Why Does J Street Attract the Friends of Saudi Arabia?
In August, the Jerusalem Post revealed that J Street’s political action committee received contributions from Arab-, Iranian-, and Muslim Americans. State Department officials, a Palestinian billionaire, and board members of the discredited Human Rights Watch and the Iranian lobby were also listed in the files of the Federal Election Commission. Faced with the evidence, J Street’s director Jeremy Ben-Ami responded, “I think it is a terrific thing for Israel for us to be able to expand the tent of people who are willing to be considered pro-Israel and willing to support Israel through J Street,” he said.
Give me a break. That tent may have come directly from the Saudi king’s compound in Riyadh or Jidda. Research into J Street’s backers indicates a Washington cadre of paid Saudi agents, sycophants, and factotums. There are not many in that bunch who would be “willing to be considered pro-Israel.”
Consider the following PAC supporters or members of J Street’s advisory council:
- Nancy Dutton, widow of Fred Dutton, the long-time Saudi foreign agent, served as the Saudi Embassy’s attorney in Washington. As late as August 2008, news accounts identified her as the Saudis’ lawyer. She donates to J Street’s political action committee.
- Judith Barnett serves on J Street’s Advisory Council and donates to the J Street PAC. In fact, she was one of the very first of a handful of contributors to the J Street PAC after its formation in December 2007, according to the Federal Election Commission. She is clearly a believer in the “EMILY” political axiom: “Early money is like yeast, because it helps to raise the dough.”
A former deputy assistant secretary of commerce for the Middle East and Africa during the Clinton administration, Barnett worked for several Arab countries after she left office. After writing a toady piece in the Washington Post in early 2004 about the changing role of women in Saudi Arabia [“I found … that the role of Saudi women is changing far more quickly than most in the West realize.”], Barnett registered with the Justice Department as a foreign agent for Saudi Arabia. According to the Justice Department files, Barnett signed a contract to work with the PR firm, Qorvis, with whom the Saudis have a mega-buck contract to improve their post 9/11 image. Her contract ended a year later when security concerns prevented her from bringing a delegation of American women to Saudi Arabia.
In 2002 and early 2003, Qorvis popped up in the headlines when it was revealed that the agency had established a bogus “pro-peace” organization, the “Alliance for Peace and Justice,” which promoted the Saudi peace plan and slammed Israeli settlements. Qorvis had arranged for dozens of radio spots to be broadcast across the U.S. without divulging who was really behind the ads. In 2004, Qorvis’ offices were raided by the FBI for foreign agent violations.
Calling J-Street pro-Israel is a joke – these people are traitors in every sense of the word. They are not Jews, they are far-Left ideologues who are not only anti-Israel but anti-American as well. And, they represent the disgusting alliance of the far Left with Islamists, they aren’t even ”useful idiots” but rather fellow-travellers, cynically disguising their true goals behind a lot of BS peace rhetoric. In effect, they are no different than the Jewish Communists of Eastern Europe, often the worst anti-Semites. I won’t get into their psychological motivations, how can anyone understand the twisted psyche of a Jewish anti-Semite?
Some of these J-Streeters are former Israelis, their anti-Israel positions rejected & despised in their own country. Since they cannot sell their poison to those who are far better informed, they go to America or Britain to sell this crap to the much less informed. Many are proponants of a complete elimination of Israel as a Jewish state. I have to add that our universities in Israel have become nests of traitors & crackpots, a situation not unlike that in many American universities infested with America-haters.
J Street is pro Israel like Hitler’s brownshirts were pro Jewish. Same difference.
The Daniel explanation to Belshazzar Mene-Mene-Tekel, Upharsin was wrong in Daniel 5:25 book of bible.The correct meaning was that Menetekel was menstraution period of a woman and Parsin is sperm.
I cannot explain the whys, wherefores, or hows of J Street and their seeming affinity for Saudi Arabian money. I do however have at least some idea as to why some American Jews both lead and give their support to such a group like J Street which appears to have such a hostility towards Israel. Although I have lived in Israel for almost thirty years I enjoyed my life in America and the Jewish Community there for quite some time. One of the aspects I noticed there, and here in Israel too, is the burning desire of most Jews to lead something, in fact anything, the Sisterhood, the Shul itself, a political party, an NGO, you know what I mean. As near as I can tell, the leadership of J Street is really bush league, mostly assimilated Left wing Jews, they know almost nothing about the dynamics of the Middle East, shockingly little about Israel or Israelis, and are largely ignorant about Judaism itself. But they set up a group they can now lead, and if financing is a problem, well anyone, even the most radical anti Semites, are welcome to contribute.
That said, Israel has not been particularly reliable as a representative of the Jewish People during several important periods of our recent history. The drunken sot Rabin and his lethal Oslo Accords bringing Arafat and his PLO terrorist army into the heart of Israel to ravage and murder us, the weak and vacillating Ehud Barak who surrendered all of Israel to Arafat and got hundreds of us killed by PLO and Hamas terrorists, and of course, last but not least, soon to be indicted Ariel Sharon who ethnically cleansed the Gaza Strip and the Northern Shomron of Israeli Jews, abandoned them to their fate, and left the Gaza area in the hands of Palestinian terrorist gunmen, rockets, and missiles in his effort to avoid arrest, trial, and imprisonment.
What is even worse, Lenny, all three of these misguided or criminally motivated Israeli Jewish “leaders” demanded that the American Jewish Community support their depraved programs, even though most Americans and especially American Jews realized how dangerous these plans were. You know, Lenny, I won’t even mention the damage to Israel’s Jewish reputation that was done by our very own Supreme Court, a court which most Israelis refer to as the High Court of Palestine. I won’t even mention how the Israeli Army, the so call People’s Army, forbids our soldiers to fraternize with Jewish settlers in the territories. Because of these sorts of behviors a lot of American Jews have lost faith in Israel, our leaders, our lawmakers, our judges, and our IDF and who can really blame them? Some American Jews became indifferent, others more radicalized in favor of Israel, and some joined J Street out of a sense of disgust.
Israel has a lot to atone for in the way that we have abused the Jewish People, Zionism, and Judaism, but I doubt that even Netanyahu much less any of our other political, military, legal, or religious leaders have gotten to that point yet. Yes J Street and anti Israel groups like it represent a serious problem, but they also represent a serious symptom of Israel’s failures.
Saudi Arabia like every other country plays for its own best interests; sometimes these work with Israel and the US, and sometimes not. Even Iran at times over the past 30 years has worked with US interests.
J street are the modern day kapos.
In August, the Jerusalem Post revealed that J Street’s political action committee received contributions from Arab-, Iranian-, and Muslim Americans. State Department officials, a Palestinian billionaire, and board members of the discredited Human Rights Watch and the Iranian lobby were also listed in the files of the Federal Election Commission.
Paragraphs like this remind me of the golden age of Yellow Journalism, when you only needed to call someone a “Jew”. That was criticism enough. The fact that the Palestinian bottler of Coca Colar invests in anything is hardly a matter that means something to rational people. Luckily for you, your audience is unable to tell fantasy from reality. Certainly, in their world, anyone who is Palestinian is already an evil person. Luckily, the majority of people in this nation have actually met Palestinians–they know that to be Palestinian has no more to do with one’s ideas than being Jewish. Unluckily for the rest of us, there’s a virulent little minority of crazed and unhappy people who can’t survive without accusing other people of what they themselves are guilty of.
….not just the ‘Tip’ but J-Streets entire foundation is a Total Fraud. It’s a front organization that masquerades as an American Jewish Israel political action group and serves this administration by falsifying data from phony polls to promote agendas that are fundamentally opposite of all American, Jewish & Israeli interests.
“Unluckily for the rest of us, there’s a virulent little minority of crazed and unhappy people who can’t survive without accusing other people of what they themselves are guilty of.”
That would be quite true if the accusations you talk about were lies. It seems that the article also makes lie of your characterization of accusers as virulent and unhappy persons. And really, Iranian lobby (which supported politics of Iranian government) would hardly go against their own and Iranian government interest, wouldn’t it?
All that said, as a person with not much knowledge of American internal politics I am astounded by the breadth and width of lobbying in America. Lobbyists for all kind of causes, businesses and countries can, in fact, buy your politicians. Do you think it is really healthy for your country? Don’t you think it should stop, at least most of it?
“Do you think it is really healthy for your country? Don’t you think it should stop, at least most of it?”
ella, what “is” has always been independent of what we “think”
“the golden age of Yellow Journalism, when you only needed to call someone a “Jew”.”
I guess it’s still the “golden age” in the Arab world.
Scratch an Arab liar and you will find a Muslim thief. Steal your enemies storyboard and claim the narrative as your own. Follow your enemy around and stand in their way, that way your public symbolism overshadows theirs. Just as the Muslims stole the Jewish Prophets, the Christian Jesus, and Byzantium history, so they intend to erase Israel’s memory from the world.