Anti-Zionist Argument for J Street Dissolution

Left-wing politics can get weird.

Why should J Street dissolve?

Well, a Phillip Giraldi claims J Street is a scam:

J Street is seductive. Americans have been bombarded with propaganda about Israel ever since the foundation of the country over sixty years ago...the Israel Lobby is the most powerful foreign lobby in the United States by far. The American Israel Public Affairs Committee (AIPAC), which has become the ugly side of the Lobby, has rightly drawn criticism for its bullying tactics and its alignment with extreme right-wing parties in Israel. Progressives and some conservatives in the United States who support Israel as a homeland for the world’s Jews have been eager to find a more respectable alternative lobby. That alternative is J Street.

J Street, which recently completed its third annual conference in Washington, is a self-proclaimed kinder and gentler advocate of Israeli interests.

...Sounds good, doesn’t it? But somehow the parts don’t quite add up. J Street really only differs from AIPAC in tone, not in substance...J Street also believes that Israel is and should be a Jewish state with unlimited right of "return" for Jews from anywhere in the world and no such rights for Christians or Muslims who lived in the country before 1948.

...But the real problem with J Street is that it exists at all. Why should there be a new and powerful lobby in Washington composed of American citizens arguing for a special relationship with any country? Why should the United States be providing unlimited support to a nation that claims to be a democracy but which limits rights based on religion? If J Street truly wants to fix Israel it should be working in Israel, not in the United States...The United States already has too many special interest lobbies promoting policies that do absolutely nothing good for the American people. If Israel has become a rogue state, which it has, the problem must be resolved by the Israelis themselves and the diaspora Jews who believe that they have a stake in the outcome. If the latter really want to have an impact, they should turn in their US passports and move to Israel. From the American perspective, which should be the only one that matters to US citizens, the best policy for the United States is to disengage from the Arab-Israel conflict, not to become even more deeply involved from another, slightly more palatable perspective offered by J Street.

And these are the people J Street tries to pleas.


(k/t: Mondo)