J Street Fails In Attempt To to Prevent Anti-BDS Legislation

 


In late April, the Senate Finance Committee adopted new amendments to the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which would require US trade negotiators to make rejection of the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanction) Movement a requirement in any Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations with the European Union, which are now ongoing.

The bill requires signers of the TTIP “to discourage politically motivated actions to boycott, divest from, or sanction Israel and seek the elimination of politically motivated non-tariff barriers on Israeli goods, services, or other commerce imposed on the State of Israel.”

This was aimed not only at EU threats of sanctions against Israel but at EU financial support of anti-Israel BDS groups.

As you might expect, the usual suspects among Jewish anti-semites er, 'anti-Zionists' went into full tantrum mode over this one, lobbying feverishly against it.

The rabidly pro-BDS, anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace has been one of the leading voices opposing the legislation, along with Americans For Peace Now,and of course, "pro-Israel, pro-peace" J-Street.

They were especially enraged that the wording of the bill - which refers to all "Israeli-controlled territories" - would also make it illegal to boycott Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria.


But despite the pressure from these far-left anti-Israel groups the amendments have near unanimous, bipartisan support:

The Zionist Organization of America (ZOA) strongly praises Senators Ben Cardin (D-MD) and Rob Portman (R-OH) for sponsoring the bipartisan United States-Israel Trade Enhancement Act of 2015 (S.619) and Congressman Peter Roskam (R-IL) and Juan Vargas (D-Cal) for sponsoring the United States-Israel Trade and Commercial Enhancement Act of 2015 (HR.825). In addition, ZOA strongly praises HR.825’s thirty-seven co-sponsors listed below. ZOA also praises Senators Cardin and Portman for annexing this anti-boycott legislation as an amendment to a bill currently in the Senate Finance Committee. [...]

The praiseworthy bipartisan co-sponsors of HR.825 (in addition to sponsors Congressmen Roskam and Vargas) include:

Steve Stivers (R-OH), Lee Zeldin (R-NY), Paul Cook (R-Cal), Blake Farenthold (R-TX), Randy Weber, Sr. (R-TX), David Schweikert (R-AZ), Mark Meadows (R-NC), Bob Gibbs (R-OH), Brian Babin (R-TX), Patrick Murphy (D-Fla), Jackie Walorski (R-IN), Trent Frants (R-AZ), Austin Scott (R-GA), Stevan Pearce (R-NM), Rodney Davis (R-IL), Martha McSally (R-AZ), Louie Gohmert (R-TX), Chris Collins (R-NY), David McKinley (R-WV), Tim Walberg (R-MI), Kevin Yoder (R-KS), Peter King (R-NY), Ron DeSantis (R-Fla), Luke Messer (R-IN), Tom Emmer (R-MN), Cathy McMorris Rodgers (R-WA), Bradley Byrne (R-AL), Bill Johnson (R-OH), Gus Bilirakis (R-Fla), Earl “Buddy” Carter (R-GA), Daniel Lipinski (D-IL), Nita Lowey (D-NY), Leonard Lance (R-NJ), Susan Brooks (R-IN), Candice Miller (R-MI) and Daniel Webster (R-Fla).

And those are just the co-sponsors.

Congressman Peter Roskam (R-IL), who co-sponsored the legislation, told The Washington Free Beacon that the whole issue "is a non-story: a bunch of anti-Israel groups criticizing a pro-Israel amendment."

"While a broad bipartisan, bicameral group of Members of Congress are focused on strengthening the mutually beneficial US-Israel economic relationship, this small handful of outside organizations are more interested in defending destructive efforts to delegitimize Israel," he said.

He's got something there. Sanctions are essentially a trade A-bomb, and once the EU uses it, there's zero incentive for Israel to negotiate anything. Unlike Russia and Iran, Israel has more than one product the world wants, and lots of buyers, so even some EU countries will wink at any sanctions, especially with some convenient re-labeling and resales involved. That's exactly how the EU avoided the Arab boycott against Israel in the 1960's and the 1970's.

Not only that, but these days Israel has lucrative and established trade relations with China, Vietnam, Japan, Korea, Thailand, Burma, India, Russia and many other non-EU countries..not to mention Canada and Australia.

President Obama might of course veto this, but doing so would pretty much signal exactly how much he really despises Israel to even the most clueless, not to mention that this legislation merely reiterates existing U.S. law. Even his fellow Dems might participate in a veto overide to preserve their own political hides. And I have a feeling he too realizes that vetoing this would pretty much end what little leverage he has left to get the Israelis to negotiate anything vis a vis 'Palestine'. He has other things more important to deal with, and other plans for Israel, as I'll reveal shortly.

If You Ever Thought Chuck Hagel Was Clueless As Well As Anti-Israel, Here's Proof

The above is a video of a speech Senator Hagel gave to the anti-Zionist group J-Street in 2009 at their first national convention.

Amazingly, J-Street is attempting to defy the Senate Armed Services Committee by refusing to provide the tape, in which Senator Hagel improvised quite a bit. His remarks are very different on tape  than the prepared text, courtesy of the Atlantic Council where Hagel serves on the board with his good friend Chas Freeman.

After watching this, I'd love to ask Senator Hagel a few questions, among the many I could pose while tearing this nonsense to shreds:

1) You refer to the Arabs whom identify themselves as Palestinians as a 'house divided' and make an appeal for the U.S.to facilitate Palestinian unity...an obvious call for Hamas and Fatah to become one entity. What exactly would the U.S. gain by empowering a genocidal group into the mix our government rightly labels a terrorist organization like Hamas that's sworn to Israel's destruction? What would Israel gain by negotiating with them, and how could Israel trust any agreement that was made?

2)You laud the Arab Peace initiative and call it an important step. That initiative calls for Israel to retreat back to the pre '67 borders, uproot half a million of its citizens, and redivide Jerusalem( including the holiest sites of the Jewish religion) in exchange for, essentially,  words on a piece of paper. You also mention that the terms 'could be negotiated'.

The Saudis and the Arab League who issued the initiative made it plain that this is an ultimatum and non-negotiable. So has Mahmod Abbas, numerous times. We needn't even mention Hamas, who have said that they will never recognize Israel.What exactly  is 'up for negotiation'?

3) Have you ever read the Qu'ran, Senator? Or the Hadiths? Are you aware of what those scriptures say about Jews, sir? About any agreements made with non-Muslims? By their own admission, the Arabs who identify themselves as  Palestinians have freely admitted that in their eyes, both Oslo and the Road Map, treaties the Israelis signed in good faith with them are null and void since they now have no further intention of abiding by them, if they ever did. And in Egypt, while the Camp David Accords are holding (barely) the Islamist dominated parliament is wildly in favor a ditching that treaty, and the Egyptians sacked Israel's embassy in Cairo and actually had Israeli diplomats virtually imprisoned until there was U.S. pressure to let them leave the country. What value, really, would any more of these treaties be in terms of keeping the peace if they can be violated at will?

4) When has 'land for peace' worked for Israel in the past? Or security agreements, for that matter? The ones agreed to by the U.S., the EU , Egypt and the Palestinians as part of the Israeli disengagement from Gaza were supposed to be ironclad,assured Israeli PM Sharon that Gaza would no longer be a source of terrorist attacks and congratulated him on his bold steps for peace. How'd that end up working out? Back when the Arabs held the Golan Heights, all of Judea and Samaria and half of Jerusalem, was there peace? Was Israel less secure or more secure than it is now?

5) In your public remarks and per your voting record, Senator, you're very much opposed to the U.S. labeling Hamas and Hezbollah terrorist groups even though both are openly genocidal towards Jews and both have the blood of American citizens on their hands, especially Hezbollah. And you also have been an outspoken proponent of Israel negotiating a 'land for peace' treaty with Syria's Basher Assad. Why would you expect these notoriously bad actors to want to make peace with Israel on any terms that meant anything, and why would anyone reasonable expect them to keep it?

6) You're notorious for being a proponent of severely paring down America's military and being against any further U.S. military intervention in the Middle East.Given that, what would any security agreements you talk about giving Israel be worth if the Arabs attack Israel's pre '67 indefensible borders once they had the strategic areas of the Golan Heights and the high ground in Judea and Samaria under their control? How exactly are you going to get NATO to except Israel as a partner when European nations like the UK observe a de facto arms boycott against Israel and NATO member Islamist Turkey would never accept them?

7) You frequently employ the old strategy of linkage when it comes to the Israel/Palestinian issue.

Let's play that game and assume that tomorrow, Israel agreed to withdraw completely to the pre-'67 borders and give you everything you want. Is Iran going to cease its quest for nuclear weapons? Are Hezbollah, Hamas, Islamic Jihad and others going to give up their missile arsenals and cease trying to destroy Israel? Is Islamist Egyptian president Mohammed Morsi going to suddenly develop new affection for the people he referred to in Q'urannic terms as the descendents of apes and pigs and decide that he doesn't need those F-16s and Abrams tanks you want to send him? What changes would occur, aside from a severely weakened Israel with indefensible borders?

8) In your speech, you mouth a lot of platitudes about freedom and the dignity of man. Why are you and the Obama Administration so critical of the side that actually practices it and so supportive and unwilling to criticize in any way the side that doesn't? Nations don't just have interests, they have principles. Or is that not something you agree with?

9) Why exactly are you asking Israel to do something and abide by rules you would not ask any of our other allies to do?


There's a lot more, but just running these down gives you a good idea of Hagel's views and character.

I'm hoping good sense prevails, but I unfortunately expect him to be confirmed.

Wasserman Schultz Caught In Another Lie: 'Israeli Ambassador Said Republicans Dangerous For Israel"

These people lie the way most of us change our socks, and they're not even bothering to try and come up with something remotely credible anymore.

DNC head Debbie Wasserman Schultz was speaking at a specially organized training session for Jewish Democrats put on by the Obama campaign at the Democratic National Convention It was designed to teach Jewish Democrats how to talk fellow Jews into voting for President Obama in spite of his record on Israel.

She came up with this gem:

As she was wrapping up her remarks, she claimed that, “We know, and I’ve heard no less than Ambassador Michael Oren say this, that what the Republicans are doing is dangerous for Israel.”

As if Israel's ambassador to the U.S. was going to confide in an ex J-Streeter like Wasserman Schults and diss one of the major parties in an election year!

Needless to say, Ambassador Oren issued a statement that did everything but call Wasserman Schultz publicly the outright liar she is:

“I categorically deny that I ever characterized Republican policies as harmful to Israel,” the statement reads. “Bipartisan support is a paramount national interest for Israel, and we have great friends on both sides of the aisle.”

Actually, Wasserman Schultz went even further with her rant:

Wasserman Schultz went on to elaborate that Republicans were “undermining Israel’s security by suggesting that the United States and Israel don’t have anything other than a unique and close and special relationship. It undermines Israel’s security to its neighbors in the Arab world and to its enemies. And we need to make sure that the fact that there has never been and will never be daylight between the two parties or the support for Israel that we have in the United States, that that is conveyed to Jewish Americans across this country. That’s our responsibility. It’s the responsibility we’re asking all of you to take on.”

I'd call this chutzpah, except that's too mild a word for it.

Aside from the Democratic 2012 Party Platform, which excises almost all of the pro-Israel language from the party platform of 2008 and replaces it with distinctly anti-Israel omissions, there are President Barack Obama's own words, as reported in the Washington Post that directly stated that American policy was too pro-Israel and his goal was to create daylight between the U.S. and Israel. “When there is no daylight", the president said at that time, "Israel just sits on the sidelines, and that erodes our credibility with the Arab states.”

So what will Debbie Wasserman Schultz say now that she's been exposed in this way? My guess is that she just brushes everything off with a remark about how she stands by her statement and counts on the Obama Media lackeys to bury this.

There's an excellent ad the Republicans, The Emergency Committee on Israel or one of the other PACS could put out, showing Wasserman Schultz outright lie together with Ambassador Oren's statement.

The very fact that the Obama Campaign would resort to this outright deception (I guarantee you Debbie Wasserman Schultz didn't think of this herself) is proof that the Jewish vote in America is very much up for grabs.

Update: Dan over at Gay Patriot makes the cogent point that this is not just about domestic politics, but perhaps marks the first time a political operative has openly lied about for political purposes about what the ambassador of an allied nation has said.

I would only add that to me it seems obvious that Wasserman Schultz and the Obama campaign don't consider Israel an allied nation any more, but a problem to be managed in the short term for political purposes. After the election, however it turns out, you will see hostility never seen before unleashed by the Obama Administration towards Israel to the extent the Administration can.

J Street Field Director 'Our Job Is To Move American Jews To The Left On Israel'

At least the Soros-funded scum are admitting it.

As J Street Field Director Carinne Luck admits here, their job is not to represent the views of American Jews but to propagandize them against Israel.

'Pro-Israel, pro-peace' my eye. But then, you knew that,didn't you?

(hat tip,Carl)

In The Event Of War, J Street 'Won't Necessarily Support Israel'

Today in Boston's Jewish Advocate, a letter surfaced regarding a briefing given by three Jewish organizations about what their positions would be in the event of hostilities involving Israel (h/t, Carl):

At this week’s meeting of the JCRC Council, three organizations briefed the council on their organization’s Iran policy. I was shocked to hear J Street’s regional director say that in the event that war broke out involving Israel, J Street would not necessarily support the Jewish state.

Incredulous, I asked her to clarify that I had heard correctly. Indeed, she reiterated proudly that J Street would not necessarily support Israel in a conflict, but would weigh the circumstances. So if, heaven forbid, war breaks out, the wise sages of J Street (and supposed military experts) will decide whether or not Israel merits our support. And this is an organization which claims to be "pro-Israel"! With friends like that, who needs enemies?

While there is a plurality of views in our community on many issues, there is a broad consensus that if attacked, we put our differences to one side and stand by the people of Israel unambiguously. J Street has put itself beyond that consensus.

It's one thing to question the likelihood of success of military action against Iran - and we certainly hope and pray that sanctions and diplomacy will work - but quite something else to say that if a conflict breaks out, we would not unambiguously stand with Israel.

Shame on them, but at least the pro-Israel community understands where they stand. In Israel's hour of need, J Street cannot be counted on.

PAUL SASSIENI

Newton

It isn't exactly news that J-Street, contrary to their slogan is not exactly pro-Israel. Or that their funding comes from questionable sources.

But at least they're clear about their agenda, and anyone whom suggests that their perspective is of value and that they need to be included in a 'big tent' of Jewish opinion on Israel is out of his tree.

As Carl suggests, the important thing to remember is that to the Obama Administration, the sort of people whom are part of J-Street ( like DNC head Debbie Wasserman-Schultz) are the Jewish community in the U.S. And Israel can probably depend on the Obama Administration if push comes to shove about as much as they can depend on J-Street.

Which is to say, not at all.

New Head Of The DNC Debbie Wasserman Schultz: The Girl From J Street

Since current head of the Democratic National Committee Tim Kaine decided to run for Jim Webb's Virginia Senate seat in 2012, President Barack Obama as head of the party needed to pick someone to take his place.

And boy, did he find someone.

Rep. Debbie Wasserman Schultz (D-FL) has the typical Left wing positions you would expect from a future head of the DNC..pro-abortion, rabidly anti-gun rights, and a firm supporter of ObamaCare and the other parts of the president's agenda.

And one place she particularly seems to support Obama is in his hostile attitude towards Israel.

Wasserman Schultz has deep and long standing ties to George Soros' on the fringe anti-Israel lobby, J Street.

Back in early 2009, Wasserman Schultz hosted an event on Capitol Hill for J Street, who were then receiving harsh criticism even from many Democrats for issuing a statement accusing Israel of 'collective punishment' in Gaza and equating Israel's self -defense with Hamas terrorist attacks.

Even the very liberal Rabbi Eric Yoffie, the president of the Union for Reform Judaism and an early J Street supporter broke with J-Street after that, calling them 'profoundly out of touch.'

"Hamas, it should be noted, is not a government; it is a terrorist gang. And as long as the thugs of Hamas can act with impunity, no Israeli government of the right or the left will agree to a two-state solution or any other kind of peace," Rabbi Yoffie wrote.

That apparently didn't faze Wasserman Schultz in the least. She's continued to show her support for J Street, calling the controversial group an "organization that supports Israel and supports peace and is working to foster an advanced peace process." She later served as the featured speaker for J Street's first annual gala event in Washington, DC, an event most of her fellow Democrats refused to attend.

Wasserman Schultz at least has always been consistent about her views on Israel. Back in 2005, she told the Left leaning Forward that President George W. Bush's first term , during which he was markedly pro-Israel showed "... a lack of leadership coming from the administration. I know many people in the Jewish community were happy with the president’s position on Israel, but the way I thought, there was an absence of leadership".

She said she very much preferred Bush's second term, when Condi Rice essentially took over foreign policy and orchestrated the disastrous Lebanon War ceasefire, the crumbling of Lebanon's anti-Syrian March 14th Movement, the almost complete US disregard of Iran's quest for nuclear weapons, administration support for the Saudi Peace ultimatum and the Annapolis conference that could have been aptly described as a gang rape of Israel.

Wasserman Schultz apparently also apparently is something of an anti-Christian bigot as well, saying that Republican and Conservative support for Israel is "not because they are so supportive of there being a Jewish state and making sure that Jews have a place that we can call home. It has references to Armageddon and biblical references that are more their interest."

Aside from being totally ignorant of both Christian and Jewish scripture, it's fascinating that someone who supports a group like J Street and endorses President Obama's policy of apartheid and segregation against Jews and where they may build homes for themselves would accuse others of not wanting to 'make sure Jews have a place we can call home'!

It occurs to me that if President Obama is planning yet another diplomatic assault against Israel, Wasserman Schultz is probably a worthy choice for the DNC in order to keep Jews who lean well to the Left safely in the fold and pulling the lever for Obama in 2012.

In fact, that might be precisely why she got the job.

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A Message For The Tribe

As some of you might recall, I've been fairly critical of the Atlantic's Jeffrey Goldberg and some of his positions on Israel, which at times seem to be almost a kissin' cousin to those of his anti-Semitic former Atlantic colleague Andrew Sullivan.

However, his site today has an interesting piece that sheds a great deal of light on something that out to be brought out into the sunlight.Entitled "Goldblog is a Pro-J Street Blog" he makes that point that while much of what J-Street does he disagrees with, he's deeply angered that the Israeli Knesset held a hearing to determine whether J-Street was a pro-Israel organization, and that Israeli PM Netanyahu found time to meet with Governor Sarah Palin ( whom Goldberg despises) but not with the minions of J-Street:

Let me be clear about something: There are many things about J Street I dislike. I think some of its members actually don't like Israel very much, and especially don't like the idea of Israel. I think many J Street supporters are cringing Diaspora Jews who are embarrassed by displays of Jewish muscularity, those displays of muscularity that are warranted as well as those displays that are unwarranted. There is much about J Street policies that I don't like; I think J Street believes that settlements are the root cause of the Middle East conflict; I believe that settlements are a moral and political catastrophe, but that one of the tragedies of the settlements is that the settlements obscure the true nature of the Middle East conflict. {...} And of course I don't like the fact that J Street found it impossible last year to tell the truth about its funding, from George Soros and other people who are frank antagonists of the Zionist idea.

But: J Street is still a Zionist organization. I believe it is fighting for Shimon Peres's vision of what Israel should be, and Yitzhak Rabin's, and more to the point, it is fighting for the vision espoused by Israel's George Washington, David Ben-Gurion.{...}

The Knesset is debating whether or not J Street is Zionist. This is a farce. The prime minister of Israel, Benjamin Netanyahu, refuses to meet with J Street. This, too, is a farce. The Prime Minister, in fact, will meet with Sarah Palin (whose politics are favored by a tiny minority of American Jews) but he will not meet with J Street. He should argue with J Street, yell at J Street, grapple with J Street, but most of all meet with J Street. Those Israelis, and those American Jews, who believe that J Street, and the spirit it represents, are fleeting phenomena have absolutely no idea what is happening in the Jewish world.

Goldberg contradicts himself, of course. On the one hand, he admits that J-Street is composed of many people who are 'anti-Zionist', dislike the idea of Israel and receive primary funding from George Soros and others who are rabidly 'anti-Zionist', but on the other hand he calls J-Street a Zionist organization and demands that these people who are committed to Israel's destruction have a seat at the table!

He also might want to consider that Governor Palin's numbers are a lot bigger than J-Street's, who have never released a list of dues paying members and count all of the 170,000 hits on their website as 'supporters'.

But all that aside, he touches on something else important. Goldberg (and a great many other Jews on the Left) seem to feel that Israel owes them a vote on how Israel defends itself, where its citizens may live and build homes, and whom it chooses to represent itself in the Knesset and the Prime Minister's office.

Thirty or forty years ago, I might have conceded the point, at least to a degree. I don't any longer.

As Goldberg alludes to at the end of his article, a great many Jews living in the Diaspora no longer support Israel either financially, emotionally or in the voting booth, and the message they give out to the Jewish State is essentially: "Please don't embarrass me with my Leftist friends."

While Americans overwhelmingly support Israel, a great deal of that support comes from conservatives and Christians, and there are a number of good reasons why that is so for reasons that have nothing to do with sentiment or religion. To be honest about the matter, while many Jews who would characterize themselves as 'liberals' still draw the line when it comes to attacking Israel, there are plenty who crossed that line a long time ago.

Having chosen a side, they have little reason to complain.

The election of Barack Obama was the first time in recent American history that someone with long time, intimate ties not only to people who are blatantly anti-Israel but actually anti-Semitic became president. And Obama was avidly supported by a majority of America's Jews.

Many of them were ignorant of his background and history, or simply didn't want to know. But enough of them weren't so that his subsequent actions as head of the most anti-Israel administration in US history should have come as no surprise.

And while I might personally consider it suicidal, they were and are certainly entitled to make that choice.

What they're not entitled to is to feel they have a right to an active voice in how Israel conducts its affairs simply by virtue of the accident of having been born Jews, something many of them try and distance themselves from whenever possible anyway.

J-Street and similar organizations were not formed and financed to promote Israel and Zionism. George Soros put them together to provide a beard, an 'alternative viewpoint' for President Obama's anti-Israel stance in order to negate any accusations of anti-Semitism.

The bird who flies over from the next tree to try to foul someone else's nest has no business feeling slighted when the birds who've chosen to live there take that amiss and try to stop him.

The one privilege Diaspora Jews do have is one given to them by the State of Israel and it's an important one...the right of refuge. Israel does not derive its legitimacy from the Holocaust, but it was formed out of the reeking miasma of its ashes and by the almost one million Jewish refugees ethnically cleansed from the Arab world. Many Diaspora Jews can never imagine a scenario when things might change so radically that the country they live in might no longer be hospitable or safe for them, but it has happened before. A strong powerful Israel is vital not only as a deterrent against such things happening in the first place, but for preserving that haven for those who might need it, something J-Street and their ilk seem to find particularly loathsome.

Ironically, if many of these 'anti-Zionist' Jews were in danger, Israel is the first place they'd look to for help and protection, the same Israel they defame on almost a daily basis.

And also, I might add, if the majority of Israelis now realize that Oslo was a huge mistake and choose to reject the Labor/Left establishment Jeffrey Goldberg remembers so fondly for blundering into it, that's frankly the Israeli's business..because they're the ones who have to pick up the pieces afterwards.Jews building homes in Judea and Samaria didn't start the Arab-Israeli conflict, and making another piece of the Middle East Jew-free isn't going to stop it.

Bottom line, you can't demonize a country and do everything you can to delegitimize it and then expect to be welcomed with open arms as family. And to Israel's credit, they are beginning to end the pretense of trying to do so. The parable of the Wicked Son Jews the world over recite every Passover is particularly apt here.

Buy the ticket, take the ride.

-selah-

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Israel's Deputy FM Tells Pro Hamas J Street Congressman To Pound Sand

This is just too good:

A group of US congressmen were unpleasantly surprised when Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon refused to meet with them this week.

US congressmen and other governmental representatives are generally treated as VIPs in the Holy Land. However, this particular group was organized by J Street, a lobby that pro-Israel activists say pressures Israel to implement leftist and pro-Arab policies.

Massachusetts Democrat William Delahunt fumed Wednesday that "in our opinion, this is an inappropriate way to treat elected representatives of Israel's closest ally who are visiting the country." Delahunt was joined by Democrats Donald Payne of New Jersey, Lois Capps of California, Bob Filner of California and Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio. {...}

On Tuesday, Ayalon said he believes J Street willfully misrepresents itself as a pro-Israel organization, when it is not.

J Street has attempted to present itself as pro-Israel, a dovish version of AIPAC. Yet pro-Israel advocates and activists have almost universally condemned J Street as an anti-Israel, pro-Arab organization posing as a voice for American Jewry.

Rabbi Eric Yoffie, President of the Union of Reform Judaism, called J Street's condemnation of counter-terror Operation Cast Lead "morally deficient", and "profoundly out of touch with Jewish sentiment." Well-known Israeli pundit and writer Caroline Glick asserted that J Street's foremost interest is in weakening Israel.

The article gives a bit of background on exactly who these creeps are. All of them signed on the foul, anti-Semitic and anti-Israel letter I mentioned before urging Obama to pressure Israel to unilaterally open its borders with Gaza, no matter what.

J-Street and Peace Now endorsed it, of course.

The letter made no mention of Hamas attacks on Israeli civilians,naturally.That's why those borders were closed in the first place after Hamas took over the Strip in a violent coup. And to underline the letter's basically anti-Semitic character, there was absolutely no mention of pressuring Egypt, a large recipient of US foreign aid to open Egypt's borders with Gaza or to stop building its new security barrier on Egypt's border with Gaza.

Filner, Capps and Kilroy, by the way, are among the top receivers of CAIR money in congress.

And they, along with Delahunt and Payne have a long and dishonorable history of voting against Israel in Congress at every opportunity.

So why so upset, Congressman Delahunt? Did you and your group really expect to be treated well by a country you crap on at every opportunity?

Tough tahini.

And kol tov, Minister Ayalon.

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