The J Street Conference You Won't See on J Street's Website

J Street is turning out to be the ship with all its cannons loose on deck.  Desperately trying to salvage its image by relentlessly pushing the "Pro Israel Pro Peace" shtick, Jeremy Ben Ami has been making the rounds of the friendly MSM like National (Palestinian) Radio (NPR).  Puff pieces permit him to blather on about his Tel Aviv roots while avoiding the tough questions about his Arab and Muslim donors and advisers who publicly advocate Israel's dissolution.  Left on the church steps by its erstwhile suitors like John Kerry and over a dozen other congressional no-shows, the "Driving Change" conference had to make do with a perfunctory appearance by Obama's boy, Jim Jones, and was embarrassed by the famous "Blogger's Panel" of conspiracy whackos who  despise the organization for being too "Pro Israel" (you can start laughing now).  Throw in the grim sight of "Media" Benjamin (Code Pink) grabbing as much face-time as possible from the Leftstream Media and Barnum & Bailey would have had a tough time competing.

The piece de resistance, however, came from its cadre of university zealots who chose to drop the "Pro Israel" brand from its J Street U banner, leading Ben Ami to chastise them and to later deny the move.

But, truth will out, evinced by the wildly Israel-despising dialogue of the speakers sponsored by the organization.  And the truth was ugly indeed, ranging from the veracity-challenged Akiva Eldar of Haaretz to the mullah-apologizing Hillary Mann Leverett.  Throw in Danny Sokatch (a Brandeis product) who, as CEO of the Jewish Community Federation of San Francisco, recently joined in the celebration of the Rachel Corrie film at the San Francisco Jewish Film Festival (gotta find a different name for that debacle) and the devil was truly in the details of the conference.  Mr. Sokatch, who now directs the Palestinian - in all but its name - organization, The New Israel Fund,  gave his hechsher to the inclusion of the film that canonized the young woman who died in an accident defending terrorist smuggling tunnels in Gaza while working for the infamous International Solidarity Movement.  When I asked him to describe the tumult surrounding the showing of the film, he ascribed the opposition to its showing to "people who were trying to destroy community organizing."  After I picked myself off the floor, I realized that here was simply another absurd attempt at currying favor with J Street's biggest sponsor, President Obama.  Mr. Sokatch was apparently unaware of the distance Obama has been placing recently between him and that shining example of community organizing, ACORN.


The absurdities never stopped coming as the panels marched to J Street's hate Israel beat.  My favorite was the Akiva Eldar auto da fe of the "Settlers".  Oddly, Mr. Haaretz never mentioned the fact that every Palestinian organization from Hamas to Abbas' Fatah consider every inch of Israel within the Green Line "Occupied Palestine."  At one point he presented - to great applause - a graphic of a snarling Netanyahu dissing Great Leader:

The audacity of this Prime Minister - actually claiming that Jews have a right to live in their historical, aboriginal homeland!  Not to be outdone was Hagit Ofran, the Director of Peace Now's Settlement Watch - you know - those wonderful folks with clipboards who spend 24/7 logging how many Jewish "settlers" have bought new shower curtains and then report back to the EU who give them more money to carry on their important social justice work.
For his part, Eldar claimed that Israel has "frozen" Palestinian building in the West Bank.  That was truly a Grouch Marx moment ("Are you going to believe me or your lying eyes?").  According to even Palestinian officials, Arab building is huge, unchallenged and unabated.  Odd that the cameras trained on Jewish settlements and the horror of Jewish babies being born never turn around to film the explosion in Arab building.

"Invisible" Arab building

  Hideous Jewish building

National Security Advisor, Jim Jones, ironically, came to J Street following an appearance at the American Task Force on Palestine conference at which millions of dollars earmarked for Arab building in the West Bank was pledged.   Some "freeze", Mr. Eldar.  Furthermore, Eldar's claim that no Israeli state land is made available for Arab building is patently false.

But of course, none of the faithful had either the facts or the inclination to challenge the outright lies of the panelists, needless to say.  If anything, the tenor of questions from the floor revealed an even harsher animus towards Israel than that of the speakers.