I wanted to emphasize a few aspects of the J Street/CMEP (Churches for Middle East Peace) teamup, and do so in plain, direct English. (Previous posts: J Street Teams up With Leftist Christian Group to Cause Israel Diplomatic Trouble, J Street's Wheels Coming Off The Bus in Israel and 'Say Hello to My Leetle Friend').

First, the trip itself and J Street's part in it. To those who are blaming the Israeli Foreign Ministry for the diplomatic blowup, allow me to ask a few questions then present a conclusion...

Is J Street aware that they have some difficulty with the Israeli MFA? Yes. Did they know this before they planned a trip to Israel with a number of American legislators with what might be called an...attenuated...level of support for the Jewish State? Yes.

Knowing this, did they plan said meetings in advance to be sure that things would proceed with maximum of efficiency and to the benefit of Israel -- whose interests they are, at least nominally, supposed to value -- and the legislators involved. Apparently not.

If you were bringing some people to Israel to meet with Israeli officials and you knew the Israelis had some issues with you, might you not exercise some...sense? propriety? judgment? class? proper breeding?...and step aside at the first sign of friction? It's a simple thing. It goes like this, "Listen, the MFA has some issues with us, so at this point we're going to step aside and let your staff people handle the meetings. We'll give you the numbers to call to set things up and then we'll all meet up later."

That's what you would do isn't it? A simple thing. If, you were really a pro-Israel organization that is. In fact, J Street showed once again that their real priorities are J Street and Jeremy Ben-Ami personally (and not necessarily in that order). I mean, does Ben-Ami not know that the Israeli Foreign Ministry has enough things to worry about without J Street's help in finding new things to take up their time and make life even more interesting than it already is? This is the point Hillel was making in the post below. This was a despicable stunt aimed at aggrandizing J Street by trying to force themselves on an unwilling MFA at Israel's expense. J Street figured they'd be able to get in by glomming on to a Congressional delegation they thought the Israelis couldn't refuse. They didn't care the trouble they caused as long as it was good for them. Disgrace.

Now let's emphasize J Street's partner in crime, CMEP (see: J Street Teams up With Leftist Christian Group to Cause Israel Diplomatic Trouble). CMEP is a group that no serious "pro-Israel" group would partner with, and I want to emphasize an aspect that goes beyond simply disturbing -- the KAIROS document that CMEP is pushing. Harry's Place had an excellent post on this a few days ago. I highly recommend it: Palestinian Christians revoke 6th commandment. Here's a snip:

Here is the document [PDF], and here is a bit of the outrageous amongst the repugnant (emphasis mine):

The Kairos document doesn't simply rehash the usual nonsense, that would be bad enough, it excuses terror as a legitimate, legal act!

Now again I ask, why would a supposedly pro-Israel group ally itself with an organization that not only pushes boycotts, divestment and sanctions, but actually justifies terror as legitimate and legal? There is no excuse.