The self-styled “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobbying group is now in its tenth year; during most of this time it has benefitted from having a White House supportive of its goals. Indeed, its director stated that he and his colleagues saw themselves as the president’s teammates. Yet, writes Gregg Roman, J Street has precious little to show, especially since peace between Israel and its neighbors, let alone Palestinian statehood, seems as far off as ever:

J Street’s continued criticism of the Israeli government created a pseudo-Zionist political shield on the Jewish community’s left flank that the Obama administration used to blame Israel for actions largely caused by Palestinian obstinacy.

For eight years J Street supported President Obama’s destructive policies toward Israel, like the unilateral settlement freeze, nuclear détente with Iran, and his allowance for international condemnation of Israeli communities in the West. . . . At the end of 2008, when Israel decided to defend itself against incessant rocket attacks from the terrorist organization Hamas in the Gaza Strip, J Street attacked Israel’s defensive actions. . . .

J Street also placed itself out of mainstream pro-Israel circles when it invited prominent activists in the Boycott, Divestment, Sanctions (BDS) movement to its conferences and claimed that George Soros had not funded the organization until it became a matter of public record that he had in fact provided significant donations, especially during its formative years. All of these hits have left J Street and its combative but rarely reflective president Jeremy Ben-Ami’s reputation battered and bruised.

However, the latest election results have delivered the knock-out punch. If perhaps the only selling point J Street could point to for its potential donors in recent years has been largely unfettered access to the White House, even without any tangible results, this will now be completely removed from the equation by a victory for Donald Trump and Republican control of both houses of Congress. . . .

J Street has now become an organization vilified by former friends, distanced from the left in Israel, and distrusted by many more as a result of the mishandling of its own reputation. There is no doubt that J Street will try to reconstitute itself under the new political constellation, but it will probably turn into a sad Don Quixote-type figure, dreaming of moments of grandeur while parrying against imaginary enemies.

Surveying news websites and social media on Sunday morning, I immediately found some intelligent and well-informed observers arguing that Iran deliberately warned the U.S. of its pending assault on Israel, and calibrated it so that there would be few casualties and minimal destructiveness, thus hoping to avoid major retaliation. In other words, this massive barrage was a face-saving gesture by the ayatollahs. Others disagreed. Brian Carter and Frederick W. Kagan put the issue to rest:

The Iranian April 13 missile-drone attack on Israel was very likely intended to cause significant damage below the threshold that would trigger a massive Israeli response. The attack was designed to succeed, not to fail. The strike package was modeled on those the Russians have used repeatedly against Ukraine to great effect. The attack caused more limited damage than intended likely because the Iranians underestimated the tremendous advantages Israel has in defending against such strikes compared with Ukraine.

But that isn’t to say that Tehran achieved nothing:

The lessons that Iran will draw from this attack will allow it to build more successful strike packages in the future. The attack probably helped Iran identify the relative strengths and weaknesses of the Israeli air-defense system. Iran will likely also share the lessons it learned in this attack with Russia.

Iran’s ability to penetrate Israeli air defenses with even a small number of large ballistic missiles presents serious security concerns for Israel. The only Iranian missiles that got through hit an Israeli military base, limiting the damage, but a future strike in which several ballistic missiles penetrate Israeli air defenses and hit Tel Aviv or Haifa could cause significant civilian casualties and damage to civilian infrastructure, including ports and energy. . . . Israel and its partners should not emerge from this successful defense with any sense of complacency.