Executive Director Jeremy Ben Ami was recently quoted in two articles about Barack Obama's Jerusalem remarks. One article appeared in The New York Jewish Week and the other in Vanity Fair. Read excerpts from the articles here.

An excerpt from The New York Jewish Week article.

“The game plan here is to try to make it politically untenable for an American president to play the role of honest broker and mediator,” said Jeremy Ben-Ami, director of the new J Street lobby and political action committee, which supports candidates who favor a more robust peace process. “They are attempting to inject this into the political process and make it costly for candidates to support what has traditionally been U.S. policy.”

Ben-Ami said Jerusalem is becoming “a hot-button issue in a very contested presidential election. It’s not surprising people are using it to score political points, but I think it’s irresponsible and a disservice to the people of Israel and to the Palestinians.”

An excerpt from Vanity Fair:

VF Daily also spoke with Jeremy Ben-Ami, executive director of the upstart progressive Jewish lobby J Street, who said the speech will “hopefully put to rest any doubt in the American Jewish community about whether or not they have a friend in Barack Obama”

[...]

Ben-Ami agreed [that Obama's Jerusalem comments were unhelpful], saying, “I don’t think it’s helpful for American politicians to feel that they have to go further than the Israeli leadership in making their pro-Israel credentials clear.” Otherwise, though, the speech impressed him by touching on the importance of a two-state solution, the needs of the Palestinians, and the broader impact of peace in the area. It was, he said, in close accord with J Street’s agenda, which is “to ensure that a two-state solution and diplomacy are at the center of American foreign policy in the Middle East.”