WARNING What you are about to be invited to is neither sponsored, nor supported, nor endorsed by J-Street. There may be left over food from the morning sessions, maybe not. And J-Street is not insisting on rent from the bloggers for the hotel room. In fact, the bloggers have absolutely nothing to do with J-Street, officially or unofficially.
When in DC on Monday come hear progressive I/P blogger/journalists speak briefly about the issues of the hour. I mean quite literally “the hour” since lunch at the second day of the J-Street Conference is from 12:30-1:30.
Here is some of the line-up
Phil Weiss (Mondoweiss) I am not entirely sure that all of the above will show; there has been extraordinary pressure from the far right for them to cancel their participation at the lunch.
(That was a joke.)
In fact, there has been a lot of pressure on Congresspeople not to show, and a lot of hot air about J-Street. And you know what? It doesn’t seem to be working. After an initial minyan of folks dropped out, nothing new to report…except the good news that the smears against J-Street are from the usual smearers: ZOA, the Weekly Standard, Commentary, and assorted West Bank settlers. Even the Jewish liberal hawks have been cutting the new kid on the block some slack.
And that’s the way it should be. Because after the J-Street conference next week, AIPAC will be indelibly identified with the hard-core “pumped-by-Sarah-Palin-and-Rush-Limbaugh” right. If you are a liberal democrat, you shouldn’t be backing AIPAC, or for that matter, the right-wing Netanyahu government.
Jerry Haber (Magnes Zionist)
Richard Silverstein (Tikun Olam)
Dan Sieradski (formerly of Jewschool)
Helena Cobban (Just World News)
Max Blumenthal (Daily Beast)
Laila el Haddad (Gaza Mom)
Matt Duss (Think Progress)
Joseph Dana (Ibn Ezra)
Ray Hanania
Jesse Hochheiser (Across the Border)
