The Man Behind the J Street Smear Campaign

The hit-and-run attacks on J Street are pretty impressive, in a Joe McCarthy/Glenn Beck kind of way.

There sure is a lot of effort going into discrediting an organization that is, in fact, only a little to the left of the "mainstream" pro-Israel organizations and which is "guilty" of nothing more ominous than supporting Obama's Middle East policies over Netanyahu's. (Note: J Street is an American organization so its support for the American president should not be too surprising or upsetting).

But it is to some people and they are determined to crush J Street in advance of its conference next week. They will not succeed (a thousand people are coming and some 150 Members of Congress have gone on record as welcoming them).

The hits on J Street won't stop after the conference. The goal is to shut it down in order to perpetuate the myth that the American Jewish community supports not only Israel but any and all policies of the Israeli government. This is a a strange idea considering that Jews are overwhelmingly liberal and tend to be well to the left of their own governments, including the Obama administration. (78% of Jews voted for Obama but 62% even voted for George McGovern and 80% for Walter Mondale). Jews criticize their own government but we are told we can't criticize Israel's. Are these people crazy?

In any case, I read the Pajamas Media piece and discovered that it is the handiwork of one Lenny Ben-David, a consultant in Israel who also was a top Netanyahu aide during Bibi's first term as prime minister.

I know Lenny well. I knew him as Lenny Davis, an American who lived near me in Silver Spring. In the early 1980s, before I came to my senses, I worked at AIPAC where Lenny also worked. In fact, he worked at AIPAC for 25 years.

And what was his job at AIPAC? He was in charge of (1) putting together dossiers on "enemies of Israel," which meant anyone even mildly critical of Israeli policies. (2) He created a program whereby he dispatched recent college graduates to infiltrate groups deemed unfriendly to Israel. Lenny had a list of WASP-y names, identities and post office boxes that would be assigned to young AIPAC employees for their use when they pretended to be Arab-American, leftist, Palestinian, Methodists, or whatever.

I know one guy who spent most of his tenure at AIPAC pretending to be an Arab-American, hanging out at Arab-American conferences, taking names and reporting back to Lenny. Another young man would go to meetings in Congressional offices friendly to Palestinians to find out who the Arabs considered good guys, bad guys, etc. All this information went to Lenny's voluminous files a la J. Edgar Hoover.

Lenny is now retired, living the sweet life in a West Bank settlement, and is still close to AIPAC and the government of Israel. What a coincidence that he is now leading the charge against J Street. I do have to wonder who is paying for his efforts; Lenny does not work for free.

Last point. After Lenny moved to Israel, the job of spying on unfriendlies went to one Steve Rosen. Yes, that same Steve Rosen. He liked turning college kids into infiltrators as much as Lenny. Well, almost as much. Nobody enjoys that kind of thing as much as Lenny Davis.

Comments

[Matthew Siegel]

this is why we need to keep support j street!

stand up for peace - two states for two peoples!

[StCuthbert]

"Jews criticize their own government but we are told we can't criticize Israel's."

Who told you that?

"He was in charge of (1) putting together dossiers on "enemies of Israel," which meant anyone even mildly critical of Israeli policies."

Yeah, I'm sure that's what his job was.

Mr. Rosenberg, why are you making stuff up?

[Sentientbeing09]

Wow. What a shamelessly poor effort.

[mommamia526]

And YOUR contribution is...what now?

[mommamia526]

I, too, think Mr. Rosenberg is making stuff up. I also think that JStreet has set up a conference deliberately omitting dissenting voices, and that that is the real issue. Of course, JStreet is entitled to its opinions, to statements, to invite and disinvite, but, if it publishes its opinions on blogs, it should expect to get rebuttals by those who do not agree with their positions. To draw clear lines in the sand on issues which do not concern jews outside of Israel, and to refuse to hear the issues the natives cope with and live under, and to also deliberately omit an opposing view of your own one, is exactly what JStreet loudly complains about. All voices should be heard, of course. But, unless you live in a house, you are not in charge on how the household operates. Israelis live under the ongoing attacks, those prior to Cast Lead lasted eight years, but it has gone on forever. If you have never lived under constant airraid and other attacks, you have no idea what the stress is those persons live under. Children who do not dare go on a bus, because a bombbelt carrying nutcase is ready to blow himself and everyone else up, for example. We read, elsewhere on Huffpost, that Gazans have taken to drug abuse after Cast Lead. Why? Stress. Rosenberg probably has no idea, neither does JStreet, that living under constant threat as a child, from kassams and bombelts, also causes stress.

[mommamia526]

I fully support Mr. Obama's efforts. I voted for him. I often go against those who malign him in the Israeli Press. That does NOT mean that I fully support immediate withdrawal from settlements, or agree that East Jerusalem should be vacated. Jews have lived there forever. Also, experience has shown that withdrawal never works, not for Israel, and not even for Palestinians. Gazans are almost all now, I have read, on UN rations, even those who make megabucks in the black market. Black market dealing is what the thousand or more tunnels are mainly for. Contraband and food come in, and are sold. There were greenhouses providing excellent and plenty produce, before Palestinians destroyed it deliberately, and that was even planned before Hamas was voted in. There is not one party, Israel, which is always at fault, and not one party of poor peasants which is always right (Hamas). Hamas is doing quite well. It is those in their charge who are not doing well. What is going on in the ME re Palestinians is not cured by dovish jews outside of Israel and the ME. It can not even be cured by Israel. It is a Palestinian and Arab issue. Most Palestinians live outside of Gaza.

[Fortune1]

MJ, thanks for setting the record straight on where the attacks on J Street are coming from.

AIPAC smear campaigns against pro-peace Jewish activists and groups are nothing new. AIPAC's concerted efforts to discredit Jewish critics of Israeli policies are well documented.

An August 1992 Village Voice article by now-deceased Jewish journalist Robert I. Freidman revealed that a unit of AIPAC investigated and harassed dovish Jewish groups advocating land for peace. The AIPAC office, known as Policy Analysis and managed by Steve Rosen, also maintained files for the purpose of discrediting pro-peace groups like American for Peace Now and the Jewish Peace Lobby.

A former AIPAC staffer, Gregory Slabodkin, was the source for Friedman's article and provided internal documents to support his charges.

"The mandate of Policy Analysis (formerly Opposition Research) is to monitor, analyze and respond to anti-Israeli activities in the United States," the head of the office, Michael Lewis, wrote to Rosen in an internal memo in August 1990. "Arab Americans are by no means our sole concern. New Jewish Agenda, the Jewish Peace Lobby and the Jewish Committee on the Middle East to name but some of the more prominent organizations, were all formed in the past few years."

J Street is just the latest target for AIPAC's smear tactics.

[BatAmi]

By the way, has anyone answered the charges Davis made? It's always easier to shoot the messenger.

[BatAmi]

I worked with Lenny Davis in those days too. I remember he was Editor of Near East Report, just like you. He edited the Myths and Facts book. He ran the PR campaign against AWACS to Saudi Arabia, if I recall. Not what you'd call a McCarthyite. He was also an observant Jew, and I've read what you wrote about them: "The secular areas [of Jerusalem] are charming but much of the rest is Jewish Taliban country... No humor, no aesthetics, just lunatics in black. Can't all these black-clad crazies - of all faith and delusions - just recognize their common inhumanity and move to one corner of Asia." http://www.jpost.com/servlet/Satellite?pagename=JPost/JPArticle/ShowFull&cid=1242212407306
You don't like Orthos, do you?

[Adeyemo]

MJ Rosenberg should have his own show. This guy is incredible with a lot of information. I wonder why the MSM does not invite him to the TV media. He knows too much and might embarrass the AIPAC people. MJ Rosenberg is a true USA Patriot. The truth would always set you free.