J Street: The wrong road

Regarding “J Street’s Israel trip wasn’t alternative Birthright. It was better” (July 30) – what a scurrilous piece of propaganda!

J Street is radically left-wing – anti-American, antiwhite and anti-Semitic. Its aim is to drive a wedge between the US and Israel and to deliver Israel into the hands of its enemies.

The majority of American Jews consider themselves to be progressives. Their attachment to Israel is minimal. They tend to be less religious and will likely merge into the mainstream, leaving Judaism behind, much as Western European Jews did in the 19th and 20th centuries.

Israeli Jews, by contrast, are mostly supportive of the miracle they’ve created and are proud to share it.

J Street does not expose their students to reality. They skew truth to their own aim. Even their base-line “occupation” is biased.

In the West Bank town of Har Gilo, were the students told that Israel supplies the Arabs with twice the water agreed to at Oslo? At Hebron, were they told of the 1929 massacre of the Jews before the British forced the survivors to flee to Jerusalem? Did they tell them that the PA is responsible for the day-to-day lives of the Palestinians, not Israel?

In Ramallah, did they visit the luxurious neighborhood where Mahmoud Abbas has his $30 million home?

Did the Peace Now leader tell the students that from 1967 to 2000, Muslims, Christians and Jews traveled freely back and forth to work, shop and play until Yasser Arafat unleashed his suicide bombers against Israeli civilians? Did she explain that that’s why there is a security barrier and checkpoints?

At Susya, did the B’Tselem “activist” admit that they turn Arabs who sell land to Jews over to the PA to be tortured and possibly killed?

American Jewish families who support Israel will continue to send their children to learn about Israel and its surroundings in a positive environment. Progressives will send their children to “Let Our People Know” to further justify their hostility toward Israel. LEN BENNETT Ottawa, Ontario

J Streeters should remember that the present situation results from the 1948 war that the Arab states initiated to eliminate the Jews and Israel. We need neither apologize nor justify. Birthright is a program designed to combat assimilation. ROSALIND FENSTER Petah Tikva

I was shocked to see an unpaid advertisement for J Street in The Jerusalem Post. The Post publishes articles by Gershon Baskin, which I read with a semi-smile on my face because of his naivety; articles by Jeff Barak make my blood pressure rise; and I do not agree with the pieces by the “Women of the Wall.” All of these reside in Israel and are entitled to their opinion and will have to live with any consequences that arise from what they write.

However, J Street is an American organization whose raison d’etre is to hate Israel and besmirch its name. It supports Iran, which says that it wants to destroy the State of Israel, and brainwashes American Jewish students to oppose and defame the State of Israel. J Street is an anti-Israel organization whose articles should have no place in a newspaper which considers itself Zionist .

Media written on paper worldwide are having a hard time keeping their heads above financial waters and I suggest that if the Post gives anti-Israel organizations a voice in its pages, it will rapidly lose the readers that it has, given the wealth of news available for free on the Internet. CYRIL ATKINS Bet Shemesh

In its drive for “balance,” The Jerusalem Post has been feting us to articles about “concerned” American millennials and their need to pursue justice for the “oppressed, occupied Palestinians” at the expense of their actual – not imagined – brothers and sisters, for whom no tears are ever shed.

In “Millennials on a Mission” (July 26) we learned of the desire of these earnest young people to help us benighted local yokels to see the error of our ways, in reference to our lack of enthusiasm for a twostate solution, the much-touted but unsubstantiated threats to our democracy, and other ills. Next we have another glowing account from yet another concerned American millennial about the wonderfulness of the new J Street “better” Birthright, again outlining the original sin of the “occupation.”

In both of these accounts and all others like them, the relentless brainwashing of the “Palestinians” to hate, loathe and despise Jews and Israel is conveniently overlooked.

The fact that any contact whatsoever on any level with the hated Israeli/Jewish “oppressors” is condemned by one and all and those who dare to do so put their lives at risk is also somehow not raised. The ironic joke is that the “Palestinians” that meet these groups have absolutely no support in their wider community, and, in fact, are seen as collaborators by their fellow citizens.

How about this, committed American millennials: thanks for coming here and spending your money, but really, we don’t need it or you. We have enough enemies without adding Jews to them. Stay in America, marry non-Jews and raise non-Jewish children. I am sure you will be happy fighting American exceptionalism back in what you think is your home. We here, who are truly home, still think we are exceptional. I’ll take an Evangelical Christian any day over these Jews. YISRAEL GUTTMAN Jerusalem