View From a Height has learned from a very reliable source that as of now, Sen. Mark Udall will not be removing his name from J Street’s Dinner host committee.  His reasoning is as follows:

1. Udall is reluctant to bring more attention to the controversy by removing his name
2. Sen Udall will not attend the dinner, nor endorse or support J Street as an organization
3. Udall doesn’t want to embarrass General Jones
4. The press covering the issue seems interested in embarrassing the administration

My reactions:

1. This is about as weasily as it gets.  By staying on the host committee, he leaves open the option of endorsing them in the future if it’s worthwhile, if indeed being on the host committee isn’t already in effect an endorsement.  Staying on it certainly supports J Street as an organization.
2. The administration’s sending Jones has accomplished its goal of stopping the bleeding.
3. What press inquiries can he be referring to?  The coverage has been on Powerline, the Weekly Standard blog, and the Commentary Magazine blog, Contentions.  The Washington Post finally has a piece on it in tomorrow’s paper, but the MSM appears to be several weeks behind the curve, as usual, but is unlikely to be seeking to embarrass the administration.
4. If the administration hadn’t sent Jones and invited J Street to host its conference call, while excluding the WZO, it wouldn’t be embarassed.
5. Adding more attention?  If there already are press inquiries, then the attention’s already there.  If there aren’t, then he ought to be able to slip out un-noticed.  One would think that with the WaPo finally picking up on the controversy, Senator Udall may be overstating his national importance, a truly bipartisan condition not unknown to senators.
6. Senator Udall was one of 76 (or 71, accounts differ) Senators who did sign a letter back in August urging the administration to back off its pressure on Israel for a settlement freeze.  This suggests that, like a number of those listed on the host committee, he was placed there by staff who didn’t examine J Street’s positions very carefully.
7. Unlike most of the other mainstream Jewish organizations, including AIPAC, J Street has an explicit and unapologetically partisan domestic political agenda, tied to a PAC.  It is banking on enough liberal Jews being seduced by its heroic (in their eyes) liberalism that they are willing to marry themselves to that agenda, while overlooking or excusing its harmful positions vis-a-vis Israel.
8. It is also banking on liberal Jews’ unwillingness to defer to Israel on matters of its national security, while more hawkish American Jews have generally done so for dovish Israeli governments.  Here it’s important to recall that J Street is an American political organization, not an Israeli one, whose job it is to lobby the American government.  It’s one thing to argue that dovish policies are wrong, another to argue that a dovish American administration should actively undermine a determined Israeli government
9. So J Street’s goal is threefold.  It aims to promote the left-wing agenda domestically, weaken American’s support for Israel, and divide the Jewish c8mmunity in America in order to do so.

J Street’s donation to the state party is an emblem of its alliance with ProgressNow and the far left-wing of the Democratic party. Just as  ProgressNow began small, and built into a major force in the state, J Street will try to do the same.  People who judge their eventual effectiveness in legitimizing their views about Israel by their current size are underestimating them.

The following is the text of a Letter to the Editor that I wrote, and that the Intermountain Jewish News published today (not available online):

Over the past several decades, both the Democratic and Republican parties have prided themselves on their support for Israel.  Now, a group that calls itself – a little too loudly – “pro-Israel” threatens the liberal Democratic wing of that support.  And some Colorado legislators appear to be taken in.

J Street is holding its first national conference in DC next week, and is hosting its annual banquet on October 27.  Four Democratic Colorado Congressmen and Senator Mark Udall are on the host committee.

Founded in 2007, J Street poses as a “pro-Israel, pro-Peace” lobby, founded specifically to provide an alternative to what it calls the “right-wing dominated” AIPAC.  (AIPAC defers to the citizens of Israel in foreign policy, and is certainly not right-wing.  Its former president, Steve Grossman, chaired Howard Dean’s Presidential campaign.

By contrast, J Street has adopted a comprehensive platform of appeasement.  It accepts Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons.  It equates Israel’s Operation Cast Lead and Hamas’s terror rockets.  It supports the division of Jerusalem.  None of these positions draws even a plurality of American Jews.  Collectively, only a small minority approves.

Until a last-minute cancellation, J Street had scheduled to appear a “street poet” who had compared Guantanamo to Auschwitz, and had accused Israelis of tattooing numbers on the arms of Gazan children.  Slightly less repugnant is J Street Advisory Board member Henry Siegman’s insidious comparison of Israel to apartheid South Africa.

No wonder that board members of NIAC, lobbyists for Saudi Arabia, and PR flacks for campus anti-Israel campaigns have contributed upwards of tens of thousands of dollars to support J Street’s agenda.

So suspect is J Street that Israel’s Ambassador to the US, Michael Oren, turned down an offer to lend his credibility to the group by appearing, noting that “certain policies of the organization may impair the interests of Israel.”  What other “pro-Israel” group would he refuse to address on that basis?

J Street’s ultimate agenda is to buy acceptance to the liberal wing of the Democratic Party through its PAC, and then use that credibility to mainstream certain destructive policy positions.  At the same time, Jewish liberals will be less likely to question a solidly liberal lobbying group.

Both would do well to steer clear.  J Street represents only a small minority of American Jews, and American Jews have many other options for helping to elect liberal Democrats to office.

In the last week, over a dozen Congressional members of the dinner’s Host Committee have removed their names from the list.  Neither Republican representative, nor Senator Michael Bennet, appears ever to have been on the list, and Rep. John Salazar (CD-3) has withdrawn.

This leaves Representatives Diana DeGette, Jared Polis, Betsy Markey, Ed Perlmutter, and Senator Mark Udall.  I personally believe that their presence is in response to J Street PAC’s $1000 contribution in 2008 to the Colorado Democratic Party, and that they signed up believing that they were attending a function at a mainstream, pro-Israel, Jewish organization.  They, too, should withdraw.

Israel cannot become a partisan issue; too much would then hinge on American electoral politics.  Colorado Democrats should step back from this attempt to seduce them away from their principles.

I would also point out that the State Democratic Party was the only state party to receive any money from J Street during the 2008 cycle.  Those familiar with the Colorado Model and the genesis of J Street may be able to figure out why.