The ascension of President Joe Biden to the White House marks a new chapter in U.S.-Israel relations. The Trump administration marched in lockstep with the right-wing Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and was indifferent, if not openly hostile, to Palestinian concerns. This reflects what has been a growing convergence between the Israeli right and American conservatives, who share a hatred and fear of Iran as well as a willingness to equate any criticism of Israel’s government with anti-Semitism. Biden is not likely going to turn his back on Netanyahu, but his administration is going to be listening to a very different set of voices, and one of the loudest will be J Street.
The “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organization was founded in 2007 as a counterweight to more right-leaning Israel-focused interests, like the American-Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), a powerful lobbyist group. J Street advocates for a two-state solution, the long-sought goal of what has been a halting and often interrupted peace process, and as AIPAC and the Israeli government itself have moved to the right, J Street has become influential within the Democratic Party; it hosted many of the leading presidential candidates at a 2019 conference and was in close contact with their campaigns, advocating they take a line that balances support for a Jewish state with concern for Palestinian rights.
This gives the group a substantial amount of clout, but the events of the last four years—during which time Trump reneged on the deal President Barack Obama made with Iran on its nuclear program and antagonized Palestinians—mean that U.S. policy in the region is “at a low moment,” according to Logan Bayroff, J Street’s director of communications. “Our ambitions for the Biden administration start with just undoing a lot of the damage that was done and sort of rebuilding a significant portion of America’s ability to actually play a positive role in the region.”
Where J Street and Israel diverge
J Street’s own polling shows that American Jews remain strongly supportive of Israel, but Trump’s alignment with Netanyahu failed to garner much Jewish support, as nearly 80% of Jews supported Democrats in 2020. And some young, left-leaning Jews are much more critical of Israel than previous generations, with the Jewish group IfNotNow condemning the Israeli “occupation” of Palestinian lands in language stronger than what J Street normally offers up.
Last month, Nadav Tamir, a former Israeli diplomat and J Street’s executive director, said on an Al-Monitor podcast that the Israeli government should pay attention to the fact that his group, not the Jewish right, represents public opinion as well as the incoming administration. “It’s about time that Israel understands that in order to be the homeland of the Jewish people, we have to be able to connect with the big majority of the most important Jewish diaspora in North America,” he said.
J Street sees a negotiated peace between Israelis and Palestinians to be in the best interests of all parties as well as the U.S. In that framework, being a friend to Israel means criticizing Israeli leadership when they do things that push that goal further away. That’s what J Street wants the Biden administration to be: the kind of friend who holds Israel accountable.
As an example of that, Bayroff said that J Street would like to see the Biden administration clarify that Israeli settlements in the West Bank (the expansion of which Netanyahu supports) are illegal under international law. “Everyone understands that as part of negotiations, some settlements ultimately would become part of the state of Israel,” Baryoff said. “And at that point, they would no longer be illegal, they’d be recognized by everybody, including a state of Palestine.”
J Street also wants the U.S. to re-engage with Iran and reestablish the deal Obama negotiated, which supporters, including J Street, say is the best way to prevent Iran from getting nuclear weapons. This is another divergence between J Street and Netanyahu, who opposed the deal.
Slow steps
The two sides are a long way from that two-state solution, of course. J Street is currently pushing for relatively modest tweaks to U.S. policy that move it away from the whatever-Netanyahu-says-goes stance it formerly took. The moves announced by the Biden administration largely represent a return to a pre-Trump status quo, including renewing ties with the Palestinian Authority and restarting aid to Palestine.
This isn’t likely enough for many Palestinian advocates. Noura Erakat, a Palestinian human rights attorney and writer, recently criticized Biden for accepting the Trump administration’s move of the U.S. embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem and his continuation of $3.8 billion in military aid to Israel.
Biden’s other Middle Eastern policy moves have made it clear he isn’t inclined to chart a new course, at least not yet. Iran hasn’t been willing to restart talks until the U.S. lifts sanctions, and Biden recently ordered a missile strike on Iran-backed militias in Syria; Biden has also declined to harshly punish Saudi Arabian leader Mohammed Bin Salman for ordering the death of U.S.-based journalist Jamal Khashoggi.
Biden has room to operate
Foreign policy is not usually on voters’ minds, even when a pandemic has overridden ordinary concerns. J Street’s polling has found that Jewish voters, like pretty much everyone else, tend to be mostly concerned with healthcare and the economy, though last year, their top two issues were the pandemic and climate change. Only 5% thought Israel was a top-two issue in 2020.
Bayroff said that there’s no reason that voters should think of Israel as being more important than issues like climate change and healthcare, and J Street’s role isn’t to convince Americans that Israel is as urgent as climate change.
“The reality is that these just these aren’t the most politically salient issues,” he said. That comes with some upside, however: The administration doesn’t need to worry too much about a backlash from voters. Instead, it “should review the situation and make the right decisions about what they think is the right policy on the merits.”
J Street and Biden may share many views about what the right policy is when it comes to Israel and the broader Middle East, including a focus on diplomacy and a desire to roll back much of what Trump has done (without creating any more chaos in the region). It’s likely going to leave Netanyahu dissatisfied, and won’t be good enough for critics of longstanding U.S. policy who would like the U.S. to be less closely connected to Israel and Saudi Arabia. Just as he has to do domestically, Biden will be doing a lot of rebuilding when it comes to the Middle East.
