J Street fantasies

By Jim Shipley

December 2, 2009

One thing we Jews are really good at is forming organizations. We love them. Every time some self-designated community leaders in the U.S. Jewish world decide it is time to take all the compatible organizations with their overlapping fields of interest and bundle them together it is a disaster.

We Jews are known for our individualism, our, if you will, our stiff necks. If an organization forms for a particular purpose, one of two things will happen. Either another organization will be formed to take an opposite and opposing view, or another organization (or perhaps two or three) to promote a different slant on the same problem.

So now, after years of a lobbying organization in Washington in essence representing the views of the Israeli government to the American voting public - The American Israel Political Action Committee (AIPAC) - we have a group formed with an opposing view.

I have been watching the machinations of this organization for the past year. I read their statements and papers; I read, watch and listen to their interviews. In other words, I have been through the looking glass. Everything they publish, speak about or debate should begin with the words "In a Perfect World."

There is certainly nothing wrong with Jewish Americans debating the best way to bring peace and security to Israel. There is nothing wrong with reaching out to Palestinians for discussion on their rights and their future. But face it. The Jews here in America, while we may have an emotional tie to the Jewish State, while we may have relatives there and have visited Israel ourselves umpteen times; the fact remains: We don't live there. We don't vote there. We do not pay those exorbitant taxes. We do not have our lives threatened by fanatical Arabs who seek only our destruction.

There is an organization, AIPAC, that carries the message of the Israeli government through the houses of Congress and to the White House. Good. Compare their thin group of personnel to Saudi Arabia, who maintains a cadre of 150 lawyers in Washington in addition to their numerous lobbying organizations.

If you look at the broad brush strokes of the J Street policy statements, there is little you could disagree with. Peace between Israel and the Palestinians. Fine. Which Palestinians? The mass of folks in the so-called West Bank that simply want to live their lives, make a living, improve their lifestyle and educate their children? No problem.

Hamas? Hezbollah? Al-Aqsa? These organizations are dedicated to the destruction of the Jewish state. They are financed by Iran, Syria and Saudi Arabia. No more than the U.S. and Britain could have peace with Hitler can Israel ever, ever contemplate peace with these organizations. As long as Israel exists, they have a reason to exist. They stop being a threat to Israel and the Jewish people when their finances are cut off and they die of starvation.

Where does J Street stand on the amorphous phrase "settlements"? Are they prepared to say that in the State of Israel, the Jewish state, that there are neighborhoods that are "Judenrein"? Those esteemed members of J Street live in integrated neighborhoods (one would assume) where white, black, brown, Jews and Gentiles mow their lawns and drink their lattes in symbiotic brotherhood. Would they deny that to their brothers in Israel?

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