J Street: Criticism of Israel does not make us the enemy

[Violet_Crumble]

The attitude of Israeli politicians and U.S. right-wing Jews toward anyone critical of Israel has to change, director of the left-leaning U.S. lobby J Street, Jeremy Ben-Ami, told Haaretz in an interview on Thursday.

According to Ben-Ami, "A part of the Jewish community in the United States and some people here are intolerant of people who disagree with them or criticize them.

"And that intolerance immediately flips to 'you are anti-Israel - you're a Muslim lover or you're Muslim,'" he told Haaretz in an interview. "These are things that they call me, and this is what some of them call the president. It has to change both in the politics here and in the right wing of the American Jewish community."

Ben-Ami's comment came as the Foreign Ministry apparently came to regret its snubbing of a U.S. congressional delegation this week and sent a senior official to smooth over the affair.

The apparent apology, however, failed to assuage the deeply insulted congressmen, whose visit was sponsored by J Street.

The Foreign Ministry sent Yaron Zeidman to meet one of the delegate members. A second meeting was held between the ministry's religious section head, Bahij Mansour, and delegation member Warren Clark, executive director of Churches for Middle East Peace. A day earlier, ministry officials had said Clark heads an anti-Israel organization.

But along with the ministry's discomfort, there was a hint of anger at what it sees as the U.S. lobby group's attempt to set the diplomatic agenda.

"The Foreign Ministry is happy to arrange meeting of this type, including with U.S congressmen in Israel at the moment, without need for intermediaries of any type," according to an official statement.

The ministry was "troubled by the diplomatically unacceptable attempt to dictate who is present at such meetings", it said.

J Street was founded about two years ago as a counterbalance to the large Pro-Israeli AIPAC lobby, which espouses a right-wing line regarding Israel and the peace process.

http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/spages/1150918.html