J Street Launches Multimillion Dollar Campaign to Build Support for Iran Deal
WASHINGTON—As the battle over the Iran deal turns to Congress, the pro-Israel advocacy organization J Street is launching a multimillion dollar national campaign to make the case to lawmakers that the agreement reached yesterday advances both US and Israeli security interests.
“This agreement demonstrates that a core security interest of the United States – ensuring Iran does not get a nuclear weapon – can be achieved through diplomacy and without the use of military force,” said J Street President Jeremy Ben-Ami. “This deal makes the United States, Israel and the entire world safer, and it would be highly irresponsible for Congress to reject it.”
“J Street wants Congress to know that, despite some loud opposition to the deal coming from Jewish organizational leaders, our polling suggests that a clear majority of Jewish Americans agrees with us and backs the deal.”
The campaign will launch with a 30-second advertisement highlighting the unprecedented inspections and monitoring of Iran’s nuclear and military sites under the agreement. The ad will air this week and next on cable and network television. More broadcast and print ads will run in national and state media markets in the next 60 days as Congress reviews the agreement.
J Street also plans to bring US and Israeli security and political experts to brief lawmakers, influential political actors and journalists in Washington, DC and in key states about why this is a good agreement that advances US and Israeli national security interests. The organization plans to activate its 180,000 supporters to register their support for the Iran deal with legislators during the Congressional review period.
A poll, released by J Street in June, found that American Jewish support for an agreement with Iran exceeds support for a deal among the general US population. Fifty-nine percent of American Jews said they would support such a deal, as compared to 53 percent of American adults in an April CNN poll that asked the same question.
When provided with further details about a final agreement, Jewish support increased. A striking 78 percent of American Jews would back an agreement that imposes intrusive inspections on Iran and caps its uranium enrichment at a level far below what is necessary to make a nuclear weapon, in exchange for phased relief from US and international sanctions – precisely the terms of the agreement announced this week.
Ahead of the agreement, J Street produced a video rebutting eight common challenges to the preliminary framework, which formed the basis for the final agreement. The video can be found at irandealfacts.org, where all of J Street’s ads and additional resources will be posted.