J Street: Report of Slogan Change False, but Campus Groups Needn't Be Pro-Israel
By Dan Gilgoff, God & Country
The liberal Jewish group J Street says the Jerusalem Post's report yesterday that the organization's college arm is dropping the "pro-Israel" part of its "pro-Israel, pro-peace" slogan is false. But a J Street spokesperson said the college group, J Street U, has decided to allow campus affiliates to depart from J Street's pro-Israel position.
"The student groups don't need to say they are explicitly pro-Israel so long as their programming and outreach operate from the premise that the Jewish state has a right to exist as a Jewish state," says Jessica Rosenblum, a J Street spokesperson.
"Jeremy wants to give students a great deal of latitude because the conversation that J Street U aims to foster is foundational to building a strong relationship with Israel," she added, referring to Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and executive director of J Street.
Rosenblum says the Jerusalem Post misinterpreted the remarks of a J Street U board member who was discussing J Street U's "pro-peace" position, not a slogan change. She says that J Street never had an official slogan.
More on J Street U's mission from its website:
J Street U seeks to present students on campus with an alternative to extremist voices from both sides of the Israeli-Palestinian divide. Those voices pushing rigid "pro-Israel" and "pro-Palestinian" positions have come to dominate the discourse on many campuses across North America, obscuring the issues and alienating significant numbers of students.
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Reader Comments
To Scott of MN
Israeli settlements increased by 40 percent after Oslo and u claim that they were not building new settlements. Wow. Also the rates of terrorism dropped drastically. However if you have evidence to the contrary why don't you post a link.
The Olso accords nor the later negotiations never envisioned any such transition period of partial sovereignty. That is completely false.
What was offered to the Palestinians was nothing more than a Bantustan.
There is only that many ways Israelis can make up stories of grabbing Palestinian lands.
To mxm
No the Israelis not completely stopped building settlements. They did stop building new ones though. I've never thought they were saints. But Israel was never going to surrender all the lands it took; that would have been strategically stupid given the hostility of all their neighbors. Of course the Palestineans never stopped trying to kill civilians anywhere in Israel that they could. If fact there is significant evidence that the level of terrorism went up after the initial accords were signed. Which do you think is the greater crime?
And no the Palestineans were not going to be given complete sovereignty over the lands they would be able to self-govern. That would have been foolish. There would have been a transition period to see if the Palestineans were serious about the peace. It wasn't until some years after WWII ended that West Germany and Japan got control of their countries back either.
On 2000 at the Camp David summit, Israel offered the entire Gaza strip and about 3/4s of the West Bank to the Palestineans (with the plan being to turn more over in time) to be their nation. They turned it down. If they had accepted it; if they had really wanted peace, it was there for the taking. By now they would be well on their way to full sovereignty. Their foolishness cost them that.
To Scott of MN
Can you tell me which year of the Oslo Peace process did the Israelis stop grabbing land for settlements. That is correct. They never stopped. So how can u claim that the Israelis offered genuine concession when they were continuing to grab land, when the initial Oslo agreed forbade it.
The Palestinians rejected, and rightly so, what was nothing more than a Bantustan, with no control over their own land, air or water. And the next time you talk of terrorism I hope you recognize that ethnically cleansing people of their land under the barrel of a gun is terrorism. State sponsored terror.
Israelis have become quite good at using terror, holocaust as excuses to obfuscate their own actions.
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