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Beyond the fiery rhetoric, the conference reflected the anxieties of a group — and a larger leftist movement — that is seeking means of influence while conservatives control, for now, all the levers of power in the United States and Israel.‘We are here to call out—and to change—a right-wing, populist government, with a leader who thrives on hatred and division, who mocks and attacks the press, and who sees the strangers among us as a danger to be feared and mistreated, not as fellow humans,” said keynote speaker Randi Weingarten, the president of the American Federation of Teachers.“Hmm…about which country am I speaking?” she continued, to laughter. “The truth is that Israel beat us to it, with a right-wing leadership years before we had Donald Trump, before right-wing populists captured leadership in Europe, but here we are—the similarities are abundant.”The abatement of J Street’s status was palpable: J Street, influential enough during the Obama administration to require the massive Washington Convention Center, was holding this year’s conference at a hotel. Over 3,000 activists were in attendance this year.J Street was instrumental in 2015 in helping to pass the Iran nuclear deal. Trump appears ready to dismantle it next month. J Street’s operating credo when it was established in 2008 was to advance the two-state solution; Trump and Netanyahu have both retreated from commitment to a two-state outcome.The unfavorable comparisons of Netanyahu to Trump and vice versa included allegations that each leader undercuts democratic norms by marginalizing dissent, delegitimizing media and demonizing immigrants.“In both countries we see the same contempt for civil rights, racism, xenophobia, politics of fear starting at the highest levels of government,” said Tamar Zandberg, the new head of the opposition Meretz Party in the Knesset. She excoriated Netanyahu and Trump for forming alliances with the European far right, where expressions of anti-Semitism still proliferate.There also were multiple references to Netanyahu’s recent broadsides against the New Israel Fund, the umbrella fundraiser for a number of civil society groups, which Netanyahu blames for efforts to thwart his plan to deport tens of thousands of African asylum seekers in Israel.“Netanyahu and Trump both try to call us unpatriotic,” Zandberg said. “True patriotism is not in their hands, true patriotism is here in this room.”J Street: Trump and Netanyahu are a threat
The villains that cropped up over and over at the conference opening Saturday night were Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and U.S. President Donald Trump.
