Andrew's Right

I thought that headline might catch your attention. J Street is being criticized in some quarters for taking money from Arabs. Not much money, or many Arabs, but some. Andrew calls this critique "racist tribalism" and he's on to something. The criticism assumes that a) all Arabs loathe Israel, which they don't, and that b) these donors aren't interested in advancing a two-state solution, and don't believe sincerely that J Street is helping bring about an independent state of Palestine living next to a secure and Jewish Israel. I'm not endorsing J Street, I'm simply acknowledging that many people, Jewish and otherwise, believe that its work will be helpful to Israel.

I'm not at all interested in the ethnicity of the donors. I'm more interested in what they think.