Washington — As it prepares for its first national show of force, J Street, the 18-month-old dovish lobby, is experiencing unprecedented success coupled with unexpected criticism.
An item of interest for the national and international press and a rapidly growing organizational power, J Street, which defines itself as the “pro-Israel, pro-peace lobby,” has already made its mark as the leading pro-peace group in the Jewish community.
But it is still struggling to prove its pro-Israel credentials.
The latest bump in the road was the refusal of Israel’s ambassador to the United States to meet with the group, citing concerns that J Street’s views might harm Israel’s interests. Ambassador Michael Oren’s rebuke adds to a vocal choir of critics from the right that has intensified its activity approaching J Street’s first national conference, scheduled to begin on October 25 here in Washington.
The official Israeli rejection of J Street was made public in a carefully worded statement issued by Jonathan Peled, the embassy spokesman in Washington. “While recognizing the need for a free and open debate on these issues, it is important to stress concern over certain policies that could impair Israel’s interests,” Peled said. He added that the embassy had “communicated to J Street its views on the peace process and on the best way to ensure Israel’s security.”
Peled said that despite Oren’s decision not to meet personally with J Street, the embassy is conducting talks with the group through its public affairs department. “We decided to move ahead in a measured and cautious way,” the spokesman said, adding that the embassy has yet to make a final decision on whether Oren will speak at the upcoming J Street conference.
Upon taking office as Israel’s top diplomat in the United States, Oren stated that he would work to reach out to groups previously ignored by his government, including progressive organizations to the left of the mainstream Jewish community. Oren initiated a meeting with Americans for Peace Now, a group with similar views on the Middle East peace process to those of J Street. APN, however, is a member of the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations, while J Street is not.
In an open letter to Oren, J Street’s executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, made a personal appeal. “Mr. Ambassador, what J Street shares in common with you far outweighs that on which we disagree,” Ben-Ami wrote. He invited Oren to “argue over how best to ensure the health, safety and vibrancy of the Jewish people and of Israel for generations to come.”
Shunning J Street may be a result of domestic Jewish politics as much as an expression of foreign policy. A diplomatic source told the Forward that Israeli officials received calls from Jewish organizations stating that they “have a problem” with J Street. The groups, which the source would not name, argued that J Street’s criticism of other Jewish organizations should not be endorsed by the government of Israel.
Representatives of major Jewish groups contacted by the Forward denied any involvement in convincing the Israeli government not to engage with J Street.
Hadar Susskind, J Street’s new director of policy and strategy, said he still hopes Oren will attend the conference. “So often,” Susskind said, “the problem is that the ambassador is hearing people who categorize for him groups as pro-Israel or anti-Israel.” He added that those who say J Street is anti-Israel are wrong, and some are “intentionally spreading falsehood” because they feel “threatened by having another voice out there.” Others, Susskind argued, do so out of a partisan political motivation.
Morris Amitay, a former executive director of the American Israel Public Affairs Committee who now heads a pro-Israel political action committee in Washington, said that J Street received a “well-deserved rebuke” from the ambassador. Amitay said that Oren was “showing good taste” in not meeting with J Street, adding that the Israeli ambassador to the United States is not obliged to meet with every Jewish group.
But Seymour Reich, a veteran Jewish leader who once was head of the Presidents’ Conference, argued that disagreements with J Street’s views should not deter engagement with the organization. “It would be appropriate for the ambassador to meet with J Street so each side can hear the other’s views,” Reich said. He also noted that Ben-Ami was included when President Obama recently met with Jewish leaders, giving the group extra credibility.
M.J. Rosenberg, one of the leading voices in the dovish community and a senior foreign policy fellow at Media Matters, a non-profit research center, said that Oren’s refusal to meet with J Street shows a flawed reading of the Jewish communal map. “Does he think it is enough to meet with Howard Kohr and David Harris? Doesn’t he understand that they are the old guard?” Rosenberg asked, referring to the heads of AIPAC and the American Jewish Committee, respectively.
J Street is expecting 1,000 participants at its conference; 160 members of Congress have signed on to the honorary host committee for the conference’s gala dinner — most from the Democratic side of the aisle. During the conference, participants will also introduce the new lobby to lawmakers on Capitol Hill.
By comparison, AIPAC draws more than 5,000 participants to its annual conference, holds hundreds of lobbying meetings and hosts more than half the members of Congress at its gala event, alongside top government officials from the United States and Israel. J Street had only partial success in attracting speakers from Israel; several current and former Israeli lawmakers will attend, but none from the government or the ruling Likud party are on the list.
One keynote speaker receiving special attention is Rabbi Eric Yoffie, president of the Union for Reform Judaism. Yoffie had sharply criticized J Street this past winter for its opposition to Israel’s military campaign in Gaza.
Contact Nathan Guttman at guttman@forward.com
The Forward welcomes reader comments in order to promote thoughtful discussion on issues of importance to the Jewish community. In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not. While we generally do not seek to edit or actively moderate comments, the Forward reserves the right to remove comments for any reason.
Copyright © 2013, Forward Association, Inc. All Rights Reserved.
When Hank Greenberg Met Jackie Robinson
Columbia Seeks To End 'Whites Only' Fellowship
Reconsider Decision on Rabbis and Intermarriage
Ultra-Orthodox Men Ditch All-Black Attire as Fashion Trumps Tradition
Israel's Shas, Right-Wing Kingmaker Party, Takes Sharp Turn to Left
You've successfully signed up!
I have followed carefully the evolution of JStreet and had intended to advise Michael Oren not to attend JStreet convention to give them legitimacy. JStreet is the destructive invention of anti-Zionist George Soros and now factually supported by enemies of Israel. This is not right wing conspiracy stuff, this is federal 501(3)(C) filings by the organization itself.
One does not have to be a Jewish/Holocaust/Israel Studies Expert to know that Jews have inevitably identified with those who would oppress or destroy them naively contribute to this destruction with self-blame, denial and false hope and understanding with rejections of reality. Our friends at JStreet are simply ignoring the facts on the ground and are trying to create a "kumbayah" situation that cannot exist with the fanaticism on the one side to "drive Israel into the sea." One only has to read today's Al Jeezera to read interviews with Palestinian leaders to hear in their own words and in their own media that the "two-state solution" will never be accepted.
Jstreet like to think that it is built on high moral ground principles and that all other groups advocating for Israel suffer some sort or moral insufficiency. They have relegate Israel's right to defend itself as solely the stance of the extreme right wing and that is not only counter-productive for Israel, it is suicidal.
I have been raised in the peace community and active in civil rights, anti-war and struggle for equal opportunity as a progressive. I am highly visible and highly involved and don't want to compromise my identity for the sake of this discussion, but as a progressive liberal of long-standing, I believe my colleagues in JStreet are not only misguided, but playing into the hands of those who would obliterate Israel and making defense of Israel's right to self-determination and self-defense as the only democracy in the Middle East harder and harder by being divisive. At a time when the pro-Israel community should be joining forces, JStreet has opened up the anti-Israel community on a new front and has detracted necessary resources from important advocacy for the survival of Israel in a truly hostile neighborhood. Furthermore they have come on to the Jewish communal scene with both guns blazing posturing as a pro-Israel advocacy group in the already treacherous arena of the Jewish organizatinal circular firing squad. Finally, they view themselves as progressives and do not see that that the net sum effect of what they are saying is that you have to destroy Israel's security and perhaps Israel itself in order to somehow save it from an even worse fate. Sounds very much like the right wing defense of the Viet Nam war in the 1960's.
We all want peace and JStreet's divisive tactics do not contribute to that noble end. They are wolves in self-serving peacenik clothing. They have no cred. Unfortunately they have the bread.
Since its inception I have found J Street intriguing because I could not stand AIPAC's acting as if it was the American wing of Likud and the Jewish Wing of the Republican Party. With all that, Ayalet Waldman M.J. Rosenberg and their ilk reflexively rail against anything Israel does that does not constitute am unconditional withdrawal to 1967 borders, so, no thank you J Street.
That being said, it would not give them any greater legitimacy if Oren spoke to them. I think he is far more articulate than any of the group's spokespeople and it would not hurt to take the fight to them and show everyone else he has nothing to fear from them. No one should labor under any illusion though that J Street's members care one whit whether all of the things they think Israel should do will place Israeli children in more danger than they are now of having a rocket/bomb fall through the ceiling of their classroom. So long as the Chardonnay is chilled and the canapés tasty, all will live another day to join Neturei Karta in working for the emasculation of the Jewish State.
J Street is one hope for Israel to remain a democratic Jewish state. Its critics are living in a time warp in which right wing Israelis and so called "leaders" of American Jewry see American Jews role as open wallets coupled with closed minds. The coming generation is not buying into this analysis. If Israel is to remain Jewish and democratic it needs to stop seeing the conflict as zero sum. A Palestinian state living in peace alongside a Jewish Israel (the view of JStreet) is the only chance Israel has of avoiding the alternatives: apartheid, ethnic cleansing, or Israel ceasing to be a Jewish state.
We will never accept a 2 state solution because it legalizes the theft of Palestine and leaves us with the crumbs. J street is no different than Kach if it calls for a 2 state solution. Rabbi Jutner has figured this out
160 members of Congress will be attending their meeting. That shows that J Street has a significant influence.
Going to a J Street meeting is a way of showing that you support Israel, but you don't support their brutal militarism.
Which is what most Jews believe.
It is true that there are Jewish organizations (usually with heavy non Jewish membership and support) which have wings which include support of 1 state solutions to the conflict, including sometimes binationalism. However, a simple review of JStreet's statement of principles shows that JStreet does NOT have a left wing that supports binationalism. It clearly supports a 2 state solution. Rabbi Jutner's views of JStreet are directly contradictory to what JStreet is all about.
As a Canadian, JStreet, which I recently became interested in, strikes me as somewhat overly involved in the rhetoric of American media and politics. Perhaps that's the culture that constitutes the true battleground in the ideological war between the Israelis and the Palestinians. What is far, far less discussed on message boards like these is the actual work it would/will take to rectify our problems, and I wish I could find that group of people, the ones who are saying, ok, let's do this with the water in the West Bank, and let's design that kind of anti-missile system so that we can minimize harm to people on both sides. Then I think if the Palestinians held power then they would wreck the Israeli farmers' business and withhold their water and telecommunications, and I just want to hang my head and cry. Am Yisrael Chai.
Actually, we do know what the majority of American Jews believe. Over a period of several years, poll after poll comes to the same conclusion: most of us favor 2 states in the Middle East, Israel and Palestine, living side by side in peace and security. J Street represents that viewpoint and represents it well. That a right-of-center Israeli government would criticize this position should come as no surprise to anyone. It barely strikes me as news-worthy. Feel free to call me naive if it makes you feel better. I'll be at the J Street Conference in Washington DC in 10 days, showing my concern for Israel's future in the best way I know how.
AIPAC's unflinching support for a right-wing of limited intelligence, and less imagination, a charicature of a democratic government, led by Bibi and gang, is sufficient reason for the creation of an counter-weight organization truely seeking a dialog leading to peace between Israel and Palestine. Whether J Street will succeed or not in gathering support from American Jews for more liberal and truthful negotiations with the Palestinian leadership is not sure. Can American Jewry realize that the mainly liberal attitude it exibits in the context of American democracy should be applied as well to Israel? Can it then influence the American governemt to rein-in Likud excesses? American Jews! Who would you rather entertain with coffee and shtrudel, Avigdor Liberman, or, (to make it easier for you), Tzipi Livni?
Letting Michael Oren decide who is or isn't "pro-Israel" is kinda like letting the Israeli chief rabbinate decide who is a Jew. You will get an answer, but from a very narrow perspective that excludes a lot of passionate and committed Jews.
The Jewish right will play "gotcha" and guilt-by-association to try to demonize J Street, as they have always done with every leftish Israel advocacy group. I do hope they fail this time, for the right's success will likely mean the end of Israel as any sort of democracy. There is a huge need for groups that care about human rights AND Israel, not one or the other only.
The right of Israel to exist was never accepted in the "neighborhood" even in Biblical times, with its great power neighbors of Egypt, Assyria, and Babylonia never allowing it to be independent for very long. There were stretches of time when the Hebrews/Jews fought for and accomplished degrees of independence, but invariably the greater powers subjugated it. After the first Exile, those Jews who chose to return to the homeland from Babylon to rebuild the desolate country and Temple were met by hostile "Samaritans" who had been brought in centuries earlier by the Assyrians when the conquere the Kingdom of Israel, and who made life miserable for the returning Jews who were coming back to what had been the Kingdom of Judah. Today, after the end of the second Exile, the Samaritans have become the Palestinians who make life very difficult today.
But survival and life in the Second Exile too was marked by major ups and downs. In the second Exile, the Jews chose powerlessness as their weapons of survival. Physical resistance was useless and counterproductive, so Jews had to resign themselves to bending low rather than breaking. But the Holocaust proved that permanent Exile and constantly bowing low was no solution for permanent Jewish survival either.
Thankfully, our good and faithful God did send us hope in the form of two powerful gifts: The atomic bomb, fundamentally a Jewish weapon, and the opportunity to return and rebuild our homeland again. And I thank God every day that we are in possession of both, at least in part. The frightened and snivelling ghetto Jews and those who are arrogantly confident in their material position in Exile, will never agree with those Jews who have chosen to be proud and fight, and yes possibly die on their feet as men rather than live as trembling pitiful rats.
J Streets politics are in the same vein as the patriotic direction of the Labor party in Israel. Why shouldn't those Jews in America who support the same policies get the same respect from the Israeli government that is willing to create a joint government with our counterparts in Israel?
Let's be fair to J STREET. As a goy I often found myself desperate to make sure that I demonstrate that I am pro-Israel. After all, my involvement in this whole issue results from my ties to many East Euro Jews who became Israelis and my desire for them and their progeny to live lives of peace and fulfillment. This is often exploited by people trying to show inconsistencies in my position; their view is that you are 100% party-line or you're an anti-Semite. J Street, I see many deem, full of "self-hating Jews" and degenerates. But in fact, most people I know view them as apologists not by anti-Zionist intent but by desperation to avoid ostricization and misunderstanding from the very communities that gave J STREET birth. To some of you older Jews-- neocons since the 1970s, before that you were New Left students-- I would remind that these are YOUR kids. They are groping and searching for a light that they can trace from your parents (themselves so desperate about your deviations) to you to their generation. Admittedly, for a lot of outside observers this is an abstraction, a social issue, as J Streeters still live in a Jewish ambient and are desperate to fit in. But no matter how much you punish them for their "deviancy from party line," and no matter how much that Jersey boy Oren snubs them (he is probably Israel's most discredited ambassador who came here already discredited as scholar and intellectual) they cannot be cowered back into line because the morality and even-handedness they exhibit is HOW YOU RAISED THEM as good Jews. My parents went to far as to denounce me to the FBI for being seduced by Communism because of my contact with NYC Leftie Jews like Betina Aptheker at the NY Ethical Culture Society. But in fact, we both were manifesting our inheritance of intellectual discourse, she as a Commie and me as an anti-Commie. What we both had in common is a love for meaningful dialogue and a search for truth. She got to UC Berkeley a little before me and, together with another bunch of NY Jewish Commies that I knew, she started a student movement. When that movement won 25,000 out of 27,000 students, getting them to risk their future by going on strike, she sought MEANINGFUL DIALOGUE, not Commie Revolution. The root of her activism was not class warfare but racial equality. THESE ARE YOUR CHILDREN, you old American Jews turned neocons. Jerry Rubin, the Maoist PLP leader at Berkley who sported a long handle-bar moustache and saw himself as a revolutionary thug (he couldn't punch his way out of a paper bag) talked tough and warned your life and limb, but after an "act up" in Chicago, came back to NYC and became a most admirable Middle Class stockbroker and a generational reconciliation guru before his untimely death. As you 60s Jewish student revolutionaries aged, you may have become more cynical, more cash centered and more hateful of the goyim and schwartzas, but you can't forget that back when you were younger and typical Jewish open-minded liberals you passed it on to your children—just as your parents passed it on to you-- so they are now setting aside their personal lives OUT OF A SENSE OF JEWISH MORAL OBLIGATION derived from the Jewish Ethic that, I repeat, you instilled in them and your parents instilled in you. If your New Left days of revolution, sex and drugs didn't knock it out of you, I don't see why now-- that you are bitter old fart more angry than worried and totally polarized by a bunch of ex-Leninist shysters whose motto was POLARIZE TO MOBILIZE—you should feel that your J STREET kids should join you on the dark side of despair rather than struggle in the twilight between dark and light looking for ways to illuminate their moral Zionism based on their Jewish Ethic. They're having a hard time raising you grandchildren in this topsy-turvy world of ours and want to find common ground both in their love of Israel and their moral Jewish Ethic so you can help them instill it in their kids, your grand-kids. God knows that it's not Madoff they want as a model. Israel offers them no solace for Israelis fail to share the courage of Netanyahu, trying to move the Palestinians into a better economic life before discussing with them in a more hopeful setting their political future, all the while, like Nixon going to China, Netanyahu having to cover-over what he's doing with the facade that keeps old bitter fart extremists happy.
J STREET is JEW STREET and you who are caught up in the psychosis that is: if you give Palestinians an inch it means Holocaust, need to at the very least recognize that your Jewish kids are going to J Street Wash DC for the same reason you went to Selma Alabama. Today’s intolerant and injurious fragmentation of Judaism (for God’s sake you are the folks that with 6 in a room you get endless debate over 7 issues) based on Greater Israel Zionist rigidity will destroy the future for it looks rather bleak from that perspective. The Israel you are accustomed to is Israel as a fetal state on an American placenta, the J Streeters’ Israel is as a leader taking the Arabs out of the darkness of banana republic one crop-- oil-- economies into sci/tech modernity with Israel as a totally integrated members of the Middle East community. Both of you want the Israel the Founding Fathers of Zionism envisioned: the Israel that "is a light onto the [Arab] nations"-- your cousins!
So typical of some Jews to always cry over the deaths of their mortal enemies. No other nation ever did this in history, to the best of my knowledge. It was one particularly famous Jew from whom much of the Gentile world received the concept of "Love thy enemies" and "Turn the other cheek" or "Love thy neighbor." While those others adopted these wild ideas in THEORY, they invariably made a particular exception for the Jews themselves. We were one group never to be loved, but only tolerated at best. And because many Jews have always had a problem with loving each other, and even themselves, they have involuntarily collaborated with those who love some of our ideas, but hate the very sight of us. One thing for sure, they definitely love us after we're dead.
Apparently, given the spectrum of J Street of opinion already represented on this thread, J Street wishes to build a tent in which a two state solution advocate faction, let's call them J Street Zionists, a one state solution advocate faction, let's call them J Street antizionists and a third group of J Streeters who claim no preference between the J Street Zionist and antizionist factions, let's call them the between a rock and a hard place faction can all speak from the same message box.
Not so dissimilar to the early stages of Britain's Respect Party which aspired to be a tent for Socialist Worker's Party activists, George Galloway loyalists, Stop the War Coalition members, Jamaat-e-Islami, Muslim Brotherhood and Deobandi activists.
For a dramatized version of this type of political tent in operation see: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gb_qHP7VaZE
This idea that one can retroactively say that Israel doesn't have the right to exist after it has already existed for 61 years is completely outrageous. But it also untenable to think that one can keep forcing Palestinians to live under the current conditions of occupation. The sad thing is that what was once considered the most logical solution - the two state solution - is no being seen as undesirable and unacceptable. It seems that, for the moment, the extremists have succeeded to monopolizing the debate (and not just among Palestinians and the general public, but even among Jews). Let's hope JStreet can succeed in its appeal to reason.
There is no such thing as a JStreet anti-Zionist or one who cannot decide between Zionism and anti-Zionism. Just look at their website,JStreet.org. If supporting a Jewish state as a matter of ideological principle(at the same time supporting peace with one's neighbors and seeing that is what is in the best interest of both parties), is not Zionism, what is?
Sharon Vance, you cause me once again to bow to the wisdom of women. I confess to being a male chauvinist pig by culture; but life has taught me that only once you love a woman do you realize what a powerful multiplier she is to the new entity of "us." You see, hateful peoples like the Israelis and Palestinians will always be civilized by their women who always consider the future of the children much more than the men do. It was as a counselor-in-training at a Jewish summer camp, decades ago, that one of our mentors reminded us that throughout history women civilized men; without them we would still be apes, he insisted. I guess procreating by raping female apes. Perhaps the Israeli-Palestinian women can liberate the next generation from the miserable sixty years of nothingness that so many of both peoples have suffered to date, dying killing instead of achieving their full potentials. Life is short and the gun has eaten much too much of it for both peoples. The alternative to war is not Holocaust but safety through greatness and generosity. I repeat the fuel that keeps me doggedly in this issue; it is that Israeli poem about the old man who spends every day weeping in grief by the grave of his fallen IDF hero son. The son calls to him from the grave: father, do not weep for yourself but for me force to lie here under the cold damp and dark ground with all my plans and potentials dashed because I died fighting for your ideologies. It so makes me think of the pain I saw in Grossman's face when his son died for God only knows what in Lebanon. How many more Nobel Prizes in science could Israel share with its Palestinian mentorees if it had peace instead of constant call up to defend settlers on plots of sand occupied by the settlers, by their own words, because that's all that was affordable because it was taken from helpless Palestinians that lived there for generations? Perhaps it is only women to whom God gave the power to stand back and see the worth of a distant goal relative to the whole horizon. Your post, Sharon Vance, is the first ray of sun on this cloudy day, Sharon Vance, thanks and Shalom!
Israel has a choice, either a fortress or a neighbor and we all know what happens to fortresses.
No Lies, your comment was probably deleted because you violated the conference rules:
In the interest of maintaining a civil forum, the Forward requires that all commenters be appropriately respectful toward our writers, other commenters and the subjects of the articles. Vigorous debate and reasoned critique are welcome; name-calling and personal invective are not.
Or they might have been deleted because you're posting repeatedly under different names.
Rabbi Jutner, with respect, the Aleutian Islands are the ancestral territories of other tribes. Like it or not, Israel is the ancestral homeland of the Jewish people. Of course it would be easier--and we are under enormous pressure from millions of Muslims--to deny it, but that's the way it is, much as I enjoy Michael Chabon's novels (though let's face it; Yiddish Policemen's was no Kavalier & Klay).
Leonard Eisenstein, if you continue to violate the Forward rules by posting name-calling and personal invective, I expect they'll delete your posts again.
Robert Gasner,
(1) We pay taxes here in the United States, $3 billion of which goes every year to subsidize your army and settlements. (You get better health care with our money than we do.) So as your major investor, we are entitled to some respect and control.
(2) Israel is a democracy only if you define a democracy as a system in which people of one religion have rights that people of another religion do not have. (And only if you define Israel to exclude the Palestinians in the occupied territories.)
(3) If you don't want the Palestinians to fire rockets at you, then don't fire rockets at them. And don't provoke them by killing them. You're the ones who started firing (American) rockets. Your brilliant military strategists should have figured out by now that when you attack someone, they attack you back. If you refuse to make peace, don't complain about war.
This is where the rubber meets the road, keeping the discussion going until enough points in common are found that the discussion becomes very constructive. I would remind you all to stop your bulldozers and start looking backwards at the example set by your ancestors. Argue, rage if you have to, but for the sake of your great past, keep the ball rolling until you exhaust the rage and enlighten the will. Thank you, for I know what Jews are all about so I have great confidence in resolution rather than censorship.
There is not truth, justice, or fairness, peace, love, hatred, anger, etc., in the nature or the part of nature "out there". These qualities are in people; it includes words.
The revenge-hatred-words are in people and these are not part of nature out there but part of us humans or a nature which in us and not present anywhere else.
Some 15mns very angry, fearful, hatefull talmudniks and others who are associated with them in some manner are facing one+bn ?equally angry, hateful, vengeful one + bn equally clazed muslims.
What does one think wld happpen once muslims obtain an military equilibrium with 'jews'? Or when world plutos obtain their millennial dream; started by sumer king Urnanshe ca 5k yrs ago: to rule over the four corners of the earth. Does one think that cultists who worship solely money-power-control wld tolerate yet another theocracy in MD; and an opposing one to an islamic. And by far the worst one; the one that wld dare tell even plutos that they are subhuman ? No thank u; as if islamic rules are not bad enough!! I think talmudniks have been used; and generally speaking, what had been used, had also been discarded. So to simplify and to cease with complexifying [a fave of posl and priests] talmudniks can talk to islamists. At one time the three cults of palestine got along reasonable well; or so i read s'mwhere. tnx
The Jewish people have a right to a homeland of their own. That homeland happens to be Israel. Israel's borders run from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, from the current border with Lebanon/Syria to the current border with Egypt/Gaza. Yes, it is true that some of the Arabs from pre-1947-8 lost some property, but so did over 750,000 Jews kicked out of Arab countries and forced to leave behind their homes, their businesses, and all their belongings. J Street wants Israel to do everything using a maximum amount of political correctness and deference to all other viewpoints and concerns. In that spirit, they want the Jewish people to bow down to the rest of the world and ask for permission to have a state on whatever tiny piece of land the world decides is enough for the Jews. That piece of land would eventually shrink to less than one square mile, and it would likely be in the sea to the West of Israel. I say "Enough" sacrifice and enough overconcern for the "world's interests. J Street will never stand tall and fight for Israel, it will sek accomodation with anyone who opposes the country and wants it destroyed. Israel needs defensible boundaries, not these piecemeal measures of accomodation. The Arabs/Islamics have 53 countries on this earth and the Jews only have one. Let's keep it one and not one-half.
American Jews Rethink Israel By Adam Horowitz & Philip Weiss November 2, 2009 edition of The Nation. October 14, 2009
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20091102/horowitz_weiss/single
I want to believe that Oren was ordered to refuse to talk to J-Street on order of Lieberman, but of course, I really don't know. I have a longer memory than most about the refusal to recognize opinions not certified by a regime. I recall that during the Shamir regime, anyone who spoke up against the views of his government was considered "unloyal" and advised to either agree or be quiet. So, when I disagreed, I remained silent.
Then there was a change in Israeli administrations and Rabin was the Prime Minister. Sudden the same voices that called me unloyal were saying things about Rabin that would curl a rabbi's beard, and when I reminded them about loyalty, they said that they were the loyal ones, and that Rabin was unloyal. Well, we know what they did to Rabin.
Now we're getting the same message. Who wants to be labelled a "self-hating Jew?" Well, fool me once, shame on you; fool me twice, shame on me.
J-Street is a legitimate voice of concern for the welfare of Israel, and I say to them to remember the lesson I learned about such people who called themselves democratic but whose mentality tends to be more totalitarian. Disagreement is not un-Jewish. There are 50,000 discussions in the Talmud; there are only 5,000 decisions. Jews have a long tradition of expressing their own opinions without being delegitimated.
Israelis and the Palestinians and Muslims believe in One G-D, the Creator of the universe and all things there in. They all want to be G-D servents. So why do they all destroy the work of His hands?
They love and respect many of the same prophets. The Prophets Ibrahim (Abraham), Ishaq (Isaac), Yusuf (Joseph), Musa (Moses), or Dawud (David),
The Lands where these holy fathers lived and served G-Dare as holy for Muslims Palestinians as they are for Jews. SO WHY DROWN THESE LANDS IN THEIR BLOOD AND TEARS?
The word "ISRAEL" is the name of Prophet Ys'qub (Jacob), peace be upon him, who is praised in the Qur'an and remembered with great respect by Muslims. Abraham was father to all. The promise land, is not here on earth. Seek the land above, fight sin, drive it out, it brings death.
Israeli doctors who had been invited to Egyptian event in the fight against breast cancer were told at the last minute not to come, according to a Monday report by Channel 2 television. The doctors were scheduled to share their experience in dealing with the disease, but were told Sunday night that the Egyptian health minister had cancelled the invitation.
The Foreign Ministry expressed outrage at the decision and said it would ask Egypt to clarify and correct the decision.
The Jewish people have a right to a homeland of their own. That homeland happens to be Israel. Israel's borders run from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, from the current border with Lebanon/Syria to the current border with Egypt/Gaza. Yes, it is true that some of the Arabs from pre-1947-8 lost some property, but so did over 750,000 Jews kicked out of Arab countries and forced to leave behind their homes, their businesses, and all their belongings. J Street wants Israel to do everything using a maximum amount of political correctness and deference to all other viewpoints and concerns. In that spirit, they want the Jewish people to bow down to the rest of the world and ask for permission to have a state on whatever tiny piece of land the world decides is enough for the Jews. That piece of land would eventually shrink to less than one square mile, and it would likely be in the sea to the West of Israel. I say "Enough" sacrifice and enough overconcern for the "world's interests. J Street will never stand tall and fight for Israel, it will sek accomodation with anyone who opposes the country and wants it destroyed. Israel needs defensible boundaries, not these piecemeal measures of accomodation. The Arabs/Islamics have 53 countries on this earth and the Jews only have one. Let's keep it one and not one-half.
A Real Peace Plan!
We seem to have danced the real-estate dance for close to a century now. Borders in the middle east are pretty much an illusion. At the time of the Balfour Declaration of 1917, there was no state called Egypt, no state, not even an inkling of something entitled Jordan, nor a Syria, Lebanon, Iraq or Iran. Heck Turkey was still the Ottomon Empire. To consider the "Green Line" sacrosanct and carved in stone, is abject foolishness. It is a line that historically has no foundation. So as we do this slow meandering dance, we fail to remain open to creative and just ideas. Here is mine, and yes I would appreciate constructive feedback.
1) Jordan Cedes Land to a Palestinian State, It must be noted that five Arab armies attacked Israel at its inception. Two of these armies went on to occupy and deny the "Palestinians" of independence or self rule. The first and most notable of these states is Jordan. Formed by the British to pay off the Hussein Clan, it went to war with the stated intent of destroying the Jews, it fell back to what is now the "Green Line" and all but annexed the area. I believe that Jordan should cede some its territory along the Jordan River to a nacent Palestinian state. If land and Liebensraum is an issue then rather than just insist that Israel give up precious land, then the Jordanians, whose land was included in Palestine by the British, should be more than happy to help out their brothers. This would be just and done in the altruist muse of peace.
2) Egyptian Ceding of Part of the Sinai,
The other army that attacked Israel and then went on the occupy Gaza, were the Egyptians. They too insist that Israel should give up territory to appease the Arab world. When in fact in the name of justice and peace, the Egyptians owe the Palestinians something, do they not? I exhort the Egyptian peace camp to cede the territory from Rafiah to El Arish to the Palestinians, opening up prospects for increased farmland and living room. It would cost the Egyptians little, Cairo sitting a thousand kilometers from El Arish, El Arish to Rafiah being but 25 kilometers. An Israeli scientist has already done the science and found that a underground aquifire exists below the desert sands and rock, which would provide irrigation and much needed water resources. Of course the Swedes and Norwegians would put up the funds to build a de-salination project. If the Egyptians actually cared for their Palestinian brothers, then this would be easy and account for the sins of King Farouk and his bungled war effort.
3) New Borders for Israel,
A new line is drawn between the Palestinians and Israelis, one which would be hip to the facts on the ground, and open to cities that straddle the "Green Line" such as Um al Fahm, Baqa al Garbiya and Teibeh, reverting to some form of Arab regime.
In summary, the talk is always about what Israel will have to give up for peace. Is Israel the only nation interested in peace? is she the only country involved in the conflict that finds peace more important than land? Much of Palestines problem is said to be a land problem. If this is the case then it can be easily solved by both Jordan and Egypt ceding territories they cannot even find on the map.
It is time for both sides to pay up, for all sides in the conflict to give something in the name of peace. I sense that J Street is continuing to dance the same old Jerk or mash potatoe. Their ideas have all been tried and failed, they are like watching re-runs of Shindig, it is time for a new dance a new set of ideas that involve all the forces in the area that have wrought destruction on the peoples involved. Amen.
Or maybe peace is but a word, or a notion in which to force Israel into a state of nothingness?
All these nations, that believe in One G-D have taken on other gods, The god of Pride the ultimate source from which is the desire to be more importand , failing to acknowledge the good work of others, and especially holding self out of poper position toward G-D. Love of self perverted to hatred and contempt for one's neighbor.
The god of wrath allso known as anger or "rage" the inordinate and uncontrolled feelings of hatred and anger. These feelings have manifest as vehement denial of TRUTH, both to others and in the form of self-denial, and the desire to seek revenge outside the working of G-D'S laws for mankind. The law of peace.
Envy the god.. defined this as "love of one's good preverted to a desire to deprive other's , the gained of sinful pleasure from seeing others brought low.
So , many gods, are fighting here...the One True G-D is at war, with them on a spiritual level.
These nations all believe in Abraham being the father of the nations. Abraham attained to the "heavenly Jerusalem" which all nations can come to. Only if they turn back their faith to the One True G-D and drive these lesser gods from the within them. Abraham, came like all of the other believers, he came to Mount Sion, the Rock, and to the city of the Living G-D of heavenly Jerusalem , and to the spirits of just men made complete. This was accomplished when the old temple was destroyed.
The nations land is above not below. For this world will pass away, but the kingdom to G-D On High will never passaway, nor the holy children that are gathered up, from all nations.
The nations in scripture are nations or tribes of Israel. For the Israelites were scattered. Understand,Gen 1-3 to be the "creation of Israel" the garden of Eden is the promised land" Itself"
Adam or Man was the first man thatG-D put in the "land" and not necessarily the first "human being " on earth. You should notice that the rivers named as the borders of the Garden and the same as those that are the boundries of the "promised land". Nephilim, Fiants and the Sons of G-D---G-D has a plan, to bring about order...written in Jer.31:27
For it is written...Jer.31:27 Behold, the days come, saith the LORD, that I will sow the house of Israel and the house of Judah with the seed of man, and with the seed of beast.
It would not be wise form mankind to take these bourders that G-D Himself has set up, away from His plands. What is above, G-D wants below. G-D wants union above and below, His plans for all mankind to enter in the promise land.
Ezek. 37-39 I think, is the gathered back to their lands, above and below. Raised from their death of sin, and giving up their gods of war, Wrath , Envy , Pride and other sins that have rooted in us, that we do not want to give up have become a block from us having Truth and Wisdom written on our inward parts, and entering in the promise land.
Many have enteted in and seen the marvelous things G-D pland long ago for us.. For it is written...Psalm 118.. The Stone the builders rejected has become the Capstone; the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
For it is written....Isaiah 26 Yes, LORD, waalking in the ways of Your laws, we wait for You; Your name and renown are the desire of our hearts.
Ps. 51...Behold, theou desirest truth in the inward parts: and in the hidden part thou shalt make me to know wisdom.
Those who desire peace...and put out sin, enter in the hidden part, that many have seen the marvelous things pland long ago by Living G-D of heaven and earth.
G-D wins this war....read those who will not desire the desire of G-D...Jer. 31:33
The Jewish people have a right to a homeland of their own. That homeland happens to be Israel. Israel's borders run from the Jordan River to the Mediterranean Sea, from the current border with Lebanon/Syria to the current border with Egypt/Gaza. Yes, it is true that some of the Arabs from pre-1947-8 lost some property, but so did over 750,000 Jews kicked out of Arab countries and forced to leave behind their homes, their businesses, and all their belongings. J Street wants Israel to do everything using a maximum amount of political correctness and deference to all other viewpoints and concerns. In that spirit, they want the Jewish people to bow down to the rest of the world and ask for permission to have a state on whatever tiny piece of land the world decides is enough for the Jews. That piece of land would eventually shrink to less than one square mile, and it would likely be in the sea to the West of Israel. I say "Enough" sacrifice and enough overconcern for the "world's interests. J Street will never stand tall and fight for Israel, it will sek accomodation with anyone who opposes the country and wants it destroyed. Israel needs defensible boundaries, not these piecemeal measures of accomodation. The Arabs/Islamics have 53 countries on this earth and the Jews only have one. Let's keep it one and not one-half.
The true Jewish people their homeland is the Dwelling place of their G-D and Ah-vee Ahd. It was the sons of G-D that were given the land, to do the will of their father Israel. Their are few sons of G-D in the land today. The Stone of Destiny, is our foundation, our true temple of G-D that he provided for us.
The Jewish people and the world walk in error . He who dwells in the shelter of the Most High will rest in the shadow of the Almighty.
Ps.118 The Stone the builders rejected has become the Capstone; the LORD has done this, and it is marvelous in our eyes.
As long as the corporatists rule war will be perpetual, robbing us of our humanity, our flesh and blood and our treasure, OUR G-D, for we become blind. The grip over us will only increase, becoming a mechanism we will soon be impotent to outmaneuver. Perpetual war for perpetual profit has been created; propaganda designed to make us hate over one billion people of divergent cultures and religions is now in motion. Nations, chosen as the new face of evil, the enmy to help launch decades of war, violence and death. As long as the assembly lines of death and conveyor belts of destruction continue running at full speed, living is perpetual fear and experiencing what the gods of war, the gods of greed and the profiteers of misery would not want it any other way.
Hear the call to turn back to the One True G-D of All Mankind, hear the echoes in the wind, calling you to turn from sin, take up the battle cry and put sin out. Call on the name of G-D...G-D With Us..