Hey J Street, You Can’t Fool Us Again

J Street is a fox in sheep’s clothes. After October 7, the pro-Israel community’s eyes are open wider than ever. We must not repeat the same mistakes by being persuaded by their words while ignoring their actions.

On September 16, many in the community received a letter from J Street’s President Jeremy Ben-Ami detailing his three key takeaways from the organization’s leadership conference.

It reads exactly how a communications expert like Jeremy would want it to read: logical, future focused, and hopeful. If one hadn’t been following J Street’s actions over the past years, and certainly since October 7, you’d be intrigued by his prose.

That is what is so alarming and dangerous. J Street is banking on our pro-Israel community trusting what it says but not following what it actually does. 

Ben Ami claims to represent the “Mainstream Voice of Jewish and pro-Israel Americans,” yet I know of no mainstream pro-Israel voice that celebrates those who call Israel “racist” or accuse it of committing “genocide,” as J Street’s “champions” in Congress do. 

It’s not mainstream to embrace Bernie Sanders and Chris Van Hollen’s vision of cutting off American security assistance to Israel, or endorse candidates who voted against funding Iron Dome. Yet J Street does.

The mainstream of our community helped pro-Israel Democrat George Latimer defeat anti-Israel Squad member Jamaal Bowman, yet J Street sat out the election, and up until January 2024, J Street was funding Bowman’s re-election campaign. After Bowman’s blowout loss, Ben Ami wrote, “It’s a mistake to read Jamaal Bowman’s defeat as a victory for pro-Israel Americans.” That’s not the mainstream view.

J Street further claims the mainstream mantle by dismissing what it says is AIPAC’s view that “nothing else matters to Jewish Americans than blind support for Israel.” I challenge Ben Ami to show where AIPAC has ever said that, or anything like that. It’s not mainstream to lie about another organization for your own gain.

Ben Ami says the organization embraces a “24-state solution” to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. Yet just two years ago, a member of Congress withdrew his support for the Abraham Accords, in part because of what he learned on a J Street mission to Israel. After he publicly recanted his support for the peace accords, J Street spent $100,000 to help reelect him.

The long email then details that J Street wants a clear, consistent approach to U.S. aid to Israel, saying it backs aid to Israel but with the same oversight that applies to other nations. But their record tells a different story. 

When President Biden asked Congress to approve $14 billion in vital security aid to Israel, Democrats strongly backed our ally and Biden. 82% of Democrats voted for the final bill, yet J Street still fundraises for 28 of the mere 37 who voted against it. How is that promoting mainstream pro-Israel values?

The group backs a bill led by Rep. Betty McCollum, another J Street endorsee, that would condition aid to Israel. It supports Senator Chris Van Hollen’s efforts to apply new standards and conditions on aid to Israel. It calls Bernie Sanders a “champion” even after he introduced a measure to cut-off all American support for Israel. 

It claims to back the Biden-Harris administration, yet admonished it when its investigation into Israeli actions didn’t conclude that the Jewish state was in violation of U.S. law. Moreover, it is calling on the Biden administration to withhold needed weapons to Israel if Netanyahu doesn’t agree to a ceasefire deal with Hamas, in complete ignorance of the six other fronts where the Jewish state is fighting Iran and its terror proxies. 

Like mainstream pro-Israel Americans, I am pro-Israel, pro-peace, and pro-democracy. If J Street was serious, it would fundamentally change its policies or be honest that its words are clever marketing tactics for actions that most of our community doesn’t define as mainstream, let alone pro-Israel or pro-peace.  

As the saying goes, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me.