J Street Fails Its Fans
The hoopla surrounding the upstart lobby doesn't translate into instant political clout.
On November 3, the House of Representatives voted overwhelmingly to support Resolution 838 calling on the president and the secretary of state “to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict’ [a.k.a. the Goldstone Report] in multilateral fora.”
The vote was 344 to 36, with 22 representatives copping out with a “present” vote and 30 not voting. I assumed, probably like other Washington observers, that the 36 members, who by their vote supported Goldstone’s anti-Israel report, were members who had accepted political contributions from J Street’s political action committee. After all, the upstart organization had just completed their much ballyhooed conference in Washington, sent their delegates to lobby on Capitol Hill, and had expressed strong reservations about the congressional resolution.
To be fair, J Street didn’t come out with a blatant declaration of opposition to the resolution. It just called for the passage of “a balanced, thoughtful Congressional resolution” or “amendment of the resolution before passage to bring it in line with the principles we articulate.” As one of J Street’s blogger allies wrote:
Members of Congress close to AIPAC introduced a resolution condemning the Goldstone report that is so one-sided it might have been drafted by the Likud Central Committee. J Street did not waste a moment. It issued a statement that it would not support the resolution.
J Street’s opposition couldn’t have been clearer.
J Street takes great pride in their upstart political action committee. “The PAC distributed over $578,000 to its candidates,” J Street’s website crows. “[That’s] more than any other pro-Israel PAC in the two-year cycle, despite only launching publicly in April 2008.”
[NB: That $578,000 distributed was out of more than $840,000 raised, according to Federal Election Commission records.]
Since that election cycle, J Street’s PAC boasted contributions in 2009 of more than $30,000 to Representative Donna Edwards of Maryland and $35,000 to Steve Cohen of Tennessee.
Those PAC contributions translate to political clout, right?
Absolutely wrong.
In the case of the Goldstone vote, not one of the top 10 J Street PAC recipients in the 2008 cycle voted against the pro-Israel resolution, and some of those candidates (Mary Jo Kilroy of Ohio, Gary Peters of Michigan, Debbie Halvorson of Illinois, and Steve Cohen) had received as much as $30,000 to $47,000. Only Donna Edwards, the J Street darling for whom the organization ran a special appeal in 2009, voted against the resolution. Others who voted with Edwards included Arab-American representatives, congressional gadflies such as Ron Paul and Dennis Kucinich, and a handful of representatives who are long-time critics of Israel.
Page 1 of 2 Next ->
The writer served as a senior Israeli diplomat in Washington. Today he is a consultant on public affairs and sorry he no longer serves as a medic in the IDF reserves.
 |
 |
 |
Podcasts |  PJM Home |
Pajamas Media appreciates your comments that abide by the following guidelines:
1. Avoid profanities or foul language unless it is contained in a necessary quote or is relevant to the comment.
2. Stay on topic.
3. Disagree, but avoid ad hominem attacks.
4. Threats are treated seriously and reported to law enforcement.
5. Spam and advertising are not permitted in the comments area.
The clause regarding "hate speech" has been deleted because readers criticized it as being too loosely defined. We agreed.
These guidelines are very general and cannot cover every possible situation. Please don't assume that Pajamas Media management agrees with or otherwise endorses any particular comment. We reserve the right to filter or delete comments or to deny posting privileges entirely at our discretion. If you feel your comment was filtered inappropriately, please email us at story@pajamasmedia.com.
13 Comments
1. Tristan Yates:This article made me more confused about J Street. Maybe more background info is needed.
Nov 22, 2009 - 1:23 am 2. David P:J Street’s a fraud that’s been exposed.
Nov 22, 2009 - 7:19 am 3. Cindy Sue Causey:Ended up seriously tonfused, too.. In trying to mentally connect the dots, found only 113 references at all to “j street” + “soros project” during a (quick unscientific) search of the Net.. Sounds like something that could use a wee bit more airtime, yes, no, maybe so..?
~
Nov 22, 2009 - 8:03 am 4. Joel:Good summary of the latest dope on a nefarious outfit.
Nov 22, 2009 - 12:33 pm 5. A. N. Pierson:J Street is another example of modern liberalism run completely off the rails. Imagine a Jewish organization allying itself with the mullah-apologists at NIAC. Holy Moly – that means they are supporters of radical Islam, misogyny, homophobia, etc. – all the most illiberal ideas in the world. Talk about upside down. What is going on in the mind of these people? I suppose to J-Streeters George Bush is worse than the Ayatollah Khomeini. Someone get these folks a psychiatrist fast.
Nov 22, 2009 - 3:28 pm 6. keithacita:this group needs to pack it’s bags, autopay all their private property to the castro brothers and move to madagascar and change the name to madaelectriccar.
Nov 22, 2009 - 4:11 pm 7. David Thomson:“What is going on in the mind of these people?”
My guess is that the financial remuneration is fantastic. There may not be anyone significantly involved not getting a minimal six figure annual income. Arab anti-Semitic bigots are infamous for throwing around a lot of money. They are also lavishly praised and sucked-up to by “elites.”
Nov 22, 2009 - 4:46 pm 8. David Olesker:I was recently in South Africa running Israel advocacy training workshops for the community there. They were very worried about Obama, and not just the crazy “he’s a secret Muslim” stuff. I tried to reassure them that he couldn’t be too bad (certainly not worse than Bush senior), since, despite any lack of enthusiasm on his part, he needs to relate to public opinion on Israel. The reality is the exact opposite of the Mearsheimer and Walt fantasy; American politicians don’t support Israel due to the machinations of some Jewish cabal, but due to the widespread support the Jewish state enjoys amongst the American public.
Nov 23, 2009 - 12:43 am 9. More Info J Street:For more info on J Street check out this interview with Hadar Susskind, director of policy and strategy at J Street.
http://newsweek.washingtonpost.com/onfaith/georgetown/2009/11/j_street_and_the_jewish_divide.html
Nov 23, 2009 - 8:16 am 10. Dena:What a ridiculous piece of drivel! Every civilized country on the planet has accepted Goldstone’s report as unbiased (for the most part), with the exception of the US and Israel. And yet, most of the U.S. Congress refused to accept the possibility that perfect little Israel could have possibly… just possibly, done something wrong. I really have to wonder exactly which country our U.S. Senators represent. Actually, I don’t wonder anymore. I think they’ve made it very clear. (from one of the “American public” that does NOT blindly support Israel.)
Nov 23, 2009 - 11:41 am 11. Anonymous:@ 10 Dena: “Actually, I don’t wonder anymore.”
Whaaaaaaa …try wondering into a Library
Nov 23, 2009 - 7:00 pm 12. Athena:Dena, you might get more respect by NOT referring to the U.S. and Israel as ‘uncivilized’ in the first place. That is a word much beloved by Euro elites and their lackeys, not to mention it’s untruthfulness.
Nov 23, 2009 - 10:46 pm 13. linda:we should take j street more seriously as a competiton to aipac…afterall 78% of jews are liberal and voted for obama.
Nov 24, 2009 - 10:26 am