make progress on nuclear diplomacy with Iran, a reassured Israeli leadership would “take greater risks for peace” with the Palestinians and the Arab world.

Calling it a “great honor” to address the J Street conference, Jones concluded by saying that by securing a lasting peace with the Palestinians — and thereby removing an excuse for radicalization in the region that threatens U.S. interests — “we will strengthen the unshakable bond between the U.S. and Israel that has endured for 60 years.”

J Street has been the target of a campaign of delegitimization from some of the more traditional Israel lobby groups, particularly the groups’ rightward flank, which hold that J Street’s pursuit of peace during a hawkish Netanyahu administration make it suspect or inauthentically pro-Israel. Twelve members of Congress cancelled their affiliation with the J Street host committee — leaving a mere rump of 148 members of Congress. “It feels very historic,” said Amy Spitalnick, a J Street spokeswoman, about the conference’s political credibility, backed by over 1,500 attendees. “It’s the largest gathering of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement” to date.

J Street congratulates President Obama on being awarded the Nobel Peace Prize. The President’s bold international leadership has had a profound impact on global dynamics, reestablishing hope for a secure peace both in the Middle East and around the globe.

We urge President Obama to take this opportunity to add further momentum towards realizing the vision of a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and broader regional peace that he laid out in the early months of his presidency.

The road to real peace and security is long and difficult. Only strong, substantive and sustained leadership will allow us to realize the dream of a two-state solution and comprehensive peace agreement.

J Street hopes for the day when Israeli and Palestinian leaders share this prize with the President for their work in achieving true peace and security for Israel, the Palestinians, and the entire region.

J Street commends President Barack Obama on restating today his commitment to a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and his serious intent to pursue a viable and sustainable resolution to the broader Arab-Israeli conflict.

Peace and security for Israel and the Middle East will require more than half-steps and further process. It requires the United States to, as the President said, “roll up our sleeves” and be seriously engaged in the diplomatic process.

J Street hopes that Prime Minister Netanyahu will act boldly and wisely in partnership with President Obama to make peace not simply with the Palestinians but with the entire Muslim and Arab worlds, as discussed by both leaders today.

Progress will require serious American leadership, full Israeli and Palestinian commitment, a regional approach and international engagement. As the President made clear, progress toward Israeli-Arab peace will help Israel, the United States and our allies to deal seriously with the threat posed by Iran.

Today’s meeting was a first step on a difficult road that must be navigated skillfully and quickly before time runs out on the two-state solution and Israel is forced to choose between its democratic nature and its Jewish heritage.

President Obama should know that the majority of American Jews support the direction he outlined and his commitment to actively pursue peace and security. We welcome as well his forceful statements that settlements must be stopped, Palestinian violence and weapons smuggling must end and the humanitarian situation in Gaza must be addressed.

But the Amelekites will KILL US ALL!!!1!

The Israeli propaganda blitz around their attack on Gaza has been greeted with uncharacteristic skepticism by the American public and even by some of the mainstream US press.

Juan attributes that to a couple of things, first among them is the uneasiness of a lot of the American Jewish community over the attack, but he spends most of his post wondering whether the debacles of the Bush administration have made the public less eager, on the whole, to accept blithe assertions that the war is necessary. I think, though, he is right on the former point.

Unlike in previous Israeli conflicts, liberal American Jewry has an emerging institutional apparatus, led principally by J Street, the progressive Jewish lobby. True to its initial purpose, J Street has been out in front for the past nine days, in the press and in its online pressure efforts for an immediate ceasefire, ensuring that the American debate over the war doesn’t get hijacked by right-wingers who pass along the canard that support for war is support for Israel. For that effort, they and their allies have been criticized in rather harsh terms within the Jewish community, but there’s little sign of backing down. That’s given non-Jewish American progressives some breathing room to argue for a saner approach to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict without having to fend off charges of being somehow anti-Israel. These things are kind of hard to quantify, but so far it looks as if J Street isn’t doing so badly during its first test.

Dec. 30, 2008 -- A Palestinian stands on the wreckage of a mosque damaged by Israeli airstrike, at the Jabalia refugee camp in Gaza Strip. (Zuma)

As the Israeli bombardment of Gaza enters its fourth day, there is no shortage of tests. The wisdom of Israeli strategy is being tested. The resilience of the Palestinian people is being tested. The ability of the U.S. and the international community to impose a ceasefire is being tested.

And the might of the new progressive American Jewish infrastructure that emerged in 2008 — unapologetically pro-peace and pro-Israel — is undergoing its own test as well: How to effectively argue that an Israeli war is counterproductive to Israel’s long-term security while the bombs are falling.

Illustration by: Matt Mahurin

“Absolutely,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a new liberal Jewish lobby group. “This is a real testing moment for those of us who honestly believe you can be supportive of Israel but questioning of steps its government takes.”

M.J. Rosenberg, director of policy analysis for the Israel Policy Forum, another progressive Jewish organization, was similarly blunt. “It’s put-up-or-shut-up time,” he said. “For a two-state solution, for the U.S. to be an honest broker — if all of us just sit back and say, ‘Israel had no choice [to bomb Gaza], then we’re just a bunch of phonies. But I don’t see that happening.”

As is typical during moments of crisis in the Middle East, the bombing of Gaza quickly led to statements of unambiguous support for Israel from leading American politicians, including from Democrats and progressives.

“When Israel is attacked,” said Speaker of the House Nancy Pelosi (D-Calif.), “the United States must continue to stand strongly with its friend and democratic ally.” House Majority Leady Steny Hoyer (D-Md.) said, “Israel is acting in clear self-defense in response to heinous rocket attacks from Hamas-controlled Gaza.” Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the progressive chairman of the House Foreign Affairs Committee, at least acknowledged the 364 Palestinians killed in Gaza over four days, but only to say, “The loss of innocent life is a terrible tragedy, and the blame for that tragedy lies with Hamas.”

The Gaza crisis is the first Israeli-Palestinian emergency since J Street launched in April. As a self-identified force to shift the American debate on Israel and Palestine to the left, it has not previously had to make its arguments while Israel has been at war. Usually, when Israel finds itself at war, “our side gets cowed into silence,” Ben-Ami, a former domestic policy aide to President Bill Clinton, told the Washington Independent in April. So Gaza is the first test for whether that silence can be broken, and the expected pro-bombing statements made by U.S. politicians and media commentators demonstrates its uphill struggle.

On Sunday afternoon, J Street emailed supporters and asked them to endorse a statement: “I support immediate and strong U.S.-led diplomatic efforts to urgently reinstate a meaningful ceasefire that ends all military operations, stops the rockets aimed at Israel and lifts the blockade of Gaza. This is in the best interests of Israel, the Palestinian people and the United States.”

The appeal was accompanied by an anguished email written by online director Isaac Luria. “At this moment of extreme crisis, J Street wants to demonstrate that, among those who care about Israel and its security, there is a constituency for sanity and moderation,” Luria wrote. “There are many who recognize elements of truth on both sides of this gaping divide and who know that closing it requires strong American engagement and leadership.”

By 5 p.m. Monday, the organization said it had collected 11,870 signatures. Ben Ami said he would present the petition to the Obama transition team, with which the organization is in talks about appointments to Middle-East policy positions.

For its part, the transition has been circumspect, declining to step on the Bush administration’s efforts before Obama takes office. “President-elect Obama is closely monitoring global events, including the situation in Gaza, but there is one president at a time,” said Brooke Anderson, the transition’s chief national-security spokeswoman.

Further steps, Ben Ami said, depend on whether the Israeli campaign winds down or escalates. But he said that the organization’s leadership would “do whole range of media” appearances in order to demonstrate that “this organization with strong roots in the pro-Israel community is willing to say, ‘Let’s discuss the best way going forward and not blindly go down a path we think is counterproductive.’”

Others discussed next steps already. Rosenberg anticipated forming a coalition with organizations like J Street and Americans for Peace Now, another progressive Jewish lobby group, as well as progressive Arab-American organizations like the American Task Force on Palestine — which has also called for an immediate ceasefire in Gaza — to coordinate messaging and lobbying.

While coordinated efforts have not yet coalesced, some in the progressive Jewish community think that the “message is getting out there,” as Ori Nir, spokesman for Americans For Peace Now,  put it.  “It’s getting reported by Jewish and general media, getting it out to our base,” Nir said. “We sent out yesterday our statement and today an action alert calling on activists to send letters to President Bush urging what the press statement urged, and to President-elect Obama.”

In the statement, Americans For Peace Now’s president, Debra DeLee said, “While we hold – as we always have – that Israel has the right and the obligation to protect its citizens from attack and threats, we know that military power alone will not provide real, long term remedy for the threat that the Hamas-ruled Gaza Strip poses to Israel. Israel needs stability on its border with Gaza. Such stability can only be achieved through a political process,” a sentiment echoed by organizations like J Street and the Israel Policy Forum.

Hussein Ibish, a senior fellow with the American Task Force on Palestine, urged progressive Jewish organizations to “be very clear with their Israeli friends that there isn’t going to be a military solution [to the conflict], just as we are with our Palestinian and Arab friends.” But he cautioned that a moment of hostility might not actually be such a proving ground for the new liberal Jewish lobbying apparatus.

“Peace groups on both sides are more fully tested when the spotlight is not on the process, counterintuitively,” Ibish said. “That’s when the hard work — building the basis of a negotiated agreement comes in. That’s the only way this ends, and you can’t bring that out in any meaningful when the bombs are flying.”