Wow! J Street uncovers a secret about Netanyahu and Trump - by Victor Rosenthal

...J Street’s primary goal, like that of the numerous other anti-Israel organizations in the US, including the nominally “Jewish” If Not Now and Jewish Voice for Peace, as well as explicitly antisemitic ones like If America Knew, is to create antipathy and distrust for Israel, so that Americans will oppose pro-Israel actions by the US government – for example, the recognition of Israel’s possession of the Golan Heights...

Victor Rosenthal..
Abu Yehuda..
22 March '19..
Link: http://abuyehuda.com/2019/03/j-street-uncovers-a-secret-about-netanyahu-and-trump/  (If you would like to repost this article to Facebook, please use this link as LOTL's url is currently blocked from FB)

I think my interest in J Street could once have been called “obsessive.” I wrote numerous blog posts a few years ago, pointing out that the supposedly “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organization received financing from George Soros, mysterious billionaires in Hong Kong, and people associated with Iran, Turkey, Saudi Arabia, and the Arab-American Institute. I noted – along with then Ambassador Michael Oren – that it consistently (one could say always) took positions opposed to almost any reasonable interpretation of Israel’s interests. I objected to its guiding principle, which seemed to be that it knew what was good for Israel far better than Israelis did, especially since following its recommendations would negatively impact Israel’s security. I wondered at the close coordination between J Street and the Obama Administration, which tried to anoint it as the voice of American Jewry toward Israel. And more.

Since I moved back to Israel in 2014, I’ve been less concerned with J Street, which is, after all, an American phenomenon. We have plenty of “interesting” politics right here. But recently I became aware of a new J Street initiative, targeting PM Netanyahu, just before the election:

WASHINGTON, DC — The pro-Israel, pro-peace group J Street launched a new series of videos today highlighting the dangerously similar rhetoric and ideology shared by President Trump and Israel’s Prime Minister Netanyahu. Released as targeted digital ads just a week before the two leaders are expected to meet in Washington, DC on the sidelines of the AIPAC conference, the videos urge pro-Israel Americans who are opposed to Trump to also speak out against Netanyahu’s similar bigotry and anti-democratic tendencies.

“By attacking democratic institutions and targeting vulnerable minorities, Trump and Netanyahu are borrowing from the same far-right playbook — undermining the core values and interests of both the US and Israel,” said J Street’s president Jeremy Ben-Ami. “Patriotic Americans have mobilized impressively against Trump here at home. Those of us who care about Israel’s future need to speak out against Netanyahu’s destructive leadership as well.”

Over the past two years, both the president and the prime minister have incited against vulnerable minorities, attacked the free press and de-legitimized the judiciary and the rule of law. Both face serious investigations into alleged criminal conduct. …

There’s no doubt that liberal and progressive American Jews hate Trump passionately, and there’s no better way to attack Netanyahu among that group than by associating him with their bête noire. The first J Street video is here. It’s very professional and probably didn’t come cheap. The question is, why did J Street spend a considerable sum of money on such a campaign? Americans don’t vote in Israeli elections (although J Street probably wishes they did). Why attack Netanyahu in the USA?

It’s not a simple question and I don’t have a simple answer. Unfortunately, the position papers of J Street’s psychological warfare experts aren’t public. But I have some ideas.

Introducing J Street's ‘Birthwrong’ project - by Stephen M. Flatow

...So by all means, J Street leaders, bring your students to Palestinian cities. They might actually learn some of the painful facts that you keep hidden from them.

Stephen M. Flatow..
JNS.org..
14 March '19..

J Street thinks that “Birthright” trips are too pro-Israel. So it has announced that it is launching some trips of its own. Perhaps they should be called “Birthwrong” since their purpose is to convince young American Jews that Israel is wrong and the Palestinian Authority is right on pretty much every issue.

Jewish control of united Jerusalem? Israel is wrong, J Street says; the city should be re-divided, with the eastern portion turned into the capital of “Palestine.”

Allowing Jews to build homes in Judea-Samaria, just as Arabs do? Israel is wrong about that, too, says J Street; those territories should be Arab-only.

And opposing the P.A.’s payments to terrorists? Wrong again, according to J Street; complaining about pay-for-slay could “harm the peace process.”

Israel is wrong, wrong, wrong. And the Palestinian Authority is always right, which is why J Street never criticizes it.

Despite all this, there actually might be some value in the Birthwrong trips. Here’s why.

(Continue to Full Column)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Surprise? J-Street, which gave more to candidates than real pro-Israel PACs, says it is concerned over giving money to candidates

...This press release where J-Street pretends to be "nuanced" shows, when analyzed, that J-Street's position towards Israel is indeed perilously close to those of the antisemites who are obsessed with destroying the Jewish state.

Elder of Ziyon..
12 February '19..

J-Street issued a press release over the Ilhan Omar kerfuffle, and showed itself to be even more hypocritical than we knew. It says that, sure, "elected official" should be careful with their words... but Omar sort of had a point:

Elected officials should be particularly sensitive and careful on the question of the role played by campaign contributions in influencing US policies toward Israel and the Middle East. There is no doubt that money often plays a major role in our political system.

Since the only group Omar specifically mentioned in her offensive tweet was AIPAC, it is obvious that J-Street is agreeing with her that traditional lobbying for Israel is problematic and potentially could cause officials to change their positions to follow the money.

J-Street is stunningly hypocritical.

J-Street absurdly styles itself as being "pro-Israel" even though there is very little daylight between its positions and those of the PLO. And the J-StreetPAC page brags that the largest "pro-Israel lobby" in the US is - J-StreetPAC!

Not only that, it brags about its money influencing Congress!

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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Surprise? J-Street's leaders embraced man who provided money and explosives for deadly 2002 attack - by Elder of Ziyon

...Al-Sheikh is also a known sexual harasser. Since J-Street doesn't give a damn about Israeli and American lives, perhaps Jeremy Ben Ami will apologize for that.

Elder of Ziyon..
04 November '18..

A couple of weeks ago, I reported that J-Street's leaders, including Jeremy Ben Ami, had met with Mahmoud Abbas and other Palestinian leaders, including one whose statements showed that he supported terrorism.

It turns out that that member of the Fatah central committee, Hussein al-Sheikh, is a terrorist himself.

Stephen Flatow, father of a terrorist victim, writes:

Thursday, March 21, 2002, was a pleasant early spring morning in Jerusalem. King George Street, in the heart of the city, was packed with shoppers. Suddenly, a Palestinian suicide bomber struck. The explosion left three people dead, and more than 100 wounded. One of the fatalities was Tzippi Shemesh, who was five months pregnant with twins.

Among the wounded were a number of Americans. The force of the explosion hurled U.S. citizen Alan Bauer 20 feet. Two screws that were packed into the bomb ripped clear through his left arm. His 7-year-old son, Jonathan, suffered severe shrapnel wounds and fell into a coma. Jonathan subsequently underwent numerous operations to remove nails and screws from his head, including one that was lodged in his brain. Needless to say, he was left with permanent injuries.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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J-Street's Jeremy Ben-Ami goes off into complete fantasyland - by Elder of Ziyon

...There is no daylight between the official Palestinian position stated to the world and J-Street. It is not pro-Israel in any sense. And people who believe that all peoples have the right to self determination but not Jews, which seems to be J-Street's position, are antisemitic.

Elder of Ziyon..
25 February '18..

In a new mailing from J-Street, Jeremy Ben Ami waxes poetic over Mahmoud Abbas' "peace plan" of giving up nothing and demanding everything be handed to him on a silver platter:

Last week, Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas made an important speech to the UN Security Council.

Abbas laid out explicit support for the two-state solution and put forward a serious proposal for how to get there.

Of course, if Ben Ami had been paying attention, Abbas was not showing the slightest willingness to make any hard decisions for peace - as he and his predecessor have adamantly refused to do so for over twenty years.

But then Ben-Ami goes into complete fantasyland:

So it’s stunning when you realize that, today, of the three, the Palestinians are the only party willing to publicly endorse the goal of two states for two peoples.

This is a breathtaking lie.

(Continue to Full Post)

Updates throughout the day at http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com. If you enjoy "Love of the Land", please be a subscriber. Just put your email address in the "Subscribe" box on the upper right-hand corner of the page.Twitter updates at LoveoftheLand as well as our Love of the Land page at Facebook which has additional pieces of interest besides that which is posted on the blog. Also check-out This Ongoing War by Frimet and Arnold Roth. An excellent blog, very important work. 

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J Street: Lies Again, Gets Caught Again

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
12 October '10

In the wake of its lies about getting money from George Soros, trying to help anti-Israel campaigner Richard Goldstone lobby Congress, cooperating with Iran's lobby to try to protect Iran from sanctions, and on other matters, here's another one. J Street founder and its leading "expert" on Israel, Daniel Levy--one of the mass media's favorite people to interview about Israel--was caught saying that Israel's creation was wrong. J Street lashed back calling its critics "far right" and issuing a video purporting to show that Levy never said such a thing.

Levy made the statement near the end of his talk. J Street cut out the end. This could not have been a mistake. It had to be deliberate so they could say: See! He didn't say it, he's only speaking regrettably about the creation of the Palestinian refugee problem, these critics are lying, so you should all continue supporting J Street.

What? It's not there? Well, J Street: That's only because you edited it out of the video!

This is the moral level of these people.

(Read full story)

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J Street Self-Destructs: The Con-Game Unravels. But Where Was the Mass Media?

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
11 October '10

I have been writing about how J Street is an anti-Israel group pretending to be a liberal pro-Israel group while the truth has been shielded by the mass media. I pointed out how it had worked with Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's lobby last year to try to block sanctions against Iran over its nuclear program.

A typical front group is one in which leaders use false claims to win followers who would never support the organization if they understood its true nature. In other words, those actually leading and guiding J Street are seeking to destroy the American Jewish support base for Israel. Many of the individual members have good intentions and no idea that this is so. Well, now they have the evidence.

J Street lied in claiming not to have received large-scale funding from George Soros, the billionaire financier for left-wing and anti-Israel causes. There are other really shady things going on to conceal where their money comes from. It is possible the group broke the law by using money from a resident of Hong Kong to support American political candidates.

Now, too, it has come out that it wanted to organize the Capitol Hill visit of Richard Goldstone, author of the extremely flawed anti-Israel UN report on the Gaza Strip. As a result, Colette Avital, a Labour Party politician, has resigned as the group's representative in Israel. By the way, J Street is once again lying but the conversation about Goldstone is on tape. Incidentally, Avital also denied telling the reporter anything about Goldstone. The tape also shows her to be a liar.

(Read full article)

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J Street Co-Founder Daniel Levy: Israel’s Creation “An Act That Was Wrong”

Omri Ceren
Mere Rhetoric
05 October '10

Quite the few days that J Street had last week, what with all the admitting they’re foot soldiers in Soros’s anti-Israel army after lying about it for years and then trying to get ahead of the story by lying about it some more. Most of the criticism has focused on co-founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, who did not exactly fall on his sword and instead tried to hamfistedly change the subject. But it’s probably unfair to blame him for all of J Street’s failings, from rigging polls to being more anti-Israel than the Saudis to expressing fake confusion about Hamas’s intentions.

Per Eli Lake’s first story, Ben-Ami seems to have been the one who did most of the “misleading” about J Street’s fundraising, from furtively squirreling away Soros’s cash to opaquely raising 50% of the group’s 2008 money from a single foreign source.

But per Lake’s second article, when it came time to shuttle Goldstone around DC and peddle his endlessly inaccurate and venomously biased libels around the Hill, J Street delegated the task to one of the adults in the organization. It was J Street co-founder, advisory board member, and international socialite Daniel Levy “who accompanied the judge to several of the [10-12] parleys” with Congress. It was also Levy’s New America Foundation that hosted a high-caliber lunch for Goldstone with “a group of analysts and Middle East wonks.”

The Goldstone tour wasn’t the first time that Levy willingly served as a channel for de facto Hamas propaganda. He’s been a tireless advocate of pro-Hamas diplomacy, and sees the Iranian proxy as an integral part of Palestinian civil society. A few years ago Noah Pollak took him out to the woodshed for historical revisionism that seemed jarringly anti-Israel and borderline anti-Zionist.

(Read full post)

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J Street Under the Searchlight

P. David Hornik
frontpagemag.com
04 October '10

J Street, the American Jewish advocacy organization that describes itself as “pro-Israel, pro-peace”—clearly implying that other pro-Israel organizations are not pro-peace—is in hot water these days. Washington Times reporter Eli Lake has revealed that J Street has been lying—big-time—about its funding. Then, in a follow-up report, Lake revealed further J Street lies about its connection with Judge Richard Goldstone, author of the infamous Goldstone Report.

Lake’s first story on September 24 disclosed that J Street—in direct contradiction to a longstanding claim on its website—had received generous funding, to the tune of $750,000 over three years, from controversial financier George Soros and his family. Moreover, J Street had received a total sum of $811,697 from a mysterious donor in Hong Kong named Consolacion Esdicul, who in turn was solicited—J Street claims—by a non-Jewish, American horse-race bettor named Bill Benter.
J Street, of course, had good reason to cover-up its support from Soros, whose “views”—if one can dignify them by calling them that—on Jewish and Israeli matters put him outside the discourse of decency. In 2003 Soros, who is of Hungarian Jewish background, said in a speech that:

There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that. It’s not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well. I’m critical of those policies.

If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish. I can’t see how one could confront it directly.

(Read full article)

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J Street – The Masquerade Laid Bare

Daphne Anson
02 October '10

It’s been reported that plans are afoot to set to up a British organisation comparable to J Street, involving such leftwing Jews as Guardian journalist Jonathan Freeland (and presumably, though this is just speculation, with assistance from the New Israel Fund). I look on such a development with a jaundiced gaze; there are enough Israel-demonising groups in Britain today without adding to their number with a (yet another leftist) Jewish communal initiative. J Street’s plausible dishonesty has duped many well-meaning people into assuming that it has Israel’s welfare uppermost in its heart, and can achieve that aim more readily than AIPAC.

It’s hard to dispute Alan Dershowitz’s contention, made last March during its conference in Washington when he buttonholed one of its officials giving a press interview, that J Street has sown discord within the American Jewish community; it is a divisive force and damaging to Israel. "I reject J Street because it spends more time criticizing Israel than supporting it," Dershowitz declared. "They shouldn't call themselves pro-Israel.” He added that although he too opposes settlements, he makes “the 80 percent case for Israel”. The fact that J Street invited former U.S. Secretary of State Zbigniew Brzezinski – no great fan of Israel – to its March conference was an indication, he maintained, that J Street is “not pro-Israel". J Street has supported the odious slur on Israel that comprises the Goldstone Report, which prompted Colette Avital MK to quit as J Street’s conduit in Israel.

(Read full article)

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J-Street unmasked

Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking from Jerusalem
01 October '10

Two years ago, when I first condemned J Street’s anti-Israeli agenda, I tagged George Soros, the billionaire Hungarian born currency speculator, as one of its major sponsors. Yet J-Street founder and executive director Jeremy Ben Ami, on repeated occasions, adamantly denied this. He even said that he wished that Soros was a funder adding that “we got tagged as having his support without the benefit of actually getting funded.”

It has now been disclosed that some $750,000, amounting to almost a third of J-Street’s 2008-2009 US revenue, was provided by Soros.

After being exposed as an outright serial liar, Ben-Ami tried to weasel his way out of his shameful behavior by “accepting responsibility for being less than clear” about J-Street funding.

In fact Soros and J-Street make a perfect match. Soros has proudly proclaimed “I am not a Zionist, nor am I a practicing Jew.” He believes that Israel is largely responsible for anti-Semitism. Much of his venom is concentrated on AIPAC, and he has consistently been attacking all-pro Israeli institutions. He also calls for the recognition of Hamas. His “Open Society Institute” pours vast funds into organizations whose prime objective is to undermine elected governments of Israel. Only last month ago, he contributed a record $100 million towards Human Rights Watch, the purportedly human rights watchdog, which no longer bothers to disguise its blatant bias and hostility towards Israel.

(Read full article)

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Fear and Survival: The Tragedy And Threat That Is George Soros

Barry Rubin
The Rubin Report
29 September '10

I’ve long pondered the bizarre doings of billionaire financier George Soros, who's become the single biggest funder of left-wing and often anti-Jewish (certainly, anti-Israel) causes in Europe and North America. Most recently, it was revealed that Soros was a huge contributor to the anti-Israel J Street group even though the organization had lied about that connection.

But how can one explain the behavior and motives of Soros? For me, finally, the missing piece of the puzzle has fallen into place.

The first key bit of evidence was Soros’s interview with the December 20, 1998, “Sixty Minutes” television show in which he recounts his experiences as a 14-year-old boy in Nazi-occupied Hungary, a time when he said his “character was made.” Soros’ father had sent him to live with a bribed Christian government official who was involved in confiscating Jewish property.

A lot of the discussion about this interview has been misdirected over whether Soros was in some way a war criminal. This is clearly untrue since he was barely a teenager and didn’t actually do anything but observe. He was as he describes himself, a “spectator.”

Let’s get a more sophisticated, accurate understanding by examining what Soros actually said about the experience long afterward. What did he learn from being a spectator, watching both sides but truly being on neither side?

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J Street's Crooked Road -- Lies and Misdemeanors

Lenny Ben-David
I*Consult
16 September '10

Bravo to The Washington Times' national security correspondent Eli Lake for his exposé of J Street over the weekend. The so-called "pro-Israel" organization is bursting with overripe scandals about the identity of its contributors, its decision-making process, conflicting policies on Iran sanctions, ties to pro-Iranian and Arab American organizations, and more. But many reporters have been reluctant to shine a spotlight on them, fearful of running afoul of the White House for whom J Street proudly serves as Obama’s “blocking back” or the extreme "Journolist" guild of "progressive" reporters and bloggers in Washington who promote J Street and attack its critics. [See Journalists in the Service of J Street]

When J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami went to temple on Yom Kippur I hope he concentrated on the verse, "Forgive us for the sins we committed by fraud and falsehood.” Since J Street’s founding, Ben-Ami repeatedly and boldly lied about his organization’s dependence on the super-critic of Israel, George Soros. Lake revealed that J Street’s U.S. tax records prove that Soros and his family are major contributors.

(Read full article)

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Beware The Mark Of Soros! Soros And J Street From The Beginning

Daled Amos
26 September '10


Soccer Dad reminds me that I started posting about Soros and J Street before there even was a J Street--back in November 2006: A Kinder, Gentler Alternative To AIPAC?:

A kinder, gentler alternative to AIPAC may be in the works.

On board with this is George Soros, the billionaire philanthropist and major contributor to MoveOn.org, who sent a top staffer to a meeting in September to explore the possibilities, according to the Jewish Telegraphic Agency:

The September meeting — and other related meetings — focused on how best to press the U.S. Congress and the Bush administration to back greater U.S. engagement toward resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, and how to better represent American Jews who don’t buy into AIPAC’s often hawkish policies.

At the time, I wrote that some of the inspiration was based on the success of IPF, APN and Brit Tzedek in killing the Palestinian Anti-Terrorism Act, which would have cut off US aid to the Palestinian Authority until it renounced terrorism and recognized Israel. The groups successfully lobbied to to revised the bill, added exceptions for assistance to Mahmoud Abbas,and gave the president greater power to waive the sanctions and remove parts of the bill that would have restricted aid to NGOs working with the Palestinians. In the end, the differences between the Senate and House versions were considered so irreconcilable that the bill was never signed.

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J Street Unmasked

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
24 September '10

It’s been a mystery: what sliver of the electorate is J Street representing? Where is the market for virulent left-wing, anti-Israel propaganda disguised as tough love? It is hard to believe there is a significant segment of American Jewry that this group represents. Actually, we now know that J Street, for all intents and purposes, represents the views and is a wholly owned subsidiary of one individual — George Soros, the gazillionaire who seems to think anti-Semitism is caused by pushy Jews. In 2003, JTA had this report:

“There is a resurgence of anti-Semitism in Europe. The policies of the Bush administration and the Sharon administration contribute to that,” Soros said. “It’s not specifically anti-Semitism, but it does manifest itself in anti-Semitism as well. I’m critical of those policies.”

“If we change that direction, then anti-Semitism also will diminish,” he said. “I can’t see how one could confront it directly.” That is a point made by Israel’s most vociferous critics, whom some Jewish activists charge with using anti-Zionism as a guise for anti-Semitism.

Eli Lake has the scoop. J Street is not so much a “group” as it is a front for Soros (shouldn’t it really be “Soros Street”?), who has funded J Street to the tune of $750,000 over a three-year period.

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Bogus 'pro peace' organizations undermine Israel

Isi Leibler
Candidly Speaking From Jerusalem
27 May '10

Of late, the western media has provided inordinate prominence to Jewish fringe organizations like J Street and its European clone, JCall, which define themselves as "liberal" and "pro-peace", but concentrate on castigating the Israeli government and undermining mainstream Diaspora pro-Israel Jewish organizations.

These bodies are primarily controlled by anti-Israeli activists, but also include many well-meaning but confused liberal fellow travelers. They also attract uninformed Jews and members of the anti-Zionist chic influenced by constant negative media depictions of Israel.

Their core message is that the Jewish establishment is alienating the bulk of the Jewish street, by blindly supporting the policies of an extremist right wing Israeli government and indulging in "McCarthyite" tactics to excommunicate anyone who dares to criticize Israeli policies.

These unrepresentative bodies receive widespread favorable exposure by a media which relishes quoting Jews beating up on Israel. Whenever Jewish writers or academics condemn Israel or castigate their own community, they are portrayed as heroic voices of conscience resisting a harsh and bigoted Jewish leadership. One only has to compare the enormous media coverage provided to the European J Call petition criticizing Israel with a counter petition by Italian MP Fiamma Nirenstein which contained many more signatories and was effectively ignored.

This was also exemplified in the US by the extraordinary media coverage extended to former New Republic editor Peter Beinart who wrote a lengthy essay titled "The Failure of the American Jewish Establishment" in the New York Review of Books, a periodical renowned for its longstanding hostility to successive Israeli governments. Beinart selectively chose extremist remarks from Israeli hawks, falsely alleged that Prime Minister Netanyahu repudiated the Oslo Accords, quoted the "renowned" Hebrew University professor Ze'ev Sternhell - a bitter post-Zionist - alleging that Israel has "fascist characteristics" and accusing the Israeli government and Jewish leadership of alienating the younger generation of liberal Jews.

There is an uncanny parallel between these "pro-peace" groups and the bogus peace councils sponsored by the Soviet Union during the Cold War, which also claimed to be the true custodians of peace and succeeded in duping many "fellow travelers" into becoming accessories in promoting the global objectives of the Evil Empire.

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Shut Up, Mr. Oren, J Street Explains

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
27 April '10

A reader alerts me to this item: it seems as though J Street’s president at Brandeis University doesn’t like upsetting students. (This would be news to the actual pro-Israel contingent there, who thought that J Street was all about provoking and challenging others.) Anyhow, his complaint: is “I’m not exactly thrilled that a representative of the current right-wing Israeli government will be delivering the keynote address at my commencement.” In case you thought it was directed at some party functionary, that is his way of referring to Ambassador Michael Oren, the representative of the elected government of Israel. The J Streeter thinks Oren is too “divisive.” He scrawls:

Despite its strong Jewish foundation, Brandeis has evolved into a university that prides itself on diversity, and its current student body reflects that pursuit. Even as a secular Jew of Israeli heritage, over the past four years I have often been agitated by the persistent questions, albeit half-serious, of my non-Brandeis peers: “Is there a Jewish studies requirement to graduate? I thought it was a rabbinical school.” If these queries bother me, I can only imagine what it must feel like for the half of Brandeis students who aren’t Jewish to answer these questions. Isn’t it possible that the selection of Oren is nothing but the icing on the cake, a silent confirmation that after four years of living and breathing Brandeis, these students really are outsiders in this community?

He seems to have confused “diversity” with “ridding the campus of pro-Israel voices.” He continues:

Oren is an undeniably controversial figure in a debate that is vibrant on our campus. Such speakers have a history of drawing protesters at Brandeis, something that now seems to be a likely feature of next month’s commencement.

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RE: J Street Comes Clean

Noah Pollak
Contentions/Commentary
26 April "10

J Street’s position on Jerusalem, detailed by Jen Rubin, is a perfect example of why the proper way to understand the “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organization is as an export-import business. Bear with me for a moment.

There was a set of ideas about the Arab-Israeli conflict to which many people subscribed in the 80s and 90s. These ideas became the Oslo Accords. The Oslo Accords became an immense, catastrophic failure. Many people who were Oslo advocates, thus confronted with reality, changed their minds about the conflict (an obvious example is Benny Morris). Some Oslo advocates, however, did not, and adopted various theories to justify their continued membership in the peace-process-can-do-no-harm camp: the Israeli offers were never good enough, Sharon started the intifada, territorial withdrawal must come first, a conspiracy of neocons and AIPAC has always worked against peace, and so on. In 2000 in Lebanon and in 2005 in Gaza, territorial withdrawal was tried, and the results detonated a belief even deeper than Oslo, this one going all the way back to 1967 and perhaps even to 1948: the hope that land could be traded for peace and that the conflict is about borders, not Israel’s very existence.

These accumulated facts changed the attitude of Israelis in a dramatic way. The Oslo consensus disintegrated not only as an understanding of the Arab-Israeli conflict, but as a political platform. In the early 90s, Labor and Meretz held a combined 56 Knesset seats. Today they have 16. Yet despite this political collapse in Israel, a few true believers still cling to the Oslo fantasy. How can these ideas survive their failure in the very place they’re supposed to be applied?

J Street, working with various Meretz has-beens in Israel, imports the ideas to America and tries to revive them here, where Jews are far less aware of their abysmal record of failure. J Street pushes them to the Obama administration, which is favorably disposed to them anyway. Here is where the exporting happens: Obama now seeks to impose them on an unreceptive Israel.

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J Street Comes Clean: It Wants to Divide the Old City

Jennifer Rubin
Contentions/Commentary
26 April '10

The J Street Education Fund has taken out an ad that takes issue with Elie Wiesel’s criticism of Obama on building in Jerusalem. But J Street doesn’t merely call for a housing freeze or for outlying Arab neighborhoods to be ceded to a Palestinian state. Using the mouthpiece of former Knesset member Yossi Sarid, the J Streeters want to divide the Old City. Oh, yes:

Barack Obama appears well aware of his obligations to try to resolve the world’s ills, particularly ours here. Why then undercut him and tie his hands? On the contrary, let’s allow him to use his clout to save us from ourselves, to help both bruised and battered nations and free them from their prison. 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.

As an alarmed reader e-mails: “They specifically want to remove Israeli sovereignty over the Old City. I mean, they want the Western Wall NOT to be in Israeli hands. Wow.”

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The mendacity of J Street

Meryl Yourish
Yourish.com
21 April '10

The New York Times published five letters about Israel yesterday. Two were pro-Israel. Two were not. And one was from Jeremy Ben-Ami, the executive director of J Street, which purports to speak for “most” Jews. Watch as the language he uses gives the impression that the Jewish community agrees with him in large numbers.

President Obama’s understanding of the link between resolving the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and America’s own national security interests finds broad support among American Jews.

There’s a reason he states the above, and it’s not an honest one. See below.

American Jews are not a monolithic community represented by one voice.

Boilerplate. Since its inception, J Street would like you to believe that there is huge disagreement in the Jewish community about Israel. While the saying that you have two Jews and three opinions is correct, there is no such disagreement going on—except in the minds of the ultra-liberal Jews like the ones who advise President Obama that there are huge gaps in agreement in the Jewish community. It’s a self-referential made-up fact.

In fact, polling has consistently shown that a strong majority of American Jews understands the urgent need to achieve a two-state solution and supports this administration’s bold pursuit of that goal.

Yes, we do, and we have. This is nothing new. But Ben-Ami’s mendacity uses this fact to make it seem like AIPAC and other Jewish organizations do not support the two-state solution. This is a deliberate attempt to portray AIPAC and non-J Street organizations as against the two-state solution, which is a flat-out lie.

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