It is incredible in this day and age that any political lobby, whatever its legal status, thinks it can be respected without being fully transparent. Yet, this is just what J Street, the dovish Israel lobby, thinks.
It makes no difference to us whether the iconoclastic billionaire George Soros funds J Street. It is legal to fund political speech, J Street engages in political speech and George Soros is not hiding his views behind closed doors. The same cannot be said for J Street.
In the doublespeak that we have unfortunately come to expect from politicians, Jeremy Ben-Ami, the founder and director of J Street, variously denied that his organization was funded by Soros, said that J Street was funded by Soros but not initially, and piously defended his (Ben-Amis) statement that Soros did not help launch J Street. Readers can follow the twists and turns in Ben-Amis statements in the JTA story in this week’s IJN.
It now turns out that Soros has funded J Street and, per Soros want, in a major way. Ben-Ami now calls his prior characterizations of Soros involvement in J Street misleading a typical example of the euphemistic, slightly self-condemnatory but essentially exculpatory term that politicians playing fast and loose with the truth like to use.
Meanwhile, Ben-Ami says that donations to J Street are kept secret, and that Soros prefers it that way. Not so! says Soros spokesman. Soros never made any secret about his contributions to J Street, he said. Soros modus operandi is to be open about what he believes. Essentially, he says about his political commitments: Take em or leave em; this is who I am. This is exactly as it should be.
J Street, however, believes its donors should be kept secret. Which invites the question: What does J Street have to hide? Secretiveness about its money and therefore its mission gives one pause in reading Ben-Amis mea culpa: I deeply and genuinely apologize for that [for being less than clear about Mr. Soros support] and for any distraction from J Streets important work created by my actions and decisions. If Ben-Ami wants that apology to be credible, he will need to open up his funding sources.
As for Soros, one moment he says he is not a Zionist and one moment he says he has a deep concern for the survival of Israel; one moment he says that Israeli policies contribute to anti-Semitism and one moment he says that Israelis (and others) merely need be aware that anti-Semites use their policies as a pretext for attack; and one moment Soros says that the new anti-Semitism holds that the Jews rule the world and one moment he says that anti-Semitism predates Israel. Soros proves once again that the skill to become a billionaire does not necessarily confer any expertise in any other field, such as history, sociology or political science.
J Street is not responsible for Soros views; but when J Street receives some $745,000 from Soros and his children hardly chump change and when the contributions are kept secret, at least up to now, J Street should not be surprised when people question its motives.
Copyright © 2010 by the Intermountain Jewish News
