J-Street has a wonderful new feature that allows you to send a letter to the editor of a local paper to support J-Street’s views. I decided to take advantage.
Amy Teibel’s report on the ceasefire between Israel and Hamas has a very important sentence in the middel, “Hamas, which has ruled Gaza for the past year, has said it will enforce the truce, but not confront militants from other groups who violate the deal.”
In other words Israel made a deal with a partner unwilling to live up to its side of the bargain. Hamas leader, Ismail Haniyeh said last week that his organization would not stop the smuggling of weapons into Israel.
In word and deed Hamas is showing itself to be just as committed to peace as Fatah was:not at all.
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You’ll note that my text doesn’t match the default message that J-Street recommended.
Why’d I go to J-Street. Well you see they’re very proud of an ad (pdf) they just sponsored in the NY Times. The ad reads in part:
If Israel had gone to war this week, established pro-Israel organizations would have rallied to its side. There would have been ads, press releases, fundraising appeals and political speeches. Let’s have the courage to support Israel loudly and clearly when it pursues security through diplomacy.
If Israel had reacted to the repeated provocations by going to war against Hamas this week, much of the world would have ignored the reasons went to war and reflexively condemned Israel for protecting its citizens. Pro-Israel organizations would have rallied to support Israel in the face of the concerted efforts to delegitimize the Jewish state. It isn’t a matter of supporting war, it’s a matter of trusting Israel’s government to defend the lives of its citizens.
When J-Street asks pro-Israel groups to show courage, it’s a shame that it lacks the courage to criticize Israel’s enemies who show contempt for diplomacy and care nothing for the lives of Jews in Israel.
They cannot even bring themselves to criticize Hamas for working against peace.
And yet they call themselves pro-Israel and pro-peace. I wonder what color the sky is in that world the denizens of J-street inhabit.
Crossposted on Soccer Dad.
“…a matter of trusting Israel’s government to defend the lives of its citizens.”
If only they would.
Tom,
True.
But the philosophy behind J-Street is that Israel will never make enough concessions “for peace” without outside pressure so that pressure must be applied by the U.S.
I should have been a little clearer on that point.
David