A standing desk for $210

I used the 22 dollar standing desk happily for about 8 months. The $22-desk adds two brackets and a shelf to an end table, which sits on top of a normal desk. It is a wonderful, simple, low-budget, ergonomic solution, and I am grateful to its creators Colin Nederkoorn and Ryan Witt. When I moved to a new apartment, I knew I wanted to maintain the ergonomics and improve on the aesthetics. I was looking for a solution that would stand on its own and fit into a smaller space without breaking the bank. The most highly rated commercially available options are from Jarvis and Ergo Desktop. The Jarvis model is wider than I wanted and requires an arm mount in order to get the ergonomics right, which brings the total cost to $514. The Ergo Desktop model sits on top of an existing desk and costs $399.

I built a standing desk that met all my criteria for just under $210.

Introducing the Standesk 210

So, what's the recipe?

• On-Stage KS7350 keyboard stand - $84.79
• Ikea Askersund 18"x30" cabinet door - $19.00
• Everbilt double wide mending plates - $3.22
• Crown Bolt #6 x 2-1/2 inch oval head wood screws - $1.18 x 2
• AmazonBasics monitor mounting arm - $99.99
• Total - $209.36

Assembly instructions

1. Keyboard stand. The keyboard stand comes with assembly instructions. Follow the instructions.
2. Pilot holes. Place a mending plate so that the holes are about 2.75 and 4.25 inches away from a short edge of the back of the cabinet door. (The back has several holes in it, the front has no holes.) Center the mending plate between the long edges. Mark the center of the mending plate holes with a pencil. Remove the mending plates and drill pilot holes. Repeat this near the other short edge.
3. Clamping base to door. Place the cabinet door face down on the floor. Place the keyboard stand upside down on top of it. Adjust the width of the keyboard stand so that the arms are centered between each set of pilot holes. Place the mending plates on top of the keyboard arms so that the holes line up with the pilot holes. Screw the screws through the mending plates into the pilot holes.
4. Put the base right-side up.
5. Mounting arm. The mounting arm comes with assembly instructions. Follow the instructions.

Result

The basic setup is extremely adaptable. The keyboard base has adjustable height. The mounting arm moves around easily. (If I did this again I would probably switch to this mounting arm for additional height.) If you want a larger desktop, switch to a different size Askersund. (I actually saved a few more bucks by picking up my Askersund from the "as is" bin at Ikea for $3.) I think the main insight is using the piano keyboard base. There may be better ways to clamp the desktop to the base, but the one I used is easy and unobtrusive.

Warning: The maximum table height using this design is 38.25 inches, which is high enough for me but may not be high enough for people taller than 5'9".

tax basics and EITC awareness

How much more federal income tax do you owe if you earn one additional dollar?

• Starting from zero, you owe no tax on the first $10,300. Before the federal government starts taxing income, it subtracts a chunk from the amount you earned.
• If you earn one more dollar, then you owe 10 cents. Above $10,300, you enter the 10% tax bracket. The first $10,300 still does not get taxed, but that one additional dollar gets taxed at a rate of 10%.

Taxes are more complicated, but that's the basic idea. What I just said is true for a typical unmarried person, but the same process---subtracting a chunk, then applying a tax rate to one additional dollar---applies to everyone.

One complication that I want to focus on in this post is a program that gives refunds to people who earn income. The program is called the EITC. An unmarried person with a child who earns $9,720 can claim a refund of $3,305, even though that person did not pay any taxes.

Two families could cooperate to make use of this tax refund. Suppose there are two single unemployed mothers, Denise and Emily, each of whom has one child. If Denise pays Emily $9,720 over the course of a year to babysit, and Emily pays Denise the exact same amount over the year to babysit, then both of them can get the $3,305 tax refund.

There are a few puzzles about the EITC.

• Many people who are eligible for this tax refund do not claim it. Sending them mail explaining the EITC helps.
• Many people who could easily become eligible by babysitting for each other, like Denise and Emily in my example, do not become eligible.

I would like for people to spread awareness of the EITC, the way the NWRO spread awareness of benefits in the 1960s.

How to pay for parking in Israel

People say it is tough to find a parking spot in Tel Aviv, but I never had trouble finding a spot. There are many curbs painted blue and white, and it is legal to park next to a blue-and-white curb as long as you pay. Good luck figuring out how to pay.

There are no parking meters. You could pay at a pay station, which spits out a receipt that you put on your dashboard, but pay stations are surprisingly rare. Most parking spaces are not within line of sight of a pay station, and I am unaware of any good method for locating nearby pay stations.

Israelis use smartphone apps to pay for parking. The two popular ones are Pango and Cellopark. Just put in your teudat zehut* number or connect your Israeli credit card, and you're all set. If you don't have a teudat zehut number or an Israeli credit card, you cannot use these apps.

The best (only) method I found to reliably pay for parking as a non-Israeli was to buy an electronic device called an EasyPark, which is basically a do-it-yourself parking meter. You put money on the EasyPark the way you would a prepaid debit card. When you find a spot, you turn on the EasyPark, tell it what city you're in, and hook the device onto your window so parking attendants can see that you're paying. The device deducts money from your prepaid account until you turn it off. Add money to your EasyPark account at any gas station.

Where can you buy an EasyPark? The post office of course! Post offices in Israel function as many-purpose municipal outlets. If you get a parking ticket, maybe because you didn't know about EasyPark yet and couldn't find a pay station, then you can pay the parking ticket at a post office. I've been told you can also open a bank account at a post office. Israeli post offices keep strange hours. The post office I tried in Tel Aviv was closed at 2pm. But the post office at Ben Gurion Airport--yes, there's a post office at the airport--is open nearly 24 hours a day.

* National identification card for citizens = תעודת זהות

Is there a map?

My Israeli sim card from Cellcom was too large for my Galaxy S5 phone. A friend told me that cell phone stores can clip the sim cards to fit different phones. Neither Cellcom's website nor google maps was helpful in identifying a Cellcom location, so I went to the Ayalon Mall, which I assumed would have an outlet. Seeing no map at the entrance, I approached a woman at a nearby kiosk.

Me: Excuse me, is there a map?

Woman: Where do you want to go?

M: Is there a Cellcom store?

[She points to her right.]

W: Go all the way to the end of this wing, it will be on your left.

I felt this interaction was pretty typical of my experience in Israel. I often don't know how to do something or where to find something, but usually there's a person around who can help if I ask. On one hand, it's nice that somebody is there who is willing and able to help. On the other hand, why can't there just be a map?

Four policies better than the minimum wage

Some of my friends are joining the “fight for 15”, a campaign to raise the minimum wage to $15 an hour. I expect the campaign will succeed in many states and maybe at the federal level, and I commend their apparent desire to help poor people. However, if the goal is to help poor people, the minimum wage is an inferior policy tool.

Here are four alternatives that I think would help poor people more than raising the minimum wage:

1. EITC - Expand the eligibility or generosity of the Earned Income Tax Credit.
2. HCVP - Fully fund the Housing Choice Voucher Program, which currently assists just one out of four people who are eligible for assistance.
3. SNAP - Expand the eligibility or generosity of the Supplemental Nutritional Assistance Program.
4. Personal exemption - Raise the personal exemption on federal income tax, or convert the personal exemption into a refundable tax credit. A refundable tax credit with universal eligibility would be equivalent to a basic income.

These policies share the feature that their cost is visible in the form of higher government spending or reduced tax revenue. Raising the minimum wage might be more palatable to Congress because it has no direct budget impact. The cost of the minimum wage is less obvious.

One cost of the minimum wage is borne by employers who pay employees a higher wage. The burden on employers deserves consideration but doesn't bother me. What bothers me is the social cost of the minimum wage, which is borne partially by poor people.

Consider the following thought experiment. If raising the minimum wage is good, why should we stop at $15? Why not $20, or $50, or $500? It would be wonderful for everyone to earn $500 an hour, but I suspect that many employers who pay lower wages now would employ fewer people rather than raise wages to $500 an hour. Losing jobs is bad for poor people.

This intuition is consistent with basic economic theory, which suggests that raising the minimum wage (a price floor) is good for some workers but reduces overall employment. The empirical consensus among economists is that the short run effect on employment is small. I think we should care more about the long run effect on employment, which my colleague Isaac Sorkin argues hasn't really been measured empirically.

The minimum wage helps some poor people and hurts others. Raising it a little would probably on balance be good but not great for poor people. The alternative policies I suggested are better at helping poor people and put the burden where it belongs: taxpayers.

Hamilton, Babylonia, and antibiotics

Again, this blog post is due to encouragement from my brother Yonah, who blogs at meiselspot.blogspot.com.

Listening to Lin-Manuel Miranda's excellent new musical Hamilton reminded me of a lesson from American history. Americans did not suddenly begin governing themselves with no prior experience after a successful revolution. The capacity for self-government developed over the course of decades, aided by the British policy of salutary neglect. Selective British law enforcement facilitated the institution of American self-government.

Another institution--mobile identity--received similar assistance from repression that was only partial. This may be a conceit of my Jewish education, but I am currently under the impression that Jews were the first group with a mobile identity.* The story is that most gods were local, so when a person moved to a new place she would discard the gods of her origin and worship the gods of the new locality. Monotheism helped change that. When a Jew moved to a new place she could continue worshiping the god of her origin, who she believed was also present in the new locality.

The partial repression that aided mobile identity was the Babylonian exile.** Ancient empires that conquered new areas sometimes deported the local population to quash rebellion. There were two unusual features of the Babylonian exile. First, it was incomplete. Many Jews remained in the Kingdom of Judah. Second, it was brief. Jews were permitted to return from Babylonia after about 50 years. The Babylonian exile made Jewish identity mobile by:

• establishing a myth of exile and return (or strengthened it if you believe the exodus from Egypt is actual history), and
• establishing a model for a permanent diaspora community.

Partial British repression fostered American self-government, and partial Babylonian repression fostered Jewish mobile identity. And since I like comparing human institutions to biological phenomena, I'll conclude with the observation that a partial course of antibiotics can foster antibiotic-resistant superbugs.

* In this post I use Jews interchangeably with Hebrews and Israelites, which I'm sure is wrong but I doubt is consequential.
** I'm not sure where historical myth ends and actual history begins, but I believe the exodus from Egypt is probably historical myth and the Babylonian exile is actual history.

Why does AIPAC love the Purim victim narrative?

My brother Yonah over at meiselspot.blogspot.com encouraged me to get back in the blogging game.

This week, Jews observed one of the happier holidays, Purim. Traditionally, Purim is observed by reading the story of Esther, dressing in costumes, getting drunk, delivering goody bags to friends, performing farcical skits, and baking triangular pastries--variously called hamantashen (Haman's pockets) or oznei haman (Haman's ears). The observance is something like American Halloween meets American St. Patrick's Day.

The story of Esther goes something like this: King A* of Persia summons Queen Vashti to strip at his party and executes her when she refuses. To replace Vashti, King A holds a beauty pageant, which is won by Esther, a nice Jewish girl. Esther's cousin Mordechai refuses to bow down to the King's chief minister, Haman. Haman gets very pissed off, learns Mordechai is Jewish, and decides to kill all the Jews. Haman gets a rubber stamp from King A for his murderous plan. Meanwhile, Mordechai discovers a plot to kill King A and turns in the conspirators. King A rewards Mordechai, which adds salt to Haman's wound. Mordechai informs now-Queen Esther of Haman's plan to kill all the Jews. Esther fasts then invites King A and Haman to dinner. She reveals she is Jewish and that Haman is trying to kill all the Jews. King A executes Haman and tells the Jews to defend themselves, which they do.

There's an old joke that the summary of every Jewish holiday is, "They tried to kill us. We survived. Let's eat." Purim fits that mold probably more than any other, but I would say that Passover does not fit that mold. Passover commemorates the exodus from Egypt. "We were slaves to Pharoah in Egypt, and now we are free." The theme of Passover is freedom, and it is used all over the place as a justification for other ethical requirements. "Do not oppress the stranger, for you were strangers in the land of Egypt." I'm a Passover Jew. I think collective memory of oppression and appreciation for freedom is inspiring and meaningful.

Purim is different. The lesson from Purim is that they're out to get us. Powerful villains in general want to kill all the Jews, and a Persian villain in particular wants to kill all the Jews. This lesson is not entirely wrong. Some people hate Jews. Antisemitism is real. But that is a terrible starting point for building identity.

On the other hand, it is a great starting point for AIPAC. Thematically, Purim is spot on for AIPAC lobbying Congress about Iran in so many ways. Persian villain who wants to wipe Israel off the map? Check. This year the role of Haman was played by the Ayatollah. (Mahmoud Ahmadinejad was a better fit, but he left office two years ago.) Well-placed safe Jew who has the opportunity to defend Jews in danger? Check. The role of Esther is now played annually by American Jews at the AIPAC policy conference. The religious resonance is deafening.

So, are American Jews reenacting a biblical story as spokesperson-defenders of Jews against a determined Persian villain, or dressing up in costumes for a farce? It depends how you view the threat from Iran. I believe Israel's security professionals when they say that "deterrence works against state-like entities" and that ISIS is scarier than Iran.

* The king's name is Achashverosh in Hebrew, which for some reason is written as Ahasuerus in English. Either way it's too complicated, I'll use King A.

bargaining power

Voluntary trade is often beneficial for both traders. If you buy an apple at the farmer's market, hopefully both you and the farmer are better off after trading at whatever price you pay. This paper* asks how the benefits from trade get split among the traders. Who got the better deal, you or the farmer?

One thing that affects this is bargaining power. In this paper, bargaining power is determined by the number of other trading opportunities a particular trader has. If there is one farmer with one apple at a stall and two hungry buyers, it is natural to think the farmer has more bargaining power.

This paper formalizes the intuition that more trading opportunities often increase a trader's bargaining power, and thereby increase her share of the benefits from trade.

* Manea AER 2011 Bargaining in Stationary Networks

tax evasion

Public finance economists devote significant attention to behavioral responses to tax policy. A citizen might respond to an increase in the income tax by choosing to work fewer hours, choosing to work more hours, or choosing a new occupation. She might respond to an increase in the tax on cigarettes by buying fewer cigarettes, or by buying and storing ten cartons before the tax takes effect. All of these responses, and many more, are legal. They are grouped under the heading of tax avoidance. Tax avoidance is by definition legal, and in some cases it is even desirable. If Congress introduced a tax deduction for people who install solar panels, one would hope a few extra people would alter their behavior by installing solar panels.

When a behavioral response is illegal, it is called tax evasion. Today's article is a classic in the public finance literature, and it focuses on a particular type of evasion: misreporting income.

The basic idea is that people choose how much income to report to the tax authority based on their income, the tax rate, the probability of being caught misreporting, and the penalty if they are caught. The paper concludes that people will misreport less when the probability of being caught is high and the penalty is severe, and that increasing the probability of being caught is more or less interchangeable with increasing the severity of the penalty.

There is not an obvious relationship between true income and the extent of misreporting. This is related to the idea that misreporting is like taking a gamble. You "lose" if you evade and get caught and "win" if you evade without getting caught. Are rich people more likely to gamble? Not necessarily. They might be more willing to part with money, but the lure of a successful gamble is also weaker. So the paper does not draw strong conclusions about the relationship between income and the extent of evasion.

What if the probability of detection depends on the extent of misreporting? The paper derives some technical conditions for optimal behavior, but concludes only by echoing the idea that people misreport less when they are more likely to be caught.

What if, when an audit takes place, it discovers not only current cheating but also past cheating? The paper notes that this can be interpreted as a relatively more severe penalty for misreporting, which it has already been noted reduces misreporting. Again there are a few technical results.

This paper comes with caveats. Most employers report income to the IRS, so misreporting is for many employees not a realistic option because it would be so easy to catch them. Some people feel a moral obligation to report truthfully, so they are not tempted by the gamble. For these and other reasons, the paper is not a complete analysis of tax evasion, but it sets up a clean framework.

Allingham Sandmo JPE 1972 Income tax evasion: a theoretical analysis

collateral constraints

In the past this blog focused on my experience in Israel and on Israeli politics. Yonah has wittily and prolifically taken up that thread, so I leave it to him.

I turn now to economics. I'm a fan of the econ blog Marginal Revolution, but that cannot be my model if I hope to finish my PhD on time. Instead I'll use the blog as a commitment device.

Macro and public finance are my fields. As I read articles, I'll distill them into a brief nontechnical summary. I won't do this for all the articles I read, but blogging on a schedule will hopefully force me to keep up a brisk pace and be a good exercise in translating jargon into English. My plan is three summaries per week, posted Monday Wednesday and Friday at noon. Hat tip to Yonah for the schedule structure.

The first paper* is about borrowing limits. Think of a farmer who must borrow money to buy seed and machinery. The bank lending money to the farmer worries that the farmer will not have enough money to repay the loan if there is a bad crop. The bank requires the farmer to pledge farmland as collateral, which the bank will own if the farmer cannot repay. The limit on the farmer's borrowing is the value of the land he has available to pledge as collateral.

The paper considers the case where if one farmer has a bad crop, they all have a bad crop. Think of a bank lending to farmers in one region that is sometimes hit by a flood or drought. Then the bank will own all of the farmland pledged by all of the farmers, because none were able to repay. Things get complicated because the price of the farmland depends on whether there is a good crop or bad crop. In particular, following a bad crop, the price of farmland is low because the bank would like to sell lots of the land it now owns. Knowing that the value of the collateral will drop if it is ever collected, the bank is unwilling to lend very much to the farmers.

Krishnamurthy observes that the farmers could mitigate this problem by buying insurance. If there is no flood, they give some of the bumper crop to the bank. If there is a flood, the bank not only allows them to keep the farmland but also gives them enough money for new equipment and seed.

That seems reasonable enough. But remember that when one crop goes bad they all go bad. That means that when there is a flood, the bank will have to shell out insurance payments to everybody at the same time. How do the farmers know the bank will be able to pay? The same way the bank guaranteed the farmers could pay: by demanding collateral. And now the tables have turned, because the bank might not have enough cash on hand to provide a sufficient amount of insurance to all the farmers in the event of a flood.

Why don't firms fully insure against risk? Krishnamurthy shows that one possible answer to this question is that insurers don't have enough collateral. Krishnamurthy notes that if insurance markets are failing for this reason, then it could be a justification for the government to be more active in providing insurance.

*Krishnamurthy JET 2003 Collateral constraints and the amplification mechanism

Why the PA is like the NFLPA

This past summer NFL owners locked out the players in pursuit of a more favorable revenue sharing arrangement. The players responded by decertifying their union. It turns out that the players union actually protects the owners in some way. As long as the union is around, the owners are safe from antitrust lawsuits.

I believe there is similar logic at work as Fatah considers disbanding the Palestinian Authority. Israeli defense officials want the PA around, because the PA channels political energy into nonviolence. Obviously the PA is not always successful in this, and whether it even tried under Arafat is debatable. But these days I think its fair to say that the PA has this effect.

To clarify, in my analogy Israelis are the owners, Palestinians are the players, and the PA is the NFLPA.

gilad shalit part 2

Some support for my previous blog post. Haaretz:

Top Hamas official Mahmoud Zahar told Army Radio on Sunday that Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas "negotiated with Israel for a million years and hasn't achieved a deal like this one."

Former Netanyahu bureau chief Ari Harow writes in the Jerusalem Post:

The complex deal that has ended Gilad Schalit’s nightmare raises many difficult questions, not least its strategic wisdom. However, the agreement to bring Schalit home has brought clarity on one topic. It has answered the vehement critics of Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu who increasingly portray him as an obstacle to peace.

The New York Times editorial board doesn't buy that argument:

As for Mr. Netanyahu, we saw on Tuesday that the problem is not that he can’t compromise and make tough choices. It’s that he won’t.

Furthermore:

Both Mr. Netanyahu and Hamas were looking for a political win after Mr. Abbas grabbed the international spotlight — and saw his popularity soar — when he asked the United Nations last month to grant his undefined country full membership.

You heard it here first.

gilad shalit

Gilad Shalit will be released "within a week". This is good news. It sounds different than the other times.

But why is it happening now? Negotiations have faltered for more than five years. Why the sudden breakthrough?

Because the Palestinian Authority is making progress with its statehood bid at the United Nations. Hamas and Netanyahu oppose the progress at the UN. Consummating the Gilad Shalit deal is a way for them to distract attention from the statehood bid. The deal gives Hamas an opportunity to argue that its tactics--and not Fatah's--are successful. The deal gives Netanyahu an opportunity to argue that he has proved his willingness to negotiate--see, he just made a deal with Hamas!--and therefore that the PA is to blame, and not him, for lack of progress on final status negotiations.

Until September 2011, there was no room for an agreement. Hamas was happier defying Israel than turning over Shalit without getting high value Palestinian prisoners in return. Netanyahu was happier letting Shalit remain in captivity than turning over the high value Palestinian prisoners. By going to the UN, Abbas changed the political environment such that Hamas and Netanyahu were both willing to budge a little.

I hope Gilad Shalit will be released soon. I also hope that Hamas is unsuccessful in its attempt to siphon support from Fatah. I also hope that Netanyahu spends less time on hasbara and more time on statesmanship.

Jewish terror

I'm having trouble figuring out how to preface General Avi Mizrachi's comments on the Israeli Meet the Press. The Haaretz story leads with his call to shut down the yeshiva led by the author of Torat Hamelech (see previous post).

He also said something I've been thinking for a while -- that settler attacks on Palestinian residents of the West Bank are "Jewish terror". I was reluctant to articulate this because I was afraid of the harsh reactions some people might have. But Mizrachi has emboldened me.

Apparently there is some dispute over the definition of terrorism. It's a toxic word, so people try to stick it to anything they don't like. The only definition that makes sense to me is violence for political ends by non-state groups or individuals against non-state groups or individuals. Lots of horrible crimes do not fit this definition. I'm not saying those crimes aren't horrible, I'm just saying they deserve their own distinct labels, like war crimes or human rights violations.

I fear that the word terrorism is more frequently used simply to mean violence by people who have a different skin color or nationality. But if terrorism still has any meaningful definition, then we ought to be using it for the settler attacks on Palestinians. The euphemism "price tag" is more common and more comfortable. "Terrorist attack" is more accurate.

profiles in delusion

There's been some activity recently with Torat Hamelech, which I blogged about previously here and here.

The police wanted to question Rabbi Dov Lior, the head rabbi of Kiryat Arba who endorsed Torat Hamelech. He refused to cooperate. In February, the police issued an arrest warrant. Now, at the end of June, the police finally executed the warrant. In response to news of his arrest, protesters tried to block the entrance to Jerusalem. Check out the photo gallery on that last article.

I'm posting now because I want to continue to follow the Torat Hamelech story and also because I want to point out a person who showed up in one of these stories. Gershon Mesika, the head of the Shomron / Northern West Bank Regional Council, has grabbed my attention several times now.

Haaretz:

Police said they stopped Lior's car near the tunnel at the southern entrance to Jerusalem. A policeman replaced Lior's driver and drove the rabbi to the offices of the Serious and International Crimes Division in Lod, where he was questioned for about an hour in an amicable atmosphere.

I'm not sure because the article in Arutz Sheva only has one quotation mark, but I think most of what follows is a direct quote:

Samaria local authority head Gershon Mesika said Rav Lior’s abduction was an attempt by Soviet Russia to make a comeback and take over the only democracy in the Middle East.

That was exhibit A.

Here's exhibit B: After an incident in which settlers obstructed the demolition of an illegal house, Haaretz quoted Mesika as saying that Israeli police had used "rubber bullets tipped with glass". That would indeed be a cruel weapon, but I'm pretty sure it doesn't exist. Police said they fired paint cartridges.

capitol hill

The culmination of the J Street conference was a day of lobbying. We were asking our representatives to sign the Schakowsky-Eshoo letter. One of my nine meetings was canceled, and only one was with an elected official. The rest were with staff, which I am told is not unusual.

The congressman I met in person was John Dingell, the representative of Michigan's 15th district, which includes Ann Arbor, where I currently reside. I am unsure about the propriety of publicizing anything that happened in the meeting, so I'll just say that I am proud that John Dingell is my representative in Congress.

The meetings with staff were pretty good. I would guess that three to six of the eight will probably sign the letter. Staffers were all very polite. Some were totally unacquainted with the issues, others knew what we were going to say before we said it.

bds

I'm psyched for a marathon of nine meetings with Michigan Congressmen or staff today on the Hill.

Highlights from yesterday:

Dennis Ross addressed a plenary session, followed by a panel discussion, and I attended a breakout session about Hamas, but I don't have much to say about either one of those.

I caught a glimpse of Haaretz reporter Natasha Mozgovaya interviewing the MKs in attendance.

The panel discussion on BDS was interesting. I thought Ken Bob and Bernard Avishai were convincing. They argued that BDS is an inappropriate tool for ending the occupation and advancing two states. Rebecca Vilkomerson, representing Jewish Voice for Peace, argued in favor of BDS on the grounds that it is nonviolent and Palestinian led. The student on the panel, whose name I forget, spoke about the unproductive tone of the debate on BDS.

A few sessions were devoted to preparing for lobby day.

arab world, twitter, united nations, MKs, muslim student

Long day. Highlights:

Heather Hurlburt was my favorite on the Iran panel.

On the "comprehensive approach" panel, Shibley Telhami said we're witnessing the most significant Arab awakening since World War I. Its impossible to know exactly what the result will be, but the protest movements enabled by the information revolution will continue to spread and change the political environment of the Arab world. Arabs are angry at Israel because of its treatment of Palestinians, but Arab anger does not imply nonacceptance; most Arabs would accept a two state solution, according to Telhami. The changes sweeping the Arab world make a bilateral agreement less likely and a comprehensive agreement--one that includes the Arab League--more likely.

Mona Eltahawy argued, among other things, for supporting nonviolent resistance in the Arab world. We Israel supporters are in the habit of condemning Arab violence, as well we should. When Arabs start struggling nonviolently, we ought to support it. Its in some ways frightening to ponder what would happen if the Palestinian struggle was entirely nonviolent, but it shouldn't be frightening. It should be our hope.

I was on Twitter for part of the day. The number of people tweeting about the conference (#jstconf) was impressive. There are quite a few tweeters who don't like J Street and cherry-pick statements and things that happen at the conference to make J Street look bad. For example:

• One statement retweeted widely was "overheard" at the conference. None of the panelists said it. It was in conflict with J Street policy. But this statement that was supposedly overheard is taken to be evidence of the kind of people who support J Street.
  
• The moderator of one panel misunderstood a question about the BDS movement (boycott divestment sanctions), so the folks who had asked the question started making a fuss. This was interpreted by a tweeter as "heckling".
• At one point, some panelist made a moderately long statement about Palestinians and a few people applauded. One tweeter chose the most controversial statement from the panelist's comment and simply said people applauded.

These might not be the best examples, but my point is that some misleading "reporting" via twitter was going on.

A UN envoy was on one of the panels, and the moderator used a question I had written. The question was: "The UN has a bad reputation with respect to Israel among American Jews. Does the UN deserve this reputation? How important is it for American Jews to trust the UN? Whose responsibility is it to build trust?" The video is here, Steve Clemons asks my question at 47:30, and Robert Serry answers at 52:33-55:50. I was not entirely satisfied with the answer.

Five members of knesset were in attendance. Their panel was quite funny. There are videos of a bunch of sessions including the MK panel here.

I registered for the conference as a student. I haven't been involved with J Street U at Michigan much, but I went to the session this evening for students anyway. Its a little strange for me because I started UPZ, the predecessor to J Street U, at Maryland like six years ago, so I feel like it would be weird to return to campus activism.

Anyway, I went to the student session. I'm glad I did because I met a Muslim girl who grew up in a staunchly anti-Israel home under the belief that all Jews hated Muslims. She got to college at Carleton, met Jews, and realized that what she learned growing up did not square with the people she was meeting. She organized a discussion on the question "Is anti-Zionism the same as antisemitism?" I think it is remarkable that someone coming from her background was interested in exploring this question. It was clear to me that she was approaching it from the point of view that antisemitism is unacceptable, that she was brought up to be anti-Zionist, and that she was coming to the realization that there might be a conflict between the two.

The discussion she organized was a disaster. It was hijacked by a professor and devolved into a shouting match. But this girl continued exploring the question. She was surprised and impressed enough by the J Street folks on her campus that she decided to come to the conference.

This girl is not a part of J Street's base constituency. I wouldn't be surprised if she disagrees with some of the things that J Street stands for. But it seems she is on the path to becoming an ally in pursuit of peace. Does anyone think that J Street's credibility should be diminished for including people like her at the conference?

opening plenary

The first evening of the conference was amazing. Rabbi David Saperstein started things off passionately, then the focus shifted to three honorees. Peter Beinart caused a stir last summer with an article he wrote in the New York Review of Books. Sara Benninga is an Israeli activist who has helped lead the protests in Shiekh Jarrah. I can't figure out how to introduce Dr. Izzeldin Abuelaish succinctly, but his story is tragic and awe-inspiring.

join me

I am reviving my blog to post about the J Street conference, which begins tonight and continues through Tuesday. A friend of mine is a liberal American Jew. He and I agree on most political issues, specifically dissatisfaction with certain Israeli government policies, but he does not support J Street. I want people like him to join me in supporting J Street.

A lot of the criticism that I have seen of J Street is laced with name-calling, innuendo, and guilt-by-association. I think responding to such criticism point by point is generally not fruitful. If any readers of my blog care to sift through the static to extract a salient argument, I'd be happy to address it. But there is also some thoughtful criticism out there, including emails from my friend, and addressing that criticism is my main goal with this post. I focus on three issues: Zionism, funding sources, and base constituency.

Zionism. My friend wants J Street to state unequivocally that it is Zionist. There is some controversy about the definition of Zionism. Birthright Israel, for instance, has recognized the controversy. Here's my definition for the purpose of this discussion: "commitment to the notion of a Jewish democratic state". J Street is doing Zionism by this definition even though it is not saying "Zionism". I think this is a wise approach. More on this later.

Funding sources. J Street was not entirely forthcoming about its relationship with George Soros. Jeremy Ben-Ami apologized, which I think was proper. There are some people from whom it would be inappropriate to accept money at all, regardless of how transparent you are about it, but I wouldn't put George Soros on that list. The huge donation from Consolacion Esdicul is kind of puzzling, but if there's a good reason not to accept money from her then I haven't seen it. Overall this issue seems to me like a red herring.

Base constituency. Jonathan Chait wrote an interesting critique about whom J Street is targeting. J Street's base constituency is both (1) American Jews who wear their Zionism proudly and aren't afraid to express their disagreement with self-destructive Israeli government policies and (2) American Jews who are uncomfortable with the word Zionism but are nonetheless "committed to the notion of a Jewish democratic state". People who oppose Israel's continued existence as a Jewish state are not in the base constituency.

The two groups who are in the base constituency are both significant. Leaving off the label Zionism has alienated some of the people in the first group, like my friend. I hope they have the wisdom to see that adopting the label Zionist would be the end of the discussion for their potential partners, and that saying Zionism is less important than doing Zionism.