 So I'm Daniel Levy and I'm welcoming here to New America Foundation Jeremy Ben-Ami. Jeremy, you're here We're about to do the launching the official launching of your new book new voice for Israel Give me the very potted version of what you want the takeaway When people have finished this book and they say oh to be Clearly to me the takeaway is a call to action, you know that for those of us who? Care deeply about Israel and the future of the state of the Jewish people this is a critical moment and the future of the state really does hang in the balance and The call to action is we need to change the way American politics work when it comes to Israel and the voices of Moderate pro-Israel pro-peace Jews need to come to be heard Second the way the Jewish community works needs to change and we need to open up the conversation not silence voices of dissent Otherwise, we're gonna see the American Jewish community with her as well, but most importantly for the state of Israel the opportunity to be a Jewish and a democratic homeland hangs in the balance if Separation doesn't happen with the Palestinian people into two states now We may lose the chance for a viable to state solution and thereby I think lose the chance for a viable Israel Now you address those questions and you bring this book out not as a an Observer from the sidelines of all of these developments you brought this out three plus years now since founding Leading and being the driving force behind J Street When you reflect back on those three years What has impeded Not being able to get more progress Despite the great achievements that J Street has undoubtedly made well There's impediments on all fronts, you know I think number one you'd want to see a government of Israel that was going in a different direction So we are trying to help change the course of a country whose government is driving it off a cliff And so impediment number one is we're trying to help Re-steer a boat that is under someone else's control and so that's problem number one problem number two is I think here in this country the government the Obama administration has not been as assertive and Proactive as we might have hoped in trying to help make that change You know course correction take place and has been a little bit more Subject to the winds of politics than we might have hoped certainly it is Partly the American Jewish establishment that is not used to hearing dissent and not used to hearing Different voices and particularly not used to hearing criticism of the policies of the state of Israel Let's stick with that last theme the American Jewish establishment because you're not the first member of your family to be Pushing against the tide right And you go into this in your book and really you draw the analogy between your father whose politics on Israel were to the right of both of us to the revisionist Jabotinsky right-wing Zionist tradition, but here in the US The group that he was central to were going around the American Jewish establishment in the 30s and saying Get on board with the Zionist project Jews in Europe face a pending catastrophe And you draw the analogy to the message that you've been trying to Spread about the pending catastrophe that Israel faces How do you reflect back on that and say Is there more receptivity now or is the establishment as closed as it ever was? Well, I think it's absolutely fascinating parallel you know that in the 1930s and early 1940s those with Right of center politics and in some cases fairly far right of center politics were really trying to sound the alarm bell and saying disaster is looming and The establishment tried to shut down the voices of dissent the establishment was left of center was socialist Zionist And they attacked and smeared and libeled planted informants in the offices of Got my father drafted into the US Army In in 1943 all in an effort to shut down the voices of dissent And I find a similar dynamic today when those of us who are slightly left of center on this issue at least in the conventional political spectrum We are trying to sound that similar alarm and say that there is real trouble ahead and there really needs to be a change of course there needs to be action and an Establishment that is now right of center rather than engaging us on the substance of the issue is trying to smear us and cut off funding and Shut down the debate and shut off dissent and those dynamics are so parallel and it seems to be the knee-jerk response of establishment Entities to rather than engage the voices to actually shut them down We're gonna shut this conversation down now, but that's because we're gonna go across to the conference Excellent joined by Steve Clements, and we're gonna have a conversation with you Which everyone can also watch online great looking forward to it. Thank you very much for having and that's the book