Hadar Susskind Joins J Street

J Street, the newish pro-peace Israel lobby, seems to have scored a major coup by snagging Hadar Susskind, currently vice president and Washington director for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, as their new director of policy and strategy. James Besser from New York Jewish Week explains:

“My goal is to build as broad a base of support as possible for Israel at this politically pivotal moment when there is both great opportunity to make progress in resolving the conflict and a tremendous risk of squandering it,” Susskind said in a statement. “I look forward to working to grow a strong and integrated progressive pro-Israel movement and to build that much needed support across the spectrum of American political life.”

His background – he was born in Israel and served in the IDF in Lebanon – won’t please those right-wingers who say J Street is anti-Israel because it disagrees with …well, them. And it probably won’t mollify more mainstream leaders who worry that the new group undercuts American Jewish unity on key questions involving Israel.

The significance of attracting people with this kind of credibility, however, isn’t to mollify high-information ideologues who simply disagree with a progressive approach to these issues. The significance is that a great many American Jews are torn between their generally progressive approach to political issues and the fact that they often worry about the real motives of people who become critical of Israeli policy or the status quo in US-Israel relations. It’s difficult to have those kind of doubts about Israeli-born IDF veterans with a track record of working in significant Jewish organizations.