Meeting with a congressional delegation in Tel Aviv today, Israeli Opposition Leader Tzipi Livni called out the country’s deputy foreign minister for snubbing the group, which is hosted by the liberal J Street.
“Even if there are difference of opinion, and there are, that is not the way to treat Israel’s friends who want what is good for it,” said Livni.
Delahunt yesterday lashed out at Deputy Foreign Minister Danny Ayalon for reportedly refusing to meet with the J Street-led delegation.
The group includes Reps. Bill Delahunt (D-MA), Donald Payne (D-NJ), Bob Filner (D-CA), Lois Capps (D-CA), and Mary Jo Kilroy (D-OH).
“We were puzzled that the Deputy Foreign Minister has apparently attempted to block our meetings with senior officials in the Prime Minister’s office and Foreign Ministry — questioning either our own support of Israel or that we would even consider traveling to the region with groups that the deputy foreign minister has so inaccurately described as ‘anti-Israel’,” Delahunt said at a press conference yesterday, according to the AP.
He was referring in part to comments made by Ayalon — a member of Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman’s far-right Yisrael Beiteinu party — about J Street, which describes itself as a pro-Israel, pro-peace group.
“The thing that troubles me is that they don’t present themselves as to what they really are. They should not call themselves pro-Israeli,” Ayalon said Feb. 16.
This is not the first time in recent weeks that J Street has been the focus of high-profile comments by Israeli officials. Michael Oren, the Israeli ambassador to the U.S., in December called the group a “unique problem.”
Oren partly walked back those comments this month in response, JTA reports, to “recent statements J Street has released, including an admonishment to the United Nations to treat Israel fairly and an endorsement of immediate passage of new U.S. sanctions against Iran.”
Here’s Livni’s full statement:
We are all concerned about Israel’s future and want what is good for it. Even if there are difference of opinion, and there are, that is not the way to treat Israel’s friends who want what is good for it. Certainly when there are so many who threaten us it, we can not afford to lose those who consider themselves Israel’s friends, and even when there is criticism, it is our job as leaders to persuade others we are right instead of giving up the right to do so.
