Elder Of Ziyon - Israel News: J Street

Showing posts with label J Street. Show all posts

Thursday, November 16, 2017

J-Street's new lying campaign against Israel proves how anti-Israel they are

J-Street, led by J-Street U, started a new campaign this week called "Stop Demolitions, Build Peace."

Acting exactly like any anti-Israel organization, J-Street U is "partnering" with six Arab communities in the West Bank to protect them from Israel demolishing illegal structures.

So for example, one of the communities being partnered with is Jabal al-Baba, a village I cannot find listed in the comprehensive Survey of Western Palestine indicating that it is not an ancient village at all. In August, Israel was accused of destroying a kindergarten there - but in reality it was an illegally erected shed that had never been in use.

Another community that J-Street is partnering with is Susya, which is simply an illegal village created after "occupation." It didn't exist in 1999.

The slick video that J-Street produced for this effort claims, falsely, that Israel demolishes Arab communities and then builds Jewish settlements on the same areas.

J-Street falsely says in the video, "The Israeli government is engaged in a process of 'creeping annexation' in the West Bank. Central to this trend is the systematic demolition of Palestinian communities in the West Bank to make way for more Israeli settlements."

If there have been no new settlements built in decades, then what Arab communities have been destroyed and replaced by Israel?

If you consider Area C to be occupied, then Israel has the obligation under international law to uphold zoning laws on the land, although security concerns trump other considerations - again, under international law. When Israel demolishes a structure that was illegally built, it is following international law, not spurning it. The Palestinian Authority would do the exact same thing.

And Israel isn't destroying any communities unless they were set up illegally - in recent years - to begin with.

J-Street is once again shown to be completely anti-Israel, anti-international law and anti-truth.

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J-Street U says being against the Jewish State's existence is "nuanced debate"

Zoe Goldblum, the President of J Street U’s National Student Board, wrote a letter to the House Judiciary Committee which held a hearing on combating antisemitism on US college campuses.

She wrote in support of leftists demanding the destruction of the Jewish state, saying that such a position should not be considered antisemitic.

She starts off with something that no one would argue with:

While we work to challenge ill-informed criticism of Israel and Zionism on our campuses, we believe that such criticisms can and must be treated as constitutionally-protected free speech – not banned and suppressed by an act of Congress.

And no one says that criticism of Israel should be banned - this is a straw-man argument.

But then she eases into what she really wants to allow on college campuses:

Anti-Semitism is a real and serious problem on some of our college campuses and in communities across our country. Yet applying the label of “anti-Semite” to all those who oppose the existence of the State of Israel is unfair and unhelpful overreach that ignores the nuances and sensitivities of a complicated political debate.

Calling for the end of the world's only Jewish state, and saying that Jews are the only nation who do not have the right of self-determination, is "nuanced" and "complicated political debate"?

No, Zoe. it is modern antisemitism. It invokes age-old antisemitic tropes in a slightly newer package. Most of the modern antisemites claim that the Jewish people are not a people to begin with, in order to justify that they don't have the same human rights of other peoples.

There is no nuance in saying that Israel should not exist. It demands that Jews in Israel be treated the way that Jews in all the Arab nations are treated - meaning that they would be largely expelled from the region. It is advocating ethnic cleansing of Jews from the Middle East.

If J-Street U thinks that such a position is "nuanced debate," then let me get rid of the nuance. J-Street U supports the right of leftist antisemites to incite hatred against Jews who support their own human rights.

In the name of "free speech."

By positioning supporters of Israel as enemies of free speech, it would in fact only strengthen and empower anti-Israel voices on our campuses.

Yes, Jewish Zionists are the only minority in the world who, when they complain about incitement against them and their families who live in Israel, should really be more sensitive to the feelings of the haters because the haters' free speech is more important than the rights of Jews to live without fear on campus.

J-Street U has jumped the shark.

(h/t Arsen Ostrovsky)

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J-Street even lies about the Torah

I received a J-Street pseudo-Rosh Hashanah greeting, written by their Rabbi John Friedman, asking
for money and then twisting the Torah for its own ends:

[T]he Torah reading that we hear on the first day of Rosh Hashana provides us with some important lessons -- lessons that ought to resonate with us as we continue to advocate for diplomacy and the pursuit of peace.

In the reading from the Book of Bereshit, we learn of a water dispute between the patriarch Abraham and Abimelech, a local chieftain based in the land of the Philistines. Abraham has dug a well to provide for the needs of his sheep and cattle, but Abimelech’s men have been stealing the water. Abimelech comes to confront Abraham, bringing along with him the head of his military forces. The text describes their negotiations in some detail. Faced with a difficult and hostile opponent and a situation that could easily erupt into violence, Abraham instead chooses a path instead designed to safeguard his community and avoid war.

Abraham offers Abimelech compensation in the form of animals from his flock, in return for an admission that the well belongs to him. Abimelech agrees. The two leaders conclude a treaty and loss of life is avoided.

What lessons does this story have for us? First, that wise leaders resort to diplomacy to resolve their disputes, and see the use of force only as a last resort. According to the text, Abraham is clearly in the right, but also understands that what is most important is securing the long term interests and safety of his family and community. He negotiates a prudent compromise to do so -- and avoids an unnecessary war in which both sides would likely have suffered.

... The biblical text teaches us the crucial lesson that simply winning the dispute is not the highest goal. For Abraham, achieving a durable peace and protecting his tribe is far more important than proving that he is right, or suppressing the arguments and goals of his opponent.

This is a completely backwards description of the story.

Here are the verses for the episode (Genesis 21), which occurred after Abimelech saw that God was on Abraham's side in the previous chapter - after God explicitly told him in a dream that Abraham was special and was protected.

At that time Abimelech and Phicol, chief of his troops, said to Abraham, “God is with you in everything that you do. Therefore swear to me here by God that you will not deal falsely with me or with my kith and kin, but will deal with me and with the land in which you have sojourned as loyally as I have dealt with you.”

And Abraham said, “I swear it.”

Then Abraham reproached Abimelech for the well of water which the servants of Abimelech had seized.

But Abimelech said, “I do not know who did this; you did not tell me, nor have I heard of it until today.”

Abraham took sheep and oxen and gave them to Abimelech, and the two of them made a pact.

Abraham then set seven ewes of the flock by themselves, and Abimelech said to Abraham, “What mean these seven ewes which you have set apart?”

He replied, “You are to accept these seven ewes from me as proof that I dug this well.”

Hence that place was called Beer-sheba, for there the two of them swore an oath. When they had concluded the pact at Beer-sheba, Abimelech and Phicol, chief of his troops, departed and returned to the land of the Philistines.

[Abraham] planted a tamarisk at Beer-sheba, and invoked there the name of the LORD, the Everlasting God.

Abimelech didn't come to "confront" Abraham over the well; he didn't know anything about it. He didn't come with any aggressive intent - on the contrary, he came with his general to pay tribute to Abraham! (See Rashi who lists the things that Abraham did that Abimelech was awed by - he had left Sodom safely, he had fought against the kings and won, and that his wife had been remembered in his old age and gave birth to Isaac.)

Once Abimelech was there, Abraham told him about his troubles with the well and Abimelech took care of the situation. Because that was the right thing to do. In no way did Abimelech claim the well.

Abraham's gift was simply that - a gift - given by the clearly stronger party to the weaker one, as a goodwill gesture. And the seven ewes were a symbol of Abraham's ownership of the well, as well as the surrounding land where he planted the tree (or built an inn according to some.)

This is a dramatic difference from what reform Rabbi John Friedman claims. There was no negotiation and no compromise. Abraham was in the right and everyone knew it. Abimelech has zero desire to mess with Abraham, especially after what happened to him and his court in Chapter 20. Abimelech's language as he comes to pay his respects to Abraham even imply that any land that Abraham traveled through in Philistine belongs to him, and begging to be treated kindly.

Abraham was indeed like Israel today, and Abimelech shows exactly how the Palestinians should act - by trying to work together with Israel, who holds all the cards. Israel, like Abraham, is more than willing to be very generous - after there are assurances of peace!

But the Palestinians do not have the wisdom of Abimelech. They act the way J-Street pretends Abimelech is acting, confronting Abraham without having any real legal claim for their position. And J-Street is saying that such behavior should be rewarded! That Abraham should give up his possessions without any assurance that there will be any real peace!

If Abimelech had actually been aggressive, claiming the well as his own, Abraham would have been offended by the lie and he would never, ever have rewarded that with a gift. He would have fought for his possessions. Abraham knew how to fight a war - and win - which he did earlier (Genesis 14) to rescue his nephew, defeating five kings with a small force. Abraham didn't compromise for peace - he established peace with overwhelming force.

There are a couple of lessons here. One is that you really can learn from the Torah that are relevant today.

Another is that J-Street is eager to twist the Torah for its own narrow, sick political goals.

And yet another is that J-Street's average supporter is too ignorant to even know that J-Street's "rabbi" is purposefully twisting a Torah story.

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It's official: J-Street doesn't want peace

I found these two stories interesting. From Haaretz:

Left-wing Jewish group J Street attacked the Trump administration on Thursday for refusing to endorse a two-state solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
In a statement sent by email, with the headline "Trump Admin becoming Obstacle to Middle East Peace," the group's president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said that by taking up such a stance, the administration was hurting its own efforts to reach peace.
Ben-Ami's statement came after a spokeswoman for the State Department, Heather Nauert, said on Wednesday that the administration is not endorsing any specific formulas for ending the conflict, because that could create "bias towards one side or the other." Nauert was responding to a question about the two-state solution during her daily press briefing.
The State Department's spokeswoman "displayed dangerous ignorance about the nature of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and what it will take to end it," Ben-Ami said.
He added that, "The Trump administration has spoken often of its desire to broker a comprehensive and transformative peace agreement in the Middle East. Early steps taken by the special envoy and others suggested a real interest in constructing a viable approach to achieving that objective. But there is no way to accomplish that goal without a two-state solution."

Also from Haaretz:

"We very much appreciate the efforts of President Trump, who announced from the beginning that he will work to reach a historic peace deal and has repeated this more than once during the meetings we held in Washington, Riyadh and Bethlehem," Abbas said before his meeting with Kushner.
"I want to stress that the American delegations is working for peace and we will work with them to reach what Trump calls a peace deal. We know things are hard and complicated, but nothing is impossible if you put in an honest effort," he said.

"Pro-peace" J-Street is saying that peace is impossible with the Trump administration refusing to say the magic words "two state solution" - but Abbas says it is possible.

Obviously both parties are being driven by political considerations, not reality. J-Street looks for any opportunity to insult Trump and Abbas is not willing to publicly go against him. (In this case Abbas is like Netanyahu who received criticism for not directly condemning Charlottesville neo-Nazis; apparently Abbas is far more immune to criticism for wanting to stay in Trump's good graces than Bibi is.)

J-Street apparently wants Abbas to angrily slam the door in Kushner's face until he says the magic words. Because Jeremy Ben-Ami's hubris overrides any desire for real peace.

The more important question to J-Street is: What progress, exactly, towards peace did the Obama administration accomplish in eight years of pressuring Israel and adopting the Palestinian talking points? Ben-Ami is so sure that an American push towards a pre-defined solution is a prerequisite for peace, but how much closer was that goal in 2016 compared to 2008 with a president whom J-Street supported to the hilt?

The fact is that despite the Trump administration's many problems, it has done more for Middle East peace than Obama ever could. Obama's vision was bilateral peace with Abbas having veto power over any Israeli position; Trump is pushing for a regional solution that involves Jordan, Egypt, Saudi Arabia and other Gulf countries in a more comprehensive solution. This makes perfect sense because Israel can help Arab states in many ways, from technology to coordinating a strategy against Iran, and Arab states host hundreds of thousands of people who have Palestinian ancestry that they refuse to give citizenship to. They must be involved. Indeed, Trump's strategy for peace is one of the smarter things we've seen out of the White House, and Arab leaders are making decisions that are good for the entire region, not just narrow Palestinian interests where Abbas can continue to just say no to everything as he has done consistently.

J-Street wants to continue to give Abbas the right to be a rejectionist, something that he did even more during the "two-state" Obama administration. That is not pro-peace - that is anti-Israel and, indeed, anti-peace.

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Jeremy Ben-Ami laughably claims that J-Street tries to strengthen ties between US Jews and Israel

Jeremy Ben Ami, leader of J-Street, was interviewed by Israeli TV. He said some whoppers like how much he respects Israeli democracy, but I found this exchange (starting around 4:00) to be interesting:

I just went through J-Street's site. Unless I missed something, I cannot find a single J-Street-sponsored mission to Israel that is intended to strengthen the ties between American Jews and Israel.

I cannot find any J-Street sponsored events to raise money for Israeli poor or handicapped or terror victims.

I cannot find any J-Street events that celebrate Israeli or Jewish culture.

I cannot find any J-Street -sponsored college lectures by Israelis on any topic besides criticizing Israel's policies.

It is difficult to find any articles that praise the Israeli government. For anything. (I found one that commends Netanyahu for supporting an Egyptian cease-fire proposal in the 2014 Gaza war, and another that supports his attempts to restore ties with Turkey. In contrast, there are hundreds of articles that attack the democratically elected Israeli government.)

Also, it is curious that for an organization that is supposedly only meant for Americans, there is am Israeli version of the site that talks about how J-Street tries to work with Israeli political lobbies that are against the Israeli government.

J-Street is not trying to preserve the relationship between American Jews and Israel. It is trying to destroy it by strengthening those American Jews (and non-Jews) who hate Israel and by attacking those American Jews who love Israel.

Ben-Ami is again shown to be a liar.

(h/t Yoel)

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J-Street supports Palestinians usurping all international forums

J-Street sent out an action alert:

THE US SHOULDN'T BLOCK PALESTINIANS FROM UN JOBS JUST BECAUSE THEY'RE PALESTINIAN

Tell Amb. Nikki Haley to reverse her discriminatory policy against Palestinians at the United Nations.

The world was stunned in February when Ambassador Nikki Haley made it clear she was blocking the appointment of former Palestinian Prime Minister Salaam Fayyad to a United Nations post solely because he was Palestinian.

Under questioning from Rep. David Price this week, Amb. Haley took it a step further, outrageously pledging to block any Palestinian from serving in senior United Nations positions, no matter their qualifications. It's an indefensible, discriminatory policy.

Haley's aim to combat the anti-Israel bias of some UN bodies is admirable. But it won't be accomplished by imposing anti-Palestinian policies. It certainly won't be accomplished by shutting out widely respected Palestinians like Fayyad who have dedicated themselves to the cause of Israeli-Palestinian peace.

Since the PLO started to join world bodies, it has consistently used its position to do only one thing: bash Israel.

It has used UNESCO for years to deny Jewish heritage and history in the Middle East. It has tried to hijack refugee conferences, conferences on children, Human Rights Day, and conferences on women - all to pursue an anti-Israel agenda.

It gets farcical. The "State of Palestine" has used its position to bash Israel at climate conferences and even a recent conference dedicated to saving the world's oceans. It has nothing positive to add to these venues - they are merely excuses to find more ammunition against Israel.

As far as I can tell, this is 100% consistent. The entire point of gaining recognition as a state in international forums is to add new platforms to attack Israel.

Nikki Haley is entirely correct. Palestinians haven't done a thing to prove that they are worthy of being treated like a real nation. On the contrary, everything they do is negative - all attempts to delegitimize another nation.

If they start actually working hard at ocean conferences or climate conferences together with other delegates to work towards policies that affect the entire world, that would be one thing. But they don't. They parachute in, make their anti-Israel statements, try as hard as they can to cajole Arab countries to add anti-Israel text in the final statements, and they leave. I have no doubt that real diplomats, who are too diplomatic to say this out loud, are sick and tired of having important issues being pushed aside for the Palestinian ego and non-stop effort to erase Israel.

J-Street here shows that they share the PLO agenda of bashing Israel at every opportunity - in the name of "peace."

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J-Street says even pre-1967 Jerusalem isn't Israeli

J-Street is very upset at UN Ambassador Nikki Haley for breaking with longstanding US policy and saying unequivocally that the Western Wall is part of Israel.

On their blog, they explain why - and this supposedly pro-Israel group supports the inexcusable position that all of Jerusalem is up for negotiation, not just the parts Israel liberated 50 years ago.

Despite repeated promises on the campaign trail, the Trump administration has, for the most part, taken a cautious approach towards the question of relocating the US embassy from Tel Aviv to Jerusalem. Yesterday, reports circulated that the Trump administration planned to hold off on the move for the time being. That’s wise and in-line with precedent. Presidential candidates often promise to relocate the embassy if elected, but to date, nobody has.

There’s a good reason for that.

The US has long maintained that Jerusalem is a final-status issue that must be resolved by the parties in the context of negotiations. It has refrained from any decision – like moving the embassy – that could signal that the United States has, in any way, prejudged the outcome.

US policy is clear. The United States – like nearly every other country – does not recognize the sovereignty of any party in any part of Jerusalem (East or West). It has never recognized the Western Wall as part of the state of Israel....Until a peace agreement is reached, Jerusalem’s status will remain in flux.

Polls of Americans a few years ago - not only American Jews, but Americans - show a strong preference for Jerusalem remaining the unified capital of Israel under Israeli control.

Should Jerusalem remain the undivided capital of Israel or should the United States force Israel to give parts of Jerusalem, including Christian and Jewish holy sites, to the Palestinian Authority? (Independent Media Review Analysis, September 2011)

	September 2011
Remain undivided	70.9%
Force/give parts	9.4%
Don't know/refused	19.7%

Do you believe that Jerusalem should stay entirely under Israel's control or that Jerusalem should be divided between Israel and the Palestinians? (The Israel Project)

		June 2011
Under Israel's control		50%
Divided		34%

Should Jerusalem remain as Israel's undivided capital in any peace agreement with the Palestinians? (McLaughlin & Associates, October 2010)

Yes	50.9%
No	20.4%

J-Street isn't only opposing what a majority of Jews want. They aren't only opposing what a majority of Israelis want. They aren't opposing what the majority of Congress wants.

They are opposing even what Americans want.

Because, by any measure, J-Street's positions are nearly indistinguishable from those of the Palestinian Authority and diametrically opposed to those of any conceivable Israeli government.

J-Street claims to be pro-Israel - but it wants Israel to negotiate Jerusalem, as if one's heart is negotiable.

The only thing remotely Jewish about J-Street is the sheer chutzpah they have to call themselves "pro-Israel."

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J-Street against NON-NUCLEAR sanctions on Iran - because it might make Iran upset

The Wall Street Journal reports:

The Trump administration on Wednesday announced new sanctions against Iran aimed at its ballistic missile program.
At the same time, the administration is taking a step to adhere to the 2015 deal to restrain Iran’s nuclear program by signing a sanctions waiver for Tehran, as stipulated in the pact, a senior administration official said.
Also on Wednesday, the State Department released its report on Iran’s human-rights record, emphasizing abuses in the country’s prison system and its detention of foreign nationals, including American citizens, the official said.
The moves come just days ahead of Iran’s elections and before President Donald Trump is scheduled to travel to the Middle East to meet with America’s Gulf allies and Israeli officials to discuss new measures to counter Tehran’s influence in the region.
“The actions that the administration is taking today are intended to highlight that the U.S. moving forward intends to address all the various aspects of Iran’s destabilizing and hostile behavior,” the official said. “So the message today is that we continue to take action against these and other aspects of Iran’s negative behavior that affect the U.S.’ security and that of our allies.”
The sanctions target seven individuals and entities, including two senior Iranian defense officials and a China-based network the U.S. says has supported Iran’s ballistic missile program, the official said.
The official said the U.S. had notified China of the pending sanctions.
One Iranian defense official who is sanctioned facilitated the sale of explosives and provided other support to Syria, the official said. Another is the director of an Iranian organization that is responsible for the Iranian regime’s ballistic missile program.

One would think that J-Street would be thrilled that, at least for now, the Trump administration is keeping the Iran deal, and instead is working on other Iranian outrages against human rights and peace.

But, no.

J-Street has officially outed itself as an explicit supporter of the Iranian regime, no matter what it does.

The organization claims otherwise, but read this letter they sent supporters:

There's a lot going on in the news, and this may not be on your radar this week, but Congress is considering legislation that risks killing the Iran deal.

The Countering Iran's Destabilizing Activities Act (S.722) has the worthy goal of putting pressure on Iran to combat some of the truly despicable activities of its authoritarian regime. Unfortunately, the bill -- as currently written -- is so broad in its language that many experts see it as undermining or even violating the nuclear deal President Obama achieved to block Iran's pathways to nuclear weapons.[1]

The footnote points to an article in Foreign Policy from March by Antony J. Blinken, Avril Haines, Colin Kahl, Jeff Prescott, Jon Finer, Philip Gordon and Robert Malley.

It talks about the Corker-Menendez bill, which does some things similar to the sanctions announced by the White House.

Here's what the FP article says:

[T]he bill adds new conditions that must be met before Washington can lift sanctions on certain Iranian parties in the future, including sanctions we are already committed to remove if Tehran continues to comply with the nuclear deal. According to the draft legislation, lifting sanctions on such Iranian entities would require a certification that they had not supported or facilitated ballistic missile or terrorist activity. This provision is unnecessary and could give Iran an excuse to undermine the deal. It is unnecessary because once nuclear-related sanctions are removed years from now, as required by the JCPOA, nothing in the deal prevents the administration in power from immediately using legal authorities already on the books to re-designate any individuals or entities that support terrorism or Iran’s ballistic missile program. And it is problematic because gratuitously adding new conditions could be read by Iran as unilaterally altering the terms of the deal, casting doubt on our future compliance. This could provide Iran a pretext to take reciprocal action — such as adding conditions to the performance of its own commitments. If our Chinese, European, or Russian negotiating partners agree that we are altering the deal, the international consensus necessary to keep pressure on Iran to abide by the deal could erode.

[Also], by mandating sanctions on any person or entity that “poses a risk of materially contributing” to Iran’s ballistic missile program, the bill introduces a standard that is overly broad and vague. Such a loose definition could potentially be used to impose sanctions in violation of the JCPOA — particularly when in the hands of an administration that is overtly hostile to the deal.

J-Street's "experts" are arguing that any sanctions being lifted against Iran must be lifted no matter what unsavory non-nuclear activities the sanctionees are doing, like supporting terror, or building ballistic missiles, or anything else. Protecting the holy JCPOA is a "get out of jail free card."

To J-Street and the JCPOA's supporters, seemingly anything that might upset Iran is off the table. And Iran should have the veto power over any US legislation that might hurt its feelings, because it can retaliate by claiming the US is altering the JCPOA.

Anti-semites claim that Jews control America. Here, the supposedly Jewish J-Street group is saying that Iran should have an implicit veto over any legislation that might upset it and give it a hissy fit.

All while J-Street claims that the US should be tough on Iran.

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J-Street and the BDSers: On the same side on Capitol Hill

I received an email from J-Street:

From: Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street
Date: Tue, Jan 17, 2017 at 12:17 PM
Subject: Some political news that's actually positive

You may not have seen it on the news, but J Street recently scored an important achievement on Capitol Hill.
...Those who pay close attention to the political conversation around the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and the two-state solution noted that something significant took place in the House of Representatives. While a resolution criticizing the Obama administration's abstention at the UN Security Council did pass, many principled Members of Congress protested and refused to support it.
When the bill came up for a vote, 80 Members voted against it, while four voted present.
This is a major shift in the conversation about US policy and what it truly means to be pro-Israel. Before J Street was founded, one-sided, inaccurate and unhelpful resolutions like this one would have passed with near unanimous support.
Those days are over. Increasingly, thanks in part to the work of J Street, Members of Congress know that they have the political space and support to engage in honest and substantive debate about what kind of American leadership is best for securing Israel’s future.

And a very similar email from the "US Campaign for Palestinian Rights," a BDS umbrella group.

Last week, we let you know about an imminent vote in Congress on H.Res.11 to object to the US decision to abstain on UN Security Council Resolution 2334, which reiterates the illegality of Israeli settlements.Hundreds of you called your Representatives urging them to oppose H.Res.11, and your advocacy paid off!
Even though the resolution passed, the 80 votes registered against it was the largest no vote on any Israel resolution since the US Campaign started in 2002. With 342 Representatives voting in favor of Israel’s colonization drive, this might not seem like progress, but believe me, it’s a huge step forward in breaking the nearly unanimous support for Israel on Capitol Hill.

Both of these groups are thrilled that they got 80 members of Congress to vote against the bill. But J-Street claims that they were opposing it because they are pro-Israel, and the Palestinian group says that they were opposing it because they want to see Israel disappear.

If J-Street is "pro-Israel," why are they campaigning for the same things that anti-Israel activists are?

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Head of "pro-Israel" J-Street strategizes with Israel's antisemitic enemies

Ma'an reports that J-Street's Jeremy Ben Ami met with PLO representative to the US Maen Areikat.

The article says they discussed "political developments in the American arena with the imminent inauguration of the new US president Donald Trump" and also "coordination and cooperation between the two sides and with other US Jewish and Arab and Palestinian organizations in order to rally support to find a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict."

In other words, J-Street actively meets with and strategizes with Israel's enemies against Israeli interests, as defined by Israelis themselves.

Areikat famously said, very explicitly, that any Palestinian state would expel all Jews and would not allow them to become citizens (he walked that back when it became obvious that his words made him look bad.)

Airekat honored antisemite Helen Thomas in his home.

Airekat has claimed that Israel tested out a "new type of lethal bullets" on Palestinians. When called on this claim by a Reuters reporter, he said he would prove it - and never did. But his libel remains on Twitter.

And his many other baldfaced lies remain online as well.

I don't think you can call the representative of an organization that openly praises Jew-killers and antisemites "pro-Israel."

Yet this is who Jeremy Ben-Ami works together with as he works against Israel.

Any further questions about J-Street?

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J-Street endorsees overwhelmingly voted against pro-Israel bill in the House

In the US House of Representatives vote yesterday against the US allowing the one-sided anti-Israel UN Security Council Resolution 2334 to pass, here is the breakdown of Republican versus Democrat votes:

Party	Yea	Nay	Percent For
Republican	233	4	98%
Democrat	109	76	59%

Considering that the Democratic President supported the UN resolution, that is a healthy majority of even Democratic members of Congress to vote for Israel.

How about J-Street supported candidates?

	Yea	Nay	Percent for
J-Street Endorsed Candidates 2016	26	59	31%

Once again, J-Street shows that it supports the extreme anti-Israel wing of the Democratic Party.

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More proof that J-Street is anti-Israel

The Royce-Engel resolution against UNSC Resolution 2334 is picking up steam in Congress. Here's what it says:

- Expresses grave objection to United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 (2016);
- Calls for United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to be repealed or fundamentally altered so that it is no longer one-sided and allows all final status issues toward a two-state solution to be resolved through direct bilateral negotiations between the parties;
- Rejects efforts by outside bodies, including the United Nations Security Council, to impose solutions from the outside that set back the cause of peace;
- Demands that the United States ensure that no action is taken at the Paris Conference on the Israeli-Palestinian conflict scheduled for January 15, 2017, that imposes an agreement or parameters on the parties;
- Notes that granting membership and statehood standing to the Palestinians at the United Nations, its specialized agencies, and other international institutions outside of the context of a bilateral peace agreement with Israel would cause severe harm to the peace process, and would likely trigger the implementation of penalties under sections 7036 and 7041(j) of the Department of State, Foreign Operations, and Related Agencies Appropriations Act, 2016 (division K of Public Law 114–113);
- Rejects any efforts by the United Nations, United Nations agencies, United Nations member states, and other international organizations to use United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to further isolate Israel through economic or other boycotts or any other measures, and urges the United States Government to take action where needed to counter any attempts to use United Nations Security Council Resolution 2334 to further isolate Israel;
- Urges the current presidential administration and all future presidential administrations to uphold the practice of vetoing all United Nations Security Council resolutions that seek to insert the Council into the peace process, recognize unilateral Palestinian actions including declaration of a Palestinian state, or dictate terms and a timeline for a solution to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict;
- Reaffirms that it is the policy of the United States to continue to seek a sustainable, just, and secure two-state solution to resolve the conflict between the Israelis and the Palestinians; and
- Urges the incoming Administration to work with Congress to create conditions that facilitate the resumption of direct, bilateral negotiations without preconditions between Israelis and Palestinians with the goal of achieving a sustainable agreement that is acceptable to both sides

This is not a pro-Israel resolution. It supports a two-state solution and insists that the way to achieve that is with bilateral negotiations. It is entirely consistent with longstanding US policy.

J-Street characterizes itself in the media as being strongly for a two state solution. Yet they are against Royce-Engel and they were for UNSC 2334 passing.

I received a "talking points" memo from J-Street instructing its people to fight Royce Engel. It includes this howler:

* The resolution's assertions that the UNSCR is "one-sided" and "anti-Israel" - and therefore violated relevant provisions of H.Con.Res165 - are also not supported by the fact that the UNSCR expressly condemned "all acts of violence against civilians, including acts of terror, as well as all acts of provocation, incitement and destruction" and called "upon both parties to act on the basis of international law, including international humanitarian law, and their previous agreements and obligations, to observe calm and restraint, and to refrain from provocative actions, incitement and inflammatory rhetoric."

Even the section that they quoted that was supposedly proving that 2334 was not one-sided did not name Palestinians as the actors who are behind terrorism and incitement, while the 80% of the resolution that did attack a specific party attacked Israel. (The UN has never defined terrorism specifically because so many member states consider Palestinian attacks on civilians not to be terrorism, therefore this paragraph is meaningless in context of the UN.)

The proposed Congressional resolution supports a two state solution - and J-Street is against it.

J-Street supports UNSC 2334 - along with Hamas and the PLO - while the entire Israeli political spectrum outside the Arab parties and Meretz opposed it.

J-Street is not pro-peace and not pro-Israel. Anyone who claims that J-Street represents the mainstream of liberal Jewish thinking is knowingly lying.

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The reporters who falsely claim J-Street is equivalent to "liberal Jews"

There are plenty of liberal Jews who support Israel. There are plenty of Zionists who support a two-state solution. I might disagree with the specifics of what they believe and how they want to see peace in the Middle East, but their love for Israel and support for Israelis is unquestioned.

Then there is J-Street.

J-Street is an anti-Israel organization that has been artificially boosted by the White House and the media as the home for liberal Jews, even though its positions are outside the mainstream of the majority of Jewish Zionists, including liberals.

So while the overwhelming majority of American Jews support Benjamin Netanyahu - the democratically elected leader of Israel - J-Street does everything they can to undercut him, and Israeli democracy.

Liberal Jews like Alan Dershowitz advocate for a two-state solution. AIPAC supports a two state solution. The Jewish Agency supports a two state solution. And the Israeli government does, too.

As long as the security of Israel is not compromised by that solution.

J-Street has no such caveats. They have opposed essentially everything Israel has done over the Green Line even in areas that are undoubtedly going to be part of Israel under any conceivable peace plan. They have lobbied for the US not to veto one-sided, anti-Israel resolutions. They refuse to say that they support Israel as a Jewish state as part of any peace deal. They oppose tax deductions for even ambulances and medical clinics over the Green Line.

And that, in a nutshell, is both why J-Street is anti-Israel and why they do not represent liberal American Jews who support Israel.

But when the designated American ambassador to Israel called J-Street "worse that kapos" - a term I would not use personally, but one that indicates the depth of how J-Street uses its pretense of being "pro-Israel" as a screen to hide its anti-Israel activities - the media that has boosted J-Street beyond its actual importance is now trying to claim that there is no daylight between J-Street's positions and that of most liberal Jews.

So we see these tweets from the New York Times writer Matthew Rosenberg pretending that J-Street represents "dovish Jews" and "Jews who support two-state solution:"

Next Amb to Israel: More Settlements? Done. Annex West Bank? Sure. But dovish Jews? Worse than Jews who aided Nazis https://t.co/kg5a3x9mg8
— Matthew Rosenberg (@AllMattNYT) December 16, 2016

Trump Chooses Hard-Liner as Ambassador to Israel — said Jews who support two-state solution "are not Jewish" https://t.co/stII3meNpt
— Matthew Rosenberg (@AllMattNYT) December 16, 2016

That's not all. Look at this lying headline from New York magazine:

As if "liberal Jews" and "J-Street" are synonymous.

And the worst example of a Jew who tries to pretend that J-Street's positions, and therefore his own, are mainstream for American Jews, is Rob Eshman of the Jewish Journal of Los Angeles, who wrote an entire absurd article on this theme:

All of these tweets and headlines are purposeful lies meant to mainstream an anti-Israel organization as somehow being pro-Israel.

And all these examples prove is that one cannot trust reporters who cannot distinguish between reality and their wishful thinking.

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J-Street sinks into irrelevance, one outraged statement at a time

J-Street tweeted:

Trump's pick of Friedman for Israel Amb is anathema to values that underlie US-Israel relationship. We'll fight this with all we've got.
— Jeremy Ben-Ami (@JeremyBenAmi) December 16, 2016

And what, exactly, does J-Street have?

They no longer have a White House that artificially boosts them up deliberately to split the US Jewish community and make it appear that far more Jews oppose Israel's policies than actually do.

All they have are the anti-Israel members of Congress that they gave money to that happened to win despite J-Street's attempts to make the Iranian nuclear deal a positive reason to vote for them.

I was struck by this statement that J-Street made in reaction to the appointment of John Bolton as Deputy Secretary of State:

Bolton has shown little understanding for the challenges that Israel faces if it is to remain a secure and democratic homeland for the Jewish people.

If resistance to a pro-terror Palestinian state at the expense of hundreds of thousands of Jews who live in their ancestral homeland is an example of "little understanding," then J-Street must also believe that Benjamin Netanyahu's understanding of Israel's challenges, and the understandings of most of the Knesset, are also woefully inadequate compared to the genius of Jeremy Ben Ami.

This isn't reasoned argument. This is J-Street lashing out as it is sinking in a sea of its own irrelevance.

I imagine that Ben-Ami also believes that the vast consensus of Israelis who want the US to move its embassy to Jerusalem - which J-Street opposes - are also lacking in understanding of Israel's challenges. Only Americans like Ben Ami understand Israel (plus, of course, Meretz voters and Haaretz columnists.)

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Oh, look. J-Street thinks it has ethics.

From J-Street:

It’s almost too outrageous to believe: An umbrella group that claims to represent the American Jewish community plans to host its 2016 Hanukkah Party at Trump Hotel.

Trump's campaign rhetoric and policy positions are an affront to some of the most core values of American Jews. To hold a Hanukkah party under the Trump banner is shocking in its wrong-headedness.

Yes, this is the same J-Street who hosts BDS supporters like Mustafa Barghouti at its conference. The same J-Street where a member of its advisory council openly advocates Israel's destruction - to applause! - at a J-Street conference. The same J-Street that twists itself up into pretzels to downplay the very real history of support for antisemitism from a member of Congress, saying merely that his statements are "inartful." The same J-Street that eagerly gives forums to those who want to ethnically cleanse Jews.

All of that is perfectly fine.

But visiting a hotel that happens to have the name "Trump" on it is "too outrageous to believe."

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The Palestinians sure love J-Street's support for Arabs who steal land

J-Street's Jeremy Ben Ami visited the illegal Palestinian outpost of Susya, and was touched by how much they loved him.

I want to share with you another emotion that permeated our visit – gratitude.
Gratitude to J Street specifically.
They told us how much it means to have people from the other side of the world drawing attention to their village and their plight. They’d seen our demonstrations of solidarity – in particular the work of J Street U on campuses to draw attention to their plight – and they were deeply touched.

Here are the residents presenting him with a plaque, and the plaque itself, with the Palestinian Authority logo.

J-Street is showing support for an illegal Arab settlement.

There was no ancient Arab village of Susya. No one lived there until relatively recently. Most of the people who live there are illegal squatters who own homes in the neighboring village of Yatta and simply set up these tents in order to steal land. The Nawaja family, whom J-Street spoke to, wasn't evicted from anywhere to move to Susya as J-Street claims - they live in Yatta and their activities in Susya are nothing but an attempt to steal land. The ancient site of Sussiya was a Jewish village between the 4th and 9th centuries, whose ruins gave the name to the area.

Just because some Arabs decide to put up some ramshackle huts in Area C doesn't automatically mean that the land is theirs. And if you consider Area C occupied, then Israel has every right to uphold previous laws on land registration and zoning. Under international law, Israel is completely within its rights to demolish illegal structures.

J-Street can argue that Israel should offer more building permits, but that isn't what they are doing. They are arguing that illegal building and squatting is to be lauded and upholding the law is to be derided. They are rewarding illegal squatters with publicity and brainwashing college students to believe one side of the story and ignore anything Israel has to say on the subject. You sure won't see anything balancing the false narrative of righteous Arabs in Susya on the supposedly balanced J-Street site.

And J-Street still claims to be pro-Israel.

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J-Street fails the Jerusalem embassy (and every other pro-Israel) test

A wonderful byproduct of Donald Trump talking about moving the US embassy to Israel's capital in Jerusalem (and people believing him) is seeing the reactions of supposedly pro-Israel groups who make their living by criticizing Israel.

After all, there is no legal reason why the US embassy should not be in Jerusalem, and lots of good reasons why it should. It is Israel's capital, after all. The idea that Jerusalem would ever become an international city, the official US reason for not moving it, has been dead for 67 years. The real reason the US hasn't moved the embassy is because of a bizarre hope that somehow that disrespect towards the State of Israel will motivate Zionists to give up more concessions to Palestinians. Yet, as David Gerstman writes in Legal Insurrection, that has backfired into more Palestinian intransigence, and moving the embassy would destroy the fiction that coddling Arabs brings us closer to peace.

Jeff Jacoby summed it up earlier this year:

Israel's enemies don't object to siting foreign embassies in Jerusalem because it would undermine diplomatic negotiations. They object because they deny Israel's claim to any part of Jerusalem, even parts that have always been sovereign Israeli territory. They deny, in other words, that Israel's very existence is a settled issue. Moving the US embassy to Jerusalem would send one message, simple but significant: Americans do not regard the survival of the Jewish state as negotiable.

Most Israelis, from the left to the right, would welcome moving the embassy to Jerusalem. Most Americans who expressed an opinion say it should be moved.

What about potential security issues with the move? The Tower asked retired Israeli General Yaakov Amridor:

When asked if Trump’s much-publicized promise to move the American embassy to Jerusalem was good for Israel, Amidror didn’t hesitate. “No question. It will not change anything fundamental on the ground but it would be very symbolic that the capital of Israel is becoming a real capital in which foreign countries are building their embassies,” he said. “It’s very important symbolically.”

In short, there is no legal or security reason why the US shouldn't do what is right, and many important reasons why it should.

What is J-Street's position?

Do you have to ask?

The purportedly "pro-Israel" group is against moving the embassy. Actually, they are not only against moving the embassy - they are against any American politician even saying that they want to move the embassy:

American elected officials should respect the need for the permanent status of Jerusalem to be determined in the context of a negotiated two-state solution, and refrain from steps, rhetorical or practical, that inflame an already tense situation – for instance, calling for the immediate relocation of the American Embassy to Jerusalem.

J-Street cares so much about possibly upsetting Arabs that Jews who feel passionately about Israel's attachment to Jerusalem can go to hell. The Jews don't start knifing people when they get upset, so their opinions aren't as important as those of the Arabs who threaten to do exactly that.

This is J-Street's "pro-Israel" position - "cower before your enemies and maybe they'll like you better, because everything is your fault anyway."

Jerusalem is a wonderful litmus test as to whether you are pro-Israel: If you are against things that most Israelis are adamantly for and for things that they are against, and you use the excuse that it is for their own good, you can be sure that you aren't really pro-Israel.

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J-Street officials met with Ben Rhodes at White House to strategize on pro-Iran policy

On Friday, AP revealed that the Ploughshares Fund, a group that the Obama administration aide Ben Rhodes had identified as a key partner in creating a pro-Iran deal "echo chamber," had given over half a million dollars to J-Street:

In The New York Times Magazine article, Rhodes explained how the administration worked with nongovernmental organizations, proliferation experts and even friendly reporters to build support for the seven-nation accord that curtailed Iran's nuclear activity and softened international financial penalties on Tehran.

"We created an echo chamber," said Rhodes, a deputy national security adviser, adding that "outside groups like Ploughshares" helped carry out the administration's message effectively.

J-Street, the liberal Jewish political action group, received $576,500 to advocate for the deal.

But there was an even more direct connection between White House propaganda efforts and J-Street.

J-Street's Jeremy Ben Ami was a frequent visitor to the White House in the months leading up to the Iran deal.

White House records show that Ben-Ami has been a frequent guest, with 12 visits between 2012 and 2014. While some of these visits were as a guest in lavish White House parties with hundreds of other guests, some of the meetings were more intimate, with top White House officials.

On April 27, 2012, Ben-Ami met with White House chief of staff Denis McDonough along with the leader of J-Street PAC, Daniel Kohl. Also at the meeting was Mehdi K. Alhassani, special assistant to the Office of the Chief of Staff of the National Security Council, a former Muslim Student Association leader at George Washington University that some right-wing sites have tried to link to the Benghazi coverups.

Ben-Ami met with Matt Nosanchuk, the White House liaison to the American Jewish community, three times in 2013, each time along with small groups of people considered Jewish leaders. One other time he met in another group with Nosanchuk's predecessor, Jarrod Bernstein, indicating how critical J-Street was considered to White House efforts to influence US Jews towards its positions.

The meetings that most link J-Street to White House efforts to push the Iran deal through occurred in January 2014.

On January 14, Ben-Ami met with Ben Rhodes along with Morton Halperin, Senior Advisor for the George Soros' Open Society Institute, along with J-Street's Vice President of Government Affairs Dylan Williams.

And shortly thereafter, on January 23, when Ben-Ami and Williams met with Ben Rhodes again, this time in the White House Situation Room.

Ben-Ami's private access to top White House officials continued after that. He met one-on-one with Philip Gordon, Special Assistant to the President and White House Coordinator for the Middle East, North Africa, and the Persian Gulf Region, in February 2015, and had another one on one meeting with Robert Malley, Gordon's successor, in May.

Shortly thereafter, J-Street launched a website, Iran Deal Facts, that slickly lied about what the deal meant. It took serious money to create it.

J-Street has also publicly aligned with the National Iranian American Council, the unofficial pro-Iran lobby in the US, in pushing the Iran nuclear deal. NIAC's head Trita Parsi also enjoyed some intimate meetings with White House officials in 2014, mostly with Rumana Ahmed, the While House Muslim advisor, and also with Jewish liaison Matt Nosanchuk

We cannot know exactly what was discussed at these meetings between J-Street leaders. But between Ben Rhodes' braggadocio about how he manipulated public opinion on the Iran deal through the Ploughshares Fund, the fact that J-Street was by far the largest recipient of Ploughshares' funding in 2014 (it received $100,000 from the find in 2013 as well), and Jeremy Ben-Ami's meetings with Ben Rhodes and other top White House officials, it is apparent that J-Street has not been working for Israel's best interests.

J-Street is nothing but a paid shill for the White House to split the US Jewish community and put it at odds with how Israelis feel.

CORRECTION: Originally I wrote that the "Iran Deal Facts" website was no longer there, but it had a different URL than I thought.

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The Las Vegas debate between J St and RJC is a failure before it begins

Tonight, there will be a much ballyhooed event in Las Vegas:

As described in the Jewish Journal last month:

The Republican Jewish Coalition and J Street are set to put aside their political differences for a brief pause to discuss the U.S.-Israel relationship next month in Las Vegas, according to a news release.In a first-of-its-kind event, J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami and Republican Jewish Coalition Executive Director Matt Brooks will appear together on March 9th at Temple Beth Sholom to discuss the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, the relationship between President Barack Obama and Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, and the policy preferences and beliefs of Jewish Americans, according to the organizers.PBS’ Jon Ralston will serve as moderator.The two organizations were on opposite sides of the aisle in last summer’s debate over the Iran nuclear agreement. J Street and the RJC are also fighting over the control of Congress in 2016, both invested in winning Congressional seats in battleground states across the country. J Street’s PAC has already announced it will spend as much as $3 million in over 100 local races across the country, challenging incumbents who have opposed the deal, while RJC aims to combat J Street race for race, and support the Republican incumbents.

The framing of this event is flawed and it cannot result in anything good for the American Jewish community.

The entire discussion is framed as a Democratic versus Republican discussion. Both Ben Ami and Brooks have a vested interest in keeping the event framed this way - Brooks because he wants to siphon Jews from the Democrats and Ben Ami because he wants to appear as if he is representing the Democratic pro-Israel center.

But this is false. Ben-Ami represents a fringe part of the Democratic Party. His J-Street is funding Democratic candidates who support the disastrous policies of the Obama White House - against Zionist, loyal Democrats who passionately oppose those policies. Where do they fit in this discussion?

Jeremy Ben Ami consistently claims that J-Street, by being for a two-state solution, is representative of the mainstream of American Jewish opinion. But even AIPAC and Bibi Netanyahu support a two-state solution. Ben Ami represents only the far Left view of "Israel is always wrong" - but that fact will not be revealed.

Ben-Ami is way out of the pro-Israel mainstream when he insists on the Green Line as being the start of all negotiations and the presumption that Jews have no rights in Judea and Samaria. (A truly pro-Israel supporter of the two state solution would want to keep as much of Judea and Samaria as possible as a beginning negotiating position and let the parties hammer out the details. Demanding that hundreds of thousands of Jews be ethnically cleansed from their homeland ab initio, and that Israel return to being nine miles wide, is not a pro-Israel position.)

Ben Ami is way out of the pro-Israel mainstream when he insists that Jerusalem be divided and the holy sites given to those who would happily slaughter any Jews who want to visit them.

Ben Ami is way out of the pro-Israel mainstream when his entire organization anti-democracy. J-Street is based on the idea that Israelis don't know what is good for them and that their democratically elected leaders are fanatics who must be taught a lesson about peace from their wise cousins who live thousands of miles away. J Street's entire purpose is to marginalize Israelis and tell the US to pressure Israel (and only Israel) to make more and more concessions for a peace deal while asking nothing from the Palestinians (and giving them veto power over any agreement that doesn't suit them.)

You can support a two-state solution - eliminating the demographic issues and minimizing the security issues - without starting negotiations from a position of giving everything up to begin with. But not according to J-Street.

These issues are what need to be debated with Jeremy Ben Ami - how he is betraying and misrepresenting Jewish American liberal Zionist positions as his own.

But that debate will not occur, because his opponent will happily agree that mainstream Jewish Democrats believe the same extreme positions as Ben Ami.

Look at Jeremy Ben Ami's Twitter feed. You will not find a single time that he has defended Israel. Ever. He has never defended its actions, its army, its leadership, or even its people against the lies and slanders. On the contrary, he has contributed much to the lies and half-truths about Israel. He is not pro-Israel no matter how many times he says he is. That is what must be discussed - how Ben Ami is not pro-Israel nor pro-democracy even from the perspective of liberal Jews.

But Brooks has no incentive to strengthen bipartisan support for Israel. He wants everyone to become Republican. That's his job.

The way that both sides approach the event is described in Jewish Insider:

Matt Brooks: ”When Jeremy and I meet tonight I look forward to a very engaging conversation on what it means to be pro-Israel in today’s climate and how we as a community can be most effective in representing the issues of concern within the Jewish community. There is a big difference in the views and tactics of RJC and J Street and tonight’s conversation will highlight and showcase those differences in a way that the community can discern and choose which is most effective and in the best interest of the Jewish people. This will be a civil discourse but no doubt I’m sure that we’ll see some real fireworks. The stakes are now more important than ever.”

Jeremy Ben-Ami writes… “My case is straightforward, based on data and experience from decades of national elections: Jewish voters support candidates who best reflect the values on which they were raised and policy positions that advance those values. Most Jewish voters support policies that make Israel safer not just against rockets but against some of the more fundamental threats to its future as a democratic Jewish homeland… Looking at the Republican field and particularly the present front-runner, I don’t envy Mr. Brooks — putting the metaphoric football down to yet again make the case that, yes, Charlie Brown, this is the year Jewish Americans will switch their allegiance to the Republican Party.”

So these issues which are vital to be exposed will instead be hidden. The mostly liberal Jewish audience will not be aware that they are being given a false choice between J-Street's disguised anti-Israel positions and those of a party that very possibly will be represented by Donald Trump (a theme that Ben Ami is anxious to hammer tonight.)

We do not need another reason to turn the question for support for Israel into a Republican vs. Democrat issue.

But that is inevitably going to happen tonight, and the losers will be a huge chunk of the American Jewish community who want to support Israel but do not want to vote Republican. And that is way too big a prize to sacrifice on the altar of partisan politics between J Street and the RJC.

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