Israel Matzav: 16 questions for J Street

Wednesday, May 04, 2011

16 questions for J Street

Welcoming the latest J Street delegation to Israel, David Bedein flatly tags them anti-Israel (he's right) and then lists 16 questions that Shimon Peres and Dan Meridor - the two Israeli government officials who are meeting with them - ought to be asking. Among them are the following.

3. J Street joined with the pro-Iranian lobby, the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), to oppose congressional efforts to impose sanctions on Iran. Ben-Ami and NIAC director Trita Parsi co-authored an anti-sanctions article titled “How Diplomacy Can Work with Iran” in Huffington Post in June 2009. At the Knesset, J Street Director Ben Ami lied and said that J Street had never opposed sanctions against Iran.

4. J Street received large contributions from one of NIAC’s directors, Genevieve Lynch of New York. She serves on J Street’s Finance Committee, and her J Street PAC contributions exceed $10,000 per year.

5. J Street’s PAC received tens of thousands of dollars from one of the leaders of the Arab American community, Richard Abdoo. J Street’s relationship with the Arab American Institute is very tight.

6. J Street PAC repeatedly took contributions from a Turkish American, Mehmet Celebi of Chicago. The Hillary Clinton presidential campaign dropped Celebi in 2008 when they discovered he helped produce Valley of the Wolves, a viciously anti-American and anti-Semitic Turkish film.

7. J Street recently sponsored a speaking tour for John Ging, head of UNRWA in Gaza. The raison d’être of UNRWA is to perpetuate the Palestinian refugees’ status, thus encouraging their “right of return.”

8. J Street’s visit to Israel in February 2010 was cosponsored by an anti Israel group called Churches for Peace in the Middle East, an organization which supports the boycott, divestment, sanctions (BDS) efforts against Israel.

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11. Anti Israel Career U.S. Arabists are attracted to J Street, sitting on its advisory board or contributing to J Street’s PAC. These include Ray Close, contributor to the J Street. former CIA station chief in Saudi Arabia and then advisor to the head of Saudi intelligence; Lewis Elbinger, contributor to the J Street PAC a State Department foreign service officer who had been stationed in Saudi Arabia but now serves as deputy political advisor seconded to Gen. David Petraeus at CENTCOM; Nicole Shampaine, contributor to J street PAC director of the State Department’s Office for Egypt and the Levant; Amb. Ted Kattouf, members of the J Street Advisory Board, former ambassador to Syria and the United Arab Emirates; Ambassador Robert Pelletreau,member of the J Street Advisory Board. former ambassador to Egypt, Tunisia and Bahrain; and Ambassador Philip Wilcox, member of the J Street Advisory Board, former U.S. consul general in Jerusalem and president of the Foundation for Middle East Peace.

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15. In January, J Street in Jerusalem held a special meeting to honor Israeli soldiers who refused to obey orders.

16. In March, J Street lobbied the US Congress against a resolution that condemned the blatant incitement in Palestinian school books and Palestinian media, while J Street refuses comment on the curriculum of the PA which openly promotes the violent struggle to liberate all of Palestine.