Recent Blogs

• Statement of Pro-Diplomacy Groups Regarding US Policy Toward Iran

  Pro-diplomacy groups representing millions of American voters urge lawmakers to publicly articulate and support the following principles with respect to the Joint Comprehensive Plan of Action (JCPOA) that verifiably blocks each of Iran’s pathways to a nuclear weapon and created a much-needed diplomatic relationship between Iran, the United States, and U.S. allies

• The Israel Debate Requires Empathy and Nuance

  Two recent op-eds in the New York Times articulate the outer poles of the Israel debate.

• Israeli Election Update 1/30/2019

  In the first poll taken following Gantz’s speech, Walla! Newsfound that the Gantz-Ya’alon joint slate would garner 19 seats -- up from the 12-14 seats shown in previous polls. The Walla!survey found Likud dropping from 33 to 29 seats. 

• J Street’s Commitment to Israel’s Future

  In this polarized environment, it is important to define and defend a space where Jews can care deeply about Israel and be proud of its accomplishments while remaining free to recognize its shortcomings and criticize some of its government’s policies.

The Kahanists and the Homophobes: The Two Parties No One Wants but Netanyahu Needs, Haaretz

Allison Kaplan Sommer reports, “The right-wing religious bloc, always crucial for Netanyahu in his efforts to construct a solid ruling coalition, is splintered into no fewer than six parties, some of which have dangled perilously close to the electoral threshold. If one – or worse, two – of these parties fall below that threshold (which currently stands at 3.25 percent of the overall vote), it means that thousands of right-wing votes that should have been translated into Knesset seats in Netanyahu’s governing coalition will go to waste….The first party is Otzma Yehudit, led by a handful of former followers of the deeply racist Rabbi Meir Kahane; the second is Yachad, headed by Eli Yishai, which broke off from Shas after Yishai lost a leadership struggle with Shas’ current leader, Arye Dery. It has since become a more virulent religious right-wing version of its original Sephardi ultra-Orthodox progenitor….the prime minister has been publicly and privately lobbying the leaders of other rightist religious parties to merge with Otzma on a joint slate.”

A Champion of Alliances in Israeli Politics, Tzipi Livni Rejected at Finish Line, Haaretz

Yossi Verter writes ”Over the last four years, the public has turned its back on Livni’s ideological hallmark – diplomatic negotiations, seeking peace, a two-state solution as a guarantee of Israel’s continued existence as a Jewish and democratic state. In other words, what is commonly termed the left. She discovered that there were no buyers for these wares. Based on the in-depth polling she conducted in recent weeks, she realized that the fault line between the right and the center-left is no longer over the Palestinian issue, but over democracy – the assault on the rule of law, the attempts to undermine the High Court of Justice, the racist legislation.”