“I greatly appreciated the opportunity to sit down with Ambassador Oren for a frank and fruitful conversation about how we can work together to ensure Israel’s prospects for peace and security.  I applaud the Ambassador’s commitment to building a bridge to the pro-Israel, pro-peace community in the months since our national conference,” said Ben-Ami.

“The Ambassador clearly recognizes the importance of dialogue and communication between the State of Israel and those parts of the American Jewish community that are deeply pro-Israel but at times disagree with the policies of its government.

“J Street hopes that going forward we are building a relationship based on mutual respect and recognizing that our disagreements are rooted in a deep commitment to Israel’s security and its future as a democracy and the home of the Jewish people.

“I hope this is but the first of many conversations we will have.”

If the Jewish community can’t come together during the 65th anniversary of the liberation of the concentration camps, when can it? Oren’s fence-mending move is an indication that Israel needs the help of all its supporters as it seeks to overcome its current difficulties with the Obama administration over the peace process — particularly the aid of those, represented by J Street, who support both Israel and Obama.

J Street, the progressive American Jewish lobby, favors the Berman bill. Americans for Peace Now, another progressive American Jewish lobby group, opposes it. And the Israel Project, more-hawkish American Jewish lobby group, favors additional sanctions on Iran generally, but many signatures on its most recent petition on sanctioning Iran were inauthentic.

To find out, I spoke with J Street’s executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami. An edited transcript of our conversation follows.

The Washington Independent: Why in the world is J Street supporting the Berman bill? Hasn’t the experience of the last three decades shown that unilateral sanctions only benefit the Iranian regime?

Jeremy Ben-Ami: The reluctance and the unwillingness of the Iranian regime to engage in any diplomacy and to accept — or at least begin negotiations on the basis of the offer that has been made — can’t go unanswered. We’ve said all along that our position on the Berman bill was simply a question of timing. This need to follow, first, the diplomatic engagement. And even then the president said, that we can’t go on with [the outreach] indefinitely. So this gives the president this tool, this additional tool, to work with in trying to convince the Iranians that there’s no time.

TWI: Aren’t unilateral sanctions inferior to multilateral sanctions?

Ben-Ami: Absolutely. And this bill doesn’t rule out [multilateral sanctions]. As Berman himself has said, the hierarchy of preference is first, resolve thiss diplomatically; second, resolve this multilaterally through the UN; third, resolve this multilaterally through a non-UN regime by putting a coalition together, and last, calls for the unilateral route. But this doesn’t rule out [multilateral sanctions]. Our preference is still, absolutely, to make this as broad an international coalition as possible.

TWI: What do you say to groups like Americans for Peace Now who’ve come out against the Berman bill because of the harm sanctions can do to the Iranian people without damaging the regime, or to some in the Green revolution in Iran who’ve warned that a new sanctions regime — unilateral or multilateral for that matter — is going to basically preempt any space they’re trying to open up to dislodge the regime or drastically change the character of the Iranian regime?

Ben-Ami: There might be a better bill that one could construct, but this is the one that’s there. And this is the tool that we’re giving to the president. There are very few other routes that are open and lots of the things that prompted the deliberations have been put in place. This is in conjunction with all of the diplomacy that the United States is going to pursue and it’s in conjunction with all of the outreach from the international community. It’s not a standalone policy. It fits into the broader approach that the Obama administration has taken.

TWI: What about its possible impact on the Iranian people?

Ben-Ami: Well, there’s no question that the sanctions ultimately does hurt people. This is also important in putting a real squeeze on the government. The petroleum sector is vital to the economy of the country as a whole. And so this is going to put pressure on the government and its going to put constraints on their economic growth generally. And it’s maybe one more incentive to them hopefully, to abandon this [nuclear] course and to come back to the table and accept what, in our opinion, is a very fair offer related to the fair enrichment.

TWI: What do you say to those who think that this is a capitulation by J Street to those — particularly on some of the American Jewish right — that have been attacking your credibility and your authenticity as a Jewish organization and your bona fides as a pro-Israel organization?

Ben-Ami: They haven’t been listening to us. We have said from the very first day that J Street was created that we’re very seriously concerned about the threat of Iran getting a nuclear weapon. That we really believe that diplomacy is the right approach, but that diplomacy can’t be open-ended. Every one of our statements says we are not opposed to sanctions per se. Back in June, when Berman introduced this particular bill we said that we supported the bill, but we agreed with him that the time wasn’t right to move it. So this is completely consistent with everything we’ve ever said. We are ardently opposed to military action. We are deeply supportive of the diplomatic route. But if the diplomatic route is completely disregarded and the offer [rejected] — after probably ten or 20 warnings, they’re practically beyond saying no. They’re sticking a finger in the eye of the world. The U.S. has really tried to find a way to offer them a path to full engagement. There have to be consequences. We can’t just allow that kind of disregard of the international community.

TWI: Is it too wily to think that you’re doing this in order to basically signal your stand with the rest of the pro-Israel community in this country while saving the harder battles for things like Jerusalem, the two-state solution and so forth?

Ben-Ami: Well look, those are issues where we are definitely not in line with most of the other organizations. For us, we’ve always said that is the issue. The real existential threat to a Jewish democratic Israel is the failure to reach a two-state solution. There is a threat from a nuclear-armed Iran. But the real existential threat that we’re focused on is that we have got to reach a two-state solution now or else we’re going to lose Israel.

“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.

One of the participants at the meeting asked the president to take a lower profile regarding the public differences between his administration and the government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu over the United States’ demand that Israel freeze all settlement construction activity in the West Bank. “This situation is not helpful,” he told the president, who rejected the request, saying that during the eight years of the Bush administration, such disagreements were never made public but that such an approach was not helpful in advancing the peace process.

No word yet on whether the swelling has gone down in the face and posterior of whomever made that point to Obama.

I’m also reliably informed that Obama conspicuously used the term “even-handed” to describe his approach to securing Mideast peace. Now, to anyone not steeped in the noxious brew known as the American debate over Israel, that term is a complete no-brainer. Who could be against being even-handed, after all? Well, for one, Abe Foxman, who’s made the term out to indicate some bias against Israel. Foxman raised a fit in 2003 when Howard Dean, then the 2003 frontrunner for the Democratic presidential nomination, said his Mideast policies would be “even-handed,” something that eventual nominee Sen. John Kerry (D-Mass.) was happy to exploit. And when Obama tapped George Mitchell to become his Arab-Israeli peace envoy, Foxman complained that Mitchell, a former Senate Majority Leader who worked tirelessly on British-Irish-Northern Irish peace, was “meticulously even-handed.” Yes, in the meshuggeneh parallel universe inhabited only by American Jewish anxiety over Israel — it’s actually not so bad; uncensored episodes of “Curb Your Enthusiasm” are in constant syndication — being “meticulously even-handed” is a bad thing. Obama, however, lives in the real world.