Israel Matzav

Who is J Street?

In Monday's JPost, Lenny Ben David rips J Street for its lack of fundraising transparency. I blogged the report about J Street's Arab donors, to which Ben David refers, here.

We come back to the questions: Do J Street's Jewish and (really) pro-Israel supporters know about J Street's alliance with Arab Americans and the Iranian lobby? And, echoing the questions surrounding the recently reported Human Rights Watch solicitation from Saudi sources, did J Street's PAC actively solicit funds from these groups, and what was the message to them?

Supporters of J Street should know that their contributions to the PAC are a matter of public record. They owe it to their own reputations to see who's on the roster alongside their names.

Does J Street's leadership perpetrate fraud when it portrays itself as pro-Israel to pro-Israel and anti-Israel audiences at the same time? The question should be left to legal authorities, J Street donors and the court of public opinion to decide. In Jewish law there is a concept of gneyvat da'at - knowingly misrepresenting oneself. Of that, J Street is guilty.

J Street maintains three fiscal entities: its main organization, the political action committee and a campus education organization. Only the last two are transparent under US law, with contribution lists provided as public record to the Internal Revenue Service and the Federal Election Committee. But what of J Street's non-transparent main organization? Are there contributions from Iranian-related or Arab-American sources as there are to the PAC? Does J Street solicit money in the Human Rights Watch model?

It's important to keep hammering at J Street again and again so that it is clear to everyone that they are NOT a pro-Israel organization. That's the only thing that has a chance of stopping their fundraising juggernaut.

Read the whole thing.

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 8:32 AM