McCollum lectures ambassador on J Street
Rep. Betty McCollum (D-Minn.) didn't like the Israeli ambassador's decision to skip the J Street conference last week, so she wrote him a letter -- a fairly harsh one -- telling him he was wrong.
McCollum wrote that the embassy's statement that certain J Street policies may impair the interests of Israel" was an "interesting rationale for rejecting an invitation for discussion."
"Your government's reluctance to engage in a meaningful dialogue with progressive American Jews and non-Jewish supporters of Israel sends the wrong message to many Americans and to this Member of Congress," she wrote to Ambassador Michael Oren, adding that "if absolute agreement between American interests and Israeli interests is the requirement for dialogue then our bilateral relationship would have been silent for decades."
Identifying herself as an "American, a Christian, and a member of Congress," McCollum says the policies that J Street is promoting do not "impair the interests of Israel" but that ignoring "a large and gorwing American voice working to supporting the U.S.-Israeli relationship ... truly would impair the interests of Israel."
McCollum previously had a run-in with AIPAC in 2006, demanding an apology after she said a representative of the group accused her of supporting terrorists for voting against legislation banning assistance to the Palestinian Authority. She later reconciled with the organization. She also declined to attend a Christians United for Israel event in 2007, calling the views of founder John Hagee "repugnant."
Read McCollum's entire letter here.
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Mr. Hartuv knows not of what he speaks. Apparently he gets his information directly 3rd hand from a blogger quoting a student who may or may not have really attended JStreetU and is said to be quoting J Street.
For those of us who were there, in the midst of quite a few Israelis and a large number of politicians from both countries, the pro-Israel component was front and center.
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Yosef Hartuv
11/04/09 10:16 PM
“To say that you have to love Israel or be pro-Israel to be part of J Street is a terrible mistake.”
Thus Judith Baker of the fringe-left Brit Tzedek v’Shalom (its English moniker is Jewish Alliance for Justice and Peace), recently incorporated into J Street, told a reporter at the J Street conference on Tuesday. Indeed, “peace or Israel” seems to be the question. It’s also reported that “J Street’s university arm has dropped the ‘pro-Israel’ part of the left-wing US lobby’s ‘pro-Israel, pro-peace’ slogan to avoid alienating students.”
http://calevbenyefuneh.blogspot.com/2009/11/j-street-dreams-israeli-reality.html