J Street or AIPAC, the message remains the same

The power of lobby groups in Washington has been well-documented. Whether their interest is in oil, tobacco, or international affairs, these unelected bodies have significant power over both parties and individual politicians.

Perhaps one of the most well-known lobbying groups is the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which advocates pro-Israel policies to Congress and the executive branch of the United States. The New York Times has described it as “the most important organisation affecting America’s relationship with Israel”, while critics claim it has too much power over US policy and essentially acts as a conduit for the Israeli government.

AIPAC is a bipartisan group, drawing support from Republicans, Democrats, and independents. Such is the group’s influence, that the Obama administration has kept its distance from rival, more liberal lobbying groups, for fear of alienating AIPAC and its powerful conservative supporters.

Is that beginning to change? J Street, a substantially more liberal pro-Israel group often seen as a rival to AIPAC, announced last week that the vice-president Joe Biden, and US peace envoy to the Middle East, Martin Indyk, would speak at its convention this month.

Just like AIPAC, J Street describes itself as a pro-Israel organisation. However, it 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”. Founded in 2008, the group aims to represent American youth who are “fed up with the continuation of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, a conflict that is fuelled by organisations that adopt extreme Israeli positions.” The group has been controversial; some US Jewish leaders have claimed it is anti-Israel, and have publically disassociated from it.

In many ways, the world view of J Street is much more in line with that of the Obama administration than that of AIPAC, which is generally seen as hawkish and conservative.

Lobby groups’ conventions are par for the course. So why is the announcement of these speakers significant? First and foremost, Biden is the highest ranking politician to ever speak at a J Street conference. While President Obama and other senior officials have attended numerous AIPAC conferences, speakers at J Street have tended to be less senior.

Secondly, Biden defines himself as a Zionist. Over at Bloomberg, Biden is described by journalist Jeffrey Goldberg as “one of the most hawkishly pro-Israel members of Obama’s team”. It is therefore surprising that he should be the one to speak at the convention of this more liberal group.

A third reason that this was unexpected is that J Street recently refused to lend its support to Obama’s plan to strike Syria. AIPAC, on the other hand, put its full weight behind Obama’s resolution. Why, then, would the White House choose this moment to give J Street a boost and – by extension – give AIPAC a blow, by supporting its main rival?

In his report for Bloomberg, Goldberg says that the decision for Biden to speak at J Street’s conference was a personal favour from Obama to Luis Susman, the founder of the organisation. A big fundraiser for Obama’s presidential campaign, Susman was recently appointed US ambassador to the UK and enjoys a good relationship with the president.

A summary released by the Palestinian Authority quotes a White House source downplaying the significance of Biden’s attendance at the conference, saying: “We are in the midst of a new round of negotiations for the peace process. It is quite natural and expected that the administration explains its position on this matter in every important forum”.

Of course, it is unlikely that any new ground will be broken here. There are many reasons that Biden may have chosen to speak at the convention, but none of them will change his actual views. Most analysts are expecting Biden to reiterate what he has said before: that he supports the new peace talks and a two-state solution, that Israel’s settlement programme is unhelpful, but that Israel has the right to exist and the US-Israel relationship is vital. In content, it is unlikely to differ much from what he would say to AIPAC, although the J Street audience broadly has a more complex and ambivalent view of Israel, the peace process, and the US role. However, even if what Biden says is unexciting, the fact of him speaking at all is significant for J Street. As Goldberg puts it, this demonstrates that “the group has finally begun to figure out how to play the Washington game the way AIPAC, and all effective lobbying groups, play the Washington game: by lining up the money men.”

The views expressed in this article belong to the author and do not necessarily reflect the editorial policy of Middle East Monitor.