Skip To Content
JEWISH. INDEPENDENT. NONPROFIT.
Fast Forward

Ted Cruz Slams J Street In Debate With Beto O’Rourke

WASHINGTON (JTA) — Sen. Ted Cruz called J Street, the dovish pro-Israel policy group, “rabidly anti-Israel” in the Texas Republican’s debate with his Democratic opponent, U.S. Rep. Beto O’Rourke.

“Congressman O’Rourke is fond of saying he doesn’t take PAC money, but the truth is different,” Cruz said Tuesday after O’Rourke accused the incumbent of accepting big money from political action committees. “For example, the J Street PAC, which is a rabidly anti-Israel PAC, has raised over $160,000 for Congressman O’Rourke because of his many votes against the nation of Israel.”

O’Rourke has said and J Street has confirmed that O’Rourke accepts money from individual donors who route it through the J Street PAC, but does not accept money from the PAC itself. Donors sometimes route individual donations through PACs in order to emphasize to the candidate the issue that they favor.

J Street immediately seized upon Cruz’s jibe in a fundraising email.

“You know what? We honestly don’t care if Ted Cruz wants to insult us. If anything, being attacked by Ted Cruz is a badge of honor,” the group said in an appeal Wednesday with the subject line “Ted Cruz Attacks J Street.”

“What we care about is that extremists like him — elected officials who undermined the Iran deal, demonize Palestinians to score political points and believe the only way to be ‘pro-Israel’ is to support every policy of the Netanyahu government — hold power in Washington right now,” the appeal said.

This month, O’Rourke released a statement saying that he backs defense assistance for Israel because he “believes Israel is critically important to the United States because it is the home of the Jewish people, because it is an exemplary democracy that shares our values, and because it is a crucial contributor to our national security objectives in the region.”

A message from our Publisher & CEO Rachel Fishman Feddersen

I hope you appreciated this article. Before you go, I’d like to ask you to please support the Forward’s award-winning, nonprofit journalism during this critical time.

We’ve set a goal to raise $260,000 by December 31. That’s an ambitious goal, but one that will give us the resources we need to invest in the high quality news, opinion, analysis and cultural coverage that isn’t available anywhere else.

If you feel inspired to make an impact, now is the time to give something back. Join us as a member at your most generous level.

—  Rachel Fishman Feddersen, Publisher and CEO

With your support, we’ll be ready for whatever 2025 brings.

Republish This Story

Please read before republishing

We’re happy to make this story available to republish for free, unless it originated with JTA, Haaretz or another publication (as indicated on the article) and as long as you follow our guidelines. You must credit the Forward, retain our pixel and preserve our canonical link in Google search.  See our full guidelines for more information, and this guide for detail about canonical URLs.

To republish, copy the HTML by clicking on the yellow button to the right; it includes our tracking pixel, all paragraph styles and hyperlinks, the author byline and credit to the Forward. It does not include images; to avoid copyright violations, you must add them manually, following our guidelines. Please email us at [email protected], subject line “republish,” with any questions or to let us know what stories you’re picking up.

We don't support Internet Explorer

Please use Chrome, Safari, Firefox, or Edge to view this site.