I’m going to stop running positive pieces about J Street now! This is from the Hill, about J Street’s lobbying agenda in Congress. I heard Medea Benjamin confront J Street’s Jeremy Ben-Ami on why we should be giving so much money to Israel when Americans are tightening their belts. He danced away from that one. The Hill:
To that end, J Street’s lobbying agenda this year will push for increased American leadership in promoting a two-state solution for Israel and the Palestinian territories and also for maintaining U.S. foreign aid to the region. Cutting foreign aid has been a topic under debate in recent budget decisions.
Hadar Susskind, vice president of policy and strategy for J Street, does not expect the UN resolution to come up in meetings on Capitol Hill.
“We are making a very explicit call about aid to Israel and aid to the Palestinian Authority,” Susskind said. “Aid to the Palestinians, in fact aid to the rest of the region, is important to Israel as well. Talk to Israeli security officials, they will all tell you how important the U.S. funded and trained Palestinian security forces have been to reducing terrorist attacks in Israel.”
So the best J Street could do in lobbying was to push for aid to the PA for a force that will crack down on Palestinian demonstrators — in the midst of revolutions against such forces all over the Middle East?
