Israel Matzav

Look who's defending J Street now

I'd love to know who the second senior Democrat in the story quoted below was, but the first one is not someone I would have expected to disingenuously claim that Mort Halperin had nothing to do with J Street when he was trying to set up meetings on Capitol Hill for Richard Richard Goldstone. But Howard Berman (D-Ca) has decided to go to bat for his old friend Mort Halperin and for Soros' J Street.

Goldstone and two senior aides to top Democrats who had knowledge of the meetings denied J Street's involvement. The denials followed a Washington Times report last week asserting that J Street facilitated meetings between Goldstone and lawmakers.

An aide to Rep. Howard Berman (D-Calif.), the chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives Foreign Affairs Committee, told JTA that Mort Halperin -- the director of the Open Society Institute who is also listed as one of five J Street directors on its tax returns -- directly appealed to Berman as a friend and not representing any group.

"Mort called Howard as a friend of 35 years asking him to take a meeting," said the aide, speaking on background. "It wasn't set up through J Street. Mr. Berman was happy to do it."

The account was confirmed by a senior aide in the office of another top Democrat and by Goldstone, a respected South African human rights prosecutor.

"With regard to the arrangements for the meetings, I initially had contact only with OSI," Goldstone, who is Jewish, wrote in an e-mail to JTA. "Only in Washington did" the New America Foundation "come into the picture and Daniel Levy of NAF attended some but not all of the meetings. To my knowledge J Street had no involvement with the arrangements for the meetings."

The denials from Berman's office and Goldstone came after JTA queries; the other aide to a senior Democrat called JTA unsolicited.

I'd bet the other senior Democrat is someone whose seat is in trouble. Barney Frank? Steny Hoyer? Jane Harman? J Street Jan Schakovsky? The possibilities are seemingly endless, aren't they?

posted by Carl in Jerusalem @ 12:02 PM