RE: Reaction to J Street

Jennifer Rubin

I and others criticized Ron Kampeas for asserting that Richard Goldstone, who was chaperoned around Capitol Hill by the J Streeters, was/is not regarded as “Uncle Evil” in Israel. He offers a strange apology/retraction:

I based my perception on Israeli coverage at the time of the attempt by South African Zionists to keep Goldstone from attending his grandson’s bar mitzvah, and from conversations I had with Israelis then. That burst of sympathy might well have receded and the aftereffects of the Goldstone report might prove more durable. My larger point was about self-inflicted wounds — how overkill can turn those who might sympathize with your view against you. Really?! What level of sympathy did Goldstone ever attain in Israel, and on whom does Kampeas rely for insights into Israeli public opinion? So then his own views on Goldstone are not representative of either American Jewry or Israeli public opinion. Good to know. He concludes with this: “My larger point was about self-inflicted wounds — how overkill can turn those who might sympathize with your view against you.” I have no idea whom he is referring to. But it’s apparent that he’s rather lonely on the leftward limb he’s crawled out on.

Jeffrey Goldberg (who I’ve been rather tough on of late) has, unlike Kampeas, stopped donating his services to the Soros Street defense fund. He writes:

J Street should stop lying to reporters. Jeremy Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, is spinning madly these days, trying to convince his supporters that this scandal is the product of a right-wing conspiracy. It is not — the scandal flows from a series of decisions made by J Street to cover-up facts it deemed unpalatable. Let me put this another way: If it were discovered today that AIPAC, J Street’s nemesis, received more than $800,000 from a Hong Kong-based “business associate” — Ben-Ami’s words — of a prominent horse bettor, the people at AIPAC would be undergoing, by tomorrow, a journalistic colonoscopy like they’ve never experienced.

But then AIPAC does not have to rely on secret, foreign donors. AIPAC, after all, actually represents a large segment of pro-Israel Americans. And it also shares the views of the overwhelming majority of Israelis concerning Goldstone.
Thanks to YM