Israel Matzav: J Street responds to Wiesel

J Street responds to Wiesel

J Street, the pro-Israel, pro 'peace' pro-Obama, nominally Jewish lobby, has inserted a full page ad in seven Jewish newspapers this week in response to Elie Wiesel's ad in the New York Times, Washington Post and Wall Street Journal last week. The ad consists of excerpts of a letter to Wiesel written by former Meretz party chair Yossi Sarid (about as far out of Israel's mainstream as you can get without being in an Arab party) that appeared in Haaretz a few days after Wiesel's ad.

According to J Street, the ad, which was funded by their [re-]education fund, underscores "the need to address the demographic realities of Jerusalem as an integral part of any peace negotiations and aiming to spark a broad, robust and civil conversation in the Jewish community on this complex issue." But J Street advocates something that is opposed by the overwhelming majority of Jews, both in Israel and abroad: Dividing Jerusalem.

J Street believes that the single best way to secure Jerusalem as the capital of Israel - and Israel’s future as the democratic homeland of the Jewish people - is through a two-state solution under which the Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem would fall under Israeli sovereignty, and the Arab neighborhoods would fall under Palestinian sovereignty.

Wiesel's response to Sarid's original letter was - in my opinion overly - gracious.

"They have more information than I on what is happening in Israel, and I respectfully listen to them, of course. I don't belong to any group, and Israeli politics is alien to me. I even try to stay away from American politics, although I live most of my life in America. I'd go and see. I'll certainly go and check it, I want to know the truth. I don't know [Americans for Peace Now], but I know enough left-wing people that will take me around."

If he comes here, what he'll find is that the Jewish and Arab neighborhoods are on top of each other (often because as soon as the Arabs see a Jewish neighborhood coming near them, they build outward, usually illegally).

Jennifer Rubin seizes on one line in Wiesel's op-ed that is reproduced in the ad:

Barack Obama appears well aware of his obligations to try to resolve the world’s ills, particularly ours here. Why then undercut him and tie his hands? On the contrary, let’s allow him to use his clout to save us from ourselves, to help both bruised and battered nations and free them from their prison. Then he can push both sides to divide the city into two capitals — to give Jewish areas to the Jews and Arab areas to the Arabs – and assign the Holy Basin to an agreed on international authority.

As an alarmed reader e-mails: “They specifically want to remove Israeli sovereignty over the Old City. I mean, they want the Western Wall NOT to be in Israeli hands. Wow.”

Wow, indeed. There is no mainstream Jewish organization that takes this position, and I dare say J Street wouldn’t find 5 percent of American Jews who do. Moreover, there is zero support for such a position within Israel. So J Street’s recommendation would be what? — that this be part of an imposed settlement on the Jewish state? It seems that the mask has been dropped and that J Street now reveals its true colors — which happen to be pretty much the same as the Palestinians’. The question remains: does the Obama administration agree? Stay tuned.

That view represents less than 2.5% of Israeli Jews. Meretz won three seats (out of 120) in the last Knesset election. And some of those votes undoubtedly came from Arabs.

But yes, that's the view of Israel's hard Left, of which Yossi Sarid and the young anarchists who demonstrate constantly in Jerusalem's Shimon HaTzadik neighborhood and along the 'security fence' are card-carrying members. They're a fringe group here. That they're being trotted out by J Street does indeed put J Street far outside the Jewish mainstream.

But then again, J Street claims to be 'pro-Israel, pro-peace.' I'm not sure they claim to be Jewish.

Israel Matzav: J Street responds to Wiesel