Rabbi Shmuley Boteach rips into J Street in The Jerusalem Post after reading the New York Times profile of the group, saying the group’s "cheap tactic of creating its name by attacking AIPAC, the ADL, and the ZOA is shameful." Boteach says the group should "immediately withdraw the patronizing argument that all those who disagree with it are ossified Jewish knuckledraggers who see an anti-Semite behind every corner":
On why most pro-Israel lobbying groups, which J Street was formed to ‘balance,’ support a hard line against terror, Ben Ami says they see Israel "as the place you can always count on when they come to get you." Ben-Ami added further that these groups stifle dissent because they argue that "we’re still on too-shaky ground to permit public disagreement." In Ben-Ami’s opinion AIPAC is run by paranoid schizophrenics.
On Israel’s recent offensive against Hamas in Gaza, which J Street strongly criticized, the Times relates: "Ben-Ami… acknowledges that moments of crisis for Israel tap into the ancestral impulses… ‘There’s their grandmother’s voice in their ear; it’s the emotional side and the communal history, and it’s the fear of not wanting in some way to be responsible for the next great tragedy that will befall the Jewish people.’"
Get it? If you support Israel’s right to act against missiles raining down on its kindergartens and nursing homes it’s not because you believe in a country’s legitimate right to defend itself but because your reptilian Jewish brain has still not gotten over your great-grandmother being disemboweled by Chemielnitzki.
Talk about delegitimizing the other side. And all this from a man who started J Street because right-wing Jews supposedly stifle debate!
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