ZStreet rocks

Anti-Zionist Irish4Palestine blog Cartoon

When we  posted “ZStreet is launched”, " the new Zionist kid on the block,“ we weren’t prepared for the global reaction.  Lori Lowenthal Marcus in a Zstreet blog post noted:

Our official launch was Monday afternoon and already we've been welcomed warmly by organizations on the "right," attacked by the patheticos on the left, and even the centrists have begun talking about us.

Thousands of people have already visited our site (http://ziostreet.wordpress.com) or requested to join our Facebook page.  People have already joined from as far away as Australia, England and Israel, and we have members in Utah, California, Illinois, South Carolina, NY, NJ, Ct, MA, PA, Florida and Wahington D.C.

We're not afraid to take on the grotesquely monied organizations on the left.  If you share our principles, check us out and join on.  Stop complaining that the Jews are a lost cause because Obama has given us his back and most of the Jews gave him their votes.  Do something about it.  Join!  Don't wait.  Do it now.

Marcus noted in her blog post, that the JTA had also picked up the story under the headline, “And now we have Z Street.”  JTA writer Fingerhut noted:

Can there ever be too many pro-Israel organizations? Apparently not. 

The latest is Z Street, which from its name appears to be a response to J Street (which, of course, was itself a response to many of the traditional mainstream pro-Israel groups).

The organization is already planning a rally in front of the White House on Oct. 27, which is the same week that J Street, joined by 11 other progressive ‘pro-Israel’ groups, is holding its first annual conference.

The day before this JTA blog post on ZStreet, Fingerhut had a major article on JStreet,  “J Street conference demonstrates increased coordination on left.”  In it Fingerhut profiles the JStreet agenda for the October conference:

Left-wing advocates of a two-state solution and a greater U.S. role in the peace process are joining forces in support of what they hope will be a groundbreaking conference this October in Washington.

The conference, set for Oct. 25-28, is being dubbed as J Street's first national convention, but 11 other groups have signed on as “participating organizations,” including Ameinu, Americans for Peace Now, the Israel Policy Forum, the New Israel Fund and Brit Tzedek v'Shalom.

The plan is for these other organizations to help promote and recruit for the event, in addition to having input on the program and helping to “shape the conference,” said J Street chief of staff Rachel Lerner.

The push for greater cooperation comes as many organizations on the Jewish left are reveling in what they view as a major shift in Washington, with the White House and members of Congress endorsing some of the policy prescriptions that they've been backing for years.

In particular, several of the organizations involved in the upcoming conference have been offering strong public support for the Obama administration's push for an Israeli settlement freeze. Two of the groups -- J Street and Americans for Peace Now -- found themselves on the list of 14 organizations invited to Monday's meeting in the White House with the president.

Some lawmakers and congressional staffers say that the increased profile of liberal groups is starting to have an impact on Capitol Hill. One staffer said that while there have always been members of Congress who have been on the left side of the pro-Israel spectrum, now those lawmakers have “a safe place” to remain “pro-Israel” while openly discussing more sensitive issues like the humanitarian crises in Gaza and the failure to establish a Palestinian state.

J Street’s executive director, Jeremy Ben-Ami, said that one of the goals of the conference was to show people in Washington that it “isn’t just 10 people gathering in a basement” who support these views. Similarly, he added, the conference will give the participants a chance to “look and see each other and feel less like lone voices in the wilderness.”

But then there was this response from virulently pro-Palestinian blog Irish4Palestine in a diatribe entitled: “Jew Wars-Zionists in Attack mode”: 

All this Irish-Catholic Atheist can say, is "Oye Vey"

What have we here folks? A new Ass Whooping Right Wing Neo-Con nutjob racist Zionist Jihadist group emerging to “challenge” the Pro-Peace Progressive Left group J-Street. Yes, we are witnessing “Jew Wars” with the emergence of J-Street, now the Zio-Jihadists are none too happy that J-Street is having much success with their more rational policies which include; negotiations, not war, returning stolen land for peace, no war on Iran, and a whole host of other rational starting positions. Nah, can’t have that now can we? Gotta get rid of all those "Self Hating" rational Jews who may influence Washington. So, somewhere in a closet, behind white robes with pointy little hats, a shadowy group of two decide to take J-Street on, and have “organised” just last week, when they came out of the closet to sign up for a free wordpress blog.

In a conference call with co-founders Marcus, Allyson Rowen-Taylor and ‘warrior rabbi,” Jon Hausman, we characterized ZStreet as  the 21st Century version of the 1940’s “Bergson Boys” (and girls in this case).  The Bergson Group  took on the task of rousing Zionism among the American public. They did this through pageants, front page ads in major Hearst newspapers, protests by Rabbis  in Washington culminating in Congressional resolutions about saving the remnant of European Jewry from destruction in the Holocaust.  All this in the face of objections raised by mainstream Jewish groups  in America , the labor Zionist leadership  in Palestine and the FDR White House.  ZStreet, if properly supported, could become the equivalent of a Palmach (strike force in Hebrew formed by the pre-state Haganah) to lead the pro-Zionist effort against anti-Zionist J street and its allies at the October Washington conference.

Either way, the ZStreet launch this week challenged the anti-Zionist liberal left wing among American Jewish groups and stirred things up among the international Israel bashing contingent.  We consider  ZStreet a  laudatory effort. Let’s keep those emails and blog hits on their web site coming.  ZStreet co-founders, Marcus and Rowen-Taylor will need a lot of help from supporters to set the record straight about the Zionist commitment.