JStret again shows it's traitorous, evil anti israel essence
http://www.vosizneias.com/194264/2015/02/10/933-j-street-petition-against-netanyahus-congress-speech-rallies-20000-signatures-diaspora-jerusalem-post/
J Street: Pro-progressive, not pro-Israel
Massacre on J Street
Controversial group's anti-Israel perspective fails to resonate
BY:
Political candidates backed by the controversial Middle East advocacy group J Street were trounced at the polls on Tuesday, with J Street’s endorsees losing in almost every competitive race.
J Street scrambled to save face on Wednesday after two candidates that the group described as must-wins were defeated by their Republican opponents.
While J Street spread its money across 92 races around the country—the majority of them uncompetitive contests—J Street candidates locked in tight races were repudiated by voters.
Analysts say this is further proof that voters are increasingly likely to embrace more hawkish pro-Israel candidates over the dovish views characteristic of J Street and its allies in the Obama administration.
Democrats Mark Udall (Colo.) and Bruce Braley (Iowa), both of whom lost yesterday, received repeated endorsements and cash from J Street, which claimed that both candidates would counter “dangerous, neoconservative ideas” in the Senate.
“We can’t afford to lose these two [Senate] races,” J Street political director Dan Kalik wrote in a September email to supporters, urging them to donate at least $18 dollars to Udall and Braley.
“If Mark and Bruce don’t have the resources they need in these last few weeks, you can expect their opponents’ dangerous, neoconservative ideas to gain momentum in the Senate,” J Street wrote at the time.
J Street’s efforts to make the races about its anti-Israel agenda appears to have flopped, as voters in both states favored the Republican challengers Joni Ernst and Cory Gardner.
J Street endorsee Michelle Nunn, who the group made several high-profile pitches for, lost her race in Georgia to Republican David Perdue, a candidate J Street described as “shameful.”
“These guys think they can scare votes their way by borrowing a page from the neoconservative playbook. Will you prove them wrong?” J Street asked in an October fundraising pitch for Nunn.
The organization’s efforts to unseat Republican Sen. Susan Collins in Maine also ended in failure.
Similarly, House of Representative candidates endorsed by J Street did not fare very well in competitive races.
Longtime J Street ally, Rep. Joe Garcia (D., Fla.), was beaten Tuesday evening in a close race against Republican Carlos Curbelo.
Incumbent Rep. Nick Rahall (D., W.V.), who spent 38 years in the House, got the boot by voters despite J Streets many overtures on his behalf.
Rahall, a longtime J Street ally, was an endorsee of the group’s infamous “Gaza 54” letter that asked President Obama to forcefully end Israel’s “siege” of the Gaza Strip.
In Illinois, J Street-backed Rep. Brad Schneider (D) lost to former Rep. Robert Dold (R), who has aggressively taken on J Street and described it as dangerous to the U.S.-Israel alliance.
Pro-Israel insiders rejected J Street’s efforts to pretend that its election-year efforts were a success.
“J Street does this after every election,” said one senior official with a pro-Israel organization. “They endorse dozens of no-risk candidates so that when their competitive picks get crushed, which they almost always do, J Street can still claim victory.”
“But it’s a dumb game that they’ll always lose,” the source said. “The American people are overwhelmingly pro-Israel and elect overwhelmingly pro-Israel candidates. Pro-Israel groups have sort of the opposite problem but for the exact same reason. It’s hard to cram more pro-Israel lawmakers into Congress, given how it’s almost already completely maxed out.”
One former official with the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC) said that J Street’s involvement in mostly uncompetitive races served no purpose.
“Republicans woke up Wednesday morning thanking J Street for diverting resources into some of the safest races in America,” the former AIPAC official said. Democrat “Barbara Lee’s chances of losing [her House seat in California] were slightly less than that of Barack Obama’s losing yesterday.”
Matt Brooks, executive director of the Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC), said in a statement that voters rejected J Street’s extremist brand of anti-Israel advocacy.
“This election cycle included races in which support for Israel was a significant issue,” Brook said. “Given the increased tensions between the Obama administration and Israel, these races took on even greater importance. J Street, a leading voice in support of President Obama’s pressure tactics on Israel, drew a line in the sand and made a concerted effort to elect like-minded candidates to Congress.”
They've shown their true colors. J Street sides with the enemy.
H.J.Res.76 was "A joint resolution making an emergency supplemental appropriation for the fiscal year ending September 30, 2014, to provide funding to Israel for the Iron Dome defense system to counter short-range rocket threats."
The Senate Amendment to H.J.Res. 76 appropriates $225 million in supplemental emergency funding for the remainder of FY2014, to provide additional funding to Israel for the Iron Dome missile defense system to counter short-range rocket threats. Any funds that remain unobligated at the end of FY2014 will remain available until September 30, 2015.
The bill passed the House, 395-8.
Three of the eight who voted against the bill were Rep. Zoe Lofgren (D, CA-19), Rep. Keith Ellison (D, MN-5) and Rep. Walter Jones (R, NC-3).
All three of those are currently endorsed by J-Street.
Pro-Israel? No.
Pro-peace? No.
J-Street a hypocritical organization that goes out of its way to support those who hate Israel? You betcha.
Contentions
Gaza Fighting Proves J Street’s Irrelevance
Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary
07.30.2014 - 6:35 PM
07.30.2014 - 6:35 PM
Pity poor J Street. As Israelis seek to defend themselves against Hamas rockets and terrorist tunnels, the left-wing lobby finds itself in a tough spot. Its flagging bid for mainstream support has caused it to try and craft a low-key position of support for Israeli self-defense. But that nuanced stance is causing many of J Street’s supporters to abandon the organization for those groups that take sides against Israel.
As the Forward noted today, J Street has tried not to repeat the mistake it made in 2008 when the group publicly opposed Israel’s efforts to suppress Hamas rocket fire during Operation Cast Lead. The position was very much in character with J Street’s ideology that sees Israel as the obstacle to peace rather than the Palestinian refusal to recognize a Jewish state no matter where its borders would be drawn. But the group that at that time harbored an ambition to replace AIPAC as the voice of the pro-Israel community learned its lesson after it was condemned for this outrageous decision by a wide spectrum of American Jews, including many liberal leaders. During subsequent crises J Street has avoided open condemnations of Israeli actions while still failing to play the sort of role in mobilizing support for an embattled Jewish state that other more mainstream groups take as a matter of course.
As Alan Dershowitz wrote in the Jerusalem Post last week, J Street refused to take part in a communal pro-Israel rally organized by the Boston Jewish federation. Nor did J Street chose to co-sponsor a similar rally in New York. He said these actions sounded the “death knell for J Street” as a group that sought to be considered as part of the pro-Israel community. But the irony is that sort of moral cowardice isn’t enough for many, if not most J Street supporters who are uncomfortable with the way the group has sought to neither condemn nor fully support Israel’s campaign in Gaza.
As the Forward reported, even as J Street avoided being seen at pro-Israel rallies, their members are playing a prominent role in organizing protests against the Jewish state. Many have joined #ifnotnow, a new ad hoc group dedicated to opposing Israel’s actions in Gaza.
Even worse for J Street is the trend that was also discussed in a separate Forward articlewhich reported that many of the group’s adherents are leaving it to join the openly anti-Zionist Jewish Voices for Peace. That group, which serves as the Jewish front for BDS—boycott, divest, sanction—campaigns against Israel is profiting from the situation since many on the left prefer its unadulterated venom directed against the Jewish state to J Street’s more equivocal positions.
While no one should be shedding any tears about J Street’s dilemma, their troubles do illustrate a key point about the ongoing battle to defend Israel.
J Street came into existence in part as a cheering section for Obama administration pressure against Israel. But it was also a manifestation of the old left-right debate in Israel and the United States between those who supported “land for peace” as the solution to the conflict with the Palestinians and those who opposed the idea. J Street’s belief that Israel needed to take risks for peace might have made sense in 1992 before Oslo, the second intifada, and three Palestinian refusals of Israeli offers of statehood. But after 20 years during which Israel has traded land not for peace but for terror, J Street’s positions aren’t so much wrong as they are irrelevant. That’s why Israel’s political left that once dominated the country’s politics is now marginalized and rejected by an electorate that backs the Netanyahu government’s actions in Gaza by a 9-1 margin.
The real battle for Israel now isn’t the old one about where its borders should be placed or whether settlements are good or bad but whether there should be a Jewish state or if it has a right to defend itself. In that struggle, J Street’s tepid Zionism doesn’t resonate with the mainstream community and is of little interest to leftists who prefer open-Israel bashers like JVP.
J Street once thought it would become the main address for Jewish activism. But recent events have shown that J Street’s moment has passed. Those who wish to support Israel in its life and death struggle against Hamas terrorists who seek its destruction will always gravitate toward groups that don’t pull their punches when it comes to defending the Jewish state. At the same time, J Street’s base on the left is following celebrity Israel-bashers and abandoning it to join with those who are playing into Hamas’s hands by claiming it is wrong to shoot back at the terrorists. In this environment, organizations that won’t take a clear side in this fight will soon find themselves historical relics of a bygone era that will never return.
To: Roberta Dzubow <roberta731@comcast.net>
Sent: Tue, Apr 8, 2014 5:55 pm
Subject: J Street and Soros - "perfect together" - evil and vile permitted at a celebrate Israel parade???????????
J Street is the brainchild of WWII Nazi collaborator George Soros. He took inventories in the homes of Jews arrested- because they were Jews. When Soros was questioned about his founding and funding of J Street he denied it. Later, that was proven to be a lie and he admitted his connection to J Street. Soros cannot be considered a friend to Israel or the Jewish People.
Supporters of J Street should check into the names and sympathies of its other major funders –most from the Arab world. A true “pro-Israel” group does not stay silent about on-going missile attacks, home invasions, kidnappings, bombings, maiming and murders. A true pro-Israel group does not accept the relentless fictions and accusations of the Arab world. It does not support boycotting, divesting, sanctioning Israel. It does not reverse the true victim Israel and support the hate-filled Arab attackers. It does not excuse their terrorism “because Israel made me do it.”
J Street as a legitimate “pro-Israel” organization is a fraud. So are the Jewish “leaders” hosting them - disgraceful and shameful “Useful Idiot Jews.”
Dershowitz eviscerates Jeremy Ben Ami and J Street
March 29, 2014
J Street’s hypocrisy must be exposed (Jeremy Ben Ami and J Street) J Street’s ‘Big Tent’ is open only to one side – the anti-Israel and BDS-supporting hard left of its own position; pro-Israel centrists are censored.Jeremy Ben Ami and J Street
From Haaretz:
J Street, the American organization that calls itself pro-Israel and pro peace but that always seems to be taking positions that are anti-Israel and pro-Palestinian, is asking America’s Jewish leadership to have a big tent and to open its doors to J Street. While I generally support that position, it is imperative that J Street’s hypocrisy be exposed. J Street insists that all major pro-Israel organizations be open to speakers who favor opposing views—such as supporters of the BDS movements, supporters of the single secular binational state approach, and those who oppose Palestinian recognition of Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people.
In the abstract, this open tent policy seems commendable. We should be committed to the open marketplace of ideas in which views prevail on their merits not on the basis of exclusion.
Now let’s see how J Street itself fares with regard to an open tent policy. It has categorically refused to allow speakers like me, who oppose J Street’s policies on Iran and other security matters, to speak to its members at its conventions. I have repeatedly and persistently sought an opportunity to present my perspective—which is shared by many American supporters of Israel—at the J Street convention, or at otherevents officially sponsored by J Street. When J Street invites BDS supporters and those oppose Israel’s right to exist as the nation-state of the Jewish people to speak at itsevents, it claims that it does not necessarily support these positions, but it believes in encouraging its members to hear views that are different from its official positions. That is total nonsense. J Street only wants people to hear views to the anti-Israel hard left of its position. It categorically refuses to allow its members to hear views that are more centrist and more pro-Israel, such as my own.
…
And there is a good reason why they have placed this cone of silence over its critics. J Street survives, and even expands, largely as the result of speaking out of two sides of its mouth. It seeks to attract centrist members by advocating the two-state solution, an aggressive stance towards peace negotiations and criticisms of Israel’s settlementpolicies. These are positions I fully support, and if they were J Street’s only positions, I would have joined that organization many years ago. But in an effort to expand leftward, particularly hard leftward, it has taken positions that undercut Israel’s security and that virtually no Israeli center-leftists support. It placed its imprimatur behind the despicable and mendacious Goldstone Report by bringing Richard Goldstone to Capitol Hill and introducing him to members of Congress. In doing so it undercuts the efforts of the Obama Administration, which was supportive of Israel’s self-defense efforts in Gaza and not supportive of the Goldstone Report.
And there is a good reason why they have placed this cone of silence over its critics. J Street survives, and even expands, largely as the result of speaking out of two sides of its mouth. It seeks to attract centrist members by advocating the two-state solution, an aggressive stance towards peace negotiations and criticisms of Israel’s settlementpolicies. These are positions I fully support, and if they were J Street’s only positions, I would have joined that organization many years ago. But in an effort to expand leftward, particularly hard leftward, it has taken positions that undercut Israel’s security and that virtually no Israeli center-leftists support. It placed its imprimatur behind the despicable and mendacious Goldstone Report by bringing Richard Goldstone to Capitol Hill and introducing him to members of Congress. In doing so it undercuts the efforts of the Obama Administration, which was supportive of Israel’s self-defense efforts in Gaza and not supportive of the Goldstone Report.
…
J Street has also spoken out of both sides of its mouth on the issue of whether the Palestinian leadership should recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. While first appearing to oppose such recognition, it now seems to be saying that this issue should be left to final stage negotiations, but it leaves open the possibility that it will continue to oppose such recognition if and when such negotiations are reached.
J Street has also spoken out of both sides of its mouth on the issue of whether the Palestinian leadership should recognize Israel as the nation-state of the Jewish people. While first appearing to oppose such recognition, it now seems to be saying that this issue should be left to final stage negotiations, but it leaves open the possibility that it will continue to oppose such recognition if and when such negotiations are reached.
Moreover, J Street has accepted funding from sources—such as George Soros—who are openly anti-Israel, and have kept this fact secret so as not to alienate its centrist supporters.
It is easy to understand therefore why J Street doesn’t want me, or others who holdpositions like mine, to enter into its tent. It does not want its own members to be confronted with the reality of J Street’s double talk. If I speak at its convention, I will be speaking at the same time to those centrists it seeks to attract and to those hard leftists it wants within its tent. Both sides will be shocked by J Street’s duplicity in telling each what they want to hear.
So here is my challenge: at the next J Street convention, show the film The J Street Challenge: The Seductive Allure of Peace in Our Time to all of its members, invite me to speak to them, allow me to distribute its conflicting position papers and positionsand let the marketplace of ideas remain open to its members. Only when J Street opens up its tent to views critical of its own should it be demanding that pro-Israel groups open its tent to them.
Now look at Ben-Ami’s “response” where he doesn’t respond at all:
…Instead of organizing to meet this existential threat, some on the far right of the American Jewish community are focusing their effort and their fire in a different direction – on members of their own community. In particular, there is a new well-funded and energetic campaign to defame and delegitimize J Street, centered on an hour-long attack-umentary called the “J Street Challenge.”
Sadly even a couple of mainstream, established Jewish organizations and figures are associating themselves with it – contrary to our community’s firm commitment to civil debate on issues of legitimate disagreement.
Those who’ve made the film and are hawking it are, however, missing the real challenges that J Street is posing to the Jewish community. Here are a few of them:
• With the world losing patience with Israel’s policy toward the Palestinians, will we rally to urge the national homeland of our people to change course before it loses its democracy or its Jewish character?
• As the BDS Movement against Israel gains traction, will we recognize that the best way to defeat it isn’t spending our energy on preventing its supporters from being heard, but on ending the conflict in two states for two peoples?
• If you recognize the existential necessity of a two-state solution for Israel to survive as a Jewish and democratic homeland, isn’t it time to acknowledge the price that has to be paid to achieve it? How can we say we support a two-state solution but oppose establishing borders based on the pre-67 lines with swaps? How can we say we support two states and oppose a Palestinian capital in the Arab neighborhoods of Jerusalem?
• Is it appropriate to call those who criticize Israeli government policy anti-Israel or anti-Semitic? Plenty of Israelis including security chiefs, former Prime Ministers and Members of the Knesset are critical of present policy, and they’re certainly not anti-Israel. In fact, using the anti-Semitism label to describe criticism of Israeli policy demeans the horror of real anti-Semitism.
• Is it right or smart to limit the right to speak in Jewish communal spaces to those with whom you agree? The more we limit admission to Jewish communal spaces by imposing ideological litmus tests regarding Israel, the smaller our Jewish community will be.
• Are we, as a people, treating the Palestinian people the way we ourselves want to be treated? Are we living up to the moral standards of our people and have we learned the lessons of our own oppression through the centuries and across the globe?
• Can we finally stop ignoring what is happening beyond the Green Line? The day-to-day maintenance of a 47-year occupation of another people runs counter to the interests and values of Israel and the Jewish people. It places all the wonder and accomplishment of the state of Israel at risk. It is time for the occupation to end.
We urge those attacking us to spend a little less time leveling baseless accusations against a now-established Jewish organization and a little more time addressing these fundamental challenges facing the Israel we love.
…
(Jeremy Ben Ami and J Street) In Jewish communal venues here and across the globe, let’s call an end to the attack videos and mudslinging and let’s start discussing the significant challenges that really threaten not just Israel but the heart and the soul of the Jewish people.
…
(Jeremy Ben Ami and J Street) In Jewish communal venues here and across the globe, let’s call an end to the attack videos and mudslinging and let’s start discussing the significant challenges that really threaten not just Israel but the heart and the soul of the Jewish people.
J Street Endorses Palestinian Refusal to Recognize Israel as Jewish State
Jeremy Ben-Ami / duke.edu
BY:
In a development that is not sending shockwaves through the pro-Israel community, the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” advocacy group J Street has declared its support for the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
In a statement posted on the group’s website, executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami says that to “keep moving forward, both [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] now need to give a little.”
Netanyahu, he says, must drop his insistence that Abbas recognize Israel as a Jewish State because “it is simply unrealistic and unreasonable to expect any Palestinian leader to consent” to such a demand.
Ben-Ami never goes on to say what Abbas “needs to give.”
J Street’s advocacy for the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state follows a nearly unbroken period of advocacy for Palestinian and Iranian interests since the group’s founding in 2008. J Street took the Hamas position on Israel during Operation Cast Lead later that year, accusing the IDF of war crimes and promoting the discredited Goldstone Report. It lobbied for the Iranian regime’s position against Iran sanctions. It defended the terrorists who attacked IDF soldiers on the 2010 Gaza flotilla. J Street also took the Palestinian and Arab League position on a UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements in 2011.
Jeremy Ben-Ami / duke.edu
BY:
In a development that is not sending shockwaves through the pro-Israel community, the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” advocacy group J Street has declared its support for the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state.
In a statement posted on the group’s website, executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami says that to “keep moving forward, both [Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas] now need to give a little.”
Netanyahu, he says, must drop his insistence that Abbas recognize Israel as a Jewish State because “it is simply unrealistic and unreasonable to expect any Palestinian leader to consent” to such a demand.
Ben-Ami never goes on to say what Abbas “needs to give.”
J Street’s advocacy for the Palestinian refusal to recognize Israel as a Jewish state follows a nearly unbroken period of advocacy for Palestinian and Iranian interests since the group’s founding in 2008. J Street took the Hamas position on Israel during Operation Cast Lead later that year, accusing the IDF of war crimes and promoting the discredited Goldstone Report. It lobbied for the Iranian regime’s position against Iran sanctions. It defended the terrorists who attacked IDF soldiers on the 2010 Gaza flotilla. J Street also took the Palestinian and Arab League position on a UN Security Council resolution on Israeli settlements in 2011.
Contentions
How Do You Solve a Problem Like J Street?
“There is no such thing as an Arab-Israel conflict,” insists Harvard professor Ruth Wisse, “there is an Arab war against Israel, there is an Arab war against the Jewish people’s right to a state.” This is just one of the many foundational truths and insights that are offered in the course of a newly released documentary, The J Street Challenge. The documentary premiered Monday night in Miami to a sell-out audience who also received an introductory presentation with Alan Dershowitz, who himself features in the movie.
J Street, founded in 2008 marketing itself as a kind of left-wing AIPAC, went out of its way from the beginning to emphasize itself as being staunchly “pro-Israel, pro-peace.” The national leadership of the group has publicly opposed the BDS (boycott, divestment, and sanctions) movement and put itself forward as being a necessary liberal counterpoint to the anti-Zionism of the left as well as a Jewish cheering section for the Obama administration’s efforts to pressure Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians. Yet, as this documentary highlights, that mask soon began to slip as its idea of what it meant to be pro-Israel began to appear vastly out of sync with what just about everyone else understood by that term. It was no surprise, then, when some of its J Street U campus branches began to drop the “pro-Israel” clause of the organization’s slogan. More telling still has been the push by J Street U to have anti-Israel boycotters included in the “big tent” pro-Israel community.
The documentary certainly provides a thorough introduction for anyone who has not so far had the misfortune of encountering J Street or its message. Yet this is no standard-form exposé, as much as it certainly does expose a great deal about J Street’s more dubious operations and questionable sources of funding. Rather, The J Street Challenge seeks to go much further than this by making a serious effort to understand what is at the core of “J Street think” and to identify the driving force that makes certain Jews, particularly young liberal Jews, susceptible to the J Street message. In this way the documentary is about so very much more than an increasingly discredited lobby with little influence even with the Obama administration. At its heart the film is concerned with deconstructing the left-liberal attitude to Israel and the Arab-Islamic world.
This in-depth exploration of the mindset that has given rise to J Street is undertaken through somewhat of an all-star cast of interviews, which sit alongside archival footage providing a narration outlining the key points of the conflict. In addition to Wisse and Dershowitz, there are also clips and interviews featuring, among others, Shalem Center scholar Daniel Gordis, Wall Street Journal editor Bret Stephens, Jerusalem Post columnist Caroline Glick, CAMERA’s Andrea Levin, Israel Project CEO Josh Block, and Dr. Charles Jacobs, whose organization, Americans for Peace and Tolerance, released the movie.
These interviews are layered with footage of J Street leaders and activists presenting their own views, creating an unfolding conversation between the various parties. Indeed, the documentary recreates for the viewer an accurate representation of the ongoing debate currently taking place between America’s Jewish community and its self-titled liberal Zionist fringe. Although in some instances, J Street claims are simply swatted with clips of Palestinians putting in their own words precisely what they think of peace and reconciliation with Israel.
J Street has long demanded that its views be debated publicly, and early on in the documentary Andrea Levin advocates that J Street should indeed be debated. In this way The J Street Challenge consciously sets out to directly confront J Street’s arguments and to ultimately defeat them on their own terms.
The group’s critics slam the legitimacy of the notion that liberal Jews in America can claim to know what is right for Israel better than Israelis do, taking J Street to task for its efforts to impact policy in Israel by bypassing the Israeli ballot box and instead lobbying for pressure from Washington. Gordis cuts to the heart of the J Street conceit when he points out, “None of us know what’s going to bring peace, none of us know what’s going to get the Palestinian side to make accommodations, the minute you’re absolutely certain that you have a monopoly on wisdom I think you stop listening.” The obsession with ending the conflict by ending the “occupation” is nicely taken down by Wisse, who retorts, “Since that so-called occupation was the consequence of the war against Israel, it cannot retroactively have become its cause.”
As the documentary wears on, exposed to this rather unforgiving dissection, the J Streeters almost begin to appear amusingly tragic. One J Street activist pleads that she supports J Street because she likes “creating good things in the world.” No match for Professor Wisse: “because they are so sensitive, and because they are so good-hearted … and wicked Israel is not as good hearted as I am. The stupidity of this kind of innocence in a world that is so complicated, when you belong to a people with such a tortured history of trying to arrive at the good in the midst of being persecuted and prosecuted falsely over so many centuries, I mean, its almost intolerable.”
What The J Street Challenge certainly exposes is the concerning way in which the J Street message risks having real traction with students. What this documentary does in response is to equip a broad public with the arguments by which to counter the supposedly sophisticated and morally superior arguments of liberals claiming to support Israel, while in reality only ever going out of their way to condemn it.
J STREET TRAITORS
iddle East » Iran » THE STREET WHERE UP IS DOWN AND WRONG IS RIGHT Netanyahu Apoplectic about Iran Sanctions Deal, J Street Euphoric (VIDEO) J Street blaming Israel for failure to achieve peace with the Palestinian Arabs and blaming groups opposed to easing Iran sanctions as the reason Iran might acquire nuclear weapons, is entirely consistent with J Street's "pro-Israel, pro-peace" tagline By: Lori Lowenthal Marcus Published: November 8th, 2013 PRINT TELL A FRIEND Israeli Prime Minister Binyamin Netanyahu, in a public statement, referred to the threatened deal between Iran and the west, as a "bad deal," a "very, very bad deal" Photo Credit: Israeli Prime Minister's Office, screen capture Israel is reeling from the one-two punch delivered by the United States over the past few days. First was Kerry’s verbal abuse and threats towards Israel should the Jewish state not accede to the suicidal deal with the Palestinian Arabs being rammed down Israel’s throat by the American handmaiden. And second, news of the “deal” that the U.S. is plowing towards in which Iran gets to have its nuclear cake and be relieved of those pesky “biting” sanctions also. Naturally, long-time cheerleader for the Palestinian Arabs – J Street – is raising its pom-poms, urging on the Iran no-sanctions deal. They are also doing clean-up duty, trying to get those stragglers in the U.S. senate who are signaling resistance to shredding the sanctions before the Iranian nuclear threat is diminished, let alone gone. Within hours of Netanyahu’s crystal clear speech that the deal between Iran and the west is a “bad deal, a very, very bad deal,” see the video, below, J Street sent out the message through thousands of emails, and on its website, urging Americans to tell their senators to “take a time out from moving ahead with new sanctions.” And J Street’s phraseology is precious. It seeks to position itself as closer to the true north of American Jewry, and points to “organizations that claim to represent the American Jewish community” as the outliers. J Street calls those organizations “hawks” who are undermining the president’s reasoned and thus far successful approach to dealing with Iran. And in J Street’s email message, though not on its website, J Street represents itself and its ally, this administration, as the cautionary party, the one whose strategy will prevent Iran from having nuclear weapons, while those who disagree with the approach are increasing the chances of Iran going nuclear. J Street’s email message: A nuclear-armed Iran would be a critical threat to the US, Israel, and global security. That’s why we welcome reports of recent days’ progress in Geneva toward an agreement with Iran to begin freezing and rolling back its program. And it’s also why reports that some in the Senate are considering moving a new round of sanctions legislation seems ill-timed and unhelpful. What? It is bad enough when J Street shamelessly and relentlessly push the Palestinian Arab propaganda line which claims Jews living and breathing beyond an arbitrary armistice line is the primary cause of unrest in the Middle East. But when J Street throws its sheltering arms around the mullahs in Iran and tries to help browbeat members of the U.S. senate into easing Iran’s slide into the nuclear weapons club – a club whose doors should and must be shut to any nation that threatens to “exterminate” or “wipe off the face of the Earth” another nation, especially Israel – it makes it impossible to do anything but grimace at their tag line: “pro-Israel, pro-peace.” PRINT TELL A FRIEND About the Author: Lori Lowenthal Marcus is the US correspondent for The Jewish Press. She is a recovered lawyer who previously practiced First Amendment law and taught in Philadelphia-area graduate and law scho
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/netanyahu-apoplectic-about-iran-sanctions-deal-j-street-euphoric-video/2013/11/08/
Read more at: http://www.jewishpress.com/news/netanyahu-apoplectic-about-iran-sanctions-deal-j-street-euphoric-video/2013/11/08/
Evil J Street loses power
Leftist Roots Trump Obama for J Street
Jonathan S. Tobin | @tobincommentary 09.09.2013 - 2:45 PM
09.09.2013 - 2:45 PM The irony is delicious. In the fall of 2008, the leaders of the J Street lobby boldly asserted their group’s coming preeminence as the leading voice in Washington about Israel over the more established AIPAC. The reason for that confidence was J Street’s close ties to the incoming Obama administration. Pointing to the huge majority of Jewish votes won by the Democrat in the 2008 election, J Street not only claimed that its views were more representative of American Jewry but that it would serve as a necessary pro-Obama counterweight to what they falsely claimed was an AIPAC that favored Republicans. But fast forward to September 2013 and the reality of the alignment of these two groups is vastly different from what J Street propagandists were saying a few years ago. Not only is J Street a shadow of the liberal behemoth that some expected would lead the discussion about the Middle East, disconnected from public opinion in Israel and bereft of influence on Capitol Hill or in the White House. It is also at odds with the man they once served as his main Jewish cheerleaders.
While AIPAC has reacted to the president’s puzzling decision to pass off responsibility to Congress for a strike on Syria by mobilizing its resources to back him up on the issue, J Street is standing on the sidelines of a vote that will have huge implications for the future of U.S. influence in the Middle East. In doing so, J Street is not only burning what’s left of its bridges to an administration that they’ve been out of step with for the past two years. It’s also showing that their leftist roots as the Jewish rump of the MoveOn.org movement trumps their loyalty to the president or to the cause of human rights.
That J Street should be aligning itself with the isolationists on both the left and the right against the administration shouldn’t be any surprise. Despite their boasts about representing the mainstream of Jewish opinion in this country, it has always been a creature of the isolationist left. Though opposition to Syria intervention is widely unpopular, J Street might have been expected to rally to President Obama’s side in what is probably the most crucial moment of his second term. If Congress fails to grant him authority to attack Syria his credibility is shot at home and abroad and we might as well hang a sign around his neck saying “lame duck.”
But the MoveOn.org crowd from which J Street sprung does not share the president’s apparent ambivalence about the use of U.S. power even when used against a Syrian dictator who has used chemical weapons against his own people. They are always against it. While J Street belatedly condemned Syria’s use of chemical weapons their outrage over this crime wasn’t enough to convince the leaders of the group to back up the president whose stands on Israel once enthralled them.
I deplore J Street’s belief that the U.S should use its status as Israel’s only ally to pressure it to make concessions to a Palestinian Authority that has repeatedly demonstrated its unwillingness to recognize the legitimacy of a Jewish state no matter where its borders are drawn. But do they think America’s capacity to use its influence in the Middle East will be enhanced by the evisceration of Obama’s ability to lead on foreign affairs by Congress? It is that reason that the pro-Israel community in this country which largely disagrees with J Street’s calls for pressure on Israel has weighed in on the president’s behalf. AIPAC was loath to involve itself in the squabble in Syria because it rightly felt that Israel favored neither side in the Syrian civil war. But a United States that is no longer capable of stepping up to punish those who use weapons of mass destruction in this manner is also an America that has been effectively rendered irrelevant in the Middle East. No matter what you think about the fighting in Syria or about the peace negotiations between Israel and the Palestinians, that should be a big problem for those who purport to speak for pro-Israel opinion in this country.
Nevertheless, it should be conceded that J Street’s opposition to Obama on Syria wouldn’t decrease its influence in Washington. That’s because it has none. Though it has been cheering wildly for Secretary of State John Kerry’s efforts to restart peace talks, it’s been out of touch with the administration’s attitude toward Israel since the beginning of 2012 when the president began a Jewish “charm offensive” in order to help his reelection. J Street loved it when Obama was picking fights with Israel during his first three years in office, but even then it was clear the White House understood just how insignificant a player the group was. That it must now look to AIPAC for help on Syria again demonstrates not only the mainstream lobby’s importance but also how foolish J Street’s attacks on it have been.
When push comes to shove, it appears J Street’s core beliefs about the illegitimacy of American power will always trump its claim to want to bolster Israel or even Obama. If few have noticed that they’ve abandoned the president, it’s largely because their hard-core ideological approach to issues always rendered it a marginal force even in Democratic councils, let alone the public square they once thought to dominate.
J Street removed an event from its Facebook page after a reporter mocked the group’s inability to draw a crowd.
By: Elad Benari
J Street attempted to cover up evidence of a failed Boston event on Friday, within minutes of a Washington Free Beacon reporter mocking the group’s inability to draw a crowd on Twitter.
J Street was forced to cancel an event originally scheduled for June
20 in Boston due to a “lack of attendance,” according to the Washington Free Beacon.
After a reporter for the website noted on Twitter that J Street,
which bills itself as a top “pro-Israel” group, failed to attract a
crowd, evidence of the failed event’s existence was removed
from Facebook.
The event had been named, “Drinks and Conversation with Alan Elsner, veteran Reuters wireman and J Street VP.”
The event was to feature “free appetizers and a cash bar,” according
to a cached copy of the event, which no longer can be accessed
on Facebook.
“Hi everyone. Unfortunately, tonight’s event is cancelled due to lack
of attendance,” J Street member Adam Steinberg wrote to the seven
disappointed activists who had signed on for the event, according to
the Washington Free Beacon. “We look forward to keeping you informed of future events and opportunities in the future.”
Pro-Israel insiders said that this is yet another embarrassment for a
group that purports to represent the will of the American Jewish
community.
“Even by J Street standards, trying to scrub a Facebook event page is
a new, pathetic low,” said one pro-Israel official. “You’d think
[Elsner] would have built up a fan base somewhere.”
“Apparently not even the Israel haters that J Street caters to want to hear his propaganda,” the official said.
Another official at a Washington D.C.-based pro-Israel group offered J Street a piece of advice.
“All of this could have avoided if they would have just ponied up the
money for an open bar,” the official said, according to the Washington
Free Beacon, which noted that J Street has been soliciting its members
for money in recent days.
J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami blasted an email to supporters on Thursday to “ask something we’ve never asked before.”
“For just $36, you can be a Contributing Member of our movement,”
Ben-Ami pitched. “For $10 a month, you can be a Sustaining Member.”
Ben-Ami went on to claim that J Street has fundamentally altered the
lobbying landscape in D.C. He provided no evidence to support this
claim.
“In just a short time, we’ve changed the voice of pro-Israel advocacy
in Washington—today, America’s political leaders hear loudly and
clearly that achieving Israeli-Palestinian peace is essential to
Israel’s future, American interests and regional stability,” Ben-Ami
wrote.
“We’ve changed the face of American politics—showing candidates how
much support they can earn by proudly adopting pro-Israel, pro-peace
policies,” he claimed.
While J Street prides itself as being “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace,”
many, if not most, Jewish constituents believe that the organization
actually undermines the interests of the State of Israel and Jewish
people. Numerous Jewish leaders and organizations have publicly
disassociated themselves, altogether, from J Street’s rhetoric and
policies.
J Street has endorsed terror groups and one of its co-founders has
even claimed that Israel’s creation was “an act that was wrong.”
The group has also hidden the fact that it receives hundreds of
thousands of dollarsin funding from Pro-Palestinian Authority
billionaire George Soros, who once said Israeli and American policies
fuel anti-Semitism. A report by NGO Monitor released this past week
found that Soros’ philanthropy funds anti-Israel boycott campaigns.
Recently J Street targeted congressmen Joe Walsh (R-IL) and Allen
West (R-FL), saying they are “not pro-Israel” because they support
Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria.
Left-wing lobbying group JStreet has long held that it is "pro-Israel and pro-peace." It is hard to see how either of those claims will remain believable after Tuesday night.
The group took credit on Wednesday for effectively killing any possibility that the Palestinians would be held accountable for abandoning the Oslo Accords and discarding its agreements with Israel by going directly to the United Nations in order to receive non-member state status.
The U.S. Senate proposed a bill that would have cut U.S. assistance to the Palestinian Authority, expelled the PLO from Washington, and threatened to cut funding for the U.N. When the bill was finally passed, all of these provisions were gone.
JStreet claimed that an email campaign undertaken by the group killed the amendments to the bill.
"Thanks to your outstanding efforts," the group wroteto supporters,
the US Senate did NOT include a measure to expel the Palestinian diplomatic mission from the United States in the defense authorization bill which was passed a few minutes ago.... This is a critical victory for the prospects for peace.
It is difficult to see how letting the Palestinians get away, once again, with violating their peace agreements with Israel advances the cause of peace.
What matters is that JStreet is apparently gleeful at having caused the defeat of a pro-Israel bill and thus advancing the Palestinian cause. It seems reasonable to state, then, that JStreet has finally declared its true nature: It is not pro-Israel or pro-peace. It is pro-Palestinian. And nothing else.
www.jconversion.org long distance conversion
J Street Ads Target US Congressmen's Support of Judea, Samaria
J Street has launched a new campaign, insisting Congressmen are "not pro-Israel" if they support Israeli annexation of Judea, Samaria.
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By Rachel Hirshfeld
First Publish: 7/15/2012, 3:19 PM
Allen West in Old City visit
Arutz Sheva courtesy of Rep. West
J Street has launched a new campaign -- insisting that congressmen Joe Walsh (R-IL) and Allen West (R-FL) are "not pro-Israel" because they support Israeli annexation of Judea and Samaria.
“There is no such thing as a two-state solution, and no such thing as land for peace,” said Walsh, who introduced a resolution last year supporting a proposal that Israel annex Jewish communities located in "disputed territories."
West, who co-sponsored the resolution, is a staunch supporter of the State of Israel, saying last year that a two-state solution would, essentially, mean the demise of Israel as a Jewish state.
The J Street ads single out the Congressmen’s claims, urging constituents to tell them “the two-state solution preserves Israel’s democracy and its security.”
“Opposing it isn’t pro-Israel. It’s playing with fire,” the ad claims.
“In election after election American Jews have stood by and watched while Members of Congress were attacked for supporting pro-Israel, pro-peace policies,” said J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. “J Street began changing that dynamic by rising to their defense. In this election, we will take that effort to a new level by calling out Members of Congress, like Walsh and West, who are playing with fire when it comes to Israel.”
“We intend to make it crystal clear that there are, indeed, many ways to be ‘pro-Israel’—but supporting a nightmarish one-state scenario is not one of them,” claimed Ben-Ami.
While J Street prides itself as being “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace,” many, if not most, Jewish constituents believe that the organization actually undermines the interests of the State of Israel and Jewish people. Numerous Jewish leaders and organizations have publicly disassociated themselves, altogether, from J Street’s rhetoric and policies.
“There is no such thing as a two-state solution, and no such thing as land for peace,” said Walsh, who introduced a resolution last year supporting a proposal that Israel annex Jewish communities located in "disputed territories."
West, who co-sponsored the resolution, is a staunch supporter of the State of Israel, saying last year that a two-state solution would, essentially, mean the demise of Israel as a Jewish state.
The J Street ads single out the Congressmen’s claims, urging constituents to tell them “the two-state solution preserves Israel’s democracy and its security.”
“Opposing it isn’t pro-Israel. It’s playing with fire,” the ad claims.
“In election after election American Jews have stood by and watched while Members of Congress were attacked for supporting pro-Israel, pro-peace policies,” said J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. “J Street began changing that dynamic by rising to their defense. In this election, we will take that effort to a new level by calling out Members of Congress, like Walsh and West, who are playing with fire when it comes to Israel.”
“We intend to make it crystal clear that there are, indeed, many ways to be ‘pro-Israel’—but supporting a nightmarish one-state scenario is not one of them,” claimed Ben-Ami.
While J Street prides itself as being “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace,” many, if not most, Jewish constituents believe that the organization actually undermines the interests of the State of Israel and Jewish people. Numerous Jewish leaders and organizations have publicly disassociated themselves, altogether, from J Street’s rhetoric and policies.
Saturday, May 26, 2012
Obama object of derision in Israel
Powerline Obama has become an object of derision in Israel across a
broad swath of the political spectrum. Consider a recent op-ed in
Ha’aretz, a left of center publication, by Ari Shavit, a respected
member of the paper’s editorial board. As reported by the Jerusalem
Post, Shavit wrote:
[T]he man sitting in the Oval Office is ignoring the possibility that his inaction will make the Middle East go nuclear and undermine the world order. He doesn’t care that he might be responsible for losing the United States’ superpower status and turning the 21st century into a century of nuclear chaos.The dispassionate man from Chicago is proving every day what rare stuff he’s made of. The president sees how the Iranians mock him – and does nothing. He sees radical Islam approaching the nuclear brink – and does not budge. With amazing courage Barack Obama watches the tsunami rolling toward America’s shores – and smiles. . . .He is staging a deceptive show of a deal with the Iranians, which will seem to dull the . . . threat. He is trying to make a fool of Jerusalem as Tehran is making a fool of him. The president is pushing Israel into a corner, but is hoping that Israel will accept its fate submissively. He is counting on Benjamin Netanyahu not to surprise him and ruin his election season. Never has the United States had such a gambler for a president. . . .The international community and international public opinion are preoccupied with King Netanyahu these days – will he or won’t he attack? But instead of focusing on a statesman who isn’t supposed to save the world from Iran’s nuclear program, it would be better to focus on the leader whose historic role is just that. In the past 40 months Barack Obama has been betraying his office. Will he wake up in the next four months, come to his senses and change his ways?
Will Israel attack Iran in the coming months? I don’t know and won’t
hazard a guess. The smart move might be to wait until November in the
hope that Romney will defeat Obama. After that, Israel may not have to
act alone.
But I doubt that Israel would even be contemplating an attack if it considered the U.S., under Obama, a reliable ally.
Is Israel supposed to absorb all African refugees?
Commentary: ...the idea that
tiny Israel should be considered the solution for African poverty is
absurd. There are currently approximately 70,000 illegal African
immigrants in Israel, roughly one for every 100 Israelis—Jew and Arab
alike. In such a small country, that’s a large burden for Israelis to
carry. If Americans are upset about undocumented immigrants in this
country, the uproar in Israel isn’t hard to understand. Moreover, unlike
the bulk of illegal immigration into the United States, the Africans
are not merely a function of an economic cycle in which Mexicans and
other Central Americans cross the border to fill low-paying jobs such
as farm work. The Africans are refugees from war and famine in East
African nations like Sudan and Eritrea, who not unnaturally see
democratic and prosperous Israel as a haven from suffering that they
cannot find anywhere else in the region. It’s also true that unlike the
nations they pass through on their way to Israel, the Jewish state has
treated newcomers with compassion.
Those who are quick to accuse Israel of racism should remember that it
went to great trouble and expense to facilitate the mass immigration of
tens of thousands of black Jews from Ethiopia in the past generation.
Though the absorption of these immigrants has been a bumpy road for
many, the nation took great pride in their coming and has done its
often-inadequate best to care for them.
The Jewish tradition of caring for the homeless and the stranger has created a largedegree of
sympathy for the African migrants in Israel. But while it was possible
for the country to take in the initial small numbers who found their way
there, including those seeking political asylum, now that the rate is
up to 1,000 new illegals a month, the situation has gotten out of hand.
Israel simply hasn’t the ability to care for or employ that many people
who have no ties to the place.
Moreover, no matter how immigrant-friendly Israel may be, any nation has
the right and the duty to police its borders. As is the case with
America’s southern border, there are no easy or simple solutions–people
who want to come will find a way to get in. But no nation can be
expected to just simply accept such a situation, especially when it
brings with it a rise in crime and other social pathologies. Though
nothing justifies some of the unfortunate statements made yesterday in
Tel Aviv, Israel has a right to ask those who arrive without permission
to leave and to ensure that those illegals who keep coming are kept out.
Wednesday, May 23, 2012
How J Street betrays Israel
The Anti-Israel Lobby
‘Pro-Israel, Pro-Peace’ J Street backs congressmen who do not support Israel
The self-described “pro-Israel,
pro-peace” liberal advocacy group J Street is soliciting funds for
congressional candidates who are openly hostile to Israel while
simultaneously targeting for defeat explicitly pro-Israel lawmakers who
do not agree with its radical Middle East agenda, according to aWashington Free Beacon analysis of J Street’s election year strategy.
Among the more than 50 candidates
endorsed by J Street is a sizable delegation of lawmakers who have
expressed hostility towards the Jewish state.
At least six of J Street’s candidates
have failed to affirm the U.S.-Israel alliance on the House floor,
rejected Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorists, and backed a
congressional missive demanding that Israel end its siege of the Gaza Strip. All of these positions place the candidates outside the mainstream pro-Israel community.
J Street’s attraction to such fringe
candidates—as well as its public efforts to remove Israel’s allies from
Congress—has led insiders to question its commitment to both the Jewish
state and the core tenets of pro-Israel activism.
“They’re showing their true colors,”
said Morris Amitay, a former executive director of the American Israel
Public Affairs Committee who currently runs his own political action
committee. “You can forget about what they’re saying, but look at who
they’re supporting—it’s people most observers would consider to not be
friendly to Israel.”
“They sort of help the bad guys on this issue,” Amitay added.
Enemy number one on J Street’s
political hit list is Rep. Joe Walsh (R., Ill.), a first-term legislator
who been among Israel’s chief defenders during his two-year tenure in
the House.
Walsh attracted J Street’s ire earlier this month when he referred to the two-state solution as a sham and advocated for “one contiguous Israeli state from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea.”
His call led J Street to issue a red alert to its supporters calling for Walsh’s ouster from Congress this November.
“The policies endorsed by Representative Walsh are not pro-Israel and are not endorsed by the Israeli mainstream,” the group wrote in a press release.
“It is time for the American Jewish community to call him out and make
clear that he does not speak for us or for Israel’s democratic, Jewish
future.”
Walsh bristled at J Street’s attacks in a recent interview with the Free Beacon.
“For a group like J Street who only
claims to be pro-Israel to go after me for being pro-Israel makes no
sense,” Walsh said. “They hide under the cover of ‘pro-peace,
pro-Israel,’ but they’re pro-Palestinian.”
Walsh went on to deem the group politically irrelevant.
“No one from the middle to the right
takes them seriously,” he said. “They’re almost a joke. They’re
extremely toxic and so loudly in your face to anyone who takes even a
little bit of a pro-Israel stance.”
In a video that has since been scrubbed from the Internet, J Street’s vice president for campaigns admitted that
the group has a small political constituency and explained that its
ultimate goal is to “move Jews” farther to the left in order to place
them more in line with J Street’s own views.
In addition to Walsh, J Street has
targeted New Hampshire Reps. Charlie Bass (R) and Frank Guinta (R), who
both possess stellar pro-Israel credentials.
Bass, for instance, co-sponsored the United States-Israel Enhanced Security Cooperation Act of 2012, a bill passed by the House earlier this monthdespite the objectionsof several lawmakers affiliated with J Street.
His challenger, Ann McLane Kuster, who J
Street has termed “a progressive hero,” has virtually no public record
regarding Israel and is touted by J Street not as a pro-Israel stalwart,
but as a “community activist, author, public policy advocate, and
attorney.”
“They’re obviously just endorsing the
candidate most likely to defeat Bass,” who has staunchly backed Iran
sanctions and supported Israel’s right to defend itself from terrorism,
said one pro-Israel insider familiar with the race.
Guinta, too, has taken a strong stance against Iran’s pursuit of nuclear arms and has vocally expressed support for the Jewish state.
Additionally, J Street is working to defeat Rep. Judy Biggert (R., Ill.), co-sponsor of the America Stands with Israel Act and a regular defender of the U.S.-Israel alliance.
“It is ironic that J Street turns out
to want American Jews to be one issue voters,” said Elliott Abrams, a
senior official in the George W. Bush administration who tracks opinion
in the Jewish community. “J Street supports candidates critical of
Israel and opposes candidates who are very pro-Israel. Doesn’t much
matter where they stand on anything else.”
“Maybe,” Abrams added, “we should
salute J Street’s bipartisanship: They barely care what party you’re in
as long as you think undermining the Government of Israel is a good
idea.”
As it works to defeat these expressly
pro-Israel lawmakers, J Street is raising money for members and
candidates who have run counter to the mainstream pro-Israel community’s
agenda.
“J Street is much more concerned with
pushing their far left agenda on Israel policy than supporting
candidates who by all measure actually are pro-Israel,” said one
pro-Israel political operative who is familiar with the group’s
strategy.
Some of those endorsed by J Street hold positions at odds with J Street’s own principles, which stipulate that,
among other things, a candidate must demonstrate “support for the
special relationship between the United States and Israel.”
Endorsed Rep. Lois Capps (D., Calif), for instance, refused to sign a
2009 resolution that both affirmed Israel’s right to defend itself and
also condemned the Goldstone Report, a highly flawed United Nations
report that wrongly accused Israel of committing war crimes—a claim that
report’s author, Richard Goldstone, later retracted as false.
Capps then declined to join 327 of her colleagues later that year in expressing support for a bi-partisan letter “reaffirming the U.S.-Israel alliance.”
In 2010, Capps become one of the “Gaza 54”
when she signed onto a J Street-orchestrated letter that asked
President Obama to pressure the Israeli government to ease up on its
so-called siege of the Gaza Strip.
Later in 2010, Capps again bucked the majority of Congress when she refused to back a
letter reaffirming Israel’s right to defend itself in the wake of the
“Gaza Freedom Flotilla” incident, in which Israeli soldiers were attacked and beaten by a delegation of pro-Palestinian terrorists.
J Street has also thrown its support behind Capps’ Californian colleague, Rep. George Miller (D), a fellow “Gaza 54” signer who would not support a congressional missive voicing “solidarity” with Israel. Miller also would not vote in favor of a letter that reaffirmed U.S. support for Israel and recognized Israel’s right to defend itself against Palestinian attacks.
Another J Street endorsee who appears
to run counter to the group’s own mission is Rep. Tammy Baldwin (D.,
Wis.), a “Gaza 54” backer who voted against a 2009 Iran sanctions bill and condemned Israel defending against armed militants aboard the “Freedom Flotilla.”
Sen. Sherrod Brown (D., Ohio) has also been endorsed by J Street; he declined to join a bipartisan cadre of 76 senators who expressed the commitmentof the U.S. government’s alliance with the Israeli government regardless of disagreements over the peace process.
J Street has also endorsed Reps. David
Price (D., N.C.) and Peter Welch (D., Vt.), both of whom endorsed the
“Gaza 54” letter and spearheaded a letter asking President Obama to continue sending U.S. aid to the Palestinian Authority despite its attempts to establish statehood at the United Nations.
“It’s clear from the candidates J
Street chooses to support they are not interested in standing shoulder
to shoulder with Israel and value those who seek to drive a wedge
between the Israeli government and the American government,” said the
pro-Israel political operative.
Noah Pollak, executive director of the
Emergency Committee for Israel, said J Street’s election year tactics
fit in with its ongoing campaign to undermine the Israeli government.
“I’m surprised J Street didn’t think of
doing this sooner because it fits so nicely with the group’s broader
program of attacking Israel and her supporters, and promoting her
detractors,” Pollak said. “Members of Congress who are singled out by J
Street should wear it as a badge of honor.”
Dershowitz strikes back: ‘J Street has harmed Israel’
By MARK DONIG, JERUSALEM POST CORRESPONDENT
08/06/2011 23:29
"It’s a myth that criticism of Israel is silenced. I have spoken at AIPAC many times, criticizing Israeli policy," lawyer says in response to Ben-Ami.
Talkbacks (116)
WASHINGTON – Prominent Israel advocate Prof. Alan Dershowitz hit back at a book by the founder of J Street charging that he and others have silenced criticism of the Jewish state, in a recent interview with The Jerusalem Post.
J Street President Jeremy Ben- Ami’s recently released book, A New Voice for Israel: Fighting for the Survival of the Jewish Nation, singles out Dershowitz, the American Israel Public Affairs Committee, the Anti-Defamation League, the American Jewish Committee and other members of the US Jewish establishment.
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“It’s a myth that criticism of Israel is silenced,” Dershowitz said in a phone interview with the Post on Thursday. I have spoken at AIPAC many times and have criticized Israeli policy. AIPAC has never silenced me, because AIPAC knows I’m pro-Israel.”
In the book, Ben-Ami argues that the major Jewish organizations and pro-Israel advocates in America have “created a situation where one can’t question or criticize Israeli policy or actions without being branded an outcast.”
J Street Failure Reflected at Conference
J Street is holding their annual policy conference this weekend, and the group duly requested speakers from the White House and the Israeli embassy in Washington DC. The results are unspinnable. The Israelis let J Street cool its heels until this week before dispatching deputy chief of mission Barukh Binah. Binah recently concluded a stint in Jerusalem as a Foreign Ministry deputy director-general, in which capacity he publicly castigated J Street for dishonestly manufacturing an anti-Israel publicity stunt, then building an entire media campaign around the stunt, then fabricating an Israeli apology related to the stunt. Sending him to be the embassy’s speaker was not the world’s most subtle move. The White House’s announcement of its surrogate, the vice president’s national security adviser Tony Blinken, left Ben-Ami bitterly complaining that the choice was a snub. He’s right. Blinken, for all that he is an experienced hand, is several rungs below U.S. National Security Adviser Jim Jones, who appeared at the first J Street conference and left J Street boosters musing about the group’s potential power.
J Street has gone from fantasies of being the anti-AIPAC to complaining publicly about its diminished influence. The spiral was a function of many things, but mostly of the group aggressively pushing counterproductive, failed, and toxic policies in Israel, in Congress, and in the media.
Israelis were always skeptical of J Street, even as the group was embraced by the Obama White House as the President’s anti-Israel enabler. Israeli embassy officials declared that J Street was damaging Israel, was “a unique problem,” and was “fooling around” with Israeli lives. When J Street’s founder and president Jeremy Ben-Ami publicly insisted upon Ambassador Oren’s presence at the group’s first conference he was rebuffed, leading Ben-Ami’s White House allies to attack Israel over the snub in Israeli media outlets (reports from the conference justified Israeli skepticism). Last year Israel’s minister for public diplomacy and Diaspora affairs flatly called J Street anti-Israel. Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu won’t take meetings with the group’s delegations.
In the meantime J Street’s public campaigns – many implemented with tone-deafness and some with frankly shocking incompetence – eroded its Congressional support.
Its embrace of Richard Goldstone was followed by a fumbled cover-up. Its support of anti-Israel U.N. campaigns triggered a fistfight with Congressional allies. Itsdefense of anti-Semitic rhetoric is seeping in this weekend’s conference. Its coordination with pro-Iran lobbies has been unreal.
Its stance on Cast Lead angered Israeli victims’ organizations..
Its stance on Cast Lead angered Israeli victims’ organizations..
J Street officials got caught misleading reporters on overseas Arab and Muslim funding and then launched a clumsy spin campaign. Then they got caught misleading other reporters about Soros funding and launched another clumsy spin campaign. When the group did its fundraising in public it was for yet another effort to pressure Obama into pressuring Israel.
On a smaller scale J Street launched campaigns to defend anti-Israel media campaigns and anti-Israel art and anti-Israel artists. Its PR flak defended Mary Robinson. Itbrought into the fold an apologist for the Muslim students who went after Ambassador Oren at UC Irvine. A J Street delegation held meetings with Palestinian diplomats in Ramallah on the eve of Holocaust Memorial Day over Israeli objections and then Ben-Ami bragged about the trip in the Jerusalem Post. One of their board members met with Hamas.
Unsurprisingly the group has become toxic in Congress. Associating with J Street costs votes and chills relationships.
As a small example: last year some House Republicans threatened to defund the Palestinian Authority. The move was opposed with various degrees of publicity by Democrats, the White House, and Israeli Prime Minister Netanyahu. J Street ostentatiously launched a three-month public campaign to push back, which culminated in44 Democratic signatures on a letter. 44 is 10 fewer Democrats than J Street secured for far more controversial 2010 letter calling on Obama to pressure Israel on the Gaza siege, which J Street had to lobby for by proxy.
This time J Street was too weak to directly push on an open door in Congress. The White House and its political liaisons undoubtedly noted as much.
J Street and other anti-Israel Jewish groups will never totally collapse. They will always have a constituency, and that constituency will always pretend that they’re on the cusp of influencing the policy discussion. But everyone else seems to be tired of pretending that J Street is anything but a particularly elegant case study of how fringe progressive collapses under its own weight.
Dershowitz, a Harvard law professor, vehemently expressed disagreement with that assertion.
“Ben-Ami was in diapers when I opposed the occupation and was in favor of the two-state solution,” Dershowitz said on Thursday.
“See, I’m [J Street’s] worst nightmare. I oppose the occupation. But I’m really pro-Israel, unlike them.”
Dershowitz also argued that J Street’s actions have had a deleterious effect on the next generation’s ability to effectively advocate for Israel.
“I think J Street has done more damage to Israel than any [other] American organization,” he said.
“It has made a generation of Jews ashamed to be pro-Israel, and has made it politically correct among young people to single out Israel to a double standard and for fault.”
In the book, Ben-Ami argues that it is the attacks on those within the Jewish community who criticize Israel that harm the pro-Israel community most. “For [many] younger liberal Jews, such confrontations [are] more than enough to ensure their permanent withdrawal not simply from the conversation but from the community,” he wrote.
The book also outlines Ben- Ami’s vision of giving voice to a base of traditionally liberal pro- Israel Jewish Americans who may disagree with Israeli policies and seek to broaden the discussion of what it means to advocate for Israel.
Dershowitz called J Street’s branding of its message as pro-Israel “dishonest.”
“It is a fraud in advertising to call J Street pro-Israel,” he said. “An organization that calls for the US to censure Israel at the UN is not pro-Israel. An organization that praises [judge Richard] Goldstone is not pro-Israel. An organization that calls for taking any military measure against Iran off the table is not pro-Israel. It should stop defrauding the public.”
Dershowitz, who Ben-Ami himself notes is “looked to by so many Jewish Americans as the preeminent advocate in the United States for the State of Israel,” is described in the book as practicing a modern day version of McCarthyism in his attempts to delegitimize J Street for having “unacceptable” friends in the political community.
But Dershowitz maintained that as a new organization trying to broaden its base to challenge the old guard, J Street has sacrificed values in favor of larger support.
“They are trying to have it both ways,” he said. “J Street wants to expand its base, and therefore makes no red lines. They are prepared to accept the support of some of Israel’s worst enemies.”
In response to Dershowitz’s comments, J Street’s director of government affairs, Dylan Jacob Williams, told the Post in a statement that “Alan Dershowitz’s comments provide ample evidence of the self-censorship of the American Jewish community from within concerning the real dangers facing Israel.”
He continued, “In contrast to such shrill hyperbole, Jeremy Ben-Ami’s book methodically sets forth the case for the heretofore silent super-majority of centrist American Jews to come forward and save a Jewish and democratic Israel.”
In Ben-Ami’s book, he asserts that it is this “broader pool of ‘passionate moderates’” who must mobilize “into a true counterweight to balance the energized minority [of the American Jewish establishment].”
Those who aim to silence these “nuanced” critiques of Israeli policy, Ben-Ami maintains, act in a manner “unhealthy, un-Jewish, and in the long run extraordinarily counterproductive, not only to our community but to Israel itself.”
Ben-Ami also harshly critiques AIPAC, the AJC, the ADL and the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations for siding with Israel “right-orwrong,” and for marginalizing and ostracizing voices of dissent against Israeli policy from the pro- Israel community.
Representatives from AJC, ADL, Conference of Presidents and AIPAC offered no comment in response. ADL and AIPAC representatives noted that they had not read the book.
Rabbi Victor Weissberg on J Street
At a recent meeting with a Member of Congress who shall remain nameless [please don’t guess], we were told that J Street plays an important role in the Jewish Community. The illustration: members of J Street approached leaders of the Presbyterian Church who have been in the forefront of the BDS (Boycott Divestment Sanctions) campaign against the State of Israel. And we were told that these J Streeters prevailed in convincing the Presbyterian leaders who have campaigned so mightily to divest from any companies which do business with Israel to desist from such behavior.
What was described by the member of Congress as an important reason for J Street’s existence galled me. It reminded me of the Stateless, dependent Polish Jew who was made to toady, bow and meekly dance before his Lordly Land Owner lest he be cast off his lordship’s domain if he did not demean himself.
Living in 21st Century America as a first class citizen, a WWII U.S. Navy Veteran I find it beneath my dignity and beneath the dignity of a sovereign Israel to beg anybody for their support especially those who have found every reason to treat Israel as illegitimate and undeserving of the right to exist. Oh I understand the Presbyterian Church has interests in the Arab Countries. After all they are the founders and supporters of the American University in both Cairo and Beirut. However, at this moment, when every Arab country is seething in revolt and witnessing the murder of their own citizens by their tyrannical rulers, Israel stands alone as a bastion of tranquility. The Palestinians are not storming the road blocks which Israel established to protect their own citizens. The joke of divestment can be clearly seen by any honest person. The Palestinians are with Israeli help, a wirtschaftswunder. Their economy is burgeoning. Their people are enjoying employment. More and more Palestinians want to live in Israel because of the opportunity, liberty, and security found there.
J Street was doing the Presbyterians a favor, because by convincing Church leaders to call off their evil designs to weaken Israel and falsely attack her, they were spared the shame their calumny richly deserved in view of the bloody events now taking place in Libya, Egypt, Yemen, Syria, Bahrain and Jordan. Israel in the dock, Arabs bloody and blameless. What a joke.
Those of us who are true supporters of Israel don’t go begging enemies for crumbs. We stand by the beleaguered and the falsely accused to give them our fullest support. Certainly the events now transpiring in the Middle East show who deserves that support. In lands where women are shown disdain, where lawlessness and hunger, joblessness and despair have so long prevailed; where injustice, oppression and fear have brought havoc and ruin, the difference between Israel and her neighbors should clearly show why clear-thinking Americans support Israel. Perhaps not perfect, but peaceful and persevering.
Of Course: J Street to Host Pro-BDS Speakers
Omri Ceren - 02.10.2011 - 8:24 AM
I hesitate to do a full post on this group — CONTENTIONS contributor Noah Pollak is right to call J Street a very marginal left-wing fringe group — but this latest dispatch is so sophomoric that it kind of begs to be blogged. I’m also genuinely curious about the excuses that J Street leaders trot out for their anti-Israel agitation. I’m never sure whether they have so little self-awareness that they think they’re being clever, or whether they think their cultists are dumb enough to accept barely coherent pretexts as the height of sophistication:
Among the more controversial speakers is Rebecca Vilkomerson, executive director of Jewish Voices for Peace, which advocates the use of BDS (boycotts, divestment and sanctions) against Israel. BDS has been roundly condemned in the mainstream Jewish community because it serves to demonize and deligitimize Israel. J Street, too, opposes BDS, noted Ben-Ami, who said he is not concerned that the appearance of Vilkomerson might legitimize BDS. Rather, she was invited to air her views, he explained, so that conference attendees who might be “tempted” to embrace BDS will think otherwise after they see its moral and tactical failings exposed in debate. (Vilkomerson is scheduled to appear Feb. 28 on a panel along with three opponents of BDS.) [emphasis added]
Rep. Ackerman Throws J Street Under the Bus
Alana Goodman - 01.25.2011 - 3:23 PM
Despite J Street’s eagerness to blame its “political enemies” for its public-relations troubles, all its image problems have been brought on by itself. Nobody forced the group the take money from George Soros, surreptitiously aide Richard Goldstone, and engage in unethical self-dealing. These actions are a sign of a deep-seated moral corruption within the organization, and they’re likely to keep occurring unless the group dismantles its leadership entirely.
This seems to be the realization that one of J Street’s strongest political allies, Rep. Gary Ackerman, came to today. Appalled that the organization is supporting the pending UN resolution condemning Israeli settlements, the congressman has told J Street in no uncertain terms that he wants nothing to do with them anymore:
“After learning of J-Street’s current public call for the Obama Administration to not veto a prospective UN Security Council resolution that, under the rubric of concern about settlement activity, would effectively and unjustly place the whole responsibility for the current impasse in the peace process on Israel, and—critically—would give fresh and powerful impetus to the effort to internationally isolate and delegitimize Israel, I’ve come to the conclusion that J-Street is not an organization with which I wish to be associated.”
And Ackerman is by no means opposed to progressive pro-Israel groups — he just notes that J Street isn’t one of them.
“America really does need a smart, credible, politically active organization that is as aggressively pro-peace as it is pro-Israel,” said the congressman. “Unfortunately, J-Street ain’t it.”
This is the strongest sign so far that J Street’s political support on Capitol Hill has completely dried up. Ackerman isn’t denouncing the group in a last-minute attempt to win an election, as other politicians have done. He’s doing it because being linked to J Street has become a political liability even when it’s not a campaign season.
He’s also doing it because J Street’s actions over the past year — culminating in its support for this UN resolution — have made it impossible to deny that the group is still pro-Israel.
Ackerman rightly notes that J Street’s support for the resolution “is not the choice of a concerned friend trying to help. It is rather the befuddled choice of an organization so open-minded about what constitutes support for Israel that its brains have fallen out.”
In a press release for a fundraiser that J Street held for Ackerman and a few other members of Congress just three months ago, the group called the politicians “excellent advocates for pro-Israel, pro-peace positions in Congress and courageous leaders on other progressive issues as well.”
And now Ackerman — lauded as “progressive” and “pro-Israel, pro-peace” by J Street — has concluded that J Street can no longer be considered pro-Israel. That should certainly give other J Street supporters in Congress pause (that is, if there are any of them still left).
J Street can't stand pro Israel people in Congress
Even leftist Jan Schakowsky cxan see how extreme and anti-Israel J street is
Congresswoman Jan Schakowsky was one of 54 co-sponsors of House Resolution 1765, which urges the Palestinians to "cease all efforts at circumventing the negotiation process, including efforts to gain recognition of a Palestinian state from other nations." The resolution passed by voice vote on December 16. Let's hope that strong, bi-partisan support for Israel continues when the Republicans take control of Congress in January.. It's not too long, and it contains excellent background on the peace process and Palestinian attempts to sabotage the peace process by urging other countries to prematurely recognize a Palestinian state. The resolution was backed by AIPAC and opposed by J Street.
s not really surprising that J Street co-founder Daniel Levy thinks that Israel’s creation was wrong.
And it’s kind of predictable that JStreet’s new Israel campus organizer Drew Cohen would (a) harbor some really ugly antipathy toward the Jewish State and (b) commit to getting other American Jews to embrace his antipathy. This pattern is in line with the rest of JStreetU, which finally had to drop even the pretense of pro-Israel advocacy because it meshed poorly with their “genocidal anti-Jewish terrorists equal Israeli Jewish victims” moral equivocation.
J Street’s pretty pleased with Cohen’s appointment – see below for the full email he’s passing around on the organization’s behalf – which is kind of weird for a “pro-Israel” organization, given how he’s proud of being an anti-Israel ideologue:
* Here’s him explaining that he “sees his role” as deliberately altering the emphasis that American Jews place on Israeli security concerns, since it’s futile to “wait patiently for Israel to come around.” Elsewhere here’s him indicating that American Jews need to be shown “the truth of what is going on” in Israeli civil society, and no he doesn’t mean “truth” in a positive “let’s tell people about how the Jewish State is a Middle East beacon of human rights” sense.
* Here’s him explaining that he can’t be comfortable unless he’s “with people who I am certain do not espouse Zionism or any form of oppression.”
* Here’s him condemning Operation Cast Lead, an Israeli defensive campaign supported by the far leftwing Meretz party and understood by Egypt and the Arab League, as an “unjust and even criminal” act by which he was “shocked and appalled at the mass destruction.”
* Here’s him snidely passing on a description of Israel’s Gaza Flotilla interdiction, a last-ditch passive option forced by Israel’s having been denied forward defense and active defense, as “a heinous brutality.”
* Here’s him minimizing the danger posed by that Flotilla, which would have detonated Israel’s last chance of blocking Iran’s Gaza proxy, due to it being merely a “mythic threat.”
* Here’s him insisting that Jews who want to reverse Jordan’s gleeful 1948 ethnic cleansing of Jerusalem’s Jewish Quarter “are engaged in structural violence against the Palestinian people.”
* Here’s him musing over the “parallels between the issues at the U.S.-Mexico border and the Israeli-Palestinian security barrier” and here’s him rhetorically leveling ghettos and Bethlehem.
How Did Jewish Groups Do?
Jennifer Rubin - 11.03.2010 - 12:04 PM
Josh Block, a long-time Democratic, pro-Israel activist and former AIPAC communications director, e-mails: “Of 25 competitive races in which Jstreet endorsed, their candidates lost in 14 races, including in all three Senate races.” And then he unloads:
Being associated with a group that helped [Richard] Goldstone slander Israel on the Hill, that refuses to condemn his report and accusation that the leadership of Israel PURPOSEFULLY targeted civilians in Gaza, that says there’s no difference between Israel defending itself and Hamas terrorism, that lies about their secret money from anti-Israel George Soros, and derives half their budget from Hong Kong — not from American Jews as they claim — and that lies again and again, even twisting the arm of a former Israeli MK to lie for them after she is on tape exposing their ties to Goldstone, is HAZARDOUS for one’s pro-Israel reputation. …
b nnnnnThe question candidates in competitive races will be asking themselves is this: Is it worth it to lie down with dogs if all you get is flees!? The answer, I predict, will increasingly be no, it’s not worth it. Unless of course, you’re not pro-Israel.
Block, mind you, is a partisan Democrat. His advice should serve as a warning to lawmakers on both sides of the aisle — vote however you like and associate yourself with whomever you wish, but be prepared to be confronted on your record.
How Did the Jewish Groups Do?
Jennifer Rubin - 11.03.2010 - 11:43 AM
We have seen, to the chagrin of the left, more attention in an off-year election on Israel than we get in most presidential races. The Emergency Committee for Israel and the Republican Jewish Coalition have reasons to crow. ECI made Joe Sestak its top priority, featured him in its debut ad, and remained a thorn in his side throughout the race. The RJC spent an unprecedented amount of money on the race. These groups didn’t target Joe Sestak by accident or pick an easy race. Sestak was the quintessential faux pro-Israel liberal — touting his support for the Jewish state but signing onto the Gaza 54 letter, headlining for CAIR, and refusing to break with the president on his offensive against the Jewish state. For precisely these reasons, J Street made him its top priority. Sestak lost in a tough race. Was Israel a factor? In a close race, it is hard to say it wasn’t. The question for liberal Democrats is this: why take on the baggage of J Street for such little help and so many headaches?
J Street’s other Senate endorsees lost as well (Robin Carnahan and Russ Feingold). In the House races, their endorsees lost in 11 races. Shoe-in Democrats won in seven races that were not in doubt. However, once ECI targeted the NJ-12, that safe Dem seat became competitive, with Democratic Rep. Rush Holt eventually winning by seven points. Several races are still outstanding.
The election demonstrated two things. First, J Street is a weight around the necks of its selected candidates. Second, the voters, Jewish and not, heard more about Israel than in an ordinary midterm and dumped some of the worst Israel-bashers in the House, including Mary Jo Kilroy and Kathy Dahlkemper. The takeaway: voters remain overwhelmingly pro-Israel, and should candidates want to avoid the impression that they are not, they’d do well to steer clear of the foreign-funded J Street.
The video examines the "spooky" and "frightening" specter of a Jewish organization that calls itself pro-Israel and pro-peace, but which supports members of the Gaza 54, takes money from George Soros, and was co-founded by a man who believes the establishment of the State of Israel was "an act that was wrong."
Executive Director Matt Brooks said, "J Street may dress up like a pro-Israel organization and go door-to-door in the Jewish community, but it's all trick and no treat. J Street lied for years about where its money comes from. Now we know that George Soros and his family have funded a major portion of their budget. And when you look at the politicians that J Street endorses and funds through its PAC, they are not pro-Israel. They include members of the Gaza 54 like Joe Sestak.
To: edlasky@att.netJennifer Rubin - 10.27.2010 - 5:23 PM
The Jerusalem Post has the latest on J Street’s unusual donors:
According to records filed with the US Federal Election Committee on October 20 and October 21, J Street recorded hundreds of donations from Americans of all sorts, most Jewish and some Muslim. But several names jumped out from the 2,100 pages.
Lynch, the NIAC board member and a member of J Street’s Finance Committee, is listed contributing $10,000 in October. At one point last year, J Street and NIAC leaders worked together to block anti-Iran sanctions measures proposed by Congress. Belatedly, J Street changed its position and supported sanctions.
Nancy Dutton earmarked last week $250 for the Democratic Senate candidate in Pennsylvania, Joe Sestak. Her late husband Fred served as a Saudi foreign agent in Washington for 30 years. (During the 1982 AWACS debate he was believed to be responsible for the line, “Reagan or Begin?” which strongly suggested American Jews’ double loyalty.) After Fred’s death, Nancy picked up the pricey Saudi gig.
Oddly enough, the donors have a decidedly anti-Israel perspective:
Another new name on the J Street PAC’s list of contributors is M. Cherif Bassiouni, a well-known professor of law at DePaul University. Bassiouni is also an unlikely candidate to contribute to a purported “pro-Israel” organization. Several years ago he complained in an article in the Harvard International Law Journal, “A large segment of the world population asks why Israel’s repression of the Palestinian people, which includes the commission of ‘grave breaches’ of the Geneva Convention and what the customary law of armed conflict considers ‘war crimes,’ is deemed justified, while Palestinians’ unlawful acts of targeting civilians are condemned? These are only some contemporary examples of the double standard that fuels terrorism.”
Now, the jig has been up for some time that J Street allies itself with foes of the Jewish state. The latest is simply more evidence, as if any were needed, that J Street’s pro-Israel label is fraudulent and its sponsored candidates are those it perceives to be most helpful to its — and its allies’ — mission.
More J Street B(D)S
By Lori Lowenthal Marcus
Some people are still clinging to the remaining shreds of J Street's pro-Israel raiments. Time to let go. Even when that faux pro-Israel organization takes action seemingly supportive of Israel -- such as opposing divestment from Israel -- it does so for reasons that have nothing to do with being pro-Israel.
But first, let's recap the undressing and dressing down of the J Street cloak. In less than two weeks, it was revealed that various J Street mouthpieces lied when they repeatedly represented that the hateful anti-Israel billionaire George Soros hadn't given them any loot, lied when they said they did not participate in arranging the visits of the Israel-defamer (and South African Apartheid jurist) Richard Goldstone to members of the U.S. Congress in order to convince them that he -- he! not Israel -- was being unfairly cast as the bad guy, and they lied when they denied that a left-wing Israeli former Knesset member said she parted ways with them because even she couldn't tolerate their courting of Goldstone. To cap it off, they lied when they called the reporter a liar when he revealed their Goldstone connection lie. And that's only the lies. How about their claim that most of J Street's money comes from "American Jewish philanthropists and political activists" when we now know that for an entire year of this newly-hatched organization, a non-Jewish, non-American woman from Hong Kong wired the money that constituted about half of J Street's funding?
In those same two weeks, Jeremy Ben-Ami was finally revealed to all as a flawed alchemist. For so long, he had convinced so many people that the word "pro-Israel" fit anti-Israel positions, but now many of those folks are no longer buying his distorted incantations. In keeping with his prestidigious pattern, his "apology" revealed little truth hidden behind accusatory distractions.
But let's take a close look at the single positive point about J Street raised in the articles by those who admit being disappointed by J Street's lies but believe there's still life in them thar liars.
Rabbi Steve Gutow of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs, the umbrella body for federations and Jewish Community Relations Councils, criticized J Street's lack of candor but said that he and some of his constituent agencies have praised the organization because J Street was "very helpful" as a "credible left-wing pro-Israel organization" that opposed divestment efforts on campuses.
Encouraging universities, firms, and organizations to divest their holdings from companies doing business with Israel is one of the forms of virtual terrorism engaged in by the anti-Israel crowd who find actual terrorism too inconvenient or too messy. Boycotting Israel by calling on consumers to stop buying Israeli products, and urging official sanctions against Israeli officials for activities similarly engaged in by representatives of other countries who are never penalized, are the other two arms of the Boycott, Divestment, and Sanctions (BDS) movement.
According to Gutow, J Street was on record as opposing BDS on campuses. But why doesn't J Street favor divestment from Israel? Is it because an economically strong Israel is a healthy and safe Israel? Nope. Is it because an economic intifada is a danger to Israel's existence? Nope. Is it maybe even that Israel isn't so bad that it deserves BDS? Nope again.
J Street U (the campus arm of J Street) gave students two reasons for its disapproval of divestment from Israel: one, because it only gives credence to Jewish "paranoia" that it is being attacked (as if it is really not), and two, because doing so will harm the Palestinian economy. The J Street U national board sent an e-mail to its student leadership explaining why divestment is not an effective tool: "To Jewish Israelis, divestment only reinforces the notion that they are constantly under attack," and also, divestment will harm the Palestinian economy because "the Israeli and Palestinian economies [are] deeply intertwined."
Savor this: J Street (the "pro-Israel" organization) leadership told its student leaders that harming the Jewish Israeli economy (whatever that is) is okay, and besides, Israel isn't "really" being attacked at all. J Street is interested only in countering the harm caused by the BDS movement to those with whom they are in solidarity -- the Arab Palestinians. The BDSers are wrong, according to J Street U, because although they are trying to punish Israel, instead they end up harming J Street's favorite victims.
Isn't it finally time for everyone to admit that the fabric of J Street's pro-Israel claim is simply a fabrication?
Lori Lowenthal Marcus is president of Z STREET.
1 Comments on "More J Street B(D)S"
You Can’t Get Much More Anti-Israel Than This
Jennifer Rubin - 10.05.2010 - 12:30 PM
From the inception of J Street, I and other conservatives have argued that its “pro-Israel” label was false. Both in actions and in words it has revealed itself to be in league with Israel’s foes. It has fanned the flames of delegitimization efforts. It has incorporated Hamas’s talking points as its own. It has supported candidates most hostile to Israel and to a robust U.S.-Israel relationship.
In case you had any doubt (but really, who but Ron Kampeas does?), this report should clear things up. “J Street co-founder, advisory board member, and international socialite Daniel Levy” helped escort Richard Goldstone around Capitol Hill, and it was his “ New America Foundation that hosted a high-caliber lunch for Goldstone.”
According to the report, Levy was on an all-star panel of Israel-haters last May (”with Abdel al-Bari Atwan, the editor in chief of al-Quds al-Arabi, NAF Strategic Program Director Steve Clemons, surreal Hamas apologist and one-stater Allister Sparks, and accused terrorist Basheer Nafi”) when he shared this:
One can be a utilitarian two-stater, in other words think that the practical pragmatic way forward is two states. This is my understanding of the current Hamas position. One can be an ideological two-stater, someone who believes in exclusively the Palestinian self-determination and in Zionism; I don’t believe that it’s impossible to have a progressive Zionism. Or one can be a one-stater. But in either of those outcomes we’re going to live next door to each other or in a one state disposition. And that means wrapping one’s head around the humanity of both sides. I believe the way Jewish history was in 1948 excused — for me, it was good enough for me — an act that was wrong. I don’t expect Palestinians to think that. I have no reason — there’s no reason a Palestinian should think there was justice in the creation of Israel.
His remarks also apparently included the assertion that it was ”‘natural’ for Gazans to want to attack Israelis.” I await the denial by Soros Street, the production of the complete transcript, and then the emergence of the pro-J Street spin squad to explain that Levy didn’t really mean what he said. Or J Street doesn’t believe this. Or whatever. But I think those who have given money to J Street or accepted endorsements or cash from it under the pretense that it was a pro-Israel group were defrauded. And I think J Street is kaput.
Soros not Holocaust survivor-he confiscated Jewish property pretending to be gentile
More J Street lies
The Final Lie(s)
Jennifer Rubin - 09.30.2010 - 3:09 PM
The J Streeters, aka Soros Streeters (or should we call them Goldstone Streeters?), keep digging themselves deeper. Lie piled on lie, which begets more lies. Following the latest blockbuster Eli Lake story, they put up a denial on the J Street website from Colette Avital:
I spoke at length to two reporters from the Washington Times Thursday afternoon and told them in no uncertain terms that I did not resign from J Street. In fact, I will be speaking on the organization’s behalf in the coming weeks in the United States and remain proudly affiliated with the group in a consulting role.
Further, I made clear that I was and am completely unaware of any effort by J Street to facilitate visits by Judge Richard Goldstone to Capitol Hill.
Problem: it’s not true. The Washington Times has put out the videotape. Listen for yourself. J Street also posted its own “denial”:
First, the notion that Ms. Avital resigned her post with J Street is completely false. She remains a consultant to us and will be on a speaking tour for our organization in four cities in the Midwest for a full week in October. She and we told the Washington Times this on Thursday, yet hearing it from both of us apparently wasn’t enough to persuade those bent on attacking us from publishing fiction in what some might call a newspaper.
Further, Ms. Avital made it very clear that she had no knowledge that J Street had anything to do with Judge Goldstone’s visit to Washington yet the paper devotes prominent space to charging that we “facilitated” his visit — and she is supposedly their sole source.
And it repeats its earlier statement that “J Street staff spoke to colleagues at the organizations coordinating the meetings and, at their behest, reached out to a handful of Congressional staff to inquire whether Members would be interested in seeing Judge Goldstone. We believed it to be a good idea for him and for members of Congress to meet personally, but we declined to play a role in hosting, convening or attending any of the meetings.” That would be facilitating, right? None of that is true either, as the audiotape confirms.
J Street has sealed its own fate. It’s over.
http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/sep/29/israel-lobby-aided-hill-visits-un-report-author/
By Ben Birnbaum and Eli Lake
The Washington Times
J Street — the self-described pro-Israel, pro-peace lobbying group — facilitated meetings between members of Congress and South African Judge Richard Goldstone, author of a U.N. report that accused the Jewish state of systematic war crimes in its three-week military campaign against Hamas in Gaza.
Colette Avital — a former member of Israel's parliament, from the center-left Labor Party and until recently J Street's liaison in Israel — told The Washington Times that her decision to resign her post with J Street earlier this year was a result in part of the group's "connection to Judge Goldstone."
"When Judge Goldstone came to Washington, [J Street leaders were] suggesting that they might help him set up his appointments on Capitol Hill," she said. Ms. Avital later disavowed knowledge of J Street's dealings with Judge Goldstone during a conference call arranged by J Street's president, Jeremy Ben-Ami.
J Street, which bills itself as a liberal alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), acted on behalf of Judge Goldstone last fall, when the Obama administration was trying to tamp down the report at the United Nations.
The chairman and ranking member of the House Foreign Affairs Committee had also been circulating a bipartisan resolution condemning Judge Goldstone's report before the retired South African jurist came to Washington.
The Goldstone Report is widely viewed as slanderous toward the Israel Defense Forces (IDF) among the American Jewish community and in Israel. It accuses the IDF of deliberately targeting civilians in the ground and air war in Gaza, which resulted in at least 1,000 Palestinian deaths. The White House also has criticized the report.
J Street's promotion of Judge Goldstone in Congress is raising questions about J Street's identity as a pro-Israel organization.
J Street, in its public statements on the Goldstone Report, has neither condemned nor endorsed its substance.
In a statement provided to The Washington Times this week, Mr. Ben-Ami said, "J Street did not host, arrange or facilitate any visit to Washington, D.C., by Judge Richard Goldstone."
He went on to say, however, that "J Street staff spoke to colleagues at the organizations coordinating the meetings and, at their behest, reached out to a handful of congressional staff to inquire whether members would be interested in seeing Judge Goldstone."
He added, "We believed it to be a good idea for him and for members of Congress to meet personally, but we declined to play a role in hosting, convening or attending any of the meetings."
When asked later how many congressional offices had been contacted, a J Street staffer told the Times that it was "two or three." Mr. Ben-Ami later said he did not remember reaching out to Congress at all.
A senior officer of J Street, however, played a central role in arranging Judge Goldstone's visit.
Judge Goldstone told The Times in an interview that he had sought the meetings after a discussion with longtime friend Morton H. Halperin — president of the Open Society Institute (OSI) and one of five senior officers at J Street, according to the group's federal tax returns. Those forms list Mr. Halperin as a "director," and say he spends 10 hours a week on J Street business.
"He suggested — and I agreed — that it would be a good idea for me to meet with some of the leading members of Congress," Judge Goldstone said. "I thought it was important to correct the misimpressions." He added that Mr. Halperin had hand-delivered a personal letter he had written to members of Congress.
Judge Goldstone said he remembers attending "10 or 12" meetings. J Street co-founder Daniel Levy, who accompanied the judge to several of the parleys, said that the New America Foundation (NAF) — whose Middle East Task Force he co-chairs — had also hosted a lunch with Judge Goldstone for "a group of analysts and Middle East wonks." The judge, Mr. Levy, and J Street all declined to identify the members of Congress.
All three organizations associated with Judge Goldstone's visit to Washington — J Street, NAF and OSI — receive substantial funding from Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros, a fierce critic of AIPAC and Israeli policies.
OSI controls nearly $2 billion in assets provided by Mr. Soros over the years. NAF, in turn, received $855,000 from OSI in 2009, though the money was not set aside for the think tank's Middle East program. The Times disclosed last week that J Street had received $750,000 from Mr. Soros and his family despite repeated denials from the group that it had received any funding from Mr. Soros in the past.
Judge Goldstone said that he "was keen to meet with [members of Congress] because of what I considered to be both an unfortunate and factually incorrect resolution." J Street said at the time that it was "unable to support" the resolution as written. It subsequently passed the House by a vote of 344-36.
The United Nations' Human Rights Council appointed Judge Goldstone to lead its "Fact-Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict" in April 2009, nearly four months after the conflict ended.
The 575-page document that followed accused both Israel and Hamas of "war crimes" and "possible crimes against humanity" and urged both parties to conduct credible investigations into allegations of wrongdoing.
But even Israeli human rights organizations that cooperated with Judge Goldstone's commission criticized the final report.
"I was disturbed by the framing of Israel's military operation as part of 'an overall policy aimed at punishing the Gaza population for its resilience,'" wrote Jessica Montell, executive director of B'Tselem, Israel's leading human rights group, in the Huffington Post after the report's release. "The facts presented in the report itself would not seem to support such a far-reaching conclusion. In light of the sweeping conclusions regarding Israel, the very careful phrasing regarding Hamas abuses is particularly conspicuous."
Israel did not cooperate with Judge Goldstone's commission.
The report instantly made the judge political poison in some quarters in Israel. Israel's prime minister, Benjamin Netanyahu, famously said last year that Israel faces three major threats — "the Iranian nuclear program, rockets aimed at our civilians, and Goldstone" — while its president, Shimon Peres, said that the report "gives de facto legitimacy to terrorist initiatives and ignores the obligation and right of every country to defend itself."
Most of the organized American Jewish community, from left to right, echoed the criticism.
"Our organization joined a wide spectrum of Jewish Democrats on Capitol Hill in vocally condemning the Goldstone Report for what it was — namely, a one-sided attack on Israel," said David Harris, president and CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council. "I would argue that the Goldstone Report was less of a left-versus-right issue than a simple issue of right and wrong."
Mr. Ben-Ami, in his statement to The Times, noted that J Street "criticized the process at the U.N. Human Rights Council that led to his report and urged the U.S. to veto a possible Security Council resolution based on the report." Mr. Ben-Ami, however, would not condemn or endorse the report's substance.
Judge Goldstone has said since the release of his report that he would urge international prosecutions against Israeli officials if they were not held accountable in Israel.
Ms. Avital, who initially said she was troubled by J Street's ties to Judge Goldstone, is scheduled as a guest speaker at J Street events next month.
After speaking with Mr. Ben-Ami, Ms. Avital changed her story during a conference call and said, "About Goldstone I am very firm, I don't know anything about J Street organizing things in the United States. There may have been disagreements about how we each saw the Goldstone Report. I never mentioned that they organized these things for Goldstone."
However, The Times has an audio recording of the conversation that contradicts her later statements.
Ms. Avital said during the initial interview that she continues to think J Street "is a good organization."
"We didn't always see eye to eye on their priorities, including in Israel, so we parted ways — as friends," she said.
"I really don't want to speak about my agreements or disagreements with them," she said. "Honestly, I think they have enough problems as it is."
end of J STREET?
The White House appears to be distancing itself from the liberal advocacy group J Street that it once embraced as its envoy to the U.S. Jewish community after disclosures that nearly half the group's funding for 2008 came from a single Hong Kong donor.
White House spokesman Thomas Vietor declined to comment when asked on Monday if the White House would continue its past practice of inviting J Street's leaders to take part in conference calls with senior White House officials and to other White House events, and whether senior Obama administration officials would take part in future J Street conferences.
Retired Marine Corps Gen. James L. Jones, President Obama's national security adviser, was the keynote speaker at J Street's inaugural convention in 2009. At the convention, he said: "You can be sure this administration will be represented at all future conferences."
Jeremy Ben Ami, J Street's executive director, once described his organization as Mr. Obama's "blocking back" in Congress and a progressive alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC).
Reaction to J Street's funding sources intensified in recent days after The Washington Times reported on Friday that the group received $750,000 from Hungarian-born billionaire George Soros and his family. The Times obtained copies of J Street's federal tax documents that also disclosed how nearly half of J Street's revenue from July 2008 to June 2009 - a total of $811,697 - came from a single donor in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, named Consolacion Esdicul.
J Street's Mr. Ben Ami said that Ms. Esdicul gave the money to J Street in multiple wire transfers at the behest of William Benter, a Pittsburgh-based philanthropist and the CEO of Acusis, a medical-services company.
In an interview Monday, Rep. Eric Cantor, Virginia Republican and House minority whip, said: "The White House needs to disassociate itself from J Street, denounce J Street and cut off all ties."
Mr. Cantor, the only Jewish Republican in the House, added that "I am hopeful this revelation will now cause people to begin to ignore what they say. They are not reflecting the mainstream position of the pro-Israel community in America, nor do I think they help benefit the U.S.-Israel relationship."
One issue dogging J Street in the Jewish community is its support from Mr. Soros, who has given billions of dollars to political causes he supports since the mid-1980s. Mr. Soros, through the Open Society Institute, supported a number of former Soviet satellite states and provinces in the transition from dictatorship to democracy. He has also been a key funding source for liberal causes in the United States, giving large donations to Moveon.org, among others.
In a 2007 article in the New York Review of Books, Mr. Soros urged the Democratic Party to free itself from the influence of AIPAC and said that Howard Dean did not win his party's nomination in 2004 because he was not sufficiently pro-Israel.
Malcolm Hoenlein, executive vice chairman of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, said Monday that The Times story was important because it exposed how Mr. Soros was funding J Street despite previous denials from the group.
Mr. Ben Ami has not said he lied. He did, however, state in a note to supporters on Sunday: "I accept responsibility personally for being less than clear about Mr. Soros' support once he did become a donor."
Mr. Hoenlein said "this is further evidence of the duplicity that they have manifested all along, portraying themselves as something they are not, and engaging in attacks against others when they should have been taking care of their own house."
"I certainly think it was wrong that they did not talk about Soros from the beginning," said Rabbi Steve Gutow, president of the Jewish Council for Public Affairs.
"I don't think this is the end of J Street, though. From my experience, they have been very helpful. When the divestment campaign was in full swing at Berkeley, J Street weighed in effectively in opposition to the effort to get the university to divest from Israel," he said.
m/daily/daily.asp#blog-496297
J Street Exposed
Lies, lies, and more lies.
SHARETHIS
2:32 PM, Sep 24, 2010 ·
BY MICHAEL GOLDFARB
The self-described “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J Street has always insisted that its funding comes entirely from Americans, and largely from American Jews. The group has also made a point of knocking down speculation that it takes money from liberal financier George Soros, who has never been particularly supportive of the State of Israel.
In the past, J Street chief Jeremy Ben-Ami has told journalists that Soros had no role in the organization other than participating in one early meeting. Per the AP in 2009, “Ben-Ami says liberal philanthropist George Soros attended a 2006 meeting where ideas for such a group were discussed but bowed out immediately, worried his involvement would draw criticism.” The Myth vs. Fact section of the J Street website makes clear that "George Soros very publicly stated his decision not to be engaged in J Street when it was launched — precisely out of fear that his involvement would be used against the organization."
An just six months ago, Ben-Ami told Moment Magazine, “We got tagged as having his support, without the benefit of actually getting funded!”
It turns out that J Street was straight out lying. Eli Lake reports today that J Street has in fact taken at some $750,000 from Soros over a three year period. Soros had been a major donor to the group since day one, and Ben-Ami had obviously been confident that would remain confidential information otherwise he, presumably, wouldn’t have lied so brazenly.
Moreover, as Lake reports, “Nearly half of J Street's revenue during the timeframe — a total of $811,697 — however, came from a single donor in Happy Valley, Hong Kong, named Consolacion Esdicul.”
Lake reports:
"She is trying to make the Middle East a Happy Valley," Mr. Ben Ami said. "She is a business associate of Bill Benter and Bill solicited her for the contribution." Happy Valley is a Hong Kong suburb.
President Obama and the White House have expressed concerns about untraced foreign influence on the U.S. political system through donations to tax-exempt "501(c)(4)" nonprofit organizations in recent months.
J Street is a 501(c)(4) organization that is allowed to remain tax-exempt as long its political activities are not the primary purpose of the group. J Street also has formed a political action committee, or PAC, the standard way for interest groups, corporations and labor unions to contribute directly to political candidates and parties.
Mr. Ben Ami said he agreed with Mr. Obama "about the need for overall reform of the influence of money in our system. But 501(c)(4)s are allowed to accept money from foreign nationals."
So as Obama is off crusading against the imagined threat of conservative foreign-funded third-party groups, here’s J Street, with its close ties to the administration, caught red-handed. Again, from the J Street website:
J Street receives no funding from any foreign government or agent - Arab or otherwise. J Street has no formal association with any other organizations - Arab or other.
Nearly all of J Street's funding comes from Jewish Americans who seek peace and security for Israel and the whole Middle East. A small percentage of J Street's funding comes from non-Jewish Americans who share our desire for peace and security for all people in the Middle East and support the right of the Jewish people to a secure and democratic home in Israel.
Nearly half of J Street’s operating budget comes from a foreign national, but the group represents itself as being funded almost entirely by American Jews and by a few non-Jewish Americans – with “no funding from any foreign government or agent.” It’s all lies!
Of course, this funding would normally be shielded from disclosure but was, either through some lapse by J Street or the IRS (and it’s not clear which), somehow made public. J Street’s response was to try and get ahead of the story by dumping it in the lap of an unsuspecting reporter as evidence of their fundraising success. But they even screwed that up. Minutes after Lake’s story was published, Atlantic reporter Chris Good put up a post titled “Raising More Money, J Street Discloses Big Donors.” “In an interview with The Atlantic,” Good said, “Ben-Ami discussed J Street's fundraising momentum and who the group's biggest donors are, including nonpublicized funding for the group's 501(c)4 nonprofit.”
Thankfully for J Street, there’s one born every minute.
J Street Unmasked
Jennifer Rubin - 09.16.2010 - 3:23 PM
The Washington Jewish Week reveals just how far off the path J Street has wandered from its ostensible purpose:
J Street — the self-professed “pro-Israel, pro-peace” group — appears to have waded further into domestic waters in recent weeks with the launch of a website assailing “neoconservatives and far-right evangelical Christians” for purporting to speak on behalf of the Jewish community. …
J Street’s website, www.theydontspeakforus.com, purports to expose Bauer and Kristol as far-right extremists who are out of sync with the majority of American Jews by outlining the pair’s views on a range of foreign and domestic policy issues.
Among other topics — such as the Gaza Strip and Iraq war — the site highlights the pair’s stances on gay marriage, a woman’s right to choose, Sarah Palin, the Tea Party movement and the separation of church and state.
What does all that have to do with Israel? Not much — and it has confused even the Democrats:
“This [J Street] website confuses me,” said Ira Forman, an independent consultant who recently stepped down as the CEO of the National Jewish Democratic Council. “To me, if you are trying to push a pro-Israel, pro-peace message, you want to be non-ideological and nonpartisan. … But when you use these terms [such as gay marriage and others], it’s making Israel a partisan wedge issue. I don’t understand how that helps the central mission of J Street.” (Forman made it clear that he was speaking on his own behalf, and not the NJDC’s.) Added another pro-Israel Democratic operative, who was not authorized by his employer to speak on the record: The website “takes away from some of J Street’s legitimacy as a foreign policy voice when they buttress their arguments with domestic issues.”
“What J Street is saying is people who don’t support gay marriage and who are pro-life are out of the mainstream Jewish community. That is a fact, but it has nothing to do with their support for Israel,” the source said. “Is J Street saying you can’t have an individual who’s pro-life, anti-gay” also be “supportive of the state of Israel?”
OK, so let’s all be clear here. J Street is a leftist group, not a pro-Israel one. And for leftist Jews the mantra is: global warming is killing the planet, abortion on demand must be protected, and Israel is wrong on [fill in the blank]. Once you have that straight, its website and ongoing Israel-bashing make perfect sense. Meanwhile, is it relevant? The reporter seems skeptical:
But if the group is to increase its political clout, it needs to demonstrate that it’s not simply an Obama administration tool, said an official with a pro-Israel organization who agreed to speak only on background. “There is a sense in the pro-Israel community — and there have been complaints — that J Street has not [made] a fair effort to show bipartisanship.”
So far in the 2010 election cycle, JStreetPAC, the group’s political action committee, has distributed nearly $1 million to 60 Democratic candidates and one Republican.
Yeah, not too bipartisan. (And that one Republican? Why, it’s the longtime Israel critic Charles Boustany.) Meanwhile, it’s not clear J Street is even a tool of the Obami. Since the later went on the charm offensive and dropped the settlement freeze as a precondition for talks, J Street hasn’t even been in sync with the administration. So I’m still stumped: who does J Street speak for?
Precedent for Rabbis thwarting Israel in the US govt.
From eretzisraelforever.net
*The official Zionist organization in America was throughout the war a dismal and unmitigated failure.
***In all those bitter years of terrible challenge there is not a single bright interval in the monotonous history of its inaction and pettiness.
In early 1943, Emanuel Newman, a veteran leader of the more activist wing, resigned from the American Emergency Committee for Zionist Affairs.
Among the reasons he gave was:
“Recurrent factional and personal differences; vacillation in policy and action, failure to adopt a comprehensive programme of activities.”
In brief – bankruptcy.
There was however a deeper reason for this persistent decline.
The leadership of the Organization and particularly its central figure, Rabbi Stephen S. Wise, subordinated themselves to the desires of the American State Department.
The State Department was traditionally opposed to Zionism, throughout the war cooperated loyally with the British.
There was no counterweight to the State Department at the White House (as there was to be in the Truman era).
Traditionally American official support for Zionism did impose certain public obligations on a President, certainly on a President from the Democratic Party with its traditionally larger share of the Jewish vote.
*Hence the messages of stereotyped benevolence published on the eve of Jewish Festivals, or sent to Zionist gatherings where fellow-Democrat Stephen Wise presided; hence the more serious action designed to show concern for the Jewish lot or, as had sometimes happened, to offer mild reproof to London on some specially obnoxious manifestation of British policy in Palestine.
For Zionism, in its profound political and historic implications, Roosevelt had no sympathy.
After the United States had reached agreement with Ibn Saud for her exploitation of the gigantic oil resources of his desert kingdom, Roosevelt ensured that nothing should be done which might seriously disturb Ibn Saud’s anti-Zionist equanimity.
(see IZL proclamations – this is why the undergrounds attacked oil refineries)
Ibn Saud himself later told the members of the Anglo-American Committee on Palestine who visited him that when, at their famous meeting in Egypt in February 1945 he had unbraided Roosevelt for supporting Jewish immigration, Roosevelt had replied:
“… I neither ordered nor approved of the immigration of Jews to Palestine, nor is it possible that I should approve it.”
Roosevelt himself at a Press Conference after the meeting with Ibn Saud remarked that he had learnt more about Palestine from Ibn Saud in five minutes than he had learnt in a lifetime, a not so cryptic remark which said little for the official American Zionists who claimed to have his ear.
A succinct portrayal of the face of Zionism in the United States during the war was made by Rabbi Abba Hillel Silver, then already the most dynamic of the Zionist leaders.
At the end of 1944 Silver lobbied Congressional Committees to pass a pro-Zionist resolution.
The State Department did not like this.
They communicated their dislike to Rabbi Wise, who sent a telegram to the State Department which could be used to influence members of Congress.
In it he (Rabbi Wise) wrote that he and many associates did not wish action to be taken on the resolutions contrary to the recommendations of the State Department and President.
The Under-Secretary of State, Stettinius, showed Silver the telegram.
*“This” wrote Silver in a public statement “more than any other factor was responsible for shelving the Palestine resolutions. Dr. Wise’s shtadlanut in Washington has been an egregious failure for many years, not only as far as Zionism is concerned. This weak-kneed shtadlanut policy has accomplished next to nothing for our people during these tragic years of slaughter and annihilation.”
Most significant of the temper of the Organization was that in the subsequent vote Wise, and not Silver, was upheld.
Dershowitz sees problems with the accuracy of J Street’s ads:
There is no love lost between Alan Dershowitz and J Street. Dershowitz is very mad about J Street’s hit piece, which includes him among its foes (conservative Zionists, of course): “J Street continues to destroy its credibility by posting deceptive and divisive ads of this kind. If they are willing to mislead the public in this manner, they should not be trusted to tell the truth about anything relating to Israel. They are more interested in increasing their own power and contributions than they are in supporting Israel or promoting truthful dialogue. If they want to have any chance at restoring their credibility, they must begin to tell the truth. A good first step would be to remove this ad and admit that it was fraudulent. Otherwise, everyone will begin to understand what the J in J Street stands for: Joe McCarthy.”
J Street Can’t Help Itself
Jennifer Rubin - 07.19.2010 - 7:27 AM
J Street more often than not (except on college campuses) says it is pro-peace and pro-Israel. Its actions suggestion otherwise. The telltale sign: its criticism is almost exclusively reserved for Israel and for critics of Obama’s Israel policy. A case in point:
J Street called for an investigation into American charities that fund Israeli settlement activity
J Street, the self-proclaimed political home for “pro-Israel, pro-peace Americans,” launched a campaign Monday calling on the U.S. Treasury Department to look into whether organizations named in a July 6 New York Times report have broken the law. The report identified more than 40 U.S. organizations that have collected over $200 million in tax-deductible gifts for schools, synagogues and recreation centers in the West Bank and eastern Jerusalem.
Why is this a subject of any investigation — is there something at issue here other than a demand that the government investigate its political opponents?
But put that aside for a moment. Why doesn’t J Street call for an investigation of CAIR and of the government’s refusal to sever all contact with that group, some of whose officials have been indicted for terrorism? (It would make J Street’s endorsement of Joe Sestak, who keynoted for the group, a little sticky.) Why no call to investigate NIAC? Why aren’t the J Street “pro-peace, pro-Israel” types calling for an investigation of IHH and the Turkish government, whose support for the flotilla terrorists led to the death of nine?
Hey, if it really wanted to make sure no one is undermining the “peace process,” J Street could disclose the sources of its own funding,
> US PR firm paid to demonize Israel-J Street's Exec Dir old firm where he was senior vp
> Think about this: there is at least one American business that is paid to demonize Israel .
>
>
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> The employees, well-paid professionals, go to work every day and think up ways to make Israel look like a moral monster, a rogue state dangerous to world peace for which the only remedy — as in the case of Nazi Germany, Imperial Japan or apartheid South Africa — is more than just regime change, rather, a fundamental change in the nature of the polity which can only be effected by force.
>
> They are creative people and they know their jobs. Their trade is building or wrecking the public images of politicians, products, organizations, companies and even nations.
>
> Today their goal is to prevent the Jewish state from defending itself by creating a mass of public opinion that sees its self-defense as war crimes. To prevent the Jewish state from defending itself, so that its enemies can finally succeed in doing what they have been trying to do since Israel was born, destroy it.
> They are Fenton Communications, and they are working on their current project as diligently as they did for MoveOn.org, The Body Shop, Greenpeace, Ben and Jerry’s and numerous other clients:
>
>
>
> Fenton Communications, which has offices in Washington, D.C., New York, and San Francisco, signed two contracts last year with Qatar to develop “a communications action plan for an 18-month campaign” aimed at delegitimizing Israel and generating international support for the Hamas-run Gaza strip, documents filed with the Department of Justice show.
>
> The campaign, known as the “Al Fakhoora Project,” has a very visible Web presence that boasts of rallying 10,000 activists “against the blockade on Gaza .”
>
> Fenton signed the contracts, worth more than $390,000, with the Office of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah Bint Nasser Al-Missned, the wife of the Qatari ruler, and a separate foundation she chairs. The contracts are ongoing, according to Fenton’s Foreign Agent registration forms…
>
> The cash from Qatar bought a sophisticated U.S. media campaign aimed at manipulating public opinion to generate support for the Hamas-led government and the people of the Gaza strip.
> It also included a full-scale fundraising effort aimed at generating a war chest of up to $100 million in addition to the money the Qatari sheikha provided. — Ken Timmerman
>
>
> You can see Fenton’s registration as a foreign agent here(h/t: The Israel Project). I’ve extracted the part which describes more work to be performed by Fenton this year:
>
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> http://fresnozionism.org/wp-content/uploads/2010/06/fenton.jpg
>
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> Extract from Fenton contract for Al Fakhoora project
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> Here is the top-notch website built for Her Highness by Fenton.
>
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> Fenton specializes in what they call “The Active Idea”: in this case the idea appears to be that Israel ’s naval blockade and other restrictions on Hamas-controlled Gaza obstructs the ‘right to learn’ of Gaza ’s children, thus denying them their human rights. In fact, the campaign has little to do with education per se, and everything to do with demonizing Israel .
>
> A video statement made by Al Fakhoora’s director, Farooq Burney, describes his experiences as a passenger on one of the ships of the Free Gaza Flotilla (I presume that it was theMavi Marmara, because he claims to have been next to a ‘peaceful activist’ who was shot to death). He claims that the passengers were attacked, etc. and asks that people ‘pressurize’ [sic] their governments to ‘punish’ Israel and to ‘bring them to justice’. He also asks that we sign a declaration demanding that all ships be allowed to land at Gaza without interference. So much for education.
>
> Fenton also worked with The Council on American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) in 2005 to “improve public understanding of the American Muslim community, promote pluralism, and inject the points of view of American Muslims into the national conversation.” Note that CAIR has been shown to have close connections with Hamas.
> Of course, it’s entirely irrelevant to mention that Jeremy Ben Ami, director of the fake ‘pro-Israel’ group J Street, was a Senior Vice President at Fenton immediately before joining J Street . Right.
>
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> http://fresnozionism.org/2010/06/us-pr-firm-paid-to-demonize-israel/
>
Haaretzetz Disses J Street
Jennifer Rubin - 07.17.2010 - 8:00 AM
Sounds like a joke: J Street has become so transparently partisan and so sycophantic when it comes to Obama’s Middle East policy that even the left-leaning Haaretz runs a scathing review of the leftist group. But it’s no joke:
J Street, the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” lobby, ran its first television commercial last week in the United States. Watching the ad online (it can be viewed via a link on my own organization’s website, www.rethinkme.org) confirmed my worst suspicions about this new organization, which likes to portray itself as the “real voice” of the mainstream American Jewish community. …
Photos of Hillary Clinton and David Petraeus also appear on-screen, accompanied by the words, “Say ‘yes’ to American leadership. Join the community of ‘yes.’” So “American leadership” in the Middle East is personified by the president, the secretary of state and the new commander of U.S. troops in Afghanistan. …
This commercial is a classic Democratic campaign ad, pitting the evil Republicans (”the chorus of ‘no’”) against the good guys, the Democrats (”the community of ‘yes’”). For the purposes of the ad, the general has been promoted to the rank of honorary Democrat, despite his reputed Republican voter registration.
As the columnist Michael Lame (founder of a nonpartisan group, Re-Think The Middle East) notes, there are lots of other leftist groups, but J Street is in a class by itself:
J Street is specifically an Obama support group, playing the part of a cheering section for the president to such an extent that the organization could be renamed “Jews for Obama.” It has consistently supported his approach to the Middle East even when most commentators who support a two-state solution have criticized his administration’s tactics and timing. Through the last year and a half of White House bumbling and fumbling over the settlement freeze, J Street never once criticized Obama, Mitchell, Clinton or the entire strategy of talking tough to Israel, coupled with toothless threats and inept performance.
It is not merely that, unlike AIPAC, “J Street will not defend Israel unconditionally” or even that “J Street will defend Obama unconditionally.” It is that J Street continually criticizes Israel on the same grounds as Israel’s international enemies do and often parrots their rhetoric, specifically the assertion that Israel is not equipped or entitled as other democratic states to manage and — if need be — investigate its own national-security operations. Indeed, J Street takes the position that it, and not the elected government of Israel, knows best what is “good” for Israel on everything — from settlements to the flotilla incident.
It is ironic that the left went bonkers when ECI appeared on the scene, accusing the pro-Israel group of “politicizing” Israel policy. That’s rich, given what J Street does:
The main problem here is that J Street tries to turn peace in the Middle East into a proprietary issue of the Democrats, while it vilifies the Republicans as the enemies of peace. … So what’s wrong with J Street? It mixes up its views on the issues with domestic party politics.
Presbyterians think J Street is an ally as compare Israel to nazis
Compliment in Presbyterian Report Embarrasses J-Street
by Gil Ronen
Follow Israel news on and .
The General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church (USA) convening in Minneapolis will debate this week whether to endorse an official church study committee report that compares Israel to the worst regimes of the 20th century, including Nazi Germany. The report, which also mentions ultra-liberal Jewish lobby group J Street as a sign of “hope,” seems to have embarrassed that group.
J Street Vice President Rachel Lerner called out to the Presbyterians to reject the 'study.' She said that the report’s authors never consulted her group before choosing to mention it.
J Street Founder's PR Firm Represents Qatar Group Involved in Gaza Flotilla
Jeremy Ben Ami has always denied any current connection with regard to himself and his former employer, Fenton Communications (let the record show), but it certainly is worth remarking upon that J Street's reaction to the "flotilla" matter was (OK, as per usual) an outlier in the Jewish Community. Their reaction has actually been what one would expect from an anti-Israel lobbying group like CNI, AJJP, JVP, or others. That is, rather than standing up for Israel and her fight against Hamas, and helping to explain the hard realities that Israel is faced with and the difficult decisions that those realities engender for her, J Street in fact jumped on the criticize Israel bandwagon. They took the opportunity of an Israel under stress to pile on the pressure and push for more Israeli concessions -- just as if they were really working for the other side.
I'm not stating that they were -- formally -- doing so, but it certainly comes as no surprise that Fenton Communications represents a Qatari-based group that supported the Gaza Flotilla. I wonder how much contact Jeremy has with his old colleagues: U.S. PR Firm on Payroll of Qatari Group that Took Part in Gaza Flotilla - Qatar-based Initiative Encouraged Action against Israel
A U.S. Justice Department document shows that Fenton Communications, a U.S. public relations firm, has been working for "Al Fakhoora," a Qatar-based pro-Palestinian initiative that participated in the illegal flotilla to Gaza last month and urged action against Israel.[1]
According the group's director, Al Fakhoora has "launched an advocacy campaign to file legal charges against Israel and change the public perception in the West about its actions."[2]
Al Fakhoora is supported by the office of Her Highness Sheikha Mozah bint Nasser Al Missned, the second wife of the emir of Qatar.[3] According to a document filed by Fenton under the Foreign Agents Registration Act of 1938, Her Highness' office agreed to pay Fenton approximately $240,000 for communications services rendered from March 1 - Aug. 31, 2010.[4]
Fenton distributes materials through Al Fakhoora's Web site, which includes a Facebook page[5] and a "Flotilla Action Alert" urging activists to oppose Israel's blockade on Hamas-controlled Gaza.[6]...
...Al Fakhoora's director, Farooq Burney, a Canadian national, was aboard a Turkish ship in the Gaza-bound convoy when passengers attacked Israeli military personnel trying to intercept the vessel May 31.[10] Al Fakhoora participated in the flotilla in partnership with the Insani Yardim Vakfi, or "humanitarian relief fund" (IHH),[11] a Turkish organization that Israel and other countries believe has ties to jihadist groups.[12] The Israel Defense Forces (IDF) has said that some of the passengers have connections with Al Qaeda, Hamas and other terrorist organizations.[13]...
uesday, July 6, 2010
dispicable J Street ad
By: Dan Halper
Weekly Standard
07/06/10 3:50 PM EDT
How does J Street welcome Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu to town? By politicizing American support for Israel. In a new ad said to air nationally (on al-Jazeera English maybe?), the group makes a silly attempt to ‘juxtapose’ those who say ‘yes’ to peace with those who say….well, it’s tough to find anyone in the U.S. who opposes peace, so J Street just slanders staunch supporters of Israel whose staunch support offends their delicate sensibilities.
The folks J Street places in the two camps are predictable enough. President Barack Obama, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton, and General David Petraeus are on the ‘yes’ team. (See? They even have a military guy on board!) As for the ‘no’ team, that would be Sarah Palin, Joe Lieberman, Congressman Mike Pence, and others.
Obama, who is quoted as saying, “Two states living side by side in peace and security,” represents the ‘yes’ team. But here’s the thing: Those named as part of the ‘no’ team are also in favor of a two state solution to end the conflict in Israel.
Here’s Lieberman’s position:
Advancing the Middle East Peace Process. Senator Lieberman believes that the United States should continue to take an active role in negotiating a peaceful resolution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Specifically, he maintains that a two-state solution – in which Israel lives side by side in peace with a democratic Palestinian state – ultimately provides the only appropriate framework for resolving this longstanding challenge.
Here’s Sarah Palin, from the 2008 vice presidential debate with Joe Biden:
PALIN: A two-state solution is the solution.
So, what we’re left with is a totally dishonest ad.
J Street’s agenda isn’t hard to see. As reported in today’s Washington Post:
Israeli Ambassador Michael B. Oren said some moves in recent months, including a letter critical of the Gaza blockade signed by 54 congressional Democrats, have left the impression that Israel is “becoming a partisan issue,” with Republicans being uniformly supportive where Democrats are not.
Who circulated this letter critical of the blockade of Gaza around the House? That would be J Street, of course.
One might also note that the team behind the ad includes Meretz U.S.A. – the American arm of the hippy-dippy left-wing eco-party that holds all of three seats in the Israeli Knesset. Other members of the “Yes Community,” according to J Street, are “Congress” and “American Jews.” Funny, then, that more than 327 members of the House signed a letter to the administration this spring urging Hillary Clinton to do precisely what J Street attacks Joe Lieberman for in the ad – to settle any differences “quietly, in trust and confidence, as befits longstanding strategic allies.”
But perhaps the most despicable element of this ad is the use of an image showing General Petraeus in uniform and implying that he somehow supports J Street’s anti-Israel positions. In the past, the left has gone nuts whenever images of Petraeus were used in political ads to imply his endorsement or support — and the Pentagon hasn’t taken kindly to it either.
Really scary
J Street expects to raise $1 million for candidates
JTA
J Street’s political action committee has raised $650,000 so far for this year’s elections and is backing a slate of 61 candidates, including 10 Jewish lawmakers.
A statement Thursday from the dovish pro-Israel lobby’s PAC said that it expected to raise $1 million this cycle.
In its first election cycle, in 2008, J Street backed 41 candidates and spent $829,000, according to Open Secrets, a group that tracks spending in elections, making it the most successful pro-Israel PAC.
Among Jewish candidates, J Street added to its endorsees two longstanding lawmakers: Rep. Gary Ackerman (D-N.Y.) who chairs the U.S. House of Representatives Middle East subcommittee, and Sen. Russell Feingold (D-Wis.).
It lost endorsee Rep. Adam Schiff (D-Calif.). A handful of candidates have rejected J Street support after encountering hostility to its views among constituents.
J Street backs an assertive U.S. role in peacemaking that includes pressure on Israelis and Arabs.
J Street is soliciting U.S. rabbis and rabbinical students to sign a “Rabbinic letter” expressing the hope that “the rhetoric and actions that feed fear and violence, emanating from both Israeli and Palestinian leaders, will soon give way to bold leadership.” The letter’s only specific suggestion is that Israel end its “counter-productive blockade of Gaza’s citizens.”
A large number of rabbis have already signed the letter and J Street plans to publish it in the Forward next week with a list of signers.
The problem in Gaza is not the Israeli blockade, but the fact that Gaza is currently ruled by a gang officially designated by the U.S. State Department as a terrorist organization, which is an Iranian proxy that took over Gaza in a bloody coup, is dedicated to the destruction of Israel, is in a state of war with Israel, and is smuggling weapons in order to attack it.
Israel has not only the right under international law but an obligation to its own citizens to impose a blockade to insure that nothing other than humanitarian goods are imported into Gaza -- unless and until Hamas ends its state of war. Many nations have and do so.
The signatory rabbis are relying on the Torah of Liberalism rather than that other one.
J Street betrays Israel again
J Street Weighs In
Noah Pollak - 05.31.2010 - 2:10 PM
You knew this was coming, didn’t you? Jeremy Ben-Ami:
With details still emerging and propaganda spinning furiously on all sides — one simple truth stands clear to us: today’s events are the natural outgrowth of the larger, ongoing failure to resolve this conflict peacefully through a two-state solution. …
J Street is deeply shocked and saddened by reports that at least 10 civilians have been killed and dozens more wounded (including Israeli soldiers) this morning as Israel intercepted a naval convoy bringing humanitarian supplies and construction materials to the Gaza Strip.
We express our condolences to the families of those killed and we wish the injured a full and speedy recovery. …
This shocking outcome of an effort to bring humanitarian relief to the people of Gaza is in part a consequence of the ongoing, counterproductive Israeli blockade of Gaza. [Emphasis added]
I am puzzled — what exactly is Ben-Ami referring to as “propaganda”? There are claims that the Islamist lynch mob aboard one of the ships is actually a group of “peace activists.” Mahmoud Abbas says that the IDF “slaughtered” the “peace activists.” When the Gaza war started in 2008, J Street said that there was no difference between terrorists trying to murder Israeli civilians and the Israeli military trying to stop those attacks. Here we have another easy slide into moral equivalence.
It is a classically demented J Street product: there is moral equivalence; the refusal to place blame on the guilty party; the eager repetition of Islamist propaganda by classifying terrorists as civilians; outright sympathy with the lynch mob, which J Street incorrectly says was composed of civilians, and the expression of condolences for those who tragically lost their lives as they tried to beat and stab Jews to death; and, ultimately, the laying of blame on Israel, which created this whole situation in the first place with its cruel and pointless Gaza blockade.
This is your pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby.
Open Letter to J-Street after their Attack on Elie Wiesel
By Shmuley Boteach
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of J-Street.
Pity Jeremy Ben-Ami, the hapless head of J-Street, the we-condemn-Israel-constantly-because-of-how-much-we-love-it lobby.
In the recent tension between the Obama Administration and the Jewish state over Jews building in Jerusalem, the pro-Israel camp was represented by Elie Wiesel whose full-pages ads in major American newspapers criticized President Obama’s ban on Jews living anywhere in the holy city. The letter, as with everything Wiesel writes, was haunting, stirring, and deeply personal. “For me, the Jew that I am, Jerusalem is above politics. It is mentioned more than six hundred times in Scripture and not a single time in the Koran. Its presence in Jewish history is overwhelming. There is no more moving prayer in Jewish history than the one expressing our yearning to return to Jerusalem… The first song I heard was my mother’s lullaby about and for Jerusalem.”
The letter, by one of America’s most celebrated citizens, caused such angst in the White House that President Obama changed his schedule to invite the Nobel Peace laureate to a private kosher lunch in order not to appear out of sync with the Jewish prophet. Like Lyndon Johnson who panicked when he lost Walter Cronkite over Vietnam, Obama understood that losing Wiesel over his Middle East policy spelled almost certain doom.
But while the President behaved courteously, Ben-Ami did precisely the opposite. Not content with Judaism’s greatest living personality having the last word, the J-Street head quickly went into action and responded to Wiesel with full page ads of a bizarre editorial by Yossi Sarid, the former Meretz politician, utterly unknown to the American public whom Ben-Ami is seeking to influence. The man who Oprah travelled to Auschwitz with and chose his book Night as a main selection of her book club and whose novels are studied in the world’s leading Universities was dismissed by Sarid as being a writer ignorant of current events. “You know much about the heavenly Jerusalem but less so about its counterpart here on earth.”
Sarid was only getting started. Next he accused Wiesel of being naïve and easily misled. ‘Someone has deceived you, my dear friend.’ Sarid’s friendship would intensify two paragraphs later when he accused the man revered around the world as humanity’s most eloquent voice for the oppressed as a religious fanatic ‘imbuing our current conflict with messianic hues.’ Finally, not content with his dismissal of Wiesel as ignorant, naïve, and fanatical, he could help himself but conclude that Wiesel is not only confused but intentionally sought to mislead and misinform others. ‘It is unfortunate that a man of your standing must confuse fundamental issues and confound the reader.’
How unfortunate that Ben-Ami and Sarid were not able to forewarn the gullible American president not to invite the ignorant holocaust survivor to lunch and to instead send Air Force One to pick up the encyclopedic, peace-loving, temperate Sarid instead!
Which brings me back to Jeremy Ben-Ami, whom I would now like to address directly.
“Jeremy, my dear Jewish brother. Since the launch of J-Street not long ago you have tried hard, like any effective CEO, to make a name for your organization and capture headlines. The method you have used, however, appears to involve a cavalcade of insults and attacks. And while this has worked in the short term, knowing just a little bit about PR myself, I am fairly certain that it will backfire in the long run.
“Last September I wrote a column commenting on your quotations in a New York Times Magazine feature where you insulted all staunch American Jewish supporters of Israel as paranoids who believe that the world is filled with murderous anti-Semites. Surely that kind of character assassination is not only unnecessary but, I would argue, indicative of significant insecurity about your message. Not that I blame you. I realize that you have the most difficult job of any Jewish organizational head in the world, namely, running an organization that purports to be pro-Israel but invariably finds itself in the company of Israel’s worst enemies and critics.
But even so I never believed that someone as media-savvy as you would make the mistake of spending your valuable money on full pages ads attacking Elie Wiesel. That, my brother, is pure suicide.
“I twice hosted Prof. Wiesel at Oxford University for public lectures where more than 2000 non-Jewish students hung on his every word. I took him to lecture to the Mormon Church in Utah where thousands more felt awed to simply stand in the same room as him, and just a few months ago I hosted him in New York City on a panel with my friends Dr. Mehmet Oz and Mayor Cory Booker of Newark at a seminar on values where you could hear a pin drop from the more than one thousand people who stood in line to hear him. In each of these forums people from all walks of life came to bask in the light of the man regarded as the most courageous living voice for victims of hatred and genocide. He is regarded by most as a living saint, and his books, especially Night, are among the most influential literature of modern times. You might as well take out full pages ads savaging Nelson Mandela, Mother Theresa, and the Dalai Lama.
“I suggest that whoever is your PR consultant, my friend, be fired immediately and that you recalibrate your message to simply criticize Israel, which J-Street has done with considerable success, rather than attack the voice of the six million which has, predictably, brought an avalanche of condemnation of protest both in print and all over the internet.
“And Jeremy, my dear brother, please be advised that while my advice is free, Wiesel’s words are priceless.”
Rabbi Shmuley Boteach, founder of This World: The Values Network, is publishing, this week, his new book ‘Renewal: A Guide to the Values-Filled Life.’(Basic Books). His website is www.shmuley.com
Posted on May 10, 2010
J Street Dangerous to Israel’s survival 17 reasons
1. Wants to turn over Jerusalem to International authority in latest full page ad
2. Israeli and American Left have had seventeen years to try out their "confidence building measures" (read concession after concession) via their highly touted "Peace Process." The results? Thousands of corpses - both Jewish and Arab - an ascendant Islamic radicalism and Iran about to produce (apparently with Obama's acquiescence) nuclear weapons and the means of delivering them. It's as if Neville Chamberlain had been left in charge of British foreign policy throughout World War II.
3. Alan M. Dershowitzm J Street Can No Longer Claim to be Pro-Israel
J Street has gone over to the dark side. It claims to be "a pro-Israel, pro peace lobby." It has now become neither. Its Executive Director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, has joined the off key chorus of those who falsely claim that Israel, by refusing to make peace with the Palestinians, is placing the lives of American soldiers at risk. . In the letter to The New York Times on April 21, 2010, Jeremy Ben-Ami, speaking on behalf of J Street, included the following paragraph:"An analysis of the Obama administration’s calculus on Middle East policy should reflect that many in the Jewish community recognize that resolving the conflict is not only necessary to secure Israel’s future, but also critical to regional stability and American strategic interests." Although Ben-Ami doesn't explicitly make a direct connection between Israeli actions and American casualties, his use of the phrase "critical to…American strategic interests," is a well-known code, especially these days, for the argument that there is a connection between Israeli actions and American casualties. In lending support to that dangerous and false argument, J Street has disqualified itself from being considered "pro-Israel." ..Now that it has crossed the line into legitimating the most dangerous and false argument ever made against Israel's security, it must stop calling itself pro-Israel. Some of its college affiliate groups have already done that.
4. J Street aims to distance US from Israel and undermine US support for Israel
“As Americans, we worry about the impact of Israeli policies on vital U.S. interests in the Middle East and around the world” “J Street Calls for Stronger American Engagement to Stop Provocative Actions in Jerusalem . ...J Street urges the U.S. government to forcefully oppose provocative, unilateral actions …J Street condemns .....We urge the United States and American political leaders to seek an end to actions “
5. J Street's agenda is to turn Israel into a state in which Jews might find a home -- leaving plenty of room for a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees and a bi-national state that dare not identify itself as Jewish.
6. The Israeli ambassador to the United States blasted J Street, saying the organization was "fooling around with the lives of 7 million people." Among the policies Oren pointed to as problematic were J Street 's criticism of Israel 's attack on Gaza last winter, its refusal to reject the Goldstone report
7. J Street Refused to accept Israel ’s right of self-defense in Gaza
In regard to the recent Gaza conflict, it is J Street ’s address of Israel ’s side that truly casts some doubt on its “pro-Israel” stance. J Street ’s website features a section titled “ J Street ’s Response to the Gaza Crisis” (note, the word, crisis). The organization lists a number of statements and articles condemning Israel ’s military response to the rocket attacks, calling it “disproportional,” “counterproductive” and “deepening the cycle of violence.” No such criticism exists for Hamas’ rocket warfare and even more disturbing is the website’s lack of information about the destructive impact of the Gaza rockets on Israeli civilians. Of course, J Street also refrains from mentioning that Hamas’ charter calls for the complete destruction of Israel .
8. J Street has deep ties to enemies of Israel.
a. Iranian ties J Street conspiring with an organization run by an Iranian national -- an organization that Congress has asked AG Holder to investigate for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lobbying disclosure laws -- to kill that legislation? Parsi was invited to speak at J Street 's conference. Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the unofficial spokesman for Iran 's Green Movement. "I think Trita Parsi does not belong to the Green Movement. I feel his lobbying has secretly been more for the Islamic Republic," Makhmalbaf said. It seems J Street isn't just redefining "pro-Israel" -- they're redefining "pro-Iran" as well.. Others According to the US Federal Election Commission, donors to J Street ’s political action committee hail from forums aligned against Israel . J Street’s donors are affiliated with the National Iranian American Council, “Stop the Occupation”, AMIDEAST, the US State Department and the Arab American Institute -establishments not exactly known for pro-Israel views. Among the many private Jewish and Christian donors to J Street , there are also a number of Islamic and pro-Iranian activists, as well as Palestinian and Arab American businesspeople. One such example is Zahi Khouri, a major Palestinian businessman with a Coke franchise in the West Bank . Khouri actually decried Israel ’s attempts towards economic peace with the Palestinians in an article he wrote in the New York Times on September 9. One member of the J Street Philly Host Committee “compared Israel's treatment of Gaza with the genocide in Sudan . "Another Host Committee member is involved with ICAHD, a radical group which interferes with Israeli efforts to stop terrorism and which advocates "Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel .”
9. J Street is Raising money for Congress people who blast Israel “from the Arabist New Day”: J Street Raises $15,000 for Donna Edwards in 240 Minutes | TPMCafe By Issandr El Amrani New Day: J Street Raises $15,000 for Donna Edwards in 240 Minutes | TPMCafe Donna Edwards, another African-American representative who did not endorse Israel's Gaza brutalities, now defended by J Street.
10. Two months after accepting an endorsement from J Street's political action committee, a local Democratic congressional candidate is disassociating himself from the upstart lobbying group. Doug Pike -- a former editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer who is now seeking to unseat U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-District 6) -- asked J Street officials this week to remove him from its list of 41 endorsed candidates, and said he's planning to return some $6,000 donated via the group. Pike explained that when he first sought J Street's endorsement back in September, he had underestimated his policy differences with the group.
11. Rep. Jan Schakowsky has been totally silent. But J Street, the far-left organization she helped found and build, has gleefully celebrated the crisis, calling on supporters to sign a petition supporting the administration's stance against Israel. As Rep. Schakowsky told J Street at its Chicago opening last month: "I've been a supporter of J Street since its inception." She is also the #3 money recipient from J Street PAC this cycle.
12. they explicitly said in the NYT that they would have Obama’s back.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/03/15/j-street-backs-obama-in-row-with-israel/
13. Want 67 borders J Street went further in its statement Monday, calling on the Obama administration essentially to impose the terms for new negotiations with the Palestinians on Netanyahu. The lobbying group said the U.S. must make Israel’s 1967 borders as the base-line for the creation of a new Palestinian state, factoring in the potential for land-swaps between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.“We urge the United States to take this opportunity to suggest parameters to the parties for resuming negotiations,” J Street said in its statement.
14. Backed Obama in tirade vs Israel. J Street said Monday that its criticism was warranted. “The Obama administration’s reaction to the treatment of the Vice President last week and to the timing and substance of the Israeli government’s announcement was both understandable and appropriate,” it said. Other leading Jewish American organizations, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, have squarely backed Netanyahu in the squabble. J Street, meanwhile, says it will continue its campaign to back the administration.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the organization’s executive director, said in an interview Monday that J Street had already gathered 20,000 signatures from its members and delivered a petition of support to the White House. The lobbying group also said that it was intensifying its dialogue with key U.S. lawmakers about their need to back the White House’s stance on Arab-Israeli peace talks.
15. The Jerusalem Post reports:The American "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby group J Street made "untrue assertions" about an alleged boycott of the congressional delegation it recently brought to Israel, and about Israel allegedly apologizing to the group for the slight, a senior Foreign Ministry official told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
"[Deputy Foreign Minister Danny] Ayalon did not prevent the delegation from meeting with senior Israeli officials," as claimed by J Street last week, said Barukh Binah, Foreign Ministry deputy director-general and head of its North America Division.
16. Author: Solomon J Street Teams up With Leftist Christian Group to Cause Israel Diplomatic Trouble. J Street, in cooperation with anti-Israel Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), is hosting a delegation of Congressmen from the US to Israel. Who is this CMEP that the "pro-Israel" J Street is running with? NGO Monitor has a good rundown:Analysis: Churches for Middle East Peace and the BDS Movement Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), which is J-Street's partner in sponsoring the visit of a US Congressional delegation to Israel, is a US-based political advocacy organization. Like many other such NGOs, CMEP's rhetoric and its activities are not always consistent, and some of its constituent groups are centrally involved in the political war against Israel. CMEP's website also features the "KAIROS Palestine Document", which was written by a group of Palestinian Christians, including Ateek. KAIROS Palestine calls for action designed to create "a system of economic sanctions and boycott [and divestment] to be applied against Israel," echoing Sabeel's efforts. CMEP also quotes Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, referring to the document as "a word of hope in a time of pessimism that could lead to despair."The fact that J Street would partner with a group like CMEP is simply and straightforwardly another nail in the coffin of J Street's pro-Israel bona fides. How out to lunch do you have to be to partner with this group and give them credibility before a group of Congressmen? BTW, do a search on "CMEP" at CAMERA's site. Lots of material there.
17. Increasingly Democratic Congress members are voting against Israel. Many use J Street as cover.
J Street's sin vs the jews today-Call to Internationalize Jerusalem
." J Street advocates turning the western Wall over to the UN. Their ad ." Then he can push both sides to divide the city into two capitals - to give Jewish areas to the Jews and Arab areas to the Arabs - and assign the Holy Basin to an agreed on international authority.” The same international authority that has 60+ Muslim nations, that focuses 90% of its hostile resolutions on the one democracy in the Middle east etc? An alien observing the United Nations' debates, reading its resolutions, and walking its halls could well conclude that a principal purpose of the world body is to censure a tiny country called Israel.Beginning in the late 1960's, the full weight of the UN was gradually but deliberately turned against the country it had conceived by General Assembly resolution a mere two decades earlier. The campaign to demonize and delegitimize Israel in every UN and international forum was initiated by the Arab states together with the Soviet Union, and supported by what has become known as an "automatic majority" of Third World member states. and J Street wants an international control over Jerusalem.
April 21, 2010 5:06 PM
by Alan M. Dershowitz
J Street Can No Longer Claim to be Pro-Israel
J Street has gone over to the dark side. It claims to be "a pro-Israel, pro peace lobby." It has now become neither. Its Executive Director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, has joined the off key chorus of those who falsely claim that Israel, by refusing to make peace with the Palestinians, is placing the lives of American soldiers at risk.
This claim was first attributed to Vice President Joe Biden and to General David Petraeus. It was quickly denied by them but continued to have a life of its own in the anti-Israel media. It was picked up by Steven Walt and John Mearsheimer, Pat Buchanan and others on the hard right and hard left who share a common disdain for the Jewish state. It is the most dangerous argument ever put forward by Israel bashers. It is also totally false.
It is dangerous for two reasons. First, it seeks to reduce support for Israel among Americans who, quite understandably and correctly, care deeply about American soldiers being killed in Iraq and Afghanistan. Israel has always understood this and that's why it is one of the few American allies who has never asked the United States to put its troops in harm's way in defense of Israeli citizens. If Americans were to believe the falsehood that Israel were to blame for American deaths caused by Islamic extremists in Iraq and Afghanistan, support for the Jewish state would suffer considerably.
It is also dangerous because its implication is that Israel must cease to exist: the basic complaint that Muslim extremists have against Israel is not what the Jewish state does, but what it is: a secular, non-Muslim, democracy that promotes equal rights for women, gays, Christians and others. Regardless of what Israel does or doesn't do, its very existence will be anathema to Muslim extremists. So if Israel's actions were in fact a cause of American deaths in Iraq and Afghanistan--which they are not--then the only logical solution would be Israel's disappearance. This might be acceptable to the Walts, Mearsheimers and Buchanans of the world, but it is surely not acceptable to Israel or anyone who claims to be pro-Israel.
Finally, the argument is totally false as a matter of fact. At the same time that Israel was seeking to make peace in 2000-2001 by creating a Palestinian state on the West Bank and in Gaza with a capital in East Jerusalem, Al Qaeda was planning the 9/11 attack. So Israel's "good" actions did nothing to make America safe from Islamic terrorism. On the other hand, when Israel took tough action against Gaza last year in Operation Cast Lead, Israel's "bad" actions did not increase American casualties in Iraq and Afghanistan. In fact, there is absolutely no relationship between Israel's actions and the extent of American casualties. It is a totally phony argument based on equal parts of surmise and bigotry.
Yet this dangerous and false argument, which is being hotly debated within the Obama Administration, has now received the imprimatur of J Street. In the letter to The New York Times on April 21, 2010, Jeremy Ben-Ami, speaking on behalf of J Street, included the following paragraph:
"An analysis of the Obama administration’s calculus on Middle East policy should reflect that many in the Jewish community recognize that resolving the conflict is not only necessary to secure Israel’s future, but also critical to regional stability and American strategic interests." Although Ben-Ami doesn't explicitly make a direct connection between Israeli actions and American casualties, his use of the phrase "critical to…American strategic interests,"
is a well-known code, especially these days, for the argument that there is a connection between Israeli actions and American casualties. In lending support to that dangerous and false argument, J Street has disqualified itself from being considered "pro-Israel." The argument is also anything but "pro peace," since it will actually encourage Islamic extremists to target American interests in the hope that American casualties will be blamed on Israel. It will also encourage the Palestinian leadership to harden its position, in the expectation that lack of progress toward peace will result in Israel being blamed for American casualties.
Truth in advertising requires that at the very least J Street stop proclaiming itself as pro-Israel. As long as it was limiting its lobbying activities to ending the settlements, dividing Jerusalem and pressing for negotiations, it could plausibly claim the mantle of pro-Israel, despite the reality that many of its members, supporters, speakers and invited guests are virulently anti-Israel. But now that it has crossed the line into legitimating the most dangerous and false argument ever made against Israel's security, it must stop calling itself pro-Israel. Some of its college affiliate groups have already done that. They now describe themselves as pro peace because they don't want to burden themselves with the pro Israel label. J Street should follow their lead and end its false advertising. Or else it should abandon its anti-Israel claim that Israel is damaging American strategic interests.
Thursday, January 28, 2010
5 main dangers of J Street
5 Main Dangers of J Street taken from various sites
1. J Street aims to distance US from Israel and undermine US support for Israel
a. Their own statements demonstrate it: “As Americans, we worry about the impact of Israeli policies on vital U.S. interests in the Middle East and around the world”
b. Ben-Ami is so intent on driving a sharp wedge between Israeli and U.S. interests that he totally ignores multi-layered security ties that bind Washington and Jerusalem -- from missile defense to intelligence sharing to thwarting terrorist threats from Hezb'allah and Hamas.
c. Not content to peddle a fictional incompatibility between U.S. and Israeli interests, Ben-Ami then goes on to depict Israel as a threat to "the health and vitality" of the U.S. Jewish community. This is nothing but another attempt to revive baseless fears that, if Israel exercises its right to self-defense, American Jews will be at risk. .
d. J Street is a very non-pacific front organization for Arab designs on Israel . It has issued a call for "forceful" opposition to Israel . Here's their language “J Street Calls for Stronger American Engagement to Stop Provocative Actions in Jerusalem . ...J Street urges the U.S. government to forcefully oppose provocative, unilateral actions …J Street condemns .....We urge the United States and American political leaders to seek an end to actions “
2. J Street policy effect would be the end of Israel.
a. If Israel were to deviate from its current path and shape its security according to J Street and world opinion, Israel definitely would be a goner.
b. J Street's agenda is to turn Israel into a state in which Jews might find a home -- leaving plenty of room for a "right of return" for Palestinian refugees and a bi-national state that dare not identify itself as Jewish.
c. How far left is J Street? President Obama has no trouble describing Israel as Jewish state. J Street does.
d. The Israeli ambassador to the United States blasted J Street, saying the organization was "fooling around with the lives of 7 million people." Among the policies Oren pointed to as problematic were J Street 's criticism of Israel 's attack on Gaza last winter, its refusal to reject the Goldstone report
e. J Street Refused to accept Israel ’s right of self-defense in Gaza
In regard to the recent Gaza conflict, it is J Street ’s address of Israel ’s side that truly casts some doubt on its “pro-Israel” stance. J Street ’s website features a section titled “ J Street ’s Response to the Gaza Crisis” (note, the word, crisis). The organization lists a number of statements and articles condemning Israel ’s military response to the rocket attacks, calling it “disproportional,” “counterproductive” and “deepening the cycle of violence.” No such criticism exists for Hamas’ rocket warfare and even more disturbing is the website’s lack of information about the destructive impact of the Gaza rockets on Israeli civilians. It appears that for J Street , the issue of the Gaza conflict is not even about Gaza but Israel ’s military response to Palestinian rocket terrorism. Not once does J Street point out that Palestinians who commit terror acts against Israel adhere to a radical Islamic ideology that teaches them to do so, nor that key players, like Iran and Syria , are heavily involved in supporting the terror war against Israel . Of course, J Street also refrains from mentioning that Hamas’ charter calls for the complete destruction of Israel .
3. J Street interferes in sovereign democratic government of Israel. What moral right do they have to interfere? As the far-left voice of J Street, Ben-Ami takes dead aim at Netanyahu's government, even though its diplomatic and security agenda does not differ materially from that of the previous centrist-led Kadima government of Ehud Olmert.
4. J Street has deep ties to enemies of Israel.
a. Iranian ties J Street conspiring with an organization run by an Iranian national -- an organization that Congress has asked AG Holder to investigate for violations of the Foreign Agents Registration Act and lobbying disclosure laws -- to kill that legislation? Parsi was invited to speak at J Street 's conference. Mohsen Makhmalbaf, the unofficial spokesman for Iran 's Green Movement. "I think Trita Parsi does not belong to the Green Movement. I feel his lobbying has secretly been more for the Islamic Republic," Makhmalbaf said. It seems J Street isn't just redefining "pro-Israel" -- they're redefining "pro-Iran" as well.
b. Others According to the US Federal Election Commission, donors to J Street ’s political action committee hail from forums aligned against Israel . J Street’s donors are affiliated with the National Iranian American Council, “Stop the Occupation”, AMIDEAST, the US State Department and the Arab American Institute -establishments not exactly known for pro-Israel views. Among the many private Jewish and Christian donors to J Street , there are also a number of Islamic and pro-Iranian activists, as well as Palestinian and Arab American businesspeople. One such example is Zahi Khouri, a major Palestinian businessman with a Coke franchise in the West Bank . Khouri actually decried Israel ’s attempts towards economic peace with the Palestinians in an article he wrote in the New York Times on September 9.
c. One member of the J Street Philly Host Committee “compared Israel's treatment of Gaza with the genocide in Sudan .
d. "Another Host Committee member is involved with ICAHD, a radical group which interferes with Israeli efforts to stop terrorism and which advocates "Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions against Israel .”
e. J Street is Raising money for Congress people who blast Israel “from the Arabist New Day”: J Street Raises $15,000 for Donna Edwards in 240 Minutes | TPMCafe By Issandr El Amrani New Day: J Street Raises $15,000 for Donna Edwards in 240 Minutes | TPMCafe Donna Edwards, another African-American representative who did not endorse Israel's Gaza brutalities, now defended by J Street.
5. J Street Influences Obama to ruin negotiations with Israel and the Palestinians
a. :Obama took the great advice of “progressive” geniuses like Rashid Khalidi and J Street. J Street , when not bad-mouthing AIPAC behind closed doors, spent much of the year openly bragging about their White House influence. According to Time, here are the results. Nothing pushed Israel and the Palestinians further away from negotiations than Obama doing what J Street suggested: making harsh demands on Israel, insisting on a total freeze on ‘natural growth,’ treating even Jerusalem as if it was a hilltop settlement, demanding that Israel give in on just about everything prior to negotiations. (Why even negotiate? Obama made all his dictates – exactly as J Street advised — in lieu of Israel and the Palestinians actually negotiating these things themselves.) Obama once pretended to be an “honest broker” only to expose himself as a Jimmy Carter-type advocate for the bad guys. And he did it in record time. Good job, J Street . Maybe that’s what “J” stands for: Jimmy
b. This is the reality- Obama brought J-Street into the center of the Israeli Palestinian issue, appointing their people to his Administration, and allowing J-Street a place at the table. Put simply, Obama is the face of J-Street. And J-Street is not pro-Israel
J STreet and Obama in cahoots to undermine Israel
What a shocker-since they explicitly said in the NYT that they would have Obama’s back.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/03/15/j-street-backs-obama-in-row-with-israel/
At least one Jewish-American organization is lining up behind the Obama administration it its intensifying feud with the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
J Street, the newest Israel-focused lobby in Washington, broke Monday with more established Jewish-American bodies and publicly backed the White House’s sharp criticism of Netanyahu and Israel’s plans to continue building in contested east Jerusalem.
J Street went further in its statement Monday, calling on the Obama administration essentially to impose the terms for new negotiations with the Palestinians on Netanyahu. The lobbying group said the U.S. must make Israel’s 1967 borders as the base-line for the creation of a new Palestinian state, factoring in the potential for land-swaps between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
“We urge the United States to take this opportunity to suggest parameters to the parties for resuming negotiations,” J Street said in its statement.
The White House believes Israel’s government sought to humiliate Vice President Joe Biden during his visit to Jerusalem last week by announcing the building of 1,600 new Israeli homes in east Jerusalem. In response, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S. officials publicly upbraided Netanyahu last week and suggested the future of the U.S.-Israeli alliance could be imperiled.
Netanyahu appeared unfazed. “The building of those Jewish neighborhoods did not hurt in any way the Arabs of east Jerusalem and did not come at their expense,” he said on Monday.
J Street said Monday that its criticism was warranted. “The Obama administration’s reaction to the treatment of the Vice President last week and to the timing and substance of the Israeli government’s announcement was both understandable and appropriate,” it said.
Other leading Jewish American organizations, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, have squarely backed Netanyahu in the squabble.
Late Sunday, Aipac called for the White House to defuse the battle with Netanyahu. “The Administration should make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines directed at Israel,” it said in a statement.
More airing of the tensions is expected next week when AIPAC holds its annual policy conference in Washington. Netanyahu, Clinton, and the leader of Israel’s political opposition, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, are all scheduled to speak.
J Street, meanwhile, says it will continue its campaign to back the administration.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the organization’s executive director, said in an interview Monday that J Street had already gathered 20,000 signatures from its members and delivered a petition of support to the White House. The lobbying group also said that it was intensifying its dialogue with key U.S. lawmakers about their need to back the White House’s stance on Arab-Israeli peace talks.
“Our supporters are calling Congress and making it clear to the political establishment that there are two sides to this story,” Ben-Ami said.
In Turnabout, Politician Says 'No' to J Street
March 25, 2010 - Bryan Schwartzman, Staff Writer
http://www.jewishexponent.com/images/publications/mar252010/pike.jpg
Doug Pike
Two months after accepting an endorsement from J Street's political action committee, a local Democratic congressional candidate is disassociating himself from the upstart lobbying group.
Doug Pike -- a former editorial writer for The Philadelphia Inquirer who is now seeking to unseat U.S. Rep. Jim Gerlach (R-District 6) -- asked J Street officials this week to remove him from its list of 41 endorsed candidates, and said he's planning to return some $6,000 donated via the group.
Pike explained that when he first sought J Street's endorsement back in September, he had underestimated his policy differences with the group.
For instance, Pike said, he was "troubled" by J Street's recent stance that Israel halt construction in eastern Jerusalem. J Street has largely sided with the U.S. government in its latest diplomatic flare-up with the Jewish state over plans to build new housing in an eastern Jerusalem neighborhood.
"Belatedly, I got a clearer sense of the important points where J Street looks at things differently than I look at things," Pike said in an interview. "Also, people simply assumed when they heard that I was endorsed by J street that I agreed with them on everything. The endorsement was an impediment to my being able to explain my convictions about Israel's security."
The announcement comes as Pike is locked in a heated primary battle against Manan Trivedi, a physician and Iraq-war veteran from Berks County who has recently gained momentum, and been endorsed by the Democratic committees in both Chester and Montgomery counties.
The race has high stakes, as Gerlach's seat has long been a high priority target for Democrats, and party insiders are saying that Trivedi stands a better chance of getting the job done.
It's unclear what impact, if any, Pike's reversal will have on the outcome of the May 18 primary or his ability to attract Jewish support. But with Pike now seeing the endorsement as more of a liability than a help, the reversal raises questions about the influence of J Street and its ability to raise cash and support candidates who favor its more proactive approach to the Israeli/ Palestinian conflict.
It's just the latest twist on an ongoing debate about whether J Street, which has expanded its grass-roots efforts to the Philadelphia area, should be considered a mainstream Jewish organization, under the pro-Israel tent.
For its part, J Street took a swipe at Pike in response to the news. "We wish Doug Pike well, but are pleased to see him return the funds provided to his campaign, as it is our purpose only to support politicians with the courage of their convictions," J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement.
"We are as little interested in providing support for someone who would walk away from what they believe under pressure as they may be in having our support," added Ben-Ami, who declined requests for an interview.
Agrees With Prime Minister
Pike, who traveled to Israel in November -- in part to visit a cousin who decades ago converted to Judaism and made aliyah -- said his positions have been clear from the start.
"The United States should encourage a peace agreement between Israel and the Palestinians, but ultimately, this must come from negotiations between the two sides," Pike wrote in a column addressing his decision. "I agree with Prime Minister Netanyahu: Negotiations should begin as soon as possible without preconditions."
The son of Otis Pike, a former New York congressman, Pike plans to return $6,375 -- $1,000 was a direct contribution from J Street's PAC, and the rest was donated by 10 individuals via the PAC.
Right now, he has significantly more money than his opponent. As of Dec. 31, Pike had $1.1 million in his war chest, compared to Trivedi's $123,381. But if Pike does beat his rival -- and the race is considered close -- he'll need more to wage a credible assault on Gerlach.
The GOP lawmaker is a vocal opponent of most of President Barack Obama's domestic agenda, most recently voting against health care reform.
But according to one pro-Israel fundraiser who did not wish to be named, a number of potential contributors walked away from Pike after the J Street endorsement became known, and after Gerlach -- considered a strong Israel backer -- decided not to run for governor.
More publicly, last week State. Rep. Josh Shapiro (D-District 153) rescinded his endorsement of Pike, citing concerns about Pike's approach to Israel, according to www.pa2010.com.
Marcel Groen, chairman of the Montgomery County Democratic committee, which has thrown its weight behind Trivedi, said that Pike's reversal should have little impact on the primary since relatively few voters are so heavily invested in the question of whether J Street is a legitimate political voice for American Jewry.
Richard Schiffrin, a Democratic fundraiser backing Pike, stated that the candidate's positions on Israel were well within the mainstream.
Trivedi -- who is expecting to attend his first Passover seder next week at the home of supporter David Dormont -- declined to comment directly on Pike's endorsements. Trivedi said that, as an Indian-American, he can relate to Jews with relatives in Israel who live under the constant threat of terrorism. He has expressed interest in visiting there after the primary.
Gerlach's campaign had no hesitation about responding to the J Street incident.
"Pike's campaign for Congress is like the old Seinfeld sitcom; it's a campaign about nothing," said Gerlach spokesman Mark Campbell. "Pike's problem is that he staked out flaming liberal positions on the far left, and someone has finally told him he can't win by being a flaming liberal."
For his part, Pike rejected the assertion that he's changed his position: "I intend to better communicate my commitment to Israel as a candidate, and to demonstrate it by my words and deeds as a member of the next Congress."
Posted by truth seeker at 12:15 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, March 17, 2010
J Street on Obma's hurting Israel
Rep. Jan Schakowsky: Take a stand against the administration's attacks on Israel
This morning on the Don Wade & Roma show on WLS AM, Rep. Jan Schakowsky claimed that the Obama administration's attacks would not hurt the U.S.-Israel relationship. She the attacks were "not going to harm the long-term or even the short-term relationship between the United States and Israel," and she compared the argument to a marital dispute.
It is a completely inappropriate analogy, and one belied by the statement by Israeli Ambassador Michael Oren that "Israel's ties with the United States are in their worst crisis since 1975" and that this was "a crisis of historic proportions." Rep. Schakowsky is failing in her duty to speak truth to power on behalf of the residents of her district, who overwhelmingly support a strong U.S.-Israel alliance.
It is time for Israel's friends in the United States to stand up and be counted. I call on Rep. Jan Schakowsky to join me in condemning the Obama administration's ongoing attack on Israel, America's most steadfast ally. I urge her to denounce the dangerous posture of J Street, the far-left organization that she helped found in Chicago last month and which is backing the administration's hostile approach against the Jewish State.
Last week, the Obama administration attacked Israel for announcing that it would be building new apartments in a Jewish neighborhood in East Jerusalem-an area that the White House had agreed would not be part of the "settlement freeze," and which will be part of Israel in any peace agreement with the Palestinians. Despite apologies from the Israeli government, the administration has continued to attack Israel in the U.S. media.
Members of both parties have criticized the Obama administration for its overreaction, which amounts to incitement against Israel and has created the worst crisis in U.S.-Israel relations in 35 years, according to Israeli ambassador Michael Oren. There was no similar criticism from the administration when Palestinian leaders dedicated a public square in honor of a terrorist the day after Vice-President Joe Biden's visit.
In the wake of criticism from Biden, David Axelrod, Hillary Clinton and others, Hamas has sent violent protestors into the street to denounce Israeli construction in Jerusalem, including the reconstruction of a centuries-old synagogue that was destroyed by Jordan after 1948. The Obama administration has given Palestinian leaders a new precondition for negotiations, without demanding that they live up to their commitments to stop terror.
Rep. Jan Schakowsky has been totally silent. But J Street, the far-left organization she helped found and build, has gleefully celebrated the crisis, calling on supporters to sign a petition supporting the administration's stance against Israel. As Rep. Schakowsky told J Street at its Chicago opening last month: "I've been a supporter of J Street since its inception." She is also the #3 money recipient from J Street PAC this cycle.
The administration and J Street are wrong in their attacks on the Israeli government. Banning Jews from Jewish neighborhoods in Jerusalem smacks of bigotry and gives Palestinian leaders an excuse to avoid peace talks. The attacks also embolden Israel's enemies at a time when the U.S. and Israel must stand together against Iran. It is time for Rep. Schakowsky to decide: where does she stand-with J Street or with Israel?
I call on Rep. Schakowsky to join me in taking a stand. Speak up for America's 62-year relationship with the only democracy in the Middle East. Stop the rhetoric that is more vitriolic than anything the Obama administration uses against America's enemies. Stop public demands for unilateral Israeli concessions. Start focusing on Iran's nuclear program, instead of joining Iran in attacking the Jewish presence in Jerusalem.
Rep. Schakowsky is the voice for J Street in Chicago and across the nation. She hosted their first gala dinner and was a featured speaker at their first national conference. It is up to her to speak out against J Street's petition drive and against the anti-Israel attacks of the Obama administration. Her silence, as long as it continues, will stand as evidence of her true beliefs about Israel. She must take a stand, before more damage is done.
Posted by truth seeker at 3:39 PM 0 comments
Monday, March 15, 2010
J Street aids enemies of Israel
What a shocker-since they explicitly said in the NYT that they would have Obama’s back.
http://blogs.wsj.com/washwire/2010/03/15/j-street-backs-obama-in-row-with-israel/
At least one Jewish-American organization is lining up behind the Obama administration it its intensifying feud with the Israeli government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu.
J Street, the newest Israel-focused lobby in Washington, broke Monday with more established Jewish-American bodies and publicly backed the White House’s sharp criticism of Netanyahu and Israel’s plans to continue building in contested east Jerusalem.
J Street went further in its statement Monday, calling on the Obama administration essentially to impose the terms for new negotiations with the Palestinians on Netanyahu. The lobbying group said the U.S. must make Israel’s 1967 borders as the base-line for the creation of a new Palestinian state, factoring in the potential for land-swaps between Israeli and Palestinian negotiators.
“We urge the United States to take this opportunity to suggest parameters to the parties for resuming negotiations,” J Street said in its statement.
The White House believes Israel’s government sought to humiliate Vice President Joe Biden during his visit to Jerusalem last week by announcing the building of 1,600 new Israeli homes in east Jerusalem. In response, Secretary of State Hillary Clinton and other U.S. officials publicly upbraided Netanyahu last week and suggested the future of the U.S.-Israeli alliance could be imperiled.
Netanyahu appeared unfazed. “The building of those Jewish neighborhoods did not hurt in any way the Arabs of east Jerusalem and did not come at their expense,” he said on Monday.
J Street said Monday that its criticism was warranted. “The Obama administration’s reaction to the treatment of the Vice President last week and to the timing and substance of the Israeli government’s announcement was both understandable and appropriate,” it said.
Other leading Jewish American organizations, such as the American Israel Public Affairs Committee and the Anti-Defamation League, have squarely backed Netanyahu in the squabble.
Late Sunday, Aipac called for the White House to defuse the battle with Netanyahu. “The Administration should make a conscious effort to move away from public demands and unilateral deadlines directed at Israel,” it said in a statement.
More airing of the tensions is expected next week when AIPAC holds its annual policy conference in Washington. Netanyahu, Clinton, and the leader of Israel’s political opposition, former Foreign Minister Tzipi Livni, are all scheduled to speak.
J Street, meanwhile, says it will continue its campaign to back the administration.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, the organization’s executive director, said in an interview Monday that J Street had already gathered 20,000 signatures from its members and delivered a petition of support to the White House. The lobbying group also said that it was intensifying its dialogue with key U.S. lawmakers about their need to back the White House’s stance on Arab-Israeli peace talks.
“Our supporters are calling Congress and making it clear to the political establishment that there are two sides to this story,” Ben-Ami said.
Posted by truth seeker at 10:14 AM 0 comments
Thursday, February 25, 2010
J Streeet lies
yalon: J Street lied
The Jerusalem Post reports:
The American "pro-Israel, pro-peace" lobby group J Street made "untrue assertions" about an alleged boycott of the congressional delegation it recently brought to Israel, and about Israel allegedly apologizing to the group for the slight, a senior Foreign Ministry official told The Jerusalem Post on Sunday.
"[Deputy Foreign Minister Danny] Ayalon did not prevent the delegation from meeting with senior Israeli officials," as claimed by J Street last week, said Barukh Binah, Foreign Ministry deputy director-general and head of its North America Division.
"Ayalon was never part of the delegation's schedule and talk of boycotting meetings with congressman has no basis in fact. On the contrary, the deputy foreign minister is always willing to meet with elected officials from any friendly country, especially the United States of America, and [with] Jewish organizations which represent a range of diverse views from across the political spectrum."
Binah also rejected the "subsequent assertion that the Ministry of Foreign Affairs apologized in hastily arranged meetings," which he said was simply not true.
READ MORE
Posted by truth seeker at 2:41 PM 0 comments
Monday, February 22, 2010
54 Dem US reps and J Street hurt Israel again
Serious Words, Serious Consequences
by Matthew Brooks, Executive Director, Republican Jewish Coalition
The 54 Democrat members of Congress (no Republicans) who signed the January 21, 2010 letter to President Barack Obama initiated by Reps. Jim McDermott (D-WA) and Keith Ellison (D-MN) presumably wanted to make a thoughtful, serious statement of concern and a specific request for action. They were concerned for the plight of the Palestinians in Gaza and their request was that American government pressure be brought to bear on Israel to ease the restrictions on Israel's border with Gaza.
The Republican Jewish Coalition (RJC) took the letter and its words seriously. We saw that the 'Gaza 54' called for the loosening of security measures that Israel put into place to stop terrorism and reduce the ability of Hamas to launch attacks on Israel. The letter acknowledged that "the Israeli government has imposed restrictions on Gaza out of a legitimate and keenly felt fear of continued terrorist action by Hamas and other militant groups." But the congressmen did not make any mention of the potential consequences for Israel, or what alternate measures would provide equal protection for Israel's citizens against attacks initiated from Gaza.
The letter simply asserted, without foundation, that: "Easing the blockade (sic) on Gaza will not only improve the conditions on the ground for Gaza's civilian population, but will also undermine the tunnel economy which has strengthened Hamas... Most importantly, lifting these restrictions will give civilians in Gaza a tangible sense that diplomacy can be an effective tool for bettering their conditions. Your Administration's overarching Middle East peace efforts will benefit Israel, the Palestinians, and the entire region."
One in five Democrats in Congress signed a letter asking the president to pressure Israel to take unilateral actions that its leaders believe would undermine its security, with no concomitant expectation of concrete action on the Palestinian side to assure the safety of Israeli citizens. They are willing to bet that if American diplomacy forces Israel to make "tangible" changes to its policies, that will somehow "benefit Israel" in the long run.
This is at best, naïve. Israel can't afford to relax its security measures just because someone in the US says it will all be okay. Its enemies' commitment to its destruction has not waned. Loosening the "blockade" will not persuade Hamas to change its goals nor deter it from attacking.
THE DEMOCRATS' letter effectively demonstrates a mind-set all too typical of the Left, which we are seeing increasingly in more "mainstream" discourse: that Israel is doing wrong, Israel must make concessions, Israel is not acting morally except when it gives in. Unfortunately, history teaches us that appeasement leads to more violence, not less. The fact that so many Democrats signed the letter is troubling in and of itself.
The RJC (generously) called the letter signers "misguided." Rep. Eliot Engel (D-NY) agrees, telling The Jerusalem Post's Shmuel Rosner in a recent interview that the Gaza 54 are "misinformed" legislators.
The RJC decided to take action because we were troubled that 54 Democratic congressmen would call on the president to pressure Israel in this way. We asked our members to express their view on the letter. Within hours, a strong grassroots showing from across the country had signed the petition on our web site, calling for the letter signers to "take a firm stand against terrorism by disassociating yourself from this dangerous letter and upholding America's commitment to Israel's security in the future."
There are simple facts missing from the Gaza 54 letter about Israel's actions to help the residents of Gaza. The same facts were missing from remarks by one of the 54, Rep. Brian Baird (D-WA), who last week told students in Gaza that the US should bring in ships to the coast to break the Israeli "blockade" on the Gaza Strip.
As RJC wrote in our own letter to President Obama, asking him to repudiate Baird's remarks: Egypt also has a blockade of Gaza in place and is constructing a wall, similar to Israel's, to stop the smuggling of people and weapons across its border with Gaza; Israel allows huge quantities of food, medicine, and other humanitarian supplies into Gaza each day; Israel has prohibited only building supplies from coming into Gaza, to prevent them from being diverted by Hamas to military use. Israel has taken necessary and justifiable steps to stop terrorism originating from Hamas-controlled Gaza.
THE TRUTH is that the Palestinians are victims of their leaders and of their choices. For decades they have been taught to hate Israel (and Jews), to demand retribution and reparations, and to never compromise - by leaders who pocketed the funds meant to help them, corrupted the political system meant to lead them, and used them as foot soldiers against a reluctant enemy, Israel. Sadly, the lessons of hatred have been well-learned. Palestinian voters chose Hamas in the election of January 2006, giving them 74 of the 132 parliamentary seats and leading to the June 2007 Hamas coup in Gaza that split the Palestinian proto-polity in two. Afterward, hundreds of rockets were launched from within Gaza. The "blockade" of Gaza is a direct result of all these events.
The 54 Democrats who wrote to President Obama should understand this history and the Israeli security measures required to guarantee Israel's continued existence and safety. They paid lip service to Israel's security needs, but without confronting the hard question, which Israel faces daily, of how to keep Israeli citizens safe.
Lacking that important element, the letter was just another outrageous political attack on Israel and it deserved the condemnation of RJC and other friends of Israel. We stand by our characterization of the letter and by our statements about it.
Friday, February 19, 2010
Dems, J Street anti-Israel
From Richard Baehr
Every day it becomes harder for Democrats or liberals who claim to love Israel and support a strong U.S, Israel relationship to defend the actions of members of their Congressional delegation, who now openly side with Israel's enemies. It is telling that the NJDC now chooses to honor David Axelrod, who is Jewish, but has been conspicuously absent from pro-Israel, or Jewish community endeavours in his long professional career. But Axelrod was part of the White House team, along with Rahm Emanuel, who encouraged President Obama to go public with his pressure campaign against Israel over settlements, a policy that resulted only in stiffening Palestinian resolve not to deal with Israel, and instead let Obama deliver the goods to the Palestinians.
J-Street and its Congressional friends visit Israel: http://tinyurl.com/ybctjjq
J-Street has big problems with Christians who support Israel, but find it easy to get along with Christian groups who trash Israel. Let us not forget that Barack Obama is the one who brought J-Street into the inner sanctum of the Whie House as one of the key Jewish groups who deserved to be heard, and has appointed members of its leadership to White House and ambassadorial jobs. He has legitimized a far left group whose sole advocacy is to blame Israel, and get the U.S. government to pressure Israel : http://tinyurl.com/yerrn6j
It is past time for the official Jewish organizational world to sever ties to J-Street , as they have done with groups like Not in My Name, or Students for Justice in Palestine.
For the record, there are today and there have always been pro-Israel and Judaeophile Democrats. One of them was LBJ: http://tinyurl.com/ygkfj59
Posted by truth seeker at 11:13 AM 0 comments
Obama backwards on Iran and Israel-Palestinians
The Obama team had it backwards claiming the centrality of the Israeli Palestinian conflict to resolving Iran's nuclear program: http://tinyurl.com/yh3pxsb
Posted by truth seeker at 11:10 AM 0 comments
Fatah are terrorists too
Fatah is not a moderate organization. They have fought a continuing war against Israel through the courts-both international courts and U.N bodies, and the court of public opinion. They honor the murderers of Jews, and never stop for a day with their media and mosque incitement.
http://tinyurl.com/ygvov59
Posted by truth seeker at 11:10 AM 0 comments
Thursday, February 18, 2010
J Street partners with anti Israel Churches
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/02/j-street-teams-up-with-leftist-christian/index.shtml
Author: SolomonJ Street Teams up With Leftist Christian Group to Cause Israel Diplomatic Trouble
J Street, in cooperation with anti-Israel Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), is hosting a delegation of Congressmen from the US to Israel. Who is this CMEP that the "pro-Israel" J Street is running with? NGO Monitor has a good rundown:
Analysis: Churches for Middle East Peace and the BDS Movement
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), which is J-Street's partner in sponsoring the visit of a US Congressional delegation to Israel, is a US-based political advocacy organization. Like many other such NGOs, CMEP's rhetoric and its activities are not always consistent, and some of its constituent groups are centrally involved in the political war against Israel.
A number of CMEP partners take an active role in promoting BDS - the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign - as part of the 2001 Durban NGO agenda which calls for the total international isolation of Israel. For example, Friends of Sabeel North America (www.fosna.org) is a fundraising and publicity branch of the Palestinian NGO Sabeel. This organization, headed by Naim Ateek, is a leader of the church divestment campaign, and in his speaking tours around North America, Ateek employs antisemitic themes and imagery in sermons promoting his "Palestinian Liberation Theology." In promoting this agenda, his rhetoric includes references to "the Israeli government crucifixion system".
CMEP's website also features the "KAIROS Palestine Document", which was written by a group of Palestinian Christians, including Ateek. KAIROS Palestine calls for action designed to create "a system of economic sanctions and boycott [and divestment] to be applied against Israel," echoing Sabeel's efforts. CMEP also quotes Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, referring to the document as "a word of hope in a time of pessimism that could lead to despair."
This adoption of the Palestinian narrative of victimization, perhaps a reflection of the close ties to Sabeel and other Palestinian groups, was also evident in a January 21, 2005 full-page New York Times ad sponsored by CMEP. The text read, in part, "With each news report of Palestinian suffering...popular support in Arab and Muslim countries for terrorism grows and the threat of attacks directed at the United States increases."
A number of CMEP's board members also reflect the goal of demonization, under the façade of promoting peace. For example, Helena Cobban, a fierce anti-Israel ideologue and member Human Rights Watch's Middle East board, sits on CMEP's Leadership Council.
Thus, while much of the media coverage of this delegation has focused on the involvement of J-Street angle, this is only half of the story. CMEP is an equal partner, and deserves equal scrutiny.
The fact that J Street would partner with a group like CMEP is simply and straightforwardly another nail in the coffin of J Street's pro-Israel bona fides. How out to lunch do you have to be to partner with this group and give them credibility before a group of Congressmen? Here, BTW, is a search on "CMEP" at CAMERA's site. Lots of material there.
J Street's handling of the event is already causing trouble, as the Foreign Ministry is refusing to meet the delegation with J Street as an intermediary: US congressman demands explanation for chilly reception in Israel
A visiting U.S. congressman lashed out at Israel's number two diplomat Wednesday, saying he was snubbed by the Foreign Ministry and demanding an official clarification.
Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is heading a congressional delegation to the region. The trip is hosted by J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that presents itself as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- one of Washington's most powerful lobbies.
J Street, which supports President Barack Obama's push for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, says it sought a meeting for the U.S. representatives with Israeli diplomats but was turned down.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed the complaint, saying in response that it did not need mediators to set up meetings with U.S. officials.
The snub appeared aimed at J Street. Israel's government has been critical of the group's programs, which are more dovish than those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish government.
Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, Delahunt said he was surprised and disappointed to read an Israeli newspaper report that he was being boycotted by the Foreign Ministry for his affiliation with J Street and identified Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as the culprit.
"We were puzzled that the Deputy Foreign Minister has apparently attempted to block our meetings with senior officials in the Prime Minister's office and Foreign Ministry -- questioning either our own support of Israel or that we would even consider traveling to the region with groups thatthe deputy foreign minister has so inaccurately described as 'anti-Israel'," Delahunt said.
"In our opinion this is an inappropriate way to treat elected representatives of Israel's closest ally who are visiting the country."
Delahunt asked the Israeli government "for a clarification of its stance toward this and future delegations."
Ayalon's office said the deputy minister was prepared to meet any elected officials, especially from the U.S. Congress, but he "didn't need mediators."...
...Four other U.S. representatives were traveling with Delahunt -- Democrats Donald Payne of New Jersey, Lois Capps of California, Bob Filner of California and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio...
All five of the Congresspeople now assisting J Street in redefining what it means to be "pro-Israel" were signatories to the Ellison/McDermott sponsored letter on the Gaza "siege."
Here's more on J Street's latest self-inflicted wound: J Street blasts Ayalon's 'boycott'.
This is what a pro-Israel group does? Partners with one of the worst of the anti-Israel Christian groups and causes a diplomatic incident with the government? Once again we see that J Street is more about leftist politics than about support for Israel. Leftism is the only thing a group trying to claim it was pro-Israel in any meaningful sense could possibly have in common with CMEP. They partner with CMEP yet denounce John Hagee. They bring Bill Delahunt on a trip to Israel and instigate a row putting Danny Ayalon on the spot, as though he doesn't have enough to worry about.
This is about Jeremy Ben-Ami's ego, fundraising and leftist politics. It has nothing to do with supporting Israel.
Update: See Hillel's post above for even
Posted by truth seeker at 6:14 PM 0 comments
Wednesday, February 17, 2010
Now New Israel Fund goes after Israel
New Israel Fund Grants Spark Human Rights Brouhaha
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
Locking horns over Goldstone: An ad sponsored by the Im Tirzu Zionist group depicted Naomi Chazan, president of the New Israel Fund, with a horn on her head.
by Stewart Ain
Staff Writer Jewish week
Charges that the New Israel Fund supports Israeli civil rights groups that played a key role in providing information highly critical of Israel’s role in the Gaza war last year have sparked a spirited, and nasty, debate over the proper role for civil and human rights groups in a democratic state.
A 131-page report, commissioned by a three-year-old Zionist group active on Israeli campuses, called Im Tirtzu, found that 16 Israeli human rights organizations provided 92 percent of the critical information used in the UN report written by South African jurist Richard Goldstone. All 16 are funded by the New Israel Fund (NIF) and include such groups as Breaking the Silence, B’Tselem and the Association for Civil Rights in Israel.
NIF, founded in
Inbal 300X250
1979, is a philanthropy that funds mostly left-of-center human rights groups (as well as groups addressing other social issues) in Israel. Supporters say it promotes equal rights for all Israeli citizens; critics have accused it of supporting Israeli Arab groups that in turn encourage insurrection against the Zionist state.
“At the end of the day, we have a situation where Israelis are blaming their brothers of committing war crimes without any proof,” said Ronen Shoval, a graduate student and founder of Im Tirtzu. “They are lying. ... And the NIF stands behind the Goldstone report. I can’t tell you how important it is that Jewish people in the United States understand that at the end of the day their money [to the NIF] helps Hamas.”
A spokeswoman for the New Israel Fund, Naomi Paiss, said that although her group took no position on the Goldstone report, it “is very proud of the groups we have supported. ... Their reports were carefully documented and in some instances were the only available information out of Gaza because the international press and the Israeli press were kept out.
“Those human rights organizations are there to do a job,” she continued. “They reported on their concerns about the Gaza operation and were the first to declare that the Israeli government should launch an independent inquiry into the events of Gaza. Had that been done, perhaps there would not have been a Goldstone report.”
But Jacques Berlinerblau, director of the Program for Jewish Civilization at the Georgetown School of Foreign Service, said he believes there is a time and a place for self-criticism, and this might not be it.
“The perennial danger of Jewish self-criticism is that it gets used in a lopsided manner,” he explained. “If you have a completely imbalanced critical apparatus that only features criticism of Israel — and Israel as a nation can be criticized — it may not behoove these groups [to continue their criticism] when they are the only voices out there being critical. When you find critical Palestinian voices, they become useful. But if they are criticizing alone and their work is used in a skewed manner, I don’t know how much good they are doing for Israel.”
Paiss insisted that these organizations “were acting out of love for Israel and loyalty to the values on which the state was founded. ... They took a reasoned and thoughtful look at what happened in Gaza and put out reports that were then used as sources for Goldstone’s report.”
Shoval stressed the serious implications of the Goldstone report, noting that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu said two months ago that the three major dangers facing Israel were the Iranian nuclear threat, the missile threat from Hamas and Hezbollah and the Goldstone report.
“Goldstone has become code for a much broader phenomenon: the attempt to negate the legitimacy of our right to self-defense,” Netanyahu said at the time.
Asked her reaction to claims that the Goldstone report is being used by Israel’s enemies to delegitimize the Jewish state, Paiss replied: “We are acutely aware that Israel has real enemies and that the work of human rights groups are used for their propaganda. ... [But] you lose much more in a democracy when you shut down internal criticism out of fear that it would be used by people who hate you. If Israel gives in on basic democratic values, then it is really lost.”
The Im Tirtzu study found that without the NIF-funded NGOs’ reports, “Goldstone would have nothing on which to base most of the claims” he made against Israel.
“In recent years Israel has been increasingly accused of war crimes, and this allegation has become a type of new weapon among leftist organizations,” the study said. “In effect, a small group of leftist organizations that is financed by identical foreign sources has created international pressure that is seriously harming Israel in the diplomatic arena and challenges Israel’s legitimate right of self-defense in the future.”
Hamas is also claiming Israel committed war crimes in its 22-day Gaza incursion, Shoval said, in order to get the international community to put such pressure on Israel that it won’t dare respond the next time Hamas fires missiles at civilians.
He said he plans to bring his report to the Knesset with the hope that it investigates these human rights groups “because they are helping Hamas, and the State of Israel should check to see who is giving them money and whether it is legal or not.
Yisrael Hasson, a member of the Knesset Foreign Affairs and Defense Committee, told The Jewish Week he is inclined to call for an investigation, “but I don’t want to say for sure because I’m still learning the issue.”
In the United States, Abraham Foxman, national director of the Anti-Defamation League, called the Im Tirtzu charges “an outrageous broadside,” telling The Jewish Week “it is absurd to blame Goldstone on NIF.”
He said there might be legitimate questions for NIF to respond to about standards for its recipient organizations, ensuring that they not support violence, as was the case with the Ford Foundation. But he said it was unfair to accuse NIF “of undermining Israeli security. Lots of people aided and abetted Goldstone.”
The charges exchanged between Im Tirtzu and the New Israel Fund also became personal attacks when Im Tirtzu took out an ad depicting Naomi Chazan, NIF’s president, with a horn on her head. Chazan is a former deputy speaker of the Knesset and a former member of the Knesset from the Meretz Party.
“She was the head of the campaign against the IDF,” Shoval said in explaining the caricature of Chazan. “She has a major part in deciding where the money is going, and I want to make sure that everyone knows that this is the person standing behind it.”
Asked why a horn was put on her head, he said the word for “horn” in Hebrew also means “fund,” “so it was a funny to put a horn on her head.”
In addition, he said his group staged a protest demonstration outside her Jerusalem home Saturday night.
Paiss said Chazan was in New York at the time and that the protesters mistakenly targeted a neighbor’s home and not Chazan’s.
Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of J Street, a Washington-based pro-peace-process lobby group, issued a statement expressing grave concern about the “vicious” attacks against the NIF and Chazan. He said it used “style reminiscent of propaganda from the darkest days of recent Jewish experience, depicting Chazan with a horn on her head and holding her personally responsible for the contents of the Goldstone Report.”
Ben-Ami said also that Im Tirtzu’s political leanings are clear from the fact that it accepted $100,000 from the John Hagee Ministries, a group run by Pastor John Hagee, a major supporter of Israel who has made controversial remarks in the past. Hagee is also founder and president of Christians United for Israel.
Paiss said she believes this attack on her organization is but the latest in a “coordinated attempt to delegitimize Israeli civil society and repress human rights groups and tolerance for dissent and honesty” in Israel. She cited the recent arrests of Anat Hoffman of the Israel Religious Action Center for her activities in support of women praying at the Kotel, and of Hagai el-Ad, executive director of the Association for Civil Rights in Israel, as he was monitoring a demonstration protesting the seizure of Palestinian land in Jerusalem.
“We think it’s a suppression of free speech and that they want the human rights community in Israel to be defunded and defeated,” Paiss said.
But Gerald Steinberg, a professor of political science at Bar-Ilan University and a founder of NGO Monitor, charged that the NIF is guilty of a similar attack against him. He claimed it has been distributing a “finger” painting against him, even though his organization has never engaged in personal attacks.
“It’s an example of how NIF plays rough and dirty in attacking its critics, but is outraged when they are treated in the same way,” he said. “NIF is extremely closed and hostile to any criticism and independent analysis, and they have outraged the Israeli center by their funding of some of the most radical organizations.
“They collect most of their money from outside of Israel, and there is a demand that the Knesset demand transparency from government-funded NGOs,” Steinberg added. “Do NIF-funded NGOs discriminate against Israel when they encourage boycotts of Israel and encourage Israelis to reject the draft? This is part of a wider awareness effort going on in Israel. It is not right wing but centrist.”
Paiss denied that the NIF was behind a “finger” poster directed against Steinberg, whom she called a “voice and outlet for those who believe that any criticism of Israel is anti-Israel.”
“We think that loving examination of Israel’s real problems and proposing solutions is the best way to love Israel,” she added.
Posted by truth seeker at 2:57 PM 0 comments
Tuesday, February 9, 2010
help Joel Pollak Ill. 9 to help israel
"Beverly Sandler" Joel Pollak - outstanding Pro Israel candidate for Illinois' 9th District has the opportunity to bring on Eric Cantor's fund raising team if he can raise an addition $14,000 by Friday morning. At all costs the incumbent Jan Schakowsky (JStreet) must be eliminated from elected office. Could you help out with this? Please help spread the word.
Contributions can be made on his website.
https://secure.piryx.com/donate/NbeJASm1/PollakForCongress/
Contributions can also be made by check.
Please make checks out to:
Pollak for Congress
Send to
P.O. Box 5027
Evanston , IL 60204-5027
So that we can keep track of how much more we need to raise please ask contributors to email me with the amount of their donations.
The US/Israel relationship is worth fighting for and the fight boils down to us!
Posted by truth seeker at 2:48 PM 0 comments
Friday, February 5, 2010
J Street pushed that anti-Israel Gaza piece to Congress
nethttp://www.forward.com/articles/124915/
Washington — In the strongest sign so far of pushback against dovish Jewish groups, a New York congresswoman representing an ultra-Orthodox constituency retracted her support from congressional initiatives meant to ease the pressure on Palestinians in Gaza.
Yvette Clarke, of New York’s 11th District, which covers large parts of Brooklyn, met February 1 with a group of local Jewish leaders, many ultra-Orthodox, to discuss their concerns about her decision to sign on to two congressional letters dealing with the plight of Palestinians in Gaza. One letter called for lifting travel restrictions on Palestinian students, and the other for easing the Israeli blockade on Gaza.
The Jewish leaders’ intervention produced an open letter to Clarke’s Jewish constituents in which she expressed her regret for supporting the congressional letters. “Unfortunately, these letters are uneven in their application of pressure and do not sufficiently present a balanced approach/path to peace,” Clarke wrote, adding that the letters have “a provocative and reactionary impact.”
A spokesman for Agudath Israel of America said that Jewish participants in the meeting with Clarke responded to her new letter with “cautious optimism” and expressed their hope that her future stance on the Middle East “will reflect the support for Israel she is voicing now.”
Dovish Jewish groups supported the congressional letters on Gaza, and while mainstream pro-Israel organizations were not supportive of them, they did not actively lobby against them.
Hadar Susskind, director of policy and strategy at J Street, a group that advocated in favor of the letters, said he understood Clarke’s wish “to balance her needs with the needs of her constituency,” but he called on the Jewish community to break with “the zero-sum game and understand that improving the situation in Gaza will help us all reach a solution.”
Clarke’s retraction of her support for the Gaza letters echoes similar pressure put on lawmakers in the run-up to J Street’s first national conference, in October 2009. Then, too, some members of Congress from strongly Jewish districts came under constituent pressure to withdraw from a list of sponsors for the eve
Friday, February 19, 2010
Fatah are terrorists too
Fatah is not a moderate organization. They have fought a continuing war against Israel through the courts-both international courts and U.N bodies, and the court of public opinion. They honor the murderers of Jews, and never stop for a day with their media and mosque incitement.
http://tinyurl.com/ygvov59
Posted by truth seeker at 11:09 AM 0 comments
Thursday, February 18, 2010
How J Street hurts Israel
http://www.solomonia.com/blog/archive/2010/02/j-street-teams-up-with-leftist-christian/index.shtml
Author: Solomon J Street Teams up With Leftist Christian Group to Cause Israel Diplomatic Trouble
J Street, in cooperation with anti-Israel Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), is hosting a delegation of Congressmen from the US to Israel. Who is this CMEP that the "pro-Israel" J Street is running with? NGO Monitor has a good rundown:
Analysis: Churches for Middle East Peace and the BDS Movement
Churches for Middle East Peace (CMEP), which is J-Street's partner in sponsoring the visit of a US Congressional delegation to Israel, is a US-based political advocacy organization. Like many other such NGOs, CMEP's rhetoric and its activities are not always consistent, and some of its constituent groups are centrally involved in the political war against Israel.
A number of CMEP partners take an active role in promoting BDS - the boycott, divestment and sanctions campaign - as part of the 2001 Durban NGO agenda which calls for the total international isolation of Israel. For example, Friends of Sabeel North America (www.fosna.org) is a fundraising and publicity branch of the Palestinian NGO Sabeel. This organization, headed by Naim Ateek, is a leader of the church divestment campaign, and in his speaking tours around North America, Ateek employs antisemitic themes and imagery in sermons promoting his "Palestinian Liberation Theology." In promoting this agenda, his rhetoric includes references to "the Israeli government crucifixion system".
CMEP's website also features the "KAIROS Palestine Document", which was written by a group of Palestinian Christians, including Ateek. KAIROS Palestine calls for action designed to create "a system of economic sanctions and boycott [and divestment] to be applied against Israel," echoing Sabeel's efforts. CMEP also quotes Bishop Mark Hanson of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, referring to the document as "a word of hope in a time of pessimism that could lead to despair."
This adoption of the Palestinian narrative of victimization, perhaps a reflection of the close ties to Sabeel and other Palestinian groups, was also evident in a January 21, 2005 full-page New York Times ad sponsored by CMEP. The text read, in part, "With each news report of Palestinian suffering...popular support in Arab and Muslim countries for terrorism grows and the threat of attacks directed at the United States increases."
A number of CMEP's board members also reflect the goal of demonization, under the façade of promoting peace. For example, Helena Cobban, a fierce anti-Israel ideologue and member Human Rights Watch's Middle East board, sits on CMEP's Leadership Council.
Thus, while much of the media coverage of this delegation has focused on the involvement of J-Street angle, this is only half of the story. CMEP is an equal partner, and deserves equal scrutiny.
The fact that J Street would partner with a group like CMEP is simply and straightforwardly another nail in the coffin of J Street's pro-Israel bona fides. How out to lunch do you have to be to partner with this group and give them credibility before a group of Congressmen? Here, BTW, is a search on "CMEP" at CAMERA's site. Lots of material there.
J Street's handling of the event is already causing trouble, as the Foreign Ministry is refusing to meet the delegation with J Street as an intermediary: US congressman demands explanation for chilly reception in Israel
A visiting U.S. congressman lashed out at Israel's number two diplomat Wednesday, saying he was snubbed by the Foreign Ministry and demanding an official clarification.
Rep. William Delahunt, a Democrat from Massachusetts and a member of the House Committee on Foreign Affairs, is heading a congressional delegation to the region. The trip is hosted by J Street, a liberal Jewish lobbying group that presents itself as an alternative to the American Israel Public Affairs Committee -- one of Washington's most powerful lobbies.
J Street, which supports President Barack Obama's push for a Palestinian state alongside Israel, says it sought a meeting for the U.S. representatives with Israeli diplomats but was turned down.
The Foreign Ministry dismissed the complaint, saying in response that it did not need mediators to set up meetings with U.S. officials.
The snub appeared aimed at J Street. Israel's government has been critical of the group's programs, which are more dovish than those of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu's hawkish government.
Speaking to reporters in Tel Aviv, Delahunt said he was surprised and disappointed to read an Israeli newspaper report that he was being boycotted by the Foreign Ministry for his affiliation with J Street and identified Israeli Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon as the culprit.
"We were puzzled that the Deputy Foreign Minister has apparently attempted to block our meetings with senior officials in the Prime Minister's office and Foreign Ministry -- questioning either our own support of Israel or that we would even consider traveling to the region with groups thatthe deputy foreign minister has so inaccurately described as 'anti-Israel'," Delahunt said.
"In our opinion this is an inappropriate way to treat elected representatives of Israel's closest ally who are visiting the country."
Delahunt asked the Israeli government "for a clarification of its stance toward this and future delegations."
Ayalon's office said the deputy minister was prepared to meet any elected officials, especially from the U.S. Congress, but he "didn't need mediators."...
...Four other U.S. representatives were traveling with Delahunt -- Democrats Donald Payne of New Jersey, Lois Capps of California, Bob Filner of California and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio...
All five of the Congresspeople now assisting J Street in redefining what it means to be "pro-Israel" were signatories to the Ellison/McDermott sponsored letter on the Gaza "siege."
Here's more on J Street's latest self-inflicted wound: J Street blasts Ayalon's 'boycott'.
This is what a pro-Israel group does? Partners with one of the worst of the anti-Israel Christian groups and causes a diplomatic incident with the government? Once again we see that J Street is more about leftist politics than about support for Israel. Leftism is the only thing a group trying to claim it was pro-Israel in any meaningful sense could possibly have in common with CMEP. They partner with CMEP yet denounce John Hagee. They bring Bill Delahunt on a trip to Israel and instigate a row putting Danny Ayalon on the spot, as though he doesn't have enough to worry about.
This is about Jeremy Ben-Ami's ego, fundraising and leftist politics. It has nothing to do with supporting Israel.
