Head of 2nd-most influential Israel lobby group admits Israel is committing genocide

Admission comes just days after Jeremy Ben-Ami denied it – but is ignored by western media

Jeremy Ben-Ami, the head of liberal US Israel lobby group J Street has told his followers that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza. The admission comes just days after Ben-Ami publicly rejected the term during a televised debate with British-American journalist Mehdi Hasan.

In a circular to his supporters for the Jewish fast day of Tisha B’Av, Ben-Ami said he was personally “unlikely to use the term” but admitted that he had previously tried to “deflect and defend” but that Israel’s attempts to justify its actions based on 7 October were unfounded and he would no longer contest others’ use of the word genocide because:

I simply won’t defend the indefensible.

Until now, I have tried to deflect and defend when challenged to call this genocide. I have, however, been persuaded rationally by legal and scholarly arguments that international courts will one day find that Israel has broken the international genocide convention.

Ben-Ami is a longstanding advocate of Zionism who has said that maintaining Israel as a Jewish ethno-state is a “founding principle” of his organisation, which is considered to be the second most influential Israel lobby group in the US after AIPAC, has previously described US funding and military support for Israel as ‘untouchable’ and said that it should never even be “up for discussion” even if Israel refuses peace with its neighbours. During the televised debate, Ben-Ami told Hasan that he was treating Israel’s actions in Gaza as too “black and white”, but u-turned shortly afterward, citing Israel’s denial of food and medicines, the killing of civilians seeking aid, the wholesale destruction of infrastructure and the constant forced displacement of civilians into tiny areas as reasons.

The lobbyist served in the Clinton presidential administration and has lived in Israel. His father Yitzhak was a member of the pre-Israel Zionist terror group Irgun and considered a founding figure of the Israeli state – Ben-Ami has said that he “founded Tel Aviv”.

All too typically, the admission has been covered by Israeli publications but appears to have been entirely ignored by those in the UK and US:

Like their media allies, the Israel lobbies in the UK and US seem to be furiously ignoring the admission, presumably in the hope that ignoring it will be more effective than condemning it and drawing further attention to it.

Israeli human rights groups B’Tselem and Physicians for Human Rights last week announced that Israel is committing genocide in Gaza, only 22 months late.

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