The Israeli ambassador to the United States blasted J Street, saying the organization was “fooling around with the lives of 7 million people.”
Michael Oren, responding to a question during a Dec. 7 appearance before the United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism’s biennial convention in Cherry Hill, N.J., described the left-wing pro-Israel group as “a unique problem in that it not only opposes one policy of one Israeli government, it opposes all policies of all Israeli governments. It’s significantly out of the mainstream,” the Jewish Forward reported.
“This is not a matter of settlements here [or] there,” Oren said. “We understand that there are differences of opinion. But when it comes to the survival of the Jewish state, there should be no differences of opinion. You are fooling around with the lives of 7 million people. This is no joke.”
Among the policies Oren pointed to as problematic were J Street’s criticism of Israel’s attack on Gaza last winter, its refusal to reject the Goldstone report and its failure to support additional sanctions on Iran. The same morning Oren spoke, J Street released a statement announcing that it now backs passage of Iran sanctions legislation in Congress.
J Street executive director Jeremy Ben-Ami told the Forward that Oren was misrepresenting J Street’s position. “I don’t quite understand how it is in the State of Israel’s interest to look at J Street as a problem, to write off an organization that represents a large number of American Jews,” he said. — jta