Interviews:
"You could say that the American Jews are at the forefront of the resistance to Trump"
Jeremy Ben-Ami is convinced that J Street supporters are the real Zionists. We are trying to push America to help Israel be democratic, Jewish, and secure. This is our agenda. This is the message that is important to Ben-Ami, the president of J Street, the pro-Israel American Jewish lobby, to convey to the public in Israel. “The way Trump's America supposedly helps you now does not really help the country to be democratic, Jewish and secure in the long term…Israel has been kidnapped by the settlements.” (Interviewed by Yanir Kozin in Maariv)

According to the liberal lobby, the president of the United States, who has already been dubbed here ‘the Messiah,’ is actually the one who is causing Israel to lose its Zionist path. This is a message that is not easy to transfer to many Israelis who believe that relations with the United States are at an all-time high. But for many Jews who live in America, and some of whom hold positions of influence, this is the real reality.
"The Jews in the United States are very liberal," Ben-Ami says in a special interview. "In Israel, they are called leftists, but we are proud to be liberal, and more than 70 percent of American Jews voted for the Democratic Party in the last elections, and Trump is very unpopular among American Jews. two years.”

J Street was founded in 2008 to provide a platform for liberal views that were not presented until then in the various Jewish organizations, the most known of which is AIPAC, the Jewish pro-Israel lobby.
"Our worldview is similar to that of former President Barack Obama," says Ben-Ami. "There are about six million Jews in the United States, 90 percent of whom are not Orthodox. They are either Reform or Conservative or streams that are not recognized by Jews in Israel at all, and yet the presidents and chairpersons of the recognized Jewish organizations are Orthodox and do not reflect the majority." He added: "That's why a decade ago, we said, 'How can the vast majority of Jews in America be liberal, but those who speak about relations with Israel are very conservative, religious. J Street's ultimate goal is to help the United States in the establishment of peace between Israel and the Palestinians, and if it is not achievable at the moment, then at least help Israel separate from the occupied territories, which will form the basis for the establishment of a Palestinian state alongside it.”

I met Ben-Ami in Tel Aviv during one of his four annual visits to Israel, in which his organization brings influential officials from the US administration to show them the complexity of the conflict with the Palestinians.
"We are not the organization that brings people to Israel to have fun here, in order to make them fall in love with the place," he says. "We bring people with political power, who hold senior positions in American politics and we show them the reality in a fair and balanced way on both sides. Our hope is that they will succeed in influencing American foreign policy regarding the conflict. That is the most pro-Israeli thing American Jews who care about Israel can do.”

A survey published by J Street in November 2018 showed that 78% of American Jews support a peace agreement based on the two-state solution based on the 1967 lines with agreed upon changes of the border. The Jewish neighborhoods of Jerusalem, as well as the Western Wall, will be under Israeli sovereignty, and the Arab neighborhoods will be under the Palestinian flag.

So now there is a Republican administration that is leaning toward Israel. The citizens of Israel will say that the democratic Obama administration was more inclined to the Palestinian side.
"We see things differently. There is an attempt by the government to annex the West Bank in the name of Israel's security, with the encouragement of the settlement enterprise ... In fact, Israel was kidnapped by the settlements, so that today there is no desire for a Palestinian state. We see a government doing everything in its power to deepen control in the West Bank: the expansion of settlements and the confiscation of land. The Palestinian people’s desire for self-determination and independence are ignored, which is bad for the American interest in resolving the conflict.”

Despite the data showing that most of American Jewry holds most of J Street's positions, the organization is actually boycotted by the Israeli government. "Every time, when we ask to meet with Netanyahu or with the Israeli ambassador to Washington, Ron Dermer, we receive a negative response," says Ben-Ami. "The prime minister and his advisors are making a strategic mistake, in real historical terms, when they want nothing to do with the largest Jewish community outside of Israel. They are essentially putting all of Israel's interests in the basket of the Republican Party and the Evangelical Movement. That is such an enormous mistake in the understanding of where the United States is moving to in these days.”

Where is the United States going?
“In the midterm elections, you saw 60 new members of Congress - young, progressive, women, of all races and cultures - who would not cooperate in any way with what is happening in the West Bank. For Israel and the United States, the special relationship between Israel and the United States is composed of shared values and interests. Both are now crumbling. The values of the United States are democracy, freedom, equality and justice. Look what happened in November, in the midterm elections, think about what will happen in the presidential elections in 2020. That's the direction. "

At least it seems that Israel and the United States are broadcasting on the same wave in terms of policy.
"This single moment in which Bibi found his twin in the White House will not last forever. It’s a dot in the  historical view. The direction the United States is going to is much more liberal and multi-cultural. It will not tolerate ethnic nationalism. And therefore it is long-term harm to Israel's interests. "
 
I asked Ben-Ami why the Israelis would care what the American Jews thought were thousands of miles away and did not live here.
"It's nice to think that after all that American Judaism has done for Israel, someone will also care about what we say," he explains. "Israel has benefited a lot from these relations, we sent our children here, we strengthened Israel's ties with the administration. Over the years it was a one-sided relationship. It would be appropriate for the Israelis to also thank their cousins overseas…Take it from a place of Israeli interest: The unlimited support that the United States gives you is exceptional, and if it's important for Israelis, it's worth understanding that they need the support of both parties, and Israel has to keep in touch with the Democrats. American Jews are on the side of the Democrats."

People think that Netanyahu is a world leader, accepted all over the world and in the US. For example, he was recently welcomed with open arms in Chad.
"In the year 2025, I hope that Israel's security will be able to rely only on Chad. Good luck with that. By the way, my family came to Israel in 1882. They (were among the families that) established Tel Aviv. I'm not interested in the elections. I am very worried about Israel's place in the United States. It’s going to a different place, it’s not good.”
 
Ben Ami says that he is connected to the Israeli experience.
"I lived here for a few years, in the late 1990s, and these were the good years, I have a deep connection to Israel," he says. "I've been in politics for 35 years, I was at the White House with Bill Clinton, I did several election campaigns in the United States."

Despite his great criticism of the Israeli government's policy, he stresses, "We oppose the BDS movement and boycotts in general. But Israel's way of dealing with the BDS is stupid - if you ignore it, it will disappear. The obsession with turning it into something big helps them politically. We met with ministers Yuval Steinitz and Gilad Erdan. We want to talk to them about the conflict and they always want to talk about Iran and BDS. If you think J Street is extreme left, then you have no idea what you're talking about. On some campuses we are the most right-wing organization. This is the center of American Jewry. There are so many Jewish leftist groups that are really against Israel and support BDS. We are indeed left from the Israeli center, but this map is not fully understood by Israelis."

As for Ben-Ami's sense that Israel is becoming more religious and less accepting of other streams, Ben-Ami says: “There must be change soon. If, in the end, Naftali Bennett and Betzalel Smotrich will be the face of Israel, you will lose most of American Jewry in the next generation."