The J Street flap

The Weekly Standard's Michael Goldfarb, crowing about various members of Congress pulling out of left-leaning Jewish lobbying group J Street's first annual conference, writes:

I expect there will be many more members of Congress who were likewise "unaware" that their names were being used to boost the credibility of a group that supports engagement with Hamas, opposes sanctions on Iran (only six members of the House share that position), and believes the primary obstacle to peace in the Middle East is Israeli settlements.

These ideas actually aren't so bad! There are strong cases to be made that Hamas is a rational actor that can be negotiated with (and in fact even Israel negotiates with Hamas from time to time), that sanctions on Iran would only empower the Revolutionary Guards, and that settlements are in fact the main obstacle to Israeli-Palestinian peace.

I think members of Congress would benefit from an open debate on these topics, and it wouldn't hurt Israeli Amb. Michael Oren -- who controversially declined an invitation to attend -- to hear some other points of view.

According to the Forward, however, some members of the American Jewish community apparently think otherwise:

Shunning J Street may be a result of domestic Jewish politics as much as an expression of foreign policy. A diplomatic source told the Forward that Israeli officials received calls from Jewish organizations stating that they "have a problem" with J Street. The groups, which the source would not name, argued that J Street's criticism of other Jewish organizations should not be endorsed by the government of Israel.