Pressure from pro-Israel advocacy group after Rafah violence could explain Biden’s new plan

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On Tuesday, Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of pro-Israel American advocacy group J Street, sent out an email to the organization’s listserv with the subject line: “Mr. President, enough is enough.” Among the hundreds of political emails I receive each week, it’s unusual for any to stand out, but this one immediately caught my eye. In the text, he reiterated his organization’s “call of many months now: It is time for this war to end.”

“The political damage the President is suffering by going down this path is so deep that it could cost him the November election and all of us our democracy,” Ben-Ami wrote in the wake of a horrifically violent weekend in the Gazan city of Rafah, during which 45 innocent bystanders in a displacement camp were killed in an Israeli airstrike and ensuing fire that burned people alive. While parts of Rafah had been under an evacuation order by the IDF, this area was considered a safe humanitarian zone.

The message of J Street’s email, to me, seemed clear: The organization’s pointed language was signaling that we’d reached a new phase in the genocide in Gaza (my language, not theirs). Biden had vowed in early May that Israel is “not going to get our support” and would be crossing a red line “if in fact they go on these population centers” in Gaza—which is pretty clearly what they did last weekend.

“Biden may not be saying it, but we're saying it,” Debra Shushan, J Street’s Director of Policy, told me Thursday. “His red line was crossed. Israel crossed Biden's red line.”

But in the immediate aftermath, the administration disagreed.

“We have not seen them go in with large units and large numbers of troops in columns and formations in some sort of coordinated maneuver against multiple targets on the ground,” White House spokesman John Kirby said in a press briefing Tuesday. “Everything that we can see tells us that they are not moving in in a major ground operation in population centers in the city of Rafah.”

Yet by Friday, Biden was standing in front of the world echoing Ben-Ami’s language in saying, “It’s time for this war to end, for the day after to begin.” He presented a three-phase plan for a ceasefire, return of the hostages and a lasting peace in the region that Biden later confirmed had been sent to Hamas with Israel’s approval; Netanyahu released a statement indicating support; and Hamas said they viewed Biden’s speech “positively.” 

It left Adina Vogel-Ayalon, Vice President and Chief of Staff at J Street, feeling, “cautious optimism,” she told me Friday. “This would be amazing.”

Since its founding in 2008, J Street has endeavored to be the middle-of-the-road choice for American Jews too left for AIPAC and too right for IfNotNow or Jewish Voices for Peace. The New York Times ran a whole profile about them in April focusing on the difficulty of towing the line since October 7th—and whether it's even possible to exist in the center of the American Jewish political center. They steadfastly support a two-state solution, and over the last nearly eight months, they’ve maintained their continued support for the Biden administration’s policy towards Israel. That support reportedly led to multiple staff departures in the earlier months of the conflict.

But even the most ardent advocates have their limits.