Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, has signalled that his organisation would support President Donald Trump if he advances peace efforts in the Middle East, despite controversial policy decisions on Israeli settlements and Palestinian statehood.
In an interview with The Jersualem Post Ben-Ami acknowledged that, while Trump does not align with the liberal Zionist movement, J Street would back any US president working toward the “ultimate deal” for peace.
“He is president of the United States, and he’s expressed an interest in getting done the ultimate deal,” Ben-Ami said. “We are supportive of anybody who’s going to try to advance that kind of agenda.”
That’s not to say there aren’t clashes with liberal Zionism’s ideals. Key Trump allies, such as former ambassadors to Israel David Friedman and Mike Huckabee, have openly supported Israeli settlement expansion, and his peace plan lacked provisions for an independent Palestinian state.
Trump himself even signed an executive order to lift sanctions on illegal settlers on his very first day back in office.
Yet despite these concerns, some liberal Zionist leaders are cautiously hopeful about the potential impact of Trump’s approach.
Michael Koplow, chief policy officer at the Israel Policy Forum, suggested that Trump might achieve goals that the movement has long advocated for.
“If, at the end of four years, what comes out of this is the beginning of the reconstruction of Gaza and normalisation between Israel and Saudi Arabia that has a real Palestinian component, those are things liberal Zionists have wanted for years,” said Koplow.
But he also emphasised the uncertainty of Trump’s policy path. “He could end up doing things that liberal Zionists love and he may end up doing things liberal Zionists hate”.
“I don’t think there’s a president that had such different paths ahead of him, where either one is plausible.”
Ben-Ami, who previously championed the two-state solution, has noted that J Street’s stance has evolved as the prospects for this approach have diminished. In a recent essay, he lamented the "failure” of the two-state solution, writing, “There’s no idea or phrase more closely identified with J Street than the ‘two-state solution.’ Sadly, years of failure to realise two states have turned to decades of frustration and despair.”
Instead, Ben-Ami now advocates for what he calls the “23-state solution,” a vision that includes broader regional integration and ultimately leads to a Palestinian state.
He also acknowledged the need to adapt to the current political landscape, particularly under Trump’s administration.
“I would much prefer to have absolute alignment with an administration on policy and values and approach, but this is the world we live in, and in the real world, nothing is perfect,” he said. “We worked very strongly to try to prevent Donald Trump from being elected president. Now he is president, and if he can move in a direction we can support on this set of issues, we would support it.”
Meanwhile, Shira Efron, senior director of policy research at the Israel Policy Forum, warned that Trump may seek to take credit for an easy win without committing to the long-term work necessary to secure a lasting peace.
“If he just wanted to say, ‘OK, I got a deal, I succeeded where Joe Biden didn’t,’ but not put in the hard work... there won’t be a stage two,” Efron added.
For now, J Street remains watchful of Trump’s next steps, with Ben-Ami recognising the need to play a role in advancing peace, even when it involves working with a president they did not support.
“If he’s pursuing something we agree with, we can be an ambassador to the democratic world or the more liberal part of the Jewish community to say, get over that sort of knee-jerk response,” he concluded.
