Will Bill Owens Distance Himself from a Radical Group Called J Street?

Jude Seymour did a little post recently on J Street's endorsement of Congressman Bill Owens. The coverage was innocently reported, but not incredibly informative or well researched. Let me tell you why this endorsement is a major problem for Bill Owens, who describes himself as a moderate, and why Owens is making a big mistake by so closely associating himself with this particularly dangerous organization.

Mostly what we got out of Seymour's post report is that Owens, "will look to the leadership and principles of JStreetPAC to help inform his opinion on the Middle East conflict" and that Owens took money from the organization, which touts itself as a pro-Israel political action committee. However, you don't have to scratch much beneath the surface to see that J Street has created some serious controversy in the last several months that has been well reported and documented in the national press.

J Street is a very radical organization that is funded by Arabs who have a vested interest in keeping the US dependent on Middle Eastern oil and by Hollywood liberals with dangerous agendas. J Street has supported multiple federal candidates who are hostile to a peaceful US-Israeli relationship and has deep ties to George Soros, a liberal billionaire with anti-Semitic views. Furthermore, new reports were released that J Street has financial connections to Saudi Arabian oil interests and the National Iranian American Council, a group operating as a foreign lobby in violation of federal law and whose president has been called "the Iranian regime's man in Washington" and a man who "did a lot of leg-work for the Iranian regime."

When I looked at the leadership, the staff, and the donors of J Street I was shocked! J Street's leadership and principles are clearly at odds with mainstream thinking on US foreign policy. Ed Lasky at the American Thinker blog put it best when he said in a column that, "some officials note that this may be a smart way for Arab activists to try to influence American policy, because they can do so wrapped up in the shell of a group that can project an image of being a pro-Israel organization to Congressman less familiar with the reputation of J Street and who do not realize the Arab and Muslim backing J Street."

Even Michael Bronstein, a president of a prestigious Democratic political strategy firm in Pennsylvania, wrote that:

"I believe that J Street's public relations have misled the public by marketing the organization as something that it isn't. Many of my friends who were initially attracted to the group have left, disappointed because they felt that it was more anti-Israel than pro-peace. The situation has gotten so significant, in fact, that Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, has weighted in, calling J Street a "unique problem." I don't have political sympathies for the right, nor do I want to forward a leftist agenda on this issue. Some in the media are too eager to frame this as a left vs. right issue... With such fierce opposition to the Jewish state, coupled with relentless external threats to the country's security, we don't have the luxury to divide ourselves into factions, and there is certainly no room for grandstanding. The group seems not to understand this point. In my opinion, it should stop being so pro-J Street and start being a little more pro-Israel."

The point is that J Street is not really a pro-Israel lobby group it portends to be. My initial reaction to NIAC and J Street would be who cares, except for that fact that the agendas being pushed by these two organizations undermines our foreign policy and threatens the stability of the entire Middle East. They promote the Iranian regime, a despotic theocrazy that is seeking to acquire nuclear weapons and whose leader has denied the Holocaust and called for the Israeli state to be annihilated. J Street and NIAC even took very a public position in opposing increased US sanctions against Iran, a vote that passed the U.S. House with 412 votes less than two months ago.

Does Bill Owens have any clue what J Street stands for or who supports them? Does he know that J Street takes money from attorneys who represented the Saudi Embassy? Does Bill Owens really want to take advice from an organization that has seen dozens of elected officials, including Senators Gillibrand and Schumer, publicly distance themselves from J Street's radical ideology? Will Bill Owens distance himself and return the blood money he accepted from J Street? And will Jude Seymour do a little more research before he writes such a ridiculous puff piece in his sorry attempt to pull the wool over our eyes?