Washington – NY Congressman Ackerman Cuts Off Ties With J Street

Washington – U.S. Rep. Gary Ackerman severed ties with J Street over its call on the Obama administration not to veto a U.N. Security Council resolution on settlements.

“After learning of J Street’s current public call for the Obama Administration to not veto a prospective U.N. Security Council resolution that, under the rubric of concern about settlement activity, would effectively and unjustly place the whole responsibility for the current impasse in the peace process on Israel, and—critically—would give fresh and powerful impetus to the effort to internationally isolate and delegitimize Israel, I’ve come to the conclusion that J Street is not an organization with which I wish to be associated,” Ackerman (D-N.Y.) said in a statement Tuesday.

“The decision to endorse the Palestinian and Arab effort to condemn Israel in the U.N. Security Council is not the choice of a concerned friend trying to help,” he said. “It is rather the befuddled choice of an organization so open-minded about what constitutes support for Israel that its brains have fallen out. America really does need a smart, credible, politically active organization that is as aggressively pro-peace as it is pro-Israel. Unfortunately, J Street ain’t it.”

Ackerman’s agreement to accept J Street’s endorsement was a prize for the progressive pro-Israel group in the November elections: He is Jewish, from New York and his pro-Israel record is considered second to none. In the last Congress he was chairman of the U.S. House of Representatives’ Middle East committee.

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