Friends,
Over the past few months, AIPAC has taken to tweeting incessantly that “J Street is many things, but it’s not pro-Israel.”
It’s an odd shift for an organization that spent most of J Street’s first decade ignoring us.
Their Twitter feed -- run now by the former digital director of Trump’s Republican National Committee -- is not something I choose to respond to often. Almost everything they tweet about us is either an outright lie or a distortion.
Nonetheless, even an obnoxious Twitter feed can raise an important question:
What does it mean to be pro-Israel?
I’ve talked about my personal relationship to Israel often -- from my great-grandparents who made aliyah in the 1880s, to my grandparents who helped found Tel Aviv, to my father who fought for the country’s independence leading into 1948.
But it’s not my family history that qualifies me or J Street as pro-Israel.
What’s pro-Israel is that we care deeply about the future of Israel and of the Jewish people. And we care about the values to which Israel dedicated itself at its founding: Equality, democracy and justice.
We care enough to stand up for its people and its place in the community of nations, even as its own leaders do things with which we couldn’t disagree more strongly.
If that matches your vision of what it means to be pro-Israel, then please help fund our work with an end-of-year contribution of $18, $54, $90 or any other amount >>
My pro-Israel vision for the future is of a strong, secure state that provides a home with a strong Jewish character for all Jewish people while providing full, equal civil rights for all who live there -- regardless of race, religion, ethnicity and more.
The Israel I work for is at peace with its neighbors -- including a free and independent state of Palestine -- and fully accepted into its region and on the world stage.
That vision couldn’t be more different than the vision of the political leaders -- led by Benjamin Netanyahu -- forming the new Israeli government. Theirs is a vision of an ethnonationalist, authoritarian, right-wing state, completely divorced from our most deeply held values.
That vision -- promoted by the settlement movement and its right-wing allies in the United States -- traffics in racism, takes land and resources as it pleases and lives forever by the sword.
It’s a vision that writes off the support of the majority of Jewish Americans in favor of an alliance with the MAGA world in the US and the Orbans and autocrats of the global right.
The clash of visions over what it means to be “pro-Israel” could not be clearer.
Your donation of any amount will help ensure that our vision -- grounded in our values -- prevails.
Our vision is rooted in our commitment to justice, democracy, equality and minority rights -- values at the heart of American Jewish identity.
It’s painful that some influential groups who claim the mantle of “pro-Israel” and to speak for Jewish Americans in politics and in Washington smear those of us promoting these core values as “anti-Israel.”
We started J Street nearly 15 years ago because we wouldn’t let those voices decide how American leaders set US policy. I’m so glad we did.
AIPAC’s most significant decision in 2022 wasn’t to start attacking J Street publicly, it was their decision to form a Political Action Committee and then endorse and fund election deniers and insurrectionists.
Now, the very same group that refuses to criticize the anti-democratic, right-wing policies and leaders in Israel is endorsing and funding right-wing, anti-democratic candidates here at home. Leaders like Jim Jordan, Elise Stefanik, Kevin McCarthy, Scott Perry and so many others -- just because they are “pro-Israel.”
Organizations and voices that do that don’t speak for the majority of Jewish Americans who support the rule of law and religious tolerance and oppose racism and ethnonationalism -- here and in Israel.
The choice is clear. So is the need for us to organize, build and grow.
Your December donation of $18, $54, $90 -- or any other amount -- will strengthen our movement at a critical moment. Please consider a contribution of any amount today >>
With the help of thousands of supporters like you, we’ve spent the past 15 years re-defining what it means to be pro-Israel.
Together, we will show that it means standing up for democracy here in the US and in Israel. And we’ll make sure that every US politician and policymaker understands that is the majority view of Americans who care about Israel.
Thank you, sincerely, for your support.
Jeremy Ben-Ami
President, J Street
