Scheffer

Tonight's emerging election results are telling a powerful story about the changing politics of Israel and Palestine in America. Much of the conventional wisdom about Jewish voters, the Democratic Party and the political power of AIPAC has been turned on its head. Here are five big takeaways: 1. No great migration of Jewish voters. We won't have final results from J Street's biennial Jewish voter exit poll until Thursday, but early numbers I'm seeing indicate that once again Jewish Americans are voting at or above 70% Democratic. The much-discussed, so-called "exodus" of Jewish voters from the Democratic Party once again hasn't materialized. 2. J Street is now the political center of gravity on Israel and Palestine in the Democratic Party. When the new Congress convenes, nearly two-thirds of the Democrats in the House and Senate will be J Street-endorsed. These members are the mainstream of the party: committed to Israel's security and existence, to Palestinian rights and self-determination, and to a US policy that advances both. AIPAC, meanwhile, was losing endorsed candidates so rapidly that it ultimately decided to abandon candidate endorsements altogether. 3. The extremes are just that: marginal. There will be a small handful of Democrats who reject any meaningful US-Israel security relationship. And there will be a limited number of others who remain unwilling to challenge Israeli government policies, no matter how destructive those policies are. Neither represents where the heart of the Democratic Party rests today. 4. J Street's political muscle helped create space for that growing consensus. We endorsed 200 candidates for the House and Senate and invested more than $13 million in their campaigns – not just to support our candidates but to defeat some of AIPAC's most prominent endorsees. Our success tonight demonstrates the political power of a new politics that supports both Israelis and Palestinians – and strengthens American democracy. 5. Those who argue that AIPAC lost traction in the Democratic Party because Democrats turned against Israel miss the point – it's AIPAC that fell out of step with Democrats. Its insistence that support for Israel means defending its government, right or wrong, and its willingness to pour enormous sums of money into Democratic primaries made AIPAC – not support for Israel – increasingly unwelcome. Looking ahead, J Street intends to translate this new political reality into a new American policy – one that supports Israel's security, Palestinian freedom and the future of both peoples. That's the approach that represents the center of American Jewish opinion and the Democratic Party. And J Street is at its heart.