Senator Ted Cruz (R-TX) called the leftist organization J Street “rabidly anti-Israel” in his debate with his Democratic opponent, US Rep. Beto O’Rourke, JTA reported on Wednesday.
“Congressman O’Rourke is fond of saying he doesn’t take PAC money, but the truth is different,” Cruz was quoted as having said at the debate after O’Rourke accused the incumbent of accepting big money from political action committees.
“For example, the J Street PAC, which is a rabidly anti-Israel PAC, has raised over $160,000 for Congressman O’Rourke because of his many votes against the nation of Israel,” added the Texas Senator.
O’Rourke has said and J Street has confirmed that O’Rourke accepts money from individual donors who route it through the J Street PAC, but does not accept money from the PAC itself. Donors sometimes route individual donations through PACs in order to emphasize to the candidate the issue that they favor.
J Street fired back at Cruz in a fundraising email in which it wrote, “You know what? We honestly don’t care if Ted Cruz wants to insult us. If anything, being attacked by Ted Cruz is a badge of honor.”
“What we care about is that extremists like him — elected officials who undermined the Iran deal, demonize Palestinians to score political points and believe the only way to be ‘pro-Israel’ is to support every policy of the Netanyahu government — hold power in Washington right now,” the email said.
J Street prides itself as being “pro-Israel” and “pro-peace,” but many, if not most, Jewish constituents believe that the organization actually undermines the interests of the State of Israel and Jewish people.
The group has in the past expressed support for BDS of Jewish goods made in Judea and Samaria.
In 2014, the controversial group was overwhelmingly rejected for admission to America’s most prestigious and mainstream Jewish body, the Conference of Presidents of Major American Jewish Organizations.
Cruz’s reference to O’Rourke’s “many votes against the nation of Israel” appears to refer to O’Rourke’s vote in 2014 during that year’s Gaza war against emergency funding for Iron Dome. Cruz has previously mentioned O’Rourke’s vote.
O’Rourke has said that he objected to how the funding was rushed through, but he took a great deal of flak from the pro-Israel community for the vote.
Earlier this month, O’Rourke released a statement saying that he backs defense assistance for Israel because he “believes Israel is critically important to the United States because it is the home of the Jewish people, because it is an exemplary democracy that shares our values, and because it is a crucial contributor to our national security objectives in the region.”