J Street Condemns Silence of Israel Lobby in Face of Peace Prospects « Tikun Olam-תיקון עולם: Make the World a Better Place

J Street Condemns Silence of Israel Lobby in Face of Peace Prospects

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Tags: aipac, israel-lobby, j street, likud

This entry was posted on Tuesday, June 24th, 2008 at 12:30 AM and is filed under Jews & Judaism, Mideast Peace, Politics & Society. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

5 Responses to “J Street Condemns Silence of Israel Lobby in Face of Peace Prospects”

ellen says:

June 24, 2008 at 5:08 AM

I’ve been critical of JStreet, but this ad is great, and shows what some money and concerted action can do: bring another, and rarely heard, point of view before the public. I’ll sign.

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ellen says:

June 24, 2008 at 5:15 AM

PS-I’ve sent this to everyone I can think of. Also gives me an opportunity to link them to your blog. :)

BTW- I’m happy to announce that there is now a JATO {Jews Against the Occupation} in my area!

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tzvee says:

June 24, 2008 at 7:32 AM

i’m all for peace, a 60′s liberal and all that. but i’m grown up now and i know that there are many realities between war and peace. the latest truce confounded all of us on teh left and right. do you expect people to turn on a dime? especially the recalcitrant right? grow mature! peace is a hazy concept now out there in the distance. we are best served to pray for calm, rather than peace, to work for absence of rockets rather than sitting together and singing kumbaya. and look – according to the news today, the truce has already been violated – just days into it and it may be toast.

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Richard Silverstein says:

June 24, 2008 at 2:46 PM

Tzvee: That’s a bunch of cheap, easy rhetoric as far as I’m concerned. What you wrote wouldn’t pass muster if you wrote something like it in an academic paper. So I don’t understand what you think it contributes to a debate about the issues.

Israeli negotiations with the Palestinians, Syrians & Lebanese are not “singing kumbaya.” It’s very serious business. Life stands in the balance here. Yet all you can so is sling snark. I’m disappointed.

As for turning on a dime. The Israel lobby juggernaught has been steaming along in the same godforsaken direction for decades. Of course it can’t turn on a dime. But when there are openings for peace I expect encouragement rather than silence.

What I object to so strenuously in the outlooks of former liberals like you is the world-weariness & cynicism that implies that those who remain progressive do so with a hopelessly naive outlook on the world. Nothing could be farther fr. the truth. I see the world as it is and see a way in which it can be made better. You, on the other hand, see the world as a hopelessly tragic place in which the best we can hope for is stasis rather than change. Sorry, but that doesn’t satisfy me.

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SimoHurtta says:

June 24, 2008 at 10:04 PM

Isn’t it clear that peace inside Israel and with its neighbours will make the US Jewish lobbies loose almost completely their influence. No more US president candidates and presidents could be “forced” to make those constant loyalty oaths to Israel. No more US president visiting Israel every 6 month. No more billions of US taxpayers money flowing as donations to Israel. AIPAC and others simply need the conflicts to keep up their unhealthy level of influence. In a way also Israel needs the conflicts. Without the conflicts and tensions Israel’s international influence would diminish to the level normal for countries with the population size of Israel. It would became the “Denmark” of Middle East. A good tourist target, rather prosperous, but nothing much else. How much influence could a “Danish” lobby have in US politics?

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