J-Street is Anti-Peace

J-Street styles itself as "pro-Israel, pro-peace."

The first part is obviously not true, since J-Street's political positions are consistently on the side of the Palestinian positions and against that of the elected Israeli government, and even most Israelis who identify as centrist or left wing.

But what about the second part? Is J-Street pro-peace?

The answer can be seen in what is - and what is not - on its website.

The most remarkable achievement under Netanyahu's leadership has been Israel's improving relationships with nations around the world, including Muslim-majority countries in Africa and the Arab world.

Yet when Netanyahu met with Oman's Sultan Qaboos bin Said in Oman, a stunning event, J-Street was silent.

When Netanyahu met directly with Arab leaders and top ministers in Warsaw this month, J-Street was silent.

When pressure forced the UAE to allow Israeli athletes to participate in events there, and an Israeli minister sang Hatikva when Israel won a gold medal and publicly toured the nation, J-Street was silent.

When Israel openly works with Qatar to bring aid in to Gaza, J-Street is silent.

While Israel improves relationships with Sudan, Chad, Bahrain and many other nations, J-Street is silent.

Shouldn't a "pro-peace" organization be jubilant at each one of these stories?

The irony increases when you see that J-Street does say positive things about regional peace initiatives - but only in context of the Saudi driven Arab peace initiative, in a section of its site written during the Obama administration:

Even more broadly, the Arab Peace Initiative still provides a potential game-changing template for conflict resolution yielding dividends not just for Israel, but for the region as a whole in trade, commerce, security and more. Given the perception of the weakness of the political leadership on both the Israeli and Palestinian sides and the fact that so many of the issues (security, Jerusalem, refugees) that are on the table actually have regional dimensions, reconceiving the effort to resolve the conflict in a broader regional context seems to us an important new approach to consider.

Accordingly J Street highlights for policymakers the benefits of adopting a regional approach to resolving the conflict and works with partners in Israel and in the Arab world to explore the possibilities of building on the Arab Peace Initiative.

What happened to J-Street's support of adopting a "regional approach" to peace?

Ah, that was only when it seemed impossible to have regional peace without the Palestinian issue being solved first, which was the conventional wisdom for decades.

Netanyahu, and Trump, have shown that there is another avenue to regional peace. They have shown that it was the Palestinians that are the roadblock to regional peace, not the prerequisite. The Arab world knows that Palestinians could have had a state when it was offered to them in 2000, 2001, 2008 and they rejected it. The Arab world knows this and it is finally dispensing with the conventional wisdom of first a Palestinian state and only then regional peace.

J-Street hates this idea. They built their entire organization on the failed approach of Israel giving more and more concessions to those who want to destroy it in the name of "peace." 

J-Street also hates Trump. They hate Netanyahu. Their fundraising emails are based on that hate, getting funds from likeminded haters.

And the idea that under Netanyahu and Trump, Israel is friendlier with the Arab and Muslim worlds than it ever was under Obama just disgusts them.

If J-Street was "pro-peace," it would have shown cautious support for the Trump peace initiative when it was announced. It didn't. On the contrary, they have been trying to sabotage the Trump peace initiative before anyone knew what it was going to be.

J-Street ignores the many positive moves towards peace that occurred in recent years - even while they defend the rights of Israel boycotters.

The conclusion:  J-Street is not pro-peace.

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