J Street Losing Street Cred?

By Natashia Hajee

J Street (a pro-Israeli lobby group) have come out with some very controversial statements at the J Street Second Annual Conference in Washington this past Saturday. They told Israel that it needs to decide whether it will be: "Jewish and democratic or remain in occupied Palestinian land."

The president of the group, Jeremy Ben Ami, continued to state that "We believe that the Palestinians too must have a national home of their own, living side by side with Israel in peace and security. This is in Israel’s interests. It is in America’s interests. It is right and it is just."


The group believes that the Palestinians deserve a state and it is necessary in exchange for peace, which will obviously benefit Israel in the long run. The Israeli embassy refused their invitation to the conference which is telling of their stance. 


When reading this article I was quite shocked at how forward they were in saying that Israel is in fact being undemocratic in its occupation and telling them to make peace. This is a position that is rarely heard of, so it was quite interesting to see this position being publicized. What was even more interesting was that many mass media sites did not have this news story at all or as a main headline that is easily accessible. Should these positions not be discussed openly? 


Link: http://palestinechronicle.com/news.php?id=9c5defb36077a4702efc1984f7980d1c&mode=details#9c5defb36077a4702efc1984f7980d1c