This past Wednesday a Knesset hearing was heldin Jerusalem to examine the bona fides of J Street, an American organization meant to offer an alternative voice to AIPAC the American-Jewish lobbying group. J Street, located in DC,describes itself as pro-Israel and pro-peace. That seems to have been enough to raise the voices of Israeli Knesset members in criticism.Here is Times correpsondent Ethan Bronner's description of the inquiry: "The conveners of Wednesdays hearing, a hawkish Likud legislator named Danny Danon and a conservative colleague from the centrist Kadima party, Otniel Schneller, wanted to expose J Street for what they believed it to be a group of self-doubting American Jews more worried about what their neighbors say than what is good for the state of Israel." Worth a read in the Times (3/25/11)

Margaret O’Brien Steinfels is a former editor of Commonweal. 

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