J Street is Both Wrong and Out of the Mainstream

By: Moshe Phillips |  Sept 10, 2024

There’s no question J Street is far outside the mainstream of the Jewish community. But does that mean its views are mistaken?

On the eve of his recent visit to Cleveland, J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami told reporters there that it’s a “common misconception” that his group is “outside of the mainstream.”

It’s no misconception. It’s a fact. In 2014, J Street’s application to join the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations was decisively rejected in a vote by its member-organizations. Note that most of those organizations are on the political left or center, not the right.

Around the same time, J Street also inquired about joining another mainstream umbrella group, the American Zionist Movement—but J Street backed off when it was clear that a majority of the AZM’s members would reject it, too.

J Street is the controversial Washington, DC-based Jewish pressure group that was created in 2007 specifically, and almost exclusively, to lobby for an independent Palestinian state.

Likewise in Israel, J Street’s views are far outside the mainstream. The political party with which J Street’s positions most closely align, Meretz, received zero seats in the most recent Knesset elections. Zero.

Public opinion polls have consistently shown that the majority of Israelis reject J Street’s core positions, that is, the creation of an independent “State of Palestine” along the old nine-miles-wide borders, and giving up exclusive Israeli control of united Jerusalem.

Being in the minority doesn’t make you wrong, of course. The main problem with J Street is not that it is on the fringe of the Jewish community, both in the U.S. and in Israel. Rather, the problem is that J Street has a track record of advocating positions that have been proven wrong again and again by events on the ground:

* Withdrawing from territory has not brought peace.

J Street’s central argument is that if Israel surrenders territory to the Arabs, the Arabs will live in peace with Israel. The Israelis tried that in the north, by unilaterally withdrawing from the buffer zone between southern Lebanon and northern Israel. The result: 150,000 Hezbollah rockets are now stationed in southern Lebanon.

The Israelis tried the same approach in Judea-Samaria (the West Bank), giving the Palestinian Authority near-total control over the 40% of the region—the cities where 98% of the Arabs reside. The result: a terror kingdom, in which the PA shelters terrorists, pays terrorists, and raises its children to emulate terrorists.

The Israelis tried the territory-for-peace approach in Gaza, too. They withdrew every Israeli soldier and citizen from Gaza in 2005. The result: 19 years of Hamas rockets raining down on kindergartens and hospitals in southern Israel, followed by the mass murder, gang-rapes, and baby-burnings of October 7.

* Ignoring Palestinian violations has not brought peace.

J Street argues that we shouldn’t make a fuss about the PA’s constant violations of its obligations in the Oslo Accords.  The PA refuses to arrest, disarm, or extradite terrorists to Israel. It uses its media and schools to promote glorification of violence and anti-Jewish hatred.

Yet J Street never publicly criticizes the PA’s violations, and never calls for making US aid to the Palestinian Arabs conditional on the PA keeping its obligations. So the violations continue—because the PA sees there are no consequences. It can count on J Street to keep pushing the Palestinian Arab cause, no matter what.

* Barring Jews from living in their homeland has not brought peace.

J Street lobbies against Jewish construction in Judea-Samaria and the Old City of Jerusalem—even though such construction is permitted by the Oslo Accords. It’s interesting that J Street never calls for halting Arab construction in the PA-governed areas. Why the double standard?

Just last week, a J Street leader wrote in an op-ed that Jews should be prevented from taking up residence in the so-called Armenian Quarter of Jerusalem. The notion that people of one ethnicity should be barred from living in a neighborhood with people of a different ethnicity is outrageous. In South Africa, that was called apartheid. In the American South, that was called segregation. Haven’t we learned by now that such attitudes are morally wrong?

* Pressuring Israel has not brought peace.

J Street constantly encourages the President and Congress to put more pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Arabs. J Street claims that will bring peace. But it hasn’t. Instead, it has convinced the Arabs to keep holding out for more. Pressure on Israel doesn’t facilitate peace; it merely encourages Arab extremism.

That’s why the majority of Israelis reject the J Street viewpoint, and that’s why the majority of American Jews reject it, too.

(Moshe Phillips is National Chairman of Americans For A Safe Israel, a leading pro-Israel advocacy and education organization.)