Monday, November 29, 2010
Is it any surprise at this point that J Street's campus guy in Israel has views indistinguishable from what most rational people would recognize as those coming from an "anti-Israel" campus organizer? Omri has a great (though not surprising) post: J Street's Israel Campus Organizer Drew Cohen - Israel Is "Unjust And Even Criminal," He's Uncomfortable With "People Who Espouse Zionism". A taste:
And it's kind of predictable that JStreet's new Israel campus organizer Drew Cohen would (a) harbor some really ugly antipathy toward the Jewish State and (b) commit to getting other American Jews to embrace his antipathy. This pattern is in line with the rest of JStreetU, which finally had to drop even the pretense of pro-Israel advocacy because it meshed poorly with their "genocidal anti-Jewish terrorists equal Israeli Jewish victims" moral equivocation.
J Street's pretty pleased with Cohen's appointment - see below for the full email he's passing around on the organization's behalf - which is kind of weird for a "pro-Israel" organization, given how he's proud of being an anti-Israel ideologue...
Is gossip OK on this site?
Cohen was at Cafe Ben-Ami on Emek Refaim on Tuesday AM with a couple of female collegiate J-streeters.
Having first overheard their unusual conversation, when I read about Cohen in Commentary I knew it had to be the same guy. Google image search - and lo and behold ... But no beard now.
No doubt that his yeshiva boy looks and demeanour played a role in his getting the JStreetU gig. It's as if they're saying "Yeah we're funded by Soros but we are AUTHENTIC".
It would be mean for me to report the conversation that I overheard, but it wouldn't surprise anyone to hear that "social justice" was mentioned - but in a manner that indicates that the speakers had no clue about what justice might and might not entail.