Pro-Israel Groups J Street and AIPAC Split on Steve Bannon Appointment
Image by Getty Images
Pro-Israel groups were split on their approach to the incoming Donald Trump administration, with AIPAC resisting pressure to criticize the appointment of far right wing firebrand Stave Bannon to a top White House position.
The American Israel Public Affairs Committee declined to weigh in on Bannon, perhaps in hopes of keeping open a pipeline of influence over the incoming administration’s Middle East policies, Politico reported.
“AIPAC has a long-standing policy of not taking positions on presidential appointments,” the group’s spokesman, Marshall Wittmann, said.
Whitman denied reports that the group was privately “apoplectic” about Bannon’s appointment.
But the dovish J Street slammed Bannon as a hate-monger who would be bad for the Jews — and Israel.
“He and his website have a history of aggressively targeting individuals and organizations, including J Street, with vicious attacks that show no regard for basic decency and tolerance, or for the truth,” it said.
J Street accused Trump of “fanning the flames of hatred” by appointing Bannon.
The ADL and other anti-hate groups have blasted Bannon’s appointment, but analyst say pro-Israel groups are by definition more concerned about foreign policy not his views, which critics call racist and anti-Semitic.
The right wing Zionist Organization of America praised Bannon effusively.
“We wish Mr. Bannon every success in his new position,” said ZOA chief Mort Klein.
Israel itself has stayed out of the fray.
Benjamin Netanyahu and Ron Dermer, his ambassador to Washington, have offered only warm words about Trump.
The day after last week’s election, Dermer congratulated Trump with a tweet calling him “a great friend of the Jewish people and the Jewish state.”
It’s our birthday and we’re still celebrating!
We hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, we’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s independent Jewish news.
This week we celebrate 129 years of the Forward. We’re proud of our origins as a Yiddish print publication serving Jewish immigrants. And we’re just as proud of what we’ve become today: A trusted source of Jewish news and opinion, available digitally to anyone in the world without paywalls or subscriptions.
We’ve helped five generations of American Jews make sense of the news and the world around them — and we aren’t slowing down any time soon.
As a nonprofit newsroom, reader donations make it possible for us to do this work. Support independent, agenda-free Jewish journalism and our board will match your gift in honor of our birthday!
Support our mission to tell the Jewish story fully and fairly.
