From this Israeli’s perspective, the J Street conference looked like a pretty sleek production. Too bad that’s all it amounted to. Now that the folks at JStreet are finished patting each other on the back for a job well done, I’d like to give them a perspective on the conference from one who did not attend. I just read about it here, on my laptop in sunny Bat Yam. There wasn’t much to see here. Not on TV, and not in the papers. I also understand that there wasn’t much coverage in the American media. In fact, if one visits…

One of the things that struck me about the J Street conference was that, despite the grandeur of the event (understandable due to its effort to rival the show put on by the veteran America Israel Public Affairs Committee every year), it was actually understated and done with taste.  There were no giant Israeli flags waving above Jeremy Ben-Ami's head when he was at the podium, no centerpieces at the tables with Star of David-shaped chocolates to take home, and no gaudy items of merchandise distributed in the conference kits. But there was one item of merchandise that I found…

A couple of months ago I discussed here the debate between Peter Beinart and Jeffrey Goldberg regarding Bibi and Oslo. As some readers might remember, Goldberg accused Beinart of fabricating facts in claiming that Netanyahu rejected the peace agreement. Last Friday, channel 10 broadcast a homemade video of a visit by Netanyahu to a settler family in 2001, two years after his defeat to Ehud Barak. Netanyahu is seen answering the family's questions, referring to the Clinton administration as "extremely pro-Palestinian" and boosting how he managed to stop the Oslo agreement - while publicly endorsing it - well before the…