Opinion: Lobbies will clash over 'stimulus' plan for Palestinians

[Scurrilous]

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"With a new Israeli government about to be installed, supporters of the U.S.-Israel alliance are preparing for possible conflict between soon-to-be Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu and President Barack Obama.

But that won’t be the only fight concerning Israel in Washington this year. Nor will it necessarily be the nastiest.

Instead, the real action may concern a coming conflict between two groups that, though both proclaiming themselves “pro-Israel,” represent different views about U.S. foreign policy.

One is the coalition led by the American Israel Public Affairs Committee that sees its purpose as supporting the government of Israel no matter who leads it.

The other comprises critics of the Jewish State who believe pressure on Israel to make concessions to the Palestinians in the best form of friendship.

The most conspicuous member of the latter is the lobby group J Street which sees itself as a Jewish model along the lines of the moveon.org activist group that helped transform and propel the American left to victory in the last two election cycles.

Having labeled AIPAC a creature of the Republicans and in thrall to the Christian right, J Street and its fellow travelers entered 2009 expecting to use their connections in the Obama administration to change the way Israel is discussed in Washington."

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Internet Rumors, Republicans And Refugees From Gaza

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"It’s getting harder to tell urban legends from reality in this age of drive-by talk radio and an anarchic Internet.

Case in point: the widely proliferating rumor that the Obama administration is spending $20 million of your tax dollars on “resettling Palestinians with ties to Hamas in the United States.”

That rumor was reportedly the motivation behind a spending bill amendment by Sen. John Kyl (R-Ariz.) — quickly withdrawn when it was revealed to be an Internet myth.

But State Rep. Adam Hasner apparently didn’t get the memo. Hasner, the Republican leader in the Florida House of Representatives and Jewish outreach chair for Sen. John McCain’s Florida presidential campaign, repeated the charge as part of a slashing attack on the Obama administration in The American Thinker.

“The policies put forth by President Obama during his first 30 days in office paint a disturbing picture,” Hasner wrote, and include “his allocation of $20 million of taxpayer money to resettling Palestinians with ties to Hamas in the United States.”

In fact, the $20 million is just an Internet-propelled urban legend, documented by Snopes.com, the authoritative, nonpartisan debunker of Web rumors, which began with a presidential determination to help meet the “humanitarian needs of Palestinian refugees and conflict victims in Gaza.”

The fact is the money is coming out of a fund with the word “migration” in it and apparently caught the eye of administration critics and provided the seed that grew into an Internet rumor Snopes unequivocally branded “false.”

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"Hadar Susskind, vice president and Washington director for the Jewish Council for Public Affairs (JCPA), said he finds the continuing avalanche of Internet rumors that cross his desk and enter the public policy debate to be disturbing.

“None of this is accidental,” he said. “It’s not a kid sitting in a basement; these are carefully orchestrated and well-funded efforts targeted at specific constituencies, including the Jewish community. It’s a partisan effort to spin the Obama administration as anti-Israel; they continue to throw as many things against the wall as they can and hope something sticks.”

http://www.thejewishweek.com/viewArticle/c41_a15191/News/Short_Takes.html