Major Shift in J-Street Policy

Israel support is a threat to the American Jewish community —

Ben-Ami warns

The American Jewish establishment’s support for Israel as it violates Palestinian human rights is undermining “Jewish values” and causing “large swaths” of Jews to abandon the community, Jeremy Ben-Ami, the ceo of the liberal Zionist group J Street, warned in a speech to that organization on Saturday night (video here).

Ben-Ami announced a major pivot in his group’s advocacy: for restricting U.S. aid to Israel over its human rights abuses, and away from emphasizing the two-state solution.

 

“Maybe it’s time for some serious oversight and accountability for how our aid to Israel is actually being used.”

 

He likened Palestine to Ukraine under Russian invasion and said we have to ensure that in our “tax dollars aren’t being used to abet settlement construction, home demolitions or other actions that deepen occupation.”

He said such accountability is key to the survival of the U.S. Jewish community:

“We believe our community for its own sake even more than for Israel’s sake must root its identity in a commitment not to a flag or a piece of land but to a set of principles and values. My friends, if we don’t do this, we will see large swaths of our community walk away. Not only will they walk away from engagement with Israel– that’s already happening. They’ll walk away from the Jewish community itself.”

 

Ben-Ami said blind support for Israel by AIPAC and other old-line Jewish organizations poses a “fundamental crisis” for Jewish life in America because it contradicts traditional liberal Jewish values.

(From Mondoweiss: West Bank Dispatch)