U.S. Jews get a new voice in Washington

WASHINGTON: American Jews have formed a new pro-Israel lobby as an alternative to traditional organizations that they assert have often been impediments to progress in the Middle East because of their generally reflexive support of Israel.

Officials of the new group, called "J Street," say they believe the best way to bring security and peace to Israel is to help political candidates who support that country but will occasionally question some of its policies, like maintaining or expanding settlements in disputed territories.

For many who follow the intense and complex world of lobbying on Middle East issues in Washington, there is little doubt about the role J Street hopes to play in domestic U.S. politics - upsetting or at least diluting the influence of groups like the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the formidable lobby that has long been the dominant voice of American Jewry with regard to U.S. Middle East policy.

"They're trying to be the un-Aipac," said Shmuel Rosner, who follows the issue closely as the chief U.S. correspondent for the Israeli newspaper Haaretz.

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of the new venture, said that "a large number of American Jews and their friends have dropped out of the discussion about how to bring peace to Israel and its neighbors because they don't have a home politically." He argued that there was a need for an alternative to the traditional groups who say that "to oppose any Israeli policy is to be anti-Israel."

The new group's name is a multiple play on words. Not only does the letter "J" suggest a Jewish cause, but "K Street" has come to be shorthand for the Washington lobby industry because many lobbyists' offices are there. Although streets in central Washington are named for letters in the alphabet, it is also a cartographic quirk that there is no J Street to be found between I and K.

The group's founders say they will provide something else that does not exist - financial support from American Jews for candidates whose views are not in line with Aipac's. J Street will have its own political action committee to donate to candidates on the basis of their views about U.S. policy for the Middle East.

Aipac does not have a political action committee and does not donate to candidates, but it exercises significant influence in other ways. Its prominent members donate heavily as individuals to candidates favored by Aipac, and it mobilizes influential supporters in lawmakers' home districts.

Ben-Ami, a former domestic policy adviser in the Clinton White House, said his group intended to select a handful of congressional candidates to support this autumn with donations of about $50,000.

He said they would choose candidates in June who are willing, for example, to express forcefully their support for a two-state solution to the Israel-Palestine issue and for aid to the Palestinian Authority. One race that has the potential to provide such a demonstration is the Senate campaign in Minnesota, in which Norm Coleman, the incumbent Republican who is a staunch Israel supporter, is likely to be opposed by Al Franken, a Democrat who might take some positions more in line with those of J Street.

Underlying the formation of the group is a fundamental question that has long vexed the American Jewish community: What is the most effective way to support Israel? Many people involved in Aipac have long argued that American Jews have limited standing to criticize Israel's policies because they are not themselves facing difficult questions of safety and survival.

Aipac declined to comment on the formation of J Street. But some people involved in Aipac noted with satisfaction the vast difference in size of the two groups: J Street is planning for an operating budget of about $1.5 million, compared with Aipac's $100 million endowment, membership of more than 100,000 and annual lobbying expenditures of about $1 million.

Victor Kovner, a prominent New York lawyer and former corporation counsel for the city who is one of the principal fund-raisers for J Street, said the group was aimed at undoing the notion that "Aipac speaks for American Jews on issues affecting Israel and Middle East."

He said candidates would also be able to use those endorsements as a shield against accusations that they are anti-Israel. The group's principal fund-raisers are Kovner, who supports Senator Hillary Rodham Clinton, and Alan Solomont, who supports Senator Barack Obama.

A principal theorist behind the group, J Street officials said, is Daniel Levy, the son of Lord Michael Levy of Britain, who had been the Labour Party's principal fund-raiser.

So far, J Street has raised about $750,000 for its lobbying arm. It is organized as a nonprofit and is not obliged to detail its donations, although Ben-Ami said a few people whom he would not name had given gifts of $100,000. As for the political action committee, J Street lists about nine named donors, about half of whom have given the maximum of $5,000.

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