U.S. Special Envoy for Monitoring and Combating Anti-Semitism Elan Carr called out the American Jewish lobby group J Street on Wednesday for using “crude anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to advance their agenda.”
In his own tweet, Carr denounced a J Street tweet that uses a picture from March 2019 showing U.S. President Donald Trump ceremoniously giving Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin the pen he just used to sign a declaration recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights. J Street is using this as a cover photo for a link to a page where users can urge U.S. senators to oppose Israel’s plans to apply sovereignty to parts of the West Bank.
How dare @jstreetdotorg use this picture in this context. Their imagery uses #Antisemitism and crude anti-Semitic conspiracy theories to advance their agenda. They should withdraw this and apologize to @POTUS @realDonaldTrump and to #Jewish Americans who serve our great country. pic.twitter.com/g4nz13g8K3
— U.S. Envoy to Monitor and Combat Anti-Semitism (@USEAntiSemitism) July 8, 2020
A half-hour later, J Street responded in a retweet of Carr’s post, adding, “What a shameful, bad faith attack. This is a photo of some of the primary contributors to Trump’s disastrous annexation plan. Please do your job & combat actual antisemitic bigotry instead of launching transparently partisan attacks against critics of your boss’ Mideast policies.”
What a shameful, bad faith attack.
This is a photo of some of the primary contributors to Trump’s disastrous annexation plan. Please do your job & combat actual antisemitic bigotry instead of launching transparently partisan attacks against critics of your boss’ Mideast policies. https://t.co/LYB5aE5Hf2— J Street (@jstreetdotorg) July 8, 2020
In a reply to Carr’s tweet, J Street president Jeremy Ben-Ami wrote: “@USEAntiSemitism should focus on his day job – fighting actual Anti-Semitism instead of being a political hatchet man for @realDonaldTrump. Photo is from event at White House. Using charge of Anti-Semitism for political purposes should disqualify you from your job.”
@USEAntiSemitism should focus on his day job – fighting actual Anti-Semitism instead of being a political hatchet man for @realDonaldTrump. Photo is from event at White House. Using charge of Anti-Semitism for political purposes should disqualify you from your job.
— Jeremy Ben-Ami (@JeremyBenAmi) July 8, 2020
Asked why J Street used a photo of Trump recognizing Israel’s sovereignty over the Golan Heights—in northern Israel and not part of the West Bank—spokesperson Logan Bayrofff emailed JNS, “It’s a picture of President Trump, several of his leading advisors on Middle East policy, and Prime Minister Netanyahu—all of whom (with the exception of [then-Mideast peace negotiator] Jason Greenblatt) are now publicly, openly coordinating together on the potential illegal annexation of the West Bank.
“If the Trump administration wants to provide us with photos from their closed-door meetings with the Netanyahu government to discuss illegal annexation and unilaterally redraw the map of the West Bank, we’d gladly use those pictures as well.”
Carr did not respond to a request to comment on the issue.
