On J Street’s Failure to Acknowledge Reality

Nothing excites me more than the sight of a new official statement from J Street. This organization never ceases to amuse me as it continues to back pedal away from the criticisms expressed throughout the Jewish community for its lack of perspective and for its arrogance while discussing the Arab-Israeli conflict. The world has started to notice J Street’s seductive and misleading mantras as a creative ploy to hijack Israel’s attempts for security in the name of making “peace” with governments bent on the Jewish state’s extermination. It is music to my ears.

In light of the growing trends against it, J Street released a crafty statement in regards to Operation Protective Edge, Israel’s latest counterattack against the terrorist group Hamas following its indiscriminate rocket fire. Its intent, from first glance, was to look even-handedly at the situation between the Palestinian-Arabs living in Gaza and the Israelis. It even condemned Hamas for its continuous rocket fire. However, J Street fails to acknowledge this very important fact: Hamas solely rules over the Gaza Strip and it has a say in any diplomatic means to end this escalation. One cannot call to pursue diplomatic solutions while simultaneously dismantling the terrorist infrastructure of the ruling party. In addition, it is irrational to negotiate with a terrorist entity that neither has ambitions for the two-state solution, or fully ceasing its hostilities against the Jewish state.

If Hamas had the intentions of creating a Palestinian state, then it would seem logical that such a state would have already come into existence following Israel’s withdrawal from the Gaza Strip. Instead, Hamas created a terrorist base out of land that Israel gave to the Palestinian-Arabs in hopes for peace. These ideological beliefs that Hamas seeks a “two-state solution” remain farfetched in reality. However, J Street remains adamant that seeking a peaceful solution through diplomacy with an anti-Semitic terrorist organization exists as a viable option. Nothing is farther from the truth, yet that works for this “pro-Israel, pro-peace” organization in its ideologically suicidal world. It mesmerizes me that J Street continues to seek a peaceful solution to this escalation, as well as the “two-state solution.”

J Street’s statement also expressed moral equivalency in another attempt to show how it is “pro-Israel.” But here is the problem: Condemning the rockets and the incitement does not eliminate the legitimate criticism that J Street truly does not promote “pro-Israel” values, especially when it demonizes the Israeli population for the heinous actions of a few Israelis to murder an innocent Palestinian-Arab teenager. Expressing solidarity with the Israelis who must run to bomb shelters during rocket attacks does nothing for its argument when it expresses hope that their government will use diplomacy to stop genocidal, anti-Semitic terrorists who will likely return to their ways in a matter of weeks and months. J Street forgot that the last cease-fire lasted around 20-months.

The moral equivalency argument remains dead in the water when discussing the differences between Israeli civilians and Palestinian-Arab civilians. Scores of Israelis consoled the family of Mohammad Abu Khdeir following his brutal murder at the hands of six ultra-nationalist Israelis. Only the father of Mohammand consoled family members of Eyal Yifrach, Gil’ad Shaar, and Naftali Fraenkel following their brutal murders at the hands of Hamas terrorists. The Israelis mourned and expressed outrage when Abu Khdeir was murdered. The majority of the Palestinian-Arab population handed out cake and candies to celebrate at the kidnapping of our boys. In J Street’s world, this stark difference of cultures does not exist. It honestly believes that the overwhelming majority of both Israeli and Palestinian-Arab cultures wish to see a two-state solution and remain in peace. Sixty percent of the Palestinian-Arabs want a “liberated Palestine from the river to the sea.” I guess statistics remain irrelevant for J Street, too.

Whether J Street likes it or not, its current course of action does not dismiss the rightful claims that the organization neither exemplifies “pro-Israel” nor “pro-peace” beliefs. Instead, J Street would rather push an unviable two-state solution with a unity government that includes a terrorist organization seeking Israel’s destruction, which is antithetical the labels it markets itself as. As aforementioned above, the majority of the Palestinian-Arab population hopes for a five-year plan that destroys Israel and replace it with another misogynistic, homophobic state. It harms J Street’s credibility if it wishes to create a state that will certainly not uphold the “liberal” values that J Street holds dear. But I guess if it is in the name of “peace,” J Street does not care if Israel gets destroyed.