Obama picks extreme left winger as Jewish liason

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U.S. official blasts Israel envoy's 'unfortunate' J-Street remarks

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By Barak Ravid

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Tags: Michael Oren, J Street http://www.haaretz.com/hasen/images/tags/tag_arrow1.gif

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Remarks by Israel's ambassador to the United States, Michael Oren, against the liberal Jewish lobby J Street were "most unfortunate" according to Hannah Rosenthal, head of the U.S. administration's Office to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism.

In an interview with Haaretz in Jerusalem, where Rosenthal was the administration's envoy to the Foreign Ministry's Global Forum for Combating Anti-Semitism, Rosenthal, who once served on J street's board of directors, said she opposes blurring the lines between anti-Semitism and criticism of Israel.


It is not 1939," she said. "We have the state of Israel. We have laws in countries that are holding people accountable."

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When Ambassador Michael Oren turned down J Street's request to be keynote speaker at its first annual conference, and chose not to attend, debate over the group, already intense in the American Jewish community, reached as far as Jerusalem.

J Street was established a few years ago as a new pro-Israel lobby to counterbalance the strong, veteran group AIPAC, considered to toe a more right-wing conservative line.

Under the motto is "pro-Israel, pro-peace," J Street began to promote issues like a freeze on settlement construction and a two-state solution.

While the U.S. administration embraced J Street, which lends its unqualified support to U.S. President Barack Obama, the Israeli government turned a cold shoulder to the group. Obama's national security adviser, General James Jones, gave the keynote speech at the conference, while Israel sent a low-level official, claiming that J Street works against Israel's interests.

Rosenthal, who also served on the board of directors of left-wing group Americans for Peace Now, said she believed Oren "would have learned a lot" if he had participated in J Street's conference.