J Street false narrative fundraising campaign

As J Street’s fundraising letter was praising the Iran nuclear deal as the most significant diplomatic achievement of our time, Germany’s domestic intelligence was releasing an annual report revealing what anyone with an ounce of common sense could have predicted.  Iran was honoring the agreement in the breach. 

Iran is involved in a major clandestine effort to acquire from German companies illicit nuclear technology and equipment. German intelligence went on to note that “even by international standards,” Iran’s procurement program is at “a quantitatively high level.”

German Chancellor Angela Merkel, in a statement to the Bundestag, added to the concerns by noting, “Iran continued unabated to develop its rocket program in conflict with the relevant provisions of the UN Security Council.”  But oddly enough, there is no mention of this in the fundraising letter from J Street – the (anti-Zionist) Zionist lobby that shills for George Soros and fronts for President Obama.

As Iran was seeking illicit nuclear technology and equipment while advancing a system with which to deliver nuclear devices, the president of J Street was soliciting funds with a self-congratulatory letter extolling J Street’s role in winning support for the greatest diplomatic fiasco of our time.

Of course, J Street modestly declined to take credit for its part in a larger campaign best described by Ben Rhodes, Obama’s foreign policy adviser, as a deceptive movement geared to manipulate an inexperienced and compliant media, which Rhodes described as an “echo chamber” for the administration.  The function of this campaign was to get the American public and the Congress to accept a deal with the world’s leading sponsor of terrorism and the only member of the United Nations that intends—because of its theocratic imperative—to destroy another member state, Israel.

So, how is it that a supposedly Jewish organization hooks up with those who seek Israel’s destruction, not just through a nuclear Armageddon but by using the largess of 120 billion dollars the Obama administration freed up for it to support various Islamist terror organizations that share a similar eschatology?

That is a conundrum which requires an understanding that in the Jewish community there is a formidable tension between being Jewish and being leftist. J Street, by mouthing clichés about the two-state solution and Israel’s right to exist in peace and security, provides a fig leaf for leftists who, given a choice between their progressive agenda and Israel’s existence, will choose progressivism every time.

For many progressive Jews, Israel’s very existence is an embarrassment. After all, how do you relate to your fellow progressives who throughout the world are demonizing Israel as a last vestige of colonialism and characterizing the Palestinians as an oppressed people who, but for the Israelis, would be flourishing in the mythical democratic, secular state of Palestine, as do other Arab nations in the Middle East?

J Street routinely sides with the Palestinians; and more important, it is a staunch supporter of President Obama’s agenda—whatever it may be.

Using the services of the Ploughshares Fund, the Obama administration created a major campaign that sold a compliant and sycophantic American media and the American public an imaginary profile of a moderate Iran willing to give up its nuclear program in exchange for rejoining the world community. Promoting this fable required money, and Ploughshares gave J Street $576,000 to spread the word to those Jews who still believe that the Israeli/Palestinian conflict is about borders and settlements and not about an ineluctable and visceral hatred of Jews.

In the world of what Ben Rhodes called the “echo chamber,” J Street was playing drums in the Jewish community.  

But do not expect J Street to issue an apology. Acknowledging its mistakes is not in J Street’s repertoire. For years, J Street clumsily denied that George Soros, through a Hong Kong-based cutout, was its major supporter.

Besides, despite Ben Rhodes’ smug cynicism and J Street’s role in his duplicitous campaign, there are still plenty of Jews out there who fail to see the threat Obama has created for Israel—and for America. After all, Iran does not need to test intercontinental ballistic missiles to reach Tel Aviv.

Abraham H. Miller is an emeritus professor of political science, University of Cincinnati, and a distinguished fellow with the Haym Salomon Center, a news and public policy group. @salomoncenter