There are few better ways for a peace organization to bolster their credentials than by securing a general to speak at its first national conference. The fact that this particular general, Jim Jones, happens also to be Barack Obama’s national security advisor is perhaps even more significant.
Haaretz also notes the asymmetry of the Israeli ambassador’s refusal to attend the conference, which means J Street is embraced in Washington and dissed by the rightist government in Tel Aviv. For the Israel lobby and nattering nabobs of negativism like Michael Goldfarb, this is proof positive of J Street’s leadership of the “anti-Israel lobby.” For the rest of American Jews who care about this issue, it will reinforce the organization’s bona fides as an independent and honest broker.
Jones has had his share of conflict with the current Israeli government so I’m sure he’s happy to lend J Street a hand in its hour of need/triumph. The Israel lobby has succeeded in spooking five or the original 150 members of Congress who’d agreed to sponsor the conference. I’d say in a trade for Thad Cochran or even Chuck Schumer, Jim Jones more than makes up for the loss.
I find it perversely amusing that even Israeli officials concede that Aipac is driving government policy toward the J Street conference. Usually you think of such a lobby as taking direction from the government on whose behalf it lobbies. But Aipac is the golem that has taken on a life of its own and now controls its master, at least in this particular matter:
In Israel, there is concern that AIPAC will interpret [Oren’s] participation as an act against it. “You don’t turn your back on someone who has acted in your favor for decades,” said a senior Israeli official. “Certainly not in favor of an organization that has done nothing for Israel.” The official added: “We have no reason to build up or bolster J Street.”
If J Street is “anti-Israel” and embraced by Washington, doesn’t that make Washington anti-Israel also? Is this what the Israel Lobby is trying to say?
J Street is not anti-Israel.
And the fact that the National Security Adviser to our current administration is the guest, does not mean “Washington embraces J Street”
J Street is critical of some of Israel’s actions. I don’t know if J Street has expressed an opinion about Israel burning Palestinian children with white phosphorous, or using weapons which cause organ failure and cancer, or shooting women and children holding white flags.
If they have taken a position on these and like actions, I’m sure J Street is critical of them.
Well whooppee…..that sure is a radical anti-Israel position there.
Obama has not said a word about the war crimes. Every day Palestinian children die, a result of Israel’s efforts to de-Arab the land.
During Israel’s war on Gaza last Dec/Jan Obama said not one word.
Give him a break his supporters said, he’s not in office yet.
Ahem…
He’s in office.
He gives a speech and addresses the settlement issue. But with no enforcement words are meaningless. Settlements continue to be built.
I’m glad J Street exists, altho they are very mild.
Barack Obama has not shown himself to be any different from any other president in re Israel.
“Bend over and take it up the rear, like every other president, and while Israel is kicking your butt, complain about how misunderstood and persecuted Israel is.”
Yeah, that’ll work…
J Street is mild because they support a peaceful future for Israel rather than chaos. Leaning too hard towards either AIPAC or Hamas will make the great ship Israel topple over and sink.
This is the proof Aipac shouldn’t register as a foreign agent.
They are the JPOST to J street’s HAARETZ.
You can’t be pro-Israel while describing it’s government as sitting in Tel-Aviv, eppes.
Jones recently spoke at the American Task Force for Palestine Gala: Jones at ATFP.
Hussein Ibish, who is a Senior Fellow at the American Task Force on Palestine (ATFP) and Executive Director of the Hala Salaam Maksoud Foundation for Arab-American Leadership, has some sort of mad-on for my wife Karin and author Jeff Gates: The outsourcing of stupidity in the English-language Arab press.
Relatively minor publications like Khaleej Times along with a few South Asian newspapers comprise the majority of international English-language printed journals, where one can place nearly uncensored articles by scholars and journalists with views that diverge from Zionist orthodoxy.
The attempt of Ibish to censor the content of English-language Arab media is intriguing. Is it related to Haim Saban’s attempts to influence the Arabic-language content of Arabic media? Or is this effort just part of Fatah’s effort to stay of the US government gravy train by pleasing administration Zionists? Karin hypothesizes that Ibish is looking for a Fusion Center grant, but Ibish as a Fatah supported may simply be angry that Karin’s analysis tends to undermine the demonization of Hamas.
I do Karin’s fact checking. I try to maintain the standards of the New Yorker before it dove into the Zionist deep end.
Ibish attack material that I verified in the BBC and with which even Lawrence Wright agreed in The Looming Tower.
In my analysis of what al-Qaeda is versus what the US government claims it is, I am following Harvard Kennedy School scholar Thomas Hegghammer.
I am somewhat baffled that Ibish appears to deny that Dennis Ross and Rahm Emanuel are extremist Zionists.
I am really disgusted that Ibish focuses on Karin’s name and not on her arguments.
Are only people with Arabic or Jewish names allowed to discuss the ME? In fact, Karin Friedemann is a very Jewish name even if Ibish does not seem to realize it.
I will probably suggest that Karin use the Hebrew version on her next article. Then she will be able to accuse Ibish of anti-Semitism in this stupid game Ibish is playing.
“a shameless anti-Semite, supporter of Al Qaeda, and certified nitwit.”
Yep, that’s your wife alright.
She got a paid gig in the newspaper industry when everyone else was losing his job.
BTW, Zionists always scream anti-Semite and make ad hominem attacks because they have no valid justification for their positions or beliefs.
The effectiveness of the tactic is fading.
“I will probably suggest that Karin use the Hebrew version on her next article. Then she will be able to accuse Ibish of anti-Semitism ”
It won’t work. Some eight years ago, he debunked someone with a name like Israel Shamir, an Israeli citizen who lived in Jaffa, with a lot more mouth on him than your wife, who joined the Palestinian cause while suicide bombers were blowing up Jews in pizzerias, and indeed he turned out to be a fanatic antisemite.
Stories like those of Israel Shamir, Lev Nussimbaum (Essad Bey, Kurban Said), and Leopold Weiss (Muhammad Asad) are common enough in Russian (and Ukrainian) Jewish history that there is little reason to doubt Shamir is anything but what he claims as much as prejudiced Zionists might wish to believe otherwise.
Israel Shamir responds to Ibish and Abunimah here.