Most American Jews belong to neither the camp that supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unconditionally nor the one that blamed Israel immediately after the October 7 massacre, J Street chief policy officer Ilan Goldenberg told i24NEWS, arguing that his organization reflects the views of the quieter majority between those poles.<\/p>\n
J Street’s Ilan Goldenberg | American View<\/p>\n
Goldenberg recalled his work leading Jewish voter outreach during Kamala Harris\u2019s presidential campaign. He said the loudest voices he encountered came from people determined to support Netanyahu\u2019s government regardless of its policies and those who were accusing Israel of genocide and assigning it blame as early as October 8, 2023.<\/p>\n
\u201cThe overwhelming majority of people I talked to did not fit into those two spheres,\u201d Goldenberg said. He described those voters as supporting security, freedom and political opportunity for both Israelis and Palestinians, a position he said J Street seeks to amplify.<\/p>\n
Goldenberg, a former Middle East adviser to Harris who was born in Jerusalem, described himself as a liberal Zionist with a strong personal attachment to Israel. Supporting Israel\u2019s existence as a Jewish and democratic state, he argued, does not require agreement with the conduct of its government.<\/p>\n
J Street’s Ilan Goldenberg explains why Israel is losing Democrat support<\/p>\n
He attributed the growing divide between Israel and the Democratic Party partly to Netanyahu\u2019s increasing identification with Republican politics, beginning with his publicized clashes with former president Barack Obama over the Iran nuclear agreement and continuing through his close relationship with President Donald Trump. <\/p>\n
Goldenberg rejected the claim that J Street had pulled the Democratic Party too far to the left. Instead, he said the organization now finds itself arguing both with groups that support the Israeli government without qualification and with activists calling for an end to the US-Israel relationship.<\/p>\n
J Street continues to support Israeli missile defense and a bilateral security relationship, he said, while maintaining that US weapons transfers must comply with American law. The organization\u2019s goal, he added, is to build a broad Democratic center that supports Israel but does not offer its government a \u201cblank check.\u201d<\/p>\n
On the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Goldenberg advocated what he called a \u201c23-state solution,\u201d placing an eventual demilitarized Palestinian state within a wider agreement integrating Israel with the Arab world. He acknowledged that neither Israeli nor Palestinian public opinion currently offers a clear mandate for two states, but argued that attitudes could change if political leaders demonstrated a credible path toward regional peace and improved security.<\/p>\n
Goldenberg was more categorical about Netanyahu\u2019s relationship with American liberals. \u201cThe Netanyahu government has lost the Democratic Party for sure,\u201d he said, while arguing that a different Israeli government could begin rebuilding ties even without adopting J Street\u2019s positions.<\/p>\n
He warned that another Netanyahu-led government dependent on Finance Minister Bezalel Smotrich and National Security Minister Itamar Ben Gvir could cause many American Jews to abandon hopes of repairing the relationship. A new government, by contrast, could begin restoring confidence by advancing a phased Gaza arrangement, confronting settler violence and renewing engagement with Palestinians and Arab states.<\/p>\n
Watch Mike Wagenheim\u2019s full interview with Ilan Goldenberg on American View for the complete discussion on J Street, the Democratic Party and the future of US-Israel relations.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Most American Jews belong to neither the camp that supports Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu unconditionally nor the one…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":570204,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[85,46,43],"class_list":["post-570203","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-israel","tag-il","tag-israel","tag-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570203","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=570203"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/570203\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/570204"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=570203"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=570203"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/il\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=570203"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}