... During the Cold War, there were anti-Communists, and what one wag deemed "anti-anti-Communists." The anti-anti-Communists were people who purported to be against Communism, but they spent almost all their efforts denouncing the "right-wing" anti-Communists, and precious little effort fighting Communism. Similarly, JStreet risks claiming to be "pro-Israel," but really in practice being primarily a lobby against pro-Israel people who are further to the right, and spending precious little time battling truly anti-Israel folks on the Left. (Would that make JStreet anti-anti-anti-Israel? Or just "anti-pro-Israel"?) Most of its energy so far, from what I can tell, has been spent attacking "right-wing" Jewish groups and individuals, and even Israeli government policies, and precious little battling the extreme hostility to Israel one often finds on the progressive left.

Over the Summer, JStreet honored the so-called "Juicebox Mafia"-young liberal Jewish bloggers Ackerman, Duss, Klein, and Yglesias. Now, these youngsters may be Jewsh, progressive, and pro-peace, and in their hearts they may even be pro-Israel. But I've read many posts from them related to Israel over the years, and I can't remember a single one that actually defended Israel from an unfair charge emanating from the left. They attack Marty Peretz, attack AIPAC, defend Walt and Mearsheimer, and so forth, none of which necessarily means that they can't also be pro-Israel. But how does their pro-Israelness manifest itself? Certainly not in their blogging (Duss and Yglesias have vigorously, defended Human Rights Watch, for example, seemingly on the sole ground that it was under attack from pro-Israel people). And judging by their comments section, it's not like they don't have plenty of readers who are clearly not pro-Israel. So exactly why did JStreet honor them? (Yglesias is appearing on a JStreet panel Tuesday, "What does it Mean to be pro-Israel?" I'd like to see that one...)

J Street's university arm has dropped the "pro-Israel" part of the left-wing US lobby's "pro-Israel, pro-peace" slogan to avoid alienating students...

..."We don't want to isolate people because they don't feel quite so comfortable with 'pro-Israel,' so we say 'pro-peace,'" said American University junior Lauren Barr of the "J Street U" slogan, "but behind that is 'pro-Israel.'"

Barr, secretary of the J Street U student board that decided the slogan's terminology, explained that on campus, "people feel alienated when the conversation revolves around a connection to Israel only, because people feel connected to Palestine, people feel connected to social justice, people feel connected to the Middle East."

She noted that the individual student chapters would be free to add "pro-Israel," "pro-Israel, pro-Palestine," or other wording that they felt would be effective on this issue, since "it's up to the individuals on campus to know their audience."

Yonatan Shechter, a junior at Hampshire College, said the ultra-liberal Massachusetts campus is inhospitable to terms like "Zionist" and that when his former organization, the Union of Progressive Zionists (which has been absorbed into J Street U), dropped that last word of its name, "people were so relieved."...