The New J-Lobby for Peace !
The New J-Lobby for Peace - By Edward Witten
To those who have been supporters both of the state of Israel and of stronger efforts to make peace with the Palestinians, the recent conference organized by the organization called J Street was a fantasy come true. J Street is a nonprofit group founded in April 2008 by, among others, its current executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, a Democratic policy adviser in the Clinton administration who has had much experience in public relations. He called it J Street partly as a play on the K Street lobbyists and partly because there is no J Street in Washington and he wanted to suggest that the new organization was filling a gap. Everything about the J Street conference, 'Driving Change, Securing Peace,' that was held in Washington, D.C., in the last week of October was far larger than most expected.
http://www.nybooks.com/articles/article-preview?article_id=23467
The rise of J Street
J Street is a nonprofit lobbying group headquartered in Washington, DC that seeks to mobilize American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Palestinian-Israel conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. J Street states that it "supports a new direction for American policy in the Middle East--diplomatic solutions over military ones," "multilateral over unilateral approaches to conflict resolution," and "dialogue over confrontation" with wider international support.
The term J Street plays off K Street, where many Washington lobbying firms are located. In fact there is no such street in the nation’s capital, where the street naming jumps from I (“eye”) to K. The name choice reflects the aspiration of J Street's founders and donors to bring a voice to Washington D.C. that, much like the missing "J Street" of the downtown grid, has been absent so far.
http://dyneslines.blogspot.com/2009/11/rise-of-j-street.html
J Street is the political arm of the pro-Israel, pro-peace movement.
J Street was founded to promote meaningful American leadership to end the Arab-Israeli and Israeli-Palestinian conflicts peacefully and diplomatically. We support a new direction for American policy in the Middle East and a broad public and policy debate about the U.S. role in the region.
J Street represents Americans, primarily but not exclusively Jewish, who support Israel and its desire for security as the Jewish homeland, as well as the right of the Palestinians to a sovereign state of their own - two states living side-by-side in peace and security. We believe ending the Israeli-Palestinian conflict is in the best interests of Israel, the United States, the Palestinians, and the region as a whole.
