The New Israel Lobby

A suitably cantankerous debut. Ezra Klein on "J Street":

With 1/100th AIPAC's budget, the organization is not likely, as some are hoping, to prove a quick counterweight to the existent Israel Lobby. But they are a new Jewish voice that honors and shields those who would express their support for Israel by seeking peace, rather than supporting conflict.

Noah Pollak with the neoconservative perspective:

So what does J Street want? A “comprehensive negotiated peace between Israel and all its Arab neighbors.” Well, what if some of those neighbors Hezbollah, Syria, Hamas don’t want the same thing? This is a forbidden thought. A similar litany of foggy platitudes surrounds other issues: “You make peace with your enemies, not your friends” (i.e., Israel should negotiate with Hamas.) The list goes on; to save time, imagine roughly the editorial positions of The Nation magazine in the mouths of lobbyists.