This week’s Economist has an interesting story about a new Jewish lobby that focuses on Israel.  The magazine points out that the American Israel Public Affairs Committee has an almost folkloric reputation in Washington D.C., and has been accused of heavily skewing America’s foreign policy interests.

Enter J Street, a lobby group comprised mostly of American Jews who describe themselves as “pro-Israel,  pro-peace”.

Israel’s Likud government is not pleased (although Shimon Peres and Tzipi Livni have expressed support), and its ambassador declined to attend J Street’s first annual conference.  In addition to pushing aggressively for a two-state solution with Israel returning to its pre-1967 borders, the Economist–which has followed J Street closely–writes how that is not all that has upset the Israeli lobby’s applecart:

In print and in the blogosphere, in America and Israel, foes have excoriated J Street for having called for an immediate ceasefire during last year’s Gaza war, paying excessive heed to Richard Goldstone’s report accusing Israel of war crimes, making room at its conference for people who do not support the Zionist idea of a Jewish state, and other alleged heresies against the orthodox line of Israel’s traditional supporters in America.

Compared to AIPAC’s $60M annual budget, 275 employees, $130M endowment and new $80M capitol hill headquarters; J Street has an annual budget of $3M and 8 staff (that includes former Senator Lincoln Chafee, one of my favorite politicians).