J Street gets vicious-er – blacklists pro-Israel student
J STREET BANS DIALOGUE WITH PRO-ISRAEL BRANDEIS STUDENT BUT ENDORSES NEGOTIATIONS WITH HAMAS TERROR GROUP
We reported earlier today on the unprovoked racially charged verbal assault by J Street activist Talia Lepson against Daniel Mael, an Orthodox Jewish student. Mael and fellow Brandeis student Moshe Yaghoubian were returning to their dormitory this past Friday night when they crossed paths with Ms. Lepson. Lepson unleashed on Mael, a well known Israel advocate on campus, after he offered her the traditional Jewish Sabbath greeting of Shabbat Shalom.
As reported in the Washington Free Beacon:
Lepson “responded by saying, ‘Jews hate you’,” Mael said. “As she continued to walk, she screamed, ‘You are a shit bag.’” Mael said an unidentified person to her right hurled a similar insult.
Students who witnessed the event say they were shocked to see the J Street leader verbally attack Mael.
Rather than issuing an apology or rebuking their foul-mouthed representative, J Street went into damage control mode. The organization issued a hastily worded press release accusing the victim of being the perpetrator. The powerful left-wing lobbying group proceeded to demonize and smear the young student, accusing him of conducting a “campaign of personal intimidation and harassment”. Unlike the precise description of events provided by Mael, J Street could offer no actual details to support their transparent effort of retaliation and character assassination.
Shortly after the publication of J-Street’s press release, Moshe Yaghobian, a student at Brandeis and witness to the incident asserted on Facebook that “I was with Daniel Mael on the Friday night when the incident occurred and I can verify that his account is 100% accurate.”
Mael expressed dissapointment at J-Street’s full bore assault on his integrity saying “J Street can lie and smear me” but “anyone that knows me know how much I care about Ahavat Yisrael” . Extending an olive branch Mael added “they can still come over for Shabbat even if they don’t want anyone to associate with me.”
While J Street and J Street U remain deeply committed to a vibrant and respectful campus conversation, there is a line that cannot be crossed. Unfortunately, some questionable bloggers and campus figures have consistently and consciously crossed that line. We will not tolerate harassment of our student leaders, and we see no reason for us to have any further interaction — on the Brandeis campus, online or in other venues — with those peddling in slander.
In other words J Street condemns interaction or dialogue with a Jewish student who has devoted himself heart and soul to the defense of the Jewish state. This is in vivid contrast to J Street’s robust defense, open association and collaboration with anti-Zionist groups who openly call for the destruction of the Jewish state.
We believe that it serves the long-term health and vibrancy of our community to engage on the substance of these issues, even – and especially – when we have fundamental disagreements with some of the individuals or organizations we debate. Closing the door to an open, robust conversation only drives away many of those our community seeks to engage, especially when it comes to younger Jews. It is for those reasons that we were proud to have speakers at our conference to the left and to the right of J Street’s own positions. –J Street press release defending collaboration with radical anti-Israel organizations.
Most well-known is J Streets regular collaboration with Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), a virulently anti-Israel organization that had been suspended from Northeastern University for harassment of Jewish students and posted mock eviction notices on the doors of Jewish students on multiple campuses, most recently at NYU. Just this week SJP sent a message out on their Twitter feed declaring that Israel’s very existence is illegal.
J Street advocates for Israeli contact and negotiation with the terrorist group Hamas and lobbies for ongoing dialogue with and concession to the Islamic Republic of Iran. In perhaps one of the most flagrant acts of duplicity and gross irresponsibility, J Street board member Kathleen Peratis traveled to Gaza in November of 2011 where she met with leaders of the Hamas terror organization.
And hence the rank hypocrisy of this well-funded supposedly pro-Israel organization that calls for dialogue with a rogue’s gallery of murderers, terrorists and their acolytes and yet condemns contact or dialogue with a lone pro-Israel student at Brandeis University.
RELATED ARTICLES:
Witnesses Back Israel Activist – Algemeiner
Brandeis Student Reportedly Verbally Accosted by J Street U Leader – Algemeiner
– Washington Free Beacon
