J Street: slimier than we thought

Jeremy Ben Ami’s job is to sell administration Middle East policy to Jews.

This is not so easy to do when said administration is the most anti-Israel one since 1948.  How do you sell a policy whose primary goal is to gain approval in Riyadh, the world capital of antisemitism, to Jews?

Actually, it’s easy when your customers are Jews who have had their collective Jewish historical memory wiped clean by the unprecedented paradise in which Jews have lived in the US since 1945. The American people gave us a tremendous gift by treating us more or less like anyone else legally, economically, politically and even socially — not to mention playing a major role in defeating Hitler. Many of them even like and admire us.

There has never been another time or place in Jewish history that even comes close. No matter how benign the ruler or how wealthy the community, diaspora Jews have never been able to forget that they were diaspora Jews. Until now. And now they are forgetting in droves.

Ben Ami had no trouble at all getting plenty of Jewish support for his phony “pro-Israel” group, J Street, from culturally amnesiac  ‘progressives’ of Jewish descent. And they happily do the administration’s work in promoting its Saudi agenda. For example, when it was convenient to manufacture a break in US-Israeli relations in order to impose a freeze on Jewish construction in Israel’s capital, J Street was there (see Lenny Ben-David’s investigative report):

The 1,600 Jerusalem apartments would become the anvil on which the administration would forge a pliant Israel. The message would have to be amplified, and for the White House, the pro-Obama, purportedly pro-Israel J Street was a perfect vehicle.

According to newly released White House visitor logs, J Street’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, and vice president of policy and strategy, Hadar Susskind, came to the White House to meet with officials in the White House Office of Public Engagement, headed by Obama’s close friend and adviser Valerie Jarrett.

On March 11, and then again on March 12, the logs show Ben-Ami set a meeting for March 15 in the Old Executive Office Building with Danielle Borrin, who served on the vice president’s staff and in Jarrett’s office. On March 17, another meeting was set in the West Wing, the White House’s inner sanctum, for the next day with Tina Tchen, Jarrett’s principle deputy and director of the White House Office of Public Engagement…

On March 15, the day it met with Borrin, J Street issued a statement on the “escalation of U.S.-Israel tensions” warning that Israel’s “provocative actions undermine the peace process” and weaken the American attempts “to build a broad international coalition to address the Iranian nuclear program.” Parroting Emanuel’s strategy for crisis management, the J Street memo declared:

Bold American leadership is needed now to turn this crisis into a real opportunity to end the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

The memo, in effect, called for an imposed American solution:

We urge the United States to take this opportunity to suggest parameters to the parties for resuming negotiations — basing borders on the 1967 lines with mutually agreed land swaps, with the Palestinian state demilitarized and on territory equivalent to 100% of the area encompassed by the pre-1967 Armistice lines.

Serving as a stalking horse for the President, J Street came out in support of the construction of the ‘Ground Zero mosque’. This despite the fact that the project’s initiator, the supposed ‘moderate’ Imam Feisal Abdul Rauf, will not say that Hamas is a terrorist organization, although Hamas is all about killing Jews and liquidating the Jewish state.

Not all of J Street’s support comes from progressive Jews. It gets plenty of help from Arab and Muslim donors who are not so confused about their interests. J Street has a PAC which supports candidates for public office. It is must report all contributions it receives, unlike the main J Street organization which is not required to do so. Look at some of the contributors to the J Street PAC here and ask yourself: why they would support a ‘pro-Israel’ organization?

Some of the donations are small, but remember we don’t know what they may have contributed to J Street itself. As of July this year the J Street PAC distributed more than $650,000 to 61 candidates, like Joe Sestak, who signed a controversial letter accusing Israel of ‘collective punishment’ in Gaza.

Wake up, American Jews. Don’t buy what J Street and Obama are selling. Don’t assume that the exceptional case of the past 65 years in America represents a new paradigm — look at Malmo, Sweden, for example, where Jews are fleeing because of rising antisemitism.

The best way to ensure the preservation of the Jewish people is to support a strong Jewish state. J Street would like us to abandon Israel, and put our trust in the good will of people like President Obama and even Feisal Abdul Rauf, the ‘moderate’ Muslim.

It isn’t a difficult choice when it’s put like that, is it?

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One Response to “J Street: slimier than we thought”

  1. Grandma says:

    That video from Sweden is almost too much to bear. It almost seems as if History is repeating itself. We cannot let that happen. I’ve come to the conclusion the only thing we have (Christians and Jews) is prayer. My Qu’ran says the Christians are more “acceptable” to them, than the Jews. I got news…I do not want your preferences! I do not need your acceptance! Arrogance! J Street = Joke Street.