Democratic Congressman Adam Schiff of California was one of many incumbent legislators endorsed by J Street PAC, the political action committee of J Street, the self-styled “pro-Israel, pro-peace organization” (it is in fact neither). Yesterday, Schiff issued a statement on the situation in Gaza, in which he asserted Israel’s “right to defend its territory and its people from attack,” praised it for “exercis[ing] great forbearance in the weeks prior to the formal breakdown of the ceasefire,” faulted the “international community” for not sufficiently condemning Hamas rocket attacks, and affirmed that “Hamas bears ultimate responsibility for provoking this attack and for putting 1.5 million Palestinians in harm’s way – a fact that Arab leaders from Egypt to Saudi Arabia have noted.” Schiff’s bold declaration of support for the Jewish State, his clear distinction between the war crimes of Hamas and the painstaking precision of Israeli military operations, and his criticism of the anti-Israel bias so evident in foreign capitals is utterly at odds with the disgusting moral equivocations of J Street and its supporters.
Schiff acknowledges that the Gaza operation may not be successful. “It is too early to tell if Israel’s military actions will quell the threat of rocket attacks from Gaza and shut down smuggling routes from Egypt,” he says. But, unlike the pacifists at J Street, he never questions Israel’s moral or legal right to do what it is doing, nor does he equate the actions of a democratic ally of the United States with a terrorist gang. With all due respect to Congressman Schiff, the folks at J Street should be wondering what they got with this endorsement.