Rebecca Abou-Chedid at Foreign Policy scores the vicious racism that West Bank colonist Lenny Ben-David and the Zionist Org of America are using against J Street:
This week, former AIPAC and Israeli embassy official Lenny Ben-David published an article revealing that I had given a donation to the "pro-Israel and pro-peace" organization J Street. Because I am of Lebanese descent, this clearly indicates that my dollars must be intended to advance some pernicious anti-Israel agenda — and that J Street must be the vehicle for those aims.
I would be only too happy to ignore Ben-David’s article as a collection of cheap innuendo and loose associations, but the stakes are too high. With J Street’s inaugural conference less than one week away, opponents are desperate that it fail. The attacks on the organization, its founder Jeremy Ben-Ami, its staff, and their supporters have taken on an all too-familiar form — eschewing substance to malign the motives and associations of those they disagree with. Ben-David and his supporters are now attacking J Street for accepting contributions from Americans of Arab descent. The donations in question are largely symbolic, many of them in amounts between $30-$100, but his point is loud and clear — an organization that receives Arab-American support must, by definition, be suspect.
But why on earth should J Street be ashamed to have the support of Arab-Americans like me? And why should Arab-Americans worry that participating in the political life of their country and exercising their freedom of speech might — simply because of their ethnicity — harm the candidates and causes they hold dear?
….Those Arab Americans who support J Street, like myself, do so because we are eager to work with an organization that views us as partners and does not seek to perpetuate the divisions and pathologies of the Middle East here in the United States.
Ben-David posted the first comment to Abou-Chedid’s article at the FP website. There have been a couple honest comments posted subsequently, and the rest are hasbara.
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Again Phil,
You have posted and included posts by others that savagely attacked J Street.
Are YOU among those that desire that J Street fail?
Or, do you SUPPORT J Street’s efforts, but are reluctant to say so, for whatever ideological, or social role reason.
Richard Witty, one man witch hunt.
It’s time to take a side.
Are you really Zionist, or just a little Zionist?
The world (Richard Witty) needs to know.
OT: I’m seeing ads for this at random news site:
ungoldstonereport.com
Without even reading anything, just from the fancy PR sheen, see if you can guess who’s behind it.
Heated Exchange Marks First Iran-Israel Talks in 30 Years
Representatives of the Iranian and Israeli governments took part in the first mutual talks between the two sides in 30 years, in an exchange described as brief and heated at a top secret nuclear conference in Cairo, Egypt.
link to news.antiwar.com
link to haaretz.com
J Street will either not exist in 5 years or become an anti Zionist lobbying organization for the Saudis or Soros. It’s unfortunate J Street won’t release there contributers. It would hasten their demise.
What? Because they aren’t real Jews unless the blindly back Israel? J Street’s not “reinrassig” enough for you, is it?
Julian – You forgot the third ‘S’ of the triad of evil in your dualistic fantasy-world: SATAN!
You all better be careful with your words on this blog–yesterday the Senate approved
the hate crime bill; all that remains is Obama’s signature and he can’t wait to sign it into law. The thought police are just about here:
link to blogs.jta.org
Paul Craig Roberts has written about this on a number of occasions, implying that it will be used to silence critics of Israel. There is obviously nothing in the bill that mentions Israel at all, so the thinking is that it will be a syllogism:
It is anti-Semitic to criticize Israel. Anti-Semitism is a hate crime. Therefore, to criticize Israel is a hate crime.
That the ADL has been so determined to get this bill passed raises serious red flags. The ADL, long ago, stopped being interested in anything other than Israeli/Zionist advocacy.
link to counterpunch.org
link to creators.com
link to counterpunch.org
That would be in line with the new working definition of the EU which considers anti-Zionism as depriving Jews of their right to self-determination and thus anti-Semitic. Numpties like Jonathan Hoffman, co-chair of the Zionist Federation of Britain, are already smugly using the new ‘definition’…
If J Street is a PAC, then it is legally required (and does) publish the names of its contributors.
I expect that it would reveal a great deal of diversity of perspective.
I expect that it receives some funding from people that are routinely criticized here as rabid Zionists, say like Haim Saban (I don’t know if he as supporter). And, I expect that it receives some funding from people that are of Arab descent.
Those are statements of support for its mission. PAC contributions are limited by statute so a particular individual cannot dominate the PAC by a single overwhelming donation.
That is a structurally false accusation.