Steve Clemons obtains a letter the Kadima leader — and sane voice for peace and two states now that Labor has cravenly backed Netanyahu — wrote to Jeremy Ben Ami about the J Street gathering next week. Josh Marshall comments:

Quite apart from the policy disputes behind the J Street controversy (and Livni makes clear that she is not necessarily on board with all J Street’s positions), the Netanyahu government’s stance in this case represents a quite novel and very shortsighted decision to, in essence, write off a big chunk of American Jewry and class them amongst Israel’s foes. To be fair, much of the dispute here is about how much of American Jewry J Street represents. My hunch is that Oren/Netanyahu are both trying to answer the question by force, as it were — rhetorical force, but force nonetheless — but also genuinely misreading where the American Jewish community is on the big issues in the Middle East. Now Livni has made J Street a point of division within Israeli politics as well.

I think that’s right. It makes absolutely no sense for Netanyahu to ignore American Jews who are gathering to give their support to Israel. Even if you believe J Street’s agenda is deleterious to Israel, refusing to engage such an obviously friendly audience is conspicuously short-sighted and sectarian. Oren would be guaranteed a receptive audience, and he could make a case for his policies. But Netanyahu would prefer the purity of outreach only to the likeminded — oh, wait, we forget, Netanyahu’s supposed to be for peace and two states now. So there really is no excuse. Luckily, in Livni, Israel has someone who understands the bare minimum, cost-free requirements of advancing her country’s interests, and if it sounds like I’m damning her with faint praise, I don’t mean it that way.