More on J Street's Statement

+972 has dueling pieces on J Street's policy paper on the Palestinians' UN bid. One from Noam Sheizaf, calling it the worst move ever. Sheizaf states:

Instead of expanding the conversation on Israel, J Street is reaching out to the consensus. This is the kind of political thinking that got Israel and its supporters in the United States to the impasse in which they are today. For the first time, I get the feeling that J Street has lost the desire to take a leading role in finding the way out of it.

The other from Dahlia Scheindlin, calling J Street's position smart. Scheindlin sums up her argument by comparing J Street's position to those taken by the Israeli left:

Strategy counts. Over the last decade, the Israeli left has been right more often than it has been smart, to translate a Hebrew phrase. We are now suffering a profound loss of trust in Israeli society.

My surveys repeatedly show that roughly half the Jewish population agrees with left-leaning views on the conflict, but only roughly 15% are willing to call themselves left. At present left-identified groups are busy fighting their way out of an image hole, instead of pushing their content.

Maybe J Street will avoid that trap. Maybe it’s we, the Israeli left, who have something to learn from them.