Middle East -- The Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace Lobby Arrives

October 28, 2009

by Faiz Shakir, Amanda Terkel, Matt Corley, Benjamin Armbruster, Matt Duss, and Zaid Jilani

MIDDLE EAST

The Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace Lobby Arrives

More than 1,500 participants from the United States, Israel and elsewhere attended the first annual conference of the "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobbying group J Street in Washington, DC this week. The group has sought to promote policies toward the Middle East that recognize that two secure, viable states -- one Jewish, one Palestinian -- are a key national security interest of both the United States and Israel. In his keynote address on Tuesday, President Obama's National Security Adviser Gen. James Jones said that if the Obama administration could "solve any one problem," resolving the 60-year Arab-Israeli conflict would be it. During the 2008 campaign, Obama called the conflict a "constant sore," and said that "the lack of a resolution...provides an excuse for anti-American militant jihadists to engage in inexcusable actions, and so we have a national-security interest" in bringing the conflict to an end. As a demonstration of that commitment, Obama named former Senate Majority Leader George Mitchell his special envoy for the Middle East immediately after taking office in January. J Street has sought to support the administration in broadening the debate over U.S. policy in the Middle East and in promoting the push for peace. In his welcoming remarks, J Street Executive Director Jeremy Ben-Ami stated his group's position: "We clearly and unequivocally want the United States to lead and to do whatever can be done to end the conflict and bridge the differences between the sides."

MAKING ITS MARK: J Street was founded early in 2008 and named after "the street missing from Washington's grid and thus evoking a voice missing from Washington's policy discussions." People began to take notice after the group built "an online support network of over 100,000 members" and "raised $580,000 in barely six months." J Street "financially supported 41 candidates for Congress in the 2008 election cycle," of whom 33 were elected. J Street also managed to raise $30,000 for Rep Donna Edwards (D-MD) in just a few days after she came under attack from conservative groups for voting "present" on a congressional resolution in support of Israel during Operation Cast Lead in Gaza in December 2008. Earlier this year, the White House included J Street in a meeting with other, more established and conservative Jewish-American groups to discuss the Obama administration's push for peace negotiations between Israelis and Palestinians. One of J Street's main goals as it has developed its policy positions has been to foster a sense of urgency around the two-state solution, as the continuing inability of Israelis and Palestinians to arrive at a final agreement in the face of changing demographic realities could eventually preclude the creation of two viable states.

RIGHT-WING ATTACKS: Conservative groups that advocate for a more hawkish, anti-Arab policy towards the Middle East began attacking J Street soon after the group formed, but ramped up significantly in the weeks leading up to the J Street conference. Lenny Ben David, a former adviser to Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu and now a settler in the Israeli-occupied West Bank, suggested the fact that J Street counted Arabs among its supporters raised questions about the group's "pro-Israel" bona fides. Other conservatives "attacked the conference for including Salam al-Marayati, founder of the Muslim Public Affairs Council, who apologized in 2001 for suggesting on a radio show" that Israel might bear some responsibility for the Sept. 11 attacks. The neoconservative Weekly Standard also launched a series of attacks on participants in the conference, including on journalist Helena Cobban, accusing her of "using Holocaust metaphors when talking about Israel" for once writing that the guard towers, walls and barbed wire of Israel's separation barrier reminded her of a concentration camp. The group has also encountered criticism from some liberal allies. In December, Rabbi Eric Yoffie wrote that the group "demonstrated an utter lack of empathy for Israel's predicament" by questioning the wisdom of Israel's December 2008 Gaza offensive.

REGIONAL CHALLENGES: In the last months, Obama's peace effort has run up against Israeli intransigence on settlements, Palestinian disunity and refusal to negotiate before a settlement freeze, and the unwillingness of Arab states to be more actively involved in the process. Secretary of State Hillary Clinton "will arrive in Israel on Saturday night, for her first official visit since Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's government was sworn in." In a report submitted to the president last week, "Clinton said that little progress was made in advancing the peace process." According to the Israeli newspaper Haaretz, "days before the report was delivered to Obama, Palestinian chief negotiator Saeb Erekat went to Washington, where he warned of a potential nightmare scenario as a result of the difficult domestic situation faced by Abbas and the overall desperation in the Ramallah headquarters of the Palestinian Authority government over the stalled peace process." "The obstacles to peace have been festering for a very long time," Rep. Jan Schakowsky (D-IL) told conference attendees on Tuesday. "But it also clear that perpetual war is not the answer."

ENVIRONMENT -- UNIVERSITY OF KENTUCKY APPROVES INDUSTRY-FUNDED DORM NAMED AFTER 'COAL': Yesterday, the University of Kentucky Board of Trustees voted 16-3 to approve a proposal for a new coal-industry funded dorm for the men's basketball team, which will be named the "Wildcat Coal Lodge." The dorm will be funded through a $7 million donation from a group led by Alliance Coal CEO Joseph Craft, who insisted that the dorm be named after his industry. The proposed change sparked intense protests from local environmentalists and students. One professor said that as universities become "models for new energy sources," putting "coal" on a prominent building could "make it difficult to attract top students and faculty members to the university." Students in the audience during the Board of Trustees vote were reportedly not allowed to speak at the meeting. After the vote, people began chanting, "Move forward, not backward," forcing the trustees to temporarily recess. Students objecting to the name change prepared a statement and passed it out to board members before the vote. "They did not read our statement," said senior Katie Goldey. "They weren't even given a chance to read it." The coal industry has been taking a greater "public role" in the University of Kentucky lately. Last weekend, there was a "students only" basketball practice "sponsored by Joe Craft and the Friends of Coal." As Greenwire reported recently, the battle over America's clean energy future is increasingly being fought on college campuses as environmentalists turn to student activists to get out the word out about dirty coal and fight efforts by the American Coalition for Clean Coal Electricity -- the coal industry's biggest lobbying group, which visited 43 campuses in eight states last year -- to infiltrate college campuses with pro-coal activists. In an ironic twist, because of the building's $7 million price tag, the "coal" dorm will be forced "meet the U.S. Green Building Council's Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design standards."

A USA Today analysis finds that the stimulus is working and is having "a significant impact on the economy." A survey of 33 states and Puerto Rico found that 338,000 jobs have been created or saved so far this year.

$1.25 million: Amount former Alaska governor Sarah Palin received as a retainer for her book "Going Rogue," which will be out on Nov. 17.

"The deaths today of eight more American troops in Afghanistan have made October the deadliest month ever for U.S. forces in what is already the deadliest year for U.S. troops in Afghanistan since the war started in 2001," reports ABC News. Fifty-five U.S. service members have died this month, bringing the 2009 total to 280.

President Obama's top advisers "are focusing on a strategy for Afghanistan aimed at protecting about 10 top population centers." The strategy will "would stop short of an all-out assault on the Taliban while still seeking to nurture long-term stability." But now, "the debate is no longer over whether to send more troops, but how many more will be needed."

Ahmed Wali Karzai, the brother of the Afghan president and a suspected player in the country's illegal drug trade, gets regular payments from the CIA, "and has for much of the past eight years." The CIA's ties to Ahmed Karzai have "have created deep divisions within the Obama administration" and complicate relations with President Hamid Karzai, who has long been portrayed as an American puppet.

The Washington Times reports that President Obama has "quietly rewarded scores of top Democratic donors with VIP access to the White House, private briefings with administration advisers and invitations to important speeches and town-hall meetings." "This administration has across the board set the toughest ethics standards in history," White House spokesman Dan Pfeiffer said in response.

House Speaker Nancy Pelosi reportedly has less than 200 votes for a robust public option. "An internal count circulated by members and aides on Tuesday showed 47 Democrats were prepared to vote against a plan that would reimburse doctors at a rate five percent higher than Medicare."

President Obama will sign new legislation today that will add gays to the list of groups covered by federal hate crimes law. The new provision, named after slain gay student Matthew Shepard, will cover people who were attacked because of their sexual orientation, gender identity, or gender.

In a blow to President Obama's environmental agenda, livestock interests and Great Lakes shippers won a major fight in the climate change battle yesterday. The House voted to effectively bar the Environmental Protection Agency from mandating the reporting of greenhouse gas emissions generated by cattle and hog producers; 13 Great Lakes steamships also won exemptions from a rule to require lower-sulfur fuel.

And finally: Apparently, if you dress like Kentucky Fried Chicken's Col. Sanders, you can get in anywhere. An actor wearing "the fast food icon's familiar white suit and black bow tie" was able to "gain access to the restricted areas" of the U.N. headquarters in New York and even meet Ali Treki, president of the U.N. General Assembly. KFC is "lobbying" the U.N. for "the fictional Grilled Nation to be accepted as a member state" as part of its campaign promoting its new menu. Officials attributed the fake Sanders gaining so much access to a "lapse in security."

Insurance company stocks spike in response to Lieberman's vow to filibuster a public option.

Republicans vote against Homeland Security.

Our immigration enforcement policies create an incentive for employers to hire undocumented workers.

Who cares what the Chamber of Commerce thinks?

Mercenaries convene a "peace operations" conference.

A U.S. Foreign Service officer says that occupations breed terrorism.

Thank you for being a friend.

Expanded public investment is more important than deficit reduction.

"[T]he fact you're using the term global warming again, I appreciate that. People have been running from that term ever since we went out of that natural warming cycle about nine years ago."
-- Sen. James Inhofe (R-OK), 10/27/09

VERSUS

"The last 10 years are the warmest 10-year period of the modern record. Even if you analyze the trend during that 10 years, the trend is actually positive, which means warming."
-- National Oceanic and Atmospheric Administration climate monitoring chief Deke Arndt, 10/26/09

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