Healey excluded from J Street meeting as J Street tries to "look legit"

Too bad Josh Healey will not be at the J Street conference to express the true feelings of the "pro-Israel" participants. The manner of his exclusion was, in a way, worse than his inclusion.

 

It will be remembered that Josh Healey is the author of the following "masterpiece": called Queer Intifada:

 

we call ourselves the chosen people
but I'm asking chosen for what?
chosen to recreate our own history
merely reversing the roles
with the script now reading that
we're the ones writing numbers
on the wrists of babies born in
the ghetto called Gaza?

 

But Healey didn't get booted from the J Street conference for likening Israelis to Nazis. That was OK. Of course, Israelis did not write numbers on wrists of babies born in Gaza, but what does truth matter? It's poetic license for a "pro-Israel" poet, right?

 

Healey only got booted for likening Guantanamo to Auschwitz. Trashing Israel and "the chosen people" is OK, but don't you dare say anything bad about the USA. The Obama administration is of course still knee deep in Auschwitz. J Street has to live up to its slogan, "Mr President, we've got your back."

 

The explanation given by J Street's Ben Ami is even worse. It seems that likening Guantanamo or Gaza to Auschwitz is not depraved and inappropriate for a "pro-Israel" conference. It is just not politically tactful, right?

 

J-Street's Ben-Ami issued the following explanation: "As a matter of principle, J Street respects the dissenting voice that poetry can represent in society and politics. We acknowledge that expression and language are used differently in the arts and artistic expression when compared to their use in political argumentation. Nevertheless, as J Street is critical of the use and abuse of Holocaust imagery and metaphors by politicians and pundits on the right, it would be inappropriate for us to feature poets at our Conference whose poetry has used such imagery in the past and might also be offensive to some conference participants."
 

 

In an interview with Haaretz, Josh Healey didn't conceal his disappointment. "I had a conversation with 'J Street' staff, and they explained that they are playing the game - Washington politics, and seeking legitimacy. And they are not willing to fight this battle. I was born in Washington, so I'm not surprised to become Van Jones of J Street," (U.S. President Barack Obama's "green jobs czar" who resigned over the controversy about his past political associations).

Ben-Ami and his friends are trying to put on their Sunday best and keep attention away from their real sentiments. Legitimacy is being sought. Legitimacy should be denied.

 

Ami Isseroff