Here’s what J Street should do if it’s truly pro-Israel

If J Street wants to call itself pro-Israel, it should change its let’s-pressure-Israel-for-peace mantra. It should certainly stop using an anti-Israel vocabulary to discuss its goals.   

If J Street were truly pro-Israel, it would fight for Israel by challenging the Hamas-Fatah Unity government. Hamas-Fatah represents Israel’s so-called Arab peace partners. If J Street wanted to earn its pro-Israel bonafides, it would challenge both Hamas and Fatah to make four simple changes:

1. Hamas should stop calling for Israel’s destruction.
2. Hamas should delete all anti-Israel and anti-Jewish references in its Charter, speeches and public statements.
3. Fatah should change its pictorial representations of its ‘Palestine’. Currently, the official Fatah logo, all maps, illustrations, monuments and plaques that show ‘Palestine’ universally present their new state as replacing Israel on the world’s map. Therefore, instead of showing Israel being replaced, all Fatah and Hamas logos, plaques, illustrations, monuments and maps should henceforth show the new ‘Palestine’ side-by-side with Israel.
4. The Fatah/PLO Charter should delete all anti-Jewish and anti-Israel references. It should instead detail its goal to live side-by-side in peace and cooperation with its neighbour the Jewish state.

J Street should fight for Israel. It should fight for peace. But it should build its case upon challenging Hamas-Fatah, not Israel.

The dream of peace doesn’t fail because of Israel. It fails because of Hamas-Fatah. If J Street can’t see that, they’re in the wrong business.