Foreign Policy publishes a wonderful and stirring response from Rebecca Abou-Chedid to the smear circulated by racist ex-AIPAC official Lenny Ben-David. It deserves to be read in full, since it’s less a personal reply that a mission statement for the Jewish and Arab-American peace constituencies. But this excerpt encapsulates the stakes so extremely well:

Ben-David’s allegations offer two competing conclusions. Either J Street is not sufficiently pro-Israel (how else would it attract Arab-American support?) or there is a significant group of Arab Americans for whom being pro-Palestine and pro-Israel are not mutually exclusive. He assumes, and hopes everyone else will also assume, that the former is self-evident and the latter is impossible. He is wrong.

It is possible to be both pro-Israel and pro-Palestine, not out of some blanket support for either government, but out of a sincere belief that peace is in both people’s best interests.  I hold that belief as a result of years of work within the Arab and Jewish American communities, working in partnerships not just with J Street but also with such groups as Americans for Peace Now, Brit Tzedek v’Shalom, and Israel Policy Forum.

That statement I bolded is an example of what we call “moral clarity.” It marginalizes extremists — Jewish, Arab, whomever — and offers a way out of one of the world’s most destructive conflicts. To oppose it is to oppose peace, stripped of all veneers. And to support it demands acting upon it, as Rebecca does, not wringing one’s hands against those who actually do. The opponents of peace only get shriller as they get more desperate, because they know time isn’t on their side. More Rebecca:

The reason J Street causes such fury among certain detractors often has nothing to do with its policy positions. These people are angry because the political climate has shifted in a way that they no longer understand or control. The generation that elected President Obama is not interested in being divided based on religion or ethnic heritage. We are not interested in a zero-sum game. We believe our elected officials must play a leadership role in brokering a two-state solution to this conflict, and that Arab and Jewish Americans must work together to support them. How can anyone profess to believe in a two-state solution, in which Israelis and Palestinians will live side by side, if they view with suspicion Arab and Jewish Americans working together to get there?