A YU/Stern College event next week:
Jeremy Ben Ami, of course, believes that Israeli democracy is worthless when he doesn't agree with who they elected. Therefore, he created an organization whose main purpose is to pressure the US into forcing Israel to do what he believes is right, not what the people whose lives are on the line believe.
Let's take a trip down memory lane with J-Street.
In March 2011, one of J-Street's co-founders mused that perhaps Israel wasn't such a good idea after all if the Arabs keep rejecting it.
That same month Ben Ami whined that Netanyahu refused to meet him. Well, he refused to meet me last time I was in Israel (I was hoping for an interview), but I'm not crying about it.
J-Street, which calls itself "pro-Israel," does nothing to counter campus "Israel Apartheid Week." Instead, they make wishy washy statements like they “share the concerns ... about the continuation of the occupation,” it does not believe that “characterizing Israel as an apartheid state is either accurate or productive towards a solution.” They have no stated opposition to the demonization of the state they pretend they support.
In 2012, after Israel killed 16 Gaza terrorists, J-Street issued a statement of concern which called them "civilians." Why check facts when you can slam Israel?
Also in 2012,a J-Street representative admitted on video that they attract more non-Jews than Jews, but they want to change the Jewish community's opinion of Israel. In public, they claim to represent the Jewish community.
J-Street says it doesn't support BDS, but it happily invites BDS supporters to speak at its annual conferences.
Last year a J-Street sponsored tour of the territories stopped to pay homage to at Yasir Arafat's gravesite.
Yeshiva University's Zionist clubs should not be giving Ben-Ami any credibility, even when his poison is "balanced" by Ayalon and HaKohen.
There are plenty of liberal, Zionist Jews who fervently want a two-state solution, who would be quite appropriate for a panel discussion like this.
Ben Ami is not one of them.