James Jones, President Obama's National Security Advisor, has
agreed to be the keynote
speaker at the anti-Israel group J Street's first annual
conference in Washington next week. While the group bills itself
as the "pro Israel" and "pro peace" alternative to the American
Israel Public Affairs Committee, in reality it is a liberal
organization actively campaigning against Israel's right to
defend itself. As Michael Goldfarb has
noted, other speakers at the conference include Eli Pariser,
the former director of Moveon.org, and Salam Al-Marayati, who was
quoted in the New York Times in the wake of the
Sept. 11 attacks saying Israel should be considered a prime
suspect:
''If we're going to look at suspects, we should look to the
groups that benefit the most from these kinds of incidents, and
I think we should put the state of Israel on the suspect list
because I think this diverts attention from what's happening in
the Palestinian territories so that they can go on with their
aggression and occupation and apartheid policies.''
The announcement that Jones will speak comes as a growing number
of Democratic members of Congress have announced they would drop
out of participating in the conference, causing J Street to
blame the Weekly Standard for employing a "classic
'swift boat' move" by publishing actual statements made by
participants in the conference.
With each passing day, the outright contempt the Obama
administration has for Israel becomes more apparent.
Goldfarb
has more.
