J Street Seeks the Fast Lane to MidEast Peace

Protestors stood outside the hotel where the "pro-Israel, pro-peace" group, J Street, is meeting this week. Photo: Matt Duss

WASHINGTON, DC – Can the Middle East peace process be “wrapped up” in two years?

Absolutely, if you believe as strongly as the 1,500-plus Jewish Americans gathered here this week for the first annual J Street conference on Middle East peace – and if you share this group’s liberal politics, obesssion with peaceful solutions to conflict, and generous willingness to share the land between the Mediterranean Sea and the Jordan River with the Palestinians.

That’s admittedly a big “if,” especially because most of the attendees crowded into the Grant Hyatt’s rooms at this landmark, hugely oversubscribed conference don’t actually live in Israel – where the political right has a stranglehold on the governing coaltion. Americans, mostly Democrats, found much in common during the past two days with the cream of Israeli civil society organizations and politicians from parties friendly to the two-state solution: Meretz, Labor, and Kadima. Conspicuously absent were right-leaning leaders from this city or Tel Aviv. [A smear campaign on Capitol Hill against J Street by unnamed hawkish "pro-Israel" groups did result in 12 members of Congress dropping out of the conference's host committee; 148 stalwarts remained.]

On the peace question, the Obama administration clearly sees this new group as a major ally in its pursuit of the two-state solution. The keynote speaker today was the National Security Advisor, General Jim Jones, who said Middle East peace is the most important international issue on President Barack Obama’s desk – adding that if the president could solve only one conflict, the General would recommend this one. Gen. Jones also sounded a theme of the conference when he said a successful peace proces was “inseparable” from Israel’s security. The General probably wouldn’t have received thunderous applause in Israel today if he called for that nation to “stop settlement growth [and] dismantle outposts,” but here, that was the reaction.

The notion that Israel – for its own future as a Jewish state – should embrace, not delay or stall, the peace process (as the Netanyahu government appears to be doing) echoed though this conference, from Ami Ayalon, a retired Israeli Navy admiral  and former head of the security service Shin Bet, to former Congressmen Bob Wexler and Mel Levine, to Gadi Batilansky, director general of the Geneva Initiative, a nonprofit promoting the peace process. Most speakers also stressed the urgent need to change the perception in the Arab and Muslim world that Israel and the U.S. don’t care about the Palestinians – a perception that several of these individuals today said plays right into the hands of the extremist Islamist regime in Iran.

As Ron Pundak, director of Israel’s Peres Center for Peace, noted:

“Choose peace as a strategy for the security for Israel …. and a strategy for the region. The cornerstone is starting with the Palestinians; without them all this construction of regional peace cannot occur. Yes, we can have peace with Egypt, Lebanon, Syria, but unless we deal with the West Bank and the holy places, it will lead us to another war…. Not a third intifada, but [worse],  a collapse of the entire region.

One of the main reasons why we cannot change Israel from within is because from their point of view, they are looking at the Arab minority as a fifth column. Deep down they feel there is a threat out there that begins with the Palestinians and ends with Iran. The only way to solve the problem with Iran is to solve the problem with the Palestinians. If we solve the problem of Jerusalem we solve the problem of the Israeli-Iranian issue.”

Daniel Levy of the New America Foundation put the Iranian connection this way: “Not solving the Palestinian- Israeli conflict is the gift that keeps on giving to Iran.”

As the second day’s meetings drew to a close, this multi-generational group of peaceniks gave itself a standing ovation. Former U.S. Ambassador to Israel Martin Indyk reminded them of the profound importance of their cause – as articulated two years ago by then-National Security Advisor Condoleeza Rice, who in a visit to Israel called solving the conflict “in the national interest.”  Said Indyk:

“Nobody paid attention to her then. But the declaration of a national interest has profound meaning. America’s own standing in the Arab and Muslim world is affected by its ability to resolve the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.”

UPDATE: While all this camaraderie and confidence was being shared here, reality was unfolding on the ground in Jerusalem, as the Israeli police demolished two homes owned by Palestinians in Arab East Jerusalem – which the international community considers disputed territory. Reuters reports:

“Israeli paramilitary border police troops deployed to secure the razing of the two homes by bulldozers. One of the houses was in Shuafat and the other in Sur Baher, Palestinian communities on the outskirts of Jerusalem. ‘International bodies and the United Nations Security Council should intervene to stop Israeli authorities from carrying out these criminal actions,’ said Adnan al-Husseini, the Palestinian-appointed governor of Jerusalem.

Earlier this year, the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights called for a halt to home demolitions in East Jerusalem. Statistics in a U.N. report published in May showed that 1,500 demolition orders issued by the Jerusalem municipality were pending for Palestinian dwellings built without permits. The report said that if the orders were implemented, about 9,000 Palestinians would be displaced.’