One think tank, two views on J Street
The Begin-Sadat Center For Strategic Studies at Israel’s Bar-Ilan University (BESA) has distributed two articles on J Street, one critical by David Weinberg, and now a defense of the group by Dov Waxman. Weinberg called J Street a “new form of Jewish apostasy.” Waxman writes that J Street is “enlarging the pro-Israel tent, allowing more American Jews to identify themselves as being pro-Israel without having to be uncritical knee-jerk supporters of Israeli governments.”
I think it is pretty rare for one Jewish think tank to offer a forum for such divergent views. Every think tank in the Jewish world likes to call itself non-partisan and non-ideological, but each tends to be fairly predictable, consistent, and one-sided in the kinds of analysis it produces, right or left (proving “knee-jerk” is not just a symptom of the left).
Good for BESA for airing an internal disagreement, and adding to the wider debate in the Jewish community.
JustASC is written by Andrew Silow-Carroll, Editor-in-Chief of the 
November 12th, 2009 at 8:09 pm
Well, with a name like “Begin-Sadat Center,” some internal disagreement is to be expected.