J Street and Bernie Sanders are playing a dangerous game with Jewish lives

As Israel fights a war of survival on seven fronts, J Street and Bernie Sanders are working to handicap Israel and jeopardize its ability to protect its citizens.

J Street’s president, Jeremy Ben-Ami, announced that the group is lobbying Senators to vote on multiple Sanders-led resolutions this week that would block the sale of U.S. weapons to Israel.

J Street’s dangerous political stunt comes hours after scores of Hezbollah missiles rained down on the only Jewish state, murdering an Israeli woman and injuring dozens more civilians. It comes as young Israeli women and men search frantically for Israeli hostages taken more than 410 days ago to Gaza, and brave IDF soldiers work to degrade the terrorists’ capabilities deliberately embedded within civilian enclaves.

These weapons for Israel – essential to defend and confront enemies on all sides – were approved by the Biden administration just months ago to “improve Israel’s capability to meet current and future enemy threats, strengthen its homeland defense, and serve as a deterrent to regional threats.” The equipment in question is vital as the IDF fights to deter future attacks, destroy the massive weapons arsenals of terrorist groups on its borders, and protect millions of Israelis in the crosshairs of the Iranian regime.

J Street’s justification for this anti-Israel campaign is that the votes will fail, and the arms sales will go through, regardless of what they do. Don’t worry, we in the pro-Israel community are told, J Street isn’t hurting Israel because its extreme policy position will never be enacted into law.

In essence, J Street, a so-called “pro-Israel” organization, is signaling that a weakened and vulnerable Israel is the only Israel they will support. Meanwhile, Israel’s enemies are sharpening their swords.

I am confident that the J Street-Sanders resolutions will be defeated handily. Why any “pro-Israel” group would lobby to take away Israel’s defenses – while the country is entangled in a multi-front war, 90,000 citizens have been forcibly displaced for more than 400 days, and rockets fall from the sky daily – is beyond logical understanding.

Further, what has become blindingly evident is that anti-Israel sentiment is wildly unpopular. The marginal voices of AOC and those of the Squad’s cheerleaders like J Street, IfNotNow and Jewish Voices for Peace might yell loudly into the microphone, but they do not represent the feelings of most Americans. Most of us stand solidly with Israel and seek to see the evil of Hamas and Hezbollah soundly defeated.

AIPAC – representing the vast majority of pro-Israel Americans across the political aisle – is leading the effort opposing Sanders and J Street. The Jewish Democratic Council of America is mobilizing its supporters to do the same. They are on the right side of history, and I applaud their work. I stand with them and want to keep Sanders, J Street and their ilk far away.

Since its founding 16 years ago, J Street has regularly accused others of “turning Israel into a political football.” How ironic and hypocritical! Jeremy Ben-Ami and Bernie Sanders are now in the driver’s seat of an anti-Israel political charade, for the sole purpose of sending a party-political message. There is no more blatant example of using Israel’s security as a partisan football than what J Street is now doing.

J Street is lobbying to withhold weapons from Israel “to send a message.” That message is loud and clear: J Street and Bernie Sanders are no friend of Israel, no friend of the pro-Israel community, and must be roundly rejected by all of us working to help keep Israel safe. They are playing a dangerous game with real lives on the line for sport and headlines. They should know better.