[ ]J Street [ ]
Friends, 

This year, we celebrated the 75th year of Israel’s independence –
three-quarters of a century since the country issued its Declaration of
Independence championing justice, equality and peace.  

With parents and grandparents who helped found Israel and work for its
independence, it’s a milestone of which I am personally proud.  

This month marks another anniversary: 56 years since Israel’s surprise
victory in the Six Day War, defeating yet another threat to the country’s
very existence. 

It’s also the anniversary of a far less proud chapter in the country’s
history: 56 years of military occupation of the captured territory and the
people living there.

Military occupation – under the terms of international law – is supposed
to be 'temporary.'  Yet, from the moment the Six Day War ended, a
coalition of nationalists and extremists have sought to make the
occupation permanent.  

Year after year, they’ve claimed more and more land through settlements,
demolitions and restrictions on Palestinian life. That has brought more
than five decades of deepening conflict, intensified extremism and
democratic corrosion. 

Generations of Israelis have been sent to enforce occupation. To guard
settlements and settlers while imposing restrictions on their Palestinian
neighbors.

Generations of Palestinians have grown up without the full civil and
political rights enjoyed by their neighbors.

Today, thanks to those nationalists and extremists, Israel is straying
ever further from the vision of its founders that it might be a “light
among nations.”

June 1967 seems a long time ago, yet what's happened since then explains
where we find ourselves now. But today, too many “pro-Israel” voices in
the United States are looking to move on from ever resolving the
occupation, the conflict or even the question of Palestinian freedom:

* In Washington, too many legislators are giving in to lobbyists’
efforts to delete any mention from Congressional action of
settlements, Palestinians, international law or even the need to
support Israel’s liberal democracy. 
* Political groups like AIPAC – whose Super PAC spent over $25 million
in the 2022 Democratic primaries – are working to impose a cost on
candidates who express even minimal concern about settlements,
Palestinian freedoms and the need to resolve the conflict.
* Across Jewish organizational life, there’s a growing desire to “keep
politics out” of the Israel conversation, as if we have no moral or
critical duty to question whether what is happening is right by our
values or best for our people.
* The Netanyahu government and many US advocacy groups now promote
President Trump’s “normalization” agreements to argue that peace no
longer requires addressing the actual conflict on Israel’s doorstep
with its neighbors.

This comes at great cost to our values, safety and democratic future:

* Right wing nationalists have pushed Israel into a democratic crisis,
pursuing anti-democratic ‘reforms’ in part to make it “much easier”
(the Justice Minister’s words) to demolish homes, build settlements
and ultimately annex the West Bank.
* Those who seek to make the battle against antisemitism revolve around
Israel – and who seek to broadly label criticism of the Israeli
government as antisemitic – distract from our shared fight against
those actively using antisemitism, conspiracies and online
radicalization to build political power and push their own agenda.
* Rather than using the push for normalized relations with the broader
Arab world as a lever to ease the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, too
many pro-Israel advocates are doubling down on the Trump approach of
giving more advanced arms and political favors to anti-democratic
dictatorships in the region. They view expanding the Abraham Accords
as a tool for bypassing the Palestinian issue.

Meanwhile, Israelis and Palestinians remain stuck in a never-ending cycle
of injustice, terror and violence. 

Israelis grow up practicing runs to bomb shelters, fearing indiscriminate
rocket fire and horrific acts of terror. Far-right ministers push toward
outright annexation. Extremists on the Palestinian side continue to push
for Israel’s elimination. And another Palestinian generation grows up
without basic freedoms or hope for a better future.  

There is no escaping this hard truth after 75 years of Israel and 56 of
occupation: If Israel is to be a safe, thriving liberal democratic
homeland for the Jewish people, it must end the ongoing, undemocratic
occupation of millions of Palestinians. 

“Managing” or ignoring the occupation – and the millions of people in Gaza
and the West Bank with real lives and fears and families and aspirations –
is not a solution; it’s a recipe for moral and political catastrophe. 

This is a warning that countless Israeli security experts have issued,
from former Prime Ministers to former IDF leaders to former leaders of
Shin Bet.

On the 56th anniversary of the occupation, J Street’s mission continues to
be what it has always been: To live our values, tell hard truths and fight
for our vision of a truly safe, just and democratic Israel. 

* We’ll continue taking Members of Congress and their staff to Israel
and the West Bank to show them the dangerous, painful realities on the
ground. 
* We’ll press for pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy legislation on
Capitol Hill – and we’ll fight those pushing for occupation denial and
Palestinian erasure.
* We’ll continue to fight MAGA extremists and look to transform our
politics here at home.
* We’ll fund and support proud, courageous pro-Israel, pro-peace,
pro-democracy candidates – from primaries to general elections to
re-elections.

And we’ll continue organizing and advocating in our communities.

Bringing more people into the fold, providing resources and education, and
building a welcoming political home for the overwhelming majority of
Jewish Americans who know that being pro-Israel does not mean we have to
leave our Jewish, liberal democratic values at the door.

Thank you, Friends, for joining with us in this struggle.

Jeremy Ben-Ami
Founder and President, J Street

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J Street is the political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy
Americans who want Israel to be secure, democratic and the national home of the
Jewish people. Working in American politics and the Jewish community, we
advocate policies that advance shared US and Israeli interests as well as Jewish
and democratic values, leading to a two-state solution to the
Israeli-Palestinian conflict.



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