Lenny Ben-David. Hot off the presses - a new J Street exposé

· Does J Street's director still have ties to his former employers and
their Qatari contract to bash Israel?

· Has J Street set up an "interlocking directorship" with other
anti-Israel organizations?

· Why has the leader of Israel's opposition refused to appear at the
conference?

· Who makes policy at J Street?

· How much money do Arab-American sources give to J Street? The
organization's director admits that it's around 10 percent of J Street
funds. If the budget is $3 million, that translates to a whopping $300,000.

Showdown on J Street

As the organization's major conference approaches, some pointed questions
for director Jeremy Ben-Ami.

October 20, 2009 - by Lenny Ben-David

[For annotated version

http://pajamasmedia.com/blog/showdown-on-j-street/ ]

J Street's director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, published an open letter to Israel's
Ambassador Michael Oren in The Jerusalem Post this week insisting that he
appear at the J Street Conference at the end of the month. Hopefully,
Ambassador Oren will continue to deny the supposed "pro-Israel" organization
the legitimacy of his presence.

J Street's goals and policies were revealed when Stephen Walt, co-author of
the venomous The Israel Lobby, recently proclaimed, "This is a key moment in
the debate. It will be important whether Obama gets enough cover from J
Street and the Israel Policy Forum so Obama can say, 'AIPAC is not
representative of the American Jewish community.'"

It's time to call out Jeremy Ben-Ami, J Street's director, to answer the
following questions:

1: You served as Fenton Communications' Senior Vice President until you
established J Street, launched in 2008. In early 2009, Fenton signed
contracts with a Qatari foundation to lead an 18-month long anti-Israel
campaign in the United States with a special focus on campuses. The actual
text of the contract called for: "An international public opinion awareness
campaign that advocates for the accountability of those who participated in
attacks against schools in Gaza."

Did you sever your ties with Fenton when you began J Street? Do you retain
any role or holdings in Fenton today? Did you play any role in introducing
Fenton to the Qatari agents or play any role in facilitating the contract?
Were you aware of the negotiations or the contract signed on March 12, 2009?

These questions are relevant because it's important to know if J Street's
refusal to support Israel's anti-Hamas military campaign was influenced by
your ties with Fenton, whose promotional material claims: "We only represent
people and projects we believe in."

Were there discussions with Fenton prior to J Street's refusal to condemn
the Goldstone Report on Gaza, a report that certainly serves the
Fenton/Qatari interests? Were there communications with Fenton surrounding J
Street's support for Rep. Donna Edwards who refused to sign a congressional
resolution supporting Israeli actions in Gaza?

2: You were recently asked in an interview about funds J Street received
from Palestinians, Arab-Americans, and Iranian-Americans, to which you
answered: "J Street does have some Arab and Muslim donors - about five.
These are individuals, not organizations, corporations or foreign countries.
Well over 90 percent of our money comes from Jewish Americans and
Christians."

Did you really say J Street has only five Arab and Muslim donors? A partial
listing quickly extracted from the U.S. Federal Election Commission shows
more than 30 contributors, many with ties to Arab-American organizations.

So far, only J Street's Political Action Committee has disclosed its
contributors, as mandated by federal law. But who are the donors to the main
J Street organization? Make that list public, and these pesky inquiries will
probably go away.

When asked about J Street's funding by the Jerusalem Post - the newspaper
that ran the original exposé - you responded "at most 3 percent" of
contributors were Muslim or Arab. Now you state that the figure may be
closer to 10 percent. One tenth of J Street's budget of $3 million, or
$300,000, is a substantial sum. Why do so many Arabs contribute to an
organization that purports to be "pro-Israel?"

3: Do any Israelis support J Street's agenda? How many? Look at the list of
Israeli speakers appearing at J Street's Conference, all losers in Israel's
political arena: Ami Ayalon, Colette Avital, Amir Peretz, Shlomo Ben-Ami,
Yuli Tamir, Amnon Lipkin-Shahak. They have all failed to secure support
from the Israeli electorate or even from their own parties, so they take
their messages to the U.S. and plead with the U.S. government to pressure
Israel's government, make the Israelis do things that their citizens have
already rejected. The tactic is patently anti-democratic.

Two retired senior IDF officers, well-known members of the peace camp,
recently went to the U.S. to speak on J Street's behalf. When they got there
they discovered that J Street opposed sanctions against Iran. According to a
JTA account, Brig. Gen.(res) Israeli Oron called for a "timetable that would
be tied to punishing sanctions."

"The thing that worries me and that worries other Israelis is that [current
negotiations are] not limited in time," Oron said as the faces of her J
Street hosts turned anxious, adding "I'm not sure I'm expressing the J
Street opinion."

Maj. Gen. (res) Danny Rothschild discovered that he differed with J Street's
policies on an immediate freezing of settlements, the halting of settlements'
natural growth, and opposing tough sanctions against Iran.

And then Labor MK Ophir Pines-Paz spoke to a Washington gathering in early
October sponsored by J Street's co-founder, Daniel Levy, today of the New
America Foundation. When Pines-Paz was told he was wrong in "assuming that
everyone on the left is aligned on Iran's nuclear capabilities and threat,
[and in agreement] with Israel's assessment," he exploded. "Wake up!" he
shouted.

J Street produced a film clip for its site and for YouTube showing prominent
Israelis who "speak out in support of a two-state solution and J Street."
But do they actually support J Street? View the clip carefully and discover
that only three out of 11 Israelis mention J Street at all - former minister
Ami Ayalon and Uri Savir. The third is former MK Colette Avital who is a J
Street employee in Israel. Not quite the ringing endorsement J Street had in
mind.

Even the leaders of Israel's opposition have refused to appear at the
Conference, according to sources in Jerusalem.

4: How extensive is your interlocking directorship? I believe that is the
correct characterization of J Street and its allied organizations. J Street's
contributions from the heads of the Arab American Institute and Iranian
lobby NIAC have been documented in these pages. They serve on J Street's
Finance Committee which has a minimum requirement of $10,000. As research
continues in the files of various federal agencies, we found that the
interlocking relations continue into the second tiers as well.

Take for example, the case of Rebecca Abou-Chedid. She appears in the
federal elections records as contributing to J Street's PAC. Her occupation
is listed as "consultant" for "USUS LLC." But until recently, she was also
the national political director at the Arab American Institute where she
"was responsible for formulating AAI's positions on foreign policy . and
represented the Arab American community with Congress as well as the
Departments of Homeland Security, Justice, and State." Today, Abou-Chedid is
the director of outreach at the New America Foundation's Middle East Task
Force.

J Street co-founder and Advisory Council member Daniel Levy serves as
Co-Director of the Middle East Task Force at the New America Foundation, an
institute that benefits from George Soros' largess and membership on its
board.

Heads of other pro-Arab organizations, such as AMIDEAST, and Arab foreign
agents are contributors to the PAC. But Mr. Ben-Ami claims that no
organizations or foreign governments contribute. They don't need do; their
representatives do.

5: Who drives policy at J Street? It's difficult to imagine that the
unwieldy J-Street 160-member board of advisors directs policy. Some of those
members are also foreign agents who worked for Egypt and Saudi Arabia. It
also seems unlikely that your big bucks, 50-member Finance Committee
provides decision-making guidance. That's where the heads of the pro-Iranian
and Arab-American lobbies sit.

So who directs policy? A hint was provided by a left-wing blogger, Richard
Silverstein, who heard the pre-launch spiel in Seattle given by you and
"co-founder" Daniel Levy 18 months ago.

"It's always important with efforts like this to examine the board member
names," Silverman wrote. "There are of course leaders of the main American
Jewish peace groups. There are rabbis and academics. But most important
there are heavy hitter political donors (Alan Solomont), policy wonks (Rob
Malley), U.S. ambassadors to Israel (Samuel Lewis), high level political
operatives (Eli Pariser of Moveon), Hollywood liberals (Robert Greenwald),
business leaders, George Soros' top aide (Morton Halperin), and even a
former Republican senator (Lincoln Chafee) and former Congressman (Tom
Downey). . The group founders believe that Barack Obama and his staff "get"
J Street's perspective while they believe a Clinton candidacy might not
advance J Street's mission as aggressively." [Note, the briefing was given
at the height of the Democratic primaries.]

Soros, the National Journal reported, was present at J Street's initial
strategy sessions.

Anyone reading Soros' 2007 manifesto, On Israel, America and AIPAC, will
understand that he is the spiritual godfather of J Street, if not its silent
sugardaddy.

"I believe that a much-needed self-examination of American policy in the
Middle East has started in this country," Soros proclaimed, "but it can't
make much headway as long as AIPAC retains powerful influence in both the
Democratic and Republican parties. Some leaders of the Democratic Party have
promised to bring about a change of direction but they cannot deliver on
that promise until they are able to resist the dictates of AIPAC. Palestine
is a place of critical importance where positive change is still possible.
Iraq is largely beyond our control; but if we succeeded in settling the
Palestinian problem we would be in a much better position to engage in
negotiations with Iran and extricate ourselves from Iraq. The need for a
peace settlement in Palestine is greater than ever. Both for the sake of
Israel and the United States, it is highly desirable that the Saudi peace
initiative should succeed; but AIPAC stands in the way. It continues to
oppose dealing with a Palestinian government that includes Hamas."

So, it appears that Soros has created an organization that competes with
AIPAC, calls for inclusion of Hamas, and opposes sanctions against Iran. His
people sit on J Street's board, and his other offspring from the New America
Foundation and the National Iranian American Council, work in lockstep. It's
a scary scenario that should attract the attention of the best investigative
reporters from national news outlets, but the modern day Lotus Eaters have
been lulled and ensnared by J Street.

But just because they won't ask the tough questions doesn't mean that they
don't have to be answered.

Lenny Ben-David worked for AIPAC until 1997. He later served as a diplomat
in Israel's embassy in Washington. He has also served as a registered
Foreign Agent for the Embassy of Turkey in Washington and for the Georgia
government. Today, he is a public affairs consultant and blogs at
www.lennybendavid.com .