Says Bernie Sanders 'is not a Jew' but rather a 'Communist'

Israeli envoy to US calls J Street a ‘cancer within the Jewish community’

Yechiel Leiter brands liberal Zionist lobby ‘duplicitous,’ appears to reject its Jewish identity; J Street leader: Israel ‘should be engaging with us’ not ‘calling us names’

Israeli Ambassador to the US Yechiel Leiter on Monday branded J Street a “cancer within the Jewish community,” taking issue with the dovish Mideast lobby’s calls for restricting US aid to Israel over the latter’s treatment of the Palestinians.

“The worst thing about J Street is its duplicitousness,” Leiter said in remarks to a gathering of the National Task Force to Combat Antisemitism at Washington’s Museum of the Bible.

“How can you be pro-Israel and advocate for an arms embargo on a state that’s fighting a seven-front war against Iranian proxies?” Leiter said, referring to J Street billing itself as the “political home for pro-Israel, pro-peace, pro-democracy Americans.”

“If they said that they were pro-Palestinian, I wouldn’t have a problem meeting with them. I meet with pro-Palestinian groups,” Leiter claimed, in remarks first reported by the JNS news site.

“But when you come and say in such a two-faced manner, ‘We’re pro-Israel, we’re pro democracy’ — there’s a democratically elected government in Israel. You don’t like Netanyahu, make Aliyah, vote in the next election and express yourself. Don’t say you’re ‘pro-democracy’ and decry and defy the position of the democratic government of Israel,” he added.

J Street says it brands itself as pro-democracy to emphasize its commitment to protecting democratic institutions, voting rights and liberal values in the US and Israel.

Positioned as an alternative to the long-powerful American Israel Public Affairs Committee, AIPAC, J Street has grown in size and influence over the past several years. This growth comes as Israel’s wars in Gaza, Lebanon and Iran, as well as its conduct in the West Bank, have pushed many US Jews and American lawmakers away from traditional, unconditional US support for Israel that AIPAC champions and toward the more peace-focused, conditional support that J Street advocates for.

J Street is now the mainstream Israel lobby among Democrats, endorsing more of them in the House and Senate than AIPAC does.

In his comments, Leiter appeared to reject the Jewish identity of J Street along with that of Sen. Bernie Sanders, who has backed legislation blocking weapons sales to Israel.

“Don’t be fooled by the fact that they appear to be Jewish,” said Leiter, a longtime proponent of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and the settlement movement.

“One senator told me that the sponsor is a Jew. The sponsor is not a Jew. The sponsor is a Communist who may have a Jewish pedigree. That doesn’t make him a Jew,” he said, referring to Sanders.

Responding to Leiter, J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami said in a statement: “Instead of disparaging friends of Israel who disagree with its government and calling us names, Israel’s ambassador to the United States should be engaging seriously with us.”

“J Street represents a large and growing segment of the American Jewish community that supports and cares deeply about Israel but opposes policies we believe are making it less secure and more isolated,” Ben-Ami continued. “Serving effectively as Israel’s ambassador to the US requires engaging with those disagreements, not attacking the patriotism or integrity of fellow Jews.”

Earlier this month, Leiter called out several mainstream American Jewish organizations for cosponsoring an event with the Spanish government, which has been strongly critical of Israel.

Ben Sales contributed to this report.