EXTREMIST J-STREET EXPOSED:
J-STREET'S ANTI-ISRAEL POSITIONS 

J-Street Always Criticizes Israel and NEVER Praises Israel

Harvard Professor Alan Dershowitz recently stated (April 2014):  "I went back and I read every single J-Street press release from the first day of its existence.   I could not find a single one of them that praised Israel.  How can you be a "pro-Israel" organization and never express any pro-Israel views? It is absolutely shocking to me.  Every press release seems to have a negative about Israel."  (See the below video, at 4:03) ​

J-Street Conferences Promote Boycotts, Divestment and Sanctions Against Israel

- The 2012 J Street Conference was addressed by Mustafa Barghouti, a leading figure in the Boycott, Sanctions, Divestment (BDS) campaign against Israel.  Barghouti, a former candidate for Palestinian Authority president, is a leading BDS figure who travels around the world to promote BDS against Israel.  (Barghouti also claimed that the Oslo peace process was a piece of Israeli “deceit,” asserted that “what we are witnessing today is a creation, or a consolidation to be precise, of a system of segregation and Bantustans” and declared that Palestinians “actually live” in an “apartheid” regime.) 

- The 2011 J-Street Conference was addressed by BDS advocate Rebecca Vilkomerson, and other BDS advocates from extremist left-wing fringe groups.  The J-Street conference also honored another BDS supporter, Sara Benninga.   J-Street founder and 2011 honoree Kathleen Peratis also is promoting BDS. 

- In J-Street's video on the 2011 J Street Conference, entitled "Giving Voices to our Values," J Street speaker Gershon Baskin stated that he supports BDS against settlements and Israeli settlement products.  (The companies referred to are in large Jewish cities  that will remain part of Israel in any possible final agreement, and which employ hundreds of well-paid Palestinians.)  An additional unidentified J-Street speaker in the J-Street video also states that she supports BDS against Israel.  See the video at "J Street and the Jewish War Against Israel," by Caroline Glick. 

- In 2012, J Street hosted Peter Beinart's book launch right after Beinart published an op-ed in the New York Times calling for a “Zionist BDS” campaign that would economically suffocate all Israeli Jews who live beyond the 1949 armistice lines.

J-Street Supports The Biased, Totally Inaccurate Goldstone Report Which Falsely Condemned Israel As Committing Human Rights Violations and "War Crimes" in Gaza

- "J Street "placed its imprimatur behind the despicable and mendacious Goldstone Report by bringing Richard Goldstone to Capitol Hill and introducing him to members of Congress."  (Alan Dershowitz, Haaretz, March 29, 2014)

- J Street's audience loudly booed Union for Reform Judaism’s Rabbi Eric Yoffie (who is himself a prominent left-wing Jewish figure), for criticizing Richard Goldstone, the author of the biased false U.N. Report on Israel’s Dec. 2008-Jan. 2009 military operation in Gaza. 

-    In November 2009, it emerged that a letter purportedly written by Judge Richard Goldstone to criticize a House of Representative resolution condemning the Goldstone report (HR 867 sponsored by Ileana Ros-Lehtinen and Howard Berman) was substantially written by Morton H. Halperin, who serves on the J Street advisory council, is a J-Street director, and is a senior adviser at Open Society Institute, a body created by  self-confessed anti-Zionist billionaire, George Soros.

J-Street Portrays Israel As The "Oppressor" and Likens The IDF To Hamas
 In JStreet's video on the 2011 J Street Conference, entitled "Giving Voices to our Values," J Street speakers state that Israel is the oppressor and the Palestinians are the "oppressed" and liken the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) to Hamas terrorists.  See the video at "J Street and the Jewish War Against Israel," by Caroline Glick.

J-Street Supports Anti-Israel U.N. Resolutions

- J-Street urged Obama to vote for a 2010 UN Security Council resolution condemning Israeli settlements as illegal - a position never adopted by prior U.S. administrations.  This led liberal Congressman Gary Ackerman (D-NY) to cut ties with J Street, saying, “I’ve come to the conclusion that J-Street is not an organization with which I wish to be associated … The decision to endorse the Palestinian and Arab effort to condemn Israel in the U.N. Security Council is not the choice of a concerned friend trying to help. . . ."

J-Street Fails To Support Israel's Right To Defend Itself From Gaza Rockets in Operation "Cast Lead"

-  J-Street failed to support Israel’s Gaza military operation to stop the thousands of Hamas rockets targeting innocent Israeli men, women and children living in southern Israel.  J-Street's position was contrary to the majority position of both Israelis and American Jews, including liberal Jews.  For instance, Reform leader Eric Yoffie, though left-wing, criticized J Street’s position during the Gaza operation.  (Ron Kampeas and Eric Fingerhut, ‘White House to J Street: We have your back,’ Jewish Telegraphic Agency, October 28, 2009).

J-Street Urges Americans To Pressure Israel To End The "Occupation" And Retreat To Indefensible Pre-1967 "Auschwitz Borders":

- The current "Featured video" on J-Street's website urges Americans to pressure Israel to "end the occupation."

- J-Street's 2008 Federal Tax Information Return, Form 990, page 2, states that J-Street's "mission" is to "advocate for urgent American diplomatic leadership" and states that "In fiscal year 2008-2009, J Street established advocacy relationships with over 300 Congressional offices; . . . and took over 220,000 actions in support of the Obama administration's Middle East peace efforts."  (These "peace efforts" included demanding Israel's retreat to the indefensible pre-1967 "borders" [really, armistice lines] "as a first step.") 

J-Street Opposes Iran Sanctions, Works With Iranian-Government Connected Group To DeRail Congressional Sanctions On Iran, and Calls Critics of Iran Diplomacy "Racists"

- Genevieve Lynch, a board member of the National Iranian American Council (NIAC), an apparent agent for the Islamic Republican of Iran. NAIC has worked closely with J Street to block Congressional sanctions against Iran.

J-Street Falsely Accuses Israel of Killing Palestinian Civilians

- In March 2012, J-Street, lied that “Israel Defense Forces… have killed over a dozen Palestinian civilians.” J-Street then added a preceding sentence expressing “regret” at having “misstated the number of civilian casualties." This "update" left the false impression that Israel still caused some unspecified number of civilian casualties. ‘REVISED: J Street Responds to Recent Violence Between Israel, Gaza,’ J Street, March 11, 2012). In fact, no civilians were killed in the Israeli operation. The 16 Palestinians killed were all terrorists, a list of whose names and affiliations was provided by the blog, Challah Hu Akbar: 10 were members of Islamic Jihad, and six were members of "Popular Resistance Committee" anti-Israel militants. 

J-Street Officials and Conference Speakers State That The Creation of Israel Was "Wrong"

Daniel Levy, J Street Advisory Board Member stated: “ I believe the way Jewish history was in 1948 excused – for me, it was good enough for me – an act that was wrong.  . .  . I have no reason – there’s no reason a Palestinian should think there was justice in the creation of Israel.”

J-Street Conferences Are Also A Platform for "Lawfare" and "Courtroom Intifada" Against Israel

J-Street conferences also give prominent platforms to the leaders of "Lawfare" (virulent legal actions) against Israel.  These include Michael Sfard, legal representative of of Yesh Din, Breaking the Silence and similar anti-Israel NGOs.  Sfard represented Al-Haq in a Canadian lawsuit seeking a judicial declaration that Israel is guilty of committing "war crimes" and that Israel's security barrier is illegal.  Sfard was prominently featured in the Al Jazeera documentary, Courtroom Intifada, and called for prosecutions of Israel in England, the United States and around the word.  Sfard testified as a paid expert witness on behalf of the PLO in a lawsuit brought in U.S. Federal Court in Miami by victims of terror attacks (Saperstein v. Palestinian Authority, PLO).  Sfard is also a member of the "Support Committee" and appeared as a "witness" for the Russell Tribunal on Palestine, an anti-Israel kangaroo court established to put Israel "on trial" (and to promote BDS).  See J Street-NIF Conference: A Platform for “Lawfare” and BDS, NGO Monitor, Feb. 24, 2011, http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/j_street_nif_conference_a_platform_for_lawfare_and_bds

J-Street Pressures Israel to Make Suicidal Concessions, But Never Criticizes Palestinian Incitement to Violence and Other Violations:
J-Street constantly pressures Israel to make suicidal concessions.  By contrast, J-Street turns a blind eye to the Palestinian Authority's failure to dismantle terrorist groups and end its incitement to hatred and violence against Israel, both of which are violations of the PA's signed agreements.  J-Street also said nothing about Fatah’s 2009 Bethlehem conference, which proclaimed the legitimacy of terrorism against Israel and honored, by name, killers of Jews as heroes, or about innumerable similar acts by Fatah and the Palestinian Authority.   

J-Street-U Brings To College Campuses Anti-Israel Events and Speakers That Defame Israel and the IDF (Israel Defense Forces) and that Promote Boycotts, Divestment & Sanctions Against Israel:
J-Street U (J-Street’s campus arm) sponsors anti-Israel events on American campuses throughout the country that demonize, defame and delegitimize Israel and the IDF (Israel Defense Forces).   Prof. Alan Dershowitz states that J-Street has “made a generation of Jews ashamed to be pro-Israel.”  J-Street U brings to campuses speakers and events by the anti-Israel NGO “Breaking the Silence” (BtS), which falsely accuses the IDF of war crimes and brutal treatment of Palestinian Arabs.  (At these one-sided J-Street U sponsored BtS events, students who served in the IDF and experienced the IDF’s humane treatment of Palestinian Arabs are forbidden from speaking out to correct the false BtS presentation.)  J Street U also arranged talks by former Gaza UNRWA director John Ging, who promotes political warfare against Israel and supports pro-Hamas flotillas.  J Street U also promotes the NIF-funded Sheikh Jarrah Solidarity Movement (“SJSM”), which opposes the idea of Israel as a Jewish homeland, collaborates with the anti-Israel global BDS movement, defames Israel as a “fascist state,” and talks about victories over “cowardly Zionists who are perpetrating an apartheid state and ethnic cleansing in Jerusalem,” and urges liquidation of the Jewish Agency and the Jewish National Fund. At a J Street U sponsored campus event, the Sheikh Jarrah’s founder declared “Jerusalem is a symbol of evil.”  J Street U also presents the NIF-funded B'Tselem, which provided false information defaming Israel in the Goldstone report, whose chair Oren Yiftachel, calls for "effective sanctions" against Israel, and supported the Palestinian "right of return" (which means the destruction of the Jewish state), and whose CEO Jessica Montell promotes calling Israel an “apartheid state.”  

Further Reading:

NGO Monitor Report on J-Street, May 29, 2011, http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/j_street

Zionist Organization of America Report: J-Street - Siding With Israel's Enemies, by Morton Klein and Daniel Mandel, April 8, 2013, http://zoa.org/2013/04/10196411-zoa-report-j-street-siding-with-israels-enemies/

J Street-NIF Conference: A Platform For “Lawfare” and BDS, NGO Monitor, Feb. 24, 2011, http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/j_street_nif_conference_a_platform_for_lawfare_and_bds

Ben-Or Consulting: J Street, Ben-Ami, AND NGO Connections, October 08, 2013, http://www.ngo-monitor.org/article/ben_or_consulting_j_street_ben_ami_and_ngo_connections

Extremist Left-Wing J Street Drops “Pro-Israel” Slogan – J Street Speaker Calls Criticism Of Iranian Diplomacy “Racist,” Oct. 29, 2009, http://zoa.org/2009/10/102531-extremist-left-wing-j-street-drops-pro-israel-slogan-j-street-speaker-calls-criticism-of-iranian-diplomacy-racist/ Is J Street Pro-Israel Or Pro-Palestinian?, Sept. 25, 2009, http://zoa.org/2009/09/102639-is-j-street-pro-israel-or-pro-palestinian/

Jewish Group Pays PR Firm Co-owned by Its President: J Street ‘Self-Dealing’ Seen as ‘Very Messy,’  The Washington Times​, Dec. 30, 2010, http://www.washingtontimes.com/news/2010/dec/30/jewish-group-pays-pr-firm-co-owned-by-president/?page=1#ixzz2z6Ofgfbj 

J-Street is Anti-Israel, Not Simply Extremist Left-Wing, Mar. 21, 2012,http://www.pitchengine.com/zionistorganizationofamerica/jstreet-is-antiisrael-not-simply-extremist-leftwing

Trouble on J-Street, by James Kirchick, The New Republic, Oct. 27, 2009, http://www.newrepublic.com/blog/the-plank/trouble-j-street

Contentions Anti-Anti-Iran, Jennifer Rubin, Commentary, Oct. 29, 2009, http://www.commentarymagazine.com/2009/10/28/anti-anti-iran/

​Pro-Hijacking, Pro-Terrorism: T-Shirt Contradicts J-Street Motto, The Washington Free Beacon, http://freebeacon.com/national-security/pro-hijacking-pro-terrorism/​

J-Street 2008 501(c)(4) Form 990 Information Tax Return, http://www.politico.com/static/PPM152_100924_j_st.html (includes donor information) or http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/261/261507828/261507828_200912_990O.pdf (donor information omitted in this version)

J-Street 2009 501(c)(4) Form 990 Information Tax Return, http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/261/261507828/261507828_200912_990O.pdf (donor information omitted)

J-Street 2010 501(c)(4) Form 990 Information Tax Return, http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/261/261507828/261507828_201012_990O.pdf

J-Street 2011 501(c)(4) Form 990 Information Tax Return, http://990s.foundationcenter.org/990_pdf_archive/261/261507828/261507828_201112_990O.pdf