... pro-Israel organization's bona fides should be judged by the company it keeps and the FEC documents suggest that J Street keeps questionable company indeed - a "not employed" man is really a Palestinian billionaire; a "self-employed" contributor is also a board member of the National Iranian American Council and serves on J Street's finance committee with a minimum donation of $10,000; a "lawyer" who contributes $15,000 is a board member of the discredited and anti-Israel Human Rights Watch; a "housing specialist" is an anti-Israel activist in the Methodist Church; a "teacher" is a founder of an Islamic school indoctrinating students to be anti-Israel.

J Street's director must take the Post's readers for fools when he claims, "I think it is a terrific thing for Israel for us to be able to expand the tent of people who are willing to be considered pro-Israel."

Why should a National Iranian American Council board member give at least $10,000 to J Street PAC? Perhaps it is because of the very close relationship between the two organizations. In June the directors of both organizations coauthored an article in the Huffington Post, "How diplomacy with Iran can Work," arguing against imposing new tough sanctions on Iran.

The two organizations have worked in lockstep over the last year to torpedo congressional action against Iran. Why would a supposedly pro-Israel, pro-peace organization work so hard to block legislation that would undermine the Iranian ayatollah regime? Ostensibly, any step to hinder Iran's nuclear development and aid to Hamas and Hizbullah would be a step toward regional peace. Deterring Iran through sanctions would lessen the need for military action against Iran. This, as well as championing Hamas's cause, just doesn't make sense.

THE POST also noted donations from individuals connected to Arab American groups.

In June, the director of J Street was a guest speaker at the annual conference of the Arab lobbying group, the Arab American Anti-Discrimination Committee. Appearing on the same panel was the J Street-endorsed Rep. Donna Edwards (D-Maryland), one the few members of Congress who refused to support a congressional resolution in January that recognized Israel's right to defend itself against Hamas. J Street's PAC raised $30,000 for Edwards in June...

...Pointing to the large number of supporters on J Street's e-mail list, Ben-Ami said the idea is to "take this energy and excitement that we've generated in a little over a year [and] take that offline and into community meetings."

To that end, J Street will be coordinating with Brit Tzedek v'Shalom, a left-wing grassroots network of some 50,000 backers founded in 2002 and engaged in similar activities, and exploring how the two groups might best work together.

In welcoming J Street's announcement, Brit Tzedek on Tuesday also noted that it would no longer be looking to fill its executive director position, raising questions about whether the two organizations would eventually merge...

..."You're talking about a fringe, extreme group with no influence joining a group with pretensions on influence. Zero times zero in the end still equals zero," said Morris Amitay, who runs the pro-Israel Washington PAC and is a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, Washington's dominant pro-Israel lobby. AIPAC has 100,000 members according to its Web site, offices around the country and a growing campus presence.

"To say J Street has as much support as AIPAC is ridiculous," Amitay said. "They have an e-mail list. I can get you an e-mail list with 100,000 people for a few hundred dollars."