Report on J Street, the relatively new pro-Israel <> pro-Peace Jewish lobby organization. http://jstreet.org/  J Street has been in existence for approximately 18 months and has already made quite a splash in the arena of peace work on the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. Of course, it has received a lot of criticism and resistance from the establishment Jewish community and the American Israeli Public Affairs Committee – AIPAC, the strongest “Jewish lobby”, often identified as one of the 5 most effective lobbyist organizations in Washington.


J Street conducted its first annual conference in Washington, D.C. Oct. 25 – 28. The original expectation was for 500 – 800 attendees. The event far exceeded those expectations with 1500 people in attendance for the whole program, which was extensive in its offerings of workshops directed at the challenge of resolving the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. The attendees at this event were overwhelmingly Jewish, including a lot of Reform rabbis. There were 50 to 100 Christians in attendance, including those specifically identified with Churches for Middle East Peace. I was also in attendance at this amazing conference and following is a quick narrative of my experience.

My Attendance at the J Street Conference – by Skip Cornett

I want to spend a few minutes sharing some of my experience of the J Street conference. I went to Washington on Sunday afternoon, Oct. 25th, and settled in at my hotel in the community around George Washington University and the Foggy Bottom metro stop, then went over to the J Street event, which took place at the Grand Hyatt (way too expensive!) near Metro Center. I did go with a great sense of anticipation and the expectation that a lot of good things would be happening. I was not disappointed.

Sunday evening - opening session in Grand Hyatt hotel, huge room, very crowded. Rousing introduction and presentation by Jeremy Ben-Ami, Executive Director, J Street. Read and posted on screen letters of congratulations from Shimon Peres, President of Israel; and from Tzipi Livni the current leader of the Kadima, the largest party in the Knesset. The crowd was enthusiastic. There were about 250 college students in attendance, including Jewish reps from Scotland--the UK, and from Israel. Students were encouraged to scatter out and populate the tables so others could meet them. Two young women join our table, one sits beside me-----she looked like a high school student---smallish, very young, delicate features, from University of Michigan, and she introduced herself as belonging to "a left-wing Zionist group" (don't remember name of group).

Monday
Americans for Peace Now Presents--West Bank Settlements: Obstacles on the Road to Peace---A View from the Ground and from the Diplomatic Arena

The two most notable speakers for this workshop (9:00 -- 10:15) were Debra DeLee, President of Peace Now, and Akiva Eldar, writer for Ha'aretz and co-author of Lords of the Land:The War for Israel's Settlements in the Occupied Territories, 1967-2007(which he kept reminding us is now in paperback). The room was filled to overflowing---about 300, and the workshop was personally affirming for me because of the MA thesis I wrote in 2008 entitled "Israeli West Bank Settlements: Perversion of Realism and Obstacle to Peace." I thought I made a pretty strong statement in my academic opposition to Israeli settlements, but it paled in comparison to the strength of opposition to settlements exercised in this workshop. Peace Now also gave an extensive presentation on the effort by settlers and Israelis to literally undermine the current population of East Jerusalem by developing biblical - archeological theme parks. it is quite sophisticated, and I suspect most of you know much more about this project than I do. The goal as reported in the workshop --taking over houses and property in East Jerusalem to preempt the possibility of a Palestinian - Israel division in Jerusalem. They talked about Silwan, about ideological tourism, creative archeological digs etc. This workshop was packed full, and fully consistent with what I understand as the travesty of settlements. A Workshop leader referred to settlements as "the greatest physical obstacle to peace." Also, lots of input from the audience including from a former executive director of AIPAC who said some very good things!!

Workshop 10:45 to 12:15 How Jews, Christians and Muslims Can Work Together for Peace  Same room and again filled to overflowing ---did not take notes because it was less oriented toward information--facts on the ground etc and more about attitudes, respect, appreciation, mutual support etc....Panel included Greg Khalil, the Kairos project person and Christian from Ramallah; Maureen Shea from the Episcopal Church; Mark Pelavin from the Reform Religious Action Center (RAC) who has met with our ELCA Panel on Lutheran-Jewish relations. A lot of important information and insight imparted. Especially notable, the conversation was moderated by Ron Young, Lutheran from Seattle, and convener of NILI the National Interreligious Leadership Initiative for Peace in the Middle East. Ron acknowledged at one point that he was indeed Lutheran. Important however, is to acknowledge that Ron did a superb job of moderating and engaging this conversation, and represented Lutheranism quite well. I did tell him so myself.

Plenary Session - Town Hall Meeting with major presentation by Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union for Reformed Judaism - Rabbi Yoffie was there to state strongly his differences with J Street. It was primarily on the Gaza War and the Goldstone Report analysis of that war. The Goldstone report alleges human rights violations by Israel and by Hamas during the Gaza war. Rabbi Yoffie identified a number of shortcomings in his estimation, and he was also concerned about its use by the media thru excerpting, to further vilify Israel.

Response from the audience was to say “yes, but” because there were still human rights violations, and if you don’t like Goldstone, then Israel has to do its own investigations, argued some from the floor. Yoffie also castigated strongly the UN Human Rights council, which precipitated a small chorus of boos from the back of the room. This prompted Jane Eisner, program moderator and editor of The Forward to caution the audience about civility, respect for the speaker etc. to which someone else in the audience called out “but, he lies” in an imitation of Congressman Wilson who called out to Pres. Obama during his speech to a joint session of Congress. That actually generated a lot of laughter in the room, even from Rabbi Yoffie.

When Yoffie got into the problem of Israeli West Bank settlements, the Green line etc, there appeared to be strong agreement between him and the J Street crowd which prompted some at my table, including 2 Reform Rabbis, to acknowledge that there was really little if any difference between J Street and Rabbi Yoffie. So, an interesting outcome considering how strongly the rabbi started his critique.

3:30 – 4:45 Workshop – Israel on Campus - included professor of Jewish studies at Colorado, director of Hillel at Harvard, student from Maryland, and others. I attended this event because I also attend events at Hillel at Ohio State University which are jointly sponsored by OSU Melton Center for Jewish Studies and the Federation. I view them as fairly narrow events, designed by “adults” to get the students indoctrinated with the party line on Israel. That recognition was present on the panel, the professor from the University of Colorado was especially critical of Hillel and this tendency to be too narrow in their conversation and presentation. The student from Maryland represented the pro-Israel <> pro-Peace camp at the U of M, and she acknowledged that it created a sometimes contentious situation on campus at the U of M. There are over 5000 Jewish students at Maryland. This was an important conversation for those who work with Jewish students. I appreciated their concern and openness about the issue of message control with students on campus.

5:00 – 6:15 - View from the Hill: Congress and the US – Israel Relationship- Less helpful than I had hoped for, but an important statement by 4 Jewish members of Congress – Filner – CA; Jan Schakowsky, D-IL, Evanston; Cong from Boulder, CO; and Charles Boustany, R- LA, from New Orleans. Boustany received a standing ovation because he did not cave to the pressure from AIPAC and others to withdraw his support of the J – Street event. He has some Lebanese background. All of them emphasized the urgency of realizing a two-state solution.

I returned to my hotel at the conclusion of the Town Hall.

Tuesday Morning Oct. 27 - It was very difficult to get into sessions I wanted to attend, because the registration was growing, many more people showing up than originally planned. I spent some time in the organizing session for Brit Tzedek V’Shalom which was interesting, but was very much in-house, did not get into policy issues but was more about recruiting and organizing the pro-Israel <> pro-peace crowd.

10:30 – 11:45 What Next, Analysis and Advice for the President from Washington Insiders – huge crowd, actually found a seat though. Important messages – the US cannot do it by itself, very important to be multilateral. Why did Obama nix the Euro missiles in Poland and the Czech Republic - the missile defense shield actually? A concession to get Russia into the fold; working for Middle East peace, a needed ally. Message for every president, it was reported, has been that the window is closing, which may actually be true with Pres. Obama. Important that Obama took this on from the start, and confronted settlements. Messages for respective sides from this panel----Palestinians recognizing Israel; Israelis recognizing the suffering and burdens imposed on the Palestinians, acknowledging the Palestinian grievances, including especially starting with 1948 and al-Nakba, the Palestinian catastrophe.

It is especially important to get Israel and the Palestinians into the position of saying Yes to the US for a change, have been saying no for too long. It is important to frame the Israeli – Palestinian conflict as a US national security issue. Emphasize Jewish values and the concern for justice and peace, a voice that needs to be heard.

A whole lot more, good conversation and exchange---Lara Friedman from Peace Now; Robert Malley from International Crisis Group; Jonathan Alterman from Center for Strategic and International Studies – CSIS, and moderated by Morton Halperin, long time Washington activist and J Street board member.

11:45 - met for lunch with Susan Wilder, who works for the ELCA Washington Office on the Israeli – Palestinian conflict and talked about legislative strategy, and how we can collaborate and support each others work.

Afternoon Plenary Session - Why Two States - Why Now -- Big focus on economic development for one of the panels. Bernard Avishai from Hebrew University, economists and writer. http://bernardavishai.blogspot.com/ Bad news about declining economic and educational fortunes of Israel and it is critical that Israel, Palestine begin to develop economic interdependence for the sake of one another, and as an element in the Middle East economy. Israel is a lot of smart people; but so, the smartest one percent of India’s population is 20 million people! “The Economics of Occupation” by Avishai in October “Harpers” http://www.harpers.org/archive/2009/10/0082662

A presentation by Ami Aylon, former head of Shin Bet and former Labor member of the Knesset. He was strong on two state solution, security for Israel and security for Palestinians, and the importance of Palestinian sovereignty. I was privileged to meet Ami Ayalon in the security line at the airport when leaving Washington. I asked him what else he did, he said economic development projects and working to support J Street!!

Tuesday evening - big reception and big dinner -- (costly!!) lots of big stuff, I can only say how pleased I was that Senator Sherrod Brown, D-OH, and ELCA Lutheran, and Cong. Mary Jo Kilroy, D – OH and west side of Columbus, were a couple of the very few members of Congress in attendance. I sat at the table with a number of people from Churches for Middle East Peace. Keynote speaker was former US Senator from Nebraska Chuck Hagel, who is excellent on international global security issues and the Middle East.

Wednesday morning - Congressional visits on Capitol Hill -- Talking points --- message was clear and concise - Ask members of Congress if they will take a public position, a public stand, make a public statement encouraging the President to continue to offer strong leadership in support of a two – state solution. We wanted member of Congress to encourage strong US engagement and leadership on resolving the Israeli – Palestinian conflict. We said it a variety of different ways, but basically emphasizing that the Middle East, the Israeli Palestinian conflict cannot be solved without US leadership. Therefore, Congress needs to take it responsibility seriously by stepping up and making public statements, getting statements in the Congressional Record, writing letters – messages to their respective constituencies and even writing opinion articles for newspapers. We asked members to take a stand in favor of resolving the Israeli – Palestinian conflict.

Final note - we had 8 people in the Ohio Team – we were led by a retired couple who are members of Brit Tzedek V’Shalom from outside Boston (Massachusetts liberals, and your neighbors John!!) They were insistent about keeping us right on message, we were making “an ask” and did not want to cloud the waters. There was some rebellion to that intense focus, especially by an activist (retired software engineer) from Cleveland. She complained to me a couple of times that we need to talk more about issues as well as make the ask!!

We visited Senators Brown and Voinovich, and Cong. Members Kilroy, Sutton, and Driehaus from Cincinnati. I was especially personally pleased that the foreign affairs staffers for Brown, Voinovich and Driehaus all three recognized me immediately. I have been there too many times on this issue now!! We were all especially taken with House Staffer Aaron Wasserman in Cong. Driehaus’s office. Jewish, right, probably so. He was quite fluent on the issue, wanted us to define the difference between J – Street and AIPAC. We had great fun with that.

Two more final notes – in the group of 8 – Cleveland, Dayton, Yellow Springs (a student who grew up there) and the leaders from Boston, I was the only Christian, the rest were Jewish, with deep roots in Israel. I contributed to the conversations, but listened a lot, and liked everything I heard. They carried the message that I have carried to Congress and that I share when teaching in congregations about the travesty of the settlements, the urgency of realizing a two-state solution, the rights and dignity of the Palestinians and on and on. I thanked them profusely at the conclusion of our 5-hour trip around Capitol Hill, for the opportunity to be with them. It was a great time, productive and inspiring!

Final – final note – and yes, I am anxious about the local Jewish community, and do not particularly want them here to know about my expedition with J Street. I am also liaison to the Jewish community from the seminary, a very important relationship for me, and my work.

Ok, enough, more than you ever wanted, I am sure, but I was so glad to be at the J Street conference and to conclude with time on the Hill visiting the Ohio delegation.