J Street founder to discuss Israeli-Palestinian conflict tonight

J Street founder to discuss Israeli-Palestinian conflict tonight
Monday, December 13, 2010
By Len Barcousky, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette

The founder of a Washington, D.C., nonprofit that advocates for a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is coming to Pittsburgh tonight to discuss the Obama administration's decision to stop pushing for a freeze on new Jewish settlements.

Jeremy Ben-Ami is president and founder of J Street, which describes itself as a "political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans." He will talk about "Israel at a Crossroads" tonight at the Jewish Community Center in Squirrel Hill.

His visit comes after the Obama administration announced last week that it is giving up its efforts to persuade Israel to stop construction of Jewish settlements in disputed areas for 90 days. That decision leaves the future of Israeli-Palestinian peace talks uncertain.

srael also is taking criticism over a religious decision announced by a group of Israeli municipal rabbis that forbids Jews from renting homes to Gentiles. That policy is being described as a weapon to discourage continued Arab settlement within Israel. The rabbis' decision has been denounced by several Jewish organizations, including J Street.

Mr. Ben-Ami predicted that both issues would come up tonight.

The U.S. administration's decision to stop pushing for a settlement moratorium gives the Obama team a chance to rethink its goals, he said.

"The focus has been too much on creating the right conditions for talks between parties," he said. "It's been too much emphasis on process and not enough on peace."

A better approach would be for the U.S. to make concrete suggestions on borders for Israel and a new Palestinian state, combined with security arrangements to guarantee those boundaries, he said.

J Street's Rabbinic Cabinet represents more than 600 rabbis. Its co-chairs, Rabbis John Friedman and Julie Saxe-Taller, have called the ruling by their Israeli counterparts "a cynical and offensive use of Torah and Jewish values to promote a discriminatory, fundamentalist ideology."

Mr. Ben-Ami said he, too, found the rabbis' ruling despicable. "This was the kind of thing Jews suffered as a people over the centuries," he said. "To encourage this kind of discrimination against others in our national home goes against everything we believe."

Creation of a Palestinian state was not only important to the Arabs who would live there but to Israel as well, he said.

"If Israel maintains control of all the land between Jordan and the Mediterranean, demographics says it will become a land in which a minority of Jews will exercise control over a majority of non-Jews," he said.

Unless it gives up some land to the Palestinians, "Israel will have to choose between being a democracy and being a Jewish home," he said.

At tonight's talk, veteran radio and Internet talk-show host Lynn Cullen will serve as moderator for what is described as a "community conversation" on U.S.-Israel relations and the odds for peace in the region.

The free event will start at 7:30 p.m. in the JCC's Levinson Hall, 5738 Forbes Ave., Squirrel Hill.

Mr. Ben-Ami was a deputy domestic policy adviser to President Bill Clinton and policy director for Howard Dean's presidential campaign. He also served as communications director for the New Israel Fund.

In the late 1990s, Mr. Ben-Ami lived and ran a business in Israel, where much of his family still resides.

For more information about tonight's event, call the JCC at 412-521-8010.

Len Barcousky: lbarcousky@post-gazette.com or 412-263-1159.