The Jewish Peace Lobby has, over the years, taken the lead. We advocated certain key positions at a time when they were highly controversial. These positions include:
- Israel should negotiate with the Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO).
- The conflict should be resolved through the two-state solution.
- Jerusalem must be shared by the two states.
- Settlements must be brought to a halt.
- The United States must be deeply engaged and in a balanced manner.
- The United States should put a full American plan for ending the conflict on the table.
As appropriate, we urge our members to communicate on these issues to the President and members of Congress.
However, on a day to day basis, our main work is not on this level of generality. It is not enough to call for a shared Jerusalem or for a solution to the refugee problem. There is a need for new ideas about how to achieve these goals, and how to do so in ways that Israelis and Palestinians can accept. Thus, we function somewhat as an engaged think tank.
What sets JPL apart is that JPL’s primary focus and daily work is on:
- developing new ideas on specific final status issues
- the process of making peace
We focus on topics such as Palestinian refugees, the Temple Mount, Hamas, alternatives to bilateral negotiations, and the role of the United Nations.
We do more than develop new ideas, we work both in Washington and in Jerusalem to bring such ideas to a broad range of policy makers: the U.S. Government, the P.L.O., the Israeli government, the Israeli opposition, U.N. officials, governments of other U.N. Security Council members states. To this end we use most of our funds to support our Israel office.