In the course of an interview with Jeffrey Goldberg this morning, J Street director Jeremy Ben-Ami says that his organization is “refusing to embrace the Goldstone report.” Is that the same as condemning the report? No, it’s not. J Street has released two statements on Goldstone and neither one offered the slightest whiff of criticism for the Goldstone report. Both criticized Israel. Today Florida Republican Ileana Ros-Lehtinen introduced a resolution condemning the Goldstone report in the strongest terms possible and “calling on the President and the Secretary of State to oppose unequivocally any endorsement or further consideration of the ‘Report of the United Nations Fact Finding Mission on the Gaza Conflict in multilateral fora.'” The resolution is cosponsored by California Democrat, and chair of the House Foreign Relations Committee, Howard Berman. The other two original cosponsors are Gary Ackerman (D-NY) and Dan Burton (R-IN). A congressional aide says it’s not clear when the resolution will have action before the committee or consideration on the floor, but the question for J Street is will they support this resolution? Ben-Ami says J Street “refuses to embrace the Goldstone report” — let him prove it. If J Street is unwilling to put out a statement supporting this resolution, we will know that this is just empty rhetoric on the eve of their conference and at a time when doubts about J Street’s support for Israel threaten to make the group toxic in Washington. PDF of the resolution available here.
