J-Street Joins Pro-Palestinian Groups to Scuttle Anti-BDS Legislation

J-Street aligns with vile anti-Israel groups in unsuccessful attempt to scrap legislation which would deal a death blow to BDS in the U.S.

By Ari Soffer

 

J-Street has been lobbying furiously to torpedo legislation currently making its way through the US Congress to combat the anti-Israel BDS (Boycott Divestment and Sanction) Movement.

Capitol Hill Washington DC Congress America – Thinkstock

In late April, the Senate Finance Committee adopted new amendments to the Trade Promotion Authority (TPA), which would require US trade negotiators to make rejection of BDS a principal trade objective in Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) negotiations with the European Union.

The amendments are backed by all major Jewish and pro-Israel groups in America, including AIPAC, The Israel Project, the Israel Allies Foundation and others.

But it has drawn the ire of far-left and anti-Israel groups, who see boycotting Jewish Israeli products and companies as a way of isolating and pressuring Israel into making concessions to the Palestinian Authority. For most BDS activists, their long-term goal goes further still: the eventual destruction of the State of Israel.

The rabidly pro-BDS, anti-Israel Jewish Voice for Peace has been one of the leading voices opposing the legislation, and they have now apparently been joined by the self-declared “pro-Israel, pro-peace” J-Street.

J-Street claims the wording of the bill – which refers to all “Israeli-controlled territories” – would also make it illegal to boycott Jewish communities in Judea and Samaria, which although Israeli-controlled were never formally annexed. The leftist group and its supporters are largely supportive of boycotting Jewish businesses in Judea-Samaria.

“In our view, these are not anti-BDS measures, these are pro-settlement measures,” J-Street vice president of government affairs Dylan Williams told Politico on Monday, explaining his group’s opposition to it.

But despite the pressure from far-left groups – which also include Americans for Peace Now, which advocates for the ethnic-cleansing of Jews from Judea and Samaria – the amendments have received unanimous, bipartisan support.

Congressman Peter Roskam (R-IL), who co-sponsored the legislation, told The Washington Free Beacon that the whole issue “is a non-story: a bunch of anti-Israel groups criticizing a pro-Israel amendment.”

“While a broad bipartisan, bicameral group of Members of Congress are focused on strengthening the mutually beneficial US-Israel economic relationship, this small handful of outside organizations are more interested in defending destructive efforts to delegitimize Israel,” he said.

 

View original Arutz Sheva publication at: http://www.israelnationalnews.com/News/News.aspx/195348#.VVJw4ZNbg8J