J Street Needs to Stop Lying

According to Merriam-Webster, the definition of a fraud is “a person who pretends to be what he or she is not in order to trick people.” If there is any organization that describes a “fraud” perfectly, then it would be J Street. This is the same organization that claims to be “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace” while spending the supermajority of its time running inflammatory campaigns against the elected leader of Israel, as well as lobbying on behalf of historically anti-Israel congressmen and congresswomen.

Recently, it came to our attention that J Street invited former Secretary of State James Baker to their annual conference this coming March. This is the same James Baker who said, “f*ck the Jews, they didn’t vote for us anyway” in a private meeting some twenty years ago. Furthermore, sources confirmed that he would be the keynote speaker at this gathering. Finally, when word got around that Baker, a Republican, would attend the conference, Jeremy Ben-Ami spoke happily about it, saying that he was, “very excited to have one of pre-eminent Republican statesman of our time. Bipartisanship, as you know, is essential.”

Not only has Jeremy Ben-Ami allowed vicious Jew-haters like Max Blumenthal to J Street conferences, but he also intends on bringing another anti-Semitic mouthpiece into its fringe community. This brings us to the following conclusions: Both the hard left and the hard right get along extraordinarily well over their communal Jew-hatred. In addition, J Street’s definition of “bipartisanship” means when the extremes of both political spectrums come together to trash Israel and the Jewish people as a collective whole.

This latest announcement from J Street indicates that it once again crossed a line that should not be even approached by members of the Jewish community. Rather than proactively combatting the sources of anti-Semitic vitriol, J Street allows it to fester in its events, hoping to inspire the next generation of American Jews to get involved in politics and in international relations. For an organization that claims to be “pro-Israel,” it has no trouble allowing anti-Semites to speak ill of Israel in its mere attempt to existence as a sovereign state.

If anything came out of its latest campaign to further demonstrate its disapproval of Israel’s elected leader, it shows that J Street will not care what suits the interests of the Israeli people, especially if the population is more inclined to vote on the right of the political spectrum. In its ubiquitous arrogance as a political organization based and composed mainly of Americans, J Street believes that it knows what is truly best for the Israeli population rather than the Israeli citizens themselves who have to live under threats from Hamas and Hezbollah, as well as next to a Palestinian Authority that has continuously rejected “land for peace” deals over the course of twenty years. It does not matter what the Israeli public believes is the right course of action, unless it follows suit with J Street’s personal opinions of enforcing the so-called “two-state solution.”

Furthermore, J Street U continues to promote this so-called “dialogue” about the Arab-Israeli conflict. The J Street U activists I have interacted with not only disapprove of open dialogue, but they also take issues when any other organization decides to limit the conversation. Last week, the Claremont Progressive Israel Alliance hosted David Makovsky. After he gave his speech, CPIA decided to have a Q&A session where audience members wrote down their questions and the moderator would pick out the questions. During that time, J Street U activists vocally objected to the practice and tried to disrupt the Q&A session in both a disrespectful and immature manner. For J Street U, it only cares if its point-of-view is heard, but it protests profusely if any pro-Israel or unapologetically Zionist perspective is heard.

The fraudulent nature of both J Street and J Street U continues to expose itself under a variety of circumstances, whether it comes from its President or from its student leaders. Though it gives the impression to so many people that it cares about bipartisanship, dialogue, and supporting Israel, its actions and its statements demonstrate that nothing is farther from the truth. The more that it acquires publicity from the Jewish community, the more it is able to continue convincing the ill-informed and impressionable, gullible community that it stands for the same values as the majority of the Jewish community.

J Street must not acquire any additional publicity until it decides to show its true colors. There is no issue with being anti-Israel and wanting to cause irreparable harm to the future of the Jewish state. Anyone is free to make such a case, as damnable as it is. However, J Street should not try to be deceptive about its true intentions, especially when it is terrible at lying about them.