The head of the Anti-Defamation League says J Street’s attack on Sarah Palin’s defense of Israeli settlements was "over the line" and questioned whether the group should be calling itself "pro-Israel."
In a call to JTA late Thursday, ADL national director Abraham Foxman called "the height of chutzpah" J Street’s statement Wednesday which said "Palin’s pandering to her right-wing base comes at the expense of the security of the State of Israel" and her remarks "reveal a glaring ignorance of damaging facts."
"Who authorizes them to detemine what the security of Israel is?" Foxman asked of J Street. "Israel determines its security."
"They’re attacking a celebrity for supporting Israel, but not in the way they want her to support Israel," he said referring to the former governor of Alaska.
As for the charge that Palin was pandering, Foxman said that "all politics is pandering" and that one could say the same thing about the members of Congress who spoke at the J Street conference last month.
Foxman acknowledged Palin’s remarks — in which she said Jewish settlements "should be allowed to be expanded upon" because "more and more Jewish people will be flocking to Israel in the days and weeks and months ahead" — were a "simplistic effort to be supportive of the Israeli government," but also "clear and well-intentioned" and "didn’t put any lives at stake."
The ADL leader added that this was the latest of a series of actions by J Street which raised doubt about whether both parts of the organization’s slogan of “pro-Israel, pro-peace” is accurate.
Foxman said that J Street’s criticism of Israel’s invasion of Gaza, its opposition to new Iran sanctions at the present time, its failure to support last month’s congressional resolution condemning the Goldstone report and now the reaction to the Palin statement raise a “question mark” about the group’s “pro-Israel” bona fides.
