The Zionist Organization of America has taken it upon itself to conduct Israeli foreign policy, lobbying hard for a nonbinding congressional resolution that would demand that Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas renounce the articles in the Fatah constitution that "call for Israel's destruction and terrorism against Israel, oppose any political solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and label Zionism as racism." The Fatah charter is clearly a despicable document, although less clear why an American-based Jewish group is asking Congress to set a condition for a dialogue between Israelis and Palestinians that is not on the front burner of the Israeli government itself.

ZOA joins a number of hawkish pro-Israel groups that are worried that the time is not ripe for an Israeli-Palestinian parley in Annapolis. The soft version of this anxiety is that the summit will raise expectations among the Palestinians that cannot be met, either by their own leaders or by Israel, and the result will be Intifada Three. The harder opposition to Annapolis is the fear that it points the way to a future that many Israelis have long considered inevitable — a two-state solution, further disengagement of settlements, and some kind of division of Jerusalem along its current ethnic and national fault lines.

We're long past the point where the role of Israel is to make its own security decisions and the role of American Jews is to provide the political and financial support it needs to implement them. The Orthodox Union has resolved to actively protest any decision with which its members disagree. The ZOA under its leader Morton Klein has never been shy about second-guessing the elected Israeli prime minister or Knesset.

American Jews on the left were sidelined and even blackballed in years past for criticizing Israeli policies. No one wants to go back to those days. But there is a fine line between healthy, effective protest and the kinds of actions that actually seek to undermine a country's vision of its own security. Supporters of the ZOA resolution should ask themselves where they stand along that line.