My name is Yuval Lion, and I'm a member of J Street's National Finance Committee. The past month has been a difficult time for me, and for all those who love Israel and worry about its future. The current violence in Israel and the Palestinian territory, combined with the most right-wing government in Israel’s history and an ineffective Palestinian leadership, have created a toxic and dangerous state of affairs.
Did I read an implication that a dangerous mixture had formed, fed by "violence" - I guess 'terror' is too strong a term for J Street to employ - a right-wing government, plus those tsk-tsk ineffective Arabs? I think I did.
Well, for all the starry-eyed youngsters in J Street, Arab terror and efforts to either halt the formation of a Jewish state or its continued existence for almost a century now have not been dependent on the composition of Israel's governments. And the so-called conflict is not one over the extent of lines, the amount of territory or even whether Jews can enter the Temple Mount, for example, as Jews and not as tourists without any identity.It is an existential clash of narrative. The Temples did not exist, it is claimed. And if we Jews enter their Haram compound, our filthy feet defile and desecrate. The Arabs-who-refer-to-themselves-as-'Palestinians' discount out presence in this land and engage in identity theft. They accept previous Israeli withdrawals, do not fully fulfill their obligations, continue their terror and somehow succeed in playing the victim.They are able to so, among many reasons, because of the support, direct or indirect, provided by such groups as J Street who claim to be pro-peace. If there is anything truly toxic, it is the obeisant behavior of Jews abroad, either within or without the community establishment, towards the Arabs who oppose the Jewish state, who always give them the benefit of the doubt and are all to quick to join in the chorus of criticism, in many instances based on misrepresentation and also outright falsehoods.Worse, these liberal, rational and humanist groups simply give a pass to Israel's enemies who are very non-liberal, very non-rational and very very non-humanist. A Palestinian state would be the exact opposite of their core values (besides being lethal to Israel in any territorial configuration). Why would they force upon Israel this toxic entity? Why do they redefine Zionism, the national movement of the Jewish people, so as to facilitate their own diaspora comforts?Another J Street wrong turn.^