(HorizonPost.com) – Internal government emails obtained by the Washington Free Beacon reveal that the founder of the Soros-funded anti-Israel group J Street was given open-door access to the US State Department to undermine the Netanyahu government.
J Street founder Jeremy Ben-Ami in a June 2021 email thanked then-Deputy Secretary of State Wendy Sherman for giving him an “open door” to the Biden administration. The email was received at the time the administration and outside groups were trying to obstruct a pro-Israel march in Jerusalem.
Sherman forwarded Ben-Ami’s email to other State Department officials, including Undersecretary for Political Affairs Victoria Nuland and US Ambassador to Saudi Arabia Michael Ratney, who at the time served as chargé d’affaires to the US Embassy in Jerusalem.
J Street has been involved in efforts to undermine the conservative government of Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu. Currently, it is pressing for a permanent ceasefire in Israel’s war against Hamas, arguing that alternative tactics to remove Hamas should be employed.
According to the Free Beacon, the email suggests that the Biden administration was coordinating with far-left nonprofit groups to pressure the Israeli government to tamp down the 2021 Jerusalem Day demonstration in which tens of thousands of Israelis march.
Prime Minister Netanyahu eventually caved to the Biden administration’s pressure and agreed to reroute the march to prevent Israeli Jews from going near Temple Mount, a Muslim site from which Jews and non-Muslims are barred from entering.
Ben-Ami had pressed for the march to be rescheduled from May to June that year due to terror attacks, arguing that the march could enflame Palestinians and reignite hostilities.
When asked about Ben-Ami’s close connections, a State Department spokesman told the Free Beacon that he would not comment “on the specifics” of the State Department’s discussions with outside groups like J Street except to say that officials “regularly engage” with outside groups both in the US and abroad.
America First Legal senior counselor Reed Rubinstein told the Free Beacon that the emails and other records show the administration’s “deep hostility to Israel” and its efforts to coordinate with anti-Israel organizations to interfere with domestic affairs in Israel.
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