Taking The J Street Challenge

A new hour-long documentary, “The J Street Challenge,” is a powerful, must-see film for anyone with even a casual interest in Israel. It was produced and released by Americans for Peace and Tolerance, a multi-ethnic organization promoting tolerance in communities across the nation.

J Street, founded in 2008 and marketing itself as a kind of left-wing AIPAC, went out of its way from the beginning to emphasize itself as being staunchly “pro-Israel, pro-peace.”

A key question raised by the documentary is what it means to be “pro-Israel.” Harvard Professor Ruth Wisse suggests that “there is no such thing as an Arab-Israel conflict, there is an Arab war against Israel, there is an Arab war against the Jewish people’s right to a state.” As the film examines J Street’s record, it becomes hard to dispute Alan Dershowitz’s assertion that J Street is “neither pro-Israel nor pro-peace.”

“The J Street Challenge” uses the organization’s own words to examine what the group means by “pro-peace,” and the rhetorical sleight of hand it uses to promote its position that Israel is always wrong.

Shalem Center scholar Daniel Gordis points out that “the minute you’re absolutely certain that you have a monopoly on wisdom I think you stop listening.”

According to J Street, the only reason for the “Arab-Israeli” conflict is land. Throughout the first part of the film, the viewer is introduced to the organization’s position that if Israel would return to the 1949 armistice lines all would be right with the world. A position nicely slapped down by Professor Wisse who explains that “since that so-called occupation was the consequence of the war against Israel, it cannot retroactively have become its cause.”

Part of explaining a group’s purpose is discovering the people funding its message. “The J Street Challenge” pulls together all of the funding information discovered over the past six years and lays it out. The money comes from such critics of Israel as hedge-fund billionaire and progressive “sugar daddy” George Soros, and Genevieve Lynch, a board member of the pro-Iranian-regime National Iranian-American Council.