Left-wing U.S. Jewish groups railed on Saturday against the Trump administration’s decision to join Israel in a strike against Iran.
“We are appalled by President Trump’s reckless decision to launch a war of choice against Iran explicitly seeking regime change,” said J Street CEO Jeremy Ben-Ami in a statement.
U.S. President Donald Trump started the war without a clear strategy, proper public debate, congressional approval, or international support, and should have pursued a more diplomatic strategy, he said.
While acknowledging that Iran’s nuclear program, regional proxy support and domestic repression pose real security concerns, Ben-Ami said Iran didn’t present an immediate threat justifying preventive war.
J Street’s X account reposted posts from several U.S. congressmen condemning the attack.
The extremist group IfNotNow, which regularly engages in smears against Israel, including accusing it of genocide and apartheid, also criticized the Trump and Netanyahu administrations.
“The people of Iran are experiencing a brutal U.S.-Israeli bombing campaign. U.S.-made bombs have already struck schools in Iran, killing children and other civilians,” the group posted to X.
IfNotNow was exaggerating an unconfirmed report from Iranian state media that a single elementary school had been struck in southern Iran by a U.S. missile. The Islamic Republic News Agency (IRNA) initially claimed 40 students had been killed, a number which expanded to more than 100 by Sunday.
Referring to Trump and Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu as “fascist demagogues [trying] to distract us with claims about regime change and alleged weapons of mass destruction,” IfNotNow reserved most of its sympathy for the Palestinians.
“Palestinian communities—who still face genocide and ethnic cleansing—are especially vulnerable to Iranian missiles. They don’t have the protection of Israel’s missile defense systems or its shelter system, which protect Jewish citizens over others,” IfNotNow posted.
IfNotNow ignored the fact that Israel’s Iron Dome Missile Defense System doesn’t distinguish between faiths and backgrounds.
Similarly, Jewish Voice for Peace (JVP) denounced “the immoral and illegal war on Iran launched by the United States and Israel last night. These attacks expand the endless wars that could destroy the lives of tens of millions of people. We stand in solidarity with the people of Iran and against the U.S. and Israeli government’s imperial warmongering.”
It was revealed on May 11, 2023, that Hatem Bazian, a founder of Students for Justice in Palestine (SJP), controls JVP’s X account.
The embarrassing fact came to light when, in a reply to CNN anchor Jake Tapper in defense of U.S. Rep. Rashida Tlaib (D-Mich.), which he meant to tweet from JVP’s X account, he instead tweeted from his personal account.
The Muslim radical, whom Campus Watch says is the “driving force behind a quasi-academic activist effort to stifle speech and writing about Islamism and to portray research into Islam as inherently hateful,” ended his message with: “As Jews who believe in human rights and justice, we demand you do better.”
